STEFANSSON-ANDERSON EXPEDITION 105 
“Mr. Brower has been here since 1885 and has never seen ice conditions 
even approximately so bad as this summer. ‘The ice has been motionless 
since spring, and it is his opinion that no ship has penetrated beyond ley 
Cape, some 150 miles west of here, and that any ship should get here is 
almost hopeless now, for the freeze-up is near at hand. 
“Although Mr. Brower has almost nothing of the many things he needs 
for himself, he can supply two of our most pressing wants,— he has plenty 
of matches and tobacco. It is hopeless to proceed in my boat farther west 
along the coast, for should we find the ships at Icy Cape, it is almost certain 
we should get frozen in west of Point Barrow on our return. ‘The fall 
freeze-up, Mr. Brower says, came one year as early as August 20th. We 
shall therefore start east next Monday (this is Saturday), weather permitting. 
“You probably remember that when planning spending a year in the 
Colville country I counted on supplies at Flaxman Island, for, as I believe 
I said to you, it is feasible to make one’s living east of the Mackenzie, but 
the Colville is a ‘starvation country.’ Now we shall have to try it without 
supplies, and I am a little worried over the prospect. If the ice conditions 
are good, we may of course get plenty of seal, but last winter the seal supply 
was insufficient. That is one reason, I believe, why Mr. Leffingwell’s 
supplies are so nearly exhausted. 
“Tf we do starve, my plan is as follows: I shall divide up the party of 
Eskimos and ask Dr. Anderson to take some of them and go to Point Barrow. 
It is likely that some whales will be caught here this fall, and people here 
won't probably starve. By November there will be news, too, of how far 
the ships got, and if there is no food here, there will probably have been 
landed supplies at Icy Cape, and Dr. Anderson can go there. * * * If ships 
come in next summer, he can come east with them (unless he sees some good 
reason for not doing so) but if no ship comes he will probably have to go out 
by way of Point Hope and Nome. 
“Whether or not Dr. Anderson goes to Point Barrow as above (for some 
circumstance may make it seem wiser for both of us to go east) I shall proba- 
bly go east, if food is insufficient around Flaxman and the Colville, and get 
into the game and fish country somehow. [I expect then to be able to meet 
the summer mail through Macpherson and to proceed to Baillie Island. 
There I hope to meet the whalers, if they come in, and to be independent of 
them if they don’t.” 
“Point Barrow, August 29th, 1908. 
“Fortunately the wind turned promising (from northeast) Monday last, 
so we did not start east, but waited in the hope of ships. ‘The wind con- 
tinued steady and strong; the ice broke Tuesday and drifted from shore; 
