Transcript of an article, "Explorer Criticized Regarding Wrangel," Toronto Globe, 05 September 1923
Date5 September, 1923
ms numberStefansson Mss-91: Harold Noice Papers, Box 1, Folder 3
abstractCorrespondence, newspaper articles, and other material related to the ill-fated 1921 expedition to Wrangel Island.
Explorer Criticized Regarding Wrangel.
J.B. Tyrrell discusses fate of Crawford expedition to the North
Commenting on the ill-fated Crawford expedition, J.B. Tyrrell, in an interview yesterday, stated that Canada had no business on
Wrangel Island, and that the whole expedition had been a great mistake.
While paying tribute to Stefansson as a great Arctic explorer,
Tyrrell declared that it was almost a crime to send to the frozen North a young man unfamiliar with and unprepared for the conditions he was about to face as leader of an expedition. In the matter of supplies he expressed the opinion that Stefansson should have made provision for a longer stay of the expedition on the island.
Once the party had reached Wrangel Island, it was Stefansson's duty to get them back. The Dominion Government had nothing to do with the expedition, and, therefore, had no responsibility, Mr.
Tyrrell declared.
Two years on an uninhabited island in the polar regions with three companions with whom he had no previous acquaintance was not the life for a young man in his twenties. Even older men familiar with the North found the loneliness herd to endure, said Mr. Tyrrell.
Mr. Tyrrell is himself familiar with Arctic regions. For 17 years he was associated with the Dominion Geological Survey in the North. Dealing with the value of Wrangel Island as a Canadian possession, he remarked that, so far as was known, there were no minerals there. Referring to Stefansson’s statement as to its
value as an aeroplane base, he said that the explorer was giving his opinion on a subject he knew nothing about.
Toronto 'Globe', Sept.5, 1923.
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