WITH BARON KLEIST TO EMMA HARBOR
At Emma Town I found the brother of the Mr. Caraieff whom I had met at
Cape North. I presented my letter of introduction and was hospitably
received. Mr. Caraieff, I found, was a graduate of a college at
Vladivostock. He was able to carry on a conversation with me in quite
intelligible English and had no difficulty in understanding me. He
invited me to stay at his home as long as I liked. I thanked him but
said that I must get over to the American shore as soon as possible.
We talked over ways and means. The ice in Bering Strait, I found, had
broken up so that I should be unable to get across by sledge; later on
I could get a whale-boat, he said, with some Eskimo, to take me across
to the Diomede Islands and from there another whale-boat or a skin-boat
to get across to Cape Prince of Wales. That would be some time in May,
just when would depend entirely on the amount of ice in the waters of
the Strait. The present was a kind of between-season time when it was
too late for sledges and too early for boats. It would be June before
any ships would get to East Cape.
It seemed to me that my best chance of getting immediately in touch
with Ottawa would be to go south to Anadyr and send a message from the
wireless station there. Mr. Caraieff was inclined to think that the
season was already so advanced that I would not really save any time
in that way, because the ice would be breaking up in the rivers that I
must cross on the way and there was an even chance that when I reached
Anadyr I might find that the wireless was out of commission, in which
event my journey would be in vain. At Emma Harbor on Providence Bay was
a Mr. Thompson, he said, who had a schooner with a gasoline engine. He
would be leaving for Nome the first week in June and would take me with
him.
Thinking things over I felt that the trip to Anadyr would be worth
the risk, for even if the wireless were out of commission there I
could still get across to Nome, so the next day, with Mr. Caraieff’s
assistance, I made all arrangements with some natives to take me to
Indian Point, where I could get some other natives to take me on to
Anadyr. We planned to start in a day or so and I considered the matter
settled, when over night, so to speak, came a rapidly increasing
swelling in my legs and feet, due, I suppose, to the punishment they
had received, and before I realized it I found myself a helpless
invalid, forced to accept Mr. Caraieff’s kind hospitality.
My host had a Russian servant by the name of Koshimuroff, who was
most assiduous in his efforts to restore my legs to their normal
condition, massaging them faithfully at Mr. Caraieff’s direction.
He filled a large pork-barrel about half full of warm water and I
took the first bath I had had since I left Shipwreck Camp. He also
cut my hair, what there was left of it; the constant use of the hood
had literally worn much of it off the top of my head; several months
elapsed before it grew out again. I also shaved, and when I saw myself
in the looking-glass, after shaving and having my hair cut, I hardly
recognized myself.
My stay here was made pleasant by the opportunity I had, when my eyes
became more nearly normal, to read the magazines which Mr. Charles
Carpendale, an Australian-born trader, with a station at the same place
as Mr. Caraieff’s, brought me. These had been sent across from Nome the
previous summer and were not what might be described in the language of
the train-boy as “all the latest magazines,” but they were a pleasure
to me, just the same, as they are to all the traders who are scattered
up and down the Siberian coast.
The third day after my arrival I was sitting alone in the front room
of Mr. Caraieff’s house when in walked a Russian gentleman who shook
hands with me and introduced himself in English as Baron Kleist, the
Supervisor of Northeastern Siberia. He passed on in search of my host
and shortly afterwards returned with him and we all sat and talked,
while I showed the Baron my charts. I had been looking for him for
several days, for I knew that he had left his home at Emma Harbor
shortly after New Year’s Day and had been on an inspection trip, across
country to Koliuchin Bay and eastward along the coast, ever since. He
was now bound home again.
He had heard of me from Mr. Olsen at Koliuchin Bay and had been told
by him that I was a man of fifty-five or so. “I see that you are much
younger than I was told you were,” he said. Later on in the progress of
our pleasant acquaintance, as I began to show the good effects of rest
and substantial food, he said, “You’re getting younger every day. After
all there is not much difference in our ages.” He was a man of about
forty, only a few years older than myself.
He told us all the news. It was two months old but I had heard hardly
any news of the outside world for nearly a year. Nothing unusual had
happened or seemed likely to happen. Peace reigned everywhere. He told
us of the discovery the previous year of Nicholas II Land off the
Taimir Peninsula by the Russian ships _Taimir_ and _Vaigatch_ under the
command of Captain Vilkitski, an achievement of which as a Russian he
might be justly proud.
