feet the ice-foot was not more than fifteen inches wide, and sloping. A
halt was called and men and dogs crouched behind the rocks for shelter.
The furious wind, still lashing the waves against the frozen shore at
our feet, whirled great sheets of snow down upon us from the overhanging
cliffs. We could not face the pitiless storm at our backs, and to go
forward seemed impossible. Discarding my mittens and clinging with my
bare hands to the crevices in the rock, I moved cautiously along the
sloping shelf. Below the breaking surf yawned to receive any victim who
made an inadvertent step. I shall not soon forget the joy and
thankfulness with which I found myself upon the broad ice-belt at the
farther side of this dangerous place. The dogs were driven forward by
their native masters and, seized by the collars, were dragged around the
point. The sledges were pushed along the shelf and turned on one runner
and held until the dogs could stretch their traces and, bounding
forward, at the word whirled them around in safety before they could
topple over the precipice."
Finally Van Rensselaer Harbor was reached, and the returning wanderers,
blinded, frost-bitten, and exhausted, staggered on to the deck of the
_Advance_. With his generous heart their old commander Kane received
them with open arms and brotherly greetings.
One cannot but class as astounding these human experiences, which marked
the first extended relations between the men of Etah and the adventurous
explorers who had come from the outside world. In this instance there
had been brought face to face the hitherto unknown men of the stone age
and the representatives of the high and vaunted civilization that aims
to uplift and to dominate all the nations of the earth.
On the one hand were the Etahs, who were actual children of the stone
age--clothed in skins, without wood or metal, having neither houses nor
boats, using stone utensils in their rude huts of skin or of rock, and
living solely by the hunt. Following the chase with weapons of bone,
through untold hardships they wrested, day by day, precarious food from
their home environment--a habitat on one of the most desolate reaches of
the arctic coasts. Their struggles for mere existence under these harsh
conditions of uncertainty were such as--either among the men of the
stone age or in the imperial cities of to-day--engender intense
selfishness and lead to deadly contests in order to save the strong at
the expense of the weak.
On the other hand were the men of the civilized world, provided with
boats, furnished with selected food, especially equipped for polar
service, and armed with the best weapons. Engaged in the mission of
relieving the men of Franklin's missing squadron, with their superior
knowledge and their trained minds, they were supposed to be able not
only to be self-reliant and self-sustaining, but also to extend aid to
the needy.
Through the irony of fickle fortune the civilized men had found
themselves unable to maintain life by the chase of the land and sea game
of the region. In dire distress, with failing food, they faced certain
death unless aid should come from outside sources.
To the savage and famine-threatened men of Etah the appalling condition
of their alien visitors was clearly evident. Moreover, if the helpless
white men were simply left to themselves they must soon perish, leaving
for the Inuits untold wealth of hitherto unknown treasures,--of iron and
wood, of cloth and cordage, of robes and of weapons.
In this fearful crisis, amid arctic cold and in polar darkness, savage
humanity rose to heroic heights. Selfishness and covetousness stood
abashed among these children of the stone age, and in their stead were
awakened holy feelings of human pity and a spirit of self-denying
charity.
Their deeds show that in the white north as in the sunny south there
abide the true spirit of brotherly love and a recognized sense of human
interdependence. After the Etah manner, there recurred the episode of
the Samaritan charity of ancient Judea. Yet the action of the Inuit
even surpassed the deed of the good man of Palestine, for Etah aid was
not the outcome of a rich man's loving generosity to a penniless
sufferer, but it also paralleled the widow's mite, for Kalutunah, the
savage sorcerer, and his tribesmen gave the sole food of to-morrow for
their wives and children to save from death the rich and alien white men
of the unknown south. Does heroism rise to nobler deeds in the midst of
our superior civilization and higher development?
FOOTNOTES:
[8] See map, page 95.
[9] In order to raise the puppies and save them from the devouring jaws
of the ravenous, starving dogs, litters are kept in the huts, or
elsewhere in a protected place, until they are large enough to run about
and seek their mother's aid when attacked.
DR. RAE AND THE FRANKLIN MYSTERY
"An age which passes over in silence the merits of the heroic
deserves as a punishment that it should not bring forth such an one
in its midst."--FORSTER.
