stefansson-wrangel-09-11-022-001

March 14, 1923.

Dear Mr. Cory:

At last I have been able to send to Mr. Finnie an
account by Captain Bernard of the Wrangel Island expedition of last
summer.

You will have seen by the papers that Admiral Moffett,
of the United States Navy, has announced the intention of the American
Government to send a dirigible around the earth from north to south.
I feel sure you will see the bearing of this announcment upon my origi-
nal idea of holding Wrangel Island under our flag as a potential fly-
ing base that we will need sometime during the next twenty or thirty
years.

I was, of course, grateful to the Government for the
three thousand dollars advanced and I am also very grateful for your
personal efforts in that direction. In addition to these three thou-
sand dollars, I have been able to borrow about seven thousand from
personal friends who have loaned me the money without bankable secur-
ity. In addition I have paid into the Wrangel Island enterprise all
the money I have been able to earn from lecturing and writing during
the last two years.

I hope that by now I have carried on the enterprise long
enough so that the Government will see the wisdom of holding Wrangel
Island and the justice of taking the enterprise over from my hands,
returning to me and to my friends who have loaned the money, the actual
sums we have had to put in.

I expect to come to Ottawa towards the end of this month
and hope then to have a chance to see you, the Minister, and Mr. Finnie.

Mr. W. W. Cory, Commissioner,
Northwest Territories Branch,
Ottawa, Ontario.