stefansson-wrangel-09-32-057r

FRAGMENTARY PAPERS OF MILTON GALLE 317

with appreciation several things that Ada Blackjack did and
speaks of pieces of work where she assisted Knight, evidently by
her own choice.

From incidental references by Galle in three or four places we
have confirmation of what Ada Blackjack told several people, that
he had occupied much of his time in writing, for he speaks of
keeping two diaries. One he refers to as his “notebook.” This
was evidently kept in longhand. The other he speaks of as “the
loose-leaf” and tells us that he occupied certain days in copying
the written diary (the notebook) with a typewriter into his loose-
leaf. This also confirms what Ada Blackjack has said in describing
the outfitting of the three men when they eventually left Wrangel
Island over the ice, for she noticed that they packed up and took
along many diary volumes. We now think what an especial pity
it is that, with Galle’s diary being kept in duplicate, he did not
leave on the island either the written or the typed copy. That he
did not do so is, however, a welcome additional proof that when
they were starting out they were not worrying seriously about the
possibility that they might not reach Siberia safely.

With regard to the game on the island the summer 1922, we
find in Galle’s notes in the main only confirmation of what Lome
Knight’s diary tells, although there are certain fragments of addi-
tional information. On August 21st, for instance, Galle records
that they had seen fourteen bears, five of which were cubs. This
is a larger number of bears than mentioned by Knight for any day
that summer. The implication is either that he forgot to make the
entry or else that Galle had not told him about these bears—pos-
sibly because they did not meet until Knight had already written
up his diary for the day. Or possibly again he was only noting the
number seen since some previous entry.

With regard to the condition and movements of the sea ice we
get no additional information from Galle’s notes, but they do
throw a good deal of light on what the party were thinking about
the ice. It seems that generally when the weather was thick so
they could see only a few hundred yards from the beach, they
concluded from the noise they heard of distant waves and from
the motion of cakes along the beach that the ice was going
away from the land or had gone away. But whenever the weather
cleared they could see that the reasoning had been fallacious.