stefansson-wrangel-09-27-053

Insert-p. 91

One of Captain Hamar’s assistants on the Silver Wave was
August Soderholm, now master of the schooner Nokatak plying in Alaskan
waters for the Lomen Reindeer and Trading Corporation. He had been
so much taken with Wrangell Island that he tried hard on his return
to Nome to organize a party to charter a ship and go there to estab-
lish a chain of fur trappers around the island. Patriotism may
have played a part (to make the occupation of the island jointly
American and British) but adventure and commercial motives were
doubtless uppermost. He was unable to muster a party, because the
season was so late (the last week of September) that the consensus
of sailor opinion at Nome was against the voyage as unsafe because
of the nearness of winter. This in spite of Soderholm's strong
urging that they had just returned from Wrangell without seeing
snow except on the distant interior mountains, and without seeing
a cake of ice at sea.