IN THE MELVILLE BAY PACK
Melville Bay—On the Edge of the Dreaded Ice-pack—Fourth of
July—Butting the Ice—Accident to the Leader of the Expedition—Gloom
on the “Kite”—Blasting the “Kite” out of a Nip—A Real Bear and a
Bear Hunt—A Chase on the Ice—A Phantom Ship—Free of the Pack and in
the North Water at Last—The Greenland Shore to Barden Bay—First
Sight of the Arctic Highlanders.
Thursday, July 2. We are opposite the “Devil’s Thumb,” latitude 74° 20′,
and now, at 8 P. M., are slowly making our way through the ice which
marks the entrance into the Melville Bay “pack.”
Friday, July 3. At midnight the engine was stopped, the ice being too
thick for the “Kite” to make any headway. At 6.30 A. M. we started
again, and rammed our way along for an hour, but were again forced to
stop. At eleven o’clock we tried it once more, but after a couple of
hours came to a standstill. We remained in this condition until after
five o’clock, when the engine was again started. For two hours we made
fairly good progress, and we thought that we should soon be in open
water, but a small neck of very heavy ice stopped us. While we were on
deck, the mate in the “crow’s-nest,” which was hoisted to-day, sang out,
“A bear! A bear!” Off in the distance we could see an object floating,
or rather swimming, in the water, and in a minute the boys were climbing
helter-skelter over the sides of the “Kite,” all with guns, although
some soon discovered that theirs were not loaded; but the bear turned
out to be a seal, and not one of about thirty shots hit him. It is now
nearly 11 P. M. The sun is shining beautifully, and it is perfectly
calm. I have worn only a gray spring jacket, which I have found
sufficient for the balmy temperature. At midnight the cannon was fired,
the flags were run up and dipped, and the boys fired their rifles and
gave three cheers for the Fourth of July. The thermometer marked 31°.
[Illustration:
“A Bear! A Bear!”
]
Saturday, July 4. The ice remains stubborn, and we are fast bound. All
around the eye sees nothing but the immovable pack, here smooth as a
table, at other places tossed up into long hummock-ridges which define
the individual ice-cakes. Occasional lanes of water appear and
disappear, and their presence gives us the one hope of an early
disentanglement. The event of the day has been a dinner to Captain Pike,
in which most of the members of our party participated. After dinner
hunting-parties scoured the ice after seals, with the result of bringing
in two specimens, one weighing twenty-six pounds, and the other
thirty-three pounds.
Sunday, July 5. All night we steamed along slowly, but at 8 A. M. we
were forced once more to stop. The day has been very disagreeable,
foggy, rainy, and even snowy. We have done nothing but eat and sleep. A
lazily hovering ivory-gull, which ventured within near gunshot, has been
added to our collections.
Tuesday, July 7. The weather yesterday was dreary and disagreeable, but
to-day it seems warmer. The snow has ceased falling, although the sky is
still overcast, and the fog prevents us from seeing the horizon. At noon
the sun came through the clouds for a few moments, and the fog lifted
sufficiently for the captain to make an observation and find that our
position was latitude 74° 51′. During the afternoon the wind died down,
and an attempt was made to get through the ice; but after boring and
ramming the immovable pack for nearly an hour, and gaining only a ship’s
length, we concluded that we were burning coal for nothing. Mr. Peary,
with Gibson, Astrup, Cook, and Matt, has been busy all the afternoon
sawing, marking, and fitting the lumber for our Whale Sound cottage. The
curing of a large number of drake-skins, intended to be made up into
undershirts for winter wear, was a part of the day’s work.
Thursday, July 9. Yesterday and to-day the fog lifted sufficiently at
times to permit us to see the land, about forty miles distant. A good
observation places us in latitude 74° 51′, and longitude about 60° W.
Mr. Peary fixed the points with his pocket sextant and the ship’s
compass, and then made a sketch of the headlands. The ice looks rotten,
but yet it holds together too firmly to permit us to force a passage. We
measured some of the floes, and found the thickest to be two and a half
feet. It has seemed very raw to-day, owing largely to a slight northwest
wind; and for the first time the average temperature has been below the
freezing-point, being 31½° F.
