fleeting musk-ox, when outdistanced by the animal found that he was out
of sight of his comrades and could find no familiar landmark by which to
guide him back to ship or tent. Night coming on, he was in sad plight in
the darkness, illy clad for long exposure, lost and alone. Now and then
he fired a shot, but his straining ears heard no responsive signal from
his shipmates. After tramping to and fro for several hours, he was so
worn out that he sat down to regain his strength, but he soon found that
his clothing, wet with the sweat of travel, had frozen stiff. To save
himself from death by freezing, he began walking slowly about, keeping
to a restricted circle so that he should not wander farther from his
anxious comrades.
While tramping to and fro his listening ear, eager for any sound of
life, detected a slight rustling noise. Turning quickly he saw close
behind him the form of a beast, which loomed large in the faint light of
the rising moon. He had neither need to reason nor time to draw on his
fancy as to the character of his unwelcome pursuer, for a weird
resounding howl called forth at once an answering chorus. A ravenous
wolf had marked the hunter as his prey and was calling his gaunt and
cruel comrades to the bloody, looked-for feast.
The tales of the forecastle had been filled with grewsome details of
the ravages of wolves, so that the seaman was doubly horrified to find a
band of polar pirates on his trail. Though knowing his frightful plight,
he faced expectant death with courage and composure, putting on a bold
front. Shortly the wolves followed their customary tactics, so
successful in killing reindeer or musk-oxen. Forming a circle around the
hunter, a wolf would jump quickly toward the man's back, the animal
alertly withdrawing as he was faced. Again several would make a sudden
and united plunge toward their intended victim--coming from separate
directions. Greatly alarmed at this concerted attack, the seaman fired
at the nearest wolf. When the band, alarmed at the bright flame and loud
noise from the musket--unknown to the arctic wolf--fled a short distance
the seaman at once ascended a small knoll where he would be better
placed for defence. From this point of vantage he waged successful
warfare by timely shots at individual attacking wolves.
But the time came when he had fired every shot in his locker, and then
the band fell back a little way and seemed to be deliberating as to what
should be done next. Expecting another concerted attack, the seaman took
his hunting-knife in one hand so that he could stab any single wolf, and
grasped his musket firmly in the free hand so as to use it as a club.
While in this fearful state he was intensely relieved by seeing the
whole pack rush madly away. Though the hunter never knew for a
certainty, his relief was doubtless due either to the coming of a polar
bear, feared by the wolves, or to the scenting of an attractive
musk-ox. With anxious heart he awaited the coming daylight, when he was
able to locate himself and rejoin the comrades who were in wild search
for him.
This was not an isolated case of the boldness and tenacity of
the wolves, who were a constant menace not only to the hunters
personally--who kept well together after this experience--but to the
game resources of the country. On another occasion three men started out
to bring to the ship the carcass of a deer which had been killed the day
before. The boatswain walking in advance reached the deep ravine in
which he had cached the deer, only to find a pack of five large, gaunt
wolves rapidly devouring the carcass. As he went forward he expected
that the animals would leave, but none stirred at his approach, their
famished condition seeming to banish fear of man. Though he shouted at
the top of his voice and brandished his musket, three of the wolves fell
back only a few yards, when they squatted on their haunches and kept
their sharp eyes fixed on him. The two other wolves paid no attention to
the hunter, but continued to devour ravenously the dismembered animal.
The boatswain seized a hind leg of the deer, but Master Wolf, not at all
disconcerted, held fast to the other end in which his sharp teeth were
deeply fixed. The other wolves now set up a snarling chorus of
encouragement to their fellow and of defiance to the intruder at their
feast. However, the undismayed sailor, holding fast with one hand to the
deer's hind leg, brandished his musket vigorously with the other and
yelled at the top of his voice to his comrades coming over the hill. He
did not wish to use his precious ammunition on the wolves, as the supply
was now so small as to forbid its waste. The daring animal at last
dropped his end of the deer, but stood fast within a yard or two, ready
to renew his attack at a favorable opportunity. The hunter cautiously
gathered up, piece by piece, the remnants of his fat game, the pack all
the time howling and snarling and even making dashes at the brave seaman
who was robbing them of their dinner.
