May 20, 1922] 



NA TURE 



^11 



strong whaler, the Karluk, under Mr. Stefansson himself 

 with a large staff and complete oceanographical equip- 

 ment ; and a southern for work on the coast of the 

 continent under Dr. Anderson, who was second in 

 command, and provided with a smaller vessel. The 

 southern party proceeded on the whole according to 

 plan ; but the Karluk forced her way into the ice north 

 of Alaska on August 13, 1913, and remained fast, drift- 

 ing westward. On September 20, when the ship was 

 ten miles off the land Stefansson thought it right to go 

 ashore for a few weeks' caribou hunting ; but the ship 

 had disappeared when he was ready to return, and 

 after quite old-fashioned difficulties and hardships, 

 including the crushing and sinking of the ship, most of 

 the men succeeded in reaching Wrangel Island off the 

 coast of Siberia and were ultimately saved. Mr. James 

 Murray, the biologist, and Dr. Mackay, both of whom 

 had been with Sir Ernest Shackleton in the Antarctic, 

 were amongst those who perished on the ice. 



Ignorant of the fate of the Karluk, and deprived by 

 her loss of all the carefully prepared equipment and 

 trained assistants, Stefansson had to decide whether he 

 should accept failure or put to a test his long-cherished 

 idea of living on the resources of what he had come to 

 look on as a friendly Arctic. He chose the latter 

 alternative, found two old friends amongst the Arctic 

 traders, named Storkerson and Andreasen, who were 

 willing to take risks, got together some sledges and dogs, 

 a few instruments, and a large quantity of ammuni- 

 tion, and on March 22, 1914, started on a great journey 

 over the sea-ice from Marten Point in 70° N. No one 

 on shore expected to see him again. A support party 

 was sent back on April 5, when fifty miles from shore, 

 and the three men with six dogs and provisions for 

 thirty days marched northward over the floes along the 

 meridian of 140° W. By May 5, they had reached 

 74° N. in 135° W., and seals and bears kept them in food 

 and fuel in an eastward march until they landed on 

 Banks Land on June 25, after travelling a thousand 

 miles, never having been hungry, cold, or tired, and the 

 dogs in better condition than at the start. 



The summer was spent hunting and exploring in 

 the unknown interior of Banks Land ; the ship ap- 

 pointed to bring supplies arrived, and the winter over 

 Stefansson started again north-westward over the 

 ca-ice, reaching almost 77° N. in 130° W, early in 

 May 1915. From this point he travelled due east to 

 Prince Patrick Land, skirted its north-west coast, 

 and to the north-east of it discovered a new land 

 (Borden Island) in 78° N. 115° W., and the summer 

 being then so far advanced as to make travel over the 

 sea-ice very difficult he hurried back almost 600 miles 

 by the west coast of Melville Island to his old base in 

 Banks Land. Thence opportunity was taken of a 

 NO. 2742, VOL. 109] 



chance trader, whose ship Stefansson purchased as a 

 matter of course, to pay a brief visit to the comparative 

 civilisation of Herschel Island, but on returning to 

 Banks Land the party made an interesting journey 

 eastward to visit the Copper Eskimos of Victoria 

 Island. After wintering in Banks Land, Stefansson in 

 the spring of 1916 made a journey across Melville 

 Island to Borden Island, thence north-eastward to 

 80° N.. where another new land, Meighen Island, was 

 discovered in 100° W., and on his way back he found 

 a third new land, Longheed Island, in 77° N. 105° W. 

 The winter quarters for 1916-17 were in Liddon 

 Gulf, Melville Island, classic ground of the Frankhn 

 search. 



Early in 191 7 Mr. Stefansson was again on his way 

 north, this time along the eastern coast of Borden 

 Island and onwards over the sea-ice almost to 81° N. 

 in 110° W. Here his two companions, who were new 

 hands on this occasion, broke down from scurvy, due 

 to their surreptitious diet of tinned foods during the 

 previous winter, and the most promising of all these 

 wonderful journeys had to be cut short. The return 

 journey reads like a sheer romance, and Stefansson well 

 says that if Stevenson had only known of facts like 

 these he would never have had to invent the plot of 

 " Treasure Island." The accumulating interest of 

 chapters 59 to 63 is tremendous, and will prove to 

 most European readers a revelation of what is 

 possible in Arctic America. On September 13 

 Stefansson landed from his stranded steamer at a 

 little harbour in Alaska, and here his luck deserted 

 him, for after planning another trip into the Beaufort 

 Sea he was attacked successively by typhoid fever, 

 pneumonia, and pleurisy, and 1918 was well advanced 

 before he could leave the hospital in Fort Yukon » 

 that nothing but his indomitable spirit enabled him 

 to reach. His old friend Storkerson undertook an 

 eight months' journey over the Beaufort Sea. north 

 to 74°, then drifting on a floe to follow the currents, 

 and he returned safely, showing that he also could 

 live on the natural bounty of the friendly Arctic. 



We have given a condensed narrative, for the book 

 is confused by digressions which obscure the sequence 

 of events. The digressions, however, are full of 

 interest, telling much of the habits of caribou, 

 musk-oxen, seals, polar bears, and Arctic foxes, and 

 more of Mr. Stefansson's own special subject— the 

 habits and beliefs of the Eskimo, and the prejudices 

 as to diet of all sorts of men and dogs. 



The scientific results are being worked out at Ottawa, 

 and we can refer here only to the unique value of the 

 soundings taken by Stefansson and Storkerson in the 

 Beaufort Sea. These determine the position of the 

 Continental Shelf on several lines at right angles to 



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