stefansson-wrangel-09-25-005

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felt that the Canadians should do something. Then there was so much distress of other sorts in every part of the world that it proved impossible for me to awaken a keen concern in either government for the safety of just four men isolated so far away. I consulted several friends connected with the British press but they considered a public appeal for funds unadvisable.

At this stage there came to me an old friend, Mr. Griffith Brewer, who asked me whether I thought the situation had become one of life and death. I replied that with good luck everything should be going well still in Wrangell Island, but that when four men are isolated for two years there are so many chances of illness, accident and misfortune that it seemed to me fair to say that their lives were now at stake. Mr. Brewer then said that if that were the case he would pledge his property for a loan at a bank (which eventually amounted to about 2500 pounds) in order that a ship might be sent immediately, but making it a condition that there should be a press appeal for subscriptions to reimburse him for his loan. We cabled the money to Nome where preliminary arrangements about chartering a schooner had already been made by old friends. Judge G. J. Lomen and his sons, who are in business there. The schooner chartered was the Donaldson. We placed her under the charge of a former member of my 1913-18 expedition, Mr. Harold Noice.

The Donaldson sailed from Nome August 6th, expecting to make the five hundred-mile voyage to Wrangell Island in a few days, but outfitted, nevertheless, for a year. The plan was that if she failed to reach the island by water, she would winter as near as possible and Mr. Noice with some of his party would cross to Wrangell Island over the ice as soon as it hardened in the fall. We were as yet expecting no tragedy, so the instructions provided that, while the entire party on Wrangell Island were

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to be brought back to Nome in case they wanted to come, all or any of them might remain on the island for another year if they preferred to do so. There was a tentative arrangement that in case they all preferred to come out, Mr. Noice would remain on the island in their stead.

Conditions of navigation turned out to be comparatively favorable and the Donaldson returned to Nome August 30th with a tragic and unbelievable story told in the only diary that had been saved, that of Lorne Knight, and in the words of the only survivor, an Eskimo woman, Ada Blackjack.