In 1850 Eskimo families killing seals near King William Land saw about
forty white men travelling southward along the west shore, dragging a
boat and sledges. By signs the natives learned that their ships had been
crushed and that they were going to find deer to shoot. All were hauling
on the sledge except one officer. They looked thin and bought a seal
from the natives. Late that year the natives found the corpses of about
thirty-five men near Montreal Island and Point Ogle, part in tents and
others under a boat. None of the Eskimos questioned by Rae had seen the
explorers either living or dead. They learned of these matters from
other natives, from whom they had obtained by barter many relics of
various kinds.
Rae succeeded in purchasing about sixty articles from the Eskimos. The
most important, which left no doubt of their having come from Franklin's
squadron, were twenty-one pieces of silver for the table, which were
marked with five different crests and with the initials of seven
officers of the expedition, including Sir John Franklin.
The natives thought that some of the explorers lived until the coming of
wild fowl, in May, 1850, as shots were heard and fish bones with
feathers of geese were later seen near the last encampment.
Although Rae had completed his survey only in part, he wisely decided
that he had, as he records, "A higher duty to attend to, that duty being
to communicate with as little loss of time as possible the melancholy
tidings which I had heard, and thereby save the risk of more valuable
lives being jeopardized in a fruitless search in a direction where
there was not the slightest prospect of obtaining any information."
As may be imagined, Rae's definite reports stirred deeply the hearts and
minds of the civilized world, which for seven long years had vainly
striven to rend the veil of mystery that surrounded the fate of Franklin
and his men.
The silver and other articles brought back by Dr. Rae were placed in the
Painted Hall of Greenwich Hospital, among the many historic relics of
the royal navy. Even to-day these relics attract the attention and
excite the admiration of countless visitors. And well they may, not
alone as memorials of the deeds in peace of the naval heroes of England,
but also as evidences of the modest courage, the stanch endurance, and
heroic efforts of a Scotch doctor, John Rae, through whose arduous
labors they were placed in this temple of fame.
SONNTAG'S FATAL SLEDGE JOURNEY
"Death cut him down before his prime,
At manhood's open portal."
--POMEROY.
The remarkable series of physical observations of Kane's expedition, the
most valuable scientific contribution of any single arctic party in that
generation, was almost entirely due to the scientific training and
personal devotion of his astronomer, August Sonntag. While the nature of
his duties lay in the observatory, his adventurous spirit sought field
service whenever practicable. As shown in "Kane's Rescue of His Freezing
Shipmates," Sonntag's prudence kept him from freezing in that terrible
winter sledging, while his energy in the long journey for aid
contributed to the final rescue of the disabled party.
When Dr. I. I. Hayes outfitted his expedition of 1860 in the _United
States_, the glamour of the arctic seas was still on Sonntag, who for
service therewith resigned his fine position as associate director of
the Dudley Observatory at Albany. Of his expeditionary force Hayes wrote
that he "lacked men. My only well-instructed associate was Mr. Sonntag."
Sailing as astronomer and as second in command, Sonntag met his fate
with the expedition on the ice-foot of the West Greenland coast. His
dangerous journey was made for reasons vital to the success of the
expedition. The incidents of the sledge trip are briefly supplemented by
such references to his previous field experiences as show the physical
fitness and heroic quality of the man.[10]
* * * * *
The schooner _United States_ was in winter quarters at Port Foulke, near
Littleton Island. Without steam-power, the ship had not only been unable
to pass to the northward of Cape Sabine, but her unavoidable conflicts
with the polar pack had sadly damaged her. Conscious that his ship was
so near a wreck as to be unable to renew her voyage toward the north the
next summer, Hayes found himself obliged to undertake his polar
explorations with dogs over a long line of ice-floes.
Tests of dogs became the order of the day, and Hayes's delight was great
when, driving his own team--twelve strong, selected animals with no
load--twelve miles in sixty-one minutes, he beat Sonntag by four
minutes.
