OUR HOME AT SHIPWRECK CAMP
The point where the _Karluk_ went down was hard by the place where the
_Jeannette_ of the De Long expedition was frozen in the ice and began
her westward drift to a point off Henrietta Island, where she was
crushed, in much the same manner as the _Karluk_, by the opening and
closing of the ice, and sank June 12, 1881.
As I study the map of the polar regions and see how we drifted from
a point near the 145th meridian to a point near the 175th meridian,
west longitude, and how the _Jeannette_ drifted from a point near the
175th meridian, west longitude, to a point near the 155th meridian,
east longitude, and then how the _Fram_ drifted from a point near the
140th meridian, east longitude, to a point near the 10th meridian, east
longitude, and realize that the sum of these three drifts embraces more
than half the distance around the continental periphery, I can not help
coming to the conclusion that the idea of casks and wreckage drifting
across the Pole from the waters of Alaska and Siberia to the Greenland
Sea opposite is a mistaken one. Wreckage from the _Jeannette_ drifted
ashore on the southern coast of Greenland in 1884, and this gave Dr.
Nansen the idea on which he based his expedition in the _Fram_, that a
ship allowed to freeze in the ice north of the New Siberian Islands,
near the point where the _Jeannette_ sank, would be carried by the
currents in a drift across the Pole. Nansen himself left the _Fram_ in
the course of her drift and made a journey over the ice in an attempt
to reach the Pole, getting to 86° 34 N., and after his departure the
_Fram_, in her drift, reached almost as high a latitude as he attained
on foot, without, however, giving evidence of the accuracy of the
theory of a drift across the Pole. I believe, that the drift follows
the general outline of the land, from east to west around the periphery
of the Arctic Ocean, and that a craft, built in general like the
_Roosevelt_ but not so large, with a ship’s company of eight who should
be crew and scientific staff in one, could follow this drift from
beginning to end, and would, in a period of three or four years, cover
the greater part of the circuit of the Arctic Ocean.
Such an expedition would add much to our scientific knowledge of the
Arctic regions, working out the ocean currents, exploring the floor of
the sea, obtaining accurate soundings for plotting positions on the
chart, outlining the continental shelf, gathering information about the
air currents for the use of students of aviation, collecting valuable
meteorological data, continuous for the period of the drift, for the
use of weather bureaus, and perhaps making possible the finding of
new lands in the vast unexplored region north of Siberia. England and
Norway have turned their attention to the Antarctic and it is America’s
place to undertake the task of completing our knowledge of the Arctic,
so far advanced through centuries of Anglo-Saxon endeavor. As Nansen
said, in stating his plans for his expedition in the _Fram_: “People,
perhaps, still exist who believe that it is of no importance to explore
the unknown polar regions. This, of course, shows ignorance. It is
hardly necessary to mention here of what scientific importance it is
that these regions should be thoroughly explored. The history of the
human race is a continual struggle from darkness towards light. It is,
therefore, to no purpose to discuss the use of knowledge; man wants to
know, and when he ceases to do so, he is no longer man.”
* * * * *
As soon as the _Karluk_ sank, I turned in at the igloo to have a good
sleep, for I had been awake since five o’clock on the morning of the
tenth, and it was now late in the afternoon of the eleventh.
It was nearly noon of the next day before I awoke. The sky was clear
overhead but the fresh northwest wind kept the snow spinning over the
ice and there was still only a brief twilight in the middle of the day.
As soon as they could see their way around in this half light, I had
all hands at work picking up the odds and ends scattered about on the
ice and had a tent erected to house the supplies sledged from the ship
on the previous night.
