THROUGH THE “GREAT NIGHT” ON THE SHORES OF THE CENTRAL POLAR SEA
The winter, which for convenience I assume to comprise the time from
November 1st to February 7th, the date of the return of the last of the
field parties, was marked by practically the same ice and atmospheric
conditions as the fall, accompanied of course by a greater degree of
cold and almost entire absence of light.
Through all its vicissitudes and against continued stress of wind and
ice, the _Roosevelt_ clung to her moorings against the ice-foot,
presenting a marked contrast to the usual pictures of Arctic ships in
winter quarters. Having no topmasts to house, the ship’s slender masts
and light but effective rigging rose aloft just as they did in the
summer time. With decks uncovered and only the houses banked in with
snow, at a little distance in the dim light the ship’s general
appearance was much as when afloat. One very distinctive, very salient
feature, was the galley lamp, the “eye of the _Roosevelt_” as it was
called, which night and day from early October, when the sun left us,
until early March when it returned, shone through the galley window,
lighting the main deck and piercing the darkness, the falling snow, the
fog, for a considerable distance on either bow. This beam of yellow
light showed clearly from the top of the lookout hill which some of us
climbed every practicable day, and was visible to every returning party
from Hecla or the hunting fields of the interior as soon as it rounded
Cape Sheridan.
To anyone given to a belief in such things there were several
encouraging omens about the ship’s position. The _Roosevelt’s_ nose
pointed persistently almost true north, the bright yellow eye looked
incessantly to the northward and the beaten sledge road from the ship to
all points of communication led north along the ice-foot.
The southerly gales continued to occur with frequency, and increased in
violence as we neared the depth of winter. The movement of the ice was
nearly continuous, becoming very pronounced on each spring tide, and the
roaring of the pack at these times grew louder and more vicious as the
newly forming ice grew in thickness and hardness.
This movement of the ice culminated on Christmas night in the breaking
away of the ice from the ice-foot and the starboard side of the
_Roosevelt_ and, so far as could be determined in the darkness, the
complete disruption of the pack adjacent to the shore and in the mouth
of Robeson Channel. This disruption probably covered the entire segment
of Lincoln Sea from Cape Joseph Henry to Cape Bryant and probably
beyond.
Open water in the shape sometimes of leads, sometimes of lakes, was also
of almost continuous occurrence.
[Illustration:
CAPE SHERIDAN AND THE POLAR OCEAN
]
[Illustration:
THE “ROOSEVELT” AT CAPE SHERIDAN AFTER A SOUTHERLY GALE
]
Repeated pressures were experienced by the _Roosevelt_, none of them
very serious, but sufficient to keep us on the _qui vive_ all the time.
The snow upon the land and along the ice-foot, which at first
necessitated the use of snowshoes, eventually became packed by the
recurring winds, until it would support the weight of a man. Nearly all
conditions were almost entirely the reverse of those experienced by the
British expedition in the same region thirty years previous. The winter
moons in this high latitude were of long duration and of great
brilliancy unless obscured by bad weather.
The usual monotony of an Arctic winter was entirely destroyed for us
(outside of the continuous excitement which the movement of the ice
afforded us) by the extensive widening of our horizon as a result of my
settlements in the interior. The largest of these was located upon the
southern slopes of the United States Range north of Lake Hazen; another
near the head of Lake Hazen; and a third at the Ruggles River, with
intermediate snow houses along the trail between the settlements and the
ship.
From these settlements at the beginning of each moon sledges came in
bringing loads of musk-ox meat and news of the hunt during the preceding
weeks. These sledges remained a few days at the ship, then outfitted
again and went back with new instalments of Eskimo families to spend the
interval until the next moon in the interior. As a result of this there
was constantly something to talk of and something to look forward to.
Preparations for the spring sledge journey were carried on continuously,
more sledges were built and tents, harnesses, traces, and fur clothing
made; the Eskimo women in all work demanding sewing proving themselves
invaluable. Pemmican was taken from the cases, canvassed in packages
convenient for handling and stowing upon the sledges, and numbered,
under the supervision of Mr. Bartlett, the mate. My own time was fully
occupied in planning and supervision and in devising some new methods
and items of equipment.
Personally I have never spent a winter in the Arctic regions so free
from petty annoyances and discomforts, both physical and mental. The
members of the party were congenial, cheerful, energetic, and interested
in the work. The ship’s people were interested and willing, and the
atmosphere of the ship lacked entirely the element of friction which is
so often an extremely disagreeable feature of Arctic winter life.
