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CHAPTER II

The Early History of Wrangel Island

The history of Wrangel Island begins in the scientific
theorizing of the early eighteenth century. At that time
it was supposed that most of the Arctic was occupied by
a great continent of which Greenland was one corner.
Another corner was thought to lie undiscovered just north
of the northeastern coast of Siberia. An alternative view
with similar implications was to the effect that the north-
west corner of North America lay to the north of eastern
Asia.

This was the time when the Russian Empire was
expanding into Asia to form the country now politically
described as Siberia, and the Czar's Government was more
fully awake than the rest of Europe to the potential
greatness of their Asiatic empire. It was only natural
therefore that they should take interest in the theory
of an arctic continent. Their traders listened carefully
among the natives for legends about lands beyond the
northern frontier of Siberia; and what they listened
for they heard.

We now know that most of the natives of northeastern
Siberia and northern Alaska have the legend of a great
land to the north of each of these countries. The late
Sir Clements Markham, then President of the Royal
Geographical Society of London, was much concerned
about these stories as recently as the beginning of my
own arctic work (1906). The first polar expedition of
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