Meanwhile the Eskimo interpreter, Mr. Miertsching, a Moravian missionary
of German birth, came up in a state of excitement which turned to fear
at the scene. His long service in Labrador had made him familiar with
the audacity and prowess of the wolf, and he viewed uneasily the
menacing attitude of the five wolves, who plainly intended to attempt
the recovery of the deer meat. It was not until two other armed men came
up that the wolves took to the hills, howling defiantly.
It was the rule of the ship that a hunter should have the head and the
heart of any animal he killed, thus to encourage the activity and
success of the hunters. Though there were less than twenty pounds saved
from the deer, a generous portion went to the gallant seaman who had
fought off so successfully the predatory gang.
With the opening summer of 1852 affairs were most critical, as the ship
remained fast in the ice, with no signs of relief. In July Surgeon
Alexander Armstrong urged that the allowance of food be increased, as
the year of short rations had caused scurvy among one-third of the crew.
As all fresh meat was then gone, M'Clure refused to make larger food
issues.
At this critical juncture, Woon, a sergeant of marines, shot two
musk-oxen under rather thrilling and unusual circumstances. While
hunting, the sergeant discovered two musk-oxen lying down, one of them
evidently asleep. Creeping quietly toward them, taking advantage of such
cover as the nature of the ground afforded, he was within nearly a
hundred yards when the alarmed oxen scrambled to their feet. Firing at
the larger ox, he wounded him, but not fatally. The musk-ox charged him,
stopping within about forty yards. A second shot only caused the animal
to shake his black mane and toss his horns in a threatening manner.
Meanwhile the second ox ran forward, as though to help his comrade, and
was in turn wounded by a shot from the now alarmed hunter. The second
animal then rushed toward the sergeant in a thoroughly enraged attitude,
and though much smaller than his companion advanced with much more
courage than had the first. With his last ball the hunter fired at the
larger animal, as being more important to the larder, who, shot through
the brain, fell dead in his tracks.
Hastily loading his musket with a part of his remaining powder, the
sergeant was forced to use the screw of his ramrod as a missile, with
which he pierced the neck of the steadily advancing musk-ox. As this
still failed to check the advance the hunter withdrew slowly, reloading
his gun with his single remaining missile, the ramrod of the musket. By
this time the thoroughly enraged animal was within a few feet of the
sergeant when the last shot was fired. The ramrod passed diagonally
through the body of the ox, making a raking wound from which the animal
fell dead at the very feet of the anxious hunter. The larger musk-ox,
with its shaggy mane, curly horns, menacing air, and formidable
appearance, was quite a monster. Its huge head and massive horns made up
one hundred and thirty pounds of its full weight of seven hundred and
sixty-seven pounds.
During the brief arctic summer, under the surgeon's orders, the valleys
were searched for sorrel and scurvy grass, which contributed to the
improved physical health of the men. It was not possible, however, to
dispel the mental dejection that affected all of the crew as the
summer passed without such changes in the ice as would permit the
_Investigator_ to be moved. All knew that the ship's provisions were
inadequate for another year, which must now be faced. If game was not
killed in much larger quantities, it would be necessary to face death by
starvation, unless some unforeseen and providential relief should come
to them.
After long deliberation M'Clure made known his plans to the assembled
crew on September 9, 1852. In April twenty-eight men and officers would
be sent eastward with sledges to Beechey Island, five hundred and fifty
miles distant. At that point they would take a boat and stores there
cached and endeavor to reach the Danish settlements on the west coast of
Greenland. Nine other men would endeavor to reach the Hudson Bay posts
via the Mackenzie River, taking up en route the cache of provisions
deposited by the _Investigator_ on Prince Royal Islands in 1850. Thirty
of the healthiest of the crew would remain with the ship for the fourth
arctic winter, awaiting relief from the British Admiralty in 1854.
Of necessity the daily allowances were again reduced, so that the amount
of food issued was six ounces of meat, ten of flour, and two and
one-half of canned vegetables. Surgeon Armstrong records that "the
feeling was now one of absolute hunger, the cravings of which were ever
present."
