They all kept diaries.

The atmosphere could be tense, but the group functioned.

The great crisis was not winter.

The great crisis was the summer of 1922, when the relief ship did not come.

Stefansson had promised the group that a ship would arrive in the summer of 1922 to resupply them and, depending on how the territorial claim was proceeding, possibly bring new personnel.

But the summer of 1922 saw the sea ice fail to open on the schedule that would allow passage to Wrangel Island.