stefansson-wrangel-09-29-001

Must put in all ? comment on Ada. 157

Chapter X

The First Autumn on Wrangell Island

Except for a few fragments of loose papers, The diary of Lorne
Knight is the only ^chief document we were able to recover from which to piece out the
^{behind the} story of the first two years of the second Wrangell Island occupation. The diary
entries themsevles are framentary and it is necessary to read a good deal between
the lines if we are to form a continuous and vivid picture. Fortunartely that
task is easier for me than it would be for most. I had known Knight for three
years in the North and for several months as a traveling companion when I was
lecturing in the United States about the work of the expedition of which we both
had been members. part of his task on the lecture tour was to give brief
speeches when I was otherwise occupied and to talk to newspaper men and others
who wanted to know about our northern work, when I was either too tired or busy
to see them. Such intimate intercourse had naturally familiarized me with his
ideas and with how his mind worked. Eleven year in the Arctic regions have made
me familiar with the conditions there and the methods that should be used in dealing with them. Thus I am equipped by a knowledge of the man and the circumstances
for reading between the lines of Knight's laconic diary.

The whole party evidently landed high spirits. To Crawford and
Galle it was a wonderful new adventure with a haze of romance over the land and
over the coming winter. To knight it was a homecoming to the Arctic which, as
he ^{use to}was never tired of explaining to his city friends, was the one place of which
he never tired and where he localized all his plans and dreams of the future.
To Maurer it was even more of a homecoming, for on this very island he had spent
six strenuous months. Those had been tragic and difficult months, but he who
thinks that such experiences should have deterred Maurer from going back, knows