Although knowing the danger of such a journey, Sonntag arranged to climb
Brother John's Glacier (named by Kane for his brother) to determine its
seaward march. The approach was through a deep canyon. "This gorge is
interrupted in places by immense bowlders which have fallen from the
overhanging cliffs, or by equally large masses of ice which have broken
from the glacier. Sometimes the ice, moving bodily forward, had pushed
the rocks up the hill-side in a confused wave. After travelling two
miles along the gorge Sonntag made the ascent, Alpine fashion, with
which he was familiar, by steps cut with a hatchet in solid ice."
The deep, irregular crevasses common to most glaciers were bridged by
crust formations of the recent autumnal snows. These bridges were so
uniform with the general surface of the glacier as to make their
detection almost impossible. Although Sonntag moved with great caution
and continually tested the snow with his ice-chisel, which replaced the
Alpine alpenstock, he broke through one bridge. Most fortunately the
fall was at a place where the fissure was only about three feet wide,
opening either way into a broad crevasse. Still more fortunately he did
not fall entirely into the chasm, but as he pitched forward he
instinctively extended his left hand, in which he was carrying a
mercurial barometer three feet long, which caught on two points of the
glacier and thus barely saved his life.[11]
But Sonntag's ardent wish was for a bear hunt which occurred during an
unsuccessful attempt to revisit Rensselaer Harbor by dog-sledge, when a
bear and cub were killed.
Hayes says: "Sonntag has given me a lively description of the chase. As
soon as the dogs discovered the trail they dashed off utterly regardless
of the safety of the people on the sledges. Jensen's sledge nearly
capsized, and Sonntag rolled off in the snow, but he was fortunate
enough to catch the upstander and with its aid to regain his seat. The
delay in the hummocks gave the bears a start and made it probable that
they would reach the open sea. Maddened by the detention and the
prospect of the prey escaping them, the bloodthirsty pack swept across
the snowy plain like a whirlwind. The dogs manifested the impatience of
hounds in view of a fox, with ten times their savageness. To Sonntag
they seemed like so many wolves closing upon a wounded buffalo.
"The old bear was kept back by the young one, which she was unwilling to
abandon. The poor beast was in agony and her cries were piteous. The
little one jogged on, frightened and anxious, retarding the progress of
the mother who would not abandon it. Fear and maternal affection
alternately governed her. One moment she would rush forward toward the
open water, intent only upon her own safety; then she would wheel around
and push on the struggling cub with her snout and again coaxingly
encourage it to greater speed.
"Within fifty yards of the struggling animals the hunters, leaning
forward, slipped the knot which bound the traces together in one
fastening, and the dogs, freed from the sledges, bounded fiercely for
their prey. The old bear heard the rush of her enemies and squared
herself to meet the assault. The little one ran frightened around her
and then crouched for shelter between her legs.
"The old and experienced leader, Oo-si-so-ak, led the attack. Queen
Ar-ka-dik was close beside him, and twenty other wolfish beasts
followed. Only one dog faced her, and he, young, with more courage than
discretion, rushed at her throat and in a moment was crushed by her huge
paw. Oo-si-so-ak came in upon her flank, Ar-ka-dik tore at her haunch,
and other dogs followed this prudent example. She turned upon
Oo-si-so-ak and drove him from his hold, but in this act the cub was
uncovered. Quick as lightning Karsuk flew at its neck and a slender
yellow mongrel followed after. The little bear prepared to do battle.
Karsuk missed his grip and the mongrel tangled among the legs of the cub
was soon doubled up with a blow in the side and escaped yowling.
Oo-si-so-ak was hard pressed, but his powerful rival came to his relief
with his followers upon the opposite flank, which concentrated onslaught
turned the bear in the direction of the cub in time to save it, for it
was now being pulled down by Karsuk and his pack.
"Disregarding her own tormentors, she threw herself upon the assailants
of the cub, and to avoid her blows they quickly abandoned their hold,
which enabled her to once more draw under her the plucky little
creature, weakened with loss of blood and exhausted with the fight. The
dogs, beaten off from the cub, now concentrated on the mother, and the
battle became more fierce than ever. The snow was covered with blood. A
crimson stream poured from the old bear's mouth and another trickled
over the white hair of her shoulder, from shots fired by Hans and
Jensen. The little one was torn and bleeding. One dog was crushed almost
lifeless, and another marked with many a red stain the spot where he was
soothing his agony with piteous cries.
