stefansson-wrangel-09-31-073r

THE OUTFITTING AND VOYAGE TO WRANGEL 109

the Alaskans expected to see going aboard the Silver Wave. When they
saw that the outfit was wholly different and the quantity
very small, there was began at once a beginning of a criticism
as to supplies and method which kept growing constantly
after the ship sailed.

Alaska is only just beginning to develop soberly out
of her original state as a gold country where one man in
a hundred made his fortune by some spectacular accident
and the other ninety-nine spent year after year in dream-
ing that their turn was about to come. One who does not
know the typical gold miner might think that gold and
its probable discovery would be the one subject for reli-
able judgment; but the reverse is the case. The pros-
pector who is hard-headed and practical on every other
subject will swallow the fishiest yarn where gold is con-
cerned. There is only one way in which you can make
it difficult for yourself to spread a rumor about the dis-
covery of gold, and that is by talking loudly and freely.
Assume secrecy, or even the slightest reticence as to
where you have been or where you are about to go, and
rumors of gold “strikes” will grow day by day and spread
until some night half a dozen parties set out, each trying
to do so without the knowledge of the others and each
following some clue to which no rational person would
pay any attention.

The Wrangel Island party had been markedly reticent
on the passenger steamer from Seattle, and in conse-
quence the rumor of some sort of gold discovery had
already germinated among their fellow passengers before
they got to Nome. The outfit they were buying seemed
curious and, from the Alaska point of view, certainly
inadequate for a party going to any uninhabited region.
This gave the theorisers two “facts” to work on: Gold had