In 1845 Captain John Franklin, royal navy, in command of the ships
_Erebus_ and _Terror_, sailed with one hundred and twenty-nine souls to
make the northwest passage. His orders carried him via Lancaster Sound
and Cape Walker, and he was provisioned for three years. The ships were
last seen by civilized men in Baffin Bay, whence they passed from the
knowledge of the world. In 1847 great anxiety prevailed as to the fate
of the expedition, and fears of its loss grew stronger from year to
year. More than a score of ships, with crews of nearly two thousand men,
at an expense of millions of dollars vainly sought, between 1847 and
1853, news of the missing squadron, and the British Parliament offered a
reward of ten thousand pounds sterling for the first accredited
information regarding the lost explorers.
The Franklin mystery was solved through the labors of Dr. John Rae, a
Scotch surgeon in the employ of the Hudson Bay Company, whose marvellous
endurance and restless energy are evident from the statement that in his
various journeys of exploration he walked more than twenty thousand
miles. The conditions under which Rae gained information as to the fate
of Franklin are herein set forth.
* * * * *
Twice before had Rae been engaged in the Franklin search, in 1848-50
with Sir John Richardson, and later under the auspices of the Hudson Bay
Company. In these combined journeys of five thousand three hundred and
eighty miles he had explored much of Wollaston and Victoria Lands, from
Fort Confidence as a base. The doctor then found at Parker Bay the butt
of a flag-staff, which from its tack and line, bearing the special mark
of the royal navy, had evidently belonged to one of Franklin's ships.
Now, in 1853, he was in command of a Hudson Bay Company's party to
complete the exploration of Boothia Peninsula.
Leaving Chesterfield Inlet by boat, Rae was en route to Repulse Bay, his
intended head-quarters, when he fell in with a herd of walruses, from
which, in spite of his terrified crew, who feared these sea-monsters, he
obtained an enormous animal that furnished enough blubber for his
cooking-lamps throughout the winter. That Rae's walrus hunt was not
without danger was evident from the experiences of four Eskimos off this
very coast on Rae's previous visit. The natives lashed together their
four kayaks, and while in pursuit of walruses were attacked by a
ferocious male. Striking down the first kayak with his enormous tusks,
the infuriated animal ploughed through the miniature fleet, capsizing
and breaking up the four tiny crafts and drowning the unfortunate
hunters.
[Illustration: Boothia and Melville Peninsulas.]
It was the middle of August when Rae pitched his tents on the barren
shores of Repulse Bay, where the outlook for food and comfort were not
promising--the shore being free from Eskimo hunters, whose absence
indicated that the migratory game was pasturing inland that year. Summer
was rapidly passing, yet thick masses of old ice clung to the shore and
immense drifts of snow still filled the ravines.
The party had food and fuel for three months only, while the work in
hand meant a stay of nine months. The doctor began to collect supplies
systematically, and knew how to work to the best advantage as he had
once wintered at Repulse Bay. One party spread fish-nets at the best
places along the shore, the second took the field for deer and other
large game, while the last busied itself in gathering fuel for the
winter. Rae had earlier found that bunches of the arctic saxifrage made
excellent fuel when dried, and as there were neither trees nor shrubs
the hills and valleys were scoured for this useful plant.
With true Scottish pertinacity, Rae set the pace for his men and then
outdid them all in turn. Supplementing the mental training of the
Caucasian by extended experiences in the hunting-field of the Hudson Bay
region, he astonished and discomfited his men through astounding success
in the pursuit of game. In knowledge of woodcraft, in keenness of
vision, in keeping the trail, in patient waiting, and in hunter's wiles
he was without equal among his men. The Indian deer-hunter, Mistegan,
had come north especially selected to kill game for the party. When the
Indian kept the field for ten hours and brought in a deer, Rae kept it
for twelve hours and killed two or three animals. Pushed by his white
rival, Mistegan did his best and shot twenty-one deer in six weeks,
while Rae had to his credit forty-nine head--the whole party of eight
killing only one hundred and nine.
To the amazement of all, after a long absence roaming over the
far-distant hills to the west, Rae brought word that he had slain a
musk-ox--the sole wanderer that year from the herds of the barren
grounds to the southwest.
