stefansson-wrangel-09-16-029-001

Melnyk
(See "Wrangel Is." for
original)

Hazelton, B.C.,
November 5th, 1925.

Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Esq.,
New York, N.Y.

Dear Sir:

I have just finished reading your book, THE ADVENTURE
OF WRANGEL ISLAND, and must express my appreciation of your writing. I
am, really, fond of all your books and miss no opportunity to read your
articles in different magazine, because I also like the North.

But the chief reason that I am writing this letter to
you is to give you some information of the late Charles Wells, whom I
have met in the North just three months before his death in Vladivostok,
and actually spent these three months in close association with him.

I only regret that I did not write to you before you
have published your book, as this information would certainly give you
more light on C. Wells' certain happenings after he and his party of
Eskimos had left Wrangel Island, as the newspaper extracts which you
reproduce in your book were intended more to create sensation that to
give facts.

Nevertheless, it is better "late than never," so this
little bit of information might still be of interest to you.

It was quite a surprise to me to find on page 311 of
your book an extract from a newspaper, which says that I, as a member
of the Russian Expedition to Wrangel Island, have brought to Vancouver
"graphic details" of said expedition, etc. It is rather a shame that
American-Canadian papers will never print the story as it is told to
them but will change it and make a sensation out of it.

I was in charge of the Hudson's Bay Company's Post
at Cape North, on the Siberian coast at the time of the arrival of the
Red October there from Wrangel Island, and, as we were liquidating the
whole business with the intention to pull out of the country, I certainly
was glad to see some ship by which I might get out of there. In fact,
I was waiting for the Russian ship, Stavropol, which on her return trip
from Kolyma, was to call at Cape North and take me out. But, as the
season was getting late and ice conditions very bad, I lost all hope of
getting out that year (1924).

Then all of a sudden (Aug. 29) amongst the ice the
ship appeared on the horizon and finally came to Cape North. At first