OCR Text |
Show r WO arctic relief expeditions i ;;::;;;::;:;isS I will leave the United States I llllllilllS this summer, bent on bring- j y jMi&Ss ing back explorers marooned WMSMMMmK'Mi 1 1. V::;tSKi:K:i v in the frozen polar regions. mKM!fMir h bW:':sy pi One is quite confident of . -.. . . R Jr'- iPV?; f success and not a desperate t4' jf V business, as such work goes. hi-M'V'ft . !S 1-' 4 It will seek to reach the party of Don-. jBSp fkS: aid B. MacMillan, now believed to be ffe mWmW4?M at Etah, North Greenland, and report- feS-Sgt ed safe in August of last year. The second, a forlorn hope, will at- IllJf W'?1, tempt by aeroplane search of the ter- . k'V- - xvv f. V&'V' rible northern seas to locate stout- Taaf8 KMf" f 1 " v hearted Vilhjalmar Stefansson, who J-b ' VZiT'' f?t-K - a year ago with two companions . K&J -S;V marched straight north into the un- "WWW Tr? known from the Canadian coast near .'lf,v the mouth of the Mackenzie river. lltPft MacMillan and Stefansson engaged , " r. V in what has aptly been described as 1' ; '--ZTt3Z: -i5 ' 2J a race for an unknown continent. 1; i XS-J lhere is a great stretch of territory ' - lying north of Alaska and Canada and 7ZrAJY33atf AM) m3 CQHm?riCHrJ J,JAYm6 ZH$ JfiZZ? J&V&Z. bounded on the north by the North TO JZt? AffAOY r WO arctic relief expeditions will leave the United States this summer, bent on bringing bring-ing back explorers marooned v in the frozen polar regions. P One is quite confident of y't3" success and not a desperate business, as such work goes. It will seek to reach the party of Don-, aid B. MacMillan, now believed to be at Etah, North Greenland, and reported report-ed safe' in August of last year. The second, a forlorn hope, will attempt at-tempt by aeroplane search of the terrible ter-rible northern seas to locate stouthearted stout-hearted Vilhjalmar Stefansson, who a year ago with two companions marched straight north into the unknown un-known from the Canadian coast near the mouth of the Mackenzie river. MacMillan and Stefansson engaged in what has aptly been described as a race for an unknown continent. There is a great stretch of territory lying north of Alaska and Canada and bounded on the north by the North pole, which has never been surveyed by human eyes. Admiral Peary, standing stand-ing at elevations of 2,000 feet and later 1,600 feet on islands west of northern Greenland, believed he saw mountain peaks of this unknown land far to the westward. He dirbbed it Crocker Land. If it exists, it Is by far the largest area- of solid earth now unexplored. The lure of it to the arctic pioneer Is beyond understanding un-derstanding to the dweller under southern skies. Last summer MacMillan pushed across the strait from Greenland and then over several large islands to the westward until he came to Cape Thomas Hubbard, the last place from which the discoverer of the North pole, Peary, believed he caught a glimpse of Crocker's Land mountains. Here a stretch of frozen ocean presented pre-sented itself. For 125 miles MacMillan MacMil-lan dashed over the ice straight west. Several times he thought he saw the land he sought. At last he had to give up , and concluded what Peary had seen was only a mirage. It is improbable improb-able Peary could have seen land farther far-ther than MacMillan went. MacMillan nearly lost his life before he got back to the comparative comfort com-fort of Etah. This summer he may attempt at-tempt new feats, but he will undoubtedly undoubt-edly keep in touch with Etah, or at any rate let his whereabouts be known He will not be the staring mystery Stefansson has become. A relief party will leave Labrador in July aboard the schooner George H. Cluet. The vessel is sent out by the backers of the MacMillan expedition, expedi-tion, including the American Museum of Natural History, the American Geographical Geo-graphical society and the University of Illinois. , .. . All the arrangements are being made at New York. Capt. George Comer of East Haddam, Conn., will 6erve as ice pilot. If Stefansson is ever rescued it will be through the devotion of his secretary, secre-tary, Burt M. McConnell, who bade farewell to his chief April 7, 1914. No one has seen Stefansson or the two men he kept with him since then. His vessel, the Karluk, drifted several hundred hun-dred miles to the westward and was crushed in the ice. Part of those aboard the Karluk were " rescued through the perseverance of McCou-nell. McCou-nell. Then McConnell came back to the States and started his efforts to organize or-ganize a relief expedition. It was he who