The ration was generally eaten by the officers at a single meal, and to
insure exact fairness, and to remove any ground for complaint, the mess
adopted the rule that turn about should be taken in the disagreeable
duty of making the daily issue. The officer of the day arranged the food
in as many portions as there were persons. Then, in an order fixed by
lot, each officer inspected the various piles of food and chose that
which most pleased him. The officer making the division for the day took
the lot left.
It is to be presumed that the men suffered even more than the officers
on these starvation rations. Certainly they were unable to restrain
their feelings as well as did the officers, and on October 4, 1853,
occurred an act doubtless unprecedented in the royal navy. Suffering
from prolonged cravings of hunger, made more acute by the late reduction
of food and by the severe winter cold, the ship's crew assembled on the
quarterdeck in a body and asked Captain M'Clure for more food, which he
refused to grant.
By hunting, which duty now fell almost entirely on the officers, a few
ounces of fresh meat--deer, field-mice, or even wolf--were now and then
added to their meagre meals. The fortunate hunter, besides his game
perquisites of head and heart, also enjoyed other privileges that almost
always brought him back to the ship in a condition that made him a
frightful spectacle from blood and dirt. When he killed a deer or other
animal, the first act of the hunter was to put his lips to the mortal
wound and take therefrom a draught of fresh, warm blood that ebbed from
the dying animal. In taste and in effect this blood was found to be very
like a warm uncooked egg. As water for washing was precious and rarely
to be had, owing to lack of fuel, and then in small amounts, the ghastly
spectacle that a man presented when the blood of an animal was glued
over his face, and was frozen into the accumulated grime of weeks
without washing, may be better imagined than described.
The awful cold in which lived and hunted these half-starved men taxed to
the utmost their impaired powers of endurance. For two days in January
the temperature was ninety-one degrees below the freezing-point, and the
average for that month was four degrees below that of frozen mercury.
The pall of gloom and despair that had come with the winter darkness,
from the frightful cold, and from increasing sickness was somewhat
broken on March 15, 1853, when the weakest half of the crew was told off
in parties to make the spring retreat with sledges. To put them in
condition for the field M'Clure gave them full rations. It was strange
to note how closely they, eating once more heartily, were watched and to
what extent the few ounces of extra food made them objects of envy to
their healthier and stronger comrades, who were to stay by the ship
another awful winter.
The doctors, however, were under no delusion as to the ultimate outcome
of the situation. The weaker members of the crew were to take the field
and die like men, falling in the traces as they dragged along the fatal
sledge, as the surgeons Armstrong and Piers had reported in writing "the
absolute unfitness of the men for the performance of this journey."
Though Captain M'Clure, with the spirit of optimism that belongs to a
commander, endeavored to persuade himself to the contrary, it was
evident to Dr. Armstrong that critical conditions had developed that
threatened the extermination of the expeditionary force.
The able and clear-sighted doctor realized that the sick were not simply
suffering from physical exhaustion induced by the short rations of many
months. He recognized with horror that far the greater number of
the crew were slowly perishing from the dreaded and fatal arctic
scourge--scurvy. The progress and prevalence of the disease were such
that it was to be feared there would not remain after a few months
enough well men to properly care for their sick comrades. It was a
living death that was being faced from day to day.
But fate, inexorable and inexplicable, was doubly placing its veto on
the feeble plans of man. Three of the men who were told off for the
forlorn hope died within a fortnight, while thirty-three of the
remaining thirty-six men were suffering from materially impaired health.
Then came the relief from outside sources, which saved the expedition as
a whole.
Meanwhile, unknown to M'Clure, a searching squadron of five British
ships, commanded by Captain Sir Edward Belcher, R.N., was wintering
about two hundred miles to the eastward of the _Investigator_. Sledging
from one of these ships, the _Resolute_, at Bridgeport Inlet, Melville
Island, Lieutenant Mecham, in October, 1852, had visited Winter Harbor,
and on top of the famous sandstone rock had found the record there
deposited by M'Clure in his visit to that point in April, 1852, six
months earlier, which stated that the _Investigator_ was wintering in
Mercy Bay. The fast-approaching darkness made the trip to Mercy Bay
impossible, even if the ship was yet there--most doubtful from the
record. For M'Clure had added: "If we should not be again heard of ...
any attempt to succor would be to increase the evil."
