stefansson-wrangel-09-15-059-001

Copy:MMH

INTERVIEW
with
Captain Joseph Bernard.

(In New York, about January 15
or 20, 1923.)

Q. - About when did you leave Nome?

a. - We left Nome around the 18th of August, 1922. Besides my crew there
were three white men, one native and his wife, and photographers.
(These had been engaged as members of the Wrangell Island colony to
spend there the year 1922-23.) The first day was good weather, and the
second day we ran into a heavy northwest wind. My intention was to
take the northern passage which I thought at that time of year would be
the quickest way of getting to Wrangel. The northern passage is to
follow the Alaska coast beyond Cape Prince of Wales up to Point Hope
and then shoot straight across for the Siberian coast. We ran into a
very heavy northwest wind around Cape York and it would have been use-
less to attempt venturing Bering Strait. So we laid there.

While there, the mail boat Sea Wolf came in from the north and
reported that Amundsen's vellel and other vessels that had gone up had
been caught in the ice at Point Hope. I got the idea that they were
still caught in the ice at that late date. That was about the 20th of
August. With the wind that was blowing, it made me change my plan
about going north. Instead, I went across to East Cape Siberia. We
could get across there although we could not have gone north.

There were about five miles of ice off East Cape, and we went
to the station for any news of conditions. The ice was pressing up
but on the south side there was good weather. The next day a vessel
came down the north Siberian coast. They had made an attempt to get to
Tschaun Bay but only got a little west as far as Cape Wankarem. They
found an opening in the ice leading north and went into it about twenty
miles. Their first intention was to go to Tschaun Bay and when they
saw this opening they thought they would try to get to Wrangel. But
they only got about twenty miles.

The ship’s name was the EIskum (?). I had a talk with them and
they told me that ice conditions would make it impossible to go north.
At any rate they advised me to follow the coast. There was a heavy
body of old ice right offshore which undoubtedly extended some distance
north from East Cape. I thought it would be dangerous to go into the
ice and get caught because the northern ice keeps moving north while
the inshore ice until very late in the year keeps moving south and
drifts you back south, if you do get caught.

I therefore took the inside route. We pushed along for ten,
fifteen or twenty miles at a run. The ice would close and we would have
to wait there until the next tide, when we could make another run. Stay-
ing in the inside waters we got as far as Wankarem. The farther we
went the harder it was to go. At Wankarem we met a little trading
schooner that had left Nome very early, more than month ahead of us,
and she had gone only twenty miles farther than we and had had to
give it up. Where they turned back was where the Eskum turned back
and where the Silver Wave and other vessels had been caught. One of
these vessels they thought would be unable to get out. The Silver Wave
was frozen in inside of the inshore ice.