"Sonntag now came up, but their united volley, while weakening her, was
not sufficient to prevent her from again scattering the dogs and
sheltering her offspring, which then sank expiring. Seeing it fall, she
for a moment forgot the dogs, and licking its face tried to coax it to
rise. Now, apparently conscious that the cub no longer needed her
protection, she turned upon her tormentors with redoubled fury, and
flung another dog to join the luckless mongrel.
"For the first time she seemed to know that she was beset with other
enemies than dogs, when, his rifle missing fire, Hans advanced with an
Eskimo spear to a hand-to-hand encounter. Seeing him approach, the
infuriated monster cleared away the dogs with a vigorous dash and
charged him. He threw his weapon at the animal and turned in flight. The
bear bounded after him, and in an instant more neither speed nor dogs
could have saved him. Fortunately Sonntag and Jensen had by this time
reloaded their rifles, and with well-directed shots rolled her over on
the blood-stained snow."
In early December a great misfortune befell the expedition through an
epidemic disease attacking the dogs. "The serious nature of this
disaster [says Hayes] will be apparent when it is remembered that my
plans of operations for the spring were mainly based upon dogs as a
means of transportation across the ice. Unless I shall be able to supply
the loss, all of my plans would be abortive." The first dog attacked,
Karsuk of the bear-fight, was the best draught animal of the best team.
Of the effect of the malady he adds: "I have never seen such expression
of ferocity and mad strength exhibited by any living creature as he
manifested two hours after the first symptoms were observed. I had him
caught and placed in a large box, but this aggravated rather than
soothed the violence of the symptoms. He tore the boards with
indescribable fierceness, ripping off splinter after splinter, when I
ordered him to be shot." About the middle of December there remained
only nine dogs out of the original pack of thirty-six.
It occurred both to Hayes and to Sonntag that the best method of
replacing their lost animals was to open communication with the Eskimos
of Whale Sound. If they could induce several native families, through
offers of stores and food, to come north to Foulke Harbor, they would
bring along their dog teams which would thus be available for the sledge
journeys of the coming spring.
There were supposed to be several Inuit families living on the south
side of Whale Sound, which was distant a midwinter sledge journey of at
least one hundred and fifty miles. Hayes says: "That we should
communicate with these people at the earliest practicable moment was a
matter of the first importance. When the moon came it was arranged that
Sonntag should make the journey, taking a single sledge and Hans as a
driver."
Sonntag and Hans started with a team of nine dogs on the day of the
arctic midnight, December 21, when the sun had reached its greatest
southern declension. Hayes writes on the 22d: "Sonntag set out yesterday
to reach the Eskimos. We had talked the matter over from day to day, and
saw clearly it was the only thing to do. It was evident that if we
waited for daylight they would be beyond our reach."
Five weeks later came the news of Sonntag's death, which is told by Hans
in his "Memoirs":[12]
"In winter, just before Christmas, the astronomer [Sonntag] and I
undertook a journey by sledge to look for natives. We crossed the great
glacier [at Cape Alexander] and travelled the whole day without meeting
with any people. A strong wind sprang up from the north and caused a
thick drifting of snow, while we made our snow hut and went to sleep. On
wakening the next day it still blew a gale and the snow drifting
dreadfully, for which reason we resolved to return. While we proceeded
homeward the ice began to break up, so we were forced to go ashore and
continue our drive over the beach ice [ice-foot]. We arrived at a small
firth and crossed it, but on trying to proceed by land on the other side
it proved impassable and we were obliged to return to the ice again. On
descending here my companion fell through the ice which was nothing but
a thick sheet of snow and water. I stooped [from the high ice-foot
evidently] but was unable to seize him, it being very low tide. As a
last resort I remembered a strap hanging on the sledge-poles; this I
threw to him, and when he had tied it around his body I pulled, but
found it very difficult. At length I succeeded in drawing him up, but he
was at the point of freezing to death, and now in the storm and drifting
snow he took off his clothes and slipped into the sleeping-bag,
whereupon I placed him on the sledge and repaired to our last
resting-place.
