ALONG THE GREENLAND COAST TO THE ROOSEVELT
Wearily we started westward to regain the _Roosevelt_ and I kept an
Eskimo constantly scouting the shore abreast of our line of march,
looking for hare, but musk-oxen were to be our salvation and instead of
setting an air-line course for the north end of Britannia Island on the
route which I had followed in 1900, I determined to go straight for the
north end of Ellison Island and thence round the southern end of
Britannia Island through the passage between it and the mainland, and
from there along the coast to Cape May and Cape Bryant, as I felt
satisfied that on Nares Land and in the neighbourhood of Cape May we
should find musk-oxen.
Our first camp was just off the precipitous black northern point of
Ellison Island. Clark and Pooblah of his party did not come in till
three hours after the rest of us. They could just barely crawl along.
When we left camp I started them off as soon as they had their tea, they
travelled so slowly. Fine weather, clear and calm, and we headed for the
south end of Britannia.
Arriving at the point, which is low, I sent Panikpah across overland to
look for hare. Soon after rounding the point and heading for Cape May we
heard one shot. We travelled just as long as we possibly could, everyone
crawling along and Clark and Pooblah out of sight in the rear. The snow
was about three feet deep; impracticable for a party without snowshoes,
but affording good snowshoeing for a party with snowshoes and in good
condition. For us it was heavy work. We camped on the ice at the
intersection of a line between Victoria Inlet and Beaumont Island, and
our course. Just before stopping I heard another shot from Panikpah. We
had killed a dog for supper and were cutting it up when Ootah, who was
carefully examining the land with the glass, yelled—“_Ooming-muksue!_”
(Musk-oxen.) The cry electrified us all. I jumped out of the tent and
found him looking at the Nares Land shore, seized the glass, and made
out seven black spots on top of the shore bluff apparently right over
the ice-foot.
I grabbed my mittens, tied on my snowshoes, told one man to get my
carbine and cartridges, and the others to hitch the dogs to the empty
sledge, and started off as I was, in my blanket shirt, having thrown off
my _kooletah_ (deerskin coat) while working over the cooker in the tent
making tea.
I was as foolish as the others, and only when some distance from the
tent and I realised that I was running, did I come to my senses.
It was too late to go back for my _kooletah_ and the oil-stove cooker,
but I did call a halt on the pace which in our excitement we were
making.
The musk-oxen were not less than six miles away and we, weak and
footsore, on top of a day’s trying march, were running in our eagerness.
Yet every once in a while I found myself unconsciously hurrying. There
were nine of us, Henson, myself and seven Eskimos. Clark and Pooblah and
Panikpah had not reached camp when we started. Less than half-way over
Henson dropped out and went back. I should have been glad to, but the
musk-oxen meant too much to us. I felt the safety of the party resting
on me, we had scant cartridges, could not afford to waste one, and I
could not trust my excited men.
When within a couple of miles of the animals I began to worry. We were
in plain sight of them and it seemed as if our snowshoes made a noise
like thunder. Then I feared the few things of hair and bone which we
called dogs would not have strength to round up our quarry.
When within a mile I put two Eskimos in advance with two dogs and
followed close behind with my carbine.
When the gray dog saw the musk-oxen and was loosened, my fear came on
again; had he strength enough to overtake them and then to dodge their
horns?
The shore here was a steep bank like a railway fill, with a slope of
about 30 degrees and three hundred feet or more in height. The animals
were just a little back of the crest of the bank.
Like a thin shadow the gray dog went straight up the slope, the little
black bitch following, and I saw the musk-oxen start to run, then
round-up together. Then as the crest of the slope hid them from me, I
saw the body of the poor bitch go into the air from the horns of the
bull. Poor thing, she had been very faithful but her courage was greater
than her strength, and the sharp horns had been too quick for her.
Should I be in time, or would the bull send the gray dog after the
bitch, and then put miles of snow and rocks between us and his shaggy
harem before they stopped?
