Where Shall Man Explore Next?

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18450, 28 April 1928, Page 19 (Supplement)

Where Shall Man Explore Next?

Vilhjalmur Stefansson Believes the Era of Trans-Arctic Flying Is Just Ahead —But in This Hero Age There Are Really Too Few New Worlds to Conquer!

ARE there any more new worlds to conquer? Any new explorers lo claim their discovery? With so many expeditions out, traversing the wild and waste places of the world, is there danger of a coming shortage in places unknown and undiscovered? Is the flying age putting an end to the pictur-

esque business of exploration ? With these questions clamouring to be settled, a great and famous explorer was sought out for the answers. Yilhjalmur Stefansson was ready and willing to discuss the momentous matters. “We don’t so -much need new worlds to conauer.”

he began, “as new publicity methods with which to conquer them.” Then, elaborating: “We also need strong, silent men—\vith good Press agents who are not so silent. This is the hero age. We have hero flyers and heroine flyers. And hero Channel swimmers. And now we need hero explorers—that is, unless explorers are to become as extinct as haircloth sofas and mutton-chop sleeves. We must have great, silent men—men who are too reticent to discuss their great discoveries, but who, as I said before, have glib-tongued Press agents who are not so loth to talk. “ These Press agents must have a talking point. The modesty of his principal is the best talking point of a hero's Press agent. Of course, Mr Greenland would hate to have me tell you this, and I don’t think I’d print it if I were you, but the fact of the matter is thus and so.’ the Press agent could hint adroitly. And then spin a fine yarn, injecting at intervals the reminder that his principal was extremely modest, and didn’t like to get into print. “It is absolutely necessary that the modern explorer should work overtime cultivating this role of dignified reticence. I shudder to think of what might happen if, bottled up too long, swept by a gust of loquacity, he should

r open up and say what’s really been on r his mind for so long. These big, silent men explode with a terrific reverberation once the lid's off. However, prac- ■ tice will perfect him in the art of keep- ; ing silent—while his publicity man , does the talking. “ This is still the trans-Atlantic fly--1 ing season. When it subsides, then avj'll ■ open the great trans-Arctic flying era. Then, and not until then, will the great, silent men of modern exploration have

their day. “ The Arctic one will open with some fine advance publicity. The campaign will benefit by the mistakes made in the trans-Atlantic season. The Atlantic was flown in the wrong sequence, and Polar flights should be managed more carefully by the backers and publicity people. “ For instance, a woman in a singlemotored ’plane will not be the first person to fly from London to Alaska across the North Pole. The thing will be worked up gradually to a grand crescendo, like a piece of music. In flying to the North Pole, a three-mo iioied ’plane with a large crew should launch the Polar season. “Then a two-motored machine, with three or four men; then a one-enginc 'plane with a lone flyer; after that a mother of a family, a debutante, 'a college girl, and so on down the list. The greatest hero should be reserved for the last.. Jackie Coogan or Babv Peggy could close the season. A vaudeville show always opens with a tumbling act. or a juggling one, or a xylophone act, and leads up to the star number. This arrangement should be carefully carried out at the opening of the Arctic hero age. When the first mother of a family flys across the North Pole to China, the publicitv agents will get particularly good Entering swiftly into the spirit of the North Pole season and its publicity campaign, Mr Stefansson’s interviewer suggested:— “ The nine or ten children of the first mother of a family will accompany her, of course, in the rumble seat of the ’plane?” But Mr Stefansson was shocked at the idea. “ No-1 ” said he firmly. “ Certainly not! What do -you think a compassionate, sympathetic, hero-loving public would think of such an inhumane act? Flying to the North Pole with dear little children ! Endangering their precious young lives! The terrible ;

