The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-09-06
Relief Expedition Fought Way NOrthward To Wrangel Island
 Through Fields Of Packed Ice

| ging, we were working the boat clear of the floe, and then, with the wheel hard to starboard, we started off just in time to avoid a collision. Shortly after, the fog lifted and we could see smooth, open water beyond a long tongue of firm Ice which pro- jected out to the westward. We had to follow this for several miles be- fore we were able to round it's point and gain comparative shelter in it's ! lee We then tied up to a large floe and allowed the engineers to finish their job. The pack ahead was, for the most part, composed of heavy | shore ice, which had evidently drifted away from the land, for we saw a good deal of sand and dirt upon it. The next day we steamed seven miles further and came into another stretch of open water, with tle edge of the pack running north by west. We followed along this for about 24 miles and finally found our progress blocked by q great sheet of ice run ming east and west. We then decided to buck the pack again. heading di- rectly for Nrangel. which was by now only about 30 miles distant. And then down came the fog once more, and closer crept the ice fields. We drifted with the current in the di- rection of Herald Island, s miles west of Wrangel. This was a. in., August 13. The fog held all that day and on until the afternoon of the next, when It cleared sufficiently for me to take an observation. I found that our drift during the pre- ceding 40 hours had brought us within seven miles of Herald Island.
 Q Q O
 Slow Advance In Ice.
 Then for five days solid we alter nately bucked ice, drifted, backed up and fought off menacing ice cakes. It was one continual succession of fogs, with rain and mist falling In the intervals.
 We hardly saw the sun in all that time. When the fog lifted for few minutes, or perhaps longer, we would worm our way through the tortuous passages between the floating cakes of ice. Then. when it descended again, we would tie up to what seemed secure cake and await the weather's favors.
 As we slowly approached Wrangel the pack became more open. the leads of water between the floes became freer of Instructions and we had to buck less solid ice Finally, on Au- gust 29, we smashed through the last barrier and entered a narrow lane of water which bordered the east coast of Wrangel Island.
 Wrangel Island at last. The goal we had worked so hard to attain was ours. But what of the people we had come to find? For any sign or sound of life the island might have been the abode of the dead. Seen in twilight-for it was midnight and the Arctic sun had already sunk below the horizon-Wrangel Island
  ance. Pilot Point, a grim. forbidding looking wall of rock, rose up from the polar scene to fling its grotesque silhouette against the purple sky. A Forbidden Isle.
 It seemed to us that no human being could find a foothold, let alone living in such a desolate place. The black cliff, the sombre tones of the sky. coupled with the superstiti- ous dread of the Eskimos in ap- preaching unfamiliar land, which -unconsciously communicated itself to the rest of us, all combined to shake my confidence in Wrangel as worthwhile place for colonization.
 A vague portent that all was not well assailed me. These thoughts were but momentary, for immedi- ately l reflected that Wrangel was large lSland, that there were doubtless fairer aspects of its coast line than that which we were skirt ing, and that our people would prob ably be found further ahead where the coast was less rugged and for bidding.
 We turned south and steamed along under the weird sky line in a narrow lane between the ice and the wall of rock. Our progress, in the dusky reflection of the cliffs, set up line of waves that raced and broke against the sides of our narrow channel, while the exhaust of the en- zine filled the air with sharp stac- cato reports which reverberated back and forth between the Ice and the cliffs. After reaching Cape Ha- waii, the northeast corner of the is- land, we steamed along the gradual ly lowering southside, keeping as close to the beach as possible, and blowing the whistle at minute inter vals to attract the attention of any person who might be living along the coast.
 (The second installment of Harold Noice's story of his rescue expedition will appear in The Age-Herald in a later issue).