[Illustration:
Sailing Through the Pack.
]
Friday, July 10. This morning the rigging was covered with hoar-frost,
making the “Kite” look like a “phantom ship.” The fog hung heavily about
us, shutting out the land completely. In the forenoon a sounding was
made, but no bottom was found at 343 fathoms. While we were at dinner,
without any warning the “Kite” began to move, steam was immediately
gotten up, and for an hour and a half we cut our way through the ice,
which had become very rotten, large floes splitting into several pieces
as soon as they were struck by the “Kite.” We made about three knots,
when we were again obliged to halt on account of a lowering fog. Our
little move was made just in time to keep up the courage of some of the
West Greenland party, who were beginning to believe that we should be
nipped and kept here for the winter.
Although we realized that we were still ice-bound in the great and
much-dreaded Melville Bay pack, we could not but enjoy at times the
peculiar features of our forced imprisonment. Efforts to escape, with
full promise of success, followed by a condition of impotency and
absolute relaxation, would alternately elevate and depress our spirits
to the extent of casting joy and gloom into the little household. The
novelty of the situation, however, helped greatly to keep up a good
feeling, and all despondency was immediately dispelled by the sound of
the order to “fire up,” and the dull rumbling of the bell-metal
propeller. We never tired of watching our little craft cut her way
through the unbroken pans of ice. The great masses of ice were thrust
aside very readily; sometimes a piece was split from a large floe and
wedged under a still larger one, pushing this out of the way, the
commotion causing the ice in the immediate vicinity fairly to boil. Then
we would run against an unusually hard, solid floe that would not move
when the “Kite” struck it, but let her ride right up on it and then
allow her gradually to slide off and along the edge until she struck a
weak place, when the floe would be shivered just as a sheet of glass is
shivered when struck a sharp, hard blow. The pieces were hurled against
and on top of other pieces, crashing and splashing about until it seemed
as though the ice must be as thick again as it was before the break-up;
but the good old “Kite” pushed them aside, leaving them in the distance
groaning and creaking at having been disturbed. The day has been
pleasant, in spite of an average temperature of 27½°.
Tuesday, July 14. How different everything looks to us since I last
wrote in this journal! Saturday the weather was, as usual, cold and
foggy; and when, at 5.30 P. M., we found ourselves suddenly moving,
every one was elated, hoping we would be able to get into the clear
water ahead, which the mate said could be seen from the crow’s-nest. Mr.
Peary was particularly pleased, as he said we should then reach Whale
Sound by July 15, the limit he had set for getting there. After supper
he and I bundled up and went on deck, and watched the “Kite” cut through
the rotten ice like butter. We had been on the bridge for some time,
when Mr. Peary left me to warm his feet in the cabin. Coming on deck
again, he stepped for a moment behind the wheel-house, and immediately
after, I saw the wheel torn from the grasp of the two helmsmen, whirling
around so rapidly that the spokes could not be seen. One of the men was
thrown completely over it, but on recovering himself he stepped quickly
behind the house, and I instantly realized that something must have
happened to my husband. How I got to him I do not know, but I reached
him before any one else, and found him standing on one foot looking pale
as death. “Don’t be frightened, dearest; I have hurt my leg,” was all he
said. Mr. Gibson and Dr. Sharp helped, or rather carried, him down into
the cabin and laid him on the table. He was ice-cold, and while I
covered him with blankets, our physicians gave him whisky, cut off his
boot, and cut open his trousers. They found that both bones of the right
leg had been fractured between the knee and the ankle. The leg was put
into a box and padded with cotton. The fracture being what the doctors
pronounced a “good one,” it was not necessary to have the bones pulled
into place. Poor Bert suffered agonies in spite of the fact that the
doctors handled him as tenderly as they could. We found it impossible to
get him into our state-room, so a bed was improvised across the upper
end of the cabin, and there my poor sufferer lies. He is as good and
patient as it is possible to be under the circumstances. The accident
happened in this way. The “Kite” had been for some time pounding, or, as
the whalers say, “butting,” a passage through the ice, slowly but
steadily forging a way through the spongy sheets which had already for
upward of a week imprisoned her. To gain strength for every assault it
was necessary constantly to reverse, and it was during one of these
evolutions, when going astern, that a detached cake of ice struck the
rudder, crowding the iron tiller against the wheel-house where Mr. Peary
was standing, and against his leg, which it held pinned long enough for
him to hear it snap.