Baron Kleist discussed with me the best course for me to pursue in
getting word to the Canadian Government. He planned to leave about May
10 for Emma Harbor, he said, and he asked me to go along with him and
be his guest at his home. Mr. Caraieff from Cape North had come to East
Cape about the time the baron arrived, and I had made arrangements for
him to take me to Emma Harbor, so it was arranged that we should all
travel together. Kataktovick I would leave at East Cape; we had taken
him on at Point Barrow, but he said he wanted to go to Point Hope. I
could give him provisions and outfit enough to last him for some time
and, after navigation opened, he could get a ship to take him across to
Point Hope.
Corrigan went back to Cape Serdze. Before he left he begged very hard
for my binoculars, so I finally gave them to him on condition that he
would never part with them; this he promised faithfully.
My rest was gradually putting me in condition to travel again. At
first I was almost as helpless as a child. I suffered no pain, but the
swelling in my legs and feet was severe and I seemed to have lost
every bit of energy I had ever possessed. My eyes were bloodshot and I
was so stiff I could hardly move hand or foot. Kataktovick had little
swelling but suffered a good deal of pain in his legs. We were both
pretty thin; I had lost thirty or forty pounds and Kataktovick was
equally worn down.
Before I began to recover from this swelling of the legs, I developed
an acute attack of tonsilitis. It was the first trouble of the kind
that I had experienced in all my Arctic work. I recall that on the
North Pole expedition, while we were encamped at Cape Sheridan and most
of us were away on hunting trips, MacMillan and Doctor Goodsell opened
a case of books and both came down with violent head colds. The books
were brand new books, too; apparently they had been packed by a man
with a cold. The baron had a clinical thermometer with him and he found
that my temperature was well above normal. My throat was ulcerated
and sore but I used peroxide and alum and after a time the infection
subsided.
When the tenth of May came, however, the tonsilitis was still with me
and I was conscious that it had weakened my whole system for the time
being, in addition to the physical weariness of which the swelling in
my legs and feet was a symptom. The baron was anxious to get away, for
the season was advancing, and, at any moment, a thaw might set in which
would break up the ice in the rivers and interfere with the journey. My
legs and feet had more strength in them by now but I could not walk as
well as usual. So it was decided that, as we were now ready, we might
as well start.
Kataktovick saw us off; we were parting, here. I thanked him, as I
bade him good-by, for all that he had done, and told him how greatly I
was indebted to him for his constant help and for his faith and trust
in me. The money due him would be paid to him later on, I said, after
I had got back to civilization. I asked Mr. Carpendale to tell the
Chukches what a good boy Kataktovick was. I gave him the rifle we had
carried on our journey and some other things we had with us, and then
we shook hands warmly and parted.
The day was not a cold one; the thermometer, in fact, was about
freezing and there was a good deal of fog. Consequently, the travelling
was not so easy as it might have been but we had good dogs and good
drivers, and, as we had postponed our start until the late afternoon
when the snow was beginning to get harder, we made considerable
progress before we stopped at ten P.M. at an aranga for tea and bear
meat. We then kept on our way until four o’clock in the morning—the
light was sufficient now for travelling all through the twenty-four
hours—and then we reached another aranga, where we slept. We had
intended to make an aranga still further on before stopping but the
snow was soft and the fog was so thick that we had difficulty in
telling where we were, so we decided not to risk too much in the face
of such adverse weather conditions but to stop while we could.
We drank our tea and turned in. At about eleven A. M. we awoke and
breakfasted on some things we had brought with us from East Cape. It
was now snowing very hard and there was no use in setting out, so we
decided to wait until night. At six P. M. it was snowing harder than
ever, so there was nothing to do but to have supper and turn in again.
During the day I read a good deal. Mr. Carpendale had given the baron
some books and now, as later on in the journey, when I could not sleep
I would read. I recall that at this time I was absorbed in Robert
Hichens’s “Bella Donna.” The light inside the aranga was poor so I
bundled myself up in my furs and sat in the outer apartment among the
dogs and sledges where I could see.
