True Tales of Arctic Heroism in the New World
by A. W. Greely · English · Gutenberg #39108 · 509,114 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: True Tales of Arctic Heroism in the New World
Author: A. W. Greely
Release date: March 11, 2012 [eBook #39108]
Language: English
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TRUE TALES
OF ARCTIC HEROISM
[Illustration: DR. KANE'S MEN HAULING THEIR BOAT OVER ROUGH ICE.
From a sketch by Dr. Kane.]
TRUE TALES
OF ARCTIC HEROISM
IN THE NEW WORLD
BY
MAJOR-GENERAL A. W. GREELY, U. S. ARMY
GOLD-MEDALLIST ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY AND OF SOCIETE DE
GEOGRAPHIE
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Printed in the United States of America
[Illustration]
PREFACE
From the dawn of history great deeds and heroic actions have ever fed
the flame of noble thought. Horace tells us that
By Homer taught the modern poet sings
In epic strains of heroes, wars and kings.
The peace-aspiring twentieth century tends toward phases of heroism
apart from either wars or kings, and so the heroic strains of the "True
Tales" appear in the unwarlike environment of uncommercial explorations.
One object of this volume is to recall in part the geographic evolution
of North America and of its adjacent isles. The heroic-loving American
youth is not always familiar with the deeds of daring, the devotion to
duty, and the self-abnegation which have so often illumined the stirring
annals of exploration in arctic America.
Notable exemplars of heroic conduct have already been inscribed on the
polar scroll of immortals, among whom are Franklin and McClintock, of
England; Kane, of America; Rae, of Scotland; and Mylius-Erichsen, of
Denmark. Less known to the world are the names Broenlund, Egerton and
Rawson, Holm, Hegemann, Jarvis and Bertholf, Kalutunah, Parr, Petitot,
Pim, Richardson, Ross, Schwatka and Gilder, Sonntag, Staffe, Tyson and
Woon, whose deeds appear herein. As to the representative women, Lady
Jane Franklin is faintly associated in men's minds with arctic heroism,
while Merkut, the Inuit, has been only mentioned incidentally. Yet all
these minor actors have displayed similar qualities of courage and of
self-sacrifice which are scarcely less striking than those shown in the
lives of others who are recognized as arctic heroes.
The "True Tales" are neither figments of the fancy nor embellished
exaggerations of ordinary occurrences. They are exact accounts of
unusual episodes of arctic service, drawn from official relations and
other absolutely accurate sources. Some of these heroic actions involve
dramatic situations, which offer strong temptations for thrilling and
picturesque enlargements. The writer has sedulously avoided such
methods, preferring to follow the course quaintly and delightfully set
forth by the unsurpassed French essayist of the sixteenth century.
Montaigne says: "For I make others to relate (not after mine own
fantasy, but as it best falleth out) what I cannot so well express,
either through unskill of language or want of judgment. I number not my
borrowings, but I weigh them. And if I would have made their number to
prevail I would have had twice as many. They are all, or almost all, of
so famous and ancient names that methinks they sufficiently name
themselves without me."
The "Tale" of Merkut, the daughter of Shung-hu, is the only entirely
original sketch. The main incident therein has been drawn from an
unpublished arctic journal that has been in the writer's possession for
a quarter of a century. This character--a primitive woman, an unspoiled
child of the stone age--is not alone of human interest but of special
historic value. For her lovely heroic life indicates that the men and
women of ages many thousands of years remote were very like in character
and in nature to those of the present period.
A. W. GREELY.
WASHINGTON, D. C., _August_, 1912.
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE LOYALTY OF PHILIP STAFFE TO HENRY HUDSON 1
FRANKLIN'S CROSSING OF THE BARREN GROUNDS 13
THE RETREAT OF ROSS FROM THE _VICTORY_ 37
THE DISCOVERY OF THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE 55
THE TIMELY SLEDGE JOURNEY OF BEDFORD PIM 71
KANE'S RESCUE OF HIS FREEZING SHIPMATES 91
HOW WOON WON PROMOTION 105
THE ANGEKOK KALUTUNAH AND THE STARVING WHITES 119
DR. RAE AND THE FRANKLIN MYSTERY 137
SONNTAG'S FATAL SLEDGE JOURNEY 155
THE HEROIC DEVOTION OF LADY JANE FRANKLIN 169
THE MARVELLOUS ICE-DRIFT OF CAPTAIN TYSON 187
THE SAVING OF PETERSEN 213
LIFE ON AN EAST GREENLAND ICE-PACK 231
PARR'S LONELY MARCH FROM THE GREAT FROZEN SEA 251
RELIEF OF AMERICAN WHALERS AT POINT BARROW 269
THE MISSIONARY'S ARCTIC TRAIL 293
SCHWATKA'S SUMMER SEARCH 311
THE INUIT SURVIVORS OF THE STONE AGE 329
THE FIDELITY OF ESKIMO BROeNLUND 347
THE WIFELY HEROISM OF MERTUK, THE DAUGHTER OF SHUNG-HU 367
ILLUSTRATIONS
DR. KANE'S MEN HAULING THEIR BOAT OVER ROUGH ICE _Frontispiece_
From a sketch by Dr. Kane.
FACING
PAGE
HENRY HUDSON'S LAST VOYAGE 4
From the painting by the Hon. John Collier.
"WE WERE NEARLY CARRIED OFF, BOAT AND ALL,
MANY TIMES DURING THIS DREADFUL NIGHT" 208
From Tyson's Arctic Experiences.
A GROUP OF THE ESKIMO INUITS 334
LIST OF MAPS
PAGE
THE ARCTIC REGIONS OF THE NEW WORLD 2
HUDSON BAY AND HUDSON STRAIT 5
BARREN GROUNDS OF NORTHWESTERN CANADA 16
BOOTHIA PENINSULA AND NORTH SOMERSET 41
FRANKLIN'S ROUTE ON NORTHWEST PASSAGE 58
ROUTE OF PIM'S SLEDGE JOURNEY 75
SMITH SOUND AND WEST GREENLAND 95
BOOTHIA AND MELVILLE PENINSULAS 141
KING WILLIAM LAND 177
ROBESON CHANNEL AND LADY FRANKLIN BAY 217
SOUTHEASTERN GREENLAND 235
GREAT FROZEN SEA AND ROBESON CHANNEL 255
NORTHWESTERN ALASKA 273
LIVERPOOL BAY REGION 297
AMDRUP AND HAZEN LANDS, GREENLAND 351
[Illustration]
THE LOYALTY OF PHILIP STAFFE TO HENRY HUDSON
"You, Philip Staffe, the only one who chose
Freely to share with us the shallop's fate,
Rather than travel in the hell-bound ship--
Too good an English sailor to desert
Your crippled comrades."
--VAN DYKE.
On the walls of the great Tate Gallery in London are many famous
pictures, but few draw more attention from the masses or excite a
livelier human interest among the travelled than does "The Last Voyage
of Henry Hudson." While the artist dwells most on the courage of Henry
Hudson, he recalls the loyalty of Philip Staffe and thus unites high
human qualities ever admired.
Consider that in barely four years Hudson made search for both the
northeast and northwest passages, laid the foundations for the
settlement of New York, opened up Hudson Bay, and in a north-polar
voyage reached the then farthest north--a world record that was
unsurpassed for nearly two centuries. Few explorers in career, in
success, and in world influence have equalled Hudson, and among those
few are Columbus, Magellan, Vasco da Gama, and Livingston.
Thus Hudson's life was not merely an adventurous tale to be told,
whether in the golden words of a great chronicle or in magic colors
through the brush of a great artist. It appeals to the imagination and
so impresses succeeding generations throughout the passing centuries.
For such reasons the materialistic twentieth century acclaimed loudly
the fame of this unknown man--mysterious in his humanity though great as
a navigator. So in 1909 the deeds and life of Henry Hudson were
commemorated by the most wonderful celebration of the western
hemisphere, whether judged by its two millions of spectators, its
unsurpassed electric displays with six hundred thousand lights, or its
parade of great war-ships from eight admiring nations.
Great were his deeds; but what was the manner of this man who won that
greatest love from Philip Staffe, who in stress lay down life for his
master? There was religious duty done, for Purchas tells that "Anno,
1607, April the nineteenth, at Saint Ethelburge, in Bishops-gate Street,
did communicate these persons, seamen, purposing to go to sea in four
days after, to discover a passage by the north pole to Japan and China.
First, Henry Hudson, master.... Twelfthly, John Hudson, a boy." Hence we
have faith that Hudson was sound and true.
[Illustration: HENRY HUDSON'S LAST VOYAGE.
From the painting by the Hon. John Collier.]
The "Last Voyage" was in the _Discovery_, fifty-five tons only, during
which Hudson, in search of the northwest passage, explored and wintered
in Hudson Bay. The journal of Abacuck Prickett, the fullest known, gives
a human touch to the voyage. He tells of a bear, "which from one
ice-floe to another came toward us, till she was ready to come aboard
the ship. But when she saw us look at her, she cast her head between her
hind legs, and then dived under the ice, and so from piece to piece,
till she was out of our reach."
[Illustration: Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait.]
Some strange-appearing Indian caches were found, of which he relates:
"We saw some round hills of stone, like to grass cocks, which at first
I took to be the work of some Christian. We went unto them, turned off
the uppermost stone, and found them hollow within, and full of fowls
hanged by their necks." Later he adds: "We were desirous to know how the
savages killed their fowl, which was thus: They take a long pole with a
snare or (noose) at the end, which they put about the fowl's neck, and
so pluck them down."
Hudson unwisely decided to remain in the bay through the winter and put
the _Discovery_ into quarters in James Bay, an unfortunate though
possibly inevitable anchorage. Knowing as we do the terrible cold of the
winters in the Hudson Bay region, it is certain that the illy provided
crew must have suffered excessively during the winter. Besides, the ship
was provisioned only for six months and must be absent nearly a year.
Sensible of the situation, Hudson encouraged systematic hunting and
promised a reward for every one who "killed either beast, or fish, or
fowl." The surrounding forests and barren hills were scoured for
reindeer-moss or any other vegetable matter that could be eaten, while
the activity of the hunters was such that in three winter months they
obtained more than twelve hundred ptarmigan. Nevertheless, they were in
straits for food despite efforts at sea and on land.
They had sailed a few days only on their homeward voyage when the
discontent and insubordination, engendered the preceding winter, had
swollen into mutiny. Alleging that there had been unfairness in the
distribution of food, Henry Greene, a dissipated youth who owed his
position to Hudson's kindness, incited his fellows to depose Hudson and
cast him adrift. That this was a mere suspicion is clear from the cruel
and inhuman treatment of their sick and helpless shipmates, who also
suffered Hudson's fate.
Prickett relates that Hudson was brought bound from his cabin, and "Then
was the shallop hauled up to the ship's side, and the poor, sick, and
lame men were called on to get them out of their cabins into the
shallop." Two of the seamen, Lodlo and Bute, railed at the mutineers and
were at once ordered into the boat.
Philip Staffe, the former carpenter, now mate, took a decided stand
against the mutineers, but they decided that he should remain on the
ship owing to his value as a skilled workman. He heroically refused to
share their lot, but would go with the master, saying, "As for himself,
he would not stay in the ship unless they would force him."
The private log of Prickett, though favoring always the mutineers with
whom he returned to England, clearly shows that Philip Staffe was a man
of parts although unable to either read or write. His high character and
unfailing loyalty appear from his decision. He was steadfast in
encouraging those inclined to despair, and also discouraged grumbling
discontent which was so prevalent in the ship. He was one of the men
sent to select the location of winter quarters on the desolate shores of
James Bay. Faithful to his sense of duty, he knew how and when to stand
for his dignity and rights. He displayed spirit and resolution when
Hudson, in untimely season and in an abusive manner, ordered him in a
fit of anger to build a house under unsuitable conditions ashore. Staffe
asserted his rights as a ship's carpenter, and declined to compromise
himself ashore.
His quick eye and prompt acts indicated his fitness for a ship's
officer. He first saw and gave warning, unheeded, of a ledge of rocks on
which the _Discovery_ grounded. Again in a crisis, by watchful care and
quick action, he saved the ship's cable by cutting it when the main
anchor was lost. But in critical matters he stood fast by the choleric
Hudson, who recognized his merit and fidelity by making him mate when
obliged to make a change. This caused feeling, as Prickett records. "For
that the master (Hudson) loved him and made him mate, whereat they (the
crew) did grudge, because he could neither read nor write."
Even in the last extremity Staffe kept his head, exerted his personal
influence with the mutineers for the good of the eight men who were to
be cast adrift with the master. Declining the proferred chance of
personal safety, he asked the mutineers to give means of prolonging life
in the wild. He thus secured his tools, pikes, a pot, some meal, a
musket with powder and shot. Then he quietly went down into the boat.
Wilson, a mutineer, testified that "Philip Staffe might have staid still
in the ship, but he would voluntarily go into the shallop for love of
the master (Hudson)."
Rather than cast in his life with mutineers, thus insuring present
comfort with prolonged life, this plain, illiterate English sailor stood
fast by his commander, and faced a lingering death while caring for his
sick and helpless comrades in a desolate, far-off land. Death with
unstained honor among his distressed shipmates was to Philip Staffe
preferable to a life of shame and dishonor among the mutineers of the
_Discovery_. Surely he belongs to those described by the Bishop of
Exeter:
"Men who trample self beneath them,
Men who make their country wreathe them."
The heroic loyalty of Philip Staffe was fittingly embalmed in quaint
historic prose by the incomparable English chronicler of the principal
voyages of famous navigators. Purchas, in "His Pilgrimage," relates:
"But see what sincerity can do in the most desperate trials. One Philip
Staffe, an Ipswich man, who, according to his name, had been a principal
staff and stay to the weaker and more enfeebled courages of his
companions in the whole action, lightening and unlightening their
drooping darkened spirits, with sparks from his own resolution; their
best purveyor, with his piece on shore, and both a skilful carpenter and
lusty mariner on board; when he could by no persuasions, seasoned with
tears, divert them from their devilish designs, notwithstanding they
entreated him to stay with them, yet chose rather to commit himself to
God's mercy in the forlorn shallop than with such villains to accept of
likelier hopes."
The mutineers, having deposed and marooned the great navigator Hudson,
looked forward to a homeward voyage of plenty and of comfort. But under
the rash and untrained directions of Henry Greene, William Wilson, and
Robert Juet, the wretched, luckless seamen were in turn harried by
hostile savages and distressed by deadly famine.
Prickett relates that a party landed near Cape Diggs, at the mouth of
Hudson Strait, to barter with the natives for provisions, and adds: "I
cast up my head, and saw a savage with a knife in his hands, who stroke
at my breast over my head: I cast up my right arm to save my breast, he
wounded my arm and stroke me in the body under the right pap. He stroke
a second blow, which I met with my left hand, and then he stroke me in
the right thigh, and had like to cut off my little finger of the left
hand. I sought for somewhat wherewith to strike him (not remembering my
dagger at my side), but looking down I saw it, and therewith stroke him
into the body and the throat.
"Whiles I was thus assaulted in the boat, our men were set upon on the
shore. John Thomas and William Wilson had their bowels cut, and Michael
Perse and Henry Greene, being mortally wounded, came tumbling into the
boat together....
"The savages betook them to their bows and arrows, which they sent
amongst us, wherewith Henry Greene was slain outright, and Michael Perse
received many wounds, and so did the rest. In turning the boat I
received a cruel wound in my back with an arrow. But there died there
that day William Wilson, swearing and cursing in most fearful manner.
Michael Perse lived two days and then died."
Of their final sufferings Prickett records: "Towards Ireland we now
stood, with prosperous winds for many days together. Then was all our
meal spent, and our fowl [birds from Hudson Bay] restie [rusty?] and
dry; but, being no remedy, we were content with salt broth for dinner
and the half-fowl for supper. Now went our candles to wrack, and Bennet,
our cook, made a mess of meat of the bones of the fowl, frying them with
candle grease. Our vinegar was shared, and to every man a pound of
candles delivered for a week, as a great dainty....
"Our men became so faint that they could not stand at the helm, but were
fain to sit. Then Robert Juet died for mere want, and all our men were
in despair, ... and our last fowl were in the steep tub.... Now in this
extremity it pleased God to give us sight of land."
As to Hudson, with loyal Staffe and their sick comrades, the record
runs: "They stood out of the ice, the shallop being fast to the stern,
and so they cut her head fast.... We saw not the shallop, or ever
after." Thus perished Henry Hudson, the man who laid the foundations of
the metropolis of the western hemisphere, who indirectly enriched the
world by hundreds of millions of dollars by giving to it the fisheries
of Spitzbergen and the fur trade of Hudson Bay. To the day of his death
he followed the noble rule of life set forth in his own words: "To
achieve what they have undertaken, or else to give reason wherefore it
will not be." In geography and in navigation, in history and in romance,
his name and his deeds stand forever recorded.
In the Homeric centuries Hudson might well have been deified, and even
in this age he has become in a manner mythological among the sea-rovers
as graphically depicted by Kipling:
"And North amid the hummocks,
A biscuit-toss below,
We met the fearful shallop
That frighted whalers know:
For down a cruel ice-lane,
That opened as he sped,
We saw dead Henry Hudson
Steer North by West his dead."
FRANKLIN'S CROSSING OF THE BARREN GROUNDS
"One who never turned his back,
But marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break."
--BROWNING.
Strange as it may now seem, a century since the entire northern coasts
of North America were wholly unknown, save at two isolated and widely
separated points--the mouth of the Coppermine and the delta of the
Mackenzie. The mouth of the Coppermine was a seriously doubted
geographical point, as Hearne's discovery thereof in 1771 was made
without astronomical observations; though he did reach the sea we now
know that he placed the mouth of the Coppermine nearly two hundred and
fifty miles too far to the north. Mackenzie's journey to the delta of
the great river that bears his name was accepted as accurate.
In the renewed efforts of Great Britain to discover the northwest
passage and outline the continental coasts of North America, it was
deemed important to supplement the efforts being made by Parry at sea
with a land expedition. For this purpose it selected neither a civilian
nor a soldier, but a sailor known to the world in history as a famous
arctic explorer--Sir John Franklin--who was to attain enduring fame at
the price of his life.
Franklin had served as signal officer with Nelson at Trafalgar, was
wounded while engaged under Packenham at the battle of New Orleans, and
had commanded an arctic ship under Buchan in the Spitzbergen seas. The
vicissitudes of Franklin and his companions while on exploring duty in
Canada, especially while crossing the barren grounds, are told in this
tale.
[Illustration: Barren Grounds of Northwestern Canada.]
A dangerous voyage by ship through Hudson Straits brought Franklin and
his companions, Dr. Richardson, Midshipmen Hood and Back, and Seaman
Hepburn to York Factory, Hudson Bay, at the end of August, 1819.
Contrary to the advice of the local agents, he started northward, and
after a hazardous journey in the opening winter--involving a trip of
seven hundred miles of marches, canoeing, and portages--reached
Cumberland House.
With unreasonable ambition this indomitable man of iron pushed northward
in mid-winter with Back and Hepburn, on a journey to Fort Chipewyan,
Athabasca Lake, of eight hundred and fifty-seven miles, during which the
whole party barely failed of destruction. While dogs hauled the food and
camp gear, the men travelling on snow-shoes were pushed to keep up with
the dogs. Being _mangeurs de lard_ (novices or tenderfeet), they
suffered intolerable pain in their swollen feet, besides suffering
horribly from the blizzards and extreme cold, the temperature at times
failing to ninety degrees below the freezing-point.
The sledges were of the Hudson Bay pattern, differing from those used
elsewhere. They are made of two or three boards, the front curving
upward, fastened by transverse cleats above. They are so thin that a
heavily laden sledge undulates with the irregularities of the snow. Less
than two feet wide as a rule, they are about nine feet long, and have
around the edges a lacing by which the load is secured.
By a journey of fifteen hundred and twenty miles Franklin verified
Hearne's discovery of the Coppermine, though finding its latitude and
longitude very far out, and later he built and wintered at Fort
Enterprise. It is interesting to note that the only complaint that he
makes of his summer journey were the insect pests--the bull-dog fly that
carries off a bit of flesh at each attack, the irritating sand-fly, and
the mosquito. Of the latter he says: "They swarmed under our blankets,
goring us with their envenomed trunks and steeping our clothes in blood.
The wound is infinitely painful, and when multiplied an hundred-fold for
many successive days becomes an evil of such magnitude that cold,
famine, and every other concomitant of an inhospitable climate must
yield pre-eminence to it. The mosquito, irritating to madness, drives
the buffalo to the plains and the reindeer to the sea-shore."