The weather became bitter cold, with the temperature down to zero, and
sea-fishing then failed. Rae turned his efforts to the newly frozen
lakes, where the hooks and nets, skilfully set, yielded two or three
salmon or lake trout daily--no mean addition to their larder for men who
were living on the game of the country.
October was a dismal period with its shortening days, its gloomy skies,
and high winds, which with zero temperatures blew piercingly through the
wretchedly thin tents. Life in daylight was only endurable when men were
on the trail or hunt. But now the wise old monarchs of the herds were
turning their heads southward in their annual migration, and only
twenty-five deer were killed during the month.
However, the bitter wind did good and needful work, for in time it
packed into marble-like drifts the autumnal snows. This gave work for
native snow-knife and deft hands, which soon erected two large snow
houses, on the southerly side of Beacon Hill, where they were well
sheltered from the prevailing northwesterly gales.
With Indian inclinations to idleness, some of the men looked forward
eagerly to the completion of the snow houses. They were viewed as
comfortable places for the long winter, where the cheerful pipe, with
tales of the trail and ample food, should make content the trapper's
heart and body. Rae had no such notion, for he had lived too long with
natives and with half-breeds not to know that daily work was needful
not only for the health, but even more for the morale and efficiency of
his men.
Finding that the fish-nets of the lake were much cut up by a small,
shrimp-like water insect, the favorite food of the salmon, he
transferred them to the rapids of North Pole River, which kept open
nearly all winter. Some of the men made the six-mile tramp across the
rough country to daily drag the nets, while the rest kept the field
where an occasional fox, wolf, partridge, or wolverine rewarded their
efforts.
After a time there was much grumbling at days of fruitless hunting. Rae
was equal to the occasion, and he set the discontented hunters at work
scraping under the snow for saxifrage, their sole supply of fuel. To
complaints he tersely said: "No saxifrage, no tea." Only men familiar
with the white north know what a deprivation it would have been to these
half-breeds to give up the hot tea, which they daily look forward to
with intense longing and drink with deep satisfaction.
With midwinter past and the sun returned, Rae welcomed with relief the
first sign of the far-distant but longed-for arctic spring. Of course,
with lengthening days came strengthening cold, and there were weeks
during which the mercury was frozen--the true arctic days of no wind, of
bright skies, and of beautiful colors in air and on ice.
One day the youngest of the Indians burst into the snow house, crying
out in great terror that the clouds were on fire. While the older men
rushed out instantly, the phlegmatic Scot followed at leisure. It
proved to be an offshoot of one of the brilliant sun-dogs which so
wondrously beautify the arctic heavens, especially in the early spring
or late winter. These sun-dogs, or mock-suns, arise from refraction and
reflection of the solar rays of light from the ice particles that are
suspended in the air, and are usually at twenty-two or forty-five
degrees distant from the sun itself.
On this occasion the sun-dogs had formed behind a thin, transparent
cirrus cloud which greatly extended the area of the sun-dog besides
adding very greatly to its already vivid colors. Rae tells us that
"three fringes of pink and green followed the outlines of the cloud."
The alarm and mistake of the young novice in sun-dogs and solar halos
were sources of gibes and fun among his chaffing comrades for many days.
Rae now began his preparations for field work. A snow hut was put up for
the use of the carpenter, who was soon busy overhauling the sledge gear.
The Hudson Bay sledges were carefully taken apart, scraped, polished,
reduced in weight as far as was safe, and then put together with the
utmost care so that the chance of a break-down in the field should be
reduced to a minimum. The trade articles for use with the Eskimos were
gone over and so arranged as to give the greatest variety for use in the
field with the least weight. Everything was to be hauled by man-power
and the weights must be as small as possible. Beads, files, knives,
thimbles, fish-hooks, needles, and chisels were thought to be the best
suited to native needs and tastes.
Meanwhile, Rae was disturbed that no signs of Eskimos had been found in
their local field journeys. He feared that their absence might mean that
there had been a change of route on the part of the reindeer in their
migratory paths, for in that region no game meant no inhabitants.