My own dogs I had left with Mr. Caraieff at East Cape. He agreed to
keep them until I should want them again. The problem of feeding our
dogs along the way to Emma Harbor promised to be a fairly pressing one
and so it proved; in fact, the baron was constantly worried by it. The
season had advanced and the supply of meat which the natives had laid
in during the previous fall was beginning to be exhausted.
The snow turned again to rain during the night of the twelfth and it
looked very much as if we should be unable to travel. My throat was
gradually getting better but was still sore and painful. We ate a good
supper of reindeer meat well cooked by the baron and went to bed.
Not long after midnight the rain held up and the wind, which had
shifted to the northwest, cleared the air and lowered the temperature,
so that a crust formed on the snow and the going was fairly good. We
got away at about two o’clock on the morning of May 13, and for a while
made good time, but before long the wind dropped and veered to the
southeast, bringing in a pelting rain from Bering Sea. I had tried to
get an oilskin coat at East Cape but could find none to fit me; my fur
clothing got soaked through after a while and, though it was a rather
warm rain, I was afraid of a recurrence of the tonsilitis. Occasionally
I dropped off the sledge for exercise to keep warm but my legs were
still weak and I could not keep up with the dogs, so I had to get on
again and ride. As the temperature grew colder the rain turned to a
very wet snow-storm, accompanied by a thick fog. We could hardly see
ahead of the dogs and steered altogether by compass.
We were bound for a reindeer settlement half way along the north side
of St. Lawrence Bay and after a while we brought up at what seemed
to the natives a place they knew; on looking around, however, they
discovered that they were uncertain where they were. Working our way
along slowly, we finally got out to the slopes of the bay shore and
stopped. The Eskimo were deep in a discussion of where they were and,
as the baron told me, seemed clear enough about it, when suddenly the
dogs started, pell-mell. I managed to drop on to the sledge and before
I could do more than catch my breath we were tearing down hill at a
terrific pace. The dogs had scented the reindeer and had started in
their direction without more ado. How we got along without being flung
bodily against the numerous boulders that lined our pathway and killed
outright, I never knew; we reached the bottom of the slope without a
mishap. Here we came across a trail which brought us to the settlement.
The reindeer here were the first I had seen in Siberia; they had spent
the winter inland, but now that spring was opening they had come out to
the coast. The two young men who owned them were fine, tall fellows,
somewhat resembling North American Indians; they had been out with
their reindeer in all weathers during the winter, sometimes, the baron
told me, for three days in succession, and their faces were burned
almost black with cold and exposure. They were very hospitable and, as
they had just cooked some reindeer meat as we dropped in, they gave
us an enjoyable meal. My appetite was beginning to come back and my
throat, in spite of the rain and fog, was better.
Refreshed and reassured as to our progress we started on our way again,
crossing the ice of St. Lawrence Bay and following its shores to the
east. We then went across the land for several miles and out on to the
ice in the mouth of Mechigme Bay. This journey was full of interest to
me. I rode most of the time and could give myself up to the enjoyment
of the wild country through which we were passing. The distance from
East Cape to Emma Harbor is about the same as that from New York
to Boston. We averaged four or five miles an hour. Our dog-drivers
were skilful and knew what they were about; their conversation was
unintelligible to me but I had every confidence in their ability.
One of our drivers was about four feet tall; in an Anglo-Saxon
community, I suppose, he would have been known as Goliath, but among
these more literal-minded Siberians he was called “Little.” He had a
small motor-boat at Indian Point and, if I could not get a ship at Emma
Harbor, it would be a great convenience for Little if I went across to
Alaska in his motor-boat, because he wanted to go over to Nome, anyway,
when the season was far enough advanced for the voyage and I could be
navigator, an arrangement which, as a possibility, was quite agreeable
to me.
Little, like Artemus Ward’s bear, was “an amoosin’ little cuss.” He
could manage to understand pidgin English and was well pleased with
himself over it. “Me make baron speak plenty English,” he would say.
From Mechigme Bay we followed the coast west for a short distance and
then crossed the mouth of the bay to the south shore; following the
coast for about twenty miles we went across the land to Neegchan. It
was foggy all the time and when we reached a group of arangas at a
place called Mesigman and stopped to sleep, I was wet to the skin. The
aranga where we were entertained, however, was warm and comfortable; I
took off my clothes, wrapped myself in a nice deerskin robe and went to
sleep.