In the summer of 1821 Franklin descended the Coppermine River, and in a
canoe voyage of five hundred and fifty miles to the eastward discovered
the waters and bordering lands of Bathurst Inlet, Coronation Gulf, and
as far as Dease Inlet. The very day that he was forced by failing food
to turn back, Captain Parry, R.N., in the _Fury_, sailed out of Repulse
Bay five hundred and forty miles to the east.
With the utmost reluctance Franklin saw the necessity for a speedy
return. It was now the 22d of August, the nights were fast lengthening,
the deer were already migrating, and the air was full of honking wild
geese flying in long lines to the south. Both canoes were badly damaged,
one having fifteen timbers broken. The other was so racked and warped
that repairs were impracticable, the birch bark being in danger of
separating from the gunwales at any severe shock.
One man had frozen his thighs, and the others, shaken in mind and worn
in body, unaccustomed to the sea, were in such a demoralized state that
two of them threw away deer meat, sadly needed, to lighten the boats.
Sudden cold set in with snow, a fierce blizzard blew up a high sea, and
the inland pools froze over. Return by sea was clearly impossible, and
the only chance of saving their lives was to ascend Hood River and reach
Fort Enterprise by a land journey across the barren grounds, so dreaded
and avoided by the Indians and the Eskimos.
With the subsiding gale they put to sea along the coast, and in three
days entered Hood River, though at times with utmost difficulty escaping
foundering, as says Franklin: "The waves were so high that the masthead
of our canoe was often hid from the other, though it was sailing within
hail."
Once landed on the river bank, the mercurial voyageurs, unmindful of the
difficult and dangerous march before them, were in most joyful mood.
They spent a gay evening before a large camp-fire, bursting into song,
reciting the novel perils of the sea now past, and exaggerating with
quaint humor every little incident.
With the vigor of famishing men they scoured the country for game, and
nets were skilfully set under cascade falls, which yielded the first
morning a dozen trout and white-fish. On these they made a delicious
meal, seasoned by abundant berries, for in this country there remain on
the bushes throughout the winter cranberries and red whortleberries.
The voyageurs were quite worn out poling their boats up the rapids of
Hood River. At times it was even needful to take out the loads and,
wading knee-deep in the ice-cold waters, drag the boats across the many
shoals. One day Franklin was dismayed, though the men were quite
indifferent, at coming to impassable rapids. They proved to be the lower
section of a series of wonderful cascades which could be passed neither
by traversing nor by portage. For the distance of a mile the river was
enclosed by solid, perpendicular walls of sandstone, shutting the stream
into a canyon that was in places only a few yards wide. In this single
mile the stream fell two hundred and fifty feet, forming two high falls
and a number of successive rapids. A survey of the upper river proved
its unnavigability even had a portage been possible. The crossing of the
barren grounds was thus lengthened far beyond Franklin's expectations.
Franklin, meantime, determining by astronomical observations the
location of his camp on Hood River, informed the men that they were only
one hundred and fifty miles from Point Lake, which was opposite Fort
Enterprise, their starting-point the previous spring. The voyageurs
received this news with great joy, thinking it to be a short journey, as
they had had no experience with the barren region. Franklin was not so
cheerful, as accounts of the desolation from various sources had made
him alive to the certain hardships and possible dangers of the march. He
decided to omit no precaution that would relieve or obviate the
hardships.
Besides the five Englishmen, there were fifteen voyageurs, of whom two
were Eskimo hunters, two interpreters, an Italian, an Iroquois Indian,
and nine Canadian half-breeds. All were men inured to hard service and
familiar with frontier life.
The large boats were taken apart, and from this material were built two
small portable canoes which were fit to carry three men across any
stream that might be discovered in this trackless and unexplored desert.
Such books, clothing, supplies, and equipment as were not absolutely
necessary for the journey were cached so as to reduce the loads to be
carried in the men's packs. The tanned skins that had been brought along
for the purpose of replacing worn-out moccasins were equally divided,
and strong extra foot-gear was made up with great care. Each one was
given two pairs of flannel socks and other warm clothing, for freezing
weather had come to stay. One tent was taken for the men and another for
the officers.
On the last day of August the party started in Indian file, each man
carrying ninety pounds, and the officers according to their strength.
The luggage consisted of their little stock of pemmican, tents,
ammunition, fishing-nets, hatchets, instruments, extra clothing,
sleeping and cooking gear. Each officer had a gun, his field journals,
instruments, etc., and two men were told off daily to carry the
cumbersome and hated canoe. They were so heavily laden that they made
only a mile an hour, including frequent rests. The voyageurs complained
from the first at taking two canoes, and were but half convinced when
the raging Hood River was speedily crossed by lashing the two canoes
together.
Their important vegetable food, berries, failed a few miles from the
river, and as very little game was seen they were obliged to eat the
last of their pemmican on September 4. As a blizzard sprang up the next
morning, the party was storm-bound for two days--passed without food or
fire, their usual fuel, moss, failing, as it was covered with snow and
ice. The temperature fell to twenty degrees and the wet tents and damp
blankets were frozen in solid masses. On breaking camp Franklin fainted
from exhaustion, cold, and hunger. Dr. Richardson revived him, against
his protest, with a bit of portable soup which, with a little arrow-root
for sickness, was the only remaining food.
The snow was now a foot deep and travel lay across swamps where the new,
thin ice constantly broke, plunging the wretched men up to their knees
in ice-cold water. To add to their misfortunes, Benoit, to Franklin's
distress, fell and broke the larger of the canoes into pieces; worst of
all, he was suspected of doing so maliciously, having threatened to
destroy the canoe whenever it should be his turn to carry it. Franklin
chose to ignore this mutinous conduct and resourcefully utilized the
accident. Halting the march and causing a fire to be made of the birch
bark and the timbers, he ordered the men to cook and distribute the last
of the portable soup and the arrow-root. Though a scanty meal, it
cheered them all up, being the first food after three days of fasting.
After a march of two days along the river bank, they struck across the
barren grounds, taking a direct compass course for Point Lake. The
country was already covered with snow and high winds also impeded their
progress. In many places the ground was found to have on its surface
numberless small, rolling stones, which often caused the heavily
burdened voyageurs to stumble and fall, so that much damage was done to
loads, especially to the frail canoe. As the only foot-gear consisted of
moccasins made of soft, pliant moose-skin, the men soon suffered great
pain from frequent stone-bruises, which delayed the march as the
cripples could only limp along.
The barren grounds soon justified their name, for, though an occasional
animal was seen and killed, the men more often went hungry. The deep
snow and the level country obliged Franklin to adopt special methods to
avoid wandering from the direct compass route, and the party travelled
in single file, Indian fashion. The voyageurs took turns breaking the
path through the snow, and to this leader was indicated a distant object
toward which he travelled as directly as possible. Midshipman Hood
followed far enough in the rear to be able to correct the course of the
trail-breaker, to whom were pointed out from time to time new objects.
This method of travel was followed during the whole journey, meeting
with great success.
In time they reached a hilly region, most barren to the eye but where
most fortunately were found on the large rocks edible lichens of the
genus _gyrophora_, which were locally known to the voyageurs as _tripe
de roche_ (rock-tripe). Ten partridges had been shot during the day's
march, half a bird to a man, and with the abundant lichens a palatable
mess was made over a fire of bits of the arctic willow dug up from
beneath the snow. Franklin that night, which was unusually cold, adopted
the plan, now common among arctic sledgemen, of sleeping with his wet
socks and moccasins under him, thus by the heat of the body drying them
in part, and above all preventing them from freezing hard.
Coming to a rapid-flowing river, they were obliged to follow it up to
find a possible crossing. They were fortunate to find a grove of small
willows, which enabled them to make a fire and thus apply gum to the
very much damaged canoe. Though the operation was a very ticklish one,
three of the voyageurs under Saint Germain, the interpreter, managed the
canoe with such dexterity as to ferry over one passenger at a time,
causing him to lie flat in the canoe, a most uncomfortable situation
owing to the cold water that steadily seeped into the boat.
Starvation meals on an occasional grouse, with the usual _tripe de
roche_, caused great rejoicing when, after long stalking, the hunters
killed a musk-cow. The ravenous condition of the voyageurs was evident
from Franklin's statement that "the contents of its stomach were
devoured on the spot and the raw intestines, which were next attacked,
were pronounced by the most delicate of us to be excellent. This was the
sixth day since we had had a good meal; the _tripe de roche_, even when
we got enough, only served to allay hunger a short time."
Suffering continual privations from hunger, they reached Rum Lake, where
the supper for twenty men was a single partridge with some excellent
berries. There was still _tripe de roche_ to be had, but "this
unpalatable weed was now quite nauseous to the whole party, and in
several cases it produced bowel complaints."
Franklin considered that the safety of the men could now be insured
through the lake fishing, as most of the voyageurs were experts with the
net from having long lived at points where they depended on fish for
their food. His consternation almost gave way to despair when he
discovered the fatal improvidence of the voyageurs, who, to lessen their
burdens by a few pounds, had thrown away the fishing-nets and burned the
floats. "They knew [says Franklin] we had brought them to procure
subsistence for the party, when the animals should fail, and we could
scarcely believe the fact of their having deprived themselves of this
resource," which eventually caused the death of the majority of the
party.
Franklin at once lightened the loads of his sadly weakened men by
abandoning everything save astronomical instruments, without which he
could not determine correctly their route. Under these disheartening
circumstances, the captain's heart was cheered beyond measure by an act
of heroic generosity on the part of one of his starving men. As they
were starting on the march Perrault came forward and gave to each
officer a bit of meat that he had saved from his own allowance. Franklin
says: "It was received with great thankfulness, and such an act of
self-denial and kindness, being entirely unexpected in a Canadian
voyageur, filled our eyes with tears."
A short time after, Credit, one of the hunters, came in with the
grateful news that he had killed a deer.
The same day there was a striking display of courage, skill, and
endurance on the part of one of the men indicative of the mettle of
these uncultured voyageurs. In crossing a river the first boat-load
consisted of Saint Germain, Solomon Belanger, and Franklin. Driven by a
strong current to the edge of a dangerous rapid, Belanger lost his
balance and upset the canoe in the rapid. All held fast to the frail
craft and were carried to a point where they touched a rock and gained
their footing, although up to their waists in the stream. Emptying the
canoe of water, Belanger held the boat steady whilst Saint Germain
placed Franklin in it and embarked himself in a dexterous manner. As it
was impossible to get Belanger in the boat, they started down the river
and after another submersion reached the opposite shore.
Belanger's position was one of extreme danger and his sufferings were
extreme. He was immersed to his waist in water near the freezing-point,
and, worse yet, his upper body, clothed with wet garments, was exposed
to a high wind of a temperature not much above zero. Two voyageurs tried
vainly in turn to reach him with the canoe, but the current was too
strong. A quick-witted voyageur caused the slings to be stripped from
the men's packs and sent out the line toward Belanger, but just as he
was about to catch it the line broke and the slings were carried away.
Fortunately there was at hand a small, strong cord attached to a
fishing-net. When Belanger's strength was about gone the canoe reached
him with this cord and he was dragged quite senseless to the shore. Dr.
Richardson had him stripped instantly, wrapped him up in dry blankets,
and two men taking off their clothes aided by their bodily heat in
bringing the sufferer to consciousness an hour or so later.
Meantime the distracted Franklin was watching this desperate struggle
from the farther bank, where with drenched and freezing clothes he was
without musket, blankets, hatchet, or any means of making a fire. If
this betossed canoe was lost the intrepid commander and all the men
would have perished. It is to be noted, as characteristic of the man,
that in his journal Franklin makes no mention of his sufferings, but
dwells on his anxiety for the safety of Belanger, while deploring also
the loss of his field journal and the scientific records.
The loss of all their pack-slings in rescuing Belanger somewhat delayed
their march, but with the skill and resourcefulness gained by life in
the wilds, the voyageurs made quite serviceable substitute slings from
their clothing and sleeping-gear.
Conditions grew harder from day to day, and soon the only endurable
situation was on the march, for then they were at least warm. The usual
joy of the trapper's life was gone--the evening camp with its hours of
quiet rest, its blazing fire, the full pipe, the good meal, and the
tales of personal prowess or adventure. Now, with either no supper or a
scanty bit of food, the camp was a place of gloom and discomfort. Of the
routine Franklin writes: "The first operation after camping was to thaw
out our frozen shoes, if a fire could be made, and put on dry ones. Each
wrote his daily notes and evening prayers were read. Supper if any was
eaten generally in the dark. Then to bed, where a cheerful conversation
was kept up until our blankets were thawed by the heat of our bodies and
we were warm enough to go to sleep. Many nights there was not enough
fire to dry our shoes; we durst not venture to pull them off lest they
should freeze so hard as to be unfit to put on in the morning."
Game so utterly failed that the hunters rarely brought in anything but a
partridge. Often they were days without food, and at times, faint and
exhausted, the men could scarcely stagger through the deep snow.
Midshipman Hood became so weak that Dr. Richardson had to replace him as
the second man in the marching file, who kept the path-breaking leader
straight on the compass course. The voyageurs were in such a state of
frenzy that they would have thrown away their packs and deserted
Franklin, but they were unable to decide on a course that would insure
their safe arrival at Fort Enterprise.
Now and then there were gleams of encouragement--a deer or a few
ptarmigan; and once they thought they had a treasure-trove in a large
plot of iceland moss. Though nutritious when boiled, it was so acrid and
bitter that only a few could eat more than a mouthful or two.
After six days of cloudy weather, Franklin got the sun and found by
observation that he was six miles south of the place where he was to
strike Point Lake, the error being due to their ignorance of the local
deviation of the compass by which they had laid out their route. When
the course was changed the suspicious voyageurs thought that they were
lost, and gave little credit to Franklin's assurances that they were
within sixty miles of Fort Enterprise. Dr. Richardson was now so weak
that he had to abandon his beloved plants and precious mineral
specimens.
Their misfortunes culminated when the remaining canoe was badly broken,
and the men, despite entreaties and commands, refused to carry it
farther. Franklin says: "My anguish was beyond my power to describe it.
The men seemed to have lost all hope, and all arguments failed to
stimulate them to the least exertion."
When Lieutenant Back and the Eskimo hunters started ahead to search for
game, the Canadians burst into a rage, alleged an intended desertion,
threw down their packs, and announced that it was now to be every one
for himself. Partly by entreaties and partly by threats, for the
officers were all armed (and in view of the fact that Franklin sent the
fleetest runner of the party to recall the hunters), the voyageurs
finally consented to hold together as a party.
Death by starvation appeared inevitable, but with his commanding
presence and heroic courage the captain was able to instil into the men
some of his own spirit of hope and effort. As they were now on the
summer pasturage grounds of large game, they were fortunate enough to
find here and there scattered horns and bones of reindeer--refuse
abandoned even by the wolves. These were eagerly gathered up, and after
being made friable by fire were ravenously devoured to prolong life, as
were scraps of leather and the remnants of their worn-out moose-skin
moccasins.
September 26 brought them, in the last stages of life, to the banks of
the Coppermine, within forty miles of their destination. The misguided
voyageurs then declared themselves safe, as for once they were warm and
full of food, for the hunters had killed five deer and they came across
a willow grove which gave them a glorious camp-fire. But the seeds of
disloyalty and selfishness now blossomed into demoralization. After
gorging on their own meat two of the voyageurs stole part of the meat
set aside for the officers.
The question of crossing the Coppermine, a broad stream full of rapids,
was now one of life or death. With remorse nearly bordering on
desperation, the Canadians now saw that the despised and abandoned canoe
was their real ark of safety. Following the banks for miles, no ford
could be found despite the closest search. Franklin fixed on two plans
for crossing, either by a raft of willows, which grew in quantities
near by, or by a canvas boat to be made by stretching over a willow
framework parts of tents still in hand. The voyageurs arrogantly scouted
both expedients, but after wasting three precious days wrangling they
built a willow raft. When done its buoyancy was so slight that only one
man could be supported by it. It was thought, however, that a crossing
could be made by getting a line across the river by which the raft could
be pulled to and fro. As an incitement to exertion, Franklin offered to
the voyageur who should take a line across the sum of three hundred
livres (sixty dollars), a large amount for any of these men. Two of the
strongest men failed in their efforts to work the raft across, the
stream being rapid and one hundred and thirty yards across. The single
paddle, brought by Richardson all these weary miles from the sea-shore,
was too feeble, and two tent-poles lashed together were not long enough
to reach bottom a short distance from the shore. Repeated failures
demoralized the voyageurs, who cried out with common accord that they
were lost.
Dr. Richardson now felt that the time had come to venture his life for
the safety of the party, and so offered to swim across the Coppermine
with a line by which the raft could be hauled over. As he stripped his
gaunt frame looked rather like a skeleton than a living man. At the
sight the Canadians all cried out at once, "Ah! que nous sommes
maigres!" ("Oh! how thin we are!"). As the doctor was entering the
river he stepped on a dagger which had been carelessly left on the
ground. It cut him to the bone, but he did not draw back for a second.
Pain was nothing to the lives of his comrades.
With the line fastened around his waist, he plunged into the stream.
Before he reached the middle of the river his arms were so benumbed by
the cold water, which was only six degrees above the freezing-point,
that he could no longer use them in swimming. Some of the men cried out
that he was gone, but the doctor was not at the end of his resources,
and turning on his back he swam on in that way. His comrades watched him
with renewed anxiety. Could he succeed or must he fail? Were they to be
saved or not? The swimmer's progress became slower and slower, but still
he moved on. When almost within reaching distance of the other bank his
legs failed also, and to the intense alarm of the Canadians he sank. The
voyageurs instantly hauled on the line, which brought him to the
surface, and he was drawn to the shore in an unconscious and almost
lifeless condition. He was rubbed dry, his limbs chafed, and, still
unconscious, was rolled up in blankets and placed before a very hot
fire. In their zeal the men nearly caused the death of the doctor, for
he was put so near the fire that the intense heat scorched his left side
so badly that it remained deprived of most sensation for several months.
Fortunately he regained consciousness in time to give some slight
directions about his proper treatment.
Apart from the failure of Richardson to cross the river, the spirits of
the party were more cast down by the loss of Junius, the best hunter of
the party. Taking the field as usual, the Eskimo failed to return, and
no traces could be found of him.
As a final resort they adopted a plan first advanced by Franklin, and
the ingenious interpreter, Saint Germain, offered to make a canvas boat
by stretching across a willow framework the painted, water-proof canvas
in which the bedding was wrapped. Meanwhile the general body of the
voyageurs was in such depths of indifference that they even preferred to
go without food rather than to make the least exertion, and they refused
to pick the _tripe de roche_ on which the party now existed. Franklin
records that "the sense of hunger was no longer felt by any of us, yet
we were scarcely able to converse on any other subject than the
pleasures of eating."
Finally the canoe was finished on October 4, and, proving water-tight,
the whole party was ferried safely across, one at a time. The week lost
by ignoring Franklin's orders proved the destruction of the party as a
whole.
This was not the view of the voyageurs, who were now as joyful that they
were within forty miles of the station as they had been downcast the day
before crossing, when one of them stole a partridge given Hood, whose
stomach refused the lichens. Of this mercurial change Franklin says:
"Their spirits immediately revived, each shook the officers by the hand,
declared the worst of their difficulties over, and did not doubt
reaching Fort Enterprise in a few days."
Franklin at once sent Back with three men ahead for assistance from Fort
Enterprise, as previous arrangements had been made with a Hudson Bay
agent to supply the station with provisions and to have Indians there as
hunters.
The rear guard following slowly found no food save lichens, and so began
to eat their shoes and bits of their bedding robes. On the third march
two voyageurs fell exhausted on the trail, and despite the encouraging
efforts of their comrades thus perished. To give aid to the failing men,
to relieve the packs from the weight of the tent, and to enable Franklin
to go ahead unencumbered by the weakest, Dr. Richardson asked that he be
left with Hood and Hepburn at such place as fuel and _tripe de roche_
were plentiful, which was done, relief to be sent to them from the
station as soon as possible. Of this Franklin says: "Distressed beyond
description at leaving them in such a dangerous situation, I long
combated their proposal, and reluctantly acceded when they strenuously
urged that this step afforded the only chance of safety for the party.
After we had united in thanksgiving and prayers to Almighty God, I
separated from my companions deeply afflicted. Dr. Richardson was
influenced in his resolution to remain by the desire which influenced
his character of devoting himself to the succor of the weak and Hepburn
by the zealous attachment toward his officers."
