stefansson-wrangel-09-31-080v

122 THE ADVENTURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND

the safe return of the Silver Wave to Nome I saw no
cause for doing anything special for some months. There
was an election on in Canada, and there was no point in
trying to urge the Government to action until we knew
who would be the Government next summer when the
supply ship for Wrangel Island would have to sail. I
felt sure of the safety and comfort of the party. My
stock reply to constant inquiries was that they were
as safe and comfortable as a party equally isolated on a
tropical island such as Robinson Crusoe’s. They were
doing the sort of thing that I had dreamed about doing
from childhood, which they had always wanted to do, and
which at least one healthy young man in every five in
Europe or America would dearly love to have the chance
to do.

And if I was not worrying about the situation up there,
neither was I worrying about any more southerly aspect
of it, when one day a newspaper friend told me that a
“big story” about Wrangel Island was about to “break,”
and gave me the chance of publishing my version before
another, probably more inaccurate, should come from
Washington. The New York Times had found out about
the protest from Alaska to Washington and had realized
the news value of it, but was anxious to have not merely
some story, but the accurate facts.

Up to this time I had been much pleased with the
absence of interest in the Wrangel Island undertaking.
It was supposed that I had an ordinary trading venture
“somewhere up North.” The news aspect was changed
when it became known that I was doing something that,
for the time being at least, I was very reluctant to adver-
tise. It was great luck for me that I had a friend on the
New York Times and that, in consequence, the first big