July 7, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



» 



could, as is shown by his statement of what he 

 intended to carry on his second ice journey in 

 1915:1 



I shall start about Feb. 15 with 2 sleds and 3 

 men beside myself . . . Fortunately our dog-feed 

 is ready where we dried it at Norway Island — it 

 will be dried caribou meat, caribou fat and blub- 

 ber. Our own grub will 6e ohiefly rice, fat and 

 sugar. We also have SO pounds of malted milk, 

 50 pounds pea-meal and over 300 pounds pem- 

 mican . . .2 



The reviewer, being absolutely ignorant of 

 the true conditions of polar travel, has uncrit- 

 ically taken certain general statements made by 

 Mr. Stefansson about his living off the country 

 and its advantages as an actual fact that 

 occurred, not merely at certain times and in 

 certain places, but invariably throughout the 

 whole five years of the expedition. Mr. Ste- 

 fansson, with better knowledge of the condi- 

 tions that he would be called upon to face, 

 wisely provided himself with three vessels 

 loaded with all the necessary supplies of pem- 

 mican, sugar, rice and other foods. 



There is also another side to this question of 

 living off the country which seems totally un- 

 known to the reviewer. It involves the destruc- 

 tion of entire herds of caribou and musk-oxen, 

 males, females and young. On Melville Island, 

 one of the largest islands in the north where 

 musk-oxen are still found, Mr. Stefansson and 

 his companions killed, on their own estimate, 

 about one tenth of the total number of musk- 

 oxen (400 out of an estimated 4,000).^ One 

 can easily imagine how long the supply of 

 game would last under these conditions. The 

 musk-oxen have already been almost exter- 

 minated on the mainland of America and in 



1 Copy of letter on file at the Department of 

 Mines, Ottawa. 



- The italics here and elsewhere are mine. The 

 pemmican was the Underwood man pemmican. 

 From the amount Mr. Stefansson carried with him 

 on this occasion he must have rated its food value 

 somewhat higher than would appear from his book 

 (See "The Friendly Arctic," pp. 718f.). 



3 Testimony of S. T. Storkerson before the 

 Royal Commission appointed May 20, 1919, to 

 Investigate the Possibilities of the Reindeer and 

 Musk-ox Industries in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic 

 Regions of Canada. 



Greenland ; on Victoria and Banks Islands they 

 were destroyed by the Eskimos prior to 1913, 

 and the only places where they still remain in 

 any numbers are Ellesmere Island and a few 

 smaller islands adjacent to it. The caribou too 

 have seriously diminished in numbers; their 

 extinction around Coronation Gulf is well 

 within sight even now, although in 1913 they 

 could be counted there by thousands. 



The cautious reader, then, wiU hardly accept 

 the reviewer's extravagant claims for this so- 

 called "new and strictly scientific method" of 

 polar exploration. Another of his statements,, 

 equally false, demands more serious attention. 

 He says : 



In point of fact a considerable number of the- 

 members of his [Mr. Stefansson'a] expedition,, 

 logically excogitated the matter and came to the 

 conclusion that in holding such views \i. e., feasi- 

 bility of living off the country] Stefansson was 

 not merely silly but probably also insane, and in 

 consequence felt justified in (a) disobeying his 

 orders as commander of the expedition, (b) in 

 refusing to render him any aid (c/. pp. 114-115 

 regarding chronometers), and (c) in actively hin- 

 dering Ms preparations and subsequent operations. 

 Now no really scientific man would endorse un- 

 substantiated charges without considering 

 whether there might not be another side to the' 

 question. A few official documents will shoir 

 that there is another side. The three principal 

 charges made by Mr. Stefansson in his book 

 are: 



Charge I. — Attempted mutiny, insubordination 

 and disobedience at Collinson Point, 1914. Dr. 

 Anderson, it is alleged, refused to supply the 

 stores and equipment necessary for Mr. Stefans- 

 son 's ice trip, and the topographers deUberately 

 withheld chronometers that he needed ("The- 

 Friendly Arctic," Ch. XII). 



The official orders issued to Mr. Stefansyon 

 by the Department of Naval Service before the 

 expedition left Esquimalt, B. C, in 1913, read- 

 as follows:* 



The first party, headed by yourself, •will explora 

 the Beaufort Sea, and the unknown waters in that 

 vicinity. The second party, under the direction of 

 Dr. Anderson, will busy itself with the scientific 

 work in the extreme northern land of Canada . . . 



* Copy of orders on file at the Department of 

 Mines, Ottawa. 



