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original plan had been to make the search 
from Banks Land or Prince Patrick 
Land with the well-equipped “ Karluk”’ 
as base. 
Our hunting party from the “ Karluk,” 
on September 20, 1913, found the ice 
between the ship and the shore one 
continuous jumble of chaotic ridges. 
Often they were thirty-five feet high. 
We were two days in covering the dis- 
tance to a small sandspit five miles from 
Beechey Point on the mainland. Find- 
ing the ice over the warmer river water 
of the Colville delta dangerously thin, 
Stefinsson decided that during the 
necessary waiting he would send me 
with one Eskimo back to the ship for 
two more men and another dog team — 
so sure was he of obtaining more than 
the amount of game the additional team 
could haul. On the night of September 
22, he wrote a letter to Captain Bartlett 
and gave me explicit instructions cover- 
ing every possible contingency that could 
arise on the journey back to the ship. 
These instructions were not needed 
after midnight a 
This in- 
however, for just 
furious northeast gale arose. 
creased and continued unabated for 
three days at the end of which time the 
sea ice was broken off within a mile of 
shore. 
the 
herself, she must be drifting before the 
It was very evident that unless 
“Karluk” had been able to free 
wind westward in the ice field which 
had so long been her berth. About one 
week after reaching “Amouliktok” as 
the sandspit is called, we ventured over 
the ice of the delta, gaining the shore 
September 28. 
On October 3 we started westward 
on the sled journey to Point Barrow. 
Reaching there we found that what the 
Eskimo thought was the “ Karluk” had 
drifted past a week before, and that no 
one had come ashore from her. Stefans- 
son decided to proceed to Collinson Point 
THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 
three hundred sled-miles east of Point 
Barrow. We had learned that here Dr. 
R. M. Anderson and the southern party, 
which had sailed from Nome at the same 
time as the “ Karluk,” in the auxiliary 
vessels “Alaska”? and “Mary Sachs,” 
were in safe winter quarters. 
Our journey to Collinson Point was 
without noteworthy incident. We had 
rapidly become accustomed to sled 
travel and soon Stefdnsson’s extraor- 
dinary ability as an ice traveler ceased 
to excite our comment. His accurate 
knowledge of local conditions often saved 
us from making unnecessary marches. 
Driftwood is plentifully distributed every 
few miles from Point Barrow to Herschel 
Island, with the exception of a stretch of 
forty miles across Harrison Bay and 
another stretch of twenty miles across 
Smith Bay. Stefaénsson knew just where 
to look for this and could tell us approxi- 
mately how long it would take us to 
travel from our camp of that morning 
to another suitable site. 
Before leaving Point Barrow, he had 
sent out to various Eskimo villages along 
the coast south from Point Barrow to 
Kotzbue, letters of instructions for Cap- 
tain Bartlett in case he should reach the 
coast at any point, and on the way to 
Collinson Point, we left several of the 
letters with Eskimo at different places 
for the information of anyone who might 
come ashore from the ship. 
On the last day of our journey, we 
gained from Stefaénsson a demonstration 
of his ability in sled travel. He had 
taught Wilkins and me how to pitch 
camp in a blizzard and how to find 
our way without the aid of a compass 
by referring to the snow-drifts made by 
prevailing winds. On this occasion in 
a southwest blizzard, with wind blowin; 
at the rate of forty-five miles an hour 
and in a blinding snowstorm, Stefansson. 
led us without a trail or a landmark 