The nine other voyageurs given their choice went forward with Franklin,
but Michel Teroahaute, the Iroquois Indian, and two Canadians returned
next day to Richardson's camp.
On his arrival at Fort Enterprise on October 14, Franklin for the first
time lost heart, the station being unprovisioned and desolate. A note
from the indefatigable Back told that he was seeking aid from roving
Indians or at the nearest Hudson Bay post.
Franklin says: "It would be impossible to describe our sensations after
discovering how we had been neglected. The whole party shed tears, not
for our own fate, but for that of our friends in the rear, whose lives
depended entirely on our sending immediate relief."
On October 29 Richardson came in with the horrible news that two
voyageurs had died on the trail, that the Iroquois Indian, Michel, had
murdered Hood, and that in self-defence he had been obliged to shoot
Michel.
Pending the relief of the party, which was on November 7, the members
existed on Labrador tea (an infusion from a plant thus used by the
Indians), on lichens, and the refuse of deer killed the year before. The
deerskins gathered up in the neighborhood were singed of their hair and
then roasted, while the horns and bones were either roasted or used in
soup. Two of the Canadians died on this diet. Of a partridge shot and
divided into six portions Franklin says: "I and my companions ravenously
devoured our shares, as it was the first morsel of flesh any of us had
tasted for thirty-one days."
The praiseworthy conduct of Franklin and of his companions in
prosecuting the work of outlining the arctic coasts of North America is
not to be measured alone by the fortitude and courage shown in crossing
the barren grounds. An unusual sense of duty, akin to heroism, could
alone have inspired Franklin and Richardson to attempt the exploration
under the adverse conditions then prevailing in that country. A warfare,
practically of extermination, was then in progress between the Hudson
Bay Company and the Northwestern Company. This struggle, under the
instigation of misguided agents, aroused the worst passions of both
half-breeds and of Indians, who were demoralized by the distribution of
spirits. By diversions of hunters many people were starved, while others
were murdered outright. Franklin's sad experiences in the public service
at Fort Enterprise were duplicated by the starvation and deaths of
innocent people at other remote points through commercial cupidity or
rivalry.
Disastrous and lamentable as was the outcome of the journey across the
barren lands, it indicated in a striking manner the superior staying
powers of the English as pitted against the hardy voyageurs--Canadians,
Eskimos, Indians, and half-breeds. Five of the fifteen voyageurs
perished and one of the English. Doubtless the latter survived largely
through their powers of will, acts of energy and of heroic devotion to
the interests of the party--one and all.
THE RETREAT OF ROSS FROM THE _VICTORY_
"For there is none of you so mean and base
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes."
--SHAKESPEARE.
Among the many notable voyages in search of the northwest passage,
although less spectacular in phases of adventurous exploration than some
others, there is none which deserves more careful examination than that
of Sir John Ross in the _Victory_. Not only did this voyage make most
important contributions to the various branches of science, but it was
unequalled for its duration and unsurpassed in variety of experiences.
It was fitted out as a private expedition, largely at the expense of
Felix Booth, sheriff of London, was absent from 1829 to 1833, and was
the first arctic expedition to use steam as a motive power.
Sailing in the small paddle-wheel steamer _Victory_, Ross passed through
Baffin Bay into Lancaster Sound, whence he shaped his course to the
south. Discovering the eastern shores of North Somerset and of Boothia,
he put his ship into winter quarters at Felix Harbor, which became his
base of operations. Rarely have such valuable explorations been made
without disaster or even serious hardships. Boothia was found to be the
most northerly apex of the continent of North America, while to its
west King William Land and other extended areas were discovered.
Of surpassing interest and importance was the magnetic work done by
James Clark Ross, a nephew of Sir John. Many persons do not realize that
the place to which constantly points the north end of the needle of the
magnetic compass is _not_ the north geographic pole. The locality to
which the compass turns is, in fact, nearly fourteen hundred miles to
the _south_ of the north pole. With this expedition in 1830, James Clark
Ross by his many observations proved that the _north magnetic pole_, to
which the needle of the compass points, was then very near Cape
Adelaide, in 70 deg. 05' north latitude, 96 deg. 44' west longitude.[1]
The adventures of the crew in their retreat from Boothia Land by boat
and sledge are recorded in this sketch.
* * * * *
Captain Ross failing to free his ship from the ice the second summer, it
was clear to him that the _Victory_ must be abandoned the coming spring.
It was true salmon were so abundant in the lakes of Boothia that five
thousand were caught in one fishing trip, which netted six tons of
dressed fish, but bread and salt meat, the usual and favorite food of
the crew, were so short that it had become necessary to reduce the daily
issues. Fuel was so reduced that none remained save for cooking, and the
deck had to be strewn with a thick coating of gravel, for warmth,
before the usual covering of snow was spread over the ship. Creatures of
habit, the seamen now showed signs of depression bordering on discontent
if not of despair.
[Illustration: Boothia Peninsula and North Somerset.]
There were two routes of retreat open to Ross, one being toward the
south, attractive as being warmer and possibly more ice-free. He chose,
however, the way to the north, which, desolate as it might be, was known
to him both as to its food supplies and also as to the chances of
meeting a ship. Every year the daring Scotch whalers were fishing in
Lancaster Sound, and at Fury Beach, on the line by which he would
travel, were large quantities of food, boats, and other needful
articles--landed from the wreck of Parry's ship _Fury_ in 1825.
Ross did not plan his abandonment of the _Victory_ any too early, for in
January Seaman Dixon died and his mate Buck lost his eyesight from
epilepsy. Signs of the dreaded arctic horror, scurvy, were not lacking,
as the foolish seamen were averse to the antiscorbutic lime juice and
refused to take the fresh salmon-oil ordered by the doctor. Ross was
also affected, his old wounds breaking out afresh, reminders of the day
when as a lieutenant he had aided in cutting out a Spanish ship under
the batteries of Bilbao.
Knowing that the _Victory_ would be plundered by the natives after its
abandonment, Ross provided for a possible contingency of falling back on
her for another winter, and so constructed a cave inshore in which were
cached scientific instruments, ship's logs, accounts, ammunition, etc.
Sledge-building began in January, and the dismantling of the ship
proceeded as fast as the weakness of the crew permitted.
It was impossible to reach the open water of Prince Regent Inlet without
establishing advance depots of provisions and of boats, as the
conditions at Fury Beach were unknown. Floe-travel was so bad, and the
loads hauled by the enfeebled men so small, that it took the entire
month of April to move a distance of thirty miles two boats and food for
five weeks, while open water was not to be expected within three hundred
miles.
On May 29, 1832, the British colors were hoisted, nailed to the mast,
duly saluted, and the _Victory_ abandoned. With the true military spirit
Ross was the last to quit his ship, his first experience in forty-two
years' service in thirty-six ships.
The prospects were dismal enough, with heavily laden sledges moving less
than a mile an hour, while the party were encumbered by helpless men:
these were moved with comfort by rigging up overhead canvas canopies for
the sledge on which a man could be carried in his sleeping-bag.
The midsummer month of June opened with the sea ice stretching like
solid marble as far north as the eye could reach. The change from
forecastle to tent, from warm hammocks and hot meals to frozen blankets
and lukewarm food, told severely on the worn-out sledgemen whose thirst
even could be but rarely quenched until later the snow of the land began
to melt. Now and then a lucky hunter killed a hare, or later a duck,
still in its snowy winter coat, which gave an ounce or two of fresh meat
to flavor the canned-meat stew.
Six days out the seamen, demoralized at their slow progress, sent a
delegation asking the captain to abandon boats and food so that
travelling light they might the earlier reach the Fury Beach depot. Ross
with firmness reprimanded the spokesman and ordered the men to take up
the line of march. He knew that food could not be thus wasted without
imperilling the fate of the party, and that boats were absolutely
essential. While striving to the utmost with the crew, coming a week
later to a safe place he cached both boats, and taking all the food
sent his nephew ahead to learn whether the boats at Fury Beach were
serviceable. After a journey in which young Ross displayed his usual
heroic energy and ability, he brought the glad news that although a
violent gale had carried off the three boats and seriously damaged one,
yet he had secured all so that the boats of the _Victory_ could be left
behind.
July 1 brought the party to Fury Beach, where despite orders and
cautions some of the hungry seamen gorged themselves sick. But the ice
was still solid. Ross therefore built a house of canvas stretched over a
wooden frame, and named the habitation Somerset House, as it was on
North Somerset Land. Work was pushed on the boats, which were in bad
shape, and as they were of mahogany they were sure to lack the fine
flotation qualities of those left behind. Ross fitted his two boats with
mutton sails, while the nephew put in sprit-sails.
Fortunately the food at Fury Beach had escaped the ravages of arctic
animals, though the clever sharp-nosed foxes had scented the tallow
candles, gnawed holes through the boxes, and made way with them all.
Everything was arranged for a long sea trip, each boat being loaded with
food for sixty days and had assigned thereto an officer and seven
seamen. The ice opening suddenly and unexpectedly, they started north on
August 1, moving by oar-power, as the water lanes were too narrow and
irregular for the use of sails. On the water once more, the crew thought
their retreat secure. They had hardly gone eight miles before they were
driven to shore by the moving pack, and were barely able to draw up
their boats when the floes drove violently against the rocks, throwing
up great pressure-ridges of heavy ice and nearly destroying the boats.
The men had scarcely begun to congratulate themselves on their escape
from death in the pack when they realized that they were under
conditions of great peril. They found themselves on a rocky beach, only
a few yards in width, which was a talus of loose, rolling rocks at the
base of perpendicular cliffs nearly five hundred feet high. As the ice
which cemented the disintegrating upper cliffs melted, the least wind
loosened stones, which fell in numbers around them, one heavy rock
striking a boat's mast. Unable to escape by land, hemmed in by the
closely crowding pack, they passed nine days unable to protect
themselves, and fearing death at any moment from some of the falling
stones, which at times came in showers. They were tantalized by the
presence of numerous foxes and flocks of game birds, but they did not
dare to fire at them, fearing that the concussion from the firing would
increase the number of the falling rocks.
With barely room for their tents under the disintegrating precipice,
with decreasing food, in freezing weather, without fuel, and with the
short summer going day by day, they suffered agonies of mind and of
body. Fortunately the ice opened a trifle to the southward so that they
were able to launch the lightest boat, which went back to Fury Beach and
obtained food for three weeks. Driven ashore by the ice-pack on its
return, the crew from Fury Beach managed with difficulty to rejoin the
main party on foot. In this as in other instances they had very great
difficulty in hauling up their heavy mahogany boats, it being possible
to handle the heaviest only by tackle.
Through the opening ice they made very slow progress, being often driven
to shore. Most rarely did anything laughable occur, but one experience
gave rise to much fun. One morning the cook was up early to celebrate a
departure from their usually simple meal. The day before the hunters had
killed three hares, and the cook now intended to make a toothsome
sea-pie, for which he was celebrated among the men. Half-awake, he
groped around for his foot-gear, but could find only one boot. Rubbing
his eyes and looking around him, he was astonished to see a white fox
near the door of the tent calmly gnawing at the missing boot. Seizing
the nearest loose article, he threw it at the animal, expecting that he
would drop the boot. The half-famished fox had no mind to lose his
breakfast, and holding fast to the boot fled up the hill, to the disgust
of the cook and to the amusement of his comrades. To add to the fun they
named the place Boot Bight, though some said that there was more than
one bite in the lost boot.
A strong gale opening the sea, they improved the occasion by crossing
Batty Bay, when the heavy mahogany boat of Ross was nearly swamped. She
took in so much water that the crew were wet up to their knees, and it
required lively work and good seamanship to save her.
After more than seven weeks of such terrible struggles with the ice, the
three boats reached the junction of Prince Regent Inlet and Lancaster
Sound, only to find the sea covered with continuous, impenetrable
ice-floes. Ross cached his instruments, records, specimens, etc., for
the following year, so as to return light to Somerset House.
There were objections to returning south on the part of some of the
crew, who suggested that under the command of young Ross (and apparently
with his approval) the stronger members should "take a certain amount of
provisions from each boat and attempt to obtain a passage over the ice."
This meant not only the division of the party, but almost certainly
would have resulted in the death of all. For the crossing party, of the
strongest men, would have reached a barren land, while the sick and
helpless would have perished in trying to return alone to Somerset House
(Fury Beach). Ross wisely held fast to this opinion, and the return trip
began.
The delay caused by differences of opinion nearly proved fatal, owing to
the rapidly forming new ice through which the boats were only moved by
rolling them. The illy clad men now suffered terribly from the cold, as
the temperature was often at zero or below. It was so horrible to sleep
in the open, crowded boats that they sought the shore whenever possible.
Generally there was neither time nor was there fit snow to put up a
snow-hut, and then the men followed another plan to lessen their
terrible sufferings and sleepless nights. Each of the seamen had a
single blanket, which had been turned into a sack-shaped sleeping-bag so
that their feet should not become exposed and freeze while they were
asleep. Each of the three messes dug a trench, in a convenient
snow-drift, long enough and wide enough to hold the seven sleeping-bags
when arranged close together. Thrown over and covering the trench was a
canvas sail or tent, and the canvas was then overlaid with thick layers
of snow, which thus prevented any of the heat of the men from escaping.
Very carefully brushing off any particles of snow on their outer
garments, the men carefully wormed themselves into their sleeping-bags,
and by huddling together were generally able to gain such collective
heat as made it possible for them to drop off to sleep.
Whenever practicable they supplemented their now reduced rations by the
hunt, but got little except foxes and hares. The audacity of the white
arctic foxes was always striking and at times amusing. Once a thievish
fox crept slyly into a tent where the men were quietly awaiting the
return of a comrade for whose convenience a candle was kept lighted. The
candle smelt and looked good to Master Fox, who evidently had never seen
such a thing as fire before. Running up to the candle, he boldly snapped
at it, when his whiskers were so sorely singed that he departed in hot
haste. All laughed and thought that was the end of the affair. But a few
minutes later, discomfited but not discouraged, Master Fox, with his
scorched head-fur, appeared again in the tent. He had learned his
lesson, for avoiding the candle he snapped up the sou'wester of the
engineer and made off with it though a watching sailor threw a
candlestick at him.
The weather soon became most bitterly cold, and as they sailed or rowed
toward Fury Beach the sea-water often froze as it fell in driblets on
their garments. Food was reduced a third, as Ross knew that a return in
boats was now doubtful. A gale drove them to a wretched spot, a rocky
beach six feet wide beneath frowning cliffs many hundreds of feet high.
Their food was now cut off one-half, and the daily hunt brought
little--a few foxes and sea-gulls, with an occasional duck from the
southward-flying flocks.
Near Batty Bay they were caught in the ice-pack two miles from land and
their fate was for a time doubtful. Only by almost superhuman efforts
did they effect their release. The cargo was carried ashore by hand, and
by using the masts as rollers under the hulls of the boats--though often
discouraged by their breaking through the new, thin ice--they managed at
last to get the boats safe on shore. It might be thought that three
years of arctic service would have taught the men prudence, but here one
of the sailors in zero weather rolled a bread-cask along the shore with
bare hands, which caused him to lose the tips of his fingers and obliged
other men to do his duty.
It was now necessary to make the rest of the journey to Fury Beach
overland. Fortunately there were some empty bread-casks out of which the
carpenter made shift to build three sledges. The party left everything
behind for the journey of the next spring, taking only tentage, food,
needful tools, and instruments. The way lay along the base of
precipitous cliffs, with deep drifts of loose snow on the one hand, and
on the other rough ridges of heavy ice pushed up from the sea. Hard as
were the conditions of travel for the worn-out seamen, they were much
worse for the crippled mate, Taylor, who could not walk with his
crutches, and who suffered agony by frequent falls from the overturning
sled on which he had to be hauled. The first day broke one sledge, and
with zero temperatures the spirits of the men were most gloomy. Being
obliged to make double trips to carry their baggage, some of the sailors
complained when told off to return for the crippled mate. Ross shamed
them into quiet by telling them how much better was their case to be
able to haul a shipmate than was that of the wretched mate dependent on
others for life and comfort.
How closely the party was pressed by fate is shown by their eating the
last morsel of their food the day they reached Somerset House. As they
approached a white fox fled from the house, but though dirty, cold,
hungry, and exhausted, they were happy to reach this desolate spot which
they now called home.
Apart from the death of the carpenter, the winter passed without any
distressing events, though some of the men failed somewhat in strength.
It was a matter of rejoicing that in the early spring they obtained
fresh meat by killing two bears. The carcass of one of them was set up
as a decoy, and one of the seamen stuck a piece of iron hoop into it as
a tail. Soon frozen solid, it attracted another bear, who rushed at it
and after capsizing it was killed by a volley from sailors lying in
wait.
Careful plans were made for the summer campaign. Stoves were reduced to
one-fourth of their original weight and sledges were shod from ice-saws.
The three sledges were fitted with four uprights, with a canvas mat
hauled out to each corner. On this upper mat the sick and helpless men
were laid in their sleeping-bags, and thus could make with comparative
comfort any sledge journeys that might be necessary. It was deemed
advisable to provide for travel either by land or by sea.
The ice of Prince Regent Inlet held fast far into the summer, and at
times there stole into the minds of even the most hopeful and courageous
a fear lest it should not break up at all. Birds and game were fairly
plentiful, far more so than in the preceding year, but all hope, care,
and interest centred in the coming boat journey. No one could look
forward to the possibility of passing a fifth year in the arctic regions
without most dismal forebodings as to the sufferings and fatalities that
must result therefrom. The highest cliffs that commanded a view of the
inlet to the north were occupied by eager watchers of the ice horizon.
Day after day and week after week passed without the faintest signs of
water spots, which mark the disintegrating pack and give hopes of its
coming disruption. Would the pack ever break? Could that vast, unbroken
extent of ice ever waste away so that boats could pass? A thousand
times this or similar questions were asked, and no answer came.
Midsummer was far past when, by one of those sudden and almost
instantaneous changes of which the polar pack is possible, a favorable
wind and fortunate current dissipated the ice-covering of the inlet, and
alongshore, stretching far to the north, an ice-free channel appeared.
With the utmost haste the boats were loaded, the selected stores having
long been ready, and with hearts full of hope they started toward the
north. Ross and his officers fully realized that this was their sole and
final chance of life, and that failure to reach the whalers of Barrow
Strait or Baffin Bay meant ultimate death by starvation.
Amid the alternations during their voyage, of open water, of the
dangerous navigation of various ice streams, and of the tantalizing land
delays, when the violent insetting pack drove them to the cliff-bounded
beaches of North Somerset, even the feeblest worked with desperate
energy, for all knew that their lives depended on concerted, persistent,
intelligent action.
The ice conditions improved as they worked to the north end of Prince
Regent Inlet, and finally the pack was so disrupted and wasted that they
crossed to Baffin Land without difficulty.
Skirting the northern coast of that desolate land, they sailed to the
eastward, hoping almost against hope to see a friendly sail, for the
season was passing and the nights had begun to lengthen rapidly.
On the morning of August 25, 1833, their feelings were raised to an
intense pitch of excitement by the sight of a sail, which failed to
detect in turn the forlorn castaways. Though some fell into deep despair
as the ship stood away, the more rational men felt assured of their
final safety, since whalers were actually in the strait. A few hours
later they were fortunate enough to fall in with and to be picked up by
the whaler _Isabella_, a remarkable incident from the fact that she was
the arctic ship which Sir John Ross had commanded in his expedition of
1818 to Baffin Bay.
When Ross answered the hail from the astonished captain of the
_Isabella_, it was a unique and startling greeting that he received. For
when answering that he was Captain John Ross, the captain of the whaler
blurted out, "Why, Captain Ross has been dead two years," which was
indeed the general belief.
After investigating the affairs of the expedition, a committee of
Parliament reported "that a great public service had been performed
[with] deeds of daring enterprise and patient endurance of hardships."
They added that Captain John Ross "had the merit of maintaining both
health and discipline in a remarkable degree ... under circumstances the
most trying to which British seamen were perhaps ever subjected."
Through daily duty well done, by fidelity to work in hand, and
by unfailing courage in dire extremities, Sir John Ross and his
expeditionary force won their country's praise for heroic conduct.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] While the north magnetic pole constantly changes its position, yet
such movements are very slow, and while at present its exact situation
is not known, its locality is quite near this.
THE DISCOVERY OF THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE
"He came not. Conjecture's cheek grew pale.
Year after year, in no propitious gale
His banner held its homeward way,
And Science saddened at her martyr's stay."
--ANON.