Captain Bartlett relieved me of all detailed care of the ship, receiving
and carrying out my general suggestions with great energy and
intelligence. I felt that the physical well-being of the party was safe
in the hands of Dr. Wolf, and Marvin relieved me of the routine drudgery
of observations in addition to assisting in other ways. Added to this,
Percy the steward was unremitting in looking out for my physical
comfort.
There are, however, so many trump cards which can be played against him
who attempts to do serious work in the highest latitudes, that there is
always some vital point which in spite of every care and provision and
forethought threatens to go wrong.
The present occasion was no exception to the rule. Besides my anxiety in
regard to the _Roosevelt_, which in comparison was of minor importance,
I was in a constant state of apprehension in regard to the dogs. Each
party coming from the interior brought reports of additional deaths
among these animals, until their number was reduced to the danger limit
below which it would be impossible for me to carry out essential
features of the spring campaign.
In spite of these anxieties, however, my freedom from minor annoyances
afforded me time and suitable frame of mind to devise new methods and
items of equipment which assisted materially later on. Among the latter
was a quick-acting alcohol camp stove, built upon a new principle; and
among the former a plan of campaign and method of advance which
possesses valuable possibilities, and which had it not been for the
unusual ice conditions marking the year, and particularly the disruption
of the pack by the April storm, would have enabled us to grasp the prize
which was the object of the Expedition.
Mingled with this work and these plans and anxieties, were times for
thoughts and impressions some of which will be given here even though
they may interest no one but myself, because to every normal mind they
are as much a part of the Arctic winter night as the ice, the darkness,
and the cold. Moments of exultation and moments of depression. Moments
of eager impatience when I wished that the day for the departure north
might be to-morrow. Moments of foreboding when I dreaded its arrival.
Moments of sanguine hopes, others of darkest misgivings. Thoughts and
memories of the home land, dreams and plans for the future. At times the
days seemed to rush by with the velocity of the flood-tide past
Sheridan, at others they were as tardy as if moored to a rock. At all
these times the pianola, Mr. Benedict’s splendid gift, was invaluable,
soothing and lightening many an hour, and sending me back to my work
refreshed and with new energy. For rest and recreation from the monotony
of incessant planning about the spring campaign, I began upon plans for
another ship of the same general size and model of the _Roosevelt_ for
Arctic or Antarctic work, but with improvements and details modified in
the light of experience gained with the _Roosevelt_.
November 1st I placed a minimum self-registering thermometer on the top
of a hill 410 feet high about a mile distant from the _Roosevelt_. On
the 2d among other work some baled hay was opened for use in connection
with the snow houses ashore, and the perfume of it brought back a rush
of associations. What a contrast—this frozen night-canopied land- and
sea-scape, and warm summer hayfields in God’s country. It does not seem
as if both could be upon the same planet.
On the 8th four families of Eskimos came in from the Ruggles River. They
have been in the field twenty-seven days and have secured some
seventy-five musk-oxen, thirty to forty hare and twenty to twenty-five
foxes. Besides musk-ox meat they brought in some hundred pounds of the
peerless salmon trout from Lake Hazen.
[Illustration:
A DAY’S HARE SHOOTING AT SHERIDAN
]
[Illustration:
RETURN OF HUNTING PARTY FROM CAPE HENRY WITH SPECIMENS OF NEW REINDEER
(_Rangifer Pearyi_, Allen) September, 1905
]
[Illustration:
LAST VIEW OF THE SUN, BLACK CAPE, OCTOBER, 12, 1905
]
On the 15th an aurora, one of several successive displays of no great
brilliancy, was in several respects different from any that I had ever
noticed. Occurring in the east directly over some pools of open water it
was so low as apparently to emanate from the water, and at irregular
intervals the faint patches of auroral light would disappear completely
to be replaced a moment later by a single bright spot like a pale
parhelion close to the water. Occasionally in place of the parhelion a
bright narrow vertical bar of light appeared. The 16th was marked by
pronounced barometric and thermometric fluctuations, the former
downward, the latter upward, these abrupt changes followed by violent
wind from the south, and this in turn by a mile-wide belt of water
reaching from behind Rawson past the ship and Cape Sheridan, and so
northward toward Henry as far as could be seen in the obscure moonlight.
The view from the hill in the evening was striking. The brilliant
moonlight; the sky blue-black except where flecked with silvery clouds;
the dead white of the ice; the inky blackness of the water; the ghostly
shapes of the land; the one tiny speck of yellow light shining out from
the _Roosevelt_. Accompanying and adding a touch of action to this
outlook was the rush of the wind which, although laden with drifting
snow, seemed yet to have a touch of warmth in it, and the cries of the
Eskimo children playing on the ice-foot, mingled with the sound of waves
dashing against the edges of the lead, and the distant hoarse roar of
the ice pack surging back with the flood-tide into the mouth of Robeson
Channel.
