stefansson-wrangel-09-31-090v

140 THE ADVENTURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND

have placed upon it and not upon me or Canada the pacific the
blame for keeping the ship away. I considered they
would, accordingly, face the winter cheerfully, not con-
scious that what they were doing was being considered
by their countrymen more foolish and less glorious than
they had imagined.

As the winter advanced, my attitude about Wrangel
Island remained unchanged except that I began to worry
a little that I might receive a wireless message from some
place in Siberia. The understanding when the party
sailed had been that they would certainly not leave the
island by sledge during the winter of 1921-1922. There
had been the suggestion that they might make a quick
trip in March of that year to the Siberian mainland to
send out letters and despatches through one of the Ameri-
can or Russian traders, but we had decided against that
for two reasons. There was nothing to gain, and there
would be considerable expense. There would not even
be any increase of peace of mind to the relatives, for any-
one who fears that the journey from Wrangel Island to
the mainland may possibly be dangerous will feel no dif-
ferently about the journey back from the mainland to
Wrangel Island. The very men who had come through
danger to report their safety might easily be lost on the
way back. If the letters taken out were to be of any
value in guiding our policy the following summer they
would have to be carried by messenger at least seven
hundred miles overland from the first trader south of
Wrangel into whose hands they were given, and that
would be costly out of proportion to anything that we
might hope to gain. I am sure that in all this reasoning
I had the complete agreement of the families of Knight
and Maurer who had become familiar with polar condi-