Few persons realize the accompaniments of the prolonged search by
England for the northwest passage, whether in its wealth of venturesome
daring, in its development of the greatest maritime nation of the world,
or in its material contributions to the wealth of the nations. Through
three and a half centuries the British Government never lost sight of
it, from the voyage of Sebastian Cabot, in 1498, to the completion of
the discovery by Franklin in 1846-7. It became a part of the maritime
life of England when Sir Martin Frobisher brought to bear on the search
"all the most eminent interests of England--political and aristocratic,
scientific and commercial." To the search are due the fur-trade of
Hudson Bay, the discovery of continental America, the cod-fishery of
Newfoundland, and the whale-fishery of Baffin Bay. For the discovery of
the northwest passage various parliaments offered a reward of twenty
thousand pounds sterling.
An enterprise that so vitally affected the maritime policy of England,
and in which the historic explorer, Henry Hudson, and the great
navigator, James Cook, met their deaths, involved many heroic
adventures, among which none has engaged more attention than the fateful
voyage of Sir John Franklin and his men, by which the problem was
solved.
[Illustration: Franklin's route on the northwest passage.]
* * * * *
Among the many notable and interesting paintings in the Tate Gallery,
one of the famous collections of pictures in London, is one by Sir John
Millais, entitled "The Northwest Passage." A young girl is reading tales
of arctic travel and of bold adventure to her listening father, whose
tightly closed right hand she affectionately fondles as the thrilling
story reaches its climax. On the table is an outspread map of North
America, consulted often by the attentive readers, whereon blank spaces
denote regions as yet unknown to man. The tale done, the old, grizzled,
weather-beaten sailor, whose clinched hands and fixed eyes betray his
strong emotion, cries out: "It can be done, and England should do it!"
Few pictures, in title and in subject, have more forcibly portrayed that
pride of achievement which is the glory of Britain.
The tale of the northwest passage in its last phase of discovery cannot
anywhere be found in a distinct and connected form. As a record of man's
heroic endeavor and of successful accomplishment at the cost of life
itself, it should be retold from time to time. For it vividly
illustrates an eagerness for adventurous daring for honor's sake that
seems to be growing rarer and rarer under the influences of a luxurious
and materialistic century.
When in 1845 the British Government decided to send out an expedition
for the northwest passage, all thoughts turned to Franklin. Notable
among the naval giants of his day through deeds done at sea and on land,
in battle and on civic duty, he was an honored type of the brave and
able captains of the royal navy. Following the glorious day of Trafalgar
came six years of arctic service--whose arduous demands appear in the
sketch, "Crossing the Barren Grounds"--followed by seven years of duty
as governor of Tasmania. But these exacting duties had not tamed the
adventurous spirit of this heroic Englishman. Deeming it a high honor,
he would not ask for the command of this squadron, for the expedition
was a notable public enterprise whereon England should send its ablest
commander.
When tendered the command the public awaited eagerly for his reply.
He was in his sixtieth year, and through forty-one degrees of
longitude--from 107 deg. W. to 148 deg. W.--he had traced the coast of North
America, thus outlining far the greater extent of the passage. But his
arctic work had been done under such conditions of hardship and at such
eminent peril of life as would have deterred most men from ever again
accepting such hazardous duty save under imperative orders.
Franklin's manly character stood forth in his answer: "No service is
dearer to my heart than the completion of the survey of the northern
coast of North America and the accomplishment of the northwest passage."
Going with him on this dangerous duty were other heroic souls, officers
and men, old in polar service, defiantly familiar with its perils and
scornful of its hardships. Among these were Crozier and Gore, who, the
first in five and the last in two voyages, had sailed into both the
ice-packs of northern seas and among the wondrous ice islands of the
antarctic world.
Sailing May 26, 1845, with one hundred and twenty-nine souls in the
_Erebus_ and the _Terror_, Franklin's ships were last seen by Captain
Dennett, of the whaler _Prince of Wales_, on July 26, 1845. Then moored
to an iceberg, they awaited an opening in the middle pack through which
to cross Baffin Bay and enter Lancaster Sound.
Franklin's orders directed that from Cape Walker, Barrow Strait, he
should "endeavor to penetrate to the southward and to the westward, in a
course as direct to Bering Strait as the position and extent of the ice,
or the existence of the land at present unknown, may admit."
His progress to the west being barred by heavy ice, he sailed up the
open channel to the west of Cornwallis Land, reaching 77 deg. N., the
nearest approach to the north pole in the western hemisphere that had
been reached in three centuries, and exceeded alone by Baffin in 1616,
who sailed forty-five miles nearer. Returning to the southward, the
squadron went into winter quarters at Beechey Island, 74 deg. 42' N., 91 deg.
32' W.
Knowing the virtue of labor, the captain set up an observatory on shore,
built a workshop for sledge-making and for repairs, and surely must have
tested the strength and spirit of his crews by journeys of exploration
to the north and to the east. It is more than probable that the energy
and experiences of this master of arctic exploration sent the flag of
England far to the north of Wellington Channel.
Affairs looked dark the next spring, for three of the men had died,
while the main floe of the straits was holding fast later than usual. As
summer came on care was given to the making of a little garden, while
the seaman's sense of order was seen in the decorative garden border
made of scores of empty meat-cans in lieu of more fitting material.
They had built a canvas-covered stone hut, made wind-proof by having its
cracks calked, sailor-fashion, by bunches of long, reddish mosses. This
was the sleeping or rest room of the magnetic and other scientific
observers, who cooked their simple meals in a stone fireplace built to
the leeward of the main hut. Here with hunter's skill were roasted and
served the sweet-meated arctic grouse savored with wild sorrel and
scurvy grass from the near-by ravines.[2]
Looking with eager eyes for all things new, as must those who sailed
with Franklin, they saw strange sights--unknown forms of nature
to non-arctic sailors. In the days of melting snow, during the
quick-coming, swift-flying polar spring, among all things white and
colorless, they must have been struck by the high colors of the many
little fresh-water pools whose vivid greens and brilliant reds catch and
please an eye wearied and dulled by the sombre arctic landscape. Around
the edge of these tiny ponds form thick coatings of bright-green,
thread-like algae (fresh-water plants somewhat like kelp or sea-weed).
The stones at the bottom of the centre of the pools were incrusted by
the red snow plant whose rich colors gave a sense of life to the near-by
shallows.
In such haste Franklin put to sea that the customary rule was not
observed of building a cairn in a prominent place and of placing
therein a record of operations to date. Doubtless the sea opened
suddenly by one of those offshore winds which bring ice-free water as by
magic. But they must have left the land for the open sea with the free
joy of the sailor, not knowing that fate had been kinder to the three
comrades who rested under the arctic sky in the quiet island graves than
to those who with brave hearts and high hopes sailed ever onward and
onward.
Soon Franklin sighted Cape Walker, whence he should sail to the west and
south as conditions of the land and the ice might permit. From the
record recovered from the cairn at Point Victory, he seems to have been
forced to go south through Peel Sound into Franklin Strait, where we
know that both the flag-ship _Erebus_ and the _Terror_ were beset in the
floe-ice of the open sea and were frozen up in the winter pack twelve
miles north-northwest of King William Land. This besetment, on September
12, 1846, must have been a grievous blow to Franklin, who was now
practically assured of the existence of the northwest passage along the
continental coast of North America. He was directly to the north of and
only eighty-four miles distant from Cape Herschel, King William Land,
which in 1839 had been discovered and visited by that successful
explorer, Thomas Simpson, one of the most active of the many energetic
agents of the Hudson Bay Company.
The polar winter, tedious and dreary at any time, must have been of
fearful and almost unendurable length to those eager, ambitious men
who, helpless and idle in their ice-held ships, knew that they had
substantially finished the search which for two hundred and forty-nine
years had engaged the heart and hand of the best of the marine talent of
England. The winter passed, oh! how slowly, but it ended, and with the
welcome sun and warmer air of coming spring there was a cheerful sense
of thankfulness that death had passed by and left their circle unbroken
and that "all were well."[3]
A man of Franklin's type did not let the squadron remain idle, and it is
certain that the shores of Victoria and Boothia Peninsula were explored
and the magnetic pole visited and definitely relocated.
The only sledge-party of which there exists a record is that which left
the ships on May 24, 1847, consisting of Lieutenant Graham Gore, Mate
Des Voeux, and six men. Its small crew, led by a junior officer,
indicates that its objects were subordinate to those pursued by other
parties. Most probably it was a hunting-party in pursuit of the game of
King William Land, which now was a matter of grave urgency to Franklin.
The excessive number of empty meat-cans at Beechey Island is believed to
be due to the inferior character of the meat which led to much being
condemned. The large number of deaths which quite immediately followed
Gore's journey may well have been associated with the coming of scurvy
from malnutrition.
At all events, Gore reached Point Victory, King William Land, on May 28,
and there built a cairn and deposited the one of the two only records of
Franklin's squadron of any kind that have been found.[4] It set forth
Franklin's discoveries around Cornwallis Land, the wintering at Beechey
Island, and the besetment and wintering in the pack of the _Erebus_ and
_Terror_ in 70 deg. 05' N., 98 deg. 23' W. It ended with the encouraging
statement that all were well and Sir John Franklin in command.
From the Crozier record, to be mentioned later, it is known that evil
days followed immediately the favorable conditions set forth by Gore.
Sir John Franklin was spared the agony of watching his men and officers
perish one by one of exhaustion and starvation, for the record tells us
that he died on the ice-beset _Erebus_, June 11, 1847, fourteen days
after the erection of the Point Victory cairn. Death was now busy with
the squadron, and within the next eleven months seven officers,
including Gore, and twelve seamen perished, probably from scurvy.
Franklin's last days must have been made happy by the certainty that his
labors had not been in vain, since it was clearly evident that he had
practically finished the two labors dearest to his heart--"the
completion of the survey of the northern coasts of North America and
the accomplishment of the northwest passage." The drift of the ships to
the southwest with the main pack carried them to within sixty-five miles
of Cape Herschel, and the chart taken by Franklin showed a distance of
only fifty-five miles of unknown lands to connect the discoveries of
Ross with those of Dease and Simpson. Doubtless the evidence of the
drift had been supplemented by an exact survey of the coast by sledge.
It is incredible to assume that the energetic Franklin allowed his men
to remain inert for eight months within a score of miles of unknown
lands.
The ice holding the ships fast until the spring of 1848, it was
necessary for Captain F. R. M. Crozier, now in command, to abandon them,
as they were provisioned only until July. It was evident that the only
chance of life was to reach the Hudson Bay posts, via Back (Great Fish)
River, two hundred and fifty miles distant. While it would not be
possible to haul enough food for the whole party, they had good reasons
to believe that they could live in part on the country. Simpson had
reported large game as plentiful along the south coast of the island,
while Back spoke of thousands of fish at the river's mouth.
Arrangements for the retreat were made by landing on April 22, 1848, on
King William Land abundant supplies of bedding, tentage, provisions,
clothing, ammunition, etc., and a large camp was there established.
Sledges were strengthened and boats fitted thereon with which to ascend
Back River and if necessary to cross Simpson Strait. Great haste was
made, for they were ready to start south on April 25, 1848, on which
date the record of Gore was supplemented by another signed by Crozier
and his second in command, Captain James Fitzjames. It recorded that
Gore had returned to the _Erebus_ from his sledge journey in June, 1847,
and was now dead, as well as twenty others. It added: "Sir John Franklin
died on the 11th of June, 1847. The officers and crew, consisting of 105
souls, ... start on to-morrow, 26th, for Back's Fish River."[5]
Struggling south along the west coast of King William Land, their
progress was slow owing to illness, impaired strength, and their very
heavy, unsuitable field equipment. Doubtless some one fell out of the
sledge-traces daily, and doubtless, with the spirit of heroic Britons,
they acclaimed with cheers their final success when they had dragged
their heavy boat to the north side of Simpson Strait and thus actually
filled in the last gap in the northwest passage.
Their provisions ran low and Lieutenant John Irving went back to the
ship for other supplies, but his heroic zeal was superior to his
strength. He was buried on the beach in full uniform, encased in a
canvas shroud.[6] Of his party one at least reached the ship, and died
on board of the _Erebus_ or _Terror_, which, according to the reports of
the Eskimos, sank later off the west coast of Adelaide Peninsula. Two
others of this detachment evidently endeavored to rejoin the main part,
but died in an abandoned boat. With hope and patience they waited for
the coming of game that would save their lives, and alongside their
skeletons thirty years later were found, standing, their muskets loaded
and cocked for instant use.
Graves and skeletons, boats and tents, clothing and camp-gear silently
tell the tragic tale of that awful march, which has been traced from
Point Victory to Montreal Island through the heroic researches of Hobson
and McClintock, of Hall, Schwatka, and Gilder.
No weaklings were they, but as true men they strove with courage and
energy to the very end. At least one brave man died on the march, and
his skeleton lying on its face verified the truth of the terse tribute
of the Eskimo woman who said to McClintock: "They fell down and died as
they walked."
One boat's crew perished on the west coast of Adelaide Peninsula, and
another entered the mouth of Back River, to die one knows not how or
where. The skeleton found farthest to the south is, perchance, that of
the last survivor, possibly Surgeon Stanley of the _Erebus_, as "Mr
Stanley" was found carved on a stick found on Montreal Island in 1855.
Of the last survivor, MacGahan, in "Northern Lights," thus surmises:
"One sees this man all alone in that terrible world, gazing around him,
the sole living thing in that dark, frozen universe. There is no hope
for him--none. His clothing is covered with frozen snow, his face is
lean and haggard. He takes out his note-book and scrawls, a few lines,
as he has done every day. A drowsy torpor is crawling over his senses.
It will be sweet to sleep, untroubled by dreams of void and hunger.
Through a rift in the clouds glares a red flash of light, like an angry,
blood-shot eye. He turns and meets the sinister sunbeams with a steady
eye, in which a fiery gleam is reflected, as though bidding defiance. As
they glare at each other, this man and this spectre, the curtain is
drawn and all is dark."
This we know, that with loyalty and solidarity these heroic men kept
fast in their path of daily duty, facing unflinchingly cold and disease,
exhaustion and starvation, and, as has been truly said, they thus
"forged the last link of the northwest passage with their lives."
Rightly are the loftiest strains of the poet's songs invoked by
steadfast fortitude and by the spirit of high endeavor rather than by
physical acts of intrinsic value. So for more than a generation, as a
reminder of heroic worth, the students of Oxford University have year by
year turned into classic latin verse the memorial lines of the
poet-laureate. Avoiding mention of the northwest passage, Tennyson
raised to Franklin's "memory a monument more lasting than brass" when he
penned these enduring lines:
"Not here, not here. The White North has thy bones,
But thou, heroic sailor-soul,
Art sailing on a happier voyage,
Now toward no earthly pole."
FOOTNOTES:
[2] These details as to the life of the squadron are drawn from various
accounts of the hut, fireplace, pools, vegetation, bird-remains, and
other domestic refuse discovered by the officers and men under Ommaney
and Penny in August, 1850. Three graves with head-boards were found, but
no trace or scrap of record or journal of any kind. They were the first
traces discovered of Franklin's movements.
[3] The primary importance of concerted and co-operative action in
explorations covering such a broad field was strikingly illustrated by
the situation at this time. While Franklin and his men were facing
disaster and death in their ice-bound ships to the west of Boothia Felix
Land, that distinguished arctic traveller, John Rae, was exploring
Boothia Peninsula. On April 18, 1847, he was less than one hundred and
fifty miles from his sorely distressed countrymen.
[4] The full text of this record will be found in the sketch entitled
"The Devotion of Lady Jane Franklin."
[5] For full text, see sketch "The Heroic Devotion of Lady Jane
Franklin."
[6] Many of these details are from Gilder's "Schwatka's Search," a
remarkable expedition by these young Americans.
THE TIMELY SLEDGE JOURNEY OF BEDFORD PIM
"Huddled on deck, one-half that hardy crew
Lie shrunk and withered in the biting sky,
With filmy stare and lips of livid hue,
And sapless limbs that stiffen as they lie;
While the dire pest-scourge of the frozen zone
Rots through the vein and gnaws the knotted bone."
--BULWER.
For more than three centuries England made frequent and fruitless
attempts by sea and by land to discover the northwest passage, and in
1818 the British Parliament offered a reward of twenty thousand pounds
sterling for its passage by explorers. Although it is now known that the
ill-fated expedition under Sir John Franklin first discovered the
passage in 1846-7, the first persons to make the journey over a new and
more northerly route, between 1849 and 1853, were the crew of her
Majesty's ship _Investigator_, commanded by Captain Robert Le Mesurier
M'Clure, R.N.
It is a curious and notable fact that the making of the passage was, as
one may say, a matter of luck or of accident. There occurred in
connection with this journey a series of adventures that had marvellous
results, not only in the saving of the lives of the crew of the
_Investigator_, but also in raising them to the pinnacle of fame and
some of them to a state of fortune. M'Clure's ship was not sent forth
on a voyage of geographic exploration, but on a mission of mercy for the
discovery and relief of the Franklin arctic squadron which had been
missing since 1845. The Pacific searching squadron for this purpose,
commanded by Captain Robert Collinson, R.N., consisted of the two ships
_Enterprise_ and _Investigator_, which parted company in Magellan Strait
under orders to meet at Cape Lisburne, Bering Strait. Captain M'Clure
arrived first, and after a very brief delay pushed on without waiting
for his commander. The two ships never met again.
Discovering Banks Land, which the Eskimo called "The Land of the White
Bear," M'Clure followed Prince of Wales Strait to its northern entrance,
where he anchored his ship to a floe and wintered in the open pack in
default of a harbor. Retracing his course to the south the following
summer, he circumnavigated Banks Land under marvellous ice conditions of
great danger, escaping as by miracle, the _Investigator_ being so near
the sheer, precipitous crags of the west coast that her yards could
touch the cliffs, while to the seaward she was cradled in crashing,
uprearing floes which close to her bows were higher than the foreyard.
After reaching Banks Strait the ship grounded one night and M'Clure
unfortunately decided to winter there, in Mercy Bay, where she was
frozen in and abandoned two years later.
This sketch sets forth the desperate extremities to which M'Clure and
his crew were reduced, and describes the timely heroism of Lieutenant
Bedford Pim R.N., in making the sledge journey which wrought such
marvellous changes in the fate and fortunes of the ice-imprisoned men.
* * * * *
[Illustration: Route of Pim's sledge journey.]
On September 23, 1851, the _Investigator_ was frozen in for the winter
in the ice of Mercy Bay, on the north coast of Banks Land. It was her
second arctic winter, and the hardships inseparable from prolonged polar
service were soon felt. The crew were at once placed on two-thirds
allowance, a restricted diet that kept them always hungry. Soon they
felt the shadowy presence of the twin arctic evils, famine and cold,
which came with the forming ice and the advancing winter. Through the
open hatchways the down-flowing polar cold turned into hoar-frost the
moisture of the relatively warm air of the cabins and of the bunks.
Water froze in the glasses and frost particles welded into stiffness the
blankets, bedding, and hammocks of the seamen. Later even the ink froze
in the wells, while the exposed head of every metal bolt or nail was
covered with a glistening coat of ice.
Shoreward the outlook was as desolate as conditions were gloomy on
shipboard. For at first the ice-bound shores of Mercy Bay seemed utterly
barren of life in any form. But one day came with joy and thankfulness
the report that a sharp-eyed boatswain had seen several deer skirting
the snowy hill-tops to the southwestward.
Now all was activity and bustle, since this phase of useful effort had
come to increase their chance of life. Should they fail to release the
ship the coming summer, death by famine sorely threatened. So they
pursued the chase daily with the utmost energy and for a time with
marked success. Not only did the hunters meet with the timid deer and
the stolid musk-ox--their main reliance for meat--but here and there
they found the snowy polar hare, the cunning arctic fox, and too often,
alas! the ravenous wolf--the dreaded pirate of the north.
Regular hunting-parties were told off, consisting of the best shots and
most active men. To save long journeys to and from the ice-beset ship,
tents were erected at convenient places and stored with food and
needful conveniences. Owing to the usual darkness, the safe, sane rule
was laid down that no hunter should venture alone out of sight of either
tent or ship, of some member of a field party, or of a prominent
landmark.
One day an eager seaman, rushing forward to get within gun-shot of a
fleeting musk-ox, when outdistanced by the animal found that he was out
of sight of his comrades and could find no familiar landmark by which to
guide him back to ship or tent. Night coming on, he was in sad plight in
the darkness, illy clad for long exposure, lost and alone. Now and then
he fired a shot, but his straining ears heard no responsive signal from
his shipmates. After tramping to and fro for several hours, he was so
worn out that he sat down to regain his strength, but he soon found that
his clothing, wet with the sweat of travel, had frozen stiff. To save
himself from death by freezing, he began walking slowly about, keeping
to a restricted circle so that he should not wander farther from his
anxious comrades.
