Letter from Vilhjalmur Stefansson to Alfred J. T. Taylor, 16 May 1922

This is in reply to your letter of May 10th.

Through my experience two years ago with the slowness of the
Ottawa authorities in making out a lease, I am a little worried about
the speed of the present negotiations. However, I have the best
assurance as you will see by the attached copies of two letters from
Mr. Finnie. As Mr. Finnie took this up at the instance of Mr.
Stewart and with the understanding that hurry was necessary I think
that we may have luck. The new broom may be sweeping clean and
Mr. King's machinery may be working more smoothly than Mr. Meighen's.
Let us hope so!

I suppose you may have seen something in the newspapers on
the 13th or 14th about the discussion in Parliament where Mr. Meighen's
questions brought out the answer from the Government that the Canadian
flag is now flying in Wrangle Island and they mean to keep it there.
I think the most interesting part of the discussion was the remarks
by Mr. Meighen and Mr. Guthrie which show that the former members of
the conservative cabinet are at one with the Government on this issue
at least.

My idea of the amount of money necessary is that we must
find almost as much this year as we used last. Of course we can
expect some return from the fur catch of Wrangel Island. I shall be
well satisfied if Crawford's party gives us $10,000 worth of fur.
This will mean that all the money that is now in the enterprise will
have to stay in it, and for the present year, we shall have to find
a little more than we will get from the furs. The trouble is that
we shall have to spend our money before anything comes from the
fur. We shall then need $10,000 at least this year, and probably
more.

Since you are coming East, I shall not go into any of the
details of how we can operate more cheaply in the future. That this
can be done there is of course no doubt.

I think it might prove the best business to sublet the trap
ping rights of the island to some subject company such as the Hudson's
Bay Company, or H. Lieves and Company of San Francisco - or possibly

Mr. A. J. T. Taylor...............2

Hibbard Stewart Company of Seattle.

The following is my schedule of movements: I expect to
leave New York at the latest June 4th to be in Iowa City, Iowa, to
receive an honorary degree on June 6th. This about the degree is
confidential until it comes off (Note by the way what a beautiful
reply this is to all the Anderson criticisms from Ottawa. Anderson
and I were graduated from the University in the class of 1903. He
was a great hero to them and I was a nonentity. Last winter he
went to Iowa and gave out there a full page interview filled with
violent denunciations. This is the answer he gets from the Univer
sity).

It will be highly desirable if you could get to New York on
or before the first of June. In case, however, you have no business
in New York, I could arrange to leave here earlier and meet you in
Cleveland or Chicago. I prefer a meeting in Cleveland or Chicago
rather than in Detroit or any other city because Cleveland and Chicago
are on my direct route to Iowa.

In case you should find it impossible to come East early
enough to get to New York in time, or to meet me in Chicago before
June 6th, then perhaps you had better delay a little so that we can
meet in Chicago on June 8th or 10th.

I think you will get this letter in ample time, but in case
there is hurry, send a night letter saying where we shall meet.

There is no information about Wrangel available that is any
good. The best is from my own men who spent six months there. I
can give it to you in a nutshell.

Ice conditions around Wrangel Island are usually bad in the
early summer and usually good in the late summer and early fall. There
are probably few seasons (not more than one in twenty) when a ship can
not get to Wrangel Island in August or September. The country is a
rolling, arctic prairie with low mountains in the interior. There
are either no glaciers, or else some tiny ones scarcely more than snow
banks in the mountains. The amount of vegetation is probably rather
less per square mile on the average in the North. From the rein
deer point of view, the average of the arctic lands is estimated to be
one reindeer per 25 acres. If we estimate that Wrangel Island will
support one reindeer for each 50 acres, we shall be very conservative.
The island is probably over eighty miles long and over thirty miles
wide, making an area of about 2,500 square miles - giving grazing for
at least 30,000 reindeer.

The Hudson's Bay Company is stocking Baffin Land with rein
deer from Norway at a cost of nearly $200 per head. The cost is
so great because of the high price of Norway and because of the dis
tance of Norway from Baffin Island. At present I think we could
buy reindeer in Siberia, opposite Wrangle Island, for less than $5
a head and we could carry them to Wrangel Island for about the same.
We could then bring breeding stock to Wrangel Island for about $10
a head, which is about one-twentieth of what it costs in Baffin Is
land. The difficulty of marketing reindeer from Wrangel Island is
greater than from Baffin Island, and the Seattle and Vancouver market
would not be as good as the London market is for our Baffin Land
product. After considering the case of stocking Wrangel Island,
there should be an even larger return for the money in Wrangel.

One find thing about Wrangel is that there are no wolves.
The only land animal there which stays the year round is the lemming,
or bobbed tail mouse. Possibly there may be some weasels. The
other land animals are the polar bear and white fox, both of which
are really sea animals, the polar bears visiting shore only occasional
ly and the foxes staying ashore steadily through the summer and visiting
the ice in winter.

Wrangel Island is probably the best trapping vantage in the
world for white foxes. It is also a great place for polar bears.
There are no fur seals, but it is a good location for securing the
hair seal and is a fine place for walrusing. Ten or fifteen years
from now when air navigation becomes common, it will be valuable as
an air base on trans-polar routes between Europe, Asia and America.

Wrangel Island is also a good whaling base. The Japanese
are already eating both whale and walrus, and, to a less extent, seal
meat. All these tastes can be cultivated both there and in European
countries. If we get the sole privilege for maintaining shore sta
tions on Wrangel Island for walrusing, sealing, etc., we shall have
in that a very valuable privilege.

Altogether, the anticipated lease of Wrangel Island should
be very valuable.

I suggest that without mentioning the possibility of a lease
and without saying that we shall have exclusive control of the island
you talk to your friends on the basis of the fact that we do have an
enterprise in the island already and that it will be a Canadian island.
See if we can not get some of them interested on that basis.