Extract of letter from John Maurer to Helen Crawford, 29 January 1925

Older brother of Fred Maurer.

Allan Crawford's mother.

Born William Stephenson in 1879 in Manitoba, Canada, Stefansson was an explorer, anthropologist, public intellectual, and policy adviser whose life work included several important expeditions to the Arctic. He began planning an expedition to Wrangel Island somewhat secretly beginning in the fall of 1920, hoping to definitively claim Wrangel Island for Canada or Britain. As his active exploring career had already ended, he stayed in Canada while the team went to Wrangel Island. Ill-equipped and inexperienced, all four men hired by Stefansson died in 1923; Ada Blackjack was the sole survivor of the trip. Stefansson had a significant association with Dartmouth College, beginning in the 1920s and 30s when he was an occasional lecturer. In 1947, he moved to Vermont with his wife, working on the Encyclopedia Arctica and becoming an Arctic Consultant to the College. Though the Encyclopedia Arctica project was canceled in 1951, its unpublished chapters and associated materials are now housed in the Rauner Library as part of the Stefansson Collection on Polar Exploration. Stefansson continued teaching and writing at Dartmouth until his death in 1962 in Hanover, New Hampshire, where he is now buried.

Fred Maurer was third-in-command on the 1921 Wrangel Island Expedition. From New Philadelphia, Ohio, he was 28 at the start of the expedition. Before the Wrangel Island expedition, he worked as a deckhand on the Belvedere, a whaling ship; in 1906, he met Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who came aboard as the captain’s honored guest at Herschel Island (off the northern coast of Canada). Later, Maurer was hired as a fireman for Stefansson’s disastrous 1913-14 Canadian Arctic Expedition. The ship Karluk became trapped in an ice floe and later sank, stranding (and eventually killing) many; Maurer spent six months on Wrangel Island before being rescued. Later, Stefansson suggested he join the 1921 spring Chautauqua circuit, and Maurer became the opening act for Stefansson. That year, Stefansson asked Maurer to be a member of his second Wrangel Island expedition; Maurer immediately said yes. The team arrived on Wrangel Island on September 15, 1921, and over the following years suffered immensely, facing harsh Arctic conditions as resources ran dangerously low. On January 28, 1923, Maurer, along with Milton and Crawford, tried to cross the frozen Chukchi Sea to Siberia and travel some 90 miles to get help; they were never seen again.

Parents of Errol Lorne Knight.

Harry and Alma Galle, parents of Milton Galle.