The ice conditions in the Chukchi Sea in January were, to put it plainly, not conditions in which three men with limited Arctic experience could reliably travel 90 miles by dogsled.

The experienced Iñupiat hunters who had declined to join the expedition in Nome would have understood this immediately.

Crawford, Maurer, and Galle set out across the sea ice.

They were never seen again.

No trace of them has ever been found.

The sea ice that surrounded Wrangel Island in January 1923 swallowed them completely.

Ada Blackjack was left with Lorne Knight, who was too sick with scurvy to travel, and with Victoria the cat.

The question was now not whether the expedition would claim Wrangel Island for the British Empire.