"Our road being very rough, I cried from despair for want of help; but I
reached the snow hut and brought him inside. I was, however, unable to
kindle a fire and was myself overpowered with cold. My companion grew
still worse, although placed in the bear-skin bag, but with nothing else
than his shirt. By and by his breathing grew scarcer, and I, too, began
to feel extremely cold on account of now standing still after having
perspired with exertion. During the whole night my friend still
breathed, but he drew his breath at long intervals and toward morning
only very rarely. When finally I was at the point of freezing to death,
I shut up the entrance with snow, and as the breaking up of the ice had
rendered any near road to the ship impracticable, and the gale continued
violently, I set out for the south in search of men, although I had a
wide sea to cross."
After finding two deserted huts he threw himself down in despair,
awaiting his death. He continues: "When here I lay prostrate I uttered
sighing, _They say some one on high watches over me too. Have mercy on
me, and save me if possible, though I am a great sinner. My dear wife
and child are in such a pitiful state--may I first be able to bring them
to the land of the baptized._[13]
"I also pronounced the following prayer:
"'Jesu, lead me by the hand
While I am here below,
Forsake me not.
If Thou dost not abide with me, I shall fall,
But near to Thee I am safe.'
"Thereafter I arose and set off again.... I discovered the light of a
window.... These folks [Etah Inuits] were very kind and hospitable. When
I entered the house and began to take off my clothes the fox-skin of my
jacket was as soft and moist as if newly flayed. My outer bear-skin
trousers were not so very wet. When I took off my hare-skin gaiters they
stuck to my stockings from being frozen together, and I could not get
them off but by cutting open the boots. Had I used seal-skin gaiters I
think that I should have frozen to death. Here I stayed many days, being
unable to return alone."
Sonntag's body was recovered in the early spring, the hut in which he
died being found to be completely covered with drifted snow, and he was
buried on the desolate shores of Port Foulke.
In an unpublished journal his shipmate Dodge writes: "Not yet in the
prime of life, but already enjoying a well-earned reputation which
gray-haired men might envy, with prospects of honor and usefulness
before him, he was endowed with abilities to achieve success in the
highest walks of science. Peace to his remains and all honor to his
memory. For among the gallant and the gifted men who have fallen victims
to their zeal for scientific research in the arctic regions, there has
been none braver or worthier than August Sonntag."
Thus perished one of nature's gentlemen, wedded to the universe through
his devotion to astronomy and yet alive to the winning aspects of
terrestrial grandeurs. Unsparing of self where the lives or comfort of
his comrades were in question, in unobtrusive ways he contributed to
their happiness and shared cheerfully the common burden of daily duties.
Such manly qualities, simple though they seem, made heroic the life and
death of August Sonntag.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] See map on page 95.
[11] Comparative measurements showed that the centre of Brother John
Glacier moved one hundred feet annually. Rink states that the centre of
the great Jacobshavn Glacier moves twenty metres a day, or about four
and a half miles annually.
[12] "Memoirs of Hans Hendrik" was written by Hans in Eskimo
twenty-eight years after Sonntag's death. This little-known volume,
translated by Dr. Henry Rink, gives, among other interesting matter
about the expeditions of Kane, Hayes, Hall, and Nares, the account of
Sonntag's death, which is substantially the same as that recorded in
Hayes's "Open Polar Sea."
[13] Hans Hendrik was of West Greenland where all the natives are
baptized. His wife, Mertuk, was one of the so-called heathen natives of
the Cape York region. See "The Wifely Heroism of Mertuk, the Daughter of
Shung-Hu."
THE HEROIC DEVOTION OF LADY JANE FRANKLIN
"So many saints and saviors,
So many high behaviors."
--EMERSON.
In "The Discovery of the Northwest Passage" and in "Pim's Timely Sledge
Journey" there have been sketched various heroic phases connected with
the last voyage of Sir John Franklin and the expeditions of the Franklin
search. In the search there were employed thirty-three ships and nearly
two thousand officers and men, whose utmost endeavors during a period of
eight years, and at an expense of many millions of dollars, had failed
to obtain any definite information as to the fate of the missing
explorers. One clew had come from private sources, as shown in the tale
of "Dr. Rae and the Franklin Mystery."
