Voyage of the Karluk

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This article, expanded from a stub with much help from User:Dankarl, tells the story of a tragic and largely forgotten Arctic voyage of nearly a century ago. The story is eerily similar to that of of Shackleton's Endurance voyage in the Antarctic a couple of years later, though without the happy ending – with the Karluk eleven (out of 25) died. Both stories begin with a ship trapped in ice, unable to reach destination. Then, in each case: long drift trapped in pack ice; ship crushed and sunk; crew camps on ice, then struggle to reach remote uninhabited island; leader goes off on a dangerous journey to get help; long delay and frustration before rescue. I hope to take this article to FAC and, if it is promoted, nominate it for TFA on an appropriate anniversary. NB: the inadequate voyage map is being replaced with a more legible version. Comments welcome on all aspects. Thanks, Brianboulton (talk) 12:27, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by David Fuchs
They mainly come from Bartlett's book, which is available on Internet Archive. I will add the links to the image descriptions. Brianboulton (talk) 09:42, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

--Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 02:15, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have split the opening sentence, and made other prose tweaks in the first paragraph. Brianboulton (talk) 23:55, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by Clevelander96
  • Changed to "difficult and dangerous"
  • I think that all historians and commentators are agreed that after Karluk started moving rapidly westward on 23 September, it became difficult, and then impossible, for Stefansson's party to return. The controversy is over Stefansson's intentions in leaving the ship in the first place, a matter dealt with quite thoroughly in the article using multiple sources. I think it's probably OK to use Niven as a source for the uncontentious statement above, though I will add another, for safety's sake.
  • Bearing in mind Niven's status as a non-historian, although she is frequently cited (her account is far more detailed - and readable - than most others), these citations generally relate to factual, non-contentious issues, Sometimes, when in doubt, I have added second citations. I will go through again to see if anything else needs to be reinforced by a second citation.
Thank you for these comments and for your kind words. Brianboulton (talk) 21:40, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: Usual great job, as requested here are some nitpicky suggestions for improvement. I have to say reading this made me appreciate Shackleton and Nansen and what they accomplished even more.

Thanks for the kind words. You are my main map mentor, and your recent mention of counting pixels was the information I needed for doing my first-ever map scale. Good catch on the missing east west border. The old one disappeared when I cropped the original too-wide map, and I have now restored it. Finetooth (talk) 18:53, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hope this helps. I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 04:43, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for these very helpful comments. Brianboulton (talk) 15:24, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You are very welcome - glad to help and please let me know when this is at FAC. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 18:08, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: This is an excellent article—well-written, well-illustrated, and a pleasure to read— about which it's hard to find much to suggest in the way of improvement. I list a few things below, but they are mostly quibbles.

Background

Organisation and personnel

Ships

Towards Herschel Island

Drifting west

Sinking


March to Wrangel Island

Bartlett's journey

On Wrangel Island


Aftermath

Notes and references

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. Please let me know when this goes to FAC. Finetooth (talk) 21:53, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Noticed it. I'll give it a whirl. One Canada and all that.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:30, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Awadewit

Images

I thought I'd start with the easy stuff. :) Awadewit (talk) 05:19, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • You need something establishing the date of the image. Currently, there is nothing that suggests that image was published in or before 1922 (as Jappalang's reasoning requires). Awadewit (talk) 18:33, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jappalang might be able to establish the provenance of the photo, but he's on a break. So what I'll do for the moment is replace this with my Stefansson Mark II image. If the earlier proves OK to use, I'll revert to it. Brianboulton (talk) 23:53, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The date "9/17/15" is written on the negative; see the Library of Congress copy. There is no plausible scenario whereby File:Vilhjalmur Stefansson.jpg would still be under copyright; among other things, it was published without a copyright notice when it was given to the Library of Congress in 1948 (please see When does copyright expire? for details). Eubulides (talk) 08:07, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I will, however, wait for Awadewit's comment before restoring. Thank you also for finding and adding an excellent image to the Herschel Island section. However, the article is very well provided with images, and adding another into a relatively short section gives an appearance of clutter. As I prefer yours to the "soundings" picture, which is rather less clear, I have left your in place and deleted the other. Brianboulton (talk) 09:51, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(Later) Pending further discussion I have for the time being removed this additional image. See article talkpage for reasons etc. Brianboulton (talk) 22:09, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(and later still) Your image is restored after a further reshuffle. Brianboulton (talk) 22:27, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't see the date on the negative. My only concern is what that date is supposed to signify - the LOC itself doesn't date the photo. Awadewit (talk) 18:49, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sources
Prose

Very little to comment on here - as usual, you tell a gripping narrative. I found a number of missing words as I was reading. You might want to read the article aloud before FAC just to make sure there aren't any more.

