Contrary to popular belief, Wrangel Island was not claimed for Canada in 1914. The flag raising ceremony celebrated Dominion Day and honoured fallen comrades. Stefansson based his 1921-23 expedition on the belief that he was merely renewing a Canadian claim. His private four-man expedition, led by a young Canadian student, ended in disaster, for when a relief ship came to pick them up in 1923, only the Inuit seamstress, Ada Blackjack, was found alive. Three of the men had vanished in the ice between Wrangel and the Siberian coast.
