auspicious spot to leeward. After a peep through the glasses he shouted.
The dogs understood. They raised their ears, and jumped to the full
length of their traces. We hurried eastward to deprive the bear of our
scent, but we soon learned that he was as hungry as we were, for he made
an air line for our changed position. We were hunting the bear--the bear
was also hunting us.
Getting behind a hummock, we awaited developments. Bruin persistently
neared, rising on his haunches frequently so as the better to see
E-tuk-i-shook, who had arranged himself like a seal as a decoy. When
within a few hundred yards the dogs were freed. They had been waiting
like entrenched soldiers for a chance to advance. In a few moments the
gaunt creatures encircled the puzzled bear. Almost without a sound, they
leaped at the great animal and sank their fangs into his hind legs.
Ah-we-lah fired. The bear fell.
Camp technique and the advantages of a fire were not considered--the
meat was swallowed raw, with wolfish haste, and no cut of carefully
roasted bullock ever tasted better. It was to such grim hunger that we
had come.
Then we slept, and after a long time our eyes reopened upon a world
colored with new hope. The immediate threat of famine was removed, and a
day was given over to filling up with food. Even after that, a liberal
supply of fresh meat rested on the sledge for successive days of
feasting. In the days which followed, other bears, intent on examining
our larder, came near enough at times to enable us to keep up a liberal
supply of fresh meat.
With the assurance of a food supply, a course was set to enter
Wellington Channel and push along to Lancaster Sound, where I hoped a
Scottish whaler could be reached in July or August. In this way it
seemed possible to reach home shores during the current year. If we
should try to reach Annoatok I realized we should in all probability be
compelled to winter at Cape Sabine. The ice to the eastward in Norwegian
Bay offered difficulties like those of Crown Prince Gustav Sea, and
altogether the easterly return to our base did not at this time seem
encouraging. The air-line distance to Smith Sound and that to Lancaster
Sound were about the same, with the tremendous advantage of a straight
course--a direct drift--and fairly smooth ice to the southward.
This conclusion to push forward for Lancaster Sound was reached on June
19. We were to the west of North Cornwall Island, but a persistent local
fog gave only an occasional view of its icy upper slopes. The west was
clear, and King Christian Land appeared as a low line of blue. About us
the ice was small but free of pressure troubles. Bear tracks were
frequently seen as we went along. The sea was bright. The air was
delightfully warm, with the thermometer at 10 deg. above zero.
At every stop, the panting dogs tumbled and rolled playfully on the
snows, and pushed their heated muzzles deep into the white chill. If
given time they would quickly arrange a comfortable bed and stretch out,
seemingly lifeless, for a refreshing slumber. At the awakening call of
the lash, all were ready with a quick jump and a daring snarl, but the
need of a tight trace removed their newly-acquired fighting propensity.
They had gained strength and spirit with remarkable rapidity. Only two
days before, they stumbled along with irregular step, slack traces, and
lowered tails, but the fill of juicy bear's meat raised their bushy
appendages to a coil of pride--an advantage which counted for several
miles in a day's travel.
The drift carried us into Penny Strait, midway between Bathurst Land and
Grinnell Peninsula. The small islands along both shores tore up the ice
and piled it in huge uplifts. There was a tremendous pressure as the
floes were forced through narrow gorges. Only a middle course was
possible for us, with but a few miles' travel to our credit for each
day. But the southerly movement of the groaning ice was rapid. A
persistent fog veiled the main coast on both sides, but off-lying
islands were seen and recognized often enough to note the positions. At
Dundas Island the drift was stopped, and we sought the shores of
Grinnell Peninsula. Advancing eastward, close to land, the ice proved
extremely difficult. The weather, however, was delightful. Between
snowdrifts, purple and violet flowers rose over warm beds of newly
invigorated mosses--the first flowers that we had seen for a long and
weary time, and the sight of them, with their blossoms and color,
deeply thrilled me. From misty heights came the howl of the white wolf.
Everywhere were seen the traces of the fox and the lemming. The
eider-duck and the ivory gull had entered our horizon.
