THE RESCUE FROM WRANGELL ISLAND
On August 30, at half past seven in the evening, we anchored off
Nome. Early the next morning a lighter came alongside with coal but a
fresh south-west wind sprang up while we were loading and we had to
put to sea, leaving about five tons of coal still aboard the lighter.
By eleven o’clock the wind had moderated and we were able to come
back to our anchorage again. I paid a call on Mr. Linderberg, who was
financially interested in the company supplying us with coal, and he
took pains to see that things were pushed forward as fast as possible.
Just before dark another gale sprang up and we were forced to put to
sea again. By noon the next day, September 2, it was safe for us to
return and the lighter was soon alongside. We finished with her by
four o’clock the next morning but on account of the fact that in the
blow several lighters loaded with coal had been driven aground on the
beach and the mail-boat _Victoria_, from Seattle, also had to discharge
freight and needed lighters, there was no other lighter of coal to take
the place of the one with which we had just finished.
I had luncheon with Mr. Linderberg. He was well aware of my extreme
uneasiness about the continued delay and told me that he had decided to
send the _Corwin_ to Wrangell Island after the men; she had formerly
been in the revenue cutter service and, as I have already noted, had
made an interesting trip to Wrangell in the early eighties. While
ashore to see Mr. Linderberg I ran across Mr. Swenson, of the _King and
Winge_, in Mr. Goggin’s store, a great rendezvous in Nome, and learned
from him that he was about to start for the Siberian coast on a trading
and walrus-hunting trip. I asked him, if he went anywhere near Wrangell
Island, to call and see if the men had been taken off and he promised
that he would do so. I sent a telegram to Ottawa to let the authorities
know that the _Corwin_ was going to try to reach the island and that
the _King and Winge_ would be in that vicinity, too, and would call
there if she could.
The _Bear_ finished her coaling at nine o’clock on the morning of the
fourth and then had to spend the next few hours taking on water. At
one o’clock an onshore wind sprang up and I went off to the ship. We
got away at ten minutes past two but spent all the next day at Port
Clarence, looking for water. I was feeling easier in my mind now
because I felt sure that Mr. Swenson would go straight to the island,
whether the _Bear_ ever got there or not.
Daylight on the sixth found us off Cape York. We were going along with
a fair wind and all sail set. Early in the afternoon we rounded East
Cape; so far we were doing well. The wind came dead ahead in the late
afternoon. By dark we were abreast of Cape Serdze. The next morning
the wind was north-northwest and the sea smooth, a thing which told us
clearly that the ice was near. All day long conditions remained the
same and at quarter of eight in the evening we were not surprised to
see the ice. We were 131 miles from Rodgers Harbor. We lay near the
edge of the ice and waited for daylight.
As soon as dawn broke September 8, we went on full speed ahead, through
the loose ice; some distance away, on our port bow, we could see that
the ice was close-packed. By early afternoon we had made more than
fifty miles and were about seventy-five miles from our goal. Luncheon
was just finished and I was standing in the chart-room, when we saw a
schooner dead ahead, running before the wind. The glasses were soon
trained on her and we saw that she was the _King and Winge_. I hoped
and was inclined to believe that she had been to the island, or she
would hardly be coming back so soon. Then I began to fear that perhaps
she had broken her propeller and was now taking advantage of the
favoring wind to put for Bering Strait and Alaska.
I watched her as she drew nearer and nearer; then she hove to and we
were soon alongside. I looked sharply at the men on her deck; her own
crew was fairly large, but soon I could pick out Munro and McKinlay and
Chafe, and of course the Eskimo family, and I knew that our quest was
over. A boat was lowered from the _Bear_, with Lieutenant Miller in
charge; I obtained permission from the captain to go along and was soon
on board the _King and Winge_, among the _Karluk_ party.
“All of you here?” was my first question.
McKinlay was the spokesman. “No,” he answered; “Malloch and Mamen and
Breddy died on the island.”
There was nothing to be said. I had not really expected to see the
mate’s party or the Mackay party, for I had long since ceased to
believe that there was any reasonable chance that they could have got
through to a safe place, but though it was hard to be forced to what
appeared the inevitable conclusion in their case, it was an especially
sad and bitter blow to learn that three of the men whom I had seen
arrive at Wrangell Island had thus reached safety only to die.
