stefansson-wrangel-09-32-048r

THE DEVELOPMENTS OF 1924 299

At this stage I was faced with pressing conditions.
Charles Wells and our twelve Eskimos were isolated at
Wrangel Island and I had no money with which to send
in the ship I had promised them. The newspapers were
saying that in the treaty negotiations between the Soviets
and the British Labor Government, which were then
going on in London, it was understood that the British
would waive their Wrangel claims. Legally, this would
make the American claims first, if Britain merely with-
drew instead of specifically selling or trading her rights
to Russia.

I was anxious that America should profit by our work
if Britain did not care to do so. My friend Carl Lomen,
owner of large reindeer interests in Alaska, had told me
the Americans there were greatly interested in Wrangel
Island and that he was specially interested. He was
anxious the United States should have a chance at the
island and wished, therefore, to buy the holdings of our
company if we wanted to sell. I made it clear to him
that according to my understanding of international law,
we could sell him only our property on the island; it was
the British government and not we who owned whatever
national rights had grown out of the work of the Craw-
ford party. More indubitably still, Britain owned the
rights that came from Kellett’s having been the first
European to see the island, and Britain (or Canada)
owned the rights which came from the hoisting of the
Canadian flag in 1914 and the six-month occupation of
the island at that time.

Mr. Lomen agreed with all this but felt that it would
materially reinforce American rights if it could be said
that from May, 1924, all persons on the island were not