All nature smiled with the cheer of midsummer. Here was an inspiring
fairyland for which our hearts had long yearned. In it there was music
which the long stiffened tympanums were slow in catching. The land was
an oasis of hardy verdure. The sea was a shifting scene of frost and
blue glitter. With the soul freed from its icy fetters, the soft, sunny
airs came in bounds of gladness. In dreamy stillness we sought the bosom
of the frozen sea, and there heard the groan of the pack which told of
home shores. Drops of water from melting snows put an end to thirst
tortures. The blow of the whales and the seals promised a luxury of fire
and fuel, while the low notes of the ducks prepared the palate for
dessert.
As we neared a little moss-covered island in drifting southward, we saw
the interesting chick footprints of ptarmigan in the snow. The dogs
pointed their ears and raised their noses, and we searched the clearing
skies with eye and ear for the sudden swoop of the boreal chicken. I had
developed a taste for this delicate fowl as desperate as that of the
darky for chicken, and my conscience was sufficiently deadened by cold
and hunger to break into a roost by night or day to steal anything that
offered feathery delights for the palate.
I was courting gastric desire, but the ptarmigan was engaged in another
kind of courtship. Two singing capons were cooing notes of love to a shy
chick, and they suddenly decided that there was not room for two,
whereupon a battle ensued with a storm of wings and much darting of
bills. In this excitement they got into an ice crevasse, where they
might have become easy victims without the use of ammunition. But, with
empty stomachs, there is also at times a heart-hunger, which pleases a
higher sense and closes the eye to gastric wants.
Later in the same day, we saw at a great distance what seemed like two
men in motion. We hastened to meet them with social anticipations. Now
they seemed tall--now mere dots on the horizon. I thought this due to
their movement over ice irregularities. But boreal optics play havoc
with the eye and the sense of perspective. As we rose suddenly on a
hummock, where we had a clearer view, the objects rose on wings! They
were ravens which had been enlarged and reduced by reflecting and
refracting surfaces and a changing atmosphere, in much the same
manner as a curved mirror makes a caricature of one's self. I
laughed--bitterly. Dazed, bewildered, there was nevertheless for me a
joy in seeing these living creatures, denizens of the land toward which
we were directed.
The bears no longer sought our camp, but the seals were conveniently
scattered along our track. A kindly world had spread our waistbands to
fairly normal dimensions. The palate began to exercise its
discriminating force. Ducks and land animals were sought with greater
eagerness. While in this mood, three white caribou were secured. They
were beautiful creatures, and as pleasing to the palate as to the eye,
but owing to the very rough ice it was quite impossible to carry more
than a few days' supply. Usually we took only the choice parts of the
game, but every eatable morsel of caribou that we could carry was
packed on the sledges.
With this wealth of food and fuel we moved along the shores of
Wellington Channel to Pioneer Bay. We felt that we were steadily on our
way homeward. There was no premonition of the keen disappointment that
awaited us, of the inevitable imprisonment for the long Arctic winter
and the days of starvation that were to come.
[Illustration: PTARMIGAN CHICKS]
OVERLAND TO JONES SOUND
HOURS OF ICY TORTURE--A FRIGID SUMMER STORM IN THE BERG-DRIVEN ARCTIC
SEA--A PERILOUS DASH THROUGH TWISTING LANES OF OPEN WATER IN A CANVAS
CANOE--THE DRIVE OF HUNGER.
XXIII
ADRIFT ON AN ICEBERG
As we neared Pioneer Bay, along the coast of North Devon, it became
quite evident that farther advance by sledge was quite impossible. A
persistent southerly wind had packed the channel with a jam of small
ice, over which the effort of sledging was a hopeless task. The season
was too far advanced to offer the advantage of an ice-foot on the shore
line. There was no open water, nor any game to supply our larder. The
caribou was mostly used. We began to feel the craving pain of short
rations.
Although the distance to Lancaster Sound was short, land travel was
impossible, and, with no food, we could not await the drift of the ice.
The uncertainty of game was serious, with nothing as a reserve to await
the dubious coming of a ship. If game should appear, we might remain on
the ice, accumulating in the meantime a supply of meat for travel by
canvas boat later.
This boat had been our hope in moving south, but thus far had not been
of service. Forced to subsist mainly on birds, the ammunition rapidly
diminished, and something had to be done at once to prevent famine.