While tramping to and fro his listening ear, eager for any sound of
life, detected a slight rustling noise. Turning quickly he saw close
behind him the form of a beast, which loomed large in the faint light of
the rising moon. He had neither need to reason nor time to draw on his
fancy as to the character of his unwelcome pursuer, for a weird
resounding howl called forth at once an answering chorus. A ravenous
wolf had marked the hunter as his prey and was calling his gaunt and
cruel comrades to the bloody, looked-for feast.
The tales of the forecastle had been filled with grewsome details of
the ravages of wolves, so that the seaman was doubly horrified to find a
band of polar pirates on his trail. Though knowing his frightful plight,
he faced expectant death with courage and composure, putting on a bold
front. Shortly the wolves followed their customary tactics, so
successful in killing reindeer or musk-oxen. Forming a circle around the
hunter, a wolf would jump quickly toward the man's back, the animal
alertly withdrawing as he was faced. Again several would make a sudden
and united plunge toward their intended victim--coming from separate
directions. Greatly alarmed at this concerted attack, the seaman fired
at the nearest wolf. When the band, alarmed at the bright flame and loud
noise from the musket--unknown to the arctic wolf--fled a short distance
the seaman at once ascended a small knoll where he would be better
placed for defence. From this point of vantage he waged successful
warfare by timely shots at individual attacking wolves.
But the time came when he had fired every shot in his locker, and then
the band fell back a little way and seemed to be deliberating as to what
should be done next. Expecting another concerted attack, the seaman took
his hunting-knife in one hand so that he could stab any single wolf, and
grasped his musket firmly in the free hand so as to use it as a club.
While in this fearful state he was intensely relieved by seeing the
whole pack rush madly away. Though the hunter never knew for a
certainty, his relief was doubtless due either to the coming of a polar
bear, feared by the wolves, or to the scenting of an attractive
musk-ox. With anxious heart he awaited the coming daylight, when he was
able to locate himself and rejoin the comrades who were in wild search
for him.
This was not an isolated case of the boldness and tenacity of
the wolves, who were a constant menace not only to the hunters
personally--who kept well together after this experience--but to the
game resources of the country. On another occasion three men started out
to bring to the ship the carcass of a deer which had been killed the day
before. The boatswain walking in advance reached the deep ravine in
which he had cached the deer, only to find a pack of five large, gaunt
wolves rapidly devouring the carcass. As he went forward he expected
that the animals would leave, but none stirred at his approach, their
famished condition seeming to banish fear of man. Though he shouted at
the top of his voice and brandished his musket, three of the wolves fell
back only a few yards, when they squatted on their haunches and kept
their sharp eyes fixed on him. The two other wolves paid no attention to
the hunter, but continued to devour ravenously the dismembered animal.
The boatswain seized a hind leg of the deer, but Master Wolf, not at all
disconcerted, held fast to the other end in which his sharp teeth were
deeply fixed. The other wolves now set up a snarling chorus of
encouragement to their fellow and of defiance to the intruder at their
feast. However, the undismayed sailor, holding fast with one hand to the
deer's hind leg, brandished his musket vigorously with the other and
yelled at the top of his voice to his comrades coming over the hill. He
did not wish to use his precious ammunition on the wolves, as the supply
was now so small as to forbid its waste. The daring animal at last
dropped his end of the deer, but stood fast within a yard or two, ready
to renew his attack at a favorable opportunity. The hunter cautiously
gathered up, piece by piece, the remnants of his fat game, the pack all
the time howling and snarling and even making dashes at the brave seaman
who was robbing them of their dinner.
Meanwhile the Eskimo interpreter, Mr. Miertsching, a Moravian missionary
of German birth, came up in a state of excitement which turned to fear
at the scene. His long service in Labrador had made him familiar with
the audacity and prowess of the wolf, and he viewed uneasily the
menacing attitude of the five wolves, who plainly intended to attempt
the recovery of the deer meat. It was not until two other armed men came
up that the wolves took to the hills, howling defiantly.
It was the rule of the ship that a hunter should have the head and the
heart of any animal he killed, thus to encourage the activity and
success of the hunters. Though there were less than twenty pounds saved
from the deer, a generous portion went to the gallant seaman who had
fought off so successfully the predatory gang.
With the opening summer of 1852 affairs were most critical, as the ship
remained fast in the ice, with no signs of relief. In July Surgeon
Alexander Armstrong urged that the allowance of food be increased, as
the year of short rations had caused scurvy among one-third of the crew.
As all fresh meat was then gone, M'Clure refused to make larger food
issues.
At this critical juncture, Woon, a sergeant of marines, shot two
musk-oxen under rather thrilling and unusual circumstances. While
hunting, the sergeant discovered two musk-oxen lying down, one of them
evidently asleep. Creeping quietly toward them, taking advantage of such
cover as the nature of the ground afforded, he was within nearly a
hundred yards when the alarmed oxen scrambled to their feet. Firing at
the larger ox, he wounded him, but not fatally. The musk-ox charged him,
stopping within about forty yards. A second shot only caused the animal
to shake his black mane and toss his horns in a threatening manner.
Meanwhile the second ox ran forward, as though to help his comrade, and
was in turn wounded by a shot from the now alarmed hunter. The second
animal then rushed toward the sergeant in a thoroughly enraged attitude,
and though much smaller than his companion advanced with much more
courage than had the first. With his last ball the hunter fired at the
larger animal, as being more important to the larder, who, shot through
the brain, fell dead in his tracks.
Hastily loading his musket with a part of his remaining powder, the
sergeant was forced to use the screw of his ramrod as a missile, with
which he pierced the neck of the steadily advancing musk-ox. As this
still failed to check the advance the hunter withdrew slowly, reloading
his gun with his single remaining missile, the ramrod of the musket. By
this time the thoroughly enraged animal was within a few feet of the
sergeant when the last shot was fired. The ramrod passed diagonally
through the body of the ox, making a raking wound from which the animal
fell dead at the very feet of the anxious hunter. The larger musk-ox,
with its shaggy mane, curly horns, menacing air, and formidable
appearance, was quite a monster. Its huge head and massive horns made up
one hundred and thirty pounds of its full weight of seven hundred and
sixty-seven pounds.
During the brief arctic summer, under the surgeon's orders, the valleys
were searched for sorrel and scurvy grass, which contributed to the
improved physical health of the men. It was not possible, however, to
dispel the mental dejection that affected all of the crew as the
summer passed without such changes in the ice as would permit the
_Investigator_ to be moved. All knew that the ship's provisions were
inadequate for another year, which must now be faced. If game was not
killed in much larger quantities, it would be necessary to face death by
starvation, unless some unforeseen and providential relief should come
to them.
After long deliberation M'Clure made known his plans to the assembled
crew on September 9, 1852. In April twenty-eight men and officers would
be sent eastward with sledges to Beechey Island, five hundred and fifty
miles distant. At that point they would take a boat and stores there
cached and endeavor to reach the Danish settlements on the west coast of
Greenland. Nine other men would endeavor to reach the Hudson Bay posts
via the Mackenzie River, taking up en route the cache of provisions
deposited by the _Investigator_ on Prince Royal Islands in 1850. Thirty
of the healthiest of the crew would remain with the ship for the fourth
arctic winter, awaiting relief from the British Admiralty in 1854.
Of necessity the daily allowances were again reduced, so that the amount
of food issued was six ounces of meat, ten of flour, and two and
one-half of canned vegetables. Surgeon Armstrong records that "the
feeling was now one of absolute hunger, the cravings of which were ever
present."
The ration was generally eaten by the officers at a single meal, and to
insure exact fairness, and to remove any ground for complaint, the mess
adopted the rule that turn about should be taken in the disagreeable
duty of making the daily issue. The officer of the day arranged the food
in as many portions as there were persons. Then, in an order fixed by
lot, each officer inspected the various piles of food and chose that
which most pleased him. The officer making the division for the day took
the lot left.
It is to be presumed that the men suffered even more than the officers
on these starvation rations. Certainly they were unable to restrain
their feelings as well as did the officers, and on October 4, 1853,
occurred an act doubtless unprecedented in the royal navy. Suffering
from prolonged cravings of hunger, made more acute by the late reduction
of food and by the severe winter cold, the ship's crew assembled on the
quarterdeck in a body and asked Captain M'Clure for more food, which he
refused to grant.
By hunting, which duty now fell almost entirely on the officers, a few
ounces of fresh meat--deer, field-mice, or even wolf--were now and then
added to their meagre meals. The fortunate hunter, besides his game
perquisites of head and heart, also enjoyed other privileges that almost
always brought him back to the ship in a condition that made him a
frightful spectacle from blood and dirt. When he killed a deer or other
animal, the first act of the hunter was to put his lips to the mortal
wound and take therefrom a draught of fresh, warm blood that ebbed from
the dying animal. In taste and in effect this blood was found to be very
like a warm uncooked egg. As water for washing was precious and rarely
to be had, owing to lack of fuel, and then in small amounts, the ghastly
spectacle that a man presented when the blood of an animal was glued
over his face, and was frozen into the accumulated grime of weeks
without washing, may be better imagined than described.
The awful cold in which lived and hunted these half-starved men taxed to
the utmost their impaired powers of endurance. For two days in January
the temperature was ninety-one degrees below the freezing-point, and the
average for that month was four degrees below that of frozen mercury.
The pall of gloom and despair that had come with the winter darkness,
from the frightful cold, and from increasing sickness was somewhat
broken on March 15, 1853, when the weakest half of the crew was told off
in parties to make the spring retreat with sledges. To put them in
condition for the field M'Clure gave them full rations. It was strange
to note how closely they, eating once more heartily, were watched and to
what extent the few ounces of extra food made them objects of envy to
their healthier and stronger comrades, who were to stay by the ship
another awful winter.
The doctors, however, were under no delusion as to the ultimate outcome
of the situation. The weaker members of the crew were to take the field
and die like men, falling in the traces as they dragged along the fatal
sledge, as the surgeons Armstrong and Piers had reported in writing "the
absolute unfitness of the men for the performance of this journey."
Though Captain M'Clure, with the spirit of optimism that belongs to a
commander, endeavored to persuade himself to the contrary, it was
evident to Dr. Armstrong that critical conditions had developed that
threatened the extermination of the expeditionary force.
The able and clear-sighted doctor realized that the sick were not simply
suffering from physical exhaustion induced by the short rations of many
months. He recognized with horror that far the greater number of
the crew were slowly perishing from the dreaded and fatal arctic
scourge--scurvy. The progress and prevalence of the disease were such
that it was to be feared there would not remain after a few months
enough well men to properly care for their sick comrades. It was a
living death that was being faced from day to day.
But fate, inexorable and inexplicable, was doubly placing its veto on
the feeble plans of man. Three of the men who were told off for the
forlorn hope died within a fortnight, while thirty-three of the
remaining thirty-six men were suffering from materially impaired health.
Then came the relief from outside sources, which saved the expedition as
a whole.
Meanwhile, unknown to M'Clure, a searching squadron of five British
ships, commanded by Captain Sir Edward Belcher, R.N., was wintering
about two hundred miles to the eastward of the _Investigator_. Sledging
from one of these ships, the _Resolute_, at Bridgeport Inlet, Melville
Island, Lieutenant Mecham, in October, 1852, had visited Winter Harbor,
and on top of the famous sandstone rock had found the record there
deposited by M'Clure in his visit to that point in April, 1852, six
months earlier, which stated that the _Investigator_ was wintering in
Mercy Bay. The fast-approaching darkness made the trip to Mercy Bay
impossible, even if the ship was yet there--most doubtful from the
record. For M'Clure had added: "If we should not be again heard of ...
any attempt to succor would be to increase the evil."
Nevertheless, Captain Kellet, commanding the _Resolute_, thought it wise
to send a party to Mercy Bay the coming spring, not for M'Clure alone,
but to seek at that place and far beyond such news as was attainable
about Collinson's squadron. For this duty was selected Lieutenant
Bedford C. T. Pim, R.N., a young officer of spirit and determination,
who had volunteered for the journey. Kellet's advisers urged that he
delay the departure until the end of March, with its longer days and
warmer weather. Pim insisted on an early start, for it was a long
journey. Collinson's squadron was provisioned only for that year and so
would break out through the ice early from their more southerly ports.
Providentially, Kellet listened to Pim's importunate pleas, as otherwise
at least half of the crew of the _Investigator_ would have perished.
On March 10, 1853, Pim started on this journey of nearly two hundred
miles, the first long sledge trip ever attempted in an arctic expedition
at such an early date--twenty-five days in advance of any other sledge
journey from the _Resolute_ that year. Pim with eight men hauled the
man-sledge, while Dr. Domville with one man supported him with a
dog-sledge of six animals. Eleven other men were to assist them for five
days.
Things went badly from the very beginning, and Kellet was half inclined
to recall Pim. Under frightful conditions of weather and of ice travel
one man fell sick and two sledges broke down. Fearing that he would be
kept back, Pim wisely stayed in the field, sending back for other men
and sledges. The first night out was quite unendurable, the temperature
falling to seventy-six degrees below the freezing-point. Then followed
violent blizzards which storm-stayed the party for four days, during
which the temperature inside their double tent fell to fifty-six degrees
below freezing. One comfort to the young lieutenant was the presence of
a veteran polar seaman, Hoile, who had learned all the tricks and
secrets of handling gear and stores in the field during his campaigns
under the famous arctic sledgeman Sir Leopold McClintock. But no skill
could make men comfortable under such awful cold. For instance, the fur
sleeping bags at the start had been dry, pliant, and cold-proof. Now the
vapor from the men's bodies had dampened the bags which, frozen solid,
would stand on end without falling, as though made of light sheet-iron.
Marching onward, Pim's next trouble was with a food-cache, laid down by
himself the previous autumn, which wild animals--probably bears and
wolves--had plundered in large part, though some of the thick metal
coverings of the solidly frozen meats had escaped with rough marks of
the teeth and claws.
Pim took everything with jovial humor, and was entirely happy when he
left the firm land of Melville Island to cross frozen Banks Strait to
Mercy Bay, Banks Land. Bad as was travel along the ice-foot bordering
the land, it was far worse in the strait. Domville officially reported
that their course "was beset with every difficulty, every variety of
hummocks and deep snow barring our progress in all directions. Some of
the ridges, too irregular for a loaded sledge, required portages to be
made, a mode of proceeding almost equally difficult and dangerous to the
limbs, from the men sinking to the middle through the soft snow amongst
the masses of forced-up hummocks."
Later there came some level stretches, and then Pim hoisted a sail on
the man-sledge to help it along. It nearly proved their ruin, for the
sledge took charge on a steep, glassy hummock, knocked over the men,
plunged into a deep crevasse, and broke a runner. Pim did not hesitate
an hour over the best thing to do. Leaving Domville to patch up the
sledge and to return and await him at the last depot, Pim started ahead
with his six dogs and two men toward Mercy Bay. Sleepless nights of
fearful cold, days of weary toil with sun-dazzled eyes, biting blasts of
sharp blizzards, exhausting struggles through rubble ice--these one and
all could neither quench the spirit nor bend the will of this forceful
man. Ever faithful to the motto of his sledge flag, "Hope on: hope
ever," he ceased not until the land was reached and success insured.
Skirting the ice-foot of the northeastern coast of Banks Land, his heart
came into his mouth as, rounding a cape, he saw the dark spars of an
ice-beset ship loom up against the sullen southern sky. Blistered and
brazened, half snow-blinded, with face covered with accumulations of
greasy soot, what wonder that this fur-clad figure was thought by
the amazed M'Clure to be an Eskimo, a mistake aided by the wild
gesticulations and loud, unintelligible shouts of a man whose face was
as black as ebony.
Of Pim's coming Dr. Armstrong of the _Investigator_ says: "No words
could express the feelings of heart-felt gladness which all experienced
at this unlooked-for, this most providential arrival."
Over the rough, winding trails of the arctic highway, Pim had travelled
four hundred and twenty-seven miles from ship to ship, and made a
journey that will ever live in polar annals as fraught with vital
interests beyond those of any other single sledge trip.
Of Pim's work a fellow-officer, McDougal, wrote: "Each member of our
little community must have felt his heart glow to reflect that he formed
one of the little band whose undertakings in the cause of humanity had
been crowned with such success."
Thus it happened that through the heroic energy and persistent efforts
of Bedford Pim, the outcome of the voyage of the _Investigator_[7] was
changed from that of certain disaster to one of astounding success. Save
for this timely sledge journey, many of his sailor comrades must have
found unknown graves among the ice-crowned isles of the northern seas,
and an awful tragedy would have marked the splendid annals of the
Franklin search.
FOOTNOTE:
[7] M'Clure abandoned the _Investigator_ shortly after Pim's sledge
journey, and crossing the ice with his men joined Belcher's squadron.
M'Clure and his crew thus made the northwest passage and received
therefor the reward of ten thousand pounds sterling. Captain J. E.
Bernier, who wintered at Melville Island in the Canadian steamer
_Arctic_, 1908-9, says of the _Investigator_: "M'Clure anchored his
vessel ... to be cast on a shoal, where, he said, she would last for
ages. He was mistaken, as no sign was visible of the vessel when the
officer of the Arctic visited Mercy Bay in 1908."
KANE'S RESCUE OF HIS FREEZING SHIPMATES
"Men in no particular approach so nearly to the gods as by giving
safety to their fellow-men."--CICERO.
In 1853 the United States co-operated a second time in the search for
Sir John Franklin, and sent into Smith Sound an expedition fitted out
through the liberality of Henry Grinnell and George Peabody. Doctor
Elisha Kent Kane, United States Navy, commanded the expedition, and
placed his brig _Advance_ in winter quarters in Rensselaer Harbor, West
Greenland, whence he planned by boats and sledges to "examine the coast
lines for vestiges of the lost (Franklin's) party." This sketch relates
particularly to Kane's personal and heroic endeavors to save from death
one of his own field parties.
* * * * *
Among arctic explorers there is no more striking and interesting
figure than that of Elisha Kent Kane, whose enthusiasm created and
individuality dominated the search of 1853. Well-intended, his
expedition was fallacious in plan, unsuitably equipped, inadequately
supplied, and manned by inexperienced volunteers. It seemed doomed to
utter and dismal failure, yet through the activities of the versatile
leader its general results exceeded those of any other arctic expedition
of his generation. With a literary charm and a beauty of expression
unexcelled by any other polar explorer, Kane revealed to the world the
human relations and racial qualities of the Etah Eskimo, told of the
plant and animal life of that desolate region, recorded the march of
physical forces, and outlined the safe and practicable route whereby
alone the north pole has been reached. But if his mind was imbued with a
spirit of philosophy, and if his poetic vision saw first the beautiful,
yet his sense of duty and strength of will inevitably involved his
exposure to any and all privations that promised definite results.
The autumnal journeys of 1853 had led to nothing promising in the
neighborhood of the _Advance_, so throughout the winter he was busy in
preparing for the spring sledge trips in order to search the northern
coast line for the lost explorers. Thus planning and laboring he
definitely recognizes the unfavorable situation. "The death of my dogs,
fifty-seven in all, the rugged obstacles of the ice, and the intense
cold (the temperature had fallen to one hundred degrees below the
freezing-point) have obliged me to reorganize our whole equipment. We
have had to discard all our India-rubber fancy-work. Canvas shoemaking,
fur-socking, sewing, carpentering are all going on. Pemmican cases are
thawing, buffalo robes drying, camp equipments are in the corners." He
adds: "The scurvy spots that mottled our faces made it plain that we
were all unfit for arduous travel on foot at the intense temperatures of
the nominal spring. _But I felt that our work was unfinished._"
[Illustration: Smith Sound and West Greenland.]
The very start of the party, on March 19, 1854, indicated clearly that
two errors, frequent in arctic work, had been committed--overloading and
too early a start in periods of extreme cold. Kane had himself noticed
that in extreme cold, say fifty degrees below freezing, "the ice or snow
covering offers great resistance to the sledge-runners. The dry snow in
its finely divided state resembles sand, and the runners creak as they
pass over it." In a temperature of seventy-one degrees below freezing
"we packed the sledge and strapped on the boat to see how she would
drag. Eight men were scarcely able to move her.... Difficulties of
draught must not interfere with my parties." Erroneously attributing the
trouble to the thin runners of his Eskimo sledge, he changed it for one
with broad-gauged sledge-runners, and then added two hundred pounds of
pemmican to the load.
