Leaving Jenness at Cape Halkett to make some ethnological studies, Stefansson, Wilkins and McConnell went on to the east once more and the middle of December reached Flaxman Island, where they found Leffingwell, who had come up on the Mary Sachs to finish some work he had begun the year before. He was wintering alone, though an Eskimo family was living not far away from him.
Leaving Leffingwell on December 14, they reached the winter quarters of the southern party at Collinson Point, thirty miles to the eastward, on the evening of the same day. Here they spent the winter. Stefansson made a journey later on still farther to the east with a member of the southern party to Herschel Island and Fort Mackenzie, to make plans for the journey which he was to undertake in the spring over the ice to the north of Martin Point in search of new land. In the latter part of February McConnell made a trip to Point Barrow for the mail, returning to Martin Point not long after Stefansson, with a party of seven men, had started north over the ice on March 22. With a companion McConnell overtook them the next day and they travelled on for more than two weeks, until, on April 6 they reached the edge of the continental shelf, discovered by Mikkelson and Leffingwell in the Duchess of Bedford expedition in 1907. At this point Stefansson sent the supporting party back, and went on to the northward with six dogs, a sledge and forty days’ supplies, together with two rifles and 360 rounds of ammunition. He had with him two companions, Storker Storkerson, who had been mate of the Duchess of Bedford and had been living as a hunter and trapper at various places along the shore since the date of the Mikkelson expedition, and Ole Anderson, another experienced man. Stefansson intended to go on for fifteen days’ march before turning back and hoped to do by ice travel what the Karluk had been prevented from doing—to discover new land along the 141st Meridian.[1] Stefansson had not since been heard from, McConnell said, but there should be plenty of bear and seal for his party to subsist on and it was likely that in any event they could make their way to Banks Land.
[1] Stefansson was successful in his quest for new land and, in 1915 and 1916, reported his discoveries.
THE CAMP AT RODGERS HARBOR, WRANGELL ISLAND
“Following their instructions to divide into smaller parties, for general harmony and larger hunting areas, Mamen, Malloch and
Templeman ... went down ... to Rodgers Harbor. Here they
erected a tent.” [See page 319]
At Point Barrow, too, in the Bear we found several shipwrecked crews waiting for a chance to go south. We landed the mails and the various other things we had brought for the station there and then, finding that, as I have related, the schooner that we had found aground had floated, we headed at last for Wrangell Island. I was becoming more and more anxious to get there and hoped that meanwhile the Russian ships or one of the walrus-hunting boats had been there and taken off the men. It was getting late and before many weeks the ice might close in around the island and render it inaccessible to a ship, but it was not altogether this danger alone that worried me but also the feeling that the longer the men were kept on the island the greater would be their suspense and the harder it would be for them to keep up their spirits. Of course, until some one came to rescue them they would not know whether I had ever succeeded in reaching the Siberian coast or not. Every day of this suspense must be telling on them and bringing them face to face with the thought that they might have to spend another winter on the island, an experience which would be likely to kill them all. So altogether these days had been nightmares to me, the more so because naturally under the circumstances I was not in a position to do anything to hasten matters. The Bear had her own work to do, of course, and only a limited season to do it in. My feeling of relief at being at last on the way to the goal of all my thought and effort may be imagined.
We left on August 28, with a fresh north-north-east wind behind us, and straightened her out for Rodgers Harbor. The harder it blew the better I liked it, for our voyage would be so much the quicker. The only thing I was afraid of was that we might get thick fog or snow and be delayed indefinitely.
On the afternoon of the twenty-fourth we met the ice, large loose pieces similar to the ice I had seen off the southern end of the island on my way across with Kataktovick. The weather became hazy and then we had the fog that I was fearing. All the square sails were taken in and we slowly steamed to the northwest. At eight P.M. the engines were stopped and the ship was headed east half south. During the afternoon countless birds were seen, denoting the proximity of land; it seemed as if we must soon be there. During the next day the ship worked slowly towards the island again and at ten A.M. we met a lot more large, loose ice. We were now between fifteen and twenty miles from the island and if the fog had lifted should have been there in a short time and had the men off. We had about ninety tons of coal in the bunkers. All day long on the twenty-fifth it was thick, but we could see a mile or so ahead and were still going along easily, just keeping the ship under steerage-way. Finally, at eight o’clock in the evening, the engines were stopped, the ship was hove hull to and allowed to drift. The next day the wind had hauled to the north-northwest and sent us drifting away from the island, towards the Siberian shore. At 4.12 A. M. on the morning of the twenty-seventh, Captain Cochran decided to go back to Nome for a new supply of coal. My feelings at this moment can be easily imagined. The days that followed were days to try a man’s soul. In fact, until the final rescue of the men, I spent such a wretched time as I had never had in my life.
We did not return directly to Nome but called at Cape Serdze to make an attempt to find out about a missing boat owned by Dr. Hoar, which had broken away from Point Hope the previous fall. Mr. Wall was away. I went ashore with Lieutenant Dempwolf and tried to find out whether the Russian ships had been to Wrangell Island. I learned from Corrigan that a Russian ship had passed west but that he had not seen her coming back; it turned out that she had gone up to Koliuchin with coal and was not one of the ice-breakers. I gave Corrigan some pipes and tobacco.