I went up the slope as rapidly as possible but there was no hurry in me,
my heart was pounding till the crest of the slope above me danced like
the Northern Lights, and mouth and nostrils together could not feed air
to me half fast enough. The two Eskimos who had the dogs were just ahead
of me, Ahngmalokto beside me, and the other four lying on the ice-foot
getting their breath. Mounting the crest I saw the musk-oxen in the
usual stellar group of shaggy forms, white horns and gleaming eyes; the
body of the bitch lying a short distance away, and the gray dog worrying
the bull and dodging his vicious charges. Poor beggar, his weak legs
bent beneath him, he stumbled repeatedly in trying to avoid the charges
of the bull, and the heaving of his gaunt sides was painful to see, but
the blood lust shone in his eyes, the wolf heart of his fathers kept him
to his work, and every time the bull swung back to the herd, he returned
to the attack.
“Hold them for a moment or two longer, brave gray, till I get my breath,
then both of us will eat our fill.”
[Illustration:
A SAMPLE OF THE ARCTIC PACK
]
[Illustration:
AS THEY ROUNDED UP
]
[Illustration:
AFTER THE KILLING
]
THE HERD OF MUSK-OXEN, NARES LAND
I kicked off my snowshoes and sat down upon them for a moment to pull
myself together. In that moment there passed before me all the weary
days since we went on scant rations; the grim daily grind; the dismal
waiting at the Styx for a chance to regain the world; the heart-breaking
work through the shattered ice; the infernal groaning and crashing of
the floes; the ever-present nightmare of more open water; the incessant
gnawing under the belt; the bruised and aching feet; the burning eyes
and face; the growing weakness; the tantalising mouthfuls of hare since
we reached the land, and always this hope and picture before me, waking
or sleeping—a herd of musk-oxen that should once more permit us to eat
our fill. Here it was, now to business. I dropped my mittens, threw a
cartridge into the barrel of my carbine, and advanced toward the herd.
Faithful Ahngmalokto cried out—“Don’t go so near, Peary,” but this puny
herd of musk-oxen was a trifle compared with the lead whose black
embrace we had all faced, and I stepped between the gray dog and the
bull. Crack! a tiny tuft of hair flew out from just back of the bull’s
fore shoulder and he had something beside the gray dog to think of,
though he did not go down. My bullet had missed his heart and gone
through his lungs. Crack! the other bull made a jump forward, stopped,
staggered a step or two backward, then lurched over on his side. My aim
was better. Crack! Crack! the two old cows followed suit. Crack! the
younger cow went the same way. The two yearlings were standing side by
side close together, rigid with fright. Two or three steps to one side
brought their fore shoulders in line; crack! the one bullet went through
both their hearts and “pinged” on a rock beyond, as one fell on the
other. I was one cartridge to the good and this I gave to the big bull
as an act of mercy to put him out of his misery, standing there with
braced feet, and blood-clogged nostrils, struggling for breath. I could
not help thinking, as he went down, that it was a shame to enter their
quiet lives in this murderous way. But their lives had been peaceful and
their end was quick, while we had walked through the outskirts of hell,
and had been dying by inches, and anyway what would it matter to any of
us a hundred years from now—their bones bleaching here on these Arctic
slopes, mine—where?
I had been through this same thing eleven years before, but such
experiences do not increase a man’s elasticity. I threw myself down on
the body of the bull as being less cold and hard than the snow, and
heard the shouts of my Eskimos as they rushed at the carcasses; then the
clicking of the knives and smacking of lips. Then the cold compelled me
to pull myself together. Wet with perspiration next the skin and coated
with frost outside, I knew the unpleasant hours before me and eating a
few mouthfuls of raw meat, hastened to roll myself in one of the skins
in the effort to get warm. It was no use. Wet as I was and weak and
tired, the green skin seemed to be no protection against the biting
wind, and for the next twelve hours I shivered and ached in my blanket
shirt while the Eskimos and dogs ate till they were near bursting.