This present narrative sets forth the work accomplished through the
devotion of the widow of Sir John Franklin, in a so-called hopeless
enterprise. Sacrificing her ease and her private fortune to a sense of
duty, not alone to her husband but also to those who served under him,
her labors eventually wrested from the desolate isles of the northern
seas the definite secret of the fate of the expedition as a whole.
* * * * *
After his abandonment in 1853 of four expeditionary ships of the
Franklin search, Sir Edward Belcher returned to England, ending what he
termed "The Last of Arctic Voyages," in which opinion the British
Government concurred. Lady Jane Franklin did not accept this decision as
final. On April 12, 1856, in a letter to the admiralty, she strongly
urged the need for a further search, saying: "It is due to a set of men
who have solved the problem of centuries by the sacrifice of their
lives." To this letter no reply was made, and efforts for another
expedition made by her friends in Parliament were equally futile.
It is needless to say that even such unwonted and discourteous neglect
did not silence this noble-hearted woman, whose heroic devotion had been
conspicuously displayed in her earlier efforts. It will be remembered
that she had previously awakened the interest and engaged the active
support of two great nations--Russia and the United States--in the
search for the Franklin squadron.
Americans will recall with pride that, moved by Lady Franklin's appeal,
President Zachary Taylor, in a message of January 4, 1850, urged
co-operation on Congress, which took action that resulted in the
expedition commanded by Lieutenant E. J. De Haven, United States Navy.
In her letter to President Taylor, Lady Franklin alluded gracefully to
"that continent of which the American republic forms so vast and
conspicuous a portion," and says: "To the American whalers I look with
more hope, being well aware of their numbers and strength, their
thorough equipment, and the bold spirit of enterprise which animates
their crews. But I venture to look even beyond these. I am not without
hope that you will deem it not unworthy of a great and kindred nation to
take up the cause of humanity, which I plead, in a national spirit."
On learning of the attitude of the American press, she wrote: "I learn
that the people of the United States have responded to the appeal made
to their humane and generous feelings, and that in a manner worthy of so
great and powerful a nation--indeed, with a munificence which is almost
without parallel."
Now the efforts of three nations having failed, Lady Jane then resolved
to undertake a final search at the expense of herself and of her
sympathizing friends. There was then available the _Resolute_, abandoned
by Belcher, brought back by the American whaler, J. M. Buddington,
bought by the American Congress, and presented to the Queen. The
admiralty would neither loan the _Resolute_ nor any of its surplus
stores suited for arctic service. By the efforts of Lady Franklin and
her friends the steam-yacht _Fox_ was sent forth on an expedition that
cost about thirty-five thousand pounds sterling, of which the greater
portion came from Lady Jane's private fortune. McClintock and Allen
Young volunteered to serve without pay, and both Hobson and Dr. Walker
made similar pecuniary sacrifices.
At McClintock's request Lady Jane wrote out her wishes, in which the
personal element came last. She says: "The rescue of any survivor of the
_Erebus_ and _Terror_ would be to me the noblest results of our
efforts. To this object I wish every other to be subordinate; and next
to it in importance is the recovery of the unspeakably precious
documents of the expedition, public and private, and the personal relics
of my dear husband and his companions. And lastly, to confirm, directly
or inferentially, the claim of my husband's expedition to the earliest
discovery of the passage, which, if Dr. Rae's report be true (and the
government has accepted it as such), these martyrs in a noble cause
achieved at their last extremity."
Captain Sir Leopold McClintock sailed July 2, 1857, inspired by the
feeling that "the glorious mission intrusted to me was in reality a
great national duty." He was the greatest of arctic sledgemen, having
made in unexplored parts of Parry archipelago, without dogs, a sledge
journey of one hundred and five days, in which he travelled twelve
hundred and ten miles.
Reaching Baffin Bay, the _Fox_ had the great misfortune of being caught
in the pack in the midst of summer, on August 15. McClintock's
experiences and sufferings were horrible. His assistant engineer died of
an accident, and for days at a time the _Fox_ was in danger of instant
destruction from gales, icebergs, and other elements attendant on life
in the pack. After a besetment of eight months and nine days, in which
she drifted twelve hundred miles to the south, the yacht escaped,
buffeted, racked, and leaking.