[Illustration: THE RESCUE OF THE PARTY AT WARING POINT, WRANGELL ISLAND
“The rescue, both here and at Rodgers Harbor, was effected just in
time.”]
None of the three could well be spared. Breddy had been a careful and
efficient worker in all the struggles we had gone through since the
storm had carried us away in the previous September. Mamen was a great
companion, indoors or out; he especially excelled in all athletic
sports that demanded fearlessness and endurance, and he was, besides
this, a devoted and helpful associate. At one time, in fact, I had
had it in mind to send him to the Siberian coast with Kataktovick in
my stead, if the injury to his knee-cap had not incapacitated him,
and, if he had been able to start on such a journey, I feel confident
that he would have made it or died in the attempt. Malloch was an
ideal man for an exploring expedition like ours, brought face to face
by circumstances with conditions that were calculated to test to the
utmost a man’s real nature, for he was not only fully equipped in his
own special field of science but beyond all that he was one of the
most self-sacrificing men with whom it has ever been my lot to be
thrown into intimate contact. If his task for the moment happened to be
something connected with his own work as a scientist, he performed it
as a matter of course, and if it happened to be sweeping the floor or
doing any other odd job that needed to be done, he did that equally as
a matter of course, without the slightest thought of self or any other
idea in mind except to be as useful as possible to his companions.
I shook hands all around with our party and then with Mr. Swenson
and Captain Jochimsen, the brave skipper of the _King and Winge_,
and thanked them in the name of the Canadian Government for rescuing
the men. Then I asked Mr. Swenson’s permission to have the _Karluk_
people transferred to the _Bear_. There they could receive the medical
attention that they needed, for there was no doctor on the _King and
Winge_; there was, too, no reason now why Mr. Swenson should not
continue the walrus-hunt that he had postponed to go to Wrangell Island
for the men of the _Karluk_. McConnell, also, who was on the _King and
Winge_, came on board the _Bear_ with the rest.
To get the whole party and their few possessions over to the _Bear_
took about an hour. Then we said good-by to the _King and Winge_ and
steamed in the direction of Herald Island to make a search for the
mate’s and the doctor’s parties, though there was no likelihood of
seeing any traces of them. At dark, owing to the ice, the engines were
kept working easy ahead; at eight o’clock the next morning, September
9, we were twelve miles from Herald Island. The ice kept us from
getting any nearer, and after we had done what we could to find a way
through, Captain Cochran decided to go back to Nome. Mr. Swenson had
already taken the _King and Winge_ as near Herald Island as he could
get, without seeing any signs of human life, and months before, shortly
after my departure with Kataktovick for Siberia, McKinlay and Munro had
made their way across the ice in the direction of Herald Island and had
got near enough to see that no one was there. Later on, as I afterwards
learned, the _Corwin_, on the trip on which, as he had promised, Mr.
Linderberg sent her, cruised all around Herald Island without seeing
any evidences that any one had been there. It was as certain as
anything could be that both parties had long since perished, but it was
very hard for me to give them up, men with whom I had spent so many
months, men with the future still before them.
From the vicinity of Herald Island, the _Bear_ headed for Cape Serdze
and at six o’clock the next morning we anchored off Mr. Wall’s place.
Mr. Wall was still away and we did not stop long but were soon steaming
down the coast on the way to our next stop, Cape Prince of Wales.
I did not attempt to press the men for an account of what had happened
on the island. They had been through a long period of suspense and were
entitled to a rest, so it seemed the kindest thing to let the story
come out spontaneously as time went on. McKinlay told me part of it
and gradually further details appeared, as they came out in general
conversation.
Kataktovick and I, as I have already related, left the island on March
18. The Munro party, starting the day before for Shipwreck Camp, made
their way with comparatively little difficulty over the ice until they
had crossed the great pressure-ridge that had held us up so long on the
way in. Not far on the other side they came to open water, so they had
to return to the island.
Various trips were afterwards made out on the ice, on one of which
Williams froze his great toe so badly that there was nothing to do but
to amputate it, to save the foot and possibly further complications.
Perhaps many people would have preferred to risk one danger at a time,
rather than be operated on with the means at hand. Williamson was
the surgeon; he had shown his natural deftness, as I have mentioned
before, by his care of Mamen’s dislocated knee-cap at Shipwreck Camp.
His instruments consisted of a pocket-knife and a pair of tin-shears.
