Dr. Hayes’s expedition. Winter quarters at Port
Foulke.—Greenland coast.—Death of Sonntag.—Dr. Hayes’s
journey.—Attempt to cross Smith Sound.—Hayes’s farthest.—“Open
Polar Sea.”—Homeward bound.
[Sidenote: _DR. HAYES’S EXPEDITION_]
In 1860, Dr. Hayes, who had accompanied the second Grinnell expedition
and rendered much valuable service to Dr. Kane and his party, once more
sailed from America for the purpose of completing the survey of the north
coasts of Greenland and Grinnell Land and to make such explorations as he
might find practicable in the direction of the North Pole.
“My proposed base of operations,” writes Dr. Hayes, “was Grinnell Land,
which I had discovered on my former voyage, and had personally traced
beyond latitude 80°, far enough to satisfy that it was available for my
design.”
On the morning of July 8, 1860, the _United States_ was fairly on her
way, and, by July 30, Dr. Hayes had the satisfaction of being once more
within the Arctic Circle.
“We had some rough handling in Davis’ Strait,” he writes. “Once I thought
we had surely come ingloriously to grief. We were running before the wind
and fighting a wretched cross-sea under reefed fore and mainsail and
jib, when the fore-rail was carried away;—down came everything to the
deck; and there was left not a stitch of canvas on the schooner but the
lumbering mainsail. It was a miracle that we did not broach to and go to
the bottom. Nothing saved us but a steady hand at the helm.”
After several narrow escapes in the ice field, the _United States_ was
at length compelled to take up her winter quarters at Port Foulke,
on the Greenland coast, about twenty miles to the south of Rensseläer
harbour. An abundant commissariat, amply supplied by fresh meat, kept up
the general health of the party during the long night, and they escaped
scurvy, which had proved so fatal to Dr. Kane’s crew.
A great catastrophe was the death by freezing of Sonntag, the astronomer,
who had been a valuable member of Dr. Kane’s expedition, and a
much-beloved friend of Dr. Hayes. Accompanied by Hans Hendrik, he had
started on a sledge journey to the Etah Eskimo. On February 1, Dr. Hayes
writes:—
“Hans has given me the story of his journey, and I sit down to record
it with very painful emotions. The travellers rounded Cape Alexander
without difficulty, finding the ice solid; they did not halt until they
had reached Sutherland Island, where they built a snow hut and rested for
a few hours. Continuing thence down the coast, they sought the Esquimaux
at Sorfalik without success. The native hut at that place being in ruins,
they made for their shelter another house of snow; and, after being well
rested, they set out directly for Northumberland Island, having concluded
that it was useless to seek longer for natives on the north side of
the Sound. They had proceeded on their course about four or five miles
as nearly as I can judge from Hans’ description, when Sonntag, growing
a little chilled, sprang off the sledge and ran ahead of the dogs to
warm himself with the exercise. The tangling of a trace obliging Hans
to halt the team for a few minutes, he fell some distance behind, and
was hurrying to catch up, when he suddenly observed Sonntag sinking. He
had come upon the thin ice, covering a recently open tide-crack, and,
probably not observing his footing, he stepped upon it unawares. Hans
hastened to his rescue, and aided him out of the water, and then turned
back for the shelter which they had recently abandoned. A light wind
was blowing at the time from the northeast, and this, according to
Hans, caused Sonntag to seek the hut without stopping to change his wet
clothing. At first he ran beside the sledge, and thus guarded against
danger; but after a while he rode, and when they halted at Sorfalik,
Hans discovered that his companion was stiff and speechless. Assisting
him into the hut with all possible despatch, Hans states that he removed
the wet and frozen clothing, and placed Sonntag in the sleeping-bag.
He next gave him some brandy which he found in a flask on the sledge;
and, having tightly closed the hut, he lighted the alcohol lamp, for the
double purpose of elevating the temperature and making some coffee; but
all of his efforts were unavailing, and, after remaining for nearly a day
unconscious, Sonntag died. He did not speak after reaching the hut, and
left no message of any kind. After closing up the mouth of the hut, so
that the body might not be disturbed by bears or foxes, Hans again set
out southward, and reached Northumberland Island without inconvenience.”
Early in April, 1861, Dr. Hayes left the ship “to plunge into the
wilderness.” Having previously ascertained that an advance along the
Greenland shore was utterly impossible, he resolved to cross the sound,
and to try his fortunes along the coast of Grinnell Land.