Several efforts to locate natives near the fishing-points were made
without success. The doctor then put into the field two of his best men,
Thomas Mistegan, the deer-hunter, "a trusty, pushing fellow," as we are
told, and William Ouglibuck, the Eskimo interpreter of the party. Their
journey of several days to Ross Bay showed that the country was bare of
natives, but here and there were seen a number of deer migrating to the
north, and of these a few were shot. This journey was most disappointing
in its results for Rae had hoped to find Eskimos from whom he could buy
a few dogs for sledge work.
Rae did not spare himself, for starting in bitterly cold weather he laid
down an advance depot which was hauled on Hudson Bay sledges a distance
of one hundred and seventy miles. At Cape Pelly stores were cached under
large stones, secure, as he said, from any animal except man or bear.
Long experience had made him familiar with the enormous strength and
destructive powers of the polar bear. Dr. Kane, it will be recalled,
tells of the utter ruin of one of his best-built cairns, which he
thought to be animal-proof. Yet the bears tore it down and scattered its
heaviest packages in all directions.
The long and final trip to the north began on the last day of March,
the four sledgemen hauling each a heavily laden sledge. The field ration
was almost entirely pemmican, two pounds per day, with a few biscuit and
the indispensable tea. The trip began with misfortunes, one man proving
so weak in the traces that Rae had to replace him by the Cree Indian,
Mistegan, an experienced sledge-hauler of unusual activity.
The route lay overland almost directly north, to Pelly Bay across a
broken, desolate country. Violent blizzards and knee-deep snow made
travel painful enough, but under Rae's exacting leadership the hardships
became extreme. Each sledge with its load approached two hundred pounds,
an awful drag, which could be made only by men of iron frame and great
endurance, especially when making some twenty miles per day--Rae's
standard of travel. The day's march ended, then came the tedious labor
of building a snow igloo, wherein at least they were able to sleep with
warmth and comfort. While hut-building was in progress the doctor
faithfully made sextant observations for latitude or longitude,
determined the local variation of the compass, and observed the
temperature--in short, did more than any other man of the party.
Day after day they marched on over a land of desolation and abandonment.
Neither bird nor man nor beast was to be seen, despite the keen eyes of
the Cree hunter, of whom Rae commendingly remarked: "Custom had caused
him to notice indications and marks which would have escaped the
observation of a person less acute and experienced." In this single
particular, of picking up and following a trail, was the remarkable
Scottish leader surpassed by any of his Indian hunters or Canadian
trappers.
Nearly three weeks of monotonous, heart-breaking travel had thus passed,
and they reached the shores of Pelly Bay. Scouring the country near the
camp as usual, the trail-hunting Cree, Mistegan, threw up his hands with
the welcome message of things seen, which brought Rae to his side.
There, clear to the Indian but almost illegible to any other, a few
faint scratches on the surface of the ice told that days before there
had passed a dog-drawn sledge.
Making camp, Rae began work on his observations, at the same time
setting two men at gathering saxifrage for fuel, and putting on the
sledge trail Eskimo Ouglibuck and fleet-footed Mistegan. That night Rae
was happy to see flying across the bay ice several dog-sledges with
triumphant Mistegan in the lead.
There were seventeen Inuit hunters, twelve men and five women. Although
several of them had met Rae at Repulse Bay in 1846-7, the greater number
were pushing and troublesome, having a certain contempt for men of pale
faces who were so poor that they were without even a single dog and had
to haul their sledges themselves. After some talk they were ready to
sell the seal meat with which their sledges were loaded, but would not,
despite liberal promises of needles, agree to hire out their dogs to go
westward across land, as Rae desired them to do in order that he might
survey the west coast--his sole object on this journey. Although Rae
spoke of the delights of chasing musk-oxen, they preferred their
seal-hunting grounds which they had just visited with success.
Rae tells us of a favorite method of seal-hunting followed by these
Eskimos in which many of the native women are very expert. On bright
days the seals, crawling from their air-holes, delight to bask in the
sun and indulge in little cat-naps or siestas. Dozing a half-minute, the
seal awakes with alarm, and after quickly looking in all directions
falls asleep, with constant repetitions of naps and starts. When a seal
is thus engaged the hunter, clad in seal-skin garments, endeavors to
make his way between the seal and the air-hole, a process demanding
endless patience and involving much fatigue. The hunter lies either on
his face or side, and makes his advances while the animal dozes or is
looking elsewhere. If obliged to move while the seal is awake, the
native makes his advances by a series of awkward motions like those of a
seal making its way over the ice. A skilful hunter sometimes gets within
a few feet of the animal without arousing its fears, and an on-looker
would at a distance be unable to say which figure was the seal and which
the man. Seals are unusually curious, and at times one comes forward
with friendly air to meet its supposed fellow. When in the desired
position the hunter springs up and, running to the air-hole, attacks the
animal as he tries to escape. Seals are thus captured even without a
spear or other weapon, a blow on the nose from a club killing them.
