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believed to be penetrating eastern Siberia with a view to wresting it
permanently from the Soviet government of Russia. Some friends of mine who had
returned from northeastern Siberia confirmed the actual Japanese penetration at
the time and believed in its permanence. With my great admiration for the
Japanese, I took it for certain that within a year or two they would realize the
coming importance of Wrangell Island and would occupy it. Since they were at
that time the allies of Great Britain, it would have been all the more awkward
to ask them to leave the island. The most Britain could have done would
have been to suggest international arbitration, whereupon it might have been
decided that, in spite of original British discovery, an actual Japanese occupation
in 1921 or 1922 had more force than a half year of British occupation in 1914.

By a curious accident an old friend, Mr. Alfred J. T. Taylor,
of Vancouver, turned up in Reno the day I received the heartbreaking telegram
from Ottawa. I was worrying over what appeared to me the shortsightedness of
our statesmen and worrying also because it seemed I was going to be unable after
all to provide Knight and Maurer with a chance to go north. The appearance of
Taylor cheered me, and in an hour my wrecked hopes had been replaced by a plan we
thought we could carry through.

Since Wrangell Island was already British, we could keep it
British by merely occupying it. As we understood international law, it would
make no difference whether such an occupation had been specially ordered by any
government so long as the government in question eventually confirmed it. I
wired Knight and Maurer to ask whether they would go to Wrangell Island secretly
and whether they would exchange their American for Canadian citizenship in order
to make the occupation legally effective. Both replied eagerly in the affirmative.
Since I was just then engaged under contract on a piece of work that did not
allow me a day’s vacation until September, I got Taylor to undertake the actual
organization of the expedition. Because the Canadian Government had decided to do