In this tent, into which no one was allowed to go but McKinlay, who
acted as a kind of stock-clerk, and myself, were placed the following
supplies which will show how well equipped we were with the essentials
for life in the Arctic:
70 suits Jaeger underwear
6 sweaters
8 dozen wool shirts
200 pairs stockings
3 bolts of gaberdine
6 fleece suits
4 Burberry hunting suits
2 large sacks of deer legs
2 large sacks of waterskin boots (sealskin boots for shedding water)
100 pairs of mukluks
100 fawn skins
1 dozen hair-seal skins
2 ugsug skins
20 reindeer skins
6 large winter reindeer skins
50 Jaeger blankets
20 mattresses
On the floe itself and arranged to be easily accessible were:
4056 pounds of Underwood pemmican
5222 pounds of Hudson’s Bay pemmican
3 drums of coal oil
15 cases of coal oil
2 boxes of tea
200 tins of milk
250 pounds of sugar
2 boxes of chocolate
2 boxes of butter
1 box of cocoa
Candles and matches
Besides these supplies in the tent and on the floe we had, of course,
the coal, clothing, and equipment which we had been placing on the ice
through the previous months, consisting, besides ammunition, pemmican,
milk, clothing, tea, coffee, sugar, and butter, of these things:
250 sacks of coal
33 cases of gasoline
1 case of codfish
3 large cases of cod steak
5 drums of alcohol
4 cases of desiccated eggs
114 cases of pilot bread, each case containing 48 pounds in small tins
5 barrels of beef
9 sledges, each capable of carrying 600 or 700 pounds
2000 feet of lumber
3 coal stoves
2 wood stoves
90 feet of stove-pipe
1 extra suit of sails
2 Peterborough canoes
The snow igloo was fifteen feet long and twelve feet wide, with rafters
and a canvas roof. The box-house was twenty-five feet long by eighteen
feet wide, well banked up all around with snow. We partitioned off
one end of the box-house to make the galley and put a big stove in it
so that the cook could have a place by himself. We also built another
house for the Eskimo. McKinlay afterwards drew a plan of Shipwreck
Camp, as we called it, which will show how our dwelling-places and
supplies were arranged.
So here we were, like the Swiss Family Robinson, well equipped for
comfortable living, waiting until the return of the sun should give
us daylight enough for ice travel, which was altogether too exacting
and dangerous to attempt in the dark. I did not consider it wise to
use up the energy of men and dogs when they were still unaccustomed to
travelling over the sea-ice and before there was light enough to make
their work effective.
The place where the ship had gone down was frozen over. The ice had
simply opened for a while and then closed up again, and young ice had
formed in the opening.
[Illustration: PLAN OF SHIPWRECK CAMP
10TH JANUARY TO
1914.]
On the thirteenth we began sewing and kept it up day in and day out. We
had done a good deal of sewing on shipboard, but I told the men that
we must have plenty of fur clothing and skin-boots and that we had
better do all the sewing we could. We also made tents and covers of
light canvas for our sledges. We should of course be unable to do any
sewing when we once got under way for the land. We had lanterns and
lamps for light in the various houses.
Fur clothing is so heavy that it has to be sewed by hand but much of
the other work was done on sewing-machines of which we had saved two,
one for the box-house and the other for the snow igloo. Keruk used one
sewing-machine and Mr. Munro the other. He was skilful at this as at a
good many other useful things. He had formerly been a junior officer
on the British warship _Rainbow_, which was afterwards transferred
to the Canadian service; his term of enlistment expired at the time
of the transfer and Captain Hose of the _Rainbow_, commandant of the
Esquimault Navy Yard, recommended him to me for chief engineer of the
_Karluk_.
On the fourteenth it was fine and clear with a temperature of
thirty-eight degrees below zero. The wind was west; our soundings
through a hole cut in the ice gave us thirty-four fathoms. In the
noon twilight we could see land in a southwesterly direction. The men
worked all day long making footbags to use when sleeping; it would
be a great relief to take off the deerskin boots and put on these
footbags, which had fur inside and Burberry cloth outside. I had with
me a coonskin coat which I had bought a few years before in Boston. I
now cut this up and divided it among the men, as far as it would go, to
be made into these footbags. In addition I told each man that he must
have at least four pair of deerskin or sheepskin stockings and three
pair of deerskin boots. We used scissors and knives to cut the skins
into suitable pieces for making boots and clothing. The Eskimos used a
crescent-shaped implement called the _hudlow_, not unlike a mince-meat
chopper; they could use it very deftly and cut out clothing exceedingly
well with it. The skins had to be softened, as I have mentioned before,
by breaking the vellum; this was done by scraping it with a piece of
iron like a chisel. Some Eskimo women soften the vellum by chewing it.
