THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 381 



method which I advocated. The American scientific societies which 

 originally backed the expedition, and later the Canadian Govern- 

 ment, had put the expedition in my hands knowing I held these 

 theories, and he considered it illogical to become panic-stricken 

 through finding out that I had carried no supplies with me out on 

 the ice when I had always maintained that this was a safe thing to 

 do. While others theorized on how and when and where and why 

 we had died, he assumed as a working hypothesis that we were alive 

 and in Banks Island. 



But the universal feeling at Ottawa was against the probability 

 of our being alive. Opinions of various polar authorities, both 

 geographers and explorers, had been sought and were uniformly ad- 

 verse. In effect, they amounted to saying that the theory on which 

 our work was based was unsound and the undertaking had in conse- 

 quence been foredoomed to failure. 



Of the polar authorities Peary was the most careful in his pub- 

 lished opinions. I had discussed all my ideas with him several 

 times. He was one of the fairest-minded men I ever knew and the 

 readiest to yield a point on the appearance of new evidence no mat- 

 ter how strongly he might previously have been committed to the 

 opposite view. Peary himself had said in print that no food or 

 fuel could be secured on the polar sea, but he had also said * 

 that he had seen a seal in some open water only about 250 miles 

 from the Pole (near N. Lat. 86°). When I pressed the point that 

 this seal was both food and fuel and obtainable, he admitted it but 

 thought the seal had been an exception. But he conceded that as he 

 had never paid much attention to signs of seals, because he had 

 thought them rare or absent, they might really have been numerous 

 where he supposed them few. So our discussions had ended by his 

 saying: "Maybe you are right. But be careful and turn back in 

 time." Similarly now, when his opinion was asked by reporters or 

 the Government, he was less definite than most in his pessimistic 

 attitude. In fact, as he told me later, he based his opinion of my 

 probable death mainly on the report that it had been my plan when 

 I left Alaska to return to Alaska within a few weeks. This failure 

 to carry out a plan which he thought I had announced, together with 

 the admittedly hazardous nature of the undertaking, were his main 

 reasons for thinking us lost. 



The reason why every one thought we had intended to return 

 to Alaska was merely the common view that unless we did so we 



*"The North Pole," p. 250. 



