STEFANSSON-ANDERSON ARCTIC EXPEDITION 109 



NEWS FROM THE MUSEUM'S ARCTIC EXPLORERS. 



EARLY in April letters written the middle of October were re- 

 ceived with news from the Museum's Arctic Alaska expedition. 

 The letters come from Flaxman Island, situated in the Arctic 

 Ocean off the northern coast of Alaska and about midway between Mac- 

 kenzie Bay and Point Barrow, and record the union of Mr. Stefansson 

 and Dr. Anderson, who followed different routes after leaving Herschel 

 Island in August. 



The route taken by Mr. Stefansson was in part shown in the Novem- 

 ber, 1908, Journal, and later facts were given in the March, 1909, 

 number quoted from a letter written late last September. The expedi- 

 tion proceeded westward as far as Point Barrow; then on a return trip 

 toward Flaxman was frozen in at Smith Bay, west of Cape Halkett, 

 cached goods there, made a sled and continued slowly eastward. Dr. 

 Anderson and his party cruised along the coast westward from Herschel 

 Island until September 6, when their whaleboat was frozen in west of 

 Barter Island and the men with their seventeen dogs had to proceed with 

 sleds, feeding "on the country." 



It is a satisfaction to know of the well-being of all members of this 

 polar expedition up to October 19, 1908, when the Arctic winter was well 

 started, and this feeling is intensified by a message that has come since 

 the letters arrived. A telegram received by way of Seattle April 8, which 

 was dispatched from Nome, Alaska, on April 6 and was originally 

 dated at Point Barrow February 14, reads as follows: "Telegram of 

 December fourth received. Well. Winter camp lower Colville. 

 Game scarce. Nobody starving. Plans unchanged. Expect meet 

 Whalers Baillie [Island]. Stefansson." 



Realistic accounts of the happenings of the weeks en route to Flaxman 

 Island are given in the following quotations : 



Flaxman Island, Alaska, 



October 15, 1908. 



***** We have made the trip from the delta of an unnamed river 

 about .50 miles east from Point Barrow eastward to Flaxman Island, start- 

 ing Friday, September 18, and arriving here iNIonday, October 12. Our trip 

 was unusually slow for several reasons. I delayed some three days to visit 



