stefansson-wrangel-09-38-004-009

- 9 -

But the expense of maintaining the expedition had
become more than one man, practically unaided, could
manage, and when the time came to send a ship in the
summer of last year, Stefansson found himself unable to
finance the trip. He appealed to the Canadian government
and finally enough money to charter a ship was forth-
coming, but much valuable time had been lost. The Teddy
Bear, under command of Captain Joseph Bernard, sailed
from Nome late in August. Ice conditions were the worst
in years, and the Teddy Bear's propeller became damaged,
necessitating a return to Nome. The ice closed around
Wrangel Island more tightly and further efforts to reach
it had to be abandoned.

Four men facing a third year of isolation on an
Arctic island! Two of the men had become inured through
previous experience to life in the north, and, being pre-
pared, might not have found the slowly passing time so
irksome. The other two, however, were unknown quantities.
Actual experience is the only test. Generally speaking,
one of the hardest things in the world to find is a group
of three or four persons who can he marooned together for
a considerable length of time without getting on each
others’ nerves in such manner as to be decidedly unpleas-
ant , to say the least. For it must be remembered that on
an island like Wrangel, where there is no law but that of
the strongest, much depends upon the qualities which the