Perhaps no more painful and primitive operation was ever performed in
the Arctic, though the whaling captains have frequently had to exercise
a rough and ready surgery, whether it was possible to live up to the
requirements of Listerism or not. Williamson did his work well, and
his patient did his part with rare grit, so that the result was a
success.
Following their instructions to divide into smaller parties, for
general harmony and larger hunting areas, Mamen, Malloch and Templeman
left the main party on Icy Spit and went down around the southeastern
shore of the island to Rodgers Harbor. Here they erected a tent and
planned to build a house of driftwood, a plan which on account of
circumstances they were never able to carry into effect. Towards the
end of May Malloch and Mamen became ill with nephritis and died,
Malloch first and Mamen only a few days later. Templeman was thus left
alone, until he was joined by Munro and Maurer, who stayed with him
until the rescue. They lived on birds’ eggs and seal and, later in the
summer, on some Arctic foxes which fortunately came their way.
During the early spring the party at Icy Spit were fortunate in killing
polar bear, which gave them fresh meat. As the season advanced they
moved down the coast to Waring Point, where they found conditions more
favorable for getting birds than on the barren levels of Icy Spit.
Here they pitched their tents again and took up a regular routine of
life. Hadley, McKinlay, Kerdrillo, Keruk and the two children occupied
one tent and Williamson, Chafe, Williams and Breddy the other. Breddy
accidentally shot himself later on, making the third death on the
island. Hadley and Kerdrillo hunted daily and as the season advanced
they were able to get seal and duck, which gave sufficient food after
the supplies that we had brought from Shipwreck Camp had become
exhausted the first week in June. It was never possible to get a very
large supply of food ahead at any one time, and as the summer wore
on and they heard nothing from me they faced the prospect of another
winter with misgivings. Hadley and Kerdrillo fashioned a rude Eskimo
kayak, by making a framework of driftwood and stretching sealskins over
it, and Kerdrillo made good use of this in hunting seal after the ice
had broken up.
[Illustration: MAKING THE KAYAK ON WRANGELL ISLAND
“Hadley and Kerdrillo fashioned a rude Eskimo kayak, by making a
framework of driftwood and stretching sealskins over it, and Kerdrillo
made good use of this in hunting seal after the ice had broken up.”]
Both at Rodgers Harbor and at Waring Point the anxiety as to the
possibility of our not having made a safe crossing to Siberia to bring
help increased as the time went on. It required no undue exercise of
the imagination on my part to realize the intense relief which the men
felt when, on the morning of the seventh of September, the sound of a
steam whistle came across the water to those in the tent at Rodgers
Harbor and the party from the _King and Winge_ came ashore. This party
included Mr. Swenson and members of his own force, together with Eskimo
walrus hunters, whom he had taken aboard at East Cape and who had
brought the rescue party ashore in their oomiak, and Burt McConnell,
who had come up on the _King and Winge_ from Nome. Reunited with these
other members of the original ship’s company, McConnell was now able to
tell them of his trip ashore with Stefansson in the previous September
and briefly how Kataktovick and I had fared in making our trip to
Siberia.
The rescuers helped the rescued to gather together the few possessions
of value or interest at the camp and then, leaving a notice for any
other ship that might come to see about the men, all hands were soon
on board the _King and Winge_, enjoying the luxury of a bath, clean
clothes and an ample breakfast. The tent was left standing as it was,
but the British flag that had flown so long at half-mast was taken with
the rescued men.
With the Rodgers Harbor party safe aboard, the _King and Winge_ steamed
to Waring Point. On account of the ice they were unable to get nearer
than two miles from shore. Swenson and his party, again accompanied by
McConnell, went towards the shore over the ice; Kerdrillo came out to
meet them. Escorted by him they covered the rest of the distance to the
shore, several of the others rushing out over the ice to meet them. It
was found that if it had not been for the snow-storm which was already
growing severe the whole party would have migrated that very day to
a point on the north side of the island where, if they had to stay
through another winter, as seemed not unlikely, they would have a fresh
supply of drift-wood to draw on. Their camp at Waring Point was in bad
shape. Their tents were wearing out, their food supply was scanty and
they had only forty rounds of ammunition left with which to provide
themselves with food during the coming winter. To save their cartridges
they had lived as far as possible on birds’ eggs, fish which they
caught through the ice and gulls which they obtained by angling for
them on the cliffs with hook and line, a form of bird-hunting without
a shot-gun. The rescue, both here and at Rodgers Harbor, was effected
just in time.