We might have returned to the game haunts of Grinnell Peninsula, but it
seemed more prudent to cross the land to Jones Sound. Here, from
Sverdrup's experience, we had reason to expect abundant game. By moving
eastward there would be afforded the alternative of pushing northward if
we failed to get to the whalers. The temperature now remained steadily
near the freezing point, and with the first days of July the barometer
became unsteady.
On the 4th of July we began the climb of the highlands of North Devon,
winding about Devonian cliffs toward the land of promise beyond. The
morning was gray, as it had been for several days, but before noon black
clouds swept the snowy heights and poured icy waters over us. We were
saturated to the skin, and shivered in the chill of the high altitude.
Soon afterwards a light breath-taking wind from the northwest froze our
pasty furs into sheets of ice. Still later, a heavy fall of snow
compelled us to camp. The snowstorm continued for two days, and held us
in a snow-buried tent, with little food and no fuel.
Although the storm occasioned a good deal of suffering, it also brought
some advantages. The land had been imperfectly covered with snow, and we
had been forced to drive from bank to bank, over bared ground, to find a
workable course. But now all was well sheeted with crusted snow. Soon
the gaunt, dun-colored cliffs of North Devon ended the monotony of
interior snows, and beyond was seen the cheering blue of Jones Sound.
Much open water extended along the north shore to beyond Musk Ox Fiord.
The southern shores were walled with pack-ice for a hundred miles or
more. In bright, cold weather we made a descent to Eidsbotn on July 7th.
Here a diligent search for food failed. Daily the howl of wolves and the
cry of birds came as a response to our calling stomachs. A scant supply
of ducks was secured for the men with an expenditure of some of the last
rifle ammunition, but no walruses, no seals, and no other big game were
seen. To secure dog food seemed quite hopeless.
We now had the saddest incident of a long run of trouble. Open water ran
the range of vision, sledges were no longer possible, game was scarce,
our ammunition was nearly exhausted. Our future fate had to be worked
out in a canvas boat. What were we to do with the faithful dog
survivors? In the little boat they could not go with us. We could not
stay with them and live. We must part. Two had already left us to join
their wolf progenitors. We gave the others the same liberty. One sledge
was cut off and put into the canvas boat which we had carried to the
Pole and back. Our sleeping-bags and old winter clothing were given as
food to the dogs. All else was snugly packed in waterproof packages as
well as possible, and placed in the boat. With sad eyes, we left the
shore. The dogs howled like crying children; we still heard them when
five miles off shore.
Off Cape Vera there was open water, and beyond, as far eastward as we
could see, its quivering surface offered a restful prospect. As we
advanced, however, the weather proved treacherous, and the seas rose
with sudden and disagreeable thumps.
At times we camped on ice islands in the pack, but the pack-ice soon
became too insecure, being composed of small pieces, and weakened in
spots by the sun. Even a moderate gale would tear a pack apart, to be
broken into smaller fragments by the water. Sometimes we made camp in
the boat, with a box for a pillow and a piece of bear skin for a cover.
With great anxiety we pulled to reach the land at Cape Sparbo before a
storm entrapped us. To the north, the water was free of ice as far as
the shores of Ellesmere Land, forty miles away. To avoid the glare of
the midday sun, we chose to travel by night, but we were nearing the end
of the season of Arctic double-days and midnight suns, when the winds
come suddenly and often.
Soon after midnight the wind from the Pacific came in short puffs, with
periods of calm so sudden that we looked about each time for something
to happen. At about the same time there came long swells from the
northwest. We scented a storm, although at that time there were no other
signs. The ice was examined for a possible line of retreat to the land,
but, with pressure ridges, hummocks and breaks, I knew this was
impossible. It was equally hopeless to camp on such treacherous ice.
Berg ice had been passed the day before, but this was about as far
behind as the land was ahead.
So we pulled along desperately, while the swells shortened and rose. The
atmosphere became thick and steel gray. The cliffs of Ellesmere Land
faded, while lively clouds tumbled from the highlands to the sea.
