INTRODUCTION u 



as house surgeon. He left the hospital to join the expedition. 



Dr. Howe was a good comrade, and we were very glad that we 



had been able to secure him for our party. He did us many 



a good turn, and now and then, when things were particularly 



hard, came forward with not inconsiderable loans. As a doctor 



we had, luckily, not much use for him, but he had quite a 



practice among the Eskimos, who 



thought him the best man who ever 



came their way, and his drastic but 



effectual cures gave him a great name 



throughout the country. His good 



humour and equable temperament 



helped to cheer many dreary hours. 



Some results of his experience will 



be found in the appendix from his 



pen. 



Mr. Vilhjalmr Stefansson was the 

 son of Icelandic parents, but was 

 born in Winnipeg, Canada. During STORKERSEN. 



his childhood his parents moved to 



North Dakota, and he graduated at the State University 

 there. Afterwards he studied at Harvard College and became 

 an instructor in anthropology. He was twenty-eight years 

 old when he joined the expedition. 



Mr. Stefansson joined us as an ethnologist, but as he 

 wanted to make some ethnographical investigations along the 

 Mackenzie River, he went that way to meet us at Herschel 

 Island. Owing to the unusually difficult ice that year we were 

 not able to go as far as we had intended, and Mr. Stefansson 

 consequently lived with the Eskimos, on Eskimo fare and in 

 Eskimo fashion. 



He collected some valuable ethnographical data, and after- 

 wards, in the spring of 1907, he came down to our winter quarters 

 by sledge, where he dug out many interesting Eskimo remains. 



As will be seen later on, the original crew was partly replaced 

 at Port Clarence and Point Hope. The mate, Mr. Edwards, 

 was discharged at the former place on account of illness con- 

 tracted while sailing in the tropics. /. Parker, a young 

 Englishman, was liked by everybody, but he joined the cook 

 in a refusal to proceed, and both were discharged at Point Hope. 



