That night I made a bargain with another native to get us to Mr. Olsen’s place, giving him as pay a snow-knife, a small pickaxe and two steel drills. We left at early dawn the next morning, travelling with all our goods and chattels on the sledge. Our dogs were harnessed with his, though they were so tired that they could barely keep up.
About noon we reached Mr. Olsen’s place. Mr. Olsen, I found, was a naturalized American citizen, thirty-eight years old, a trader known all up and down the coast. He was the agent of Mr. Olaf Swenson of Seattle, who was later to play so important a part in the rescue of our men.
The summer before he had learned of our expedition from Mr. Swenson and others who had been up to Koliuchin Bay with supplies. It was a great surprise to him to see me here now. His hospitality was unbounded; everything he had was at our disposal. He made some tea for us at once, and offered us bread, also made by himself, which was as good as any I have ever eaten. I am ashamed to think of the amount of this bread that I ate; no Christmas cake or plum pudding ever tasted better. After our meal I enjoyed a smoke of his good tobacco and then we turned in. Mr. Olsen made me take his own bunk and I had a refreshing sleep.
The man who had accompanied us here now went back, so the next morning, after a good deal of trouble, Mr. Olsen got another man with a sledge and a dog team. With the exception of Colt, our dogs were still very tired. Most of the dogs belonging to the people at Koliuchin Bay were away in various directions hunting. Mr. Olsen used his influence, however, and we were able to get away in good season, with a good sledge and a full dogteam. The driver and ourselves all took turns; two of us would walk while the other rode.
During the day we passed Pitlekaj, the point where the Vega, Nordenskiöld’s ship, on the voyage on which she made the Northeast Passage, became frozen in the ice, on September 28, 1878, when only a few days’ run from Bering Strait and scarcely six miles from open water, and did not again get free until July 18, 1879. The Vega, fortunately, encountered no such terrific gale as that which drove the Karluk westward in September, 1913, but her mishap in being frozen in the ice was quite as unexpected and her situation quite as uncontrollable.
Several times during the day’s march we stopped at an aranga for tea. At six o’clock we reached an aranga near Idlidlija Island. We were now half way from Koliuchin Bay to Cape Serdze. For his services I paid the old man who had accompanied us here a small spade, two packages of tobacco and an order on Mr. Olsen for fifteen dollars’ worth of supplies. I had now given away nearly all the things we had had with us when we started from Wrangell Island.
After another restful night and a good meal of salmon, we left early the next morning, April 22, for Cape Serdze. By a little bargaining I had obtained the services of a native with his sledge and dogs and as I found another native about to start on his way eastward at the same time I got him to take Kataktovick along with him. This arrangement gave us two men to each sledge, which would result in better progress.
It was a wonderful day. The temperature was only a little below the freezing-point and the sun’s rays were distinctly warm. The sunlight, in fact, coupled with the glare of the snow, was hard on my eyes. At Koliuchin Island I had had an Eskimo woman make me a cap out of Burberry cloth that we had with us, with a three-inch vizor of sealskin, supported by copper wire around the rim. I wore my hood over this cap and could adjust the vizor at any angle; this afforded some relief to my eyes.
At three o’clock in the afternoon we arrived at Cape Serdze. Here we were met by Mr. Wall, a Norwegian, of about forty, who was an electrical engineer, by profession, had lived in the United States and knew people in Boston and New York whom I knew. He lived in a very comfortable aranga but there was sickness in the house so, with apologies for his inability to entertain us, he sent us to an aranga owned by a native who went by the name of Corrigan, the best-known hunter in Siberia. Corrigan showed me some of the results of his season’s hunting, which included fifteen or twenty fine polar-bear skins and a large number of skins of the white fox. He was by far the most prosperous native I had met. Mr. Wall sent me over some bread and tea and milk, with some excellent griddle-cakes.
With Mr. Wall’s assistance I was able to obtain the services of Corrigan to take us to East Cape, a distance of about ninety miles. I left here everything that would be of no further use to us, for I knew now that during the remainder of our journey we should be able to get anything we needed. With the exception of the day when we got to Koliuchin Island we had had fine weather all the way from Cape North; now it was even better because every day the sun was getting higher and its heat more perceptible.