stefansson-wrangel-09-16-030-001

Melnyk

November 16, 1925.

Dear Mr. Melnyk:

I was delighted to receive this morning your very
valuable letter of November 5th. As you say, it is too bad that I
did not have this information before the book was published.

Your letter rounds out the sad story of Wells and
Wrangel Island. It should be a part of the history of the expedition
and there is a bare chance that it may get into the English edition,
which is not going to be published until February. I infer from the
general tone of your letter that you want me to use the information
in it. This can be done in no way so well as by printing the entire
letter. I am, therefore, making a copy of it and sending it at once
to my publisher in London, urging him to include it if possible.

You say at the end of your letter that I may write
you for more information. I should like it very much, and it would
be of considerable importance, if you would write me at the greatest
possible length about what you learned from either Wells or his Eskimo
companions about Wrangel Island, or anything connected therewith - how
Wells joined up and on what understanding, how the Eskimos joined,
anything about their voyage to Wrangel Island and their dealings with
Mr. Noice. But most particularly I would like to know their impressions
on landing, and anything they learned then either from what they saw or
from what Ada Blackjack told them.

Then the story of the winter is important. You have
said they found plenty of game. Could you enlarge on that at all? Do
you remember what they told you about what kind of game it was, how
they secured it, and whether there was a great deal of game which they
did not secure either because they did not t ry or because they lacked
skill or equipment? Did they tell you about the weather in Wrangel
Island as compare with either northwestern Alaska or North Cape, Siberia,
as to snow, storminess, cold, fogs, length of seasons, etc.? What did
they say about driftwood for fuel and housebuilding? What did Wells
think about the amount of fox and bear skins that could have been
secured by his natives had they hunted energetically (you have already
mentioned that he cimplained about them on this score)?

What do you think of the newspaper statements about