The 25th was marked by groans and complaint from the _Roosevelt_ and the
ice about her, accompanied by loud roaring of the heavier floes as they
ground past the point of Sheridan during the greater portion of the
flood-tide.
Thanksgiving Day was marked by the presence of plum-pudding, candy and
cigars on the dinner table, and a graphophone performance by the Doctor
in the evening. December 4th, on the first of the moon, two Eskimos came
in from the interior reporting thirty-three musk-oxen killed during the
past month and that twelve to fifteen more dogs had died. During the
December moon the Doctor made a number of photos of the ship.
On the 16th Henson and six Eskimos came in and reported twenty musk-oxen
killed since the last report. This makes sixty-two in all since the
exodus from the ship the last of November. This is very satisfactory,
but is more than balanced by the news of additional deaths among the
dogs. Two large buck reindeer were found on the southern slopes of the
United States Range with their horns locked, frozen in a death struggle.
On the 17th with the running of the spring tides there were again
serious complaints from the _Roosevelt_ and the neighbouring ice. On the
18th, Marvin left with four Eskimos for the Lake Hazen colonies to
remain until the February moon. The winter solstice occurred on the 22d,
the sun (invisible to us of course) in the early morning hours reaching
his greatest southern declination, the midnight hour of the “Great
Night.” From now on he would be slowly coming back to us. This is the
New Year’s day of the northern hemisphere, a world-day beside which our
artificial dates and holidays pale, and nowhere else meaning so much as
here in this black disk of the “Great Night.”
[Illustration:
SHAPING THE RUNNERS
]
[Illustration:
DRILLING HOLES FOR THE LASHINGS
ESKIMOS MAKING SLEDGES ABOARD THE “ROOSEVELT”
]
[Illustration:
SALMON TROUT FROM LAKE HAZEN
]
[Illustration:
ESKIMO WOMAN FISHING ON LAKE HAZEN
]
[Illustration:
ESKIMO MEN FISHING ON LAKE HAZEN
]
About 2 A. M. of Christmas Day the wind began blowing from the south and
was soon howling across the ship in a level torrent of white rage. Every
stay and shroud was humming like a great æolian, and the ice about us
was cracking and groaning with the strain. So violent was the wind that
the window of the Captain’s stateroom was blown in. At 8 A. M. it was
absolutely calm, the stars shining brilliantly, temperature at –6° F.
and the air resonant with the dash of waves against the opposite side of
the broad lead of open water.
The mess rooms were decorated with flags by the Doctor, and there were
presents for everyone, principally candies and other creature comforts
contributed by friends at home, at the head of whom stood Huyler. Among
my own presents were a bottle of special champagne from home, another of
ancient Tokay from a thoughtful friend, two or three letters, and a
pillow of fragrant fir needles from Eagle Island, in a case worked by
the blue-eyed little one who herself had been born within the precincts
of the “Great Night.” The Christmas dinner was a special event shared
alike by those forward as well as aft and appreciated by everyone.
Our Christmas festivities had, however, a somewhat startling and
entirely unexpected ending. After dinner I paced the ice-foot for a
couple of hours, busy with the crowding thoughts which my letters and
presents had brought to me. Returning to my room I sat down to listen to
the graphophone which the Doctor had started in the neighbouring mess
room. A little later the ice began cracking and groaning, and in a
moment or two it was evident to me that there was a new note in its
complaint, entirely different from the usual accompaniment of the
running of the spring tides. I stepped out upon the quarter-deck and
could not only hear but feel the ice humming and cracking, not loudly
but viciously under intense pressure. I called the Captain, stepped
inside to put on my coat, extinguished my fire and the one in the
adjoining workroom with a dipper of water, blew but my lamp, and passed
forward through the house to the main deck.
When I reached there the ice had separated from the ice-foot, and the
heavy floe which had squeezed us last September was moving off carrying
with it our starboard ice-wall and leaving the starboard side of the
ship completely exposed, with the black water lapping against the
planking.
In a surprisingly short time the ice had disappeared completely in the
inky darkness, and the black water stretched apparently limitless,
giving back the image of every star. There was no cause for instant
apprehension, the trouble would come when the ice came back with the
turn of the tide, with nothing between the ship and it to break its
momentum or cushion its blow.
