stefansson-wrangel-09-31-037r

THE FATAL DRIFT OF THE KARLUK 37

reported to Dr. Stefansson by a native who claimed to
have seen us, and I believe he did, for he stated that
there was no smoke issuing from our funnels. This was
true, for we had blown down our boilers some time before.

When Stefansson returned from his hunting trip he
found the Karluk missing. He then made his way over-
land to Point Barrow, three hundred miles distant, where
he wrote a telegram reporting the loss of the Karluk, and
sent it by a native to Nome, four hundred miles away,
which was the nearest telegraph station. We learned later
that he then returned to Herschel Island, where the
Belvedere, which carried freight and additional supplies
for him, was lying, and fitted out a dog sled expedition
to make a dash for the unknown land which he believed
lay somewhere in the uncharted area to the north of
Alaska. He started with dogs and sleds taking with him
two Norwegians, Storkerson and Andreasen, both ex-
perienced arctic travelers, on March 22, 1914. Up to the
present time nothing further has been heard of him
(May, 1915).

We must have passed Point Barrow some time before
Stefansson arrived there, as we drifted rapidly between
Camden Bay and that point, making as much as three
knots an hour, or about forty miles a day, and we had
probably seven or eight days the start of him. It seems
that when he lost his ship he was seized with a desperate
determination not to be balked in his attempt to reach
an unknown land which he believed to exist. Returning
to the Belvedere, he made the dash which in its very
nature was little short of suicidal. The icepack to the
north of Alaska is known to be the most treacherous
in the arctic seas.

When we began drifting the sun was above the horizon