He was, by most accounts, the most experienced of the four in actual field conditions.

Fred Maurer, also twenty-eight, was another American and another veteran of a previous Stefansson venture — specifically the disastrous Karluk expedition of 1913-14, in which a ship was caught in sea ice and eleven men died.

Milton Galle was nineteen years old, a young American with essentially no Arctic experience who was drawn by the spirit of adventure that Stefansson’s promotional genius was able to generate.

The plan was for the party to be accompanied by a number of Iñupiat families, whose hunting and survival expertise would sustain the group through the Arctic winter.