Then the tent, the little remaining camp gear, and the remainder of the
party were brought up. Perhaps an hour before they arrived the wind came
sweeping across the land with still greater force, increasing my
discomfort, and I was more than glad to be able to crawl into the tent,
where the night (owing to the wind), seemed the coldest of the entire
trip.
This herd of musk-oxen comprised one large bull, one smaller bull with
slightly deformed horns, two adult cows, one with a calf a few days old;
the other ready to calve in a day or two, one small cow, and two
yearlings, one male and one female.
All the animals were very thin, looking almost like skeletons when their
skins were removed, but their paunches were full, and their coats in
good condition, not at all ragged as were those of the Independence Bay
musk-oxen at the same time of the year in 1892 and 1895. The animals
were also smaller and the patch on the back perceptibly whiter than the
Grant Land musk-oxen.
The tent was pitched as soon as it came up, then a circular wind-guard
was built of snow blocks, the meat and bones dragged close to it, the
skins spread inside, a tiny fire started with some willow twigs gathered
in the vicinity, and helped out by pieces of a sledge, then my Eskimos
sat themselves round and with occasional brief winks of sleep ate
continuously for nearly two days and nights. I did my share too, and at
the end of the time the pile of cleaned bones about the shelter was
almost beyond belief. When I use the word cleaned I use it in its
fullest sense. When a hungry Eskimo leaves a bone a fly could not find a
mouthful about it. The meat has been gnawed off, the periosteum stripped
off with the teeth like the bark from a twig, the bone split, the marrow
removed, and the cavity sucked and licked till it is dry.
Our first march from the musk-oxen carried us abreast of Stephenson
Island and was a particularly dragging one. The debilitating effect of
our very generous diet of meat, much of which was eaten raw, did not
show itself so much while we were quiescent in camp, but was very
pronounced when we undertook to travel. I imagined at least that I felt
weaker than at any time during the return, but my head was much more
active, and I cheated the time away as I tramped mechanically in an
air-line toward Cape May setting the trail for the rest of the party to
follow, by plans for my western trip to be undertaken after we got back
to the _Roosevelt_, and even went beyond the bounds of the present
expedition and lifted myself out of the weary drag of our present
surroundings by thoughts of home matters.
The next march brought us to Cape May, where we found numbers of hare
tracks but did not secure any of the animals. A few willow twigs
obtained here enabled us to cook some of the pieces of remaining meat.
I had hoped on the next march to reach Cape Bryant and so be in a
position to scout the neighbouring country for the musk-oxen which I
felt sure we should find in the region from Cape Bryant to Repulse
Harbour. Our strength, however, was not equal to the entire width of
Sherard Osborn and St. George’s fiords at one pull, and we camped on the
ice some four or five miles east of Cape Bryant. At this camp we
finished the last of the musk-ox meat. Feeling sure that we should find
musk-oxen in the rolling country from Cape Bryant westward I had made no
attempt to restrain my men, and both during the march and while in camp
they were eating continuously when not asleep. From this camp the entire
shore from Cape Bryant into St. George’s Fiord was very carefully
examined with the spy glass for musk-oxen or their tracks, but without
success.
In the next march we proceeded to Cape Bryant where we came upon
sledge-tracks several days old coming in from the north. An examination
of these tracks developed the fact that there were two sledges and that
the party with them had proceeded to a considerable eminence south and
east of Cape Bryant evidently for the purpose of reconnoitring and then
having obtained their bearings had taken the ice-foot around Cape Bryant
and proceeded southwest ward along the coast. I felt there could be no
doubt but that this was Marvin’s party, but there were no indications in
the trail to show that that they were in serious straits.