The party started to the north in a temperature of seventy-five degrees
below freezing, and even with extra men in the rue-raddies (canvas
shoulder-belts for dragging the sledge) they were barely able to move
the sledge forward over the smooth, level floes near the brig.
When the sledgemen came to rough ice they promptly dumped both boat and
pemmican, realizing the impossibility of hauling them. Soon they came to
high, uptilted ice-hummocks, separated by precipitous ice-chasms filled
with drifting snow. It then became necessary to divide the load and so
travel three times over the same road.
Meanwhile they seemed to be advancing over a sea of desolation whereon
were utterly lacking the signs of life--few enough even there along the
shore. From the snow-covered floes were entirely absent the tiny traces
of the snowy ptarmigan, the weaving, wandering trails of the arctic fox,
and the sprawling foot-marks of the polar bear. Once, indeed, they saw a
short distance seaward a blow-hole, where lately a seal had come for
needful air, as shown by the thin glassy ice-covering, unbroken for
days.
Suddenly the weather changed, the clear atmosphere giving way to a
frosty fog, which shut out any distant views, and save for their compass
bearings they did not know the direction of their march, nor indeed
whether the frozen sea continued or that land, so desired, was near or
far.
The coming of a northeast blizzard caused frightful sufferings to these
inexperienced arctic sledgemen. Neither wind or snow proof, the tent was
speedily filled with the drifting, sand-like snow, which saturated the
sleeping-gear and nearly stopped the cooking. Travel in such weather
would have been dangerous for strong, active men, but Baker was too sick
even to walk, and so the days were passed in endeavors to keep
themselves warm and bring about a state of comfort. Still they went on
with courage the first fine day, though their progress was very slow,
and there seemed to be no definite hope of reaching land where their
depot of provisions could be cached.
A second blizzard ended the advance of the worn-out, thoroughly
discouraged men. When the weather cleared Brooks, the mate in charge,
found further progress hopeless. "The hummocks in front consist of
pieces of ice from one to two feet thick, having sharp edges and piled
up from ten to fifteen feet high. Single piles sometimes exceeded thirty
feet in height, and at a distance have the appearance of icebergs. We
failed to perceive a single opening in their chain." His wise decision
to return was all that saved any member of the party.
Of the conditions under which the men slept, Sonntag, who was one of the
sledgemen, says: "The evaporation from the bodies of the sleepers became
condensed on the blanket-bags and buffalo-skins, which acquired a lining
of ice as soon as the men emerged from them in the morning, and when
required for use at night these bedclothes were stiffly frozen. The
labor of sledge-hauling was so excessive that, notwithstanding
the severity of the cold, the men were often thrown into profuse
perspiration, and this was soon followed by the clothes being frozen
together so firmly that they were not thawed asunder until the men
entered their sleeping-bags."
Inspired by the fact they that were homeward bound, the men worked with
desperate energy, and camped only when they were ready to drop with
exhaustion. The last part of the march was through deep snow, which
sifted into every crevice of the men's garments, and, melting there from
the heat of the body, saturated their clothing. The most essential rules
for the safety of arctic sledgemen are the careful brushing of all snow
from the garments before entering the tent and the replacing of the
always damp foot-gear with dry socks. Exhausted and unadvised, most of
the men sought refuge from the fearful cold by crawling unbrushed into
their frozen sleeping-bags, without even removing their boots let alone
their socks. That day of the march had been one of awful cold, the
average temperature being more than seventy degrees below freezing, and
the imprudent sledgemen paid that night the exacting penalty of their
rash ignorance. The following morning the situation was hopeless unless
help could be had from the brig. The feet of four of the men were so
badly frozen that they could not even walk, much less drag the sledge.
It was impossible for the four well men to haul their four disabled
shipmates to the _Advance_, thirty miles distant.
At the call for volunteers for the dangerous journey, which must be made
in one march, all four of the well men responded, and astronomer
Sonntag, with two Danes, Ohlsen and Petersen, made the journey. Irish
Tommy, as the crew called Seaman Hickey, rebelled at first because he
was not accepted, but his generous heart reconciled him to remaining
when it was pointed out that his qualities as cook and as handy-man made
him the best person to care for his crippled shipmates.
Kane tells the story of the rescue in language that cannot be improved.
"We were at work cheerfully, sewing on moccasins by the blaze of our
lamps, when, toward midnight, we heard steps and the next minute
Sonntag, Ohlsen, and Petersen came into the cabin, swollen, haggard, and
hardly able to speak. They had left their companions in the ice, risking
their own lives to bring us the news. Brooks, Baker, Wilson, and
Pierre were all lying frozen and disabled. Where? They could not
tell--somewhere in and among the hummocks to the north and east; it was
drifting heavily around them when they parted."
With impaired health, in feeble strength, ignoring the protests of his
officers against such exposure, the heroic Kane waited not a moment, but
decided to take the field and risk his life, if necessary, to rescue his
crippled shipmates.
Kane continues: "Rigging out the _Little Willie_ sledge with a buffalo
cover, a small tent, and a package of pemmican, Ohlsen (who seemed to
have his faculties rather more at command than his associates) was
strapped on in a fur bag, his legs wrapped in dog-skins and eider-down,
and we were off. Our party consisted of myself and nine others. We
carried only the clothes on our backs. The thermometer stood at
seventy-eight degrees below the freezing-point....
"It was not until we had travelled sixteen hours that we began to lose
our way. Our lost companions were somewhere in the area before us,
within a radius of forty miles. For fifty hours without sleep, Ohlsen
fell asleep as soon as we began to move, and now awoke with unequivocal
signs of mental disturbance. He had lost the bearings of the icebergs. I
gave orders to abandon the sledge and disperse in search of foot-marks.
We raised our tent, gave each man a small allowance of pemmican to
carry on his person, and poor Ohlsen, just able to keep his legs, was
liberated.
"The thermometer had fallen to eighty-one degrees below freezing, with
the wind setting in sharply from the northwest. It was out of the
question to halt; it required brisk exercise to keep us from freezing. I
could not even melt ice for water, and any resort to snow for allaying
thirst was followed by bloody lips and tongue; it burnt like caustic.
"We moved on looking for traces as we went. When the men were ordered to
spread themselves, to multiply the chances, they kept closing up
continually. The strange manner in which we were affected I attribute as
much to shattered nerves as to the cold. McGary and Bonsall, who had
stood out our severest marches, were seized with trembling fits and
short breath. In spite of all my efforts to keep up an example of sound
bearing, I fainted twice on the snow.
"We had been out eighteen hours when Hans, our Eskimo hunter, thought he
saw a broad sledge-track which the drift had nearly effaced. We were
some of us doubtful at first whether it was not one of those accidental
rifts which the gales make in the surface snow. But as we traced it on
to the deep snow among the hummocks we were led to footsteps. Following
these with religious care, we at last came in sight of a small American
flag fluttering from a hummock, and lower down a little masonic banner
hanging from a tent-pole hardly above the drift. It was the camp of our
disabled comrades; we reached it after an unbroken march of twenty-one
hours.
"The little tent was nearly covered with snow. I was not among the first
to come up; but when I reached the tent-curtain the men were standing in
single file on each side of it. With more kindness and delicacy of
feeling than is often supposed to belong to sailors, but which is almost
characteristic, they intimated their wish that I should go in alone, and
I crawled in. Coming upon the darkness, as I heard before me the burst
of welcome gladness that came from the four poor fellows stretched on
their backs, and then for the first time the cheer outside, my weakness
and my gratitude together almost overcame me. _They had expected me!
They were sure that I would come!_
"We were now fifteen souls; the thermometer seventy-five degrees below
the freezing-point. Our sole accommodation was a tent barely able to
hold eight persons; more than half of our party were obliged to keep
from freezing by walking outside while the others slept."
For the return journey: "The sick, with their limbs sewed up carefully
in reindeer-skins, were placed upon the bed of buffalo-robes, in a
half-reclining posture; other skins and blankets were thrown above them,
and the whole litter was lashed together so as to allow but a single
opening opposite the mouth for breathing. This necessary work cost us a
great deal of effort, but it was essential to the lives of the
sufferers. After repeating a short prayer we set out on our retreat."
The journey homeward was made under conditions of almost insuperable
difficulty and distress in which lack of sleep played a greater part
than either cold or physical labor, severe as they both were. As the
energy of the sledgemen failed the tent of the field party was pitched,
and McGary left with orders to move forward after a sleep of four hours.
Not sparing himself, Kane went on with one man and reached the half-way
tent, to melt ice and pemmican, in time to save its destruction by a
predatory polar bear. He says: "The tent was uninjured though the bear
had overturned it, tossing the buffalo-robes and pemmican into the snow.
All we recollect is that we had great difficulty in raising the tent. We
crept into our reindeer-bags without speaking, and for the next three
hours slept on in a dreamy but intense slumber. When I awoke my long
beard was a mass of ice, frozen fast to the buffalo-skin; Godfrey had to
cut me out with his jack-knife."
A few hours later the crippled party rejoined Kane and after refreshment
went on toward the ship. Fortunately the weather was fine and the cold
less severe. Yet, says Kane, "Our halts multiplied, and we fell,
half-sleeping, in the snow. Strange to say, it refreshed us. I ventured
on the experiment, making Riley wake me at the end of three minutes. I
felt so much benefited that I timed the men in the same way. They sat on
the runners of the sledge, fell asleep instantly, and were forced to
wakefulness when their three minutes were out."
In an utterly exhausted, half-delirious condition, they were met a few
miles from the brig by a dog-sledge bringing restoratives. Of the
outcome of the sledge journey out and back Kane says: "Ohlsen suffered
some time from strabismus and blindness; two others underwent amputation
of parts of the foot without unpleasant consequences; and two died in
spite of all our efforts.
"The rescue party had been out for seventy-two hours. We had halted in
all eight hours, half of our number sleeping at a time. We travelled
between eighty and ninety miles, most of the way dragging a heavy
sledge. The mean temperature of the whole time was seventy-three degrees
below freezing, including the warmest hours of the three days. We had no
water except at our two halts, and were at no time able to intermit
vigorous exercise without freezing."
Such remarkable and successful efforts to rescue their suffering
shipmates cannot fail to excite the admiration of all, if merely as an
astonishing instance of man's physical endurance. Yet on the whole such
feelings are subordinate in the hearts of most men to a sense of
reverence for the spirit that animated Kane and his fellows to sacrifice
their personal comfort and venture their lives for the relief and safety
of their disabled comrades.
HOW WOON WON PROMOTION
"Poor, reckless, rude, low-born, untaught,
A heart with English instinct fraught,
He only knows that _not through him_
Shall England come to shame."
--DOYLE.
This tale recites one of the many stirring experiences of the crew of
her majesty's ship _Investigator_, which, after having been frozen fast
in the ice-floes of Mercy Bay, Banks Land, for two years, was abandoned,
June 3, 1853. Owing to lack of provisions, the men, living on two-thirds
rations for twenty months, were obliged to keep the field for hunting
purposes so as to avoid death by starvation. The incidents herein
related occurred in connection with the chase.
* * * * *
The sun had been entirely absent for ninety-four days, and the coldest
period of the winter was at hand. Even at the warmest moment of the
midwinter month, February, the temperature had barely risen to zero. At
times the mercury froze solid, and the cold was so intense that even the
ship herself seemed to suffer as much as the half-starved, ill-clad men.
The metal bolts and rivets glared at one with their ice-covered ends,
while the wooden tree-nails, timbers, and doors cracked continually
under the twin action of frost and contraction. And so since the New
Year's coming the crew had shielded themselves as best they could from
the utter darkness of the land and the frightful cold of the air. Even
when it was possible hunting was unfruitful of results; the deer had
migrated to the pastures of the milder south, while the hares and small
game had huddled in crannies and nooks for shelter against the wind.
But now a few hours of feeble twilight, steadily increasing in duration
and in brightness, were marked by broad bands of life-giving light at
mid-day in the southern sky. Though the longer days were those of
sharper cold, yet hunger and want early drove the hunters from the ship.
As soon as there was enough glimmering light to make it possible, the
keen-eyed sportsmen started inland to find and follow the trails of such
animals as might yet be in the country. At the same time they were
charged to take the utmost care to make sharp note of prominent
landmarks by which they could safely take up their return march to the
_Investigator_.
The spring hunt may be said to have fairly opened ten days before the
return of the long-absent sun, when a wretchedly gaunt reindeer was
killed on January 28, 1852. For days individual deer had been seen,
evidently returned from the south, where their winter life must have
been a constant struggle against starvation, judging from the slain
animal. While the deer of the previous autumn were always in good flesh,
there was in this case not a bit of fat on any rib. A collection of
mere skin and bones, this deer weighed less than ninety pounds, about
the same as a large wolf or draught-dog.
This early success stimulated to action the hungry hunters, who
thenceforth let no day pass without ranging the distant hills for sign
of deer or musk-ox, anxious for the hunter's perquisites--the longed-for
head and heart of the game.
On February 9 the day broke calm, clear, and unusually bright;
especially attractive because of an hour of sunlight, the sun having
come above the horizon at mid-day four days earlier. Every man who could
get permission was enticed into the field, and great was the furore when
one party brought in a small deer, giving promise of more from the
hunters still in the open. With the passing hours one man after another
reached the ship, while the slowly vanishing twilight became fainter and
fainter. When the darkness of night had come and the officer of the deck
had checked off the hunters, he reported to the captain that two men
were yet absent--Sergeant John Woon and Seaman Charles Anderson, both
excellent men, active-bodied and distinguished as hunters.
Woon was the non-commissioned officer in charge of the detachment of
royal marines, whose standing and popularity were almost as high with
the seamen as with his own corps. Dr. Armstrong says of him: "He proved
himself invaluable, was always a ready volunteer, most correct and
soldier-like in conduct, ever contributed to the hilarity and
cheerfulness of the crew, and was brave and intrepid on every occasion,
which fully tested the man."
Whether on shipboard or on land, Woon never failed to do a lion's share
of the work in hand, and was always the first to cheer and help a tired
comrade. An indefatigable and successful hunter, he was familiar with
the white wolves that so menaced the safety of individuals. On one
occasion, going for a deer shot that day, he killed at a distance of a
hundred yards a gaunt wolf who was greedily devouring the precious
carcass. This monster wolf, with a thick coat of pure, unstained white,
weighed eighty pounds, was three feet four inches high and five feet ten
inches in length.
It was Sergeant Woon also who had distinguished himself in killing,
under thrilling circumstances, two infuriated and charging musk-oxen, as
elsewhere related in the sketch, "Pim's Timely Sledge Journey."
Altogether he was a man quite able to care for himself, though not
coming to the ship with such a reputation for woodcraft, hunting skill,
and physical activity as had Seaman Anderson.
Able Seaman Charles Anderson was a man of powerful build and great
muscular strength, who had made himself a leader among the seamen by his
success in athletic sports, in which he easily excelled any other man on
the ship. A Canadian by birth, his color and his personality disclosed
in his veins deep strains of Indian or other alien blood. Inured to the
hardships and labors of a hunter's life in the Hudson Bay territory,
where he claimed to have been an employee, he displayed in his social
relations the mercurial and attractive qualities which distinguish the
French half-breeds, the famous _coureurs de bois_.
At the evening meal there was more or less chaffing between the marines
and the seamen as to where were Woon and Anderson and what success they
were having in the field. With a trace of that special pride of corps
which goes so far to make the various arms of the military services so
efficient, the seamen said that it was a pity that the absent men were
not together so that Woon's safety might be better assured by the skill
and strength of his friend Anderson. To these jests the royal marines
answered, as was their wont, in kind, enlarging ludicrously by side
remarks and flings on the reputed helplessness of sailors on land,
especially on _deer-back_.
At eight o'clock that night affairs took a different turn, when it was
known that M'Clure and the other officers felt serious alarm over the
continued absence of two hunters who were said to be in the field apart.
The fog had given place to a bright sky, with feeble light and rapidly
falling temperature, so that disaster to one or both was thought to be
probable. The presence and boldness of the prowling bands of ravenous
wolves in the immediate neighborhood of the ship was viewed as one of
the greatest dangers to a single disabled man.
To show the location of the ship and to guide the absentees to it in the
darkness of the night, a mortar was first fired to attract the notice of
the hunters, and then every ten or fifteen minutes a rocket was sent
up, but with the closest attention no one could detect any sound that at
all resembled a human voice. Nothing could be heard save now and then
the ominous howling of wolves, doleful sounds to the anxious crew.
After two disquieting hours of signals by mortar and rockets, with no
responsive answers from the hunters, Captain M'Clure sent out three
search-parties, each headed by an officer. Arranging a code of signals,
both for recall to and for assistance from the ship, they set forth on
an agreed plan in different directions, each party provided with
rockets, blue light, food, wraps, and stimulants. In less than a quarter
of an hour one of the searching-parties met Sergeant Woon coming to the
ship for help. Summoning another squad to join them, they hastened under
the direction of Sergeant Woon to the relief of Anderson, who was
perishing of cold in a snow-drift a scant mile distant.
It appears that Anderson, discovering a herd of deer, had pursued and
wounded one of them, which fled inland away from the ship. Following
fast after the wounded animal, without noting the winding direction of
the trail, he at length not only lost the tracks of the deer but also
found that the country was being covered by a light fog. Climbing the
nearest hill-top, he was panic-stricken to find himself unable to note
either the face of the bright southern sky, the hunters' usual method of
finding their bearings, or to see any landmark that was at all familiar.
He hurried from hill-top to hill-top, exhausting his strength, confusing
his mind, and destroying his faith in his ability to find his homeward
way. In utter despair he sat down in the snow and gave himself up for
lost.
Most fortunately Sergeant Woon had seen no game, and chancing to cross
the trail of Anderson and of the escaping deer, he decided to follow it
up and help the sailor bring in his game. With extreme astonishment he
found Anderson in a state of utter helplessness, already benumbed and
certain soon to perish either from wolves or by freezing. Cold, fear,
and fatigue had caused the seaman to lose not alone his power of action
and of decision, but had almost deprived him of the faculty of speech.
He was in such a demoralized condition--half-delirious, frightened,
fatigued, and frosted--that he could not at first fully realize that his
comrade had come to his assistance and that his ultimate safety was
quite assured.
His utter prostration was only known when Woon asked him to get up and
go home, to which he feebly moaned out, "I am lost," and did not rise
even when the sergeant curtly said: "Get up like a man and you are all
right." Some time passed before either words of cheer or sharp words of
order and abuse had any effect. His patience worn out at last, Woon
seized him roughly, dragged him to his feet, gave him a shove shipward,
and started him on the home trail, but in a few minutes the bewildered
seaman fell down in the deep snow through which he was walking. Not only
was his strength worn out to exhaustion, but to the intense horror of
Woon he was no sooner put on his feet than he fell down in a convulsive
fit, while blood gushed freely from his mouth and nostrils.
The appalling conditions would have shaken any man less courageous than
this heroic sergeant. They were many miles from the _Investigator_, the
weather was turning cold with the vanishing fog, and the feeble
twilight--it was now about two o'clock in the afternoon--was giving way
to coming darkness. If he went to the ship for aid, Anderson would
surely perish before it could be obtained. In the hours of travel to and
fro the seaman would either freeze solidly or meet a horrible
alternative fate from the not-far-distant wolves, whose dismal howlings
already seemed a funeral dirge to their helpless prey.
The audacity and strength of these starving, ravenous animals had been a
constant source of anxiety and alarm to all the hunters. Especially had
the forecastle talk run on one gigantic brute, standing nearly four feet
high at the shoulder, leaving a foot-print as big as that of a reindeer,
who was thought to be the recognized leader of a marauding band from
whose ravages no slaughtered game was free.
If the seaman could not be left, neither could he be carried, for
Anderson was one of the largest and heaviest men of the crew, while the
marine was one of the smallest and lightest. At last the thought came to
Woon that he could drag the seaman in to the ship. Not daring, for fear
of the wolves, to quit his gun, he slung both muskets across his
shoulders, and clasping Anderson's arms around his neck started to drag
him in this manner through miles of snow to the ship. Such a task was
of the most herculean and exhausting character. The only relief that he
had was when the trail brought him to the top of a hill or the edge of a
ravine. Stopping and laying Anderson on the snow, he rolled him down the
hill-side to the bottom, in this way giving himself a rest and at the
same time stirring the dormant blood and breaking the lethargic sleep of
the steadily freezing seaman. In fact this rough treatment was the
saving of Anderson, as a fresh wind had sprung up with the temperature
fifty-seven degrees below the freezing-point.
