Letter from Vilhjalmur Stefansson to Charles Sale, 23 February 1921

^ Hudson's Bay Co. Sale ^

February 23rd, 1921.

Confidential

Dear Mr. Sale:

I believe Wrangel Island is nearly if not quite the best fur outpost in the Arctic for white and blue foxes and for polar bears. It is also one of the finest places in the world for walrus, and seals are very numerous. It is easier of access from the Pacific than any of the posts which you now have on the north coast of Canada from Herschel Island east. I am enclosing a summary of the history, resources, political position, geographic situation, etc., of Wrangel Island, with the hope that you may decide to put a fur post there this year. It may be that it is either this year or never, as will be shown in the summary of the political situation.

The firm of H. Liebes and Company of San Francisco, one of your chief competitors in the western Arctic, actually made a start about three years ago to put a post on Wrangel Island. One of their captains, Pedersen, had instructions to get a few Eskimos from Alaska and land them on Wrangel Island for trapping proposes. He did not carry these instructions out because he had an unusually good opportunity to sell out his entire cargo before getting that far. His intention, as he told me in conversation, was merely to put the matter off for a year. The entrance of the United States into the war, however, prevented him from establishing this post the following season, and I believe the present depression of the furmarket will prevent him from doing so this year. I have no doubt, however, that it will be only a matter of a year or two till some trader puts a post on Wrangel Island.

No country except the British Empire has a strong legal claim to Wrangel Island, but it has been doubtful up to a week ago whether we would press the claims we have. Canada has now entered upon a general program of pressing all claims which we have to the islands in the northern ocean. I told the Prime Minister, the Honourable Arthur Meighen, that your Fur Trade Commissioner, Mr. Brabant, had a strong inclination to put a post on Wrangel Island

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and would, in my opinion, recommend to your Company that this be done but for the fact that the Company did not feel sure that Wrangel Island was British territory. Hereupon the Prime Minister presented the matter at a meeting of the Cabinet in Ottawa, February 19th. Immediately after the Cabinet meeting he sent me a letter, of which a copy follows:

"Prime Minister’s Office

Ottawa, Ontario, February the 19th, 1921.

"Dear Stefansson:

"I have discussed the matters which you laid before me to-day and desire to advise you that this Government purposes to assert the right of Canada to Wrangel Island, based upon the discoveries and exploration of your expedition.

"Faithfully yours,

(Signed) Arthur Meighen.

"V. Stefansson, Esquire, The Chateau Laurier, Ottawa, Ontario."

I want to urge that while Mr. FitzGerald is in London you go thoroughly into the matter on the basis of the attached summary and whatever information you may have available. I believe it would be greatly to the advantage of the Company to establish a post on Wrangel Island.

I have discussed with the Prime Minister, the Minister of the Interior, and other members of the Cabinet the possibility of the Hudson’s Bay Company establishing a post this summer on Wrangel Island. Their sentiment is that, while it would not be proper for them to request you to establish this post, their plans for making secure the claim of Canada to the island would be materially helped if a British concern were to start a post there the summer 1921, and they would look with the greatest favor upon your doing so.

In Ottawa the matter of the Government’s intentions in this respect is being kept highly confidential, and I was instructed not to mention the matter to more than two or three of the necessary officers of your Company and to point out the extremely confidential nature of these plans.

Mr. Charles V. Sale, Hudson’s Bay House, London, E. C. 3.