PREFACE ix 



tory, and to Mr. Gilbert Grosvenor, the Director of the National 

 Geographic Society, offering to take over the expedition. He assured 

 them that the scientific program, as already outlined under their 

 auspices, would be carried out by the Canadian Government, that 

 the expedition would be sent out that present year, and that the 

 entire command of it would remain in my hands exactly as if the 

 work had been under their auspices. In this letter and in the cor- 

 respondence that followed between these American institutions and 

 the Canadian Government, it was made clear that I was to remain 

 the sole judge of the fitness of all men and all materials and that 

 the scientific direction of the expedition should in every way remain 

 in my hands. That this was made so explicit was due to the fore- 

 thought of Mr. Grosvenor, who feared that some politician or other 

 at Ottawa might try to influence the course of the expedition, thus 

 interfering with its scientific value. 



It was in February, 1913, that the expedition was transferred 

 to the Canadian Government. Before that time I had offered the 

 position of second in command of the expedition to Dr. R. M. 

 Anderson, who had accepted. No other man for that position had 

 even occurred to me, for we had been friends since college days and 

 had already carried out together successfully an expedition on which 

 he had shown himself both admirable as a traveling companion and 

 able and diligent as a field observer and scientific collector. 



A man whom I have admired for many years is Captain C. T. 

 Pedersen, commonly known to his friends as Theodore Pedersen. 

 I had known him in the Arctic since 1906. The winter of 1908-09 

 I visited him frequently when he was wintering in his schooner, 

 the Challenge, in the "lagoon" at Point Barrow. We had talked 

 over the possibility of an expedition of geographic discovery, where 

 I should be in command while he was the sailing master. In my 

 mind he was self-chosen for master of whatever ship I might have, 

 just as Dr. Anderson was the obvious man for the position of second 

 in command. 



Pedersen was now in San Francisco unoccupied. He at once 

 accepted not only my offer to be commander of the ship, but under- 

 took the task of selecting the best available vessel. A few years 

 before this the whaling trade had come to a sudden stop through 

 a drop in the price of whalebone, and there were ten or more whalers 

 laid up in various ports on the Pacific coast that were supposed to 

 be entirely suitable for further navigation in polar waters. Captain 

 Pedersen informed me at once that the choice was between four ships 

 — the Herman, Jeannette, Elvira and the Karluk. All these ships 



