The Daily Alaska empire. [volume] (Juneau, Alaska) 1926-1964, 1938-01-19

that might well have been given up for lost
In February, 1902, the expedition ship Ant
arctic landed Nordenskjold and five compan-
ions on the little island Snow Hill in the We'd
dell Sea, and then sailed north, to return for
them the following year. But the ice condi-
tons the next summer were bad and the Ant
arctic found difficulty in penetrating to Snow
Hill Island. Captain Larsen landed a party
of three under command of Gunnar Ander-
sson. who we're to attempt to reach the base
and report on the situation, while the Ant
arctic was crushed by the ice and sank, her
crew making their way to land The parties
spent the winter at two different. points on
Erebus and Terror Gulf unable to commune
cate with each other or with Nordenskj old's
base, camp In October, 1903, when Norden-
skiold was on an exploratory trip, he was
astonshed to come upon the Anderson party.
Meanwhile the Argentine Government had
become uneasy and had sent the gunboat
Uruguay, under Captain Irizar, to the relief
of the expedition Captain Irizar arrived on
November 8, 1903 and on the same evening
Captain Larsen and his men walked into the
camp. The reunited parties were then car
ried north by the Uruguay
These sample instances of lost explorers
are for land or landfast ice. Things have
happened on drifting ice that seem more re-
markabe to those unfamiliar with the ways
of the pack We cite two of a possible score.
On October Is, 1872 party of nineteen
(ten white men, two Eskimo men and two Es-
kimo women with five children got separ-
ated from the rest of the Hall expedition
700 miles north Of the Arctic Circle in the
bedlam of a night when it was thought that
the milling floes would crush the Polars and
when orders were given to abandon her The
floe upon which they scrambled drifted south
ward 1900 miles in five and a half months.
There food enough for only week or
two GA cans pemmican, liz bags bread,
can dried apples, IA hams), but it was
plenished by the game secured When their
drifting ice island was about to melt in the
spring warmth off Labrador, the party was
picked up by the sealer TigresS-on April &c.
1873. Everyone had been in good health
through the whole time; no one the worse
Tor the experience; and, instead of losing
members the party had increased for an Es-
kimo child had been born and had thrived.
In March, 1914, Storker Storkerson Ole An
dreasen and I went north over the moving
pack from Alaska with food for about thirty
days. At that time it was commonly believed
that no game existed far north of Alaska and
far from land. But there proved so much
that we missed no meals and lost no dogs
lloH munger, dlOIOugn NDeIOre feacnmB an
uninhabited island) we Travelled over the
pack 700 miles and three times as long as al
lowed by the provisions we carried BY next
summer, down in the civilized world and even
up on the north coast of Alaska there was
scarcely a dissenting voce-we must have
died because we had not returned within the
limit of our provisioning So we remained
dead for year, in the opinion of the outside
world but in reality the game animals of the
sea and later of the uninhabited island had
supported us in good health and in comfort
1t appears to be the opinion of most, if
not all, Of the polar members of the Explorers
Club that, if the Levanevsky party not seri-
ously manned, were alive a day after their
forced descent then they will still be alive a
year after it. Therefore, minimum require
ment of the tradition and of the probabilities
is that the airplane search be not given up
before the good vsibilities of the cold winter
and the fair visibilites of spring are replaced
by the handicapping fogs of late June and the
nearly prohibitve fogs of July