This first line has been bothering e for a while, mainly because Karluk's sinking is referred to twice in the opening paragraph. So I've changed the line to "The last voyage of HMCS Karluk, flagship of the Canadian Arctic Expedition, ended with the loss of the ship and the subsequent deaths of nearly half its complement." Tell me if you think this is OK.
Yes, I think that is good. Awadewit (talk) 18:58, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What about: "After the sinking, Bartlett organised a march to Wrangel Island, 80 miles (130 km) away."? Avoids land/island word conflicts and gives more information.
Good. Awadewit (talk) 18:58, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Is it not clear? Total eleven men, per first paragraph; second para deals with eight who died on the march to Wrangel Island; third paragraph deals with three who died on the island. To try and make it clearer, I've altered the first paragraph to read: "In all, eleven men died before help could reach them."
That clarifies it. Awadewit (talk) 18:58, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fair point. Now reads: " Stefansson returned home..."
Admittedly awkward. I've split the sentence and tweaked it into better shape.
Again tweaked to something better.
Simplified, see text.
Simplified this, too
Yes, I agree.
Other
Excellent suggestion - much more logical. Now done (with tweakings to hide the scars of transplant surgery).
That reads much better to me. Awadewit (talk) 18:58, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'll think about this. Basically there are four published first-hand accounts of the Karluk voyage: Bartlett's, McKinlay's, Hadley's (in Stefansson's book) and Chafe's. There also are unpublished journals. If we construct a list, where would you suggest it should go?
I would put a section titled "Published accounts" (or somesuch) after the "Aftermath" section. Awadewit (talk) 18:58, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I did look to see if there was a free soundfile of the Funeral March, but no luck, so readers will have to imagine it!
Maybe someday I'll get over my fear of recording myself and upload it. I play it rather nicely, if I do say so myself. :) Awadewit (talk) 18:58, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I largely agree with you. I've offered one monetary conversion to give readers a rough idea of equivalence, but that's it. I don't think conversions are mandatory.
I'll check out the capitalisations
I'll check the puncs, too.

I hope these comments are helpful! This is a very good article - let me know when you nominate it at FAC. Awadewit (talk) 18:28, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your—as always—careful attention and thoughtful comments. I will deal with them all, except the last one which is beyond my power. The 13-digit ISBN was introduced from 1 January 2007; books published before then have 10-digit codes. Brianboulton (talk) 19:50, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, but I just use the 10-digit codes for everything, so it is nice and neat. :) Awadewit (talk) 18:58, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by Eubulides

Well-written and enthralling. The sources are great, but rising to the challenge of trying to help improve them, I looked around and found this one:

Another source, with lists of sources and two fine contemporary photos:

Also, let's remove the Google Books URLs. First, they often don't work (for people who are over quota, or who use IP addresses that Google Books doesn't like). Second, they have privacy problems (they reveal info about the editor who added them). Eubulides (talk) 09:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Wehwalt

Ditto, ditto. Very well written and gripping. If the prose would survive another going through, I would suggest as follows:

