stefansson-wrangel-09-37-047

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The Wrangel Island expedition was organized and
equipped by Steffanson in the face of many obstacles.
The first problem he had to overcome was one of financing.
Eventually Steffanson put into the enterprise his entire
personal savings from his explorations, his writings,
and his lectures. Still the financial organization was
inadequate. So the explorer sought the assistance of
friends. To the generosity of the latter Steffanson
attributes the success of the expedition.

News of the arrival of the expedition was received
by Steffanson in New York City, on Oct.22, 1921, in a
message signed by Commander Crawford, which was relayed
from Vancouver, B.C. This message, dated Sept.21, 1921,
read:

’Arrived at Wrangel Island last night. Letter to
you contains documents. Lots of driftwood and tracks.
Looking forward to good winter. No ice yet.'

This is the only message that the organizer of the
expedition has received from his men who are the first
white men ever to spend an entire winter on Wrangel
Island. But he said that the message, read between the
lines, indicated that his party would be able to live off
the country, for the driftwood was sufficient to furnish
shelter and fuel, and the tracks meant there would be
ample food and clothing.

’I took into my confidence only one man,’ said
Steffanson. ’His name is A.J.Taylor, a mining engineer
of Vancouver, The best men I had to go north were
United States citizens, but being a British subject, and
desiring to have this a British enterprise, I had to take
some Britisher into my confidence. I decided on Taylor,
and the latter acting for me, incorporated under the
laws of British Columbia a limited liability corporation
called the Steffanson Exploration and Development Company,
with offices in the Eudlt Poncier building, Vancouver.

This corporation employed the following men: Allan
Crawford, son of Professor Crawford of Toronto University,
who was to be in nominal command, and then along with him
two of my very best men, Lorne Knight of McMinnville, Ore. ,
with me four years in the north, and Fred Maurer of New
Philadelphia, Ohio, who had been with me in the north and
was a member of the party that occupied Wrangel Island In
1914. I sent also a boy, Milton Galle, of New Braunsfels,
Texas, who had been withme on a lecture tour.

These men, without knowing what they were up to, ex-
cept that I had confided to a certain extent in Crawford,
went by steamer from Seattle to Nome, where I had charter-
ed for them the auxiliary sloop "Silver Wave.” They