This general scattering of my supporting parties, however, gave me a
great deal of uneasiness as to Ryan and his party, and whether they had
reached some of the other parties before the storm came on. The parties
of the Captain and the Doctor being nearer land than the others, would,
I felt sure, have been more out of the sweep of the drift than the
others, and would probably have no serious difficulty in regaining the
Grant Land coast.
At Cape Bryant I started two Eskimos with carbine and cartridges
overland to travel about parallel with the shore and a few miles from
it, in order to detect any traces of musk-oxen in the region. They had
instructions to return to the shore a little east of Hand Bay at a place
which I designated as being where we would camp for the night. Following
the ice-foot we passed the cache of musk-ox meat which my supporting
party Ootah and Pooblah, returning from Britannia Island in the spring
of 1900, had obtained and left for me.
The two hunters joined us at the place designated for camp, and reported
seeing no recent traces of musk-oxen. They had seen two hare but these
were too wild for them to obtain a shot. So sure did I feel that there
must be musk-oxen somewhere in the region about Hand and Frankford Bays
that after we had had our tea I started two other men off with rifles,
cartridges, matches, and a little oil, and an empty oil-tin for melting
water, to work round the heads of these bays and join us at a place just
east of the Black Horn cliffs some time during our stay there at the end
of the next march. This gave them about twenty-four hours. Our stay at
this camp and our march from here to the eastern end of the Black Horn
cliffs was rendered disagreeable by a bitter and penetrating gale from
the west accompanied by snow. The men rejoined us at this camp having
been entirely unsuccessful, and feeling much disheartened that they had
not even seen traces of musk-oxen, so we all went back to our diet of
dog. I could not understand the present absence of musk-oxen in this
region as it is a very considerable area connecting with the rolling
country in the neighbourhood of St. George’s and Sherard Osborn fiords,
and the seven musk-oxen which we killed here in 1900 certainly could not
have been the only animals in the locality. The only possible
explanation seemed to be that the animals might just at this time be way
in at the heads of the fiords.
From a point of vantage well up the bluffs there was no indication of
open water in front of the Black Horn cliffs as there had been both
going and coming in 1900, and on leaving this camp we negotiated this
difficult and treacherous part of the journey along the northwest coast
of Greenland, without serious difficulty. We found no water, the pack
ice in front of the cliffs was fairly decent, and the ice-foot extending
up to the cliffs on both sides was passable.
Two men sent overland back of the cliffs from the camp to the east,
rejoined us on the west side of the cliffs. They had secured one hare
which they ate in accordance with my instructions. We saw where they had
killed two ptarmigan near the ice-foot and had eaten them raw all except
the feathers, not even throwing away the feet or intestines. When they
rejoined us Ootah was still carrying and greedily sucking the
well-cleaned skin of the hare. Our camp at the end of this march was at
Repulse Harbour. All the way from the western end of the cliffs to the
harbour we faced a strong and bitter wind and drift. We were now where
Beaumont wrote and left his magnificent record of human endurance and
courage ending with “God help us.” We were not as bad off as he and his
party. We could all of us walk yet and I believed would all be able to
walk to the ship, but it was essential that we get across the channel at
once. We were getting weaker every day.
From the bluffs back of our camp after we had had our tea we could make
out the _Roosevelt_ lying at Sheridan, and my men were very much
encouraged at the sight. It was a gratifying sight to me as well, for
while I had not allowed myself to worry or lose sleep thinking about
what might happen to the ship during our absence, I had of course, been
fully aware that the storm which sent us so far to the eastward, might
have caused such motion in the ice at Sheridan as to heave the
_Roosevelt_ up high and dry on the ice-foot, and in our present
condition the idea of tramping all those weary miles which I knew so
well between Cape Sheridan and our cache at Bache Peninsula did not
appear at all attractive. As far as we could make out with the glasses,
however, the ship appeared to be just as we left her.
At this camp we cached everything but instruments and records to be
brought in later, and headed across Robeson Channel for a point a little
north of Cape Union, the only direction in which our reconnaissance with
the glass from the top of the cliffs showed the ice to be practicable.
