DAVID GOES TO GREENLAND
BY
DAVID BINNEY PUTNAM
With a Foreword by
CAP’N BOB BARTLETT
ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS, WITH DECORATIONS
FROM DRAWINGS MADE ESPECIALLY BY THE ESKIMO,
KAKUTIA, AT KARNAH ON WHALE SOUND
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1926
To
My Best Friend
WHO REALLY SHOULD
HAVE GONE TO GREENLAND
MOTHER
FOREWORD
David has asked me to write a foreword for his book, which I have seen
him working at during these last three months as we sailed northward.
Yesterday I read the manuscript which had just been typewritten from
those painstaking penciled pages of the boy’s.
As I read I thought more than ever how fortunate David is, first to go
with “Uncle Will” (Dr. Beebe) as far south as the Galápagos Islands on
the Equator last year, and now to North Greenland. For anyone, of
thirteen or thirty-nine, that’s a pretty fine spread and a great
experience.
I must confess that it was with some misgivings I thought of the
youngster going with us. While it was only a summer trip, almost
anything is likely to happen in the Arctic and there’s always a chance
of having a pretty rough time—hard, anyway, for a boy. But right here,
as the expedition is drawing to a close (and some of it was fairly
strenuous), I must say these misgivings did not materialize.
David is a thoroughbred and has a real sane idea of getting along. No
one who reads his bully story can fail to realize this. From start to
finish I have watched him closely and he has measured up handsomely to
all, and more, that any observer could require.
And David is still a boy. He has learned much on the Beebe trip and on
this one, things that will sink deep into his young soul. I believe in
the years to come he will reap well of what he has sown, and what has
been sown for him. School is fine and school must come first. But
surely if opportunity offers to combine such experiences as these with
“book learning,” it seems to me the grandest sort of education.
I have heard it said that this youngster is having no real boy’s life.
Anyone who feels that just doesn’t know David. They haven’t seen him
with lads of his own age, as I have, on the football field with his
friends at home or with young Eskimos on the Morrissey and ashore in
Greenland.
David is still a boy, but a boy who has happened to have a rather wide
experience. He’s not a paragon. He’s just plain B-O-Y. And for many
years to come he will remain young, with a young heart and the natural
unspoiled freshness and happiness of youth. And to me, who have not had
many boys around me as I’ve knocked about, it’s been a real pleasure to
have him along.
I wonder if many boys who read David’s simple story here, with its many
interesting incidents, won’t become jealous. I’m sure I should, if I
could turn the clock back more years than one likes to think about.
What youngster wouldn’t want to go hunting three thousand miles from
home, and see walrus and polar bear and narwhal and all the rest of it?
That’s really what this book should do. Not really make less lucky boys
jealous, you understand, but stir up their blood and make them realize
that there’s lots in life over the hill and beyond the horizon. A
stirring-up like that won’t hurt them. It’s good tonic for the
youngsters who are lounging away their youth and getting bad starts
fussing around dances and clubs and autos and all that sort of thing,
when they ought to be out getting their hands dirty, their muscles hard
and their minds cleaned out with the honest experiences of the sea and
far places.
I hope the boys who read their way to Greenland with David in this
little book (and their Dads, too) will become imbued with David’s
spirit and find for themselves worthwhile Ultima Thules.
Robert A. Bartlett.
