The Cordova daily times., 1922-09-08
ARCTIC CLAIMS MAY ENGAGE
 MANY NATIONS

It will not be surprising if one Of the chief products of the contemplat- ed air flight of the explorer Amund- sen shall prove to be controversy over territorial rights north of the Arctic circle, says the Portland Ore gonian. It has almost universally come to pass, as it did with the old Oregon country, that the issue of pos session has been suffered to shoulder until the commercial value of a region has seemed to have been demonstrat- ed. or at least until some future worth shall have come to be apparent. Thereupon there is much bustling among photographers, historians and diplomats.
 If Amundsen shall adhere to his de- termination to take off from Point Barrow, he will clearly have made his departure from American soil Point Barrow is regarded as especially de- sirable as a base for Arctic flights. But the probable determination of the Canadian government to make itself independent of American bases in th2 future is indicated by dispatches, re- gently reprinted in the Congressional Record at the instance of Senator Robinson of Arkansas, stating that that government will assert it's title to Wrangell land, which would give it an other starting point and better one than it now possesses in the event that aviation in the Arctic regions should develop great trade possibili- bilities. The strategic importance such a base as Wrangell can hardly be overestimated.
 Wrangell land does not appear on | the maps of half century ago. Curi- ously, it was named for Russian admiral, Baron Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangell, who just a hundred years ago this year sought for the island but did not find it. It was discovered in 1867 by George Washington DeLong
 of ill-fated Jeanette fame, and there
 after formally occupied and claimed for the United States by Captain Hooper and Lieutenant Reynolds oi the Corwin and Commander Berry and a party from the Rodgers. If it be con
 tended that this nation did not pursue it's advantage of discovery and later taking of possession, it also will be held that no other nation did more in that respect than we did. Stefans' l sons claim to occupancy through the ! landing of the Karluk party in 1914 raises another interesting issue and one that is likely to engage the at tention of international lawyers for some time to come. Stefansson him. self was not with the Karluk party. The commander of the Karluk was Captain Bartlett, an American, and, iE the language of Edward Fairfax Naul- ty, whose letter is cited in the Record, "the landing of the Karluk party on Wrangell Island was the desperate re- sort of shipwrecked men," Bartlett's only reference to the flying of Brit ish flag is contained in an allusion to the ultimate removal of the British flag that had flown so long at half mast" Three of the men had died meanwhile, and the flag had been kept at half staff as an act of mourning and as a signal of distress. But it will also be disputed that this was a lawful occupancy. That Bartlett may have been instructed to take posses sion of the country may be beside the question. Bartlett, according to Naul- ty, never claimed that he had been in structed and seemingly had no orders to explore west of the Hist meridian Wrangell is in longitude IFS west, or thereabouts On the basis of contig uity it would be Russian territory, but the Russians let their rights lapse by