Lede
  • "controversially left the ship". Is the word "controversially" needed? It doesn't really tell the reader anything and you explain within two paragraphs what the controversy is. On first reading, I found it confusing, not certain if there was a to-do when they left the ship or later".
  • "announced intention to hunt for caribou." I suggest that this carries a connotation of "this was a cover story". While it is hard to come up with an absolutely NPOV version while still cluing the reader to the fact that they might not have been telling the truth, I would use "stating that they planned to hunt for caribou" is a bit better.
  • "admiralty commission". Used twice in article. Are you absolutely sure that "admiralty" is lower case? Certainly admiralty as a government department is upper case, while admiralty as a field of law is lower.
  • It's lower case in all the sources (Niven, Henighan etc). I'm following them.
Background
  • "the remote regions of Northern Canada." Northern Canada! Redundant. Suggest "remote Arctic Canada".
  • "$45,000" Given the several references in the paragraph to both Canada and the US, it might be wise to say which dollars are being referred to here. I am, I will admit, uncertain as to whether there was a difference in exchange value at the time.
  • "the Beaufort Sea, then a blank space on the world's maps". Was the sea a blank space, or was its shoreline?
  • The sea was a blank space north of the Canadian coast. The idea was to find out if he held islands, or whether land lay north of it.
  • "although Stefansson maintained that "forethought appeared to have anticipated every eventuality."" It would be interesting to know when he said this.
Objectives
  • "In a letter to the Victoria Daily Times," It might be wise, perhaps in the preceding section, to mention that the ship was prepared in Esquimault and note its proximity to Victoria. Might even want to mention that it is on Vancouver Island. That way you have geographical understanding for the reader and avoid the reader wondering why the ship was prepared in Melbourne.
  • Impossible to incorporate this into the previous section without rewriting it, which I am reluctant to do. I've clarified, hopefully, by calling it the "Canadian" Victoria Daily Times.
  • Just as a comment, I imagine this article is to use Canadian usages. I find from my experience with Dief that they often follow US phrasing, though certainly Brit spelling. You might want to get a Canadian editor to check it over. This comment was provoked by the phrase "in the islands". An American would say "on the islands". What a Canadian would say is anyone's guess, eh?
  • I've commented on this point at the end.
Organisation and personnel
  • "the north Canadian mainland," Odd phrase. Perhaps "the Canadian Arctic coast"?
  • "northern and southern parties" Why lower case here?
  • "the Commonwealth" Perhaps a little anachronistic? I would suggest "the Dominions" or "the Empire" if Dominions won't work.
  • "Newfoundland" I would say a better pipe would be to Colony of Newfoundland as the province did not enter Confederation unti 1949.
Ships
  • "$10,000" again, which money, if relevant. As for the $4,000, that was spent at Esquimault, so presumably Canadian dollars.
  • $10,000 would be USD as the ship was bought by Pedersen in the US. The sources don't tell us what the $4,000 was, so rather than make assumptions I've removed the specific amount from the text.
  • "petrol-engined" Canadians call the stuff "gasoline". See here. I am very sorry, us Yanks have corrupted them.
  • "all would be clarified" I think the vernacular would be more effective here "all would be sorted out".
Toward Herschel Island
  • "towards the Alaskan coast." Perhaps just "towards Alaska". The coast is a given.
  • "Nome, in the Bering Sea." Ah. Like London, in the Thames River. One can hope. Perhaps "Nome, on the Bering Sea"?
  • Dates. According to User:Connormah, who commented on the Dief article and is Canadian, it is more common in Canada to put the month first. See here.
  • "two young children". It is later made clear that Mugpi is a girl, so why not say "young daughters". Avoid distracting the reader by wondering what sex Mugpi is.

More later.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments. I have adopted your suggestions except where I have commented. On the question of Canadian usage, etc, the article has been reviewed thoroughly (see above) by a Canadian editor (Finetooth) who did not raise this as an issue. I gather that Canadian readers are generally more relaxed about these things than we Brits are, or you Americans. I have used Canadian/American versions of place names (e.g. Rodgers Harbor) and have changed petrol to gasoline (as Bartlett and Stefansson both have it. But unless there is a howl of wrath from the Canadian contingent I'd rather leave the dates as they are. Brianboulton (talk) 00:22, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not a problem, eh? I will be back to you with more, but probably not until tomorrow or Sunday.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:14, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm from Oregon, actually, rather than Canada, but I don't have problem with the date formatting, which is internally consistent. Quite some time ago I copyedited Lethbridge, which is FA. The dates in it are d-m-y, just like those in Voyage of the Karluk. Perhaps the Canadian editors choose whichever format suits them personally. I'm entirely relaxed with that. :-). Finetooth (talk) 03:18, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see a problem either way. Canada's governments (also Quebec) tend to use dmy more. Peer review, at least for FA writers, is to clean up problems here rather than there, and I felt obliged to mention it to Brian as Connormah mentioned it to me.--Wehwalt (talk) 06:52, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for raising it. The article will probably go to FAC on Sunday, but I'll welcome any comments before then. Brianboulton (talk) 09:21, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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