Walter Wellman

[3] For a news story, Wellman was asked by the Chicago Herald to visit and assess various candidates for the initial landing place of Christopher Columbus in the Americas.

He chartered the Norwegian ice steamer Ragnvald Jarl from Ålesund and assembled a team of 14 expedition members, mostly from the US and Norway.

With sledges and aluminium boats, the expedition made their way to Martensøya from where they intended to continue to the pole when the Ragnwald Jarl lying at Waldenøya was pierced by ice and sank.

After arriving at Cape Flora, they gathered supplies left by the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition, before sailing east, in an attempt to find a navigable path northward.

Due to the extent of the ice, Wellman was finally forced to erect his base camp, "Harmsworth House", at Cape Tegetthoff on Hall Island.

[10] They eventually reached Cape Heller on Wilczek Land where Baldwin had the Norwegians construct a hut he named "Fort McKinley".

On 22 October Baldwin left Bjørvig and Bentsen for the winter to guard their northern outpost with minimal supplies.

Bjørvig continued to share his sleeping bag with Bentsen's corpse throughout the winter so as not to attract polar bears.

Wellman, who had fallen out with Baldwin over the bad leadership of the sledge expedition, made his way to Fort McKinley in February 1899 with the remaining three Norwegians.

[12] With Wellman himself out of action, he instructed Baldwin to return with the four Norwegians to the fairly unexplored Wilczek Land, in the hopes of finding some new geographical features.

Wellman named the island after Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor and president of the National Geographical Society which had sponsored the expedition.

[15] His newspaper provided funds of US$250,000,[15] and he had an airship built in Paris for the Wellman Chicago Record-Herald Polar Expedition.

[16] Wellman rebuilt the airship in Paris that winter and attempted an aerial voyage to the North Pole in September, 1907.