THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 275 



Apart from the relief of being told of the safety of the Karluk's 

 men, it was rather depressing news the Sachs had brought us. Evi- 

 dently our task of exploring the ocean to the west and north of 

 Prince Patrick Island was going to be difficult, both because of 

 the gaps in our equipment and because of the too southerly base 

 at Kellett. 



But to this cloud there was the silver lining that the southern 

 section of the expedition was, so far as I could judge from the news, 

 in an excellent position to do good work. I hoped so then, and later 

 events fully justified the hope. The competent specialists of that 

 section secured during the next two years a fund of information 

 and a mass of specimens such that had we achieved no other scien- 

 tific results than those gathered by the complement of the Alaska, 

 the expedition could be considered to have added materially to the 

 sum of knowledge.* 



While I have mentioned both Wilkins and Natkusiak, I have 

 said nothing about meeting them. This is because they were not 

 at home when I arrived, but were the hunters who were away and 

 for one of whom I was mistaken when I was seen coming down the 

 hillside towards the camp. They had gone to the northeast looking 

 for caribou two or three days before. We planned to send some- 

 body in the morning to look for them and bring them back. Mean- 

 time Wilkins had got track of us on his own account, a story that 

 I am enabled to let him tell for himself, since he has written a 

 magazine article on the incident from which I may quote. After 

 telling how the Sachs was forced to decide against trying to get 

 north beyond Cape Kellett and how they first landed there, he 

 goes on: 



"We saw no trace of game on the land, and finding no trace of 

 Stefansson we were fully convinced that even had he reached the 

 land he must have starved to death. After waiting in vain for 

 the ice to move we decided to establish winter quarters and search 

 the coast for his dead body or possible traces of him, when condi- 

 tions would permit sledge travel. There was not sufficient snow on 

 the ground to travel along the coast, so with an Eskimo companion 

 who had been with Stefansson on most of his arctic journeys I went 

 inland afoot. We hunted for two days without success and at 

 night we discussed our leader's fate. 



''There were many reasons why he could not be alive. He had 

 not come ashore in Alaska. We thought he could not get food 



* For a summary of the scientific results of the Alaska section, see Ap- 

 pendix. 



