stefansson-wrangel-09-18-007-001

Galle
Stefansson Arctiv Ex

October 2, 1922.

Dear Mr. Galle:

I answered briefly by wire your telegram of
September 26th.

As you have since seen by the press despatches, we
know definitely now that the Teddy Bear was unable to reach Wrangel
Island. This means merely that the men on the island are cut off
from communication for a year. They are just as safe on their
island as Robinson Crusoe was on his - a little more so because
there are no cannibals in that vicinity. They are just as likely
as you or I in Texas or New York to be safe and well a year from
now.

This season is said to be the worst ice year in
twenty-five. It is unlikely that the conditions will again be
specially bad next year. Furthermore, we shall commence trying
to reach the island about a month sooner than we did this year.

Barring such accidents as may happen in any climate
and in any country, the men are safe. It is not unlikely that
your son and Crawford, both of whom are inexperienced and young,
will be more or less homesick. This may lead them to make a jour-
ney over the ice to Siberia after midwinter and then across north-
eastern Siberia to Emma Harbor. This would be a journey of all
together about eight hundred miles, but not difficult because there
are American and Russian traders and nomadic reindeer herders
here and there scattered through that country. It would be a long
and expensive journey, however, and I hope they will not make it
for that reason especially, for it would not enable them to reach
home more than a month or so earlier than they would in any case.

Mr. Harry Galle,
New Braunfels, Texas.