A NEW START.--SPECULATIONS.--IN A FOG.--POLAR SCENERY.--STOPPED
BY ROTTEN ICE.--LOOKING AHEAD.--CONCLUSIONS.--THE OPEN
SEA.--CLIMAX OF THE JOURNEY.--RETURNING SOUTH.
The unexpected breaking down of my strong man, Jensen, was a misfortune
only one degree less keenly felt than the previous failure of the foot
party, and it troubled me much; for, while I lost the services of a
stout arm and an active body, I was naturally anxious about his safety.
With a helpless man on my hands, and with four hundred and fifty miles
of rough ice between me and the schooner, and with but scant depots of
provision by the way, calculated only for a journey with empty sledges,
I must own that I was somewhat perplexed.
When the morning came, Jensen was found to have improved but little and
was scarcely able to move. I promptly determined to leave him in charge
of McDonald, and to push on with Knorr alone. Lest accident from rotten
ice (the only one that I had to fear) should befall me, I left with
McDonald five dogs, with directions to await us as many days, and then
make the best of his way back to Port Foulke.
Our simple breakfast over, I was once more plunging through the
hummocks, making my last throw. Our track lay across a bay so deep that
the distance would be more than quadrupled if we followed its tortuous
windings of the shore upon the land-ice.
My purpose now was to make the best push I could, and, traveling as
far as my provisions warranted, reach the highest attainable latitude
and secure such a point of observation as would enable me to form a
definite opinion respecting the sea before me, and the prospects of
reaching and navigating it with a boat or with the schooner. I had
already reached a position somewhat to the northward of that attained
by Morton, of Dr. Kane's expedition, in June, 1854, and was looking
out upon the same sea from a point probably about sixty miles to the
northward and westward of Cape Constitution, where, only a month later
in the season, his further progress was arrested by open water.
It only remained for me now to extend the survey as far to the north
as possible. By the judicious husbanding of my resources I had still
within my hands ample means to guarantee a successful termination to a
journey which the increasing darkness and extent of the water-sky to
the northeast seemed to warn me was approaching its climax.
[Sidenote: IN A FOG.]
Our first day's journey was not particularly encouraging. The ice in
the bay was rough and the snow deep, and, after nine hours of laborious
work, we were compelled to halt for rest, having made, since setting
out, not more than as many miles. Our progress had been much retarded
by a dense fog which settled over us soon after starting, and which, by
preventing us from seeing thirty yards on either side, interfered with
the selection of a track; and we were, in consequence, forced to pursue
our course by compass.
[Sidenote: POLAR SCENERY.]
The fog clearing up by the time we had become rested, and the land
being soon reached, we pursued our way along the ice-foot with much
the same fortune as had befallen us since striking the shore above
Cape Napoleon. The coast presented the same features--great wall-sided
cliffs rising at our left, with a jagged ridge of crushed ice at our
right, forming a white fringe, as it were, to the dark rocks. We were,
in truth, journeying along a winding gorge or valley, formed by the
land on one side and the ice on the other; for this ice-fringe rose
about fifty feet above our heads, and, except here and there where a
cleft gave us an outlook upon the sea, we were as completely hemmed
in as if in a cañon of the Cordilleras. Occasionally, however, a bay
broke in upon the continuity of the lofty coast, and as we faced to the
westward along its southern margin, a sloping terraced valley opened
before us, rising gently from the sea to the base of the mountains,
which rose with imposing grandeur. I was never more impressed with the
dreariness and desolation of an Arctic landscape. Although my situation
on the summit of the Greenland _mer de glace_, in October of the last
year, had apparently left nothing unsupplied to the imagination that
was needed to fill the picture of boundless sterility, yet here the
variety of forms seemed to magnify the impression on the mind, and to
give a wider play to the fancy; and as the eye wandered from peak to
peak of the mountains as they rose one above the other, and rested upon
the dark and frost-degraded cliffs, and followed along the ice-foot,
and overlooked the sea, and saw in every object the silent forces of
Nature moving on through the gloom of winter and the sparkle of summer,
now, as they had moved for countless ages, unobserved but by the eye
of God alone, I felt how puny indeed are all men's works and efforts;
and when I sought for some token of living thing, some track of wild
beast,--a fox, or bear, or reindeer,--which had, elsewhere, always
crossed me in my journeyings, and saw nothing but two feeble men and
our struggling dogs, it seemed indeed as if the Almighty had frowned
upon the hills and seas.
