Voyage of The Karluk - Aftermath

Aftermath

Bartlett, celebrated as a hero by press and public, was honoured for "outstanding bravery" by the Royal Geographical Society. However, he was later censured by an admiralty commission for taking Karluk into the ice, and for allowing Mackay's party to leave the main group—despite the letter that Mackay and the others had signed, absolving the captain from responsibility. Stefansson, too, was privately critical of Bartlett's conduct. Bartlett resumed his career at sea, and over the next 30 years led many more excursions to the Arctic. During the Second World War he carried out surveying and supply work for the Allies; he died, aged 70, in April 1946. His account of the Karluk disaster, published in 1916, makes no direct criticism of Stefansson or anyone else; Niven records, however, that to his friends Bartlett was highly uncomplimentary about his former leader.

In 1918 Stefansson returned after four years' absence, reporting the discovery of three new islands. He was honoured by the National Geographical Society, received tributes from polar veterans such as Peary and Adolphus Greely, and was given the presidency of the Explorers Club of New York. In Canada his reception was more muted; there were questions relating to the overall costs of the expedition, its poor initial organisation, and his handling of the Southern Party which, under Rudolph Anderson, completed its work independently of Stefansson. Anderson and other members of the Southern Party later petitioned the Canadian government to investigate statements made by Stefansson in his 1921 book The Friendly Arctic, which they felt reflected poorly on their honour. The request was declined on the ground that "no good could come of the enquiry." In his book Stefansson takes responsibility for the "bold" decision to take Karluk into the ice rather than hugging the coast on the way to Herschel Island, and accepts that he "chose the wrong alternative". However, McKinlay felt that the book gave an inaccurate account of the Karluk voyage and its consequences, "putting the blame ... on everyone but Vilhjalmur Stefansson." Historian Tom Henighan believes that McKinlay's biggest complaint against his leader was that "Stefansson never at any time seemed able to express an appropriate sorrow over his lost men." Stefansson, who never returned to the Arctic, died in 1962 at the age of 82.

The fate of First Officer Alexander Anderson's party remained unknown until 1924, when an American vessel landed at Herald Island and found human remains, with supplies of food, clothing, ammunition and equipment. From these artefacts it was established that this was Anderson's party. No cause of death was established, though the plentiful unconsumed supplies ruled out starvation. One theory was that the tent had blown away in a storm and that the party had frozen to death. Another was carbon monoxide poisoning within the tent.

The mystery illness which affected most of the Wrangel Island party and accelerated the deaths of Malloch and Mamen was later diagnosed as a form of nephritis brought about by eating faulty pemmican. Stefansson explained this by saying that "our pemmican makers has failed us through supplying us with a product deficient in fat." Peary had emphasised that a polar explorer should "give his personal, constant and insistent attention" to the making of his pemmican; McKinlay believed that Stefansson had devoted too much time selling the idea of the expedition, and too little ensuring the quality of the food that its members would depend upon.

Of the survivors, Hadley continued working for the Canadian Arctic Expedition, becoming second officer and later master of the supply ship Polar Bear. He died of influenza, in San Francisco in 1918. Hadley and McConnell wrote accounts of their experiences for Stefansson, who incorporated them in The Friendly Arctic. Chafe also wrote and published a short account. Most of the others quickly returned to relative obscurity, but in 1922 Fred Maurer was persuaded by Stefansson to join an attempt to colonise Wrangel Island. To the embarrassment of the Canadian government, Stefansson insisted on going ahead, even though Wrangel Island was indisputably part of what had then become the Soviet Union. A party of five, including Maurer, was sent to the island; only one, an Inuit woman Ada Blackjack, survived. Despite their ordeal, many of the Karluk survivors lived long lives; Williamson, who declined to speak or write of his experiences in the Arctic, lived to be 97, dying in Victoria, Canada, in 1975. McKinlay died in 1983, aged 95, having published his account of the expedition in 1976. Kuraluk, Kuruk and their daughters, Helen and Mugpi, returned to their former life at Point Barrow. The two girls, says Pálsson, had provided "important sources of cheer at the darkest moments." Mugpi, who later was known as Ruth Makpii Ipalook, became the very last survivor of the Karluk voyage, dying in 2008 after a full life, aged 97.