stefansson-wrangel-09-27-052

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little more than casual notice of these discussions. However, it appears that
the talk the eventually crystallized into some sort of protest which was eventually sent by Alaskans
to Washington.

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From After the landing of the party in Wrangell Island and the safe
return of the Silver Wave to Nome I saw had seen no cause for doing anything special for some months,
There was an election on in Canada and there was no point in trying to urge the
Government to action until we knew who would be the Government next summer when
the supply ship for Wrangell Island would have to sail. I felt sure of the safety
and comfort of the party. My stock reply to constant inquiries was that they
were as safe and comfortable as a party equally isolated on a tropical an island like such as
Robinson' Crusoe's. They were doing the sort of thing that I had dreamed about
doing from childhood, which they had always wanted to do, and which at least
one healthy young man in every five in Europe or America would dearly love to
have the chance to do.

And if I was not worrying about the situation up there, neither
was I worrying about any more southerly aspect of it, when one day a newspaper
friend told me that a "big story" about Wrangell Island was about to “break," and
gave me the chance of publishing my version before another, probably more
inaccurate, should would come from Washington. The New York Times had found out about
the protest from Alaska to Washinton to the delegate in Congress and had realised the news
value of it but was anxious to have not merely some story but the accurate facts.

Up to this time I had been much pleased with the absence of
interest in the Wrangell Island undertaking. Those journalists who knew about it probably
imagined that I was anxious for publicity on the subject and were keeping things
quiet for that reason, it being the instinct of newspaper men to drag a story,
out of you if you are reluctant but to be very suspicious of any information you
voluntarily give them. I had not given them information voluntarily, but neither
had I allowed anybody to discover that I had anything to hide. It was supposed