Wednesday, July 15. Mr. Peary passed a fairly comfortable night, and had
a good sleep without morphine to-day, consequently he feels better. As
for myself, I could not keep up any longer, and at 11 A. M., after Dr.
Cook had dressed the leg and made an additional splint, I lay down, and
neither moved nor heard a sound until after five o’clock. This was the
first sleep I have had since Friday night. Dr. Cook, who has been more
than attentive, has made a pair of crutches for the poor sufferer, but
he will not be able to use them for a month.
We find to-day that our latitude is 75° 1′, and our longitude 60° 9′;
consequently our headway has been very slow. It seems as if when the ice
is loose the fog is too thick for us to travel in safety, and when the
fog lifts the ice closes in around us. Once to-day the ice suddenly
opened and a crack which visibly widened allowed us to make nearly four
miles in one stretch. Throughout much of the night and day we steamed
back and forth and hither and thither, trying to get through or around
the ice, and to prevent the “Kite” from getting nipped between two
floes. A little after supper the fog suddenly closed in upon us, and
before we could complete the passage of a narrow and tortuous lead,
through which we were seeking escape from the advancing floes in our
rear, we were caught fast between two large pans. The ice was only about
fourteen inches thick, and there was but little danger of the “Kite”
being crushed; still, Captain Pike, with the memories of former
disasters fresh in his mind, did not relish the situation, and blasted
our way out with gunpowder at 8.15 P. M. This is our first “nip.”
[Illustration:
Bruin at Rest.
]
An hour later the captain called down to me to come up at once, as a
bear was advancing toward the ship. The boys had been watching and
longing for a bear ever since we left New-York, and many false alarms
had been given; but here was a real live polar coming straight for the
“Kite.” A very, very pretty sight he was, with black snout, black eyes,
and black toes. Against the white snow and ice, he seemed to be of a
cream color. His head was thrown up as he loped along toward us, and
when, within a short distance of the “Kite,” a gull flew over his head,
he made a playful jump at it, all unconscious of the doom which awaited
him. Eleven men with guns were stooping down on the quarter-deck waiting
for the captain to give the word to fire. A bullet disabled one of the
fore legs, while another struck the animal in the head, instantly dyeing
it crimson; the bear stopped short, wheeled round, fell over on his
head, and then got up. By this time it was simply raining bullets about
the poor beast; still he staggered on toward the water. Gibson, who had
jumped on the ice as soon as he fired, was now close to him, and, just
as he started to swim away, put a ball in his neck, which stopped him
short. A boat was lowered, and he was brought alongside the “Kite.” He
measured seven feet one inch in length, and we estimated his weight at
from eight to ten hundred pounds.
Friday, July 17. Last night was the worst night my poor husband has had.
His leg pained him more than it had done so far, and he begged me to
give him a sedative, which, with the doctor’s consent, I did; but even
then his sleep was disturbed to such an extent that it amounted to
delirium. He would plead with me to do something for his leg. After
doing everything I could think of, I said, “Can’t you tell me where it
hurts you most, and what you think might help you?” His answer was, “Oh,
my dear, pack it in ice until some one can shoot it!” In this way he
spent the night, and this morning he was thoroughly exhausted. Dr. Cook
has succeeded in making his leg more comfortable, and now he sleeps. It
seems very hard that I cannot take him away to some place where he can
rest in peace.
Tuesday, July 21. Since last writing in my journal, four days ago, we
have been steadily nearing Cape York, and we hope soon to clear the ice
of Melville Bay, and pass into the open North Water beyond. Our hopes
have, however, so often been disappointed that day by day, even when in
full view of the land, we become less and less confident of ever being
able to disengage ourselves from our confinement. Huge grounded bergs
still hold the ice together, and until they show signs of moving there
is little prospect of a general break-up.