For ten long hours this heroic sergeant struggled on, while the
situation seemed more and more critical. The seaman was growing
stupider, while his own strength was decreasing from hour to hour,
although his courage was unfailing despite cold, darkness, and snow. At
length, when within a mile of the ship, he felt that he could not drag
his man a step farther. While resting and planning what next to do, he
saw a rocket shoot up, leaving its train of welcome blazing light.
Pointing to it, he called on Anderson to stand up and walk on as he was
now safe. Again and again he uttered such words of cheer, with alternate
threats and orders, but alas! without avail. The seaman only asked in
feeble voice "to be left alone to die," having reached that benumbed
state so dangerous to a freezing man.
Seeing that he could get him no farther, Woon laid him down in a drift
of snow, covered him with such of his own clothing as he felt he could
spare, and throwing quite a thick coating of snow over him, so as in a
measure to protect him from the awful cold, went ahead for aid, which
most happily proved to be near at hand.
The precautions that the sergeant had taken on leaving the man saved his
life, as a half-hour's longer exposure to the extreme cold would have
proved fatal. As it was, Anderson was brought to the ship insensible,
with his heart scarcely beating, with clinched, frozen hands, rigid
limbs, glassy eyes, and hard-set jaws. He lost parts of both feet, of
both hands, and of his nose by amputation, but with his robust
constitution recovered his general health and returned safely to
England.
The courage and devotion of Woon was recognized by his promotion to be
color-sergeant, the highest grade to which Captain M'Clure could advance
him. Welcome as was this increase of rank to Woon, it stood second in
his mind to a sense of the high honor and deeper regard with which he
was ever after held by the men of the ship. All felt that to his
strength of will, powers of endurance, and heroic spirit of comradeship
was due the life of the ship's favorite, first from death by exhaustion
and exposure and then from a more horrible fate at the ravenous jaws of
the greatly feared wolves.
In after time when, in the midst of a heated argument as to service
matters, some exultant marine would refer to the story of the big seaman
and the little sergeant, with a modesty equal to his courage and
creditable to his spirit of comradeship Color-Sergeant Woon would at
once interrupt the speaker and change the subject of conversation.
Nor is Woon's heroism an especially unusual episode in the thrilling
history of arctic service. In countless and too-often unrecorded cases
not only the officers, but especially also the rank and file, have
practically and gloriously illustrated by personal heroism those
splendid qualities of uplifted humanity--fortitude, loyalty, patience,
best of all, solidarity and the spirit of self-sacrifice. These
unheralded and humble heroes have at the call of duty, as circumstances
required, done their part each in his own way. Among these the name of
Color-Sergeant Woon stands high, simply because his rising to a noble
occasion is a matter of written record.
We know not his later career in war or in peace, but we feel sure that
as color-sergeant he lived up to the ideal of an American private when,
as others of his caste, for the honor and safety of a nation--
"He shows in a nameless skirmish
How the color-guard can die."
THE ANGEKOK KALUTUNAH AND THE STARVING WHITES
"Every one hears the voice of humanity, under whatever clime he may
be born, through whose breast flows the gushing stream of life,
pure and unrestrained."--GOETHE.
As elsewhere noted, Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, United States Navy, in the
brig _Advance_, while in search of Sir John Franklin, was forced into
winter quarters at Van Rensselaer Harbor, Greenland, in the Autumn of
1853. As the harbor ice did not break up the following summer, the
question arose in August, 1854, as to the proper line of action to be
taken in order to preserve the lives of the crew. The stock of fuel was
practically exhausted, the provisions were so depleted in quantity and
restricted in quality as to threaten starvation, while in the matter of
health Kane describes the crew as "a set of scurvy-riddled, broken-down
men." He believed, nevertheless, and events proved that his judgment was
sound and practicable, that the safety of the party would be best
insured by remaining in the brig during the winter, saying: "In spite of
the uncertainty, a host of expedients are to be resorted to and much
Robinson-Crusoe work ahead. Moss was to be gathered for eking out our
winter fuel; willow-stems, sorrel, and stone-crops collected as
anti-scorbutics and buried in the snow."
The Danish interpreter, Petersen, strongly urged the abandonment of the
ship and an attempt to reach by boats the Danish colony at Upernavik,
thus crossing Baffin Bay. Though his ice experiences were only as a
subordinate with Penny's arctic expedition, his opinion caused a
separation of the party.
With his unfailing quality of courtesy Kane accorded free action to each
individual. He called all hands "and explained to them frankly the
considerations that have determined me to remain. I advised them
strenuously to forego the project, and told them I should freely give my
permission to those desirous of making the attempt." Eight decided to
remain and nine to make the attempt, among whom were Dr. Hayes and
Petersen. The main incidents of their unsuccessful journey and their
relations with the Etah Eskimo, whose material aid saved their lives,
form the principal parts of this narrative.[8]
* * * * *
The boat party, under command of the Dane, J. C. Petersen, started
August 28, 1854, provided with all that they could carry in the way of
food, arms, ammunition, clothing, camp and boat gear. "I gave them [says
Kane] their portion of our resources justly, and even liberally. They
carried with them a written assurance of a brother's welcome should they
be driven back; and this assurance was redeemed when hard trials had
prepared them to share again our fortunes."
It required eight days of heavy and unremitting labor to get the boats
and stores to open water, a start so discouraging that one man deserted
the party and returned to the _Advance_. The ice conditions were most
adverse from the very beginning, entailing sufferings and hazards from
day to day. Among their experiences were besetment in the open pack,
separation of boat and cargo during portages, some of the men adrift on
detached floes, and stormy weather that kept them once for thirty hours
without either warm food or drinking water. With courage, even if
judgment was wanting, they pushed on and improved matters by obtaining
food and another boat from the cache made at Littleton Island by Kane
the preceding year. A gale nearly swamped them in rounding Cape
Alexander, south of which they were forced to shore by the insetting
ice-pack. Ice and weather were too much for them, and they eventually
landed in Whale Sound, twenty miles north of Cape Parry. They had come
to the end, a hundred miles from Kane--scarcely an eighth of their
proposed voyage completed.
Here they were most hospitably received at an Eskimo encampment and
had their first view of native life in its own environment. The
principal man of the band was swarthy-faced Kalutunah, the Angekok, or
medicine-man, of the wandering bands that travel to and fro along the
narrow, ice-free land between Cape York and Etah. He was one of the
Etahs who had visited the _Advance_ the preceding winter and so
recognized them as friends. In a spirit of hospitality the Angekok
invited the voyagers to his encampment, where a feast of walrus blubber
and meat would be given them. It appeared, however, that the natives as
a body did not relish the inroads to be made on their scanty supply of
food, and one old woman especially inveighed against the feast. In the
end the dark-skinned Kalutunah, enforcing his authority and asserting
his dignity as the Angekok of the tribe, tersely and firmly said: "The
white man shall have blubber!" which ended the discussion.
Hayes records: "Our savage friends were kind and generous. They
anticipated every wish. Young women filled our kettles with water.
Kalutunah's wife brought us a steak of seal and a dainty piece of liver.
The hunt had latterly been unproductive, and they had not in the whole
settlement food for three days. The supply of blubber obtained was
sufficient to fill our keg. We distributed to them a few small pieces of
wood, a dozen needles, and a couple of knives. We could not obtain any
food, for the poor creatures had none either to give or to barter."
The architectural skill of these, the most northerly people of the
world, was not without interest to Hayes. "I found the huts to be in
shape much like an old-fashioned clay oven, square in front and sloping
back into the hill. The whole interior was about ten feet in diameter
and five and a half feet high. The walls were made of stones, moss, and
of the bones of whale, narwhal, and other animals. They were not arched,
but drawn in gradually and capped by long slabs of slate-stone
stretching from side to side. The floor was covered with flat stones,
and the rear half of it was elevated a foot. This elevation, called a
_breck_, served both as bed and seat, being covered with dry grass over
which were spread the skins of bears and dogs. Under a small corner
_breck_ lay a litter of pups[9] and under another was stowed a joint of
meat. Above the passageway opened a window, a square sheet of dried
intestines, neatly sewed together. The entrance hole, close to the front
wall, was covered with a piece of seal-skin. The walls were lined with
seal or fox skins stretched to dry. In the cracks between the stones of
the walls were thrust whip-stocks and bone pegs on which hung coils of
harpoon-lines. The lamps were made of soapstone and in shape much
resembled a clam-shell, being about eight inches in diameter. The cavity
was filled with oil and on the straight edge a flame was burning
brilliantly. The wick which supplied fuel to the flame was of moss.
Above the flame hung, suspended from the roof, an oblong, nearly square,
cooking-pot made of soapstone. Over this was a rack, made of bear
rib-bones lashed together crosswise, on which were placed to dry
stockings, mittens, trousers, and other articles of clothing. There were
three lamps, and centring around its own particular lamp were three
families, one represented by three generations."
Petersen's party went into winter quarters sixteen miles south of Cape
Parry, where their equipment was landed, the boats hauled up, and their
tents pitched. As the men suffered frightfully in the thin tents, a hut
was built in a crevice of a neighboring cliff. With the well-known
resourcefulness of the American sailor, they put up quite a comfortable
shelter roofed with the sails of the boat. A canvas-covered wooden frame
served as a door, and an old muslin shirt greased with seal blubber
admitted a feeble light through the hole called a window.
Three weeks had now passed since the party had left Kalutunah, and the
attempt to live on the resources of the country had utterly failed, the
only game killed by the hunter Petersen being eighteen ptarmigan (arctic
grouse). With food for a week only, "to appease the gnawing pains of
hunger we resorted to the expedient of eating the rock-lichen, which our
party called stone-moss. Black externally with a white interior, it is
an inch in diameter and the thickness of a wafer. When boiled it makes a
glutinous and slightly nutritious fluid. Poor as was this plant, it at
least filled the stomach and kept off the horrid sensation of hunger
until we got to sleep."
By the middle of October the situation was impossible, with the cold
forty degrees below the freezing-point, their bedding damp, the
stone-moss disagreeing with some, and one man sick. They talked of a
desperate foot journey to seek aid at Netlik, the native encampment
forty miles to the north, but food and strength seemed equally lacking.
Even if made, would the journey be profitable? Hayes had already noted
that the Eskimos "were poor beyond description. Nature seems to have
supplied them with nothing but life, and they appear to have wrested
from the animal world everything which they possessed. Clothed wholly in
skins, with weapons fashioned of bone, they subsisted exclusively on
animal food. [He adds:] There seems no hope for us save in stone-moss."
During an awful blizzard, when hopes were feeblest, two native hunters
burst into the hut equally to the astonishment and relief of the boat
party. Hayes says: "Invested from head to foot in a coating of ice and
snow, shapeless lumps of whiteness, they reminded me of my boy-made snow
kings. Their long, heavy fox-skin coats, surmounted by head-hoods, their
bear-skin trousers, their seal-skin boots and mittens were saturated
with snow. Their hair, eyelashes, and few chin hairs were sparkling with
white frost. Each carried in his right hand a whip and in his left a
lump of frozen meat and blubber. Throwing the meat on the floor, they
stripped off their outer garments and hung them on the rafters.
Underneath their frosty garments they wore a shirt of bird-skins. One of
these new-comers was the Angekok, the sturdy, good-natured, and voluble
Kalutunah. Soon we were rejoicing in a good substantial meal at the
expense of our guests."
The next morning when the Inuits were leaving the starving sledge dogs
attacked Hayes, who says: "An instant more and I should have been torn
to pieces. I had faced death before, but never had I felt as then; my
blood fairly curdled in my veins. Death down the red throats of a pack
of wolfish dogs was something peculiarly unpleasant.... The poor
animals, howling piteously, had been tied separately for thirty-six
hours and were savagely hungry. Every line or piece of skin or article
of food was out of their reach. One, however, had already eaten the
trace by which he was tied."
Of the critical situation Hayes writes: "We had thirty-six biscuits and
three pints of bread-dust. Each man had a biscuit a day, a quantity
insufficient for our need. The hunt having failed utterly to supply us,
we must get our food of the natives or not at all. Accordingly we made
with the Angekok a treaty by which his people are to furnish as much
food as we might want, and we are to supply them with wood, iron,
knives, and needles at rates to be subsequently fixed upon."
It was a fortnight before the Inuits again appeared, and meanwhile the
whale-boat was broken up for fuel. All of the party had become
frightfully weak and three men were sick. Hayes piteously says: "What
_shall we_ do? Will the Eskimos never come? I never go out without
expecting to find a corpse when I return."
At last, after two weeks, the natives returned, coming from a hunt with
the greater part of three bears. While the starving men "were fattening
on the juicy bear's meat they left us," yet there was a key-note of fear
in the statement that the natives "were very chary of the meat, as we
obtained only enough to suffice us for a few days." Their gratitude for
trifles and the willingness of the natives to give their last bit of
food was shown a few days later by a young Eskimo. "He had nothing on
his sledge but two small pieces of blubber, four birds, about a pound of
bear meat, a bear-skin, and a small lamp. All these he laid at our
feet."
Temporarily saved from death by starvation through food from the
natives, the whites planned for the future. There was much wild talk
about wintering at Cape York, of hiring the natives to take them across
the unknown ice of Baffin Bay to Upernavik. Finally it was agreed that
life depended on their obtaining supplies from or by their return to
Kane and the _Advance_--either of these alternatives a difficult as well
as a bitter resort. The distance along the ice-foot of the winding coast
was estimated to be about three hundred miles, and it was hard to admit
that their departure from the brig against the wishes and advice of
their commander had been a serious mistake. At least they would try
their friend Kalutunah on their various schemes before admitting their
error.
The Angekok came with food, as usual, and at the same time there was a
new visitor, a widow with a load of frozen birds--the little auks killed
the summer before and stored for winter consumption. She declined to eat
the walrus and held fast to her own food. It appeared at last that she
was a patient of the medicine-man, Kalutunah, whose power over his
comrades lay in his virtues as a sorcerer. Hayes says: "The widow
greatly interested me. She ate birds for conscience' sake. Her husband's
soul had passed into the body of a walrus as a temporary habitation, and
Angekok Kalutunah had prescribed that for a certain period she should
not eat the flesh of this animal. As bear and seal were scarce, she was
compelled to fall back on birds. This penance [he adds] was of a kind
which every Eskimo undergoes upon the death of a near relation. The
Angekok announces to the mourners into what animal the soul of the
departed has passed, and henceforth, until the spirit has shifted its
quarters, they are not to partake of the flesh of that animal."
The party, cheered by the food brought by Kalutunah, broached to him
their wishes. He listened gladly to the tales of the delight and charms
of Upernavik sung by Petersen, but declined to attempt the ice journey
across Baffin Bay, which was known to him only as a great, ice-filled
ocean wherein had perished many of his tribe, as had lately the husband
of the bird-eating widow. Neither would he sell his dogs, without whom
he could neither travel nor hunt. To their surprise he consented to take
one of the party north to the _Advance_. The commander of the
boat-party, Petersen, decided to make the journey, and with him a
seaman, Godfrey, was unwisely allowed to go, and the sledge was also
accompanied to the native settlement at Netlik by two other men. The
Netlik visit resulted in feasts for the men who stopped there, but
Petersen and Godfrey turned back a few days later to the boat camp. They
said that they were in fear of their lives from an Eskimo, Sip-su, with
whom they had trouble. Hayes records the despair of the party at this
situation, saying: "We are at the end of our plans and in two days more
shall be at the end of our provisions. We are destitute--helpless. What
_shall_ we do?"
The day that food failed he rejoices thus: "Again the Eskimos appear to
us more as our good angels than as our enemies. Kalutunah and another
hunter came to us to-day and threw at our feet a large piece of walrus
beef and a piece of liver." Doubtless through the friendly influence of
the Angekok other hunters came to the starving whites from time to time
with meat--even the dreaded bully, Sip-su--receiving in payment bits of
wood or of iron.
It was none the less clear that the party, unable to hunt itself, could
not hope to live through the winter on meat from the natives who at
times were themselves on the verge of starvation. It was decided to
obtain a sledge and dogs wherewith to make the journey back to the brig.
To build a sledge Hayes examined those of the Inuits of which he says:
"It was the most ingeniously contrived specimen of the mechanic art that
I have ever seen, made wholly of bone and leather. The runners, square
behind and rounded upward in front, about five feet long, were slabs of
bone; not solid, but composed of pieces of various shapes and sizes
cunningly fitted and tightly lashed together. Near their margins were
rows of little holes, through which were run strings of seal-skin, by
which the blocks were fastened together, making a slab almost as firm as
a board. These bones were flattened and ground--a work of months for a
single runner--into the required shape with stones.
"The runners were shod with ivory from the tusk of the walrus, ground
flat and its corners squared with stones; it was fastened to the runner
by a seal-skin string which was looped through two counter-sunk holes.
This sole, though composed of a number of pieces, was uniform and as
smooth as glass.
"The runners, fourteen inches apart, were fastened together by bones
tightly lashed. These cross-bars were the femur of the bear, the antlers
of the reindeer, and the ribs of the narwhal. Two walrus ribs were
lashed, one to the after-end of each runner, for upstanders, and were
braced by a piece of reindeer antler secured across the top."
Quite hopeless of building anything that should be as good as this, they
succeeded in making an indifferent sled from the remains of their boats,
which had been broken up and largely used for fuel. Four dogs were
bought, but a single day's journey showed how impossible it was to hope
to reach Kane with such a wretched field outfit. They must resort to the
natives, and especially to Kalutunah the Angekok.
After endless efforts the boat party succeeded in obtaining dog teams
sufficient to enable them to make the return journey to the _Advance_.
As Petersen had gone ahead with one man, it left Hayes to conduct to the
ship the other men, one being too sick to travel. It was a journey full
of suffering from the extreme cold, of danger especially in rounding the
precipitous cliffs of Cape Alexander, where the strong sea current from
the north and the tides from the south cause danger spots that often
bring death to the midwinter sledgemen.
Of their treatment while travelling up the coast one instance is given
by Hayes: "We received all manner of kind attentions from our hosts. The
women pulled off our boots, mittens, coats, and stockings and hung them
up to dry. My beard was frozen fast to the fur of my coat, and it was
the warm hand of Kalutunah's wife that thawed away the ice. Meats of
different kinds were brought in and offered to us."
Of the passage around the cape Hayes records: "For the space of several
feet the ice-foot was not more than fifteen inches wide, and sloping. A
halt was called and men and dogs crouched behind the rocks for shelter.
The furious wind, still lashing the waves against the frozen shore at
our feet, whirled great sheets of snow down upon us from the overhanging
cliffs. We could not face the pitiless storm at our backs, and to go
forward seemed impossible. Discarding my mittens and clinging with my
bare hands to the crevices in the rock, I moved cautiously along the
sloping shelf. Below the breaking surf yawned to receive any victim who
made an inadvertent step. I shall not soon forget the joy and
thankfulness with which I found myself upon the broad ice-belt at the
farther side of this dangerous place. The dogs were driven forward by
their native masters and, seized by the collars, were dragged around the
point. The sledges were pushed along the shelf and turned on one runner
and held until the dogs could stretch their traces and, bounding
forward, at the word whirled them around in safety before they could
topple over the precipice."
Finally Van Rensselaer Harbor was reached, and the returning wanderers,
blinded, frost-bitten, and exhausted, staggered on to the deck of the
_Advance_. With his generous heart their old commander Kane received
them with open arms and brotherly greetings.
One cannot but class as astounding these human experiences, which marked
the first extended relations between the men of Etah and the adventurous
explorers who had come from the outside world. In this instance there
had been brought face to face the hitherto unknown men of the stone age
and the representatives of the high and vaunted civilization that aims
to uplift and to dominate all the nations of the earth.
On the one hand were the Etahs, who were actual children of the stone
age--clothed in skins, without wood or metal, having neither houses nor
boats, using stone utensils in their rude huts of skin or of rock, and
living solely by the hunt. Following the chase with weapons of bone,
through untold hardships they wrested, day by day, precarious food from
their home environment--a habitat on one of the most desolate reaches of
the arctic coasts. Their struggles for mere existence under these harsh
conditions of uncertainty were such as--either among the men of the
stone age or in the imperial cities of to-day--engender intense
selfishness and lead to deadly contests in order to save the strong at
the expense of the weak.
On the other hand were the men of the civilized world, provided with
boats, furnished with selected food, especially equipped for polar
service, and armed with the best weapons. Engaged in the mission of
relieving the men of Franklin's missing squadron, with their superior
knowledge and their trained minds, they were supposed to be able not
only to be self-reliant and self-sustaining, but also to extend aid to
the needy.