The active and numerous body of Eskimo visitors were too meddlesome for
Scotch patience, and Rae finally sent them away, not, however, before
they had stolen, as it was later learned, a few pounds of biscuit and a
large lump of fuel-grease.
Rae was now almost directly to the east of the magnetic north pole, the
north-seeking end of his compass pointing eight degrees to the _south_
of due _west_. Breaking camp, he turned toward the magnetic pole. Having
a heavy load, he decided to cache his surplus supplies until his return,
but did not dare to do so near the Eskimos. The cache was made on a
rocky hill several miles inland, and it took some time to make it secure
from animals and free from observation by travellers. The cache made,
Rae was astonished and angry to find that the Eskimo interpreter,
Ouglibuck, was gone. Rae never thought of desertion, but keen-eyed
Mistegan caught sight of the Inuit fleeing to the eastward toward the
camp of his native cousins. As the speediest of the party, the doctor
and the Cree started after him, taking that slow dog-trot with which the
Indian runners cover so much ground untiringly. It was a sharp run of
five miles before the deserter was overtaken.
Rae says: "Ouglibuck was in a great fright when we came up with him, and
was crying like a child, but expressed his readiness to return, and
pleaded sickness as an excuse."
The doctor thought it best to diplomatically accept the statement that
the deserter was sick, but none the less he deemed it wise to decrease
the load hauled by the Eskimo, doing so at the expense of the
half-breeds. But it was quite clear that Ouglibuck was more than willing
to exchange his conditions of hard field work with scant food for the
abundant seal meat and the social company of his own people, which had
proved so enjoyable during his brief visit to their igloos.
This prompt action of Rae's tided over the critical phase of the
expedition, and the temporary delay indirectly brought about the meeting
with other natives, from whom came the first news of the missing
explorers. Immediately after renewing his western journey, Rae met a
native who had killed a musk-ox and was returning home with his
dog-sledge laden with meat. Ouglibuck made his best efforts to reinstate
himself in the good graces of Rae by persuading the Inuit stranger to
make a journey of two days to the westward, thus lightening the loads of
the other sledges. Another Eskimo then joined Rae, anxious to see the
white men of whom he had heard from the visitors of the day previous.
The doctor asked his usual question, as a matter of form, as to the
Eskimo having seen before any white men or any ships, to which he
answered in the negative. On further questioning he said that he had
heard of a party of _kabloonans_ (white men), who had died of starvation
a long distance to the west.
Realizing the full importance of this startling and unexpected
information, Dr. Rae followed up this clew with the utmost energy, both
through visits to and by questionings of all Eskimos he could find. He
also extended his field efforts, during which cairns were searched and
the adjoining region travelled over as far as Beecher River, about 69 deg.
N. 92 deg. W. His original work of surveying was now made incidental to a
search for Franklin!
Nor must it be thought that these journeys were made without
considerable danger and much physical suffering. A half-breed, through
neglect of Rae's orders regarding changes of damp foot-gear at night,
froze two toes. With a courage almost heroic, this Indian labored to
redeem himself by travelling along and by doing all his work for several
weeks until he could scarcely stand. Imbued with the importance of his
new mission, Rae allowed nothing to stand in his way of adding to his
precious knowledge and to the possible chance of tracing the wanderings
of the lost explorers. He left the lame man with another half-breed to
care for him and to cook the food spared for them. The shiftless
character of Rae's men was shown by the fact that the well man not only
did not shoot anything but did not even gather saxifrage for fuel, but
used scarce and precious grease food for cooking.
Yet the fortitude and pride of the cripple was displayed in the return
journey, with the outer joint of his great toe sloughed off, thus making
it most painful to walk; as Rae remarks, "He had too much spirit to
allow himself to be hauled."