We passed a blinding day at our camp under the lee of a big ice hummock
in the Channel, several miles off the Grant Land coast. Everyone was
completely used up with the unwonted exertion of stumbling over the
rough ice after our recent marches upon the nearly dead level snow
surface along the Greenland coast. Clark did not come in until very
late. Pooblah, the lame Eskimo, did not come in at all. I was partially
snow-blind. I had hoped after a few hours’ sleep and rest here to push
right on to the ship, but what with hunger and fatigue no one seemed
able to sleep, and finally I told the men they could kill another dog.
They hesitated at first saying they thought that we and the three
remaining dogs would be able to walk to the ship without anything more
to eat, but finally their hunger became too great and another poor
crawling skeleton was killed and devoured. After the feed Ootah and
another suggested going in to the ship to send someone out with food for
us but I vetoed the idea at once. I had always hitherto been able to get
back from my trips without assistance, and intended to do so now.
Three hours of the next march put us on the ice-foot north of Cape Union
and as we stepped upon it Ootah exclaimed “_Tigerahshua keesha,
koyonni!_” (freely translated, “We have arrived at last, thank God!”)
Ahngodoblaho who was very lame remained behind in the camp, and Clark,
who was making rather heavy weather of it, fell rapidly behind from the
very first, but I told him to work along as best he could and take it
easy, that as soon as I reached the ship I should send someone back to
him with something to eat. I think I never shall forget the march from
there to the _Roosevelt_. At risk of being regarded as imaginative I may
say that it actually seemed to us as if we had arrived in God’s country
once more. It was a perfect night, clear and calm, the sunlight softly
brilliant and the rich warm colours of the cliffs offering to our eyes a
very decided contrast to the savage pinnacles of the sea ice and the
snow-covered Greenland coast.
From where we landed the hard level ice-foot presented the best of
walking, and we made good time to Cape Rawson. As we rounded it the
slender spars of the _Roosevelt_ looked very, very beautiful in the
yellow midnight May sunlight.
Long before we reached the ship some of the Eskimos in the shore
settlement spied us, I saw them scurrying across the ice-foot to the
ship, and a few moments later several figures came out from the ship to
meet us.
Arrived on board I immediately sent two Eskimos and teams back with food
and stimulants to bring in the three stragglers. I learned that Marvin
and Ryan and some Eskimos had left for the Greenland coast in search of
Clark, and that Captain Bartlett and Dr. Wolf were still pegging away at
the work north of Hecla. I sent a messenger to recall Marvin, and
another with a letter to Hecla to reach Captain Bartlett as soon as he
arrived.
Then to my room where I quickly ripped my rank fur clothing from myself,
and threw it out on the quarter-deck; then to my bath. After that, my
dinner, a real dinner with real food such as civilised men eat; and then
to my blankets and to sleep, unmindful of the morrow.
I quote from my Journal of the next day:
What a delicious thing rest is. With Jo’s picture on the wall above my
head, with my face buried in Ahnighito’s pillow of Eagle Island fir
needles, and its exquisitely delicious fragrance in my nostrils, I for
the moment echo from the bottom of my heart Ootah’s remark, “I have got
back again, thank God!” Yet I know that a little later I shall feel that
I might have done more and yet got back, and yet again still deeper down
I know that we went to the very limit and that had we not got across the
“big lead,” when we did, we should not have returned.
Since reaching the ship I have had an aversion to pencil and paper, and
have only cared to lie and think and plan. To think after all the
preparation, the experience, the effort, the strain, the chances taken,
and the wearing of myself and party to the last inch, what a little
journey it is on the map and how far short of my hopes it fell. To think
that I have failed once more; that I shall never have a chance to win
again. Then to put this useless repining aside, and plan for my western
trip, and when I have done my duty by this, to plan for mine and Eagle
Island.