stefansson-wrangel-09-31-076r

THE OUTFITTING AND VOYAGE TO WRANGEL 115

confidence in the resources of the Arctic. Knight knew
how to hunt walrus; everyone does, for they are among
the easiest animals in the world to hunt. But Knight
had lived by hunting for several years in a region where
walrus are entirely absent and where having a boat makes
no difference on the that score. of walrus. He had often
depended on hunting when no boat was available, or at
least, when for months at a time a boat, even if it could
have been constructed in case of necessity, was never
constructed because the necessity did not arise. To a
man of such experience the skin boat would seem an
almost superfluous precaution. He knew its value, but
he thought that it could be safely dispensed with. They
could get seals without it, they could get polar bears
without it, and they might even get walrus without it,
since they could have a wooden boat dory. So they told the natives
they did not care to be overcharged, purchased the ship’s
dory from Captain Hammer and sailed on towards
Wrangel Island.

Had I known that there was no skin boat on Wrangel
Island I should have worried more than I did over the
safety of the party there during the next two years. But
my only information was a sentence which I here quote
from Crawford’s letter to me dated at Wrangel Island,
September 15th, 1921: “Left Nome September 9th.
Called East Cape, Siberia, to purchase skin boat. Sighted
(Wrangel) island noon yesterday.” This I took to indi-
cate that our plans in respect to the umiak had been
carried out.

We know now that the "skin boat" here refered
to by Crawford was a small one, and that
it was swept overboard in a storm and
lost on the way to Wrangel Island.

Captain Hammer and his crew knew, of course, that a
dory had been substituted for the umiak, but they seem
to have considered that there was no particular reason