We were left no alternative but to seek the shelter of the disrupted
pack, and press landward as best we could. We had hardly landed on the
ice, and drawn our boat after us, when the wind struck us with such
force that we could hardly stand against it. The ice immediately started
in a westward direction, veering off from the land a little and leaving
open leads. These leads, we now saw, were the only possible places of
safety. For, in them, the waters were easy, and the wind was slightly
shut off by the walls of pressure lines and hummocks. Furthermore, they
offered slants now and then by which we could approach the land.
The sledge was set under the boat and lashed. All our things were lashed
to the wooden frame of the canoe to prevent the wind and the sea from
carrying them away. We crossed several small floes and jumped the lines
of water separating them, pulling sledge and canoe after us. The
pressure lines offered severe barriers. To cross them we were compelled
to separate the canoe from its sledge and remove the baggage. All of
this required considerable time. A sense of hopelessness filled my
heart. In the meantime, the wind veered to the east and came with a rush
that left us helpless. We sought the lee of a hummock, and hoped the
violence of the storm would soon spend itself, but there were no easy
spells in this storm, nor did it show signs of early cessation. The ice
about us moved rapidly westward and slowly seaward.
It was no longer possible to press toward the land, for the leads of
water were too wide and were lined with small whitecaps, while the
tossing seas hurled mountains of ice and foaming water over the pack
edge.
The entire pack was rising and falling under faint swells, and gradually
wearing to little fragments. The floe on which we stood was strong. I
knew it would hold out longer than most of the ice about, but it was not
high enough above water to give us a dry footing as the seas advanced.
From a distance to the windward we noted a low iceberg slowly gaining on
our floe. It was a welcome sight, for it alone could raise us high
enough above the soul-despairing rush of the icy water.
Its rich ultramarine blue promised ice of a sufficient strength to
withstand the battling of the storm. Never were men on a sinking ship
more anxious to reach a rock than we were to reach this blue stage of
ice. It offered several little shelves, upon which we could rise out of
the water upon the ice. We watched with anxious eyes as the berg
revolved and forced the other ice aside.
It aimed almost directly for us, and would probably cut our floe. We
prepared for a quick leap upon the deck of our prospective craft.
Bearing down upon us it touched a neighboring piece and pushed us away.
We quickly pulled to the other pan, and then found, to our dismay, a
wide band of mushy slush, as impossible to us for a footing as quicksand
would have been. As the berg passed, however, it left a line of water
behind it. We quickly threw boat and sledge into this, paddled after the
berg, and, reaching it, leaped to its security. What a relief to be
raised above the crumbling pack-ice and to watch from safety the
thundering of the elements!
The berg which we had boarded was square, with rounded corners. Its
highest points were about twenty feet above water; the general level was
about ten feet. The ice was about eighty feet thick, and its width was
about a hundred feet. These dimensions assured stability, for if the
thing had turned over, as bergs frequently do, we should be left to seek
breath among the whales.
It was an old remnant of a much larger berg which had stood the Arctic
tempest for many years. This we figured out from the hard blue of the
ice and its many caverns and pinnacles. We were, therefore, on a secure
mass of crystal which was not likely to suffer severely from a single
storm. Its upper configuration, however, though beautiful in its
countless shades of blue, did not offer a comfortable berth. There were
three pinnacles too slippery and too steep to climb, with a slope
leading by a gradual incline on each side. Along these the seas had worn
grooves leading to a central concavity filled with water. The only space
which we could occupy was the crater-like rim around this lake. At this
time we had to endure only the seething pitch of the sea and the cutting
blast of the storm.
The small ice about kept the seas from boarding. To prevent our being
thrown about on the slippery surface, we cut holes into the pinnacles
and spread lines about them, to which we clung. The boat was securely
fastened in a similar way by cutting a makeshift for a ringbolt in the
floor of ice. Then we pushed from side to side along the lines, to
encourage our hearts and to force our circulation. Although the
temperature was only at the freezing point, it was bitterly cold, and we
were in a bad way to weather a storm.
The sea had drenched us from head to foot. Only our shirts were dry.