On Board the Morrissey,
Baffin Bay,
September 5, 1926.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.—Off to Greenland 3
II.—Through the Straits of Belle Isle 16
III.—We Reach Greenland 30
IV.—Along the Greenland Coast 38
V.—Upernivik and the Duck Islands 49
VI.—Across Melville Bay 62
VII.—Shipwreck 72
VIII.—The Morrissey Repaired 88
IX.—Our First Narwhal 100
X.—Our Eskimo Artist 109
XI.—Walrus Hunting 116
XII.—Across to Jones Sound 125
XIII.—Nanook! 135
XIV.—At Pond’s Inlet 143
XV.—More Bears 156
ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
Cap’n Bob Bartlett Frontispiece
“They Set Me to Work with a Paint Brush” 6
Will Bartlett, Mate; “Skipper Tom” Gushue, Bo’sun; Ralph
Spracklin; and Billy Pritchard, the Cook 7
David and His Corona 12
The Skipper Tells David About Taking Observations 13
David Tries Carrying Art Young Through the Mud 18
In the Cross Trees 19
The Morrissey in Jones Sound 26
A Baffin Bay Portrait of the Author 27
We Get a Basking Shark at Holsteinsborg 34
Carl Shows a South Greenland Youngster how to Use a Pathex
Motion Picture Camera 35
Looking Down Over a Bird Rookery 42
Nils, David and Matak, Son of Pooadloona 43
Robert Peary Tries a Kayak 52
Art Young Tries an Eider Duck Egg from the Eskimo Cache on
the Duck Islands 53
The King Dog of Governor Otto’s Team, with His Queen 56
Feeding the Dogs at Upernivik 57
In a Fjord Back of Upernivik 64
Tupiks, the Eskimo Summer Houses Made of Skins, at Karnah 65
The Morrissey on the Reef Off Northumberland Island 74
View from Shore of the Wrecked Morrissey 75
Where the Morrissey’s False Keel Ripped Off on the Rocks 80
When the Eskimos Came to Shipwreck Camp on Northumberland
Island 81
Art Shoots Ducks Among the Icebergs from the Dory with the
Johnson Engine 90
Dad Tries His Hand at Netting Dovekies 91
Carl and Art Try Swimming at the Foot of the Glacier 96
Up on the Glacier, where the Great Ice Cap Comes Down to the
Sea 97
Harry Raven, Zoölogist, Shows how to Clean a Narwhal Skull 106
Working on a Narwhal Skeleton 107
Kakutia of Karnah, the Eskimo Artist who Made the Sketches
Used in this Book, on the Morrissey in Whale Sound 112
Two Blond Eskimos! David and Nils 113
Pooadloona Throws His Harpoon at a Walrus 118
Walrus on Deck. All the Meat Went to the Eskimos, the
Skeletons and Hides to the Museum 119
“Halitosis,” the Baby Walrus Roped By Carl 122
Hoisting a Walrus on Board 123
Dressing a Walrus. Left to Right: Dan, Joe, Art, David and
Carl 130
Art and a Dead Walrus on an Ice Pan in Jones Sound 131
Enough for Several Fine Duck Messes 136
Enjoying Our Atwater Kent Radio 137
Kellerman “Shoots” Some Eskimos of Inglefield Gulf 140
Kudluktoo and Matak Show David the Right Way to Eat Narwhal
Hide, a Prized Eskimo Delicacy 141
Dr. Rasmussen Shows David an Ancient Eskimo Harpoon Head 150
Two Arctic Hare from Pond’s Inlet 151
The Polar Bears on the Iceberg 158
The Polar Bear and Her Two Cubs Swim Away from the Berg 159
Carl and One of the Polar Bear Cubs He Roped 164
Art Young and the Bear He Killed with Bow and Arrow 165
DAVID GOES TO GREENLAND
CHAPTER I
OFF TO GREENLAND
Last year I went on the Beebe trip to the Galápagos Islands on the
steamer Arcturus which was all fixed up especially for the journey.
This was a scientific expedition down to the Equator to get deep sea
specimens, some of them caught at a depth of nearly three miles. The
islands where we went are on the Equator six hundred miles west of
Ecuador in South America, and going down we passed through the Panama
Canal.
“Uncle Will”—that’s Mr. Beebe—let me go on the Pacific part of this
expedition as a sort of junior guest. We had many new experiences, some
of them pretty exciting. There was diving in a helmet away below the
surface of the water, and seeing volcanoes in eruption and lava streams
flowing into the sea, and harpooning a big devil fish. Although I was
the youngest member of the party—my twelfth birthday was down at Cocos
Island south of Panama—I was able to have a part in almost everything.
And of course it was great fun.
Captain Bob Bartlett is a great friend of Dad’s. It was Cap’n Bob, you
remember, who was with Admiral Peary when he first reached the North
Pole in 1909. Well, he and Dad often talked of a Greenland expedition,
which the Captain said could be about the finest kind of a trip, with
lots to do and see.
The American Museum of Natural History in New York wanted some things
from the North for its new Hall of Ocean Life, as well as Arctic birds.
