stefansson-wrangel-09-06-130-001

Hudson's Bay

August 29th, 1921.

Confidential

Dear Mr. Fitzgerald:

OCCUPATION OF WRANGEL ISLAND AND THE
INCORPORATION OF THE STEFANSSON EXPLOR
ATION AND DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, LTD.

Without taking the trouble of referring specifically to documents
and dates, I shall summarize briefly my correspondance with the Canadian
Government, the Hudson's Bay Company in London, and with you on the subject
of the occupation of Wrangel Island.

Through informed conversations with Sir Robert Borden, Senator
Fowler, and other officers of the Government at Ottawa, I presented my ideas
regarding the importance of British occupation of Wrangel Island, and found
that they were in general in sympathy with my views. On one occasion the
Prime Minister (Mr. Meighen) gave me a written statement on the subject.

In my conversations with you and in my letters both to the
London and the Winnipeg offices I urged the occupation of Wrangel Island
for the two reasons that it would be economically important for the company
and politically important for the Empire.

So far as the Hudson's Bay Company was concerned, the result
was that I received information that the island would be occupied in due
course by station of the Company but that this could not be done the
summer of 1921. I later received a telegram from you, saying that it had
finally been decided that an attempt would be made to occupy the island
this year. Before the last-mentioned telegram from you had been received,
I had taken the action which I shall now outline.

Believing it to be fundamentally important that the island
should be occupied this year and thinking the expense would not be beyond
my private means, I decided to incorporate under British laws a company
for the purpose of occupying Wrangel Island commercially, commercial occu-
pation naturally carrying a political implication, which was my main concern.
I had thought of arranging with you by telegram to get this done by the
Company's attorneys in Winnipeg, but at the very moment of making this
decision I met by accident in Reno, Nevada, an old frield of mine, Mr.
A. J. T. Taylor, of the Taylor Engineering Company of Vancouver. He was
a man I could entirely trust and I accordingly took him into my confidence