cold! Disease! No. The mother of a family will fly alone.” “On her return, her canny Press agent will see to it that plenty of photographs are taken of the brave mother clasping her babes to her breast. She can also be photographed bringing them gifts of Eskimo pie and moccasins and tallow candles, or whatever the friendly Eskimos have given her on her arrival at the Pole. “ After the first mother of a family flies to the Pole, the first debutante to make the dangerous journey will get her day in the sun—and in print. An ingenious publicity man with a gift for ideas has a grand opportunity for flash stuff and for making the front page if he’s Press-agenting a debutante. “ Think of the photographic possibilities of a pretty young thing stepping from her ’plane at the North Pole dressed in a dainty fluffy tulle frock and silver slippers, carrying a bouquet of flowers and clutching tight to a vermilion lipstick. “ The Paris shops, for instance, could send a flyer over in the direction of the North Pole, with a complete outfit of the latest thing in North Polar flight outfits. .Flying photographers coukl be stationed near the North Pole bazaar.

“ For the Parisian flyer would have charming frocks, coats, and hats hanging from his ’plane, so that the intrepid debutante could circle around the aerial bazaar and select just what she wanted to wear on her arrival at Pekin, to don for North Pole receptions, teas and dinners to be given in her honour.

“ One important thing that must not be overlooked in the publicity campaigns of trans-Arctic faring explorers —or any other kind of explorers, for that matter —is something I mentioned before—the element of heroism. The explorer who would be popular to-day must be both heroic and modest. He must not emphasise his danger, but neither must he deny it.

“If a present-day explorer isn’t instinctively a hero, he must cultivate heroism. He must subscribe at once for a book which I am thinking of writing: ' How to Be a Hero in Twenty Lessons.’ This valuable work may also be done over into correspondence school lessons, so that' a hero need not interrupt his trans-Arctic preparations to do extensive book-reading. “The question has been brought up; “ What’s to be done when we run out of unexplored countries and places? In such an event a follow-up and controversial system could be worked out by the Press agents.

One explorer could discover a new

place and get great credit for it. Then, after the excitement died down, another explorer could go off to the far places and come back with the exciting news that the island claimed as a discovery by the first explorer was non-existent. “ Then, after a year or two, another explorer could come to the front and make the discovery that the first explorer was right, after all, because he had just found the spot which had aroused so much discussion. Then he could take his share of acclaim. The momentous question would never grow tiring, for all the arguments pro and con through the years would have aroused the public’s interest. Every one would retain a vague memory of what it was all about. And the familiar is always stimulating. “ Another idea I have hit upon for the grave emergency of what to do when we run out of new places to explore and discover is this; We could set aside a large area—a place very little visited—for modern explorers. As a matter of fact, it would be a good scheme to set aside the Arctic as a great international park for the pursuit and cultivation of heroism.” “ There’s another feature that must not be overlooked in the hero age of exploration. Explorers crossing the North Pole from America to Asia must go at the right time. That’s of vital importance. You must explore the Arctic only when public interest has swerved to the Arctic. After a mother of a family flies the Atlantic, the dawn of the North Pole hero age will be pink in the heavens. “ That it is not the first discovery but rather the best-heralded one that really counts is proved to me in my own career. So far as I am known at all, I am generally known as the discoverer of the ‘ blonde Eskimos.’ As a matter of fact, the first man to report a strangely blonde people in the Arctic was not I, but Nicholas Tunes, in 1656, more than 250 years ahead of me. This seems to have been in Baffin Island far from my own locality. “ But in my own district Europeanlike Eskimos had been reported as far back as 1824. They were reported by me in 1911, without attracting much attention, but the report that created a furore was my second, in 3912. The early reports did not cause a stir because the public did not at the time appreciate the possible romance behind them. But in 1912, when the report was dressed up extravagantly, and tied up, by an enterprising reporter, with the tragic drama of the colony of 5000 Europeans who disappeared from Greenland in the Middle Ages, it was broadcast all .over the world. “ The achievement of making the same discovery was a little less each time it was made, yet more glory resulted from the last one than from all the preceding one§, simply because the right publicity note was struck. The ‘ blonde Eskimo ’ story swept the world. Certainly this proves that we need not be discouraged, believing that the glamour of discovery is about to fade and the romantic age of explorers to draw to a close.”