“By winding to the right and left,” he writes, “and by occasionally
retracing our steps, we managed to get over the first few miles without
much embarrassment, but further on the track was rough, past description.
I can compare it to nothing but a promiscuous accumulation of rocks piled
up over a vast plain in great heaps and endless ridges. The interstices
between these closely accumulated ice-masses are filled up to some extent
with drifted snow.”
It is not surprising that after such difficult travel, at the end of
twenty-five days they had not yet reached halfway across the sound.
“My party are in a very sorry condition,” writes Dr. Hayes. “One of the
men has sprained his back from lifting; another has sprained his ankle;
another has gastritis; another a frosted toe; and all are thoroughly
overwhelmed with fatigue. The men do not stand it as well as the dogs.”
And the next day, April 26, he writes:—
“I feel to-night that I am getting rapidly to the end of my rope. Each
day strengthens the conviction, not only that we can never reach Grinnell
Land, with provisions for a journey up the coast to the Polar Sea, but
that it cannot be done at all. I have talked to the officers, and they
are all of this opinion. They say the thing is hopeless. Dodge put it
thus: ‘You might as well try to cross the city of New York over the
house-tops.’”
Though disheartened, their bold leader was not discouraged, and, sending
the main party back to the schooner, he continued to plunge into the
hummocks. After fourteen days of almost superhuman exertion, he reached
the coast, May 11, when he writes:—
“In camp at last, close under the land; and as happy as men can be who
have achieved success and await supper. As we rounded to in a convenient
place for our camp, McDonald looked up at the tall Cape, which rose
above our heads; and, as he turned away to get our furnace to prepare a
much-needed meal, he was heard to grumble in a serio-comic tone: ‘Well, I
wonder if that is land, or only “Cape Fly-away” after all?’”
But though land was reached, the trials of the journey along the coast
were none the less harassing. With untiring energy, Dr. Hayes pushed
on until the 18th of May, when further progress became impossible,
owing to a deep bay, mottled with a white sheet and dark patches, these
latter being either soft decaying ice or places where the ice had wholly
disappeared.
“And now,” writes Dr. Hayes, “my journey was ended, and I had nothing
to do but make my way back to Port Foulke. The advancing season, the
rapidity with which the thaw was taking place, the certainty that the
open water was eating into Smith Sound as well as through Baffin Bay from
the south, as through Kennedy Channel from the north, thus endangering my
return across to the Greenland shore, warned me that I had lingered long
enough.
“It now only remained for us to plant our flag in token of our discovery,
and to deposit a record proof of our presence. The flags were tied to
the whip-lash, and suspended between two tall rocks, and while we were
building a cairn, they were allowed to flutter in the breeze; then,
tearing a leaf from my note-book, I wrote on it as follows:—
“‘This point, the most northern land that has ever been reached, was
visited by the undersigned, May 18th, 19th, 1861, accompanied by George
T. Knorr, travelling dog-sledge. We arrived here after a toilsome march
of forty-six days from my winter harbor near Cape Alexander, at the mouth
of Smith Sound. My observations place us in latitude 81° 35´, longitude
70° 30´ W. Our further progress was stopped by rotten ice and cracks.
Kennedy Channel appears to expand into the Polar Basin; and, satisfied
that it is navigable at least during the months of July, August, and
September, I go hence to my winter harbor, to make another trial to get
through Smith Sound with my vessel, after the ice breaks up this summer.
“‘I. I. HAYES.
“‘May 19, 1861.’”
