Transcript of an article, "Our Friend Stefansson," from The Bulletin, 16 April 1925
Date16 April, 1925
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.
Canadian literature which has drifted my way suggests that our late visitor Stefansson is a many-sided man. I would call him nothing less than a hexagon, and he may be even an irregular crystal. The latest addition to my collection is an article cut from a Toronto paper. It deals with the wanderer's explorations in the deserts of Australia, he having gone there to
disperse the illusion that they really are deserts. A misty impression is left that he succeeded, and that the Australian desert is now cleared up in some way like the sources of the Nile. It is added that Stefansson hopes to go to the African Sahara, and put it likewise in a new light which nobody has heard of before. Another paragraph in another paper deals with the expedition which the explorer led, or was on
the verge of leading, to rescue the Governor of Victoria, lost in the
treacherous wilds of the overland telegraph line near Horseshoe Bend.
Perhaps we got a wrong idea about our Arctic pilgrim when he pervaded these parts in all his glory. Common impressions were:
That he was the first man to demonstrate that white men could live permanently inside the Arctic Circle. (The largest permanent town in the Arctic is probably Hammerfest, in Norway; population 3500: date of origin obscure, through age.)
That, caravaning through the frozen wilds, he came on Eskimo tribes who had never previously seen a white man--- not even an explorer.
That he discovered the Polar regions to be no silent waste, but teem with animal life, especially caribou and musk oxen, and to be a prospective meat-exporting country. A Sydney daily had an article on this future source of food supply and fount of chops and steak.
That he demonstrated how the proper kind of Polar explorer need not hump provisions along, but can graze at large on the riches of the land.
One of the earliest comments on the Stefansson theory which I have seen was published in the Montreal GAZETTE of
14/1/'22, after the distinguished gentleman had wound up his last Polar affair.
"During the whole course of the expedition Mr. Stefansson pursued a policy of wild extravagance. He has stated that the expedition was planned to demonstrate the principle of living by forage. How does he reconcile this with his efforts from the first to have the Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18, the best-equipped expedition that ever sailed? The ships, the Karluk for the northern party and the Alaska for the southern party, were
equipped as fully as possible from the very first. When more men were added more provisions were bought, and an additional vessel, the Mary Sachs, bought in Nome to carry supplies in 1913. A considerable amount of freight was shipped to Herschel Island on the whaler Belvedere in 1913. Later, in 1914,
-2- (Sydney Bulletin)
"the schooner North Star, with all the supplies of its trader-owner, was bought, and another traddr named Duffy O'Connor was bought out. In 1915
Stefansson bought the large schooner Polar Bear, loaded with supplies, as well as a smaller schooner, the Gladiator, in the same way, at Arctic Ocean prices. The El Sueno was also chartered to carry supplies. Large amounts were purchased from the
Hudson Bay Company and other traders at Herschel Island. A large bill was purchased from the trading ship Herman in
1916, and in 1917 the Challenge was bought, and Hudson's Bay Company stores, and the independent traders' stores were bought in many cases. Practical results of 1917-18
were virtually limited to Storkerson's ice trip north of the coast of Alaska. Bills ran to over half a million dollars. "
This exploration de
luxe was certainly a case of the explorer "living off the country," but any stay-at-home pensioner or Tite Branacle could have done it in the same sense.
In 1922 there appeared a pamphlet "by D. Jenness,
Victoria Memorial Museum, Ottawa," in which the writer not only commented on the heroic finance of the explorer, but alluded to another matter:---
"There is another side to this question of living off the country....It involves the destruction 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 4000)....The musk oxen have already been almost exterminated on the mainland of America and in Greenland. On Victoria
and Banks Islands they were destroyed by the Eskimos prior to 1913, and the only places where they 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 round Coronation Gulf is well within sight now, although
in 1913 they could be counted there by thousands. "
The vague impression which came to us during Stefansson's stay here, that he was in some way the original discoverer of the innumerable caribou and other food supplies and prospective food exports in the Arctic, fades in the light of these remarks. It seems both tame hunting and tame exploring to pursue the cow, whetherplain, musk, or fancy, on an island where she is so close
up against the advancing tide of civilisation as to be the hopeless victim of the census-taker. It suggests the unsportsmanlike habit of shooting the sitting bull on its nest.
Still there is an episode in the career of the gentleman
who pulled
this simple country's leg which left an enduring mark. He had an inspiration to add to the British Empire
Wrangel Island, 100 miles north of Siberia. The alleged idea was that it might serve a great purpose in connection with an air service, or a bear service, or something. Wrangel Island
is a very considerable mass of frost-bitten rocks rising to an elevation of 2300 ft. Under the auspices of the Stefansson Exploration and Development Company, four enthusiastic young men and a not so enthusiastic Eskimo cook-and-housekeeper woman were landed in September 16, 1921, with promise of a visit in six months or not much more.
-3- (Sydney Bulletin)
The visit didn't transpire till August 20, 1923. Then the callers-in found one corpse, dead of hunger and scurvy, and Mrs. Ada Blackjack, the cook-and-housekeeper woman, holding her wits together sufficiently amid the horrors of the situation to explain that the other three enthusiastic young men had set half a year earlier over 100 miles of ice to see if relief of any sort
could be brought from Siberia or elsewhere. Their story ended there. When the insufficient stores gaveout, they had endeavoured to "live on the country" by shooting rocks or other scarce game. Not having a chance to supplement their resources by large purchases from the
Hudson's Bay Company
, which doesn't trade in those parts, their luck was consistently bad.
Having been added to the list of Australian pioneers, Vilhjalmur Stefansson hasbecome a matter of local interest. He will probably call here again on his return from explaining and rehabilitating Sahara, and, if this country has not by that time learned better how to look after its leg, he will find the Town Hall basement swept and garnished for the mayoral reception, and the Federal motor-car waiting.
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