evolved from his'brain the idea of hydro-aeroplane. Many of his plans were talked over in the Eight Oars, E. W: Deming's studio in artistic Mac-dougal Mac-dougal alley. The Canadian government is chided by McConnell for failing to fit out a relief expedition, as Stefansson is upon Canadian service. But the great war has intervened and monopolizes Canada's Cana-da's energies. "I consider it my duty to search for Stefansson," McConnell said. "As a survivor of the expedition. I shall not be content to sit idly and in comfort in civilization until I know that my comrades com-rades are safe, or what has happened to them." Opinions differ as to what has happened hap-pened to Stefansson. He may be drifting drift-ing on a field of ice somewhere north of Alaska. In this event he would reach Siberia, if still alive, about two years from now. McConnell thus outlined his plans recently: "Our expedition Is not more hope-1 less than that of the Rodgers, which started out to rescue the crew of the Jeanette in 1879, two years after she had sailed. "As to the practicability of using hydro-aeroplanes, It is well known that Amundsen intended taking flying machines ma-chines with hin. into the Arctic and using them for scouting while his ice-ship, ice-ship, the Fram, drifted about in the ice pack. In using hydro aeroplanes, too, we may discover the hypothetical continent con-tinent of Crocker Land which Stefansson Stefans-son sought. "North of Siberia, Alaska and western west-ern Canada lies an unexplored area of more than a million square miles. Truly this is the 'last frontier,' the last unexplored area on the face of the globe. The prime object of the Canadian Cana-dian Arctic expedition was to explore that area as much as possible, but when the Karluk was lost Stefansson was compelled to rearrange his plans accordingly. .He immediately decided to go over the treacherous, moving, crushing ice fields north of Alaska in search of the continent which some students of tidal phenomena have argued ar-gued exists and which others have argued as conclusively does not exist. ex-ist. ''Admiral Peary and the president of the Aero club both declare the plan feasible. My plans are simple. We would leave the s'jlp, which would be near the shore, every favorable morning, morn-ing, nyingaJ)8UVIeJ ft.in4 5 In straight line fo a point l7o miles from shore, scanning the ice fields with powerful glasses. Then we would turn at right angles for 20 miles, turn again and fly to shore parallel to the outgoing course. "The ship, in the meanwhile, would have sailed to a pojnt 20 miles east along the coast, where she would wel come us back. "I would bring together the crew and outfit at Victoria, B. C, as Stefansson Stefans-son did. We should sail from home not later than June 1, 1915. The hydro aeroplanes would have to be thorough' ly tried out before starting and then could be set up either at Nome or Port Clarence and tried again. The date of sailing from Port CJarence which has the Ives'l harbor oh the northwest coast of Alaska, will depend on the state of the arctic ice pack, which generally comes down to Bering strait late in July or early in August. "The hydo-aeroplanes would be o( the most reliable type, with a carrying capacity of two men and 100 pounds. Their tanks should hold enough fuel for a 400-mile trip, and their pontoons should be re-enforced, and equipped with sled runners, so that we may land at will on ice or water.. Both ma chines should be of identical build, so that parts may be interchanged In the event of an accident to one of the. planes." Mr. McConnell believes Stefansson has found the mysterious-land he went out to look for and Is now unable to return to his base on the north coast of Alaska. McConnell was one of the, three members of this expedition who gained the mainland of Alaska after drifting about on the ice for nearly a month. He thinks Stefansson is able to provide for the party of three with the two rifles and 400 pounds of ammunition am-munition they had when last seen. When Stefansson bade farewell to McConnell and the meteorologist of the expedition he kept with him two companions. Storkersen and Ole Anderson. An-derson. It was quite fitting that these three adventurous spirits should be descendants descend-ants of the race of Leif Ericsson, the man who probably discovered America. Amer-ica. All three were picked veterans ot many arctic campaigns. They knew all the wiles of the Eskimos, besides be-sides the scientific learning of the white men. Only some terrible misfortune mis-fortune could have extinguished them. |