Through the irony of fickle fortune the civilized men had found
themselves unable to maintain life by the chase of the land and sea game
of the region. In dire distress, with failing food, they faced certain
death unless aid should come from outside sources.
To the savage and famine-threatened men of Etah the appalling condition
of their alien visitors was clearly evident. Moreover, if the helpless
white men were simply left to themselves they must soon perish, leaving
for the Inuits untold wealth of hitherto unknown treasures,--of iron and
wood, of cloth and cordage, of robes and of weapons.
In this fearful crisis, amid arctic cold and in polar darkness, savage
humanity rose to heroic heights. Selfishness and covetousness stood
abashed among these children of the stone age, and in their stead were
awakened holy feelings of human pity and a spirit of self-denying
charity.
Their deeds show that in the white north as in the sunny south there
abide the true spirit of brotherly love and a recognized sense of human
interdependence. After the Etah manner, there recurred the episode of
the Samaritan charity of ancient Judea. Yet the action of the Inuit
even surpassed the deed of the good man of Palestine, for Etah aid was
not the outcome of a rich man's loving generosity to a penniless
sufferer, but it also paralleled the widow's mite, for Kalutunah, the
savage sorcerer, and his tribesmen gave the sole food of to-morrow for
their wives and children to save from death the rich and alien white men
of the unknown south. Does heroism rise to nobler deeds in the midst of
our superior civilization and higher development?
FOOTNOTES:
[8] See map, page 95.
[9] In order to raise the puppies and save them from the devouring jaws
of the ravenous, starving dogs, litters are kept in the huts, or
elsewhere in a protected place, until they are large enough to run about
and seek their mother's aid when attacked.
DR. RAE AND THE FRANKLIN MYSTERY
"An age which passes over in silence the merits of the heroic
deserves as a punishment that it should not bring forth such an one
in its midst."--FORSTER.
In 1845 Captain John Franklin, royal navy, in command of the ships
_Erebus_ and _Terror_, sailed with one hundred and twenty-nine souls to
make the northwest passage. His orders carried him via Lancaster Sound
and Cape Walker, and he was provisioned for three years. The ships were
last seen by civilized men in Baffin Bay, whence they passed from the
knowledge of the world. In 1847 great anxiety prevailed as to the fate
of the expedition, and fears of its loss grew stronger from year to
year. More than a score of ships, with crews of nearly two thousand men,
at an expense of millions of dollars vainly sought, between 1847 and
1853, news of the missing squadron, and the British Parliament offered a
reward of ten thousand pounds sterling for the first accredited
information regarding the lost explorers.
The Franklin mystery was solved through the labors of Dr. John Rae, a
Scotch surgeon in the employ of the Hudson Bay Company, whose marvellous
endurance and restless energy are evident from the statement that in his
various journeys of exploration he walked more than twenty thousand
miles. The conditions under which Rae gained information as to the fate
of Franklin are herein set forth.
* * * * *
Twice before had Rae been engaged in the Franklin search, in 1848-50
with Sir John Richardson, and later under the auspices of the Hudson Bay
Company. In these combined journeys of five thousand three hundred and
eighty miles he had explored much of Wollaston and Victoria Lands, from
Fort Confidence as a base. The doctor then found at Parker Bay the butt
of a flag-staff, which from its tack and line, bearing the special mark
of the royal navy, had evidently belonged to one of Franklin's ships.
Now, in 1853, he was in command of a Hudson Bay Company's party to
complete the exploration of Boothia Peninsula.
Leaving Chesterfield Inlet by boat, Rae was en route to Repulse Bay, his
intended head-quarters, when he fell in with a herd of walruses, from
which, in spite of his terrified crew, who feared these sea-monsters, he
obtained an enormous animal that furnished enough blubber for his
cooking-lamps throughout the winter. That Rae's walrus hunt was not
without danger was evident from the experiences of four Eskimos off this
very coast on Rae's previous visit. The natives lashed together their
four kayaks, and while in pursuit of walruses were attacked by a
ferocious male. Striking down the first kayak with his enormous tusks,
the infuriated animal ploughed through the miniature fleet, capsizing
and breaking up the four tiny crafts and drowning the unfortunate
hunters.
[Illustration: Boothia and Melville Peninsulas.]
It was the middle of August when Rae pitched his tents on the barren
shores of Repulse Bay, where the outlook for food and comfort were not
promising--the shore being free from Eskimo hunters, whose absence
indicated that the migratory game was pasturing inland that year. Summer
was rapidly passing, yet thick masses of old ice clung to the shore and
immense drifts of snow still filled the ravines.
The party had food and fuel for three months only, while the work in
hand meant a stay of nine months. The doctor began to collect supplies
systematically, and knew how to work to the best advantage as he had
once wintered at Repulse Bay. One party spread fish-nets at the best
places along the shore, the second took the field for deer and other
large game, while the last busied itself in gathering fuel for the
winter. Rae had earlier found that bunches of the arctic saxifrage made
excellent fuel when dried, and as there were neither trees nor shrubs
the hills and valleys were scoured for this useful plant.
With true Scottish pertinacity, Rae set the pace for his men and then
outdid them all in turn. Supplementing the mental training of the
Caucasian by extended experiences in the hunting-field of the Hudson Bay
region, he astonished and discomfited his men through astounding success
in the pursuit of game. In knowledge of woodcraft, in keenness of
vision, in keeping the trail, in patient waiting, and in hunter's wiles
he was without equal among his men. The Indian deer-hunter, Mistegan,
had come north especially selected to kill game for the party. When the
Indian kept the field for ten hours and brought in a deer, Rae kept it
for twelve hours and killed two or three animals. Pushed by his white
rival, Mistegan did his best and shot twenty-one deer in six weeks,
while Rae had to his credit forty-nine head--the whole party of eight
killing only one hundred and nine.
To the amazement of all, after a long absence roaming over the
far-distant hills to the west, Rae brought word that he had slain a
musk-ox--the sole wanderer that year from the herds of the barren
grounds to the southwest.
The weather became bitter cold, with the temperature down to zero, and
sea-fishing then failed. Rae turned his efforts to the newly frozen
lakes, where the hooks and nets, skilfully set, yielded two or three
salmon or lake trout daily--no mean addition to their larder for men who
were living on the game of the country.
October was a dismal period with its shortening days, its gloomy skies,
and high winds, which with zero temperatures blew piercingly through the
wretchedly thin tents. Life in daylight was only endurable when men were
on the trail or hunt. But now the wise old monarchs of the herds were
turning their heads southward in their annual migration, and only
twenty-five deer were killed during the month.
However, the bitter wind did good and needful work, for in time it
packed into marble-like drifts the autumnal snows. This gave work for
native snow-knife and deft hands, which soon erected two large snow
houses, on the southerly side of Beacon Hill, where they were well
sheltered from the prevailing northwesterly gales.
With Indian inclinations to idleness, some of the men looked forward
eagerly to the completion of the snow houses. They were viewed as
comfortable places for the long winter, where the cheerful pipe, with
tales of the trail and ample food, should make content the trapper's
heart and body. Rae had no such notion, for he had lived too long with
natives and with half-breeds not to know that daily work was needful
not only for the health, but even more for the morale and efficiency of
his men.
Finding that the fish-nets of the lake were much cut up by a small,
shrimp-like water insect, the favorite food of the salmon, he
transferred them to the rapids of North Pole River, which kept open
nearly all winter. Some of the men made the six-mile tramp across the
rough country to daily drag the nets, while the rest kept the field
where an occasional fox, wolf, partridge, or wolverine rewarded their
efforts.
After a time there was much grumbling at days of fruitless hunting. Rae
was equal to the occasion, and he set the discontented hunters at work
scraping under the snow for saxifrage, their sole supply of fuel. To
complaints he tersely said: "No saxifrage, no tea." Only men familiar
with the white north know what a deprivation it would have been to these
half-breeds to give up the hot tea, which they daily look forward to
with intense longing and drink with deep satisfaction.
With midwinter past and the sun returned, Rae welcomed with relief the
first sign of the far-distant but longed-for arctic spring. Of course,
with lengthening days came strengthening cold, and there were weeks
during which the mercury was frozen--the true arctic days of no wind, of
bright skies, and of beautiful colors in air and on ice.
One day the youngest of the Indians burst into the snow house, crying
out in great terror that the clouds were on fire. While the older men
rushed out instantly, the phlegmatic Scot followed at leisure. It
proved to be an offshoot of one of the brilliant sun-dogs which so
wondrously beautify the arctic heavens, especially in the early spring
or late winter. These sun-dogs, or mock-suns, arise from refraction and
reflection of the solar rays of light from the ice particles that are
suspended in the air, and are usually at twenty-two or forty-five
degrees distant from the sun itself.
On this occasion the sun-dogs had formed behind a thin, transparent
cirrus cloud which greatly extended the area of the sun-dog besides
adding very greatly to its already vivid colors. Rae tells us that
"three fringes of pink and green followed the outlines of the cloud."
The alarm and mistake of the young novice in sun-dogs and solar halos
were sources of gibes and fun among his chaffing comrades for many days.
Rae now began his preparations for field work. A snow hut was put up for
the use of the carpenter, who was soon busy overhauling the sledge gear.
The Hudson Bay sledges were carefully taken apart, scraped, polished,
reduced in weight as far as was safe, and then put together with the
utmost care so that the chance of a break-down in the field should be
reduced to a minimum. The trade articles for use with the Eskimos were
gone over and so arranged as to give the greatest variety for use in the
field with the least weight. Everything was to be hauled by man-power
and the weights must be as small as possible. Beads, files, knives,
thimbles, fish-hooks, needles, and chisels were thought to be the best
suited to native needs and tastes.
Meanwhile, Rae was disturbed that no signs of Eskimos had been found in
their local field journeys. He feared that their absence might mean that
there had been a change of route on the part of the reindeer in their
migratory paths, for in that region no game meant no inhabitants.
Several efforts to locate natives near the fishing-points were made
without success. The doctor then put into the field two of his best men,
Thomas Mistegan, the deer-hunter, "a trusty, pushing fellow," as we are
told, and William Ouglibuck, the Eskimo interpreter of the party. Their
journey of several days to Ross Bay showed that the country was bare of
natives, but here and there were seen a number of deer migrating to the
north, and of these a few were shot. This journey was most disappointing
in its results for Rae had hoped to find Eskimos from whom he could buy
a few dogs for sledge work.
Rae did not spare himself, for starting in bitterly cold weather he laid
down an advance depot which was hauled on Hudson Bay sledges a distance
of one hundred and seventy miles. At Cape Pelly stores were cached under
large stones, secure, as he said, from any animal except man or bear.
Long experience had made him familiar with the enormous strength and
destructive powers of the polar bear. Dr. Kane, it will be recalled,
tells of the utter ruin of one of his best-built cairns, which he
thought to be animal-proof. Yet the bears tore it down and scattered its
heaviest packages in all directions.
The long and final trip to the north began on the last day of March,
the four sledgemen hauling each a heavily laden sledge. The field ration
was almost entirely pemmican, two pounds per day, with a few biscuit and
the indispensable tea. The trip began with misfortunes, one man proving
so weak in the traces that Rae had to replace him by the Cree Indian,
Mistegan, an experienced sledge-hauler of unusual activity.
The route lay overland almost directly north, to Pelly Bay across a
broken, desolate country. Violent blizzards and knee-deep snow made
travel painful enough, but under Rae's exacting leadership the hardships
became extreme. Each sledge with its load approached two hundred pounds,
an awful drag, which could be made only by men of iron frame and great
endurance, especially when making some twenty miles per day--Rae's
standard of travel. The day's march ended, then came the tedious labor
of building a snow igloo, wherein at least they were able to sleep with
warmth and comfort. While hut-building was in progress the doctor
faithfully made sextant observations for latitude or longitude,
determined the local variation of the compass, and observed the
temperature--in short, did more than any other man of the party.
Day after day they marched on over a land of desolation and abandonment.
Neither bird nor man nor beast was to be seen, despite the keen eyes of
the Cree hunter, of whom Rae commendingly remarked: "Custom had caused
him to notice indications and marks which would have escaped the
observation of a person less acute and experienced." In this single
particular, of picking up and following a trail, was the remarkable
Scottish leader surpassed by any of his Indian hunters or Canadian
trappers.
Nearly three weeks of monotonous, heart-breaking travel had thus passed,
and they reached the shores of Pelly Bay. Scouring the country near the
camp as usual, the trail-hunting Cree, Mistegan, threw up his hands with
the welcome message of things seen, which brought Rae to his side.
There, clear to the Indian but almost illegible to any other, a few
faint scratches on the surface of the ice told that days before there
had passed a dog-drawn sledge.
Making camp, Rae began work on his observations, at the same time
setting two men at gathering saxifrage for fuel, and putting on the
sledge trail Eskimo Ouglibuck and fleet-footed Mistegan. That night Rae
was happy to see flying across the bay ice several dog-sledges with
triumphant Mistegan in the lead.
There were seventeen Inuit hunters, twelve men and five women. Although
several of them had met Rae at Repulse Bay in 1846-7, the greater number
were pushing and troublesome, having a certain contempt for men of pale
faces who were so poor that they were without even a single dog and had
to haul their sledges themselves. After some talk they were ready to
sell the seal meat with which their sledges were loaded, but would not,
despite liberal promises of needles, agree to hire out their dogs to go
westward across land, as Rae desired them to do in order that he might
survey the west coast--his sole object on this journey. Although Rae
spoke of the delights of chasing musk-oxen, they preferred their
seal-hunting grounds which they had just visited with success.
Rae tells us of a favorite method of seal-hunting followed by these
Eskimos in which many of the native women are very expert. On bright
days the seals, crawling from their air-holes, delight to bask in the
sun and indulge in little cat-naps or siestas. Dozing a half-minute, the
seal awakes with alarm, and after quickly looking in all directions
falls asleep, with constant repetitions of naps and starts. When a seal
is thus engaged the hunter, clad in seal-skin garments, endeavors to
make his way between the seal and the air-hole, a process demanding
endless patience and involving much fatigue. The hunter lies either on
his face or side, and makes his advances while the animal dozes or is
looking elsewhere. If obliged to move while the seal is awake, the
native makes his advances by a series of awkward motions like those of a
seal making its way over the ice. A skilful hunter sometimes gets within
a few feet of the animal without arousing its fears, and an on-looker
would at a distance be unable to say which figure was the seal and which
the man. Seals are unusually curious, and at times one comes forward
with friendly air to meet its supposed fellow. When in the desired
position the hunter springs up and, running to the air-hole, attacks the
animal as he tries to escape. Seals are thus captured even without a
spear or other weapon, a blow on the nose from a club killing them.
The active and numerous body of Eskimo visitors were too meddlesome for
Scotch patience, and Rae finally sent them away, not, however, before
they had stolen, as it was later learned, a few pounds of biscuit and a
large lump of fuel-grease.
Rae was now almost directly to the east of the magnetic north pole, the
north-seeking end of his compass pointing eight degrees to the _south_
of due _west_. Breaking camp, he turned toward the magnetic pole. Having
a heavy load, he decided to cache his surplus supplies until his return,
but did not dare to do so near the Eskimos. The cache was made on a
rocky hill several miles inland, and it took some time to make it secure
from animals and free from observation by travellers. The cache made,
Rae was astonished and angry to find that the Eskimo interpreter,
Ouglibuck, was gone. Rae never thought of desertion, but keen-eyed
Mistegan caught sight of the Inuit fleeing to the eastward toward the
camp of his native cousins. As the speediest of the party, the doctor
and the Cree started after him, taking that slow dog-trot with which the
Indian runners cover so much ground untiringly. It was a sharp run of
five miles before the deserter was overtaken.
Rae says: "Ouglibuck was in a great fright when we came up with him, and
was crying like a child, but expressed his readiness to return, and
pleaded sickness as an excuse."
The doctor thought it best to diplomatically accept the statement that
the deserter was sick, but none the less he deemed it wise to decrease
the load hauled by the Eskimo, doing so at the expense of the
half-breeds. But it was quite clear that Ouglibuck was more than willing
to exchange his conditions of hard field work with scant food for the
abundant seal meat and the social company of his own people, which had
proved so enjoyable during his brief visit to their igloos.
This prompt action of Rae's tided over the critical phase of the
expedition, and the temporary delay indirectly brought about the meeting
with other natives, from whom came the first news of the missing
explorers. Immediately after renewing his western journey, Rae met a
native who had killed a musk-ox and was returning home with his
dog-sledge laden with meat. Ouglibuck made his best efforts to reinstate
himself in the good graces of Rae by persuading the Inuit stranger to
make a journey of two days to the westward, thus lightening the loads of
the other sledges. Another Eskimo then joined Rae, anxious to see the
white men of whom he had heard from the visitors of the day previous.
The doctor asked his usual question, as a matter of form, as to the
Eskimo having seen before any white men or any ships, to which he
answered in the negative. On further questioning he said that he had
heard of a party of _kabloonans_ (white men), who had died of starvation
a long distance to the west.
Realizing the full importance of this startling and unexpected
information, Dr. Rae followed up this clew with the utmost energy, both
through visits to and by questionings of all Eskimos he could find. He
also extended his field efforts, during which cairns were searched and
the adjoining region travelled over as far as Beecher River, about 69 deg.
N. 92 deg. W. His original work of surveying was now made incidental to a
search for Franklin!
Nor must it be thought that these journeys were made without
considerable danger and much physical suffering. A half-breed, through
neglect of Rae's orders regarding changes of damp foot-gear at night,
froze two toes. With a courage almost heroic, this Indian labored to
redeem himself by travelling along and by doing all his work for several
weeks until he could scarcely stand. Imbued with the importance of his
new mission, Rae allowed nothing to stand in his way of adding to his
precious knowledge and to the possible chance of tracing the wanderings
of the lost explorers. He left the lame man with another half-breed to
care for him and to cook the food spared for them. The shiftless
character of Rae's men was shown by the fact that the well man not only
did not shoot anything but did not even gather saxifrage for fuel, but
used scarce and precious grease food for cooking.
Yet the fortitude and pride of the cripple was displayed in the return
journey, with the outer joint of his great toe sloughed off, thus making
it most painful to walk; as Rae remarks, "He had too much spirit to
allow himself to be hauled."
Rae's collected information was as follows:
In 1850 Eskimo families killing seals near King William Land saw about
forty white men travelling southward along the west shore, dragging a
boat and sledges. By signs the natives learned that their ships had been
crushed and that they were going to find deer to shoot. All were hauling
on the sledge except one officer. They looked thin and bought a seal
from the natives. Late that year the natives found the corpses of about
thirty-five men near Montreal Island and Point Ogle, part in tents and
others under a boat. None of the Eskimos questioned by Rae had seen the
explorers either living or dead. They learned of these matters from
other natives, from whom they had obtained by barter many relics of
various kinds.
Rae succeeded in purchasing about sixty articles from the Eskimos. The
most important, which left no doubt of their having come from Franklin's
squadron, were twenty-one pieces of silver for the table, which were
marked with five different crests and with the initials of seven
officers of the expedition, including Sir John Franklin.
The natives thought that some of the explorers lived until the coming of
wild fowl, in May, 1850, as shots were heard and fish bones with
feathers of geese were later seen near the last encampment.
Although Rae had completed his survey only in part, he wisely decided
that he had, as he records, "A higher duty to attend to, that duty being
to communicate with as little loss of time as possible the melancholy
tidings which I had heard, and thereby save the risk of more valuable
lives being jeopardized in a fruitless search in a direction where
there was not the slightest prospect of obtaining any information."
As may be imagined, Rae's definite reports stirred deeply the hearts and
minds of the civilized world, which for seven long years had vainly
striven to rend the veil of mystery that surrounded the fate of Franklin
and his men.
The silver and other articles brought back by Dr. Rae were placed in the
Painted Hall of Greenwich Hospital, among the many historic relics of
the royal navy. Even to-day these relics attract the attention and
excite the admiration of countless visitors. And well they may, not
alone as memorials of the deeds in peace of the naval heroes of England,
but also as evidences of the modest courage, the stanch endurance, and
heroic efforts of a Scotch doctor, John Rae, through whose arduous
labors they were placed in this temple of fame.
SONNTAG'S FATAL SLEDGE JOURNEY
"Death cut him down before his prime,
At manhood's open portal."
--POMEROY.
The remarkable series of physical observations of Kane's expedition, the
most valuable scientific contribution of any single arctic party in that
generation, was almost entirely due to the scientific training and
personal devotion of his astronomer, August Sonntag. While the nature of
his duties lay in the observatory, his adventurous spirit sought field
service whenever practicable. As shown in "Kane's Rescue of His Freezing
Shipmates," Sonntag's
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