stefansson-wrangel-09-32-059r

FRAGMENTARY PAPERS OF MILTON GALLE 321

days in advance of the complete twenty-day period for which each
box should have lasted at the rate of ten biscuits a day.

Although Galle’s interest in the diet was greater than that of
Knight as shown by the records left, it was not as great as we
might wish who are anxious for every scrap of information. About
the only other thing we know is that they made candy several
times. Apparently any one of them made candy whenever he felt
like it and made it in his own way. Galle records two occasions
when he tried it and when the results were not satisfactory.

On August 18th Galle tells us about salting seal meat. The
eating of the salted meat the following winter is mentioned in the
diaries both of Knight and Ada Blackjack.

It can be clearly inferred from Milton Galle’s notes that through
the period from their beginning, the middle of July, until the last
on September 30th, there was no rationing of any food element
except hard bread. This is only in accord with every other line of
evidence we have and shows further that the party were not feeling
any worry on the score of food. Crawford’s letter to me shows
that he had thought of the difficulty of feeding the dogs during
the dark days but he had solved that in his own mind by the
plan of taking them to be fed on the Siberian mainland where meat
could be easily secured as a gift from the hospitable natives, or
purchased with money.

The notes tells us what we also know from other sources, that
as late as the end of August the party were not very particular
(although more particular than they had been) to save all the
meat they secured. The entry for August 30th, for instance, in-
cludes: “I bring up one side of bear ribs this morning, pelvis and
head, all that is left,” of some bear they had killed a little
before, leaving the meat as they frequently did at the place of
killing. Elsewhere in the notes we find that the seagulls and ravens
were eating the meat that had not been promptly brought home.

Galle has more numerous references than Knight to the appear-
ance of walrus on the ice. He speaks of them or the noises made
by them nearly every day of the latter part of August and first
part of September. He also gives us more details of the killing
of the walrus. I had understood from Knight’s diary that a large
part of the walrus meat had been lost. The reason for my misun-
derstanding was chiefly that Knight tells in full only about the