stefansson-wrangel-09-31-085r

THE DIFFICULTIES OF 1922 131

busy cabinet ministers are, for I have associated with
them enough for that; but I somehow looked for expected an excep-
tion in this case.

Eventually, when correspondence failed to get results,
I did go to Ottawa. Before my arrival, several types of
opposition had been expressed. The speeches of certain
members of Parliament showed that they felt it would
make Canada and the Empire seem ridiculous to try to
retain, on the basis of its supposed value an island “well
known" to be undesirably cold and, in consequence, worth-
less. Other members seemed to have the feeling that if
the Government did not advance the money for a relief
ship I would find some way of securing it privately. This
may have been the chief of the reasons why the Govern-
ment were so slow to act. Or it may have been only that
they were too busy with other things. There probably
never was anything to the explanation that has since been
advanced—that I had members of the Government so
thoroughly converted to viewing looking upon the Arctic as a paradise that they
found my appeal for a supply relief ship in contradiction with
what they believed to be my views. There is, of course,
always a danger that the convert may develop a faith
more passionate than that of the missionary.

But if there was opposition, there was also a good deal
of warm support. Sir Edmund Walker, for instance, the
President of the Canadian Bank of Commerce, gave had given
us substantial help and used his influence to forward our
project in his usual quiet but effective way. He was the
only Canadian who gave us money, but there were many
others of consequence—members of Parliament, editors
and private citizens—who made themselves spokesmen
for the Wrangel undertaking.

In the negotiations with the Government, one of the