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CHAPTER II III
The Fatal Drift of the Karluk

For me at least Captain Jack Hadley is the first big figure
in the story of Wrangell Island. Baron Wrangell, who first searched for it as
a continent (1821-24), did not find it or any other land. Kellett, who found
it (1849), did not land on it nor did he know it was an island. De Long, whose
voyage proved it to be an island (1879-81), saw it only from a distance.
Hooper, Muir and Nelson, who first landed (1881), stayed only six hours. Berry
and his men came a few days later and remained three weeks. From them we have
an approximate map of the island but the information about it in other respects
is neither comprehensive nor detailed. Bartlett in 1914 remained only a few
days and the applicable part of his book "The Last Voyage of the Karluk," is
only a few pages with little but personal information of how the landing was made
and why he had to leave his men there while he proceeded to the mainland of
Siberia. John Munro was in command of the party on the island after Bartlett left
but he has given us no published account of what happened during the following
seven months. [ McKinlay and Maurer both published newspaper articles and it is
possible that other members of the party may have printed fugitive pieces that
have not come to my attention. The only story that approaches completeness in
narrative, discussion of motives and methods, and in information about the
climate and country, is a handwritten Manuscript by Jack Hadley now in the
archives of the Department of the Naval Service at Ottawa.

Jack Hadley was in himself no less pleasantly unusual than his
career was romantic. Of English parentage on both sides, he was born in
Canterbury, and he told his various escapades as a choir boy in the Cathedral with
greater relish than any of the other stories of his adventurous life. He was
born with had a love for music and with a voice beyond the ordinary. Apart from