Arctic Memento

FORTY-ONE years ago explorer and anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who is Arctic Consultant at Dartmouth, discovered Meighen Island on the edge of the Arctic Ocean. He erected a cairn there and placed within it a can containing a note describing the discovery.

Last month the can was returned to Dr. Stefansson in Hanover by Dr. R. Thorsteinsson, a geologist with the Geological Survey of Canada who went to the island on a polar expedition last summer. Dr. Thorsteinsson was in Hanover to lecture at Dartmouth, where Dr. Stefansson is also curator of the Stefansson Collection, which includes the largest polar-region library in the Western world.

The discovery note left by Stefansson had been replaced with a note by a German geologist and explorer, Dr. H. K. E. Krueger, whose three-man expedition disappeared in the Arctic in 1930. In it Krueger said that he was taking the Stefansson note with him because it was too fragile to open and make a copy for replacement as was customary.

The finding of this note was the first word the world has had that Dr. Krueger reached Meighen Island, and the only news of his expedition since 1932. a. Dr. Krueger, with little previous experience in the Arctic, had decided to explore the region using Dr. Stefansson's methods and theories, about which he had read in a German translation of the latter's book, The Friendly Arctic.

Dr. Stefansson had written Dr. Krueger warning him that many years' experience were needed for such an undertaking. But Dr. Krueger had insisted that he could do it and planned to prepare himself by spending a year in Greenland with the Eskimos before crossing the Polar Sea the next year.

In 1932 a Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment began a search for Krueger. They traced his trail to Cape Hubbard, on the northern tip of Axel Heiberg Island. There they found a depot with a note from Krueger saying the expedition was going southwest, toward Meighen Island. The Mounties attempted to follow the trail, but rough ice conditions and a shortage of food forced them to abandon the search.

Of the five islands discovered by Dr. Stefansson, only two, Meighen and Lougheed, have been visited since their discovery.

Dr. Stefansson spent eleven years in the Arctic during the early part of the century. His experiences and findings recorded in 23 books and some 400 articles, provided subsequent expeditions with practical knowledge on how to survive in the Arctic.