stefansson-wrangel-09-25-006-055

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this and several other entries of the same sort. But on the basis of this
account and other entries the reader can form his own conclusions without
editorial help.

But in this cheerful entry the first sentence is ominous.
"Blowing a howling gale" means little to the experienced northern traveler
overland or on firm ice. But the entry the previous day shows that the weather
was fine and that the party disappeared rapidly from sight, going straight
south. Like many other pieces of wisdom after the event, it is now elementary
to point out that the original start of Knight and Crawford should have been
delayed until the sun came back and till the moon was in its first quarter.
On the original start they had carried provisions for thirty days which made
the sled very heavy, and since it was a weak sled they had not dared to attack
the rough ice. Now the load had been lightened and the three struck direct
for Siberia.

An experienced arctic traveler on the island would have
felt about them somewhat as we feel when a party of our friends takes the air
to fly from London to Switzerland. We know by statistics that the danger of
such flights is many hundred times greater than that of steamer and railway
travel, and still we say truly, on the other hand, that the danger is so
slight that one is not justified in worrying or in refraining from the journey
if there is any good motive for hastening beyond the speed of steamers and
railways. We might discuss the various dangers of such a flight due to break-
age of machinery, fogs or to human errors. Similarly, discussing the pros-
pects of the trip towards Nome from Wrangell Island we should probably have
put the case about as follows:

There should have been seven dogs instead of five, but the
five could pull the sledge along in level going. In rough ice the three men
would help it along so rapidly that from all we know of such travel we would