stefansson-wrangel-09-25-007-005

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northern vegetation. Fossil ivory, both walrus and mammoth, is found
in considerable quantities, both near the coast and inland.

The surprising thing about the diary for the summer is the absence
of speculations as to whether a supply ship would come. Even I who
knew their plans well, and who knew Knight and Maurer intimately, am surprised
at this. That summer 1 was trying to arouse interest among Canadians in
the patriotic little advance guard of their countrymen who had been lead
by a vision of the approaching development of trans-polar air commerce to
undertake keeping Canadian right alive in Wrangell Island, and I used, quite
sincerely, the argument that if no ship were sent to them in 1922 they would
feel themselves deserted and disowned by the country they were trying to

of the summer and autumn scanning the ocean for a sail. I cannot even
now believe that this picture was wholly wren®, but it must be said there is

little support for it in Knight*s diary. It seems, on the contrary, that

jbk&Wt.

they had taken more to heart than I had myself what I had said before they

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sailed north about the possibility that I might fail in 1922 to get the
money for a ship to communicate with them. Unable ay self to believe that
I could fail to grouse either the public or the government of Canada, I
had taken the precaution nevertheless to remind them forcibly of that possi-
bility. That I had done so I had forgotten, but they had not.

I did not really quite fail with the Canadian Government « it wag only
that ay importunities did not prevail till the season was nearly over, fifct
it turned out that th© ocean ice as seen from Wrangell Island had been so

y . impregnably massed the whole summer that the Wrangell party considered, i#:.

"Yv* AthSM? S

immaterial whether a ssMb had triad to come or

serve*

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