THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 47 



me with enough money to buy a ship, I asked the advice of Captain 

 C. T. Pedersen of San Francisco, whom I had long admired as 

 the best ice master personally known to me. Some of the associ- 

 ates of my earliest years in the North — for instance, Captains 

 Leavitt, Tilton, Bodfish and Cottle of the New Bedford and San 

 Francisco whaling fleets — had had more experience with the ice 

 of the Beaufort Sea, but they had either retired or were by now 

 rather old for the vicissitudes that might follow shipwreck. 



Every whaling ship on the Pacific Coast was known to Captain 

 Pedersen, and he had advised me, that of them all the Karluk 

 was the soundest and best adapted to our purposes. Though she 

 had been fighting Beaufort Sea ice for twenty years she was still 

 as strong as when new. This opinion was afterwards amply con- 

 firmed by three different ship inspectors engaged to examine her 

 and every other available whaling ship from keel to rigging, and 

 later when she was overhauled in the naval drydock at Victoria. 

 These details are mentioned because one view of later events was 

 that they resulted from the Karluk's being "unsound." 



Before purchasing the Karluk I had engaged Captain Pedersen 

 as sailing master, and it was he, acting as my agent, who actually 

 took the ship over at San Francisco and. after the expedition be- 

 came a Canadian naval enterprise, sailed her to the Victoria naval 

 base to be drydocked. Later, during my absence in Europe, Cap- 

 tain Pedersen got the unfortunate impression that in order to be 

 our skipper he would have to renounce his American citizenship. 

 It was for that reason he accepted an offer to go to the Arctic for 

 some San Francisco fur traders. That the impression was not 

 valid is best shown by the fact that Captain Bartlett, engaged in 

 his place, was and remained an American citizen (naturalized — 

 he was born in Newfoundland.) 



In most fields men of local experience are the most valuable. 

 But with Captain Pedersen gone Captain Bartlett became my 

 choice on the ground that his experience with Peary, although in 

 another part of the Arctic, made him the best man available. 

 Furthermore, at the moment of having to make up my mind I was 

 with Admiral and Mrs. Peary, both of whom advised it strongly. 

 Peary reminded me that Bartlett was a marvel at handling sailors 

 or stowing a ship, and was a man to take the responsibility of 

 every detail off your shoulders. 



When Bartlett took charge of the Karluk I found him every- 

 thing that Peary had said. With the reputation he brought with 



