stefansson-wrangel-09-29-072

211

fogs or to human errors. Similarly, discussing the prospects of the trip
towards Nome from Wrangell Island we should probably have put the case about as
follows:

There should have been seven dogs instead of five, but the five
could pull the sledge along in level going. In rough ice the three men would help
it along so rapidly that from all we know of such travel we would have expected
for them a speed of twelve to foruteen ten mile's a day when weather did not prevent traveling. The
ice between Wrangell and the mainland breaks frequently, so we would have expected
numerous detours to get around patches of open water or young ice, lengthening the
total traveling distance between their camp and Cape North from 140 to nearly 200 miles. from ninety to perhaps a hundred and fifty miles. At
ten thirteen miles a day this would make fifteen twenty fifteen traveling days. Actual delays in camp
to wait for the freezing of water are rare in January because of the intense frost
that bridges a lead in fifteen to thirty hours, although common enough in the
milder months of April and November.

In normal weather the competent judge would have foreseen only one
danger to life, that of walking on thin ice and resulting death by drowning. In
ten years of ice travel, I have had a dozen narrow escapes from such drowning and
most of my companions have had several. This included Knight who to my knowledge
had had several narrow escapes. I am not sure that Maurer had ever actually been
in danger from thin ice but I know that he understood the conditions and the theory.
But with/a party who are in a great hurry the danger is correspondingly increased.
They might travel in their haste late into the gathering twilight some afternoon.
Perhaps there was a light snowfall the day before, which spread a white covering
over treacherous ice that Would otherwise have given warning through its color,
gray or black. We have quoted above Knight's entry for January 12th where he describes himself and
Crawford making a road through several hundred yards of rough ice to reach what
they thought a broad solid expanse but found to be treacherous young ice covered
with a recent snowfall, thus compelling them to return. The traveling party may