THE ICE FIGHT GOES ON
To recount all the incidents of this upward journey of the _Roosevelt_
would require a volume. When we were not fighting the ice, we were
dodging it, or--worse still--waiting in some niche of the shore for an
opportunity to do more fighting. On Sunday, the sixth day out from Etah,
the water continued fairly open, and we made good progress until one
o'clock in the afternoon, when we were held up by the ice pack as we
were nearing Lincoln Bay. A cable was run out, and the ship secured to a
great floe, which extended some two miles to the north and several to
the east. The tide, which was running north at the time, had carried the
smaller ice with it, leaving the _Roosevelt_ in a sort of lake. While we
were resting there, some of the men observed a black object far out on
the great ice floe to which we were attached, and Dr. Goodsell and
Borup, with two Eskimos, started out to investigate. This walking across
the floes is dangerous, as the ice is full of cracks, some of them quite
wide, and on the day in question the cracks were for the most part
concealed by a recent snowfall. In jumping across a lead, the men had a
narrow escape from drowning, and when they got within shooting distance
of the black object they were seeking, it proved to be only a block of
stone.
Before the return of Borup and the doctor the ice had already begun to
close in around the ship and, as soon as the men were safe on board, the
cable was hauled in and the _Roosevelt_ drifted south with the pack. So
close was the ice that night, that we had to swing the boats inward on
the davits to protect them from the great floes, which at times crowded
the rail. Finally, the captain worked the ship into another small lake
to the southeast of our former position by the great floe, and there we
remained several hours, steaming back and forth in order to keep the
pool open.
About eleven o'clock that night, for all our efforts, the ice closed in
again around the _Roosevelt_; but I observed a small lead to the
southeast, which led into another body of open water, and gave orders to
ram the vessel through, if possible. By working the nose of the ship
into the small opening, and then by butting the ice on alternate sides,
we succeeded in widening the lead sufficiently to allow of our passing
through to the pool of open water beyond.
At four o'clock the next morning we were again under way, working
northward through slack ice to a point a little beyond Shelter River,
where we were again stopped by ice about nine o'clock in the forenoon.
The _Roosevelt_ moved in near the shore and her head was shoved against
a big floe, to avoid her being jammed or carried southward by the now
swiftly running tide and the ice pack.
After supper that night, MacMillan, Borup, and Dr. Goodsell, with two
Eskimos, started for the shore over the jammed ice, with the intention
of getting some game; but before they reached the shore there was so
much movement in the adjacent floes that I considered their journey too
hazardous for inexperienced men. A recall was sounded with the ship's
whistle, and they started back over the now moving floes. Their
movements were impeded by their guns, but fortunately they carried boat
hooks, without which they could never have made their way back.
Using the boat hooks as vaulting poles, they leaped from one floe to
another, when the leads were not too wide. When the open water was
impassable in that way, they crossed it on small floating pieces of ice,
using their hooks to push and pull themselves along. First the doctor
slipped on the edge of a floe, and went into the icy water to the waist,
but he was quickly hauled up by Borup. Then Borup slipped and went in to
the waist, but he was out again as quickly.
Meanwhile the ice had separated about the _Roosevelt_, leaving a wide
lane of water between her and the men; but by running the ship against
one of the larger floes, we enabled them to clamber aboard. They lost no
time in exchanging their wet garments for dry ones, and in a few minutes
they were all laughing and recounting their exploits to an
interested--and possibly amused--group of listeners.
A man who could not laugh at a wetting or take as a matter of course a
dangerous passage over moving ice, would not be a man for a serious
arctic expedition. It was with a feeling of intense satisfaction that I
watched these three men, MacMillan, Borup, and Dr. Goodsell, my arctic
"tenderfeet," as I called them, proving the mettle of which they were
made.
I had selected these three men from among a host of applicants for
membership in the expedition, because of the special fitness of each
one. Dr. Goodsell was a solid, sturdy, self-made physician of
Pennsylvania stock. His specialism in microscopy I trusted might give
valuable results in a field not hitherto investigated in the North. He
was to make microscopic studies of the germ diseases of the Eskimos.
MacMillan, a trained athlete and physical instructor, I had known, and
known about, for years. I chose him because of his intense interest in
the work, his intense desire to be of the party, and his evident mental
and physical fitness for the rigorous demands of the Arctic.
Borup, the youngest member of the party, impressed me with his
enthusiasm and physical abilities. He had a record as a Yale runner, and
I took him on general principles, because I liked him, satisfied that he
was of the right stuff for arctic work. It was a fortunate selection, as
the photographs brought back by the expedition are due in a large
measure to his expert knowledge of film developing.
