THE FROZEN NORTH.

Clutha Leader, Volume XL, Issue 42, 25 November 1913, Page 7

THE FROZEN NORTH.

FEARS FOR STEFANSSON. ■ . . WASHINGTON, Nov. 20. In significant confirmation of the rumored disaster to the Stefansson expeditimr, Canada has decided to a bandon the Herschell Island outposts owmg to extraordinary storms and icefloes. A provision steamer which departed fot home m July has not reached her destination' and has probacy returned. It has been found impossible to organise a relief expedition. It was reported from Vancouver that the Arctic explorer, Dr. Stefanesoir, had been los 4 The report has not been confirmed. 3lr Vilhjalmur Stefansson, the Canadian explorer, who in the course of " v 'ft years' travel in the Arctic discovered a race of blonde Eskimos, visited England some time ago to lecture before the Royal Geographical Society and to make arrangements in England in connection with his expedition at the cost of the Canadian Government to verify t«he existence of a supposed Aretic land half a million square miles In extent. To Renter's 1 representative the explorer said: "The chief object of the new expedition is to explore this area by ship as far as possible in summer and by sledge in winter. The extent of the area to be explored is over a million square miles, andi it is situated roughly north of Western Canada and north of Alaska. The Canadian Prime Minister has pointed out that as tfae expedition may largely extend the borders of the British Empire it should go under the British flag. Accordingly I am going out in June as the head of a Britisii expedition. .My scientific staff consists of 10 members, and" we leave Victoria, British Columbia, in June next in the whaler Radii k, whose captain is tlhe well-known navigator PederseiL. The vessel will proceed east along the north coast of Alaska. If easterly winds prevail we shall find open water in the Beaufort Sea, and should reach Herschell Island, at the mouth of the Mackenzie River, at the beginning of August. Thence we sliiall sail north as far as the ice permits. We expect to be away on this expedition for four and a-half years. It is no part of my programme to go to the Pole. Some scientists hold that there is a vast area of undiscovered land in the unmapped portion of the Polar Sea, for it is impossible to explain the tidal phenomena 011 any other assumption, and the smallest area this region is put at is 500.(XX) square Miles. That may be one land or a dense archipelago."