The Canadian Arctic Expedition

Abstract

THE Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory, which had much to do with the oceanographical equipment of the Karluk, and especially the outfit of the Scottish contingent, consisting of Mr. James Murray, Dr. Alastair Forbes Mackay, and Mr. W. L. McKinlay, is in receipt of a considerable amount of official and private information concerning the Canadian Arctic Expedition. The expedition was hurried in its preparation and late in its departure, and the plans were “still pretty fluid” on July 21, 1913. On August 5 the Karluk was beset in 145° W., and drifted west to Colville River by September 7, and remained there until September 20, when she was blown adrift by a gale. Stefnsson and a party were ashore hunting on September 19, and were thus stranded. The Karluk drove north and west past Cape Barrow until she reached 73 N., 162° E.; then she drove south-west and west until, on January io last, she was crushed and sank in 38 fathoms sixty miles north by east of Herald Island. She drifted eight hundred miles at a rate of seven miles an hour. A perilous escape was made to Wrangell Island, at the heavy cost of eight lives, to which were afterwards added three more deaths on Wrangell Island, i.e. eleven in all.