We conducted our lives according to a regular routine similar to that
which we had followed on shipboard during the last few months of our
drift. We kept our records of wind and weather, of soundings and of
temperature, which remained in the minus thirties for a good many days.
We did not bother with latitude as we had the land in view some sixty
to eighty miles away, not distinctly visible but plain enough on a
clear day when the light was fairly good. The light of course came
from the south and the land, being in that direction, was set off by
the twilight glow, and the sun was getting nearer and nearer to the
horizon as the days went by. We saved a chronometer from the ship but
it got somewhat banged about in the transfer from the ship to the camp,
so that we could not depend upon it. I had a watch which I have carried
for a number of years and which I was careful never to allow to run
down.
Each house had a watchman, every man taking his turn. It was his duty
to keep the fires going. At 6 A. M. the watchman would call the cook;
our meal hours were the same as those which we had observed during the
past few months on the ship.
Lights were out at 10 P. M. and all hands turned in. We had a stove
in the centre of the room in each house and around the stove on three
sides, built out from the walls, were the bed-platforms, which came
close to the stove and were on a somewhat higher level. Here we slept
warmly and comfortably on the mattresses we had saved from the ship.
There was plenty to occupy our minds. In addition to our sewing and
other daily tasks, there was time for games of chess and cards and
frequently of an evening we would gather around the fire and have a
“sing.” Sometimes, too, we would dance; I remember one night catching
hold of some one and taking a turn or two on the floor when we tipped
over the stove. It took some lively work to get it set up again.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN BARTLETT’S COPY OF THE RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYAM
“My own constant companion, which I have never tired of reading, was
the ‘Rubáiyát’ of Omar Khayyam. This book I have carried with me
everywhere.”]
The _Karluk_ had a good library and we saved a number of books which
enabled some of us to catch up a little on our reading. We read such
books as “Wuthering Heights,” “Villette,” and “Jane Eyre,” besides more
recent novels. My own constant companion, which I have never tired of
reading, was the “Rubáiyát” of Omar Khayyam. I have a leather-bound
copy of this which was given me by Charles Arthur Moore, Jr., who, with
Harry Whitney and a number of other Yale friends of his, was with me on
a hunting trip in Hudson’s Bay on the sealer _Algerine_ in 1901. This
book I have carried with me everywhere since then, until now, if it had
not been repaired in various places by surgeon’s plaster, I believe
it would fall to pieces. I have had it with me on voyages to South
America and other foreign parts on sailing vessels when I was serving
my years of apprenticeship to get my British master’s certificate in
1905; on both of my trips with Peary as captain of the _Roosevelt_; on
my trip to Europe with Peary after the attainment of the North Pole; on
a hunting trip in the Arctic on the _Boeothic_ in the summer of 1910,
when we brought home the musk-oxen and the polar bear, Silver King, to
the Bronx Park Zoo in New York; on various sealing trips; and now
the self-same copy was with me on the _Karluk_ and afterwards on my
journey to bring about the rescue of our ship’s company. I have read it
over and over again and never seem to tire of it. Perhaps it is because
there is something in its philosophy which appeals to my own feeling
about life and death. For all my experience and observation leads me to
the conclusion that we are to die at the time appointed and not before;
this is, I suppose, what is known as fatalism.
On the night of the fourteenth the dogs had a fight and one of them was
killed. We could ill afford to lose him, for dogs were at a premium
with us, now.
On the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth the weather was
threatening; the sky was overcast and the wind from the north and
northeast, with temperatures not far from forty below zero. The sewing
continued busily. On the sixteenth we overhauled our Primus stoves,
of which we had two of the Swedish and eight of the Lovett pattern.
We also reckoned the amount of oil necessary for them and found that
an imperial gallon, which would fill a stove three and a half times,
would make tea twice a day for fourteen days. The imperial or English
gallon is larger than the American gallon; ten gallons English would
mean a little more than twelve gallons American, according to our
measurements, for we had bought the oil in Nome according to the
American measure and now in transferring it to our handy containers we
used the English measure. I have known this difference between English
and American gallons to make a good deal of trouble for skippers buying
supplies in foreign ports.