Nevertheless, Captain Kellet, commanding the _Resolute_, thought it wise
to send a party to Mercy Bay the coming spring, not for M'Clure alone,
but to seek at that place and far beyond such news as was attainable
about Collinson's squadron. For this duty was selected Lieutenant
Bedford C. T. Pim, R.N., a young officer of spirit and determination,
who had volunteered for the journey. Kellet's advisers urged that he
delay the departure until the end of March, with its longer days and
warmer weather. Pim insisted on an early start, for it was a long
journey. Collinson's squadron was provisioned only for that year and so
would break out through the ice early from their more southerly ports.
Providentially, Kellet listened to Pim's importunate pleas, as otherwise
at least half of the crew of the _Investigator_ would have perished.
On March 10, 1853, Pim started on this journey of nearly two hundred
miles, the first long sledge trip ever attempted in an arctic expedition
at such an early date--twenty-five days in advance of any other sledge
journey from the _Resolute_ that year. Pim with eight men hauled the
man-sledge, while Dr. Domville with one man supported him with a
dog-sledge of six animals. Eleven other men were to assist them for five
days.
Things went badly from the very beginning, and Kellet was half inclined
to recall Pim. Under frightful conditions of weather and of ice travel
one man fell sick and two sledges broke down. Fearing that he would be
kept back, Pim wisely stayed in the field, sending back for other men
and sledges. The first night out was quite unendurable, the temperature
falling to seventy-six degrees below the freezing-point. Then followed
violent blizzards which storm-stayed the party for four days, during
which the temperature inside their double tent fell to fifty-six degrees
below freezing. One comfort to the young lieutenant was the presence of
a veteran polar seaman, Hoile, who had learned all the tricks and
secrets of handling gear and stores in the field during his campaigns
under the famous arctic sledgeman Sir Leopold McClintock. But no skill
could make men comfortable under such awful cold. For instance, the fur
sleeping bags at the start had been dry, pliant, and cold-proof. Now the
vapor from the men's bodies had dampened the bags which, frozen solid,
would stand on end without falling, as though made of light sheet-iron.
Marching onward, Pim's next trouble was with a food-cache, laid down by
himself the previous autumn, which wild animals--probably bears and
wolves--had plundered in large part, though some of the thick metal
coverings of the solidly frozen meats had escaped with rough marks of
the teeth and claws.
Pim took everything with jovial humor, and was entirely happy when he
left the firm land of Melville Island to cross frozen Banks Strait to
Mercy Bay, Banks Land. Bad as was travel along the ice-foot bordering
the land, it was far worse in the strait. Domville officially reported
that their course "was beset with every difficulty, every variety of
hummocks and deep snow barring our progress in all directions. Some of
the ridges, too irregular for a loaded sledge, required portages to be
made, a mode of proceeding almost equally difficult and dangerous to the
limbs, from the men sinking to the middle through the soft snow amongst
the masses of forced-up hummocks."
Later there came some level stretches, and then Pim hoisted a sail on
the man-sledge to help it along. It nearly proved their ruin, for the
sledge took charge on a steep, glassy hummock, knocked over the men,
plunged into a deep crevasse, and broke a runner. Pim did not hesitate
an hour over the best thing to do. Leaving Domville to patch up the
sledge and to return and await him at the last depot, Pim started ahead
with his six dogs and two men toward Mercy Bay. Sleepless nights of
fearful cold, days of weary toil with sun-dazzled eyes, biting blasts of
sharp blizzards, exhausting struggles through rubble ice--these one and
all could neither quench the spirit nor bend the will of this forceful
man. Ever faithful to the motto of his sledge flag, "Hope on: hope
ever," he ceased not until the land was reached and success insured.
Skirting the ice-foot of the northeastern coast of Banks Land, his heart
came into his mouth as, rounding a cape, he saw the dark spars of an
ice-beset ship loom up against the sullen southern sky. Blistered and
brazened, half snow-blinded, with face covered with accumulations of
greasy soot, what wonder that this fur-clad figure was thought by
the amazed M'Clure to be an Eskimo, a mistake aided by the wild
gesticulations and loud, unintelligible shouts of a man whose face was
as black as ebony.