So Dad said he would organize an expedition and get the specimens they
wanted. Among these are Narwhal, Greenland Brown Shark, walrus, all
kinds of seal and many birds. Of course we couldn’t get all we were
looking for, but even a part of it would make the trip worth while.
I was told that I could go on this trip to Greenland, and that as soon
as school was over I was to go down to the shipyard on Staten Island
where the Morrissey was being refitted, and that there would be plenty
for me to do there.
We are to go as far North as about seven hundred miles this side of the
Pole. In all we shall cover more than seven thousand miles and will be
back in October. Perhaps if we’re late Dad will send me down by train
from Sydney, for school. And we’re taking a couple of school books too,
which he says I’ll have to work at when there is time.
It is certainly exciting to look forward to the adventures which I hope
we will have. I’ve a Newton 2.56 rifle and a twenty-two rifle and I
hope to get a chance to do some shooting, although I think the most fun
will be helping in the scientific and taxidermy work, and in getting
the motion pictures. And part of my job is to write a record as we go
along, to make a little book later.
Last year Mother took me below the Equator. And this year I’m going
with Dad 780 miles north of the Arctic Circle—that is, if we have luck
with the ice. Anyway, I’m certainly a lucky thirteen year old boy!
School closed on Thursday afternoon. Friday I went to Dad’s office and
looked over some equipment. He and I had been working over the
equipment and making lists and generally getting ready, for weeks. In
the afternoon we went by ferry to West New Brighton on Staten Island to
McWilliams’ shipyard, where our boat, the Morrissey, was.
The Morrissey is a two masted Newfoundland fishing schooner. She is one
hundred feet long and has a twenty-two foot beam, and draws about
fourteen feet when heavily loaded. With us now she draws probably about
twelve. Her crew are all Newfoundlanders, wonderful sailors in fair
weather or foul. Captain Bartlett owns her, and Dad and some friends
refitted her, putting in an engine and making many changes to take care
of our party.
Jim is the tallest of the crew. He is over six feet and looks like a
cow puncher with small hips and broad shoulders. He is a fine ship’s
carpenter. Tom, the boatswain, is the oldest and most experienced. He
can make most anything that belongs on a sailing vessel. He was with
Peary on the Roosevelt on a couple of his trips to the North, including
his one to the Pole. Joe is the biggest man of the crew, and Ralph the
youngest.
Billy Pritchard is about the most important man on board, to my way of
thinking. He is the cook. Bill is pretty small, but he is a grand cook
and has had lots of experience at sea. He has been in the far north and
has been wrecked four times. When the Morrissey came down from
Newfoundland to get us, when the ship jumped in a heavy sea Billy got
thrown clean out of his bunk across the galley and on top of the stove.
Billy’s helper is Don, who is always very nice to me.
Our skipper is Robert A. Bartlett who was with Peary and has spent
years of his life in the Arctic and is about the most experienced ice
navigator living today. Cap’n Bob is most awfully nice to me and he and
his brother Will Bartlett, who is the mate, say they will help me learn
the names of the ropes and to box the compass and all that. You see,
I’ve never made a trip on a sailing vessel before, and there is lots to
learn.
Well, when I got to the ship, a paint brush was stuck in my hand and I
was told to start painting on the hull, as we were then in dry-dock
having a hole bored in the stern for the shaft for the new propeller.
That day I painted pretty near a quarter of the hull and all day
Saturday there was other painting—bunks, lockers, hatch covers, etc. We
had lots of fine Masury paint which had been given to the Expedition.
And there was plenty of cleaning-up work to do.
The Morrissey is divided into three different cabins. The fo’castle has
six bunks where the crew sleep. It is used for the galley also. You
know, on a ship the kitchen is called “galley.” Aft of that comes the
main cabin where most of us sleep. There is a big table in the middle
of the room which is used for eating, writing, working, etc. There are
twelve bunks and the wireless outfit in this cabin, and a large
skylight put in where the old cargo hatch used to be.
The wireless is a short wave outfit, run by Ed Manley, who is an
amateur who volunteered for the job and who just graduated from
Marietta College in Ohio. The fine big radio equipment, with which we
expect to be able to talk right to home even from north of the Arctic
Circle, was given to the Expedition by Mr. Atwater Kent and the
National Carbon Company who make the Eveready batteries.
