Stefansson had correctly identified that Indigenous knowledge was the key survival variable.

His mistake was assuming that the Iñupiat would go along.

When the ship reached Nome, Alaska to pick up the Iñupiat recruits, they were not there.

Every Iñupiat family that had expressed interest in the expedition ultimately refused to go.

The reasons were not formally documented, but it is not difficult to construct them: experienced Arctic people, whose survival knowledge had been earned through generations of living in these conditions, knew what Wrangel Island was.

They knew the island, the ice patterns, and the risks.