The scientific staff gathered for the expedition was large and well-equipped. Besides Stefansson, anthropologist, and Dr. Anderson, zoologist, it included twelve men who were all specialists. The Canadian Geological Survey detailed four men to our party: George Malloch, an expert on coal deposits and stratiography, who had been a graduate student at Yale; J. J. O’Neill, a mining geologist, whose specialty was copper; and Kenneth Chipman and J. R. Cox, skillful topographers. For studying ocean currents and tides and the treasures that might be brought up from the bottom of the sea we had James Murray of Glasgow, oceanographer, who had worked for many years with the late Sir John Murray, one of the world’s greatest authorities on the ocean. Murray had been with Sir Ernest Shackleton on his Antartic expedition and afterwards had been biologist of the boundary survey of Colombia, South America. To study the fish of the Arctic Ocean we had Fritz Johansen, who had been marine zoologist with Mylius Erichsen in East Greenland and had done scientific work for the Department of Agriculture at Washington. As forester we had Bjärne Mamen, from Christiania, Norway, who had been on a trip to Spitsbergen and had done work in the timber-lands of British Columbia. As the study of the Eskimo was one of the most interesting objects of the expeditions we quite naturally had two anthropologists besides Stefansson, one, Dr. Henri Beuchat of Paris, the other, Dr. D. Jenness, an Oxford Rhodes Scholar, from New Zealand. The magnetician was William Laird McKinlay, a graduate of the University of Glasgow, who had been studying in the Canadian Meteorological Observatory in Toronto. The photographer was George H. Wilkins, a New Zealander, who had been a photographer in the Balkan War and possessed mechanical ability. He had a motion-picture apparatus as well as other cameras. In medical charge of the expedition was Dr. Alister Forbes Mackay, who had served in the British navy after his graduation from the University of Edinburgh, and, like Murray, had accompanied Shackleton into the Antarctic. Five of these twelve men, as shall be related, were to lay down their lives in the cause of science during the coming year.
The crew consisted of the following: R. A. Bartlett, master; Alexander Anderson, first officer; Charles Barker, second officer; John Munro, chief engineer; Robert J. Williamson, second engineer; Robert Templeman, steward; Ernest F. Chafe, messroom boy; John Brady, S. Stanley Morris, A. King and H. Williams, able seamen; and F. W. Maurer and G. Breddy, firemen. Six of these men—good men and true—were starting on their last voyage. One other member of the crew was added in Alaska,—John Hadley, who signed on as carpenter.
Photograph copyrighted, 1914, by Lomen Bros., Alaska
VILHJALMAR STEFANSSON
By June 16 we had the Karluk outfitted and were ready to leave our berth at the Esquimault Navy Yard. Official photographs were taken and a luncheon was given in Victoria at which Sir Richard McBride, the Premier of British Columbia, on behalf of the people of the province, presented Stefansson with a silver plate, suitably engraved. Stefansson replied and Dr. Anderson and I were also called upon. Later the mayor and aldermen of Victoria visited the Karluk and presented us with a set of flags to use when new lands were found.
CHAPTER II
THE VOYAGE BEGINS
On June 17, cheered on our way by the good wishes of the people among whom we had spent a pleasant month, we left Esquimault for Nome. The trip north was a memorable one for me, for I had never been up the Alaskan coast before and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. We reached Nome July 7 and remained there until the thirteenth, taking on supplies that had come up on the mail-boat Victoria from Seattle and transferring supplies from the Karluk to the dock for the two other ships of our little fleet.
