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band or brother has been borne by the relatives. But I can at least thank especially the families of the two veterans, Lorne Knight and Frederick Maurer, for their tireless efforts to lessen the grief of the parents of the younger men, Allan Crawford and Milton Galle, by sharing with them the better understanding of arctic life and conditions which they had secured from their explorer sons when they had been at home in the intervals between their expeditions. For Knight had been north with me four years between 1915 and 1919 and Maurer had been in the Arctic twice, the second time with me when he was shipwrecked on Wrangel Island itself in 1914.

With a heart too full for words in any case, I have attempted in this book no eulogy of the dead. Their actions and worthy motives are their best monument. What their thoughts and deeds were is shown by the fragments of records we have received from Crawford, Galle and Maurer and especially by the one preserved diary, that of Lorne Knight, upon which this book is mainly based. Through his laconic narrative, so frank that he evidently never even asked himself whether he was being frank, there stand out clear the personalities of four gallant gentlemen who remained staunch comrades through two difficult years of isolation. A record that is complete and matter-of-fact to the bitter end shows that not once did even one of them shirk a task or a responsibility. That this is no mere rhetoric the scholars of the world will eventually have a chance to see for themselves, for we shall present photostat copies of Lorne Knight’s diary to one or more leading libraries in Canada, the United States and England, and copies also of all the other records. The general frankness of the diary is such that the reader is unable to doubt that if

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there had been troubles or recriminations they would have been set down. That there were none to record is nearly, if not quite, unique in polar exploration. Many expeditions have concealed their bickerings; few have had none to conceal.

I always had great confidence that the Wrangel Island Expedition could trust the verdict of anyone who knew every action and motive. With that constantly before me I have tried in writing this book not only to be frank, but also to give the reader a chance to look deeper if he wants to and convince himself that we really have been frank. Within the limits set by my capacity and by the hurry and worry of composing a book before a certain date while at the same time fighting for the possession of some of the documents on which the story had to be based (as explained farther on in this book)—within these limits I had already done my best to tell the reader the whole truth, when I got, strangely late, an idea that should have been in my mind at the very first.

One man now living knows more than any other about the planning of the Wrangel Island Expedition and the relation to it of its four members—John I. Knight, the father of Lorne Knight. Not only had he heard his son talk for year after year about the varied experiences of his first four seasons in the Arctic and about his hopes and plans of further arctic work, but he knew also Fred Maurer and Milton Galle, who had visited his home at McMinnville, Oregon, as guests of his son. Although Maurer had been there for fewer days than Galle had been weeks, I knew that both Mr. and Mrs. Knight had formed a personal affection for them both. They knew Allan Crawford only through a day’s visit and through their son’s enthusiastic report, but even so the relation

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was personal. Mr. Knight knew what both his son and Fred Maurer thought of the arctic expedition of 19131918 of which they had been members, and what they thought of me who had been their commander then and was planning with them now a new expedition. Here was a man whose point of view the reader would value more than that of any other. And yet I had been planning until the last moment to get some famous authority on geography or world politics to read my manuscript and write an introduction for this book!

When it occurred to me to ask Mr. Knight to write the introduction, I was just taking ship for Australia. There was barely time for a letter to him and no time to receive his answer. I asked him merely to let me know his decision in Australia, saying I would not have wanted to review the introduction before publication even had I been in America, but that I was now in any case unable to do so, for the book must go to the printer in less time than it takes to send a manuscript to Australia and get an annotated copy back. I shall not know, therefore, until after publication what comment Mr. Knight may choose to make on this book and on the expedition. But I have asked him to do what he can do so much better than I—to speak of his knowledge of his son’s relations with his comrades both before the expedition and on it, and especially to quote what Lorne wrote about them in his letters home from Wrangel Island.

At the close I must speak once more of my gratitude to friends who have helped with money. I am trying to get for the appendix of this book from Mr. Griffith Brewer a full list of those who contributed to the sending of the Donaldson to Wrangel Island in 1923. By looking in the appendix the reader may see if it has been possible

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to make up this list. A. J. T. Taylor and John Anderson of the Combustion Engineering Corporation, Toronto, Canada, have had the thankless task of handling nearly all the outfitting and other commercial affairs of the Expedition. Their motives, aside from personal friendship, have been only those of a firm belief in the wisdom and importance of what we were trying to do; their only possible reward the same as that of the rest of us—the consciousness of having done their utmost for a cause they believe in. Lomen Brothers, of Nome, Alaska, (especially Ralph Lomen) have handled all our Alaskan affairs without pay—the outfitting of the Silver Wave in 1921, the Teddy Bear in 1922, and the Donaldson in 1923. The late Sir Edmund Walker, president of the Canadian Bank of Commerce, who helped to finance my first expedition to the Arctic in 1906, gave the largest Canadian contribution to the Wrangel Island Expedition and supported us in every way. For England I must mention that Colonel L. S. Amery,¹ not only contributed himself but secured for us contributions from others to the amount of more than £600. Several friends in the United States made me unsecured personal loans. It was Orville Wright of Dayton, Ohio, who loaned me the money which enabled us to outfit the Teddy Bear in 1922 a week before we got the grant from the Canadian Government. As stated elsewhere, Griffith Brewer of 33 Chancery Lane, London, loaned me (against anticipated public subscriptions) the money which outfitted the Donaldson in 1923, a loan which turned out to be considerably in excess of the receipts through subscriptions, so that we are still heavily in his debt.

So fan as loans are concerned, I have already begun to

¹ Now Minister for the Colonies.

PREFACE xvii pay off these debts and hope to manage the rest in two or three years. For I want to be eventually the only financial loser. But my gratitude to those who helped will remain undiminished when the money has been repaid.

Yilhjalmur Stefansson.

Sydney, Australia.

May 28, 1924.

Postscript

Many things have changed since I wrote the above preface in Australia. To begin with, we have received a retraction (from the author of certain misleading newspaper stories about the Wrangel Island Expedition) in exchange for which we agreed to re-edit the book. This has delayed publication another six months.

The book did not go to press as I had anticipated (without my seeing Mr. Knight’s introduction) while I was still absent in Australia. When I returned to the United States and saw the introduction, I got his permission to move certain parts of it into the body of the narrative. He has also since then read my manuscript over carefully and made valuable suggestions for changes. As time wore on his collaboration became so important that he is now in reality a co-author of this book—a very proper relation, since he understood our general arctic plans even before the party went north (though he did not know about their application to ]]Wrangel Island]]). A still more important reason for his appearing as co-author is that the book depends mainly on his son’s diary and other papers—for the records of ]]Crawford]] and ]]Maurer]] were lost, as were most of ]]Galle]]’s records.