stefansson-wrangel-09-31-030r

THE EARLY HISTORY OF WRANGEL ISLAND 25

instructed their icebreakers Taimyr and Vaigatch to pro-
ceed to Wrangel Island. Wrong - ORW. You ask Transche and charge acordingly both this and earlier reference. They had not been able to get
within sight of the island, however, when they received
a wireless telling that the Great War had started and
that they must return south. The United States revenue
cutter Bear made an attempt, but also failed. Several
private ships tried. The successful one was the King
and Winge, under her owner, Olaf Swenson, who had
been induced to make the attempt by Burt M. McCon-
nell, a former member of our expedition. Her captain,
A. P. Jochimsen, was used to the sort of ice he had to
contend with and wormed his way up to the island.
Southward bound a day later the King and Winge met
the Bear thirty or forty miles from Wrangel and trans-
ferred to her (and to Captain Bartlett, who was on board
the Bear) the men she had picked up. The Corwin (the
same that had visited Wrangel Island in 1881, but now
a private ship sent out by a friend of mine, Mr. Jafet
Lindeberg) arrived at the island a day later to find the
fresh traces of the luckier Kinge and Winge.³

Meantime the crew of the Karluk had spent the sum-
mer on Wrangel Island, formally reaffirming possession
of it for the British Empire according to our instructions
from the Canadian Government, and keeping the flag

³ I believe Mr. McConnell deserves the credit we have given him in this
paragraph for his part in influencing Mr. Swenson. But the proof of this
book has been read by a man who was in Nome at the time and who, there-
fore, knows the local situation. His belief is that the real influence which
started so many ships trying to reach Wrangel Island was the announcement
by Mr. Lindeberg that he would purchase the Corwin and outfit her with a
year’s supplies for the single purpose of rescuing the marooned men during
the summer or trying to reach them during the following winter. This in-
formant considered that a damper had been thrown over the rescue efforts
by the failure of the Revenue Cutter Bear to reach the island on her first
attempt and that the situation might have been given up as hopeless by
everyone but for Mr. Lindeberg’s announcement. When he made it, other
commanders of ships were encouraged to try and some of them were able to
put to sea while the outfitting of the Corwin was going on. Hence the
failure of the Corwin to be the first to reach Wrangel Island although, in
another sense, she deserved more credit than any.