With hands tightly gripped to the line and to crevasses, we received the
spray of the breaking icy seas while the berg ploughed the scattered
pack and plunged seaward. The cold, though only at the freezing point,
pierced our snow-pasted furs and brought shivers worse than that of
zero's lowest. Thus the hours of physical torture and mental anguish
passed, while the berg moved towards the gloomy black cliff of Hell
Gate. Here the eastern sky bleached and the south blued, but the falling
temperature froze our garments to coats of mail. We were still dressed
in part of our winter garments.
The coat was of sealskin, with hood attached; the shirt of camel's hair
blanket, also with a hood; the trousers of bear fur; boots of seal, with
hair removed, and stockings of hare fur. The mittens were of seal, and
there were pads of grass for the palms and soles. Our garments, though
not waterproof, shed water and excluded the winds, but there is a cold
that comes with wet garments and strong winds that sets the teeth to
chattering and the skin to quivering.
As all was snug and secure on the berg, we began to take a greater
interest in our wind and sea-propelled craft. Its exposed surface was
swept by the winds, while its submarine surface was pushed by tides and
undercurrents, giving it a complex movement at variance with the
pack-ice. It ploughed up miles of sea-ice, crushing and throwing it
aside.
After several hours of this kind of navigation--which was easy for us,
because the movement of the swell and the breaking of the sea did not
inflict a hardship--the berg suddenly, without any apparent reason,
took a course at right angles to the wind, and deliberately pushed out
of the pack into the seething seas. This rapid shift from comfort to the
wild agitation of the black waters made us gasp. The seas, with boulders
of ice, rolled up over our crest and into the concavity of the berg,
leaving no part safe. Seizing our axes, we cut many other anchor holes
in the ice, doubly secured our life lines, and shifted with our boat to
the edge of the berg turned to the wind. The hours of suspense and
torment thus spent seemed as long as the winters of the Eskimo. The pack
soon became a mere pearly glow against a dirty sky. We were rushing
through a seething blackness, made more impressive by the pearl and blue
of the berg and the white, ice-lined crests.
What could we do to keep the springs of life from snapping in such a
world of despair? Fortunately, we were kept too busy dodging the
storm-driven missiles of water and ice to ponder much over our fate.
Otherwise the mind could not have stood the infernal strain.
Our bronze skins were adapted to cold and winds, but the torture of the
cold, drenching water was new. For five months we had been battered by
winds and cut by frosts, but water was secured only by melting ice with
precious fuel which we had carried thousands of miles. If we could get
enough of the costly liquid to wash our cold meals down, we had been
satisfied. The luxury of a face wash or a bath, except by the
wind-driven snows, was never indulged in. Now, in stress of danger, we
were getting it from every direction. The torments of frost about the
Pole were nothing compared to this boiling blackness.
Twenty-four hours elapsed before there was any change. Such calls of
nature as hunger or thirst or sleep were left unanswered. We maintained
a terrific struggle to keep from being washed into the sea. At last the
east paled, the south became blue, and the land on both sides rose in
sight. The wind came steadily, but reduced in force, with a frosty edge
that hardened our garments to sheets of ice.
We were not far from the twin channels, Cardigan Strait and Hell Gate,
where the waters of the Pacific and Atlantic meet. We were driving for
Cardigan Strait, past the fiords into which we had descended from the
western seas two weeks before. We had, therefore, lost an advance of two
weeks in one day, and we had probably lost our race with time to reach
the life-saving haunts of the Eskimo.
Still, this line of thought was foreign to us. Not far away were bold
cliffs from which birds descended to the rushing waters. At the sight my
heart rose. Here we saw the satisfying prospect of an easy breakfast if
only the waves would cease to fold in white crests. Long trains of heavy
ice were rushing with railroad speed out of the straits. As we watched,
the temperature continued to fall. Soon the north blackened with
swirling curls of smoke. The wind came with the sound of exploding guns
from Hell Gate. What, I asked myself, was to be our fate now?
We took a southwest course. Freezing seas washed over the berg and froze
our numbed feet to the ice, upon which a footing otherwise would have
been very difficult. Adrift in a vast, ice-driven, storm-thundering
ocean, I stood silent, paralyzed with terror. After a few hours,
sentinel floes of the pack slowly shoved toward us, and unresistingly,
we were ushered into the harboring influence of the heavy Polar ice.