, 1924-03-12
NORTH POLE IS NO COLDER THAN
MONTAN A, DECLARES EXPLORER
Stefansson Believes Old Time Cattle Ranges Will
Come Back and Grazing Land Big AS
United States Opened

Los ANGELES.-For real fiction
about the polar regions consult the
American school geography. Such
was the advice of Viljalmur Stefans-
son, famous explorer, in an address
here recently.
DIR. ~Stefansson, himself educated
in American schools and universities,
makes the statement that "American
education is a mass of miscellaneous
information, most of which s incor-
rect"
The information regarding the po-
lar regions-and the tropic regions
also-in our biographies is about as
~reliableas the fairy tale, originated
centuries ago, that the ostrich sticks
hs head in the sand wehn he is fright
ened.
EVERY text book in the United
States five years g said it was al
ways cold in the polar regions" DR..
Stefansson declares, Except one,
which declared it was never warm in
the Arctic CIRCLE"
Yet he claims that our own weather
bureau statistics show that at Fort
Yukon during the summer it is often
90 degrees in the shade. And that one
reason the late President Harding did
not go further on his recent trip to
Alaska as that the heat was debilitat-
ing to Mrs. Harding.
"These things are known to the
specialist" the explorer explains.
"Why have they not been incorporat-
ed in our text books? Why is the
truth not made known"
DIR. S%tefansson does not blame ig-
norance and tradition alone for this
misinformaton, but he blames the ex-
plorers themselves, who through their
love of being heroes-and he say the
polar regions are a hero factory
have r~efrained from telling the truth
about the northland.
The traditional idea that the North
Pole is difficult to reach is a super
stition begotten myth, even if it does
not lie on the main line of a railroad
and merely calls for 400 miles of sled
ding from the last point the steamer
can penetrate, according to the ex-
plorer.
Iceland is icy in name only, and its
capital in January, the coolest month,
is no colder than Milan, Italy, during
the same month, he claims.
1t is not as cold at the North Pole,
according to records as it gets in GER
tain Montana towns where the mer-
curry has a playful habit of dropping
to 60 degrees below zero, while North
Pole records, though not complete,
shows "a degrees as the lowest regis
tered, Stefansson asserts.
Il was just as much a hero as a
child walking to school in North Da-
kota in a temperature of 81 degrees
below zero as ! was in exploring the
polar regions" Stefansson said unro-
mantically.
The snowfall, he claims, is four
times rs heavy as the snowfall at the
polar regions. Also in the northern
regions the snow is fine and dry and
blows into ravines and g%ullies, leav-
ing 80 per cent of the land clear with
the grass peeping through.
In these northern lands, the doctor
claims, will reappear again the cattle
range, once so romantic in the coun-
try's history. If it can be found that
animals can survive, n grazing land
larger than the United States will be
opened.
DIR. Stefansson is bent on exploding
the tehory that the northern regions
are an icy terror and passed five and
a half years on his last trip in prov
ing that an explorer and mis- company
ppull live off the land there