At six o’clock in the afternoon we started on again. The weather had
cleared up and the surface of the snow was hard, so the going was
wonderfully good. For some time we travelled over the sea-ice and had
to make a wide detour to avoid a long lane of open water. We stopped
once at an aranga on the way for tea and at four o’clock reached a
place called Elewn. Here we stayed until six o’clock in the afternoon,
when we again got away for an all-night journey.
We were now on the last lap and the dogs knew it, so they travelled at
even greater speed than before. At one point as we were going along,
we met a Chukch woman driving a team of dogs. Our drivers stopped and
talked with her. The baron asked me what I thought about her; his
question rather puzzled me but I replied that I supposed the woman was
driving the dogs and doing other things that men do, just as I had been
accustomed to see women doing among the other Eskimo whom I had known.
Then he said that, on the contrary, this was really not a woman at all
but a man who had, so to speak, turned himself into a woman. It was, it
seemed, a custom among these Siberians to do this and a man who thus
transformed himself acted like a woman, dressed like a woman, talked
like a woman and was looked upon by the other Chukches as a woman. The
baron knew the whys and wherefores of this extraordinary custom but
when he tried to explain it to me his English proved unequal to the
occasion.
Several times during the day we stopped to have tea. At one place the
Eskimo told us that they had seen or heard of a whaler at Indian Point.
The master was Captain Pederson, they said, but when they described
the ship, their account did not tally with the description of the
_Elvira_, the ship that Captain Pederson commanded when the _Karluk_
left Nome. It was afterwards to be made known to me that the _Elvira_
had been crushed and sunk off the northern coast of Alaska the previous
fall, during the stormy season when we were being driven offshore in
the _Karluk_, and that Captain Pederson had made his way overland
to Fairbanks, had thence gone to San Francisco and taken command of
another ship, the _Herman_.
After we left the ice of Chechokium we crossed the divide to Emma
Harbor. The mist lay low over the high mountains on the peninsula
between Emma Harbor and Providence Bay. From time to time the wind
would roll this mist away and reveal the peaks, stern and forbidding.
The going up the divide was steep and we had a hard climb; when we got
to the top I could look down to Emma Harbor and see open water out
into Providence Bay. The land was white with snow and the ice nearer
shore was unbroken, so that the open water beyond seemed as black as
coal-tar, shining against the white. We went down the other side of the
ridge at a terrific rate, the dogs running free and the sledge, with
the brake-pole grinding hard, careening from side to side in a way that
almost took a man’s breath away.
It was at seven o’clock on the morning of May 16 that we reached Emma
Harbor and the home of Baron Kleist. We had been six days coming from
East Cape and two months had gone by since I had parted from the men
on Icy Spit, Wrangell Island. If all went well I should be back for
them in two months more and I hoped they were holding out all right
and would be in good shape when I reached them again. Their suspense,
I knew, would be acute until they were sure that I had succeeded in
crossing Long Strait to Siberia and getting over to Alaska.
Baron Kleist had a fine house at Emma Harbor. It was well built of
heavy timbers, the materials having been brought from Vladivostock
five years before. It cost about fifteen thousand dollars, I believe,
and was warm and comfortable. The baron had an excellent chef and we
enjoyed a substantial breakfast, which in almost no time after our
arrival had been prepared for us. Then the baron’s own physician,
Doctor Golovkoff, who had been with him through the Russo-Japanese
War, looked after my legs and throat. He took me under his especial
care during my stay and had me in pretty good condition by the time I
left.
It was a pleasure for me to find myself once more in a comfortable
home. The baroness was spending the winter visiting her relatives in
Russia but the numerous touches of a feminine hand were unmistakable
throughout the establishment.
At Emma Harbor I met Mr. Thompson, who had a trading-store there.
Born on the Baltic, he had been a sea-faring man in his earlier
days, serving in German, French and English ships, and could speak
English very well. He told me that Captain Pederson had been in the
neighborhood with his new ship, the _Herman_, and through him I got a
Chukch to take a letter to the captain, telling him where I was and
asking him if it would be possible for him to call for me and take me
across to the American shore.
Mr. Caraieff had a brother at Indian Point and the latter came over
from his trading-station there to see us. He stayed a day or two and
when he went home he took a letter for Captain Pederson. I sent out
several other letters by Chukches to catch Captain Pederson and, in
this way, the news of my desire to get in touch with him spread among
the natives along the coast.