Evening star., 1934-03-18
REPAIRING A SLEDCE BROKEN
BY ROUGH ICE. AT RICHT-THE
AUTHOR BRINGING in A SEAL.
BY yILHJALMUR STEFANSSON.

BY VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON.
Note-The author OF this article
and UariouS members OF his SeUerdl
expeditions have spent an dggre-
gate OF years trdueling oUer the sea
ice north of Siberia and Alaska,
including, through accident or de-
sign. much drifting about on the
mouinq pack. The article is a
statement from that experience and
from books and information con-
cerning the ice DRIFT and ice trauel
of shiprrecked cre10S such as that
OF the ChelyuSktn.
Among the Soviet states romantic
schemes is the plan for turning Asia
into an island. 1t proposes to do this
by establishing regular Arctic steamer
lines, so that a traveller could go by
water east around the northern tip
of Siberia, south past China, west
around the south tip of India and
through the Suez Canal and back to
where you started from, say Lenin-
grad. The first voyage from the At
lantic to the Pacific by the northern
route was successfully accomplished
year ago. The folloW-up this year
under the command of the distin-
guished scientist and explorer. Prof
Otto Schmidt, had come within two
and a half miles of success when a
tongue of drifting ice stopped the
Chely yuskin within sight of our own
constantly navigated Bering Sea wa
ters, hard by the coast of Northwest
ern Alaska.
Intercepted and later hemmed in,
the Chelyuskin began an erratic drift,
generally to the northwest. until on
February 13 she was crushed by the
grinding foes. She sank more than
80 miles from the Siberian coast and
more than 100 north of the Arctic
Circle. At the time there were 103
persons on board-9l men, 10 women
and 2 children, one born only a few
days before.
Soviet reports have it that the party
lived in comfort after the wreck.
They pitched tents which no doubt
we're walled with snow, and they
erected portable houses which had
been brought along for a possible
Arctic wintering. They are said to
have food for two months, and theirs
is we'll known to be an excellent
game locality.
Comparatively Safe.
When the sinking was reported, re-
lief operations were Immediately
started by the Soviet government with
vigor and Judgment. Part of that
itIH Of tNoninEu
haste, for it did not appear at Mos
COW, nor will it to the experienced
pack traveller, that there was any
great need for haste. At IS miles
from shore, as the position is now
given, a foe beyond the range of the
most active crushing and therefore
comparatively safe residence. Air
planes and dog teams were available
at several points. The airplanes were
the more likely to be useful. and as
this is written the first of them has
already ferried the women and chill
dren to shore.
The difficulty about reaching such
a party with dog sledges from the
north coast of either Alaska or Siberia
is in getting across what Alaskans call
the shore-floe. Typically you have
landfast anything from few to
dozen or Is miles of ice Beyond this
is the moving pack. In March. 1914,
for instance, we were able to proceed
with our sledges only six miles north
from Alaska There we had to re-
main for several days Watching the
slow drift of the offshore pack. Some
times it slackened so that what f1oated
by were isolated cakes in a deal of
open water. At other times the pack
crowded
The day after the Chelyuskin sank,
parties with dog sledges had already
started to the rescue. AS I write, al
most four weeks later, they have not
been reported as getting through.
This undoubtedly means just such a
chaotic shore-f1oe condition as men,
bers of my own and other expeditions
have frequently seen in various parts
of the Arctic regions.