The Eskimos were running about in great excitement, bringing up their
children and household goods from the ’tweendecks; and not caring to
have a lot of women and children to fall over in case of trouble, I had
the stove in the big box house fired up and sent them all ashore to that
shelter with their bedding and clothing. One of the crew and one of the
Eskimo men who were temporarily on the sick list were likewise sent
ashore.
[Illustration:
MOONLIGHT VIEW OF THE “ROOSEVELT” IN HER WINTER QUARTERS
Exposed with full moon for three hours, December 12, 1905, by Dr.
Wolf, Surgeon of the Expedition
]
[Illustration:
THE BOW OF THE “ROOSEVELT” IN WINTER QUARTERS
]
Then accompanied by the Captain I made a careful tour of inspection of
and about the ship, pointing out the possibilities of our position, and
indicating what should be done to provide as far as possible against all
contingencies. A full watch was kept on and everyone else turned in with
their clothes on. The following day men and officers and Eskimos were
busy running out all available lines from the port bow, quarter, and
amidships, and also from the mastheads.
The weather continued clear and the temperatures very moderate. The
evening flood-tide caused a great deal of movement and noise all about
us, but brought no direct pressure upon the ship.
I had no fears that the _Roosevelt_ would be crushed by any onset of the
ice, but I did apprehend that she might be forced bodily up on to the
ice-foot, thrown on her beam ends and pushed so far inshore that it
would be impossible to float her another season. Another possibility was
that a particularly violent gale, such as might occur at any time, would
tear us from our moorings and carry us out into the moving pack, in
which event there would not be one chance in a hundred of our being able
to get the ship back to her present position again.
On the morning of the 28th a gust of south wind blowing through the
ventilator holes in my stateroom door woke me and I went on deck
immediately. It was then very clear, with the wind light and baffling
from every quarter, evidently gathering its forces. At 5 A. M. it came
on with a rush from the south, and increased in fury until nothing could
be heard above its roar, and the ship was completely submerged in a
blinding cataract of snow. In a short time a piece of ice on our
starboard quarter began groaning and grinding against the ship’s side.
Fearing it might break loose and, in the event that our propeller and
rudder post were frozen into it, tear our stern from its moorings, every
piece of line that could be found was run out from the port quarter and
made fast to the ice-foot. As in all of these gales the temperature was
comparatively high, being in this instance from seven to fourteen
degrees above zero. Otherwise the work would have been extremely trying
and even dangerous. One of the crew stumbling in a crack a few yards
from the ship lost his bearings and after some time brought up at the
box houses on the shore. Some of the Eskimos coming from the box houses
to the ship lost their way and groped for some time before they got
their bearings. At noon the wind had moderated and our stream anchor was
attached to the end of the port chain cable, placed in a hole dug for it
in the ice-foot behind a large grounded floeberg, and then frozen in.
For several hours during the day the _Roosevelt_ rolled pronouncedly on
the swell, swinging round Rawson from the wild sea in the mouth of
Robeson Channel.
For several days after this there was more open water in the
neighbourhood than at any time since our arrival. All the upper part of
Robeson Channel was open and everything to the northeast and north from
Rawson round to Sheridan and beyond inky black. At 3 A. M. of January
1st, the ice came in against our starboard side with a steady roar, but
the _Roosevelt_ turned it under her like water running into a mill-race,
and the pressure ceased before any unusually heavy ice came against her.
A little later the ice swung completely off-shore again.
The night of the 6th was a disagreeable anniversary to me. Seven years
before I was struggling across Lady Franklin Bay in bitter cold and
complete darkness, to bring up finally at Fort Conger with both feet
frozen.
On the 7th a new baby arrived in the Eskimo settlement, a girl, quite
likely the most northerly born of all children. On the 9th the air all
day was full of the groaning, roaring, grinding of the ice, though no
pressure came upon the ship.
This noise and commotion of the ice occurred almost continuously during
the month, varying in intensity from time to time and the _Roosevelt_
was subjected to pressures of more or less force. It was a period of
constant anxiety with the ice pack surging back and forth along the
shore on each tide and liable to crash in upon us at any time. Every one
slept in their clothes, all lanterns and portable lights were kept
filled and trimmed ready for immediate use, and provision was made for
the instant extinguishment of all fires. The welcome twilight of
returning day steadily increased, a considerable contingent of the
Eskimos from the interior returned to the ship in the January moon
bringing letters from Marvin containing the report of more musk-oxen
secured. On the 7th of February, with the first light of the February
moon, Marvin himself came in with the balance of the Eskimos and dogs
and the report of more musk-oxen killed. This closed the winter
campaign.