On Saturday a bear with two cubs was seen on the ice ahead of us, and
immediately every man was over the side of the vessel making for the
animals. The mother, with a tender affection for her young, guided an
immediate retreat, herself taking the rear, and alternately inciting the
one cub and then the other to more rapid movement. Our boys were wholly
unacquainted with the art of rapid traveling on the rough and hummocky
ice, and before long the race was admitted to be a very unequal one;
they were all quickly distanced. One of the men, in the excitement of
the moment, joined in the chase without his gun, and, even without this
implement, when he returned to the “Kite” he was so out of breath that
he had to be hauled up the sides of the vessel like a dead seal. He lay
sprawling and breathless on the deck for at least five minutes, much to
the merriment of the crew and the more fortunate members of the party. A
round weight of over two hundred pounds was responsible for his
discomfiture. Monday morning about two o’clock the fog suddenly lifted,
and we found ourselves almost upon the land. The visible shore extended
from Cape York to Wolstenholme Island, and we could clearly distinguish
Capes Dudley Diggs and Atholl. I held a looking-glass over the open
skylight in such a way that Mr. Peary could see something of the outline
of the coast. Poor fellow! he wanted to go on deck so badly, thinking
that if he were strapped to a board he could be moved in safety, but the
doctor persuaded him to give up the thought. As the doctors have all
agreed that in six months his leg will be as good as it ever was, he
refuses to consider the idea of returning on the “Kite”; as for myself,
now that we have started, I want to keep on too. The air is almost black
with flocks of the little auk, and a party on the ice to-day brought in
sixteen birds in a very short time.
Wednesday, July 22. Drs. Hughes and Sharp brought in sixty-four birds as
the result of an all-night catch. We are still in the ice, with no signs
of our getting out, although the captain says we have drifted twenty
miles to the northward since Monday morning. We are now abreast of
Conical Rock. Second Mate Dunphy has just reported seeing from the
crow’s-nest a steamer off Cape York, but it is not visible to the naked
eye, and we are in doubt as to what it is.
Friday, July 24. The steamer did not materialize; either the mate was
mistaken or the vessel drifted away from us. The ice parted early
yesterday morning, much to everybody’s relief, and we have since been
pushing steadily on our course. The long line of table-topped bergs off
Cape York, some of which measured not less than two hundred to three
hundred feet in height, and perhaps considerably over a mile in length,
is visibly moving over to the American waters, and to this disrupting
force we are doubtless largely indebted for our liberation. The scenery
of this portion of the Greenland coast is surpassingly fine. The steep
red-brown cliffs are frequently interrupted by small glaciers reaching
down to the water’s edge. The entrance to Wolstenholme Sound, guarded as
it was by huge bergs, was particularly beautiful. Saunders Island in the
distance, and Dalrymple Rock immediately in the foreground, stood up
like great black giants, contrasting with the snow-white bergs
surrounding them and the red cliffs of the mainland on either side.
Whenever anything particularly striking or beautiful appears, I am
called on deck, and with my hand-glass placed at the open transom over
Mr. Peary’s head, manage to give him a faint glimpse of our
surroundings. At nine o’clock this evening we rounded Cape Parry, and
about ten o’clock stopped at the little Eskimo village of Netchiolumy in
Barden Bay, where we hoped to obtain a native house, sledge, kayak, and
various native utensils and implements for the World’s Columbian
Exposition. Our search-party found only three houses in the settlement,
and the lonely inhabitants numbered six adults and five children; five
dogs added life to the solitude. These people had quantities of
sealskins and narwhal tusks, many of which were obtained in exchange for
knives, saws, files, and tools in general. Wood of any kind, to be used
in the construction of sledges, kayak frames, and spear- and
harpoon-shafts, was especially in demand; they cared nothing for our
woven clothing, nor for articles of simple show and finery. We stopped
this morning at Herbert Island, where we had hoped to visit a native
graveyard, but no graves were found.