harold-noice-01-03-05-001

From "THE BULLETIN," Sydney, N. S. W., Australia, April 16,
1935, page 3

OUR FRIEND STEFANSSON

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 ir-
regular 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 Aus-
tralian 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 im-
pressions 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. Stefans-
son 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 pro-
visions 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,