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not infrequently and snow occasionally. There is no complete weather record, but on August 11th Knight mentions, for instance, “When I arose the ground was covered with about two inches of snow, which soon melted.” He evidently found it a very strange summer, having experienced among the eastern islands so much more sunshine and warmth at the corresponding season even several hundred miles farther north.

The hunting at this stage was generally successful, although the amount of game was not large. But spells of bad luck are inevitable in hunting, and on August 20th “a large bear was spotted about a mile to the west on the beach coming this way. Crawford, Maurer and Galle set out intending to hide near the other side of the river and wait for him to come up. But the bear started up the west side of the river and Crawford and Galle took after him. The bear saw them and the last we saw of him was a white streak going north.”

It was now that the lack of the Eskimo skin boat (umiak) began to be felt. August 29th was “a beautiful day, but cold... A great many walrus heard offshore, but too far away to be seen and too far to go after because of the ice.” This ice, which was insuperable to men with a dory, would have been almost an advantage to the same party equipped with a light, stronger, more portable but equally seaworthy umiak. During the next two or three days the walrus were continually heard snorting, but were usually either beyond the horizon or hidden by the ice.

On September 2nd “about 6 P. M. two walrus were seen on a small cake of ice about a mile southeast of camp. All hands with the dory went after them and we landed on a large cake about 150 yards northwest of

230 THE ADVENTURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND

them. I stayed with the dory while the others sneaked up. All three fired nearly together, killing two.

Galle was then sent home for an axe, lantern, etc., as dark was coming on. . . . Had just finished the large walrus when Galle returned to a cake as near as he could get to us, perhaps two hundred yards.”

Then follows a long description of the difficulties they had with the heavy boat and the slowly shifting ice cakes which occasionally met so that one could step across and then separated, leaving water channels between. Again they were greatly handicapped by the clumsy dory, which was so heavy that they could not lift it out to drag over the ice. Long after dark they got to camp with, apparently, two or three hundred pounds of meat. The next day the ice was still in approximately the same place. After a great deal of hard labor they were able to get most of the meat ashore. That day they used the sledge, hauled by man power, for moving the meat from one to another of the small, milling ice floes. At one time the sledge, with about three hundred pounds of meat, was upset and all but fifty pounds of the load spilled into the water. Knight is not very clear as to the total amount secured, but he mentions that he estimated one of the loads at six hundred pounds, “although Crawford does not think it was so much.” It seems they may have saved anything from half a ton to a ton of meat and fat.

Scattered through the next several entries there are references to the snorting walrus that could not be seen. There is no complaint about these being unreachable because of the weight of the dory; but, to one familiar with the conditions, that situation is obvious.

During my difficulties in financing the relief operations the summer of 1922 I worried that the sea might be open

CONVERTING A SLED INTO A BOAT BY WRAPPING IT IN A TARPAULIN.

CROSSING LEAD IN SLED RAFT MADE BY STRETCHING WATERPROOD CANVAS ABOUT SLED, LASHING IT TO SIDES.

"TRACKING" UMIAK WITH DOGS ALONG SEA BEACH IN CALM WEATHER.

HAULING AN UMIAK ON A SLED.

THE FIRST WINTER AND SECOND SUMMER 231

near Wrangel Island and that the boys might be sitting on the highest hilltops watching day after day for a ship that never came. I thought that under such conditions they might feel heartbroken through a neglect which they could not understand. Up to the time when the ship sailed from Alaska I was, therefore, hoping that a blockade of ice would, in their minds, shift the blame from us who were careless or had failed. That seems to have been actually the case. During the summer proper there is no mention in Knight’s diary of the expectation of a ship or of worry because it did not come. Far beyond their horizon and unknown to them the Teddy Bear had been trying for three weeks to reach the island when Knight wrote (September 18): “All hands have about given up hopes for a ship this year and we intend to move west a short way soon. The wood for two miles or more on each side of us is exhausted and it is easier to move camp to the wood than to haul wood all next winter a long distance to camp.” ⁵

September 20th they began making active preparations for the second winter. “Crawford and I went to the west to the first harbor mouth two and a half miles distant to pick a camp site. Wood is plentiful, and a great deal of it can be hauled with the dory before the freeze-up.”

⁵ If the reader is following this as a student rather than because of the story, he would do well to examine at this point Captain Bernard’s report of the voyage of the Teddy Bear which is printed in the appendix, post.