APPENDIX 691 



Demarcation Point, we had a deal of freighting to do. So, after giving 

 orders to Captain Hadley as to getting ready the previously mentioned 

 equipment, I again set out for Herschel Island to buy additional supplies 

 and have them and the already bought supplies freighted west, taking 

 with me all available sleds, men and dogs, and hiring additional men 

 and teams wherever I could on the way. 



Arriving at the Island December 29th and receiving no news of the 

 Commander who had late in December gone eastward and up the 

 Mackenzie River to buy additional dogs and dog food, I bought my sup- 

 plies, collected the supplies already bought by the Commander and started 

 on my return to Barter Island, December 31st. 



On arriving there January 4th I found that during my absence the 

 work of preparing the equipment for the exploring work had progressed 

 well under the direction of Captain Hadley and it now looked as though 

 we could easily leave headquarters for Cross Island, the starting point we 

 had chosen for the ice journey, at the time we had first planned — Feb- 

 ruary 1, 1918. In journeys such as we planned it is important to start 

 by the first daylight after the midwinter darkness so as to have the 

 advantage of the low temperatures which then prevail for cementing 

 quickly together the ice that is broken now and again by the gales. 



STEFANSSON TAKEN ILL 



Five days later, on January 9th, when the preparations were nearly 

 completed, an Indian messenger arrived from the east, bringing a 

 letter from the Commander saying he had been taken ill at the Mackenzie 

 and now was in bed at Herschel Island, to which place he requested me 

 to come immediately. 



So, leaving the remaining work again in the care of Captain Hadley, 

 I started for Herschel Island, where I arrived on January 24th, finding 

 the Commander in bed and suffering from the latter stages of typhoid 

 fever, from which disease, by the account of himself and others, he was 

 getting better but he was still a pretty sick man. Immediately on my 

 arrival he was anxious to talk about the affairs of the expedition and 

 commenced asking how the work of preparing our equipment was 

 progressing and discussing our plans for the proposed work, which had 

 been to start north from Cross Island at north latitude 70.5°, west 

 longitude 148°, with all our available force of men, sleds and dogs, and 

 proceed to north latitude 75° or 76°, thence on a great circle course west 

 towards Wrangel Island or Siberia. This, I now was told, was not the 

 thing for us to do, as the Commander had received information while 

 up the Mackenzie that the Norwegian explorer. Captain Amundsen, and 

 the American, Captain Bartlett, each on his separate expedition, in- 

 tended with their ships to go into the ice somewhere to the north or west 

 of Point Barrow and try to drift with the current across the Polar 

 Basin. This meant that they would explore the territory through which 