Leaving a message for whatever ship might follow them here, the Waring
Point party joined their companions from Rodgers Harbor on the _King
and Winge_ and the rescue was complete. The little Eskimo girl brought
on board the black cat which had already had so many vicissitudes that
it was a wonder that it had any of its nine lives still left to draw
on. Here, as at Rodgers Harbor, the tents were left standing. The party
brought with them the three surviving dogs,—all that were left out of
the twenty that were still living when we had started for Siberia—and
three puppies.
The _King and Winge_ steamed towards Herald Island, as I have
previously said, but though she kept alongshore for miles she was
prevented by the ice-floes from getting very near and finally, to make
sure not to be frozen in for the winter, Mr. Swenson decided to set
his course for Nome. The weary and anxious _Karluk_ survivors enjoyed
the food that was hospitably placed before them and the opportunity to
bathe and put on clean clothes. The beards that adorned their faces
came off and it was a greatly transformed company that I observed from
the deck of the _Bear_ the next afternoon.
We reached Nome on the _Bear_, September 13. Our arrival aroused great
excitement, even though shipwrecked mariners from the Arctic are not
altogether a novelty in Nome. The rescue was more than ordinarily a
matter of local interest and pride because of the number of men and
ships concerned in it that were well known all through that part of
Alaska.
The hospitality of the Alaskan is unstinted, as I had already had
occasion to find out, but it seemed to me best to keep the men on board
the _Bear_ for a day or two, for in their reduced state they would be
more than usually susceptible to contagious diseases. It would be the
irony of fate for them to survive six months of semi-starvation and
then fall victim to some ailment of the civilization to which they had
so longed to return. To walk in shoes again, too, after so many months
of wearing skin-boots, would be painful for a while. After a few days
however, they had improved so much that I let them go ashore; they
realized the necessity of being careful and had no trouble. Kerdrillo
and his family, too, went ashore at Nome, to start on their way home to
the North.
It was marvellous how quickly the men picked up in health and strength.
On account of frost-bite Chafe and Williams were under the doctor’s
care, though they were otherwise in good shape. The sickest man
was Templeman; he could not have survived many days longer. Munro,
McKinlay and Hadley, who was in his fifty-eighth year, were all in good
condition and would probably have lived through another winter.
We were in Nome until the nineteenth; on that day we headed for the
south, our first stop St. Michael’s. It seemed advisable to keep the
men on the _Bear_, instead of transferring them to any other vessel;
there were no mail-boats leaving for the “outside,” and the men were
warm and comfortable and well cared for. While on our way to St.
Michael’s we heard by wireless of the stranding of the _Corwin_ off
Cape Douglas; she was on her way from Wrangell Island to Nome, having
heard by her wireless that the men had been safely taken off. About
eight o’clock in the morning we came within sight of her. On account
of the broken bottom we could not get nearer than a half mile from
her, so a boat was lowered and the third lieutenant went on board. The
_Bear_ lent some of her crew to help lighten the _Corwin_; then we went
on to the reindeer settlement at Port Clarence for water. Late in the
afternoon on the twenty-third we reached the _Corwin_ again and our men
were returned to us; she was floated a short time later.
[Illustration:
_Photograph copyright, 1914, by Lomen Bros., Nome_
Munro Hadley Captain Keruk McKinlay Chafe Williams
Williamson Bartlett Helen
Templeman Mugpi Kerdrillo Maurer
THE _KARLUK_ SURVIVORS ON BOARD THE _BEAR_]
The next day we returned to Nome to get the Eskimo who belonged on King
Island. They had come to Nome in their large skin-boats a month or two
earlier to sell the great variety of articles that they are in the
habit of carving from the tusks of the walrus; it is really remarkable
what they can carve in this way: ships, cribbage-boards, houses,
models of men, women and children, etc. The deck of the _Bear_ had the
appearance of the first of May—moving day. These Eskimo had come to
Nome, of course, in the summer; now the season was getting late and the
weather was variable, so that they did not want to take any chances.
