Taken from Joseph F. Bernard Typescript:

I was born in Tiginish, Prince Edward Island, on the 23d of December 1878; coming to the United States in 1900 and shipped on a fishing boat out of Portland, Maine. In 1901 I came to Alaska and landed at Nome in June of that year.

Engaging in coastwise trade and in company with my uncle, Peter Bernard, we built a schooner “August C” in 1903 and traded along the coast of Alaska and the coast of Siberia.

In 1908 I went to Seattle and built a trading schooner the “Teddy Bear” and sailed her up the Alaska Coast and on to Siberia. In 1909 I sailed up the Coast and wintered at Barter Island. That winter I lost my partner who froze to death.

In the summer of 1910 the voyage was continued into Coronation Gulf with a crew of natives (Eskimos) and then wintered at the Koguerukuk River east of the copper mine, in 1910.

In the summer of 1911 we came back to Bailey Island and wintered there. In the summer of 1912 I went back East and wintered in a harbor on the mainland coast of Dolphin and Union Straits. This harbor became known and was charted by Geodetic Surveyors of Canada as Bernard Harbor. The summer of 1913 was a closed season (icebound) the ice in Dolphin and Union Straits did not move.

I got out of a winter harbor late in August and in trying to make my way westward I was frozen in on the 28th day of August at Lady Richardson Bay, Victoria Land and was forced to winter there on very short rations as our supply was used up and we had to live strictly on the country and game was very scarce.

We got out of winter quarters on the 4th day of August, 1914, the day war was declared on Germany and made our way to the westward through broken ice, met the Canadian Arctic Expedition, Southern Party, under command of Dr. Anderson off the Smokey Mountain. We tied up and exchanged news.

They were going East and wanted information about wintering quarters somewhere in Dolphin and Union Straits. I gave them a chart that I had made of the place where I had wintered. They occupied the same place for a couple of years and named it on their charts – Bernard Harbor.

I got out that year and wintered in San Francisco and Los Angeles in 1915 and 1916. And in the summer of 1916 went back into the Arctic and wintered in Koguerukuk River.

In the summer of 1917 wintered at Taylor Island, eastern portion of Victoria Land, where I froze in on the 29th of August, 1917 and only came out of the ice on the first day of September, 1919, namely 25 months in the ice, and wintered in the Koguerukuk River again and came out in 1920.

In the winter of 1921-1922 I shipwrecked on the Chuktcher Shore, Siberia. In the summer of 1922 I made the attempt to reach Wrangel Island to rescue the occupation party left there by Stephanson. Due to the ice I was unable to get to Wrangel Island and subsequently all of the party but one perished.

In the year 1923 I went up the coast of Point Barrow and was caught in the ice, when the Hudson’s Bay Company boat “Lady Kindersley” was caught in an ice-jam, drifted and was finally abandoned some 50 miles northeast of Point Barrow.

And in the same ice-jam the four-masted schooner “Arctic” was crushed near Cape Smet, Point Barrow. I was pushed high and dry on the beach by the same ice-jam.

After laying there for a week the ice opened and I was able to get out, sailed southward to Cordova on the “Teddy Bear” and have been here ever since.