. The last voyage of the Karluk, flagship of Vilhjalmar Stefansson's Canadian Arctic expedition of 1913-16. ited States Coast and GeodeticSurvey that new land—^perhaps a new continent—was to be found north of Beaufort Sea, which isthat part of the Arctic Ocean immediately to thenorth of Alaska. The main work of the partyaboard the Karluk—^to quote Stefansson—wasto be the exploration of the region lying west ofthe Parry Islands and especially that portion lyingwest and northwest from Prince Patrick Karluk was to sail north approximately alongthe 141st meridian until her progress was
. The last voyage of the Karluk, flagship of Vilhjalmar Stefansson's Canadian Arctic expedition of 1913-16. ited States Coast and GeodeticSurvey that new land—^perhaps a new continent—was to be found north of Beaufort Sea, which isthat part of the Arctic Ocean immediately to thenorth of Alaska. The main work of the partyaboard the Karluk—^to quote Stefansson—wasto be the exploration of the region lying west ofthe Parry Islands and especially that portion lyingwest and northwest from Prince Patrick Karluk was to sail north approximately alongthe 141st meridian until her progress was interferedwith either by ice or by the discovery of land. Ifland were discovered a base was to be establishedupon it, but if the obstruction turned out to be icean effort was to be made to follow the edge east-ward with the view of making a base for the firstyears work near the southwest comer of PrincePatrick Island, or, failing that, on the west coastof Banks Island. The Karluk was to go first toHerschel Island, the old rendezvous of the Arcticwhaling fleet and the northernmost station of the. 03 •A aW THE EXPEDITION AND ITS OBJECTS 5 Canadian Mounted Police. If she should be besetin the ice and forced to drift, it was expected thatcertain theories about the direction of Arctic cur-rents would be tested, and there would also be op-portunity for dredging and sounding. Both of these main objects were accomplished:Stefansson ultimately found new land and theKarluk engaged in an Arctic drift, but neither re-sult was attained in quite the way which was plannedwhen we were getting the ship ready in May andJune, 1913. We returned—some of us—^ratherearlier than we had expected, for we were preparedto be away until September, 1916, and contraryto one of the theories of Arctic currents we did notdrift across the Pole to the Greenland shore. Be-fore we started some of the newspaper accountsof the expedition said that the ship might becrushed in the ice; the newspapers are
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidcu3192402988, bookyear1916