And, indeed, why should they? The _Bear_ was there and the wires were
tapped to Washington; furthermore, Nome did not care to have a couple
of hundred Eskimo on its hands during the winter, so the easiest way
out of the difficulty was to get the _Bear_ to take them aboard and
carry them to their home at King Island, seventy miles away. When we
reached there we found that the Eskimo lived in clefts in the rocky
cliffs; they were cliff-dwellers. It was a dreary view that met our
eyes that cold, windy September morning, but the Eskimo were delighted
for to them it was home.
Leaving King Island we called at the school-master’s at St. Lawrence
Island, to leave mail and provisions from Nome. The latter were badly
needed, for short rations had been the order of the day for some time.
Steaming around the western end of the island through a smooth sea
under brilliant sunshine, we were at last definitely bound south.
With St. Matthew’s Island a-beam, the next morning, our wireless
reported that all the boats from the _Tahoma_ had been picked up; we
had heard the S. O. S. call from the _Tahoma_ a day or so before. As we
afterward learned, the _Cordova_, anchored in the roadstead at Nome,
had picked up the _Tahoma’s_ call and had gone to her assistance. The
_Tahoma_ had struck an uncharted shoal about a hundred miles south of
Agattu Island, one of the western Aleutians, and had become a total
loss. The officers and crew had reached land in the ship’s boats and
were picked up later by the _Cordova_ and the _Patterson_.
During the twenty-ninth we were held back by a strong southeast gale,
but the following day the wind moderated and on the morning of October
first we tied up at the dock at Unalaska, which at the present time is
the base where the revenue-cutters get their coal and other supplies.
The coal comes from Australia and costs twelve or thirteen dollars a
ton. The officer in charge of the station here was Captain Reynolds,
who had been a lieutenant on the _Corwin_ when she visited Herald
Island in the eighties; he read me his diary where he told about their
landing on the island and climbing to the top and said that no one
could live there and that it was accessible in only one place.
The _Bear_ had to stay at Unalaska for several days to have her boilers
overhauled. We passed the time in trout-fishing, chiefly, and also
climbed Ballyhoo, a thing which every officer in the revenue-cutter
service must do. There is a book placed at the summit and every one who
climbs the mountain has to sign his name in the book. I went up with
Lieutenants Barker and Dempwolf. Lieutenant Kendall and I had some good
ptarmigan-shooting in that vicinity.
While we were here McKinlay became ill and had to go to the Jesse Lee
Hospital, where he was soon restored to health. I was glad that he
was all right, for in circumstances calculated to show men in their
true colors I had formed a high opinion of his efficiency and courage.
One of the younger members of the expedition and a man of scholarly
disposition—he had been a teacher—he showed no lack of grit in an
emergency. In such careful transactions as the checking over and
dividing up of supplies, I found him of great assistance. He had a good
understanding of human nature—perhaps his experience as a schoolmaster
had given him that—and I relied on him to preserve harmony if any
question should arise among the different groups on Wrangell Island. In
all difficulties he was the cool and canny Scot. Of the six scientists
left on the _Karluk_ after the departure of Stefansson, McKinlay was
the sole survivor.
About this time the Revenue-cutter _Manning_ was sent to Scotch Cap,
Unimak Island, to bring back a lighthouse-keeper who was very ill. The
_Manning_ anchored off the lighthouse and sent a boat for the keeper.
There was a strong tide running but the boat reached the lighthouse
safely and started back with the keeper, when it was capsized and the
ship’s doctor was drowned. We all felt his loss keenly because we
had got well acquainted with him while the vessels had been in port
together.
At Unalaska I met Captain Miller, of the _Patterson_, the Coast and
Geodetic Survey boat, which had been doing a great deal of work that
season off the south entrance of the Unimak Pass. He was a very clever
man and as I was much interested in his work, we spent a good many
hours together; not so very many months later he was to be drowned on
the _Lusitania_, in the course of the war whose first unbelievable
rumblings we still scarcely heard.
On the afternoon of October 14, with the long homeward pennant flying,
we cast off from the pier at Unalaska and steamed south on the last leg
of the long journey we had travelled since the June day the year before
when we had first left for the north. The voyage south was uneventful
and on October 24, 1914, the _Bear_ landed us once more at the navy
yard at Esquimault.
The next day, under the instructions of the Canadian Government, I paid
off the men; soon they had started for their homes, while I left for
Ottawa to make my final report of the last voyage of the _Karluk_.
THE END