6 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLUK 
islands, in the hope of establishing trade-routes; to 
make a geological survey of the coast from Cape 
Parry to Kent Peninsula and of Victoria Island 
north and east of Prince Albert Sound, with the 
primary object of investigating copper-bearing 
formations; and to study still further the blond 
Eskimo who had been discovered by Stefansson in 
1910. 
Peary’s attainment of the North Pole in 1909, 
the goal of three centuries of struggle, enabled the 
world to give attention to problems unrelated to po¬ 
lar discovery and afforded men an opportunity to 
realize not only that a million square miles in the 
Arctic still remained marked on the maps as “un¬ 
explored territory,” but also that a great deal re¬ 
mained to be done in regions which already had 
technically been “discovered.” Stefansson himself 
had already proved this. The shores of Dolphin 
and Union Straits, for instance, had been mapped 
by Dr. John Richardson as far back as 1826, yet 
Stefansson, when he found the blond Eskimo there 
in 1910, was the first white man on record who had 
ever visited that tribe in all its history. After his 
return from that remarkable expedition, I had 
made his acquaintance at a dinner in New York, 
some time previous to the planning of the expedi¬ 
tion of 1913-16, and admired him for his scientific 
achievements and for his skill and daring in living 