I have been asked how the members of my party amused themselves during
the long waits, when the ship was held up by the ice. The principal
amusement of the new members was in trying to acquire from the Eskimos
on board a smattering of their language. As interpreter, they had Matt
Henson. Sometimes, looking down from the bridge of the ship onto the
main deck, I would see one of these new men surrounded by a group of
Eskimos, gesticulating and laughing, and I knew that a language lesson
was in progress. The women were delighted at the opportunity to teach
Borup the Eskimo words for jacket, hood, boots, sky, water, food, et
cetera, as they seemed to be of the opinion that he was a fine boy.
The _Roosevelt_ lay quietly in open water all night on the 24th of
August, but in the forenoon of the 25th steamed northward nearly to Cape
Union. Beyond there the ice was densely packed. I climbed up into the
rigging to take a look but, finding no suitable shelter, decided to turn
back to Lincoln Bay, where we made the ship fast between two grounded
ice floes. The day before had been calm and sunny, but the 25th was
snowy and disagreeable, with a raw northerly wind. The snow was driving
in horizontal sheets across the decks, the water was black as ink, the
ice a spectral white, and the coast near us looked like the shores of
the land of ghosts. One of our berg pieces was carried away by the flood
tide, and we were obliged to shift our position to the inner side of the
other one; but there were other grounded bergs outside us to take the
impact of the larger floes.
On general principles, I landed a cache of supplies at this point on the
following day. The possibility of losing the ship was always present;
but if everything went well the cache could be made use of in the
hunting season. The supplies, in their wooden boxes, were simply piled
upon the shore. Wandering arctic hares, reindeer, and musk-oxen never
attempt to regale themselves on tin cans or wooden boxes.
I went ashore and walked over to Shelter River, living over again the
experiences there in 1906, when, during my absence at Cape Thomas
Hubbard, Captain Bartlett--for he was then, as now, the master of the
_Roosevelt_--had tried to drive the ship south from her exposed position
at Cape Sheridan to a more sheltered place in Lincoln Bay, where I was
to rejoin them.
At Shelter River, the _Roosevelt_ had been caught between the moving
pack and the vertical face of the ice-foot, receiving almost a fatal
blow. She had been lifted bodily out of the water, the stern-post and
rudder smashed into kindling wood, and a blade ripped off the propeller.
Everything was landed from the vessel in the expectation that when the
ice slacked off and she settled into the water, she would be leaking so
badly it would be impossible to keep her afloat.
Bartlett and his men worked manfully in stopping the leaks, as far as
possible; and when the pressure from the ice was partially released, the
ship was floated. But she lay there nearly a month, and twice during
that time even the rigging of the ship was landed, when it seemed
impossible that she could survive.
Here at Shelter River I had found the _Roosevelt_ on my return from
"farthest west." A new rudder was improvised, and the crippled and
almost helpless ship floated around into Lincoln Bay, whence she finally
limped home to New York.
After an hour of retrospection at this place I walked back to the ship.
Borup and MacMillan had also gone ashore, in the hope of obtaining game
but had not found any. It was a dull, raw, overcast day and MacMillan,
Borup, the doctor, and Gushue, the mate, amused themselves by
target-shooting with their Winchesters.
The next day was seemingly endless, and still we lay there at Lincoln
Bay, with a strong, raw, northeast wind blowing steadily and with
increasing violence. The edge of the moving pack was only a few yards
from the ship, but we were fairly well protected by large pieces which
had grounded outside of us. Every little while a big floe came rushing
past, crowding everything out of its way and giving our protectors a
shove that set them and us nearer the shore. From the crow's nest we
could see a little open water near the east coast of the channel, but
there was none in our vicinity--only ice, ice, ice, of every imaginable
shape and thickness.
Still another day, and the _Roosevelt_ was in the same position, with
the ice crowding against her; but at the crest of the high tide the
grounded floe-berg to which we were attached by cable went adrift, and
we all hurried on deck. The lines were hastily detached from the berg.
As the ice went south, it left a stretch of open water before us about a
mile long, and we steamed northward along the shore, pushing our way
behind the grounded bergs, trying to find another niche where we might
be secure from the now rapidly approaching pack.
It was well for us that the wind was blowing violently off shore, as it
eased the pressure of the pack against us. One place seemed secure, and
we were making ready to attach the cables, when an ice-floe, about an
acre in extent with a sharp, projecting point like the ram of a
battleship, came surging along toward the _Roosevelt_, and we were
obliged to shift our position. Before the ship was secured, she was
again threatened by the same floe, which seemed to be endowed with
malign intelligence and to follow us like a bloodhound. We retired to
still another position, and secured the vessel and finally the
threatening floe passed onwards to the south.
