APPENDIX 



DRIFTING IN THE BEAUFORT SEA 



[By Storker T. Storkerson, in MacLean's Magazine, 

 March 15 and April 1, 1920.] 



WTien in 1914 I was with Vilhjalmur Stefansson on the first trip 

 across the Beaufort Sea from Martin Point, Alaska, to Banks Island, 

 it was a matter of considerable annoyance to me while we were living 

 off the country to have to haul heavily meat-laden sleds through the 

 soft snow in the spring. I could never see any necessity after our gro- 

 ceries were gone to have more than one or two days' rations on our sleds, 

 because it appeared to me evident that when we needed meat and stopped 

 to look for it it could always be obtained. 



While the Commander and I had the same ideas on the subject, our 

 other companion continued pessimistic. When he saw a seal he thought 

 we had better get it because no one knew what might happen or when 

 we would see another. So the Commander killed it and a good many 

 besides to please him. This resulted in a great amount of useless hard 

 work as in the latter part of the spring, when warm weather came, the 

 snow was soft and the runners of the heavily-laden sled would sink 

 through, and as we had no toboggan bottom on our sled the benches 

 would scrape along the surface of the snow-drifts, acting as brakes, 

 which would always stop the dogs unless we helped them, and a good 

 many times our help was not sufficient to keep it going. At times it 

 would take us several hours to travel a quarter of a mile. This could 

 all have been avoided if our comrade had been of the same attitude of 

 mind as the Commander and I. Work would have been considerably 

 less, as the sled would have been lighter, and naturally our speed of 

 traveling would have been greater than it actually was. 



This skeptical attitude of the men towards the Commander's plan 

 to live off the country on his exploring trips caused us a good many in- 

 conveniences. The men never were willing to leave camp and start to 

 live off the country right away. They always wanted to have at starting 

 as much food on the sleds as we could possibly take with us. If we 

 could have retained the same men during the whole expedition the 

 later sled trips might have been different in outfit, and I am sure the 

 results would have been better; but, as we were continually breaking 



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