Of Pim's coming Dr. Armstrong of the _Investigator_ says: "No words
could express the feelings of heart-felt gladness which all experienced
at this unlooked-for, this most providential arrival."
Over the rough, winding trails of the arctic highway, Pim had travelled
four hundred and twenty-seven miles from ship to ship, and made a
journey that will ever live in polar annals as fraught with vital
interests beyond those of any other single sledge trip.
Of Pim's work a fellow-officer, McDougal, wrote: "Each member of our
little community must have felt his heart glow to reflect that he formed
one of the little band whose undertakings in the cause of humanity had
been crowned with such success."
Thus it happened that through the heroic energy and persistent efforts
of Bedford Pim, the outcome of the voyage of the _Investigator_[7] was
changed from that of certain disaster to one of astounding success. Save
for this timely sledge journey, many of his sailor comrades must have
found unknown graves among the ice-crowned isles of the northern seas,
and an awful tragedy would have marked the splendid annals of the
Franklin search.
FOOTNOTE:
[7] M'Clure abandoned the _Investigator_ shortly after Pim's sledge
journey, and crossing the ice with his men joined Belcher's squadron.
M'Clure and his crew thus made the northwest passage and received
therefor the reward of ten thousand pounds sterling. Captain J. E.
Bernier, who wintered at Melville Island in the Canadian steamer
_Arctic_, 1908-9, says of the _Investigator_: "M'Clure anchored his
vessel ... to be cast on a shoal, where, he said, she would last for
ages. He was mistaken, as no sign was visible of the vessel when the
officer of the Arctic visited Mercy Bay in 1908."
KANE'S RESCUE OF HIS FREEZING SHIPMATES
"Men in no particular approach so nearly to the gods as by giving
safety to their fellow-men."--CICERO.
In 1853 the United States co-operated a second time in the search for
Sir John Franklin, and sent into Smith Sound an expedition fitted out
through the liberality of Henry Grinnell and George Peabody. Doctor
Elisha Kent Kane, United States Navy, commanded the expedition, and
placed his brig _Advance_ in winter quarters in Rensselaer Harbor, West
Greenland, whence he planned by boats and sledges to "examine the coast
lines for vestiges of the lost (Franklin's) party." This sketch relates
particularly to Kane's personal and heroic endeavors to save from death
one of his own field parties.
* * * * *
Among arctic explorers there is no more striking and interesting
figure than that of Elisha Kent Kane, whose enthusiasm created and
individuality dominated the search of 1853. Well-intended, his
expedition was fallacious in plan, unsuitably equipped, inadequately
supplied, and manned by inexperienced volunteers. It seemed doomed to
utter and dismal failure, yet through the activities of the versatile
leader its general results exceeded those of any other arctic expedition
of his generation. With a literary charm and a beauty of expression
unexcelled by any other polar explorer, Kane revealed to the world the
human relations and racial qualities of the Etah Eskimo, told of the
plant and animal life of that desolate region, recorded the march of
physical forces, and outlined the safe and practicable route whereby
alone the north pole has been reached. But if his mind was imbued with a
spirit of philosophy, and if his poetic vision saw first the beautiful,
yet his sense of duty and strength of will inevitably involved his
exposure to any and all privations that promised definite results.
The autumnal journeys of 1853 had led to nothing promising in the
neighborhood of the _Advance_, so throughout the winter he was busy in
preparing for the spring sledge trips in order to search the northern
coast line for the lost explorers. Thus planning and laboring he
definitely recognizes the unfavorable situation. "The death of my dogs,
fifty-seven in all, the rugged obstacles of the ice, and the intense
cold (the temperature had fallen to one hundred degrees below the
freezing-point) have obliged me to reorganize our whole equipment. We
have had to discard all our India-rubber fancy-work. Canvas shoemaking,
fur-socking, sewing, carpentering are all going on. Pemmican cases are
thawing, buffalo robes drying, camp equipments are in the corners." He
adds: "The scurvy spots that mottled our faces made it plain that we
were all unfit for arduous travel on foot at the intense temperatures of
the nominal spring. _But I felt that our work was unfinished._"
[Illustration: Smith Sound and West Greenland.]