“I quit the place with reluctance,” he writes. “It possessed a
fascination for me, and it was with no ordinary sensations that I
contemplated my situation, with one solitary companion, in that
hitherto untrodden desert; while my nearness to the earth’s axis, the
consciousness of standing upon land beyond the limits of previous
observations, the reflections which crossed my mind respecting the vast
ocean which lay spread out before me, the thought that these ice-girdled
waters where dwell human beings of an unknown race, were circumstances
calculated to invest the very air with mystery, to deepen the curiosity,
and to strengthen the resolution to persevere in my determination to
sail upon this sea and to explore its furthest limits; and as I recalled
the struggles which had been made to reach this sea,—through the ice
and across the ice,—by generations of brave men, it seemed as if the
spirits of these Old Worthies came to encourage me, as their experience
had already guided me; and I felt that I had within my grasp ‘the great
and notable thing’ which had inspired the zeal of sturdy Frobisher, and
that I had achieved the hope of matchless Parry.” The much-discussed
“open polar sea,” in which Dr. Hayes had implicit faith, has since been
found to be only the south half of Kennedy Channel, which freezes late
and opens early, owing to the very high tides, that sometimes rise thirty
feet. Dr. Hayes reached the schooner, June 3, after an absence of two
months, in which he travelled not less than 1300 miles. After careful
examination of his ship, Dr. Hayes found she had greatly suffered from
her experience in the ice, and that, for the safety of his party, great
care had to be exercised in her navigation.
“By dint of much earnest exertion,” he writes, “and the use of bolts and
spikes,—by replacing the torn cut-water, careful calking, and renewal
of the iron plates,—it seemed probable that the schooner would be
sea-worthy; but I was forced to agree with my sailing master, that to
strike the ice again was sure to sink her.”
Dr. Hayes awaited with some anxiety the breaking up of the ice, and the
liberation of the schooner. Not until July 14, 1861, did the _United
States_ glide out to sea under full sail, and by August 10 she was in
latitude 74° 19´, longitude 66°. By the 12th they made land which proved
to be Horse’s Head, and three days later found the schooner at anchor in
Upernavik harbour.
“While the chain was yet clinking in the hawse-hole,” writes Dr. Hayes,
“an old Dane, dressed in seal-skins, and possessing a small stock of
English and a large stock of articles to trade, pulled off to us with an
Eskimo crew, and with little ceremony, clambered over the gangway. Knorr
met him, and, without any ceremony at all, demanded the news.
“‘Oh! dere’s plenty news!’
“‘Out with it, man! What is it?’
“‘Oh! de Sout States dey go agin de Nort’ States, and dere’s plenty
fight!’
“I heard the answer, and wondering what strange complication of European
politics had kindled another Continental war, called this Polar Emmæus to
the quarter deck. Had he any news from America?
“‘Oh! ’tis ’merica me speak! De Sout’ States, you see? and dere’s plenty
fight!’
“Yes, I did see! but I did not believe that he told the truth, and
awaited letters which I knew must have come out with the Danish vessel,
and which were immediately sent for to the Government House.”
The condition of the schooner necessitated putting in at Halifax for
repairs, and, four days after leaving, they made the Boston Lights. “We
picked up a pilot,” writes Dr. Hayes, “out of the thickest fog that I
have ever seen south of the Arctic Circle, and with a light wind stood
into harbor. As the night wore on the wind fell away almost to calm;
the fog thickened more and more, if that were possible, as we sagged
along over the dead waters toward the anchorage. The night was filled
with an oppressive gloom. The lights hanging at the mast-heads of the
vessels which we passed had the ghastly glimmer of tapers burning in a
charnel-house. We saw no vessel moving but our own, and even those which
lay at anchor seemed like phantom ships floating in the murky air. I
never saw the ship’s company so lifeless, or so depressed, even in times
of real danger.”
“I landed on Long Wharf,” he continues, “and found my way into State
Street. Two or three figures were moving through the thick vapors, and
their solemn foot-fall broke the worse than Arctic stillness. I reached
Washington Street, and walked anxiously westward. A newsboy passed me. I
seized a paper, and the first thing which caught my eye was the account
of the Ball’s Bluff battle, in which had fallen many of the noblest
sons of Boston; and it seemed as if the very air had shrouded itself in
mourning for them, and that the heavens wept tears for the city’s slain.
I was wending my way to the house of a friend, but I thought it likely
that he was not there. I felt like a stranger in a strange land, and yet
every object which I passed was familiar. Friends, country, everything
seemed swallowed up in some vast calamity, and, doubtful and irresolute,
I turned back sad and dejected, and found my way on board again through
the dull, dull fog.”
Dr. Hayes made another journey beyond the Arctic Circle in 1869, in the
_Panther_, as the guest of the artist Bradford. Over a thousand miles of
the Greenland coast was visited, terminating a good way beyond the last
outpost of civilization on the globe, in the midst of the much-dreaded
“ice-pack” of Melville Bay.
[Illustration: FROBISHER’S MAP OF META INCOGNITA]