stefansson-wrangel-09-30-004

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looking like walrus meat. We launch the dory 4:30. Get the meat, paddle around but cannot find [big] skin which we need most. Two bears have been there and eaten their fill. The gulls and ravens had almost picked the small skin clean. Arrive at camp at 7 with one small skin, most of small walrus meat and the rear flippers from the large one. Had some fried walrus meat. Very tough, otherwise palatable. A bear had been close to camp on the beach to the east." He liked the meat better the next day, perhaps because it was differently cooked, for on September 7th he says, "We had some boiled walrus ribs, very good."

On September 18th there is confirmation of what Ada Blackjack told Mr. Jordon about Knight’s complaining of illness during the summer. He mentions also that Crawford and Maurer were unwell. "Crawford seemed very tired and worn, dragging his feet . . . Maurer continually complaining about his back, wrenched some weeks ago, and all complaining about being exceptionally sleepy." These are possible symptoms of scurvy, which do not, however, seem to have developed further in any of the party except Knight. Apparently they were at this time living in considerable part on groceries which would have no antiscorbutic value. The meat they were eating was mostly bear and, since they were employing Eskimo methods of cooking, we may infer that the xxx meat was being over-boiled, for bear is about the only meat which the Eskimos commonly overcook. They are likely to boil any other meat about as underdone as our ordinary roasts, but bear they usually cook about as much as we do such things as beef brisket. We can, therefore, easily understand how scurvy might develop. Apparently this was later checked in all

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the party except Knight by the decrease of groceries and the consequent compulsory larger dependence on meat. Ada Blackjack has told us that as autumn advanced they began to eat the meat of foxes and that all liked it except Knight. This gives x some explanation of why the scurvy developed in him more than the others, but is a very strange thing and hard to believe because Knight was already used to fox meat. I had several times seen him eat it and had never known him to complain or to show that he liked it any less than the rest of us.

The most important part of Milton Galle’s notes (made so by later events) is what he says about the proposed trip to Siberia and Nome. We have confirmation here also of what Ada Blackjack has told about the way in which the party was managed. It had been the understanding when we planned the expedition the summer of 1921 that while Crawford was in command he was to be guided continually by the opinion of the veterans, Knight and Maurer. It was their own arrangement that Knight rather than Maurer should have the formal position of seconds-in-command. Ada Blackjack says that she frequently heard Crawford asking Knight what he thought ought to be done. There would follow long discussions after which Crawford would announce to the rest of the party what his orders or plans were.

The plan of making a journey to Alaska seems to have been formed in this way, for Galle’s first knowledge of it evidently came from chance remarks. About the only evidence of resentment in Galle’s notes appears in this connection. He knew that plans were being made but did not know just what they were, and when he heard that a journey wras to be made he wras not told the reason for the journey. This

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naturally annoyed him. We infer from the fragmentary notes preserved that his fuller diaries probably contained not only more about his annoyance but also what his speculations were as to the purpose of the journey. There is a suggestion that he made these speculations partly as a sort of game - he was trying out his cleverness to see how nearly he could guess what the explanations would be when they eventually were given to him. This was a habit he had with regard to other and less important matters. An example of that is the guessing we find in his notes as to where the camp would be located for the second winter. He puts down his guesses and says that he will later record whether the guesses were right. He also made a forecast of the verbal form which the camp-moving announcement would take and later recorded that his guess had been wrong and that the announcement was of a form entirely other than he had expected.

Galle’s first reference to the trip ashore shows that he must have been hearing rumors of it for some time. The entry is for September 25th, "If the mysterious dash is made - this is through careless phrases dropped by Knight, Maurer and Crawford - by Knight and Crawford to civilization, nothing more than justice to me, concerning camp and equipment." This entry is comprehensible only after a careful study of the rest of the notes. What Galle seems to mean is that if he ^is to xx be one of those left on the island while the others make the "mysterious dash," then he should be consulted in choosing the winter camp site. He has told us elsewhere that he is in disagreement with the others as to where the camp ought to be with reference to the ease of hauling firewood. The

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reader must also remember that our quotation is taken from what Galle wrote only as fragmentary aids-to-memory, set down from day to day merely as the basis for longer entries to be made in his written and typewritten diaries.

The next mention of the trip to civilization is a part of a long entry for September 28th which tells about the moving to the permanent camp of that winter and ends with a record of a conversation when he and Knight were returning from the new camp. "On way back Knight tells me that they, Crawford and Knight, wrere probably going to Nome next spring. He does not say why. He tells me they will need lots of money, asks if I have any. I will loan them all I have. Knight keeps the conversation pretty noncommittal. Of course, I could ask questions but that is not up to me. I can figure their motives. Will note now that they will not go to Nome or even to Siberia. We shall await developments. Was informed by Knight he would not like to go but he had to."

I have tried to think what Galle can have supposed would be the real destination of the proposed journey by Crawford and Knight. Possibly he thought it was all talk and that when the time came they would not go anywhere. I am inclined to think, however, he must have believed that they were really going on an exploring expedition north or northeast from Wrangell Island. The edge of the unexplored in that direction was only sixty or seventy miles north, and there had been some talk among us that they might make a journey out in that direction the latter part of the winter 1921-1922. I have therefore been surprised both that they did not make such a journey and that Knight’s diary has no discussion of why they did

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not. Likely enough this is one of the subjects which was frequently talked about but never got mentioned in any diary that is preserved to us.

But what they probably had more in their minds than the exploration of an unknown area to the north was the definite report by Hadley, McKinlay and others who said that they had seen a large new land to the northeast of Wrangell Island and had watched it from Waring Point during the summer of 1914 while the snow gradually disappeared from the slopes under the influence of the sun*. Maurer

*The testimony of Hadley and McKinlay on this subject along with McKinlay’s drawings of the land seen, was published in the Geographical Review of the American Geographical Society, ,1920.

had not seen this land, for he had been at Rodger’s Harbor at the time but he had heard all about it from the party who were at Waring Point. Likely enough Galle may have feared that they were going to steal a march on him, leaving him behind on the island while they distinguished themselves by the discovery and exploration of a new land.

We infer from the underscoring that Galle was especially puzzled by Knight’s telling him that he wished he did not have to go on this journey but that he had to. We can think of two reasons for Knight’s saying that. It may have been that he felt he would rather not leave the island but that he would have to be a member of any party that left because of his greater experience in traveling over moving ice. Or it may be that Knight had in mind the illness of which he could already then feel the symptoms. That confirms what Ada Blackjack has said about his having been frequently ill