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34

THE ADVENTURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND

graves and raised the crosses that stand on Wrangel
Island. He wanted to carry forward the work so that
these men should not have died in vain, and he was
fearless and even enthusiastic about it, for he felt he
had learned by experience how dangers and difficulties
that had formerly been serious could now be overcome.
He did not persuade Knight or me into the new adventure
any more than we persuaded him. But he did give us
the facts of climate and conditions upon which we based
our plans.

I am sorry, therefore, that we have to prefer even
Hadley’s narrative to Maurer’s for the main part of the
Wrangel story. That is because Hadley has left us a
long document. Maurer has left only four short magazine
articles that were published by the New York “World” on
June 6, 13, 20, and 27, 1915. Brevity dictated by the
space which the magazine allowed makes the story un-
suited for our uses insofar as the events after the ship-
wreck are concerned. But that very brevity makes it
particularly suitable for a summary of the drift which
preceded the wreck. We set it down here as published
in “The World Magazine” for Sunday, June 6th, 1915:

Maurer’s Narrative

The Canadian Arctic Expedition, under command of
Vilhjalmur Stefansson, in the barkentine Karluk, sailed
from Esquimalt, British Columbia, June 17, 1913. The
purpose of the expedition was to make scientific investi-
gations along the northern coast of Canada, and to look
for new lands supposed to lie somewhere in the great
uncharted sea to the north and northwest of Alaska.

On August 6, the expedition passed Point Barrow, the