Then comes the engine room which was once the after hold where they
stored fish and carried coal when the boat was used for freight. All
around the engine are stores, crowded in tight so they can’t possibly
shift when the boat rolls around in a storm. Some of them belong to
Knud Rasmussen and some to Professor Hobbs whom we will pick up at
Sydney. He is going to South Greenland to study the birth of storms on
the Ice Cap there. We are picking up Rasmussen at Disko Island on
Greenland and are taking these stores for him to his trading station at
Thule, near Cape York. Rasmussen is a great Danish explorer and an
expert on Eskimo.
Astern of the engine room comes the after cabin where the Captain, Dad,
Mr. Raven and Mr. Streeter sleep. There are six bunks, a table, a small
stove and the only chair on board. Over the table is a shelf of books
mostly about the Arctic and adventure. I have some special ones of my
own to read, including Two Years Before the Mast, Doctor Luke of the
Labrador, The Cruise of the Cachelot and Richard Carvel. And then Dad
has waiting for me a couple of school books, Latin and an English
grammar, which don’t sound quite so much fun.
Most of our own stores are in a special store room next to the galley
and stored in the run and lazarette away aft. On deck we have over
fifty barrels of fuel oil for our Standard Diesel engine which you
probably know burns oil and not gasoline.
We started on Sunday, June twentieth, from the American Yacht Club on
Long Island Sound. That’s at Rye, our home, and most of the men in our
party visited at home with us before we started.
It was a hot sunny day, and a great many people came out in launches
and inspected the Morrissey. There was a big lunch party at the Club
and Commodore Mallory gave Dad and Cap’n Bob the flag of the Club to
take North with us. At about a quarter to five we got clear of the
visitors and got the anchor up and started down the Sound. A great many
yachts and small boats were all around us, blowing horns and whistles
and giving us a grand send-off.
Grandpa’s yacht, the Florindia, took all the mothers and sisters and
wives of our crowd, with my Mother and my little brother June. They
went along with us as far as Sound Beach, Connecticut. And then, when
they had tooted their last salute, and we had answered on our fog horn,
we were actually off for the North.
Monday was a nice calm day which gave Art Young and myself a chance to
stow our stuff. He bunks just below me so we have to go half and half
on the lockers. Art is the bow and arrow expert who was in Africa
shooting lions. In America he has killed grizzly bear, moose and Kodiak
bear with his arrows. He hopes to try his luck with a polar bear and
walrus.
Monday morning, our first day out, we saw eighteen airplanes near Block
Island, at the eastern end of Long Island Sound, all headed for New
York. Perhaps they were going to welcome Commander Byrd, who was
expected back in a couple of days, coming home from England after
flying to the North Pole. Dad and Mr. Byrd are friends and he was at
our house a little before he started on his trip in the Chantier.
There was a fine wind and a pretty small sea running all day. It was
nice and sunny, but very cold, so that we all put on lots of sweaters
and coats. Everyone ate dinner and supper that day. As we were going up
through Vineyard Sound in the afternoon a submarine and a lot of Coast
Guard vessels passed us.
Then it began to get rougher with a stiff southerly breeze which was
fine for sailing. On the next afternoon we saw a lot of small whales,
about 25 feet long. Two or three of them jumped most out of the water,
and once about fifty yards ahead of our boat I saw one jump completely
out. He looked like a huge bullet.
That day almost all of our gang were sick, and even a couple of the
crew. I spent most of the time on deck, listening to Mr. Raven and Van
Heilner tell stories about spear traps and the way the Malay natives
made and set traps for animals.
We were rocking so hard and keeling over so much that often the water
would come in through both port and starboard scuppers. I was looking
through a scupper hole when we hit a big wave and all of a sudden the
water came right in and hit me in the face as I turned around from
watching Captain Bob slack the main sheet.
Ralph, one of the crew, has showed me how to make chafing gear from
rope. It is used to keep the sails from slapping and wearing out
against the steel cables. And Jim has taught me the names of the sails
and is starting on the ropes.
The last two days of the trip to Sydney were not so good, with a lot of
fog and some rain. Now and then we heard fog signals on the shore of
Nova Scotia, and when the fog lifted saw the shore and lighthouses. It
is great fun to go up in the crow’s nest.