There was no sleep for any one that sunlit night. About ten o'clock the
berg fragment to which we were attached drifted loose under the pressure
of the furious wind and the rising tide. In contracted space, with the
ice whirling and eddying about us, we hastily got our lines in and
shifted to another place, only to be driven out of it. We sought still
another place of shelter, and in turn were also driven out of that. A
third attempt to find safety was successful, but before it was
accomplished the _Roosevelt_ had twice been aground forward, her heel
had been caught by a berg's spur, and her after rail smashed by the
onslaught of another berg.
Saturday, the 29th, was another day of delay but I found some comfort in
thinking of my little son in the far-away home. It was his fifth
birthday, and Percy, Matt, and I, his three chums, drank a bottle of
champagne in his honor. Robert E. Peary, Junior! What were they doing at
home? I wondered.
I think that none of the members of the expedition will ever forget the
following day, the 30th of August. The _Roosevelt_ was kicked about by
the floes as if she had been a football. The game began about four
o'clock in the morning. I was in my cabin trying to get a little
sleep--with my clothes on, for I had not dared to remove them for a
week. My rest was cut short by a shock so violent that, before I
realized that anything _had_ happened, I found myself on deck--a deck
that inclined to starboard some twelve or fifteen degrees. I ran, or
rather climbed the deck, to the port side and saw what had happened. A
big floe, rushing past with the current, had picked up the grounded berg
to which we were attached by the hawsers, as if that thousand-ton berg
had been a toy, and dashed it against the _Roosevelt_ and clear along
her port side, smashing a big hole in the bulwarks at Marvin's room. The
berg brought up against another one just aft of us, and the _Roosevelt_
slipped from between the two like a greased pig.
As soon as the pressure was relaxed and the ship regained an even keel,
we discovered that the cable which had been attached to the floe-berg at
the stern had become entangled with the propeller. It was a time for
lightning thought and action; but by attaching a heavier cable to the
parted one and taking a hitch round the steam capstan, we finally
disentangled it.
This excitement was no sooner over than a great berg that was passing
near us split in two of its own accord, a cube some twenty-five or
thirty feet in diameter dropping toward the ship, and missing our
quarter by only a foot or two. "Bergs to the right of them, bergs to the
left of them, bergs on top of them," I heard somebody say, as we caught
our breath at this miraculous escape.
The ship was now quite at the mercy of the drifting ice, and with the
pressure from the outer pack the _Roosevelt_ again careened to
starboard. I knew that if she were driven any higher upon the shore, we
should have to discharge a large part of the coal in order to lighten
her sufficiently to get her off again. So I decided to dynamite the ice.
I told Bartlett to get out his batteries and dynamite, and to smash the
ice between the _Roosevelt_ and the heavy floes outside, making a soft
cushion for the ship to rest on. The batteries were brought up from the
lazaret, one of the dynamite boxes lifted out with caution, and Bartlett
and I looked for the best places in the ice for the charges.
Several sticks of dynamite were wrapped in pieces of old bagging and
fastened on the end of long spruce poles, which we had brought along
specially for this purpose. A wire from the battery had, of course, been
connected with one of the primers buried in the dynamite. Pole, wire,
and dynamite were thrust down through cracks in the ice at several
places in the adjacent floes. The other end of each wire was then
connected with the battery, every one retreated to a respectful distance
on the far side of the deck, and a quick, sharp push on the plunger of
the battery sent the electric current along the wires.
_Rip! Bang! Boom!_ The ship quivered like a smitten violin string, and a
column of water and pieces of ice went flying a hundred feet into the
air, geyser fashion.
The pressure of the ice against the ship being thus removed, she righted
herself and lay quietly on her cushion of crushed ice--waiting for
whatever might happen next. As the tide lowered, the _Roosevelt_ was
bodily aground from amidships forward, heeling first to one side and
then to the other with the varying pressure of the ice. It was a new
variation of "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep"--one that sent Eskimo
babies, the dogs, the boxes, and even ourselves, tumbling about the
decks.
When the tide rose, efforts were made to dislodge the ship from her
stranded position. From the port side of the bow a line was made fast to
a stationary floe-berg, and the captain called for full steam, first
ahead, then astern. For some time there was no perceptible movement of
the ship. Finally, the pull on the port bow from the cable, with full
speed astern, had the desired effect and the vessel slid off and floated
free; but the ice was so heavily packed behind us that we could not move
her away. It was far from a pleasant spot.