WITH STEFANSSON IN THE ARCTIC 
The wind at that time attained a 
velocity of about seventy miles an hour, 
although it did not affect the grounded 
shore ice on which we then were 
camped. Two days later our progress 
was made difficult by the enormous pres- 
sure ridges we encountered. One of 
these was from twenty to forty-five feet 
in height, half a mile wide, and extended 
east and west as far as the eye could 
reach. While on the trip out we had on 
one occasion progressed eighteen miles 
in ten hours. Now on one day we trav- 
eled only five hundred yards in ten hours. 
But we finally reached shore late in the 
afternoon of April 16, on Canadian soil, 
about eighty miles east of our starting 
point. 
Whaling captains report the spring of 
1914 one of the earliest they have ever 
known. Open water appeared in the 
vicinity of Cape Bathurst in March and 
there is every reason to believe that the 
same weather conditions prevailed on 
the west coast of Banks Land. There- 
fore if Stefaénsson tried to reach the 
island he was undoubtedly prevented by 
open water. 
It is possible that he has reached the 
unknown land he sought and is unable to 
return because of lack of sufficient food 
for the journey. But experienced Arctic 
men agree that the unusually early and 
rapid westerly drift of the ice must have 
seriously impeded his progress north 
and that he is most likely adrift on the 
ice-pack somewhere in the great open 
sea between Banks Land and Wrangel 
Island. Wherever he may be, I firmly 
believe he is alive and that he could be 
found by a search expedition. 
He and his two companions: should 
have returned to the north coast of the 
continent in May or June, 1914. When 
they did not do so—even in July or 
August, and after two whaling captains 
had searched the west coast of Banks 
127 
Land for traces of the party without 
success, I came out to civilization with 
the intention of organizing a relief ex- 
pedition to search for them —and, after 
I heard that the “ Karluk”’ had sunk, to 
look also for the eight men who became 
separated from Captain Bartlett’s main 
party on the retreat over the ice to 
Wrangel Island. 
The plans call for a small power 
schooner and two to four hydro-aéro- 
planes with experienced aviators. We 
would have the machines assembled at 
Nome and tested before taking them to 
Wrangel Island. Beginning there and 
using the ship as a base, we would under- 
take to search a strip of ice and water 
one hundred and seventy-five miles long 
by twenty miles wide daily by having 
one machine (or better two, one for the 
relief of the other, if needed) fly at a 
height of a thousand feet carrying ob- 
servers equipped with powerful glasses. 
The machine would proceed one hundred 
and seventy-five miles in a northwesterly 
direction, turn at right angles and fly for 
twenty miles, then turn again and fly 
back to the ship parallel to its outgoing 
course. The ship in the meantime would 
have proceeded twenty miles to the east 
to meet the incoming machine thus giv- 
ing the change aviators and the mecha- 
nician an opportunity to prepare the 
second machine for the next day’s 
flight. 
Experienced aviators, such as make 
up the board of governors of the Aéro 
Club of America, and explorers, including 
Peary, have approved the plans, and all 
agree that the work ought to be done. 
By such a plan a strip of the Arctic 
Ocean one hundred and _ seventy-five 
miles wide extending from Wrangel 
Island, Siberia, to Herschel Island, Can- 
ada, could be searched in' the summer 
season of 1915 if ordinary weather con- 
ditions prevailed. 