Since leaving Cairn Point we had looked most anxiously for bears;
but although we had seen many tracks, especially about Cape Frazer,
not a single animal had been observed. A bear, indeed, would have
been a godsend to us, and would have placed me wholly beyond anxiety
respecting the strength of the dogs, as it would not only have put
new life into them, but would have given them several days of more
substantial rations than the dried beef which they had been so long fed
upon.
[Sidenote: QUITTING THE LAND-ICE.]
After a ten hours' march, we found ourselves once more compelled to
camp; and four hours of the following day brought us to the southern
cape of a bay which was so deep that, as in other cases of like
obstruction, we determined to cross over it rather than to follow the
shore line. We had gone only a few miles when we found our progress
suddenly arrested. Our course was made directly for a conspicuous
headland bounding the bay to the northward, over a strip of old ice
lining the shore. This headland seemed to be about twenty miles from
us, or near latitude 82°, and I was very desirous of reaching it; but,
unhappily, the old ice came suddenly to an end, and after scrambling
over the fringe of hummocks which margined it, we found ourselves upon
ice of the late winter.
[Illustration:
Mt. Murchison. C. Lieber. C. Eugénie. C. Union.
Church's Pk. Mt. Parry. C. Frederick VII.
THE SHORES OF THE POLAR SEA.
(FROM A SKETCH BY DR. HAYES.)]
[Sidenote: STOPPED BY ROTTEN ICE.]
The unerring instinct of the dogs warned us of approaching danger.
They were observed for some time to be moving with unusual caution,
and finally they scattered to right and left, and refused to proceed
further. This behavior of the dogs was too familiar to me to leave
any doubt as to its meaning; and moving forward in advance, I quickly
perceived that the ice was rotten and unsafe. Thinking that this might
be merely a local circumstance, resulting from some peculiarity of
the current, we doubled back upon the old floe and made another trial
further to the eastward. Walking now in advance of the dogs they were
inspired with greater courage. I had not proceeded far when I found
the ice again giving way under the staff, with which I sounded its
strength, and again we turned back and sought a still more eastern
passage.
Two hours consumed in efforts of this kind, during which we had worked
about four miles out to sea, convinced me that the ice outside the
bay was wholly impassable, and that perseverance could only end in
disappointment; for if we happened to break through, we should not
only be in great jeopardy but would, by getting wet, greatly retard,
if not wholly defeat our progress to the opposite shore. Accordingly
we drew back toward the land, seeking safety again upon the old floe,
and hauling then to the westward, endeavored to cross over further
up the bay; but here the same conditions existed as outside, and the
dogs resolutely refused to proceed as soon as we left the old ice. Not
wishing to be defeated in my purpose of crossing over, we held still
further west and persevered in our efforts until convinced that the bay
could not be crossed, and then we had no alternative but to retreat to
the land-ice and follow its circuit to our destination.
With the view of ascertaining how far this course was likely to carry
us from a direct line, I walked, while the dogs were resting, a few
miles along the shore until I could see the head of the bay, distant
not less than twenty miles. To make this long _détour_ would occupy at
least two if not three days,--an undertaking not justified by the state
of our provisions,--and we therefore went into camp, weary with more
than twelve hours' work, to await the issue of further observation on
the morrow.
[Sidenote: VIEW FROM THE CLIFF.]
Surprised at the condition of the ice in the bay, I determined to climb
the hill above the camp, with the view of ascertaining the probable
cause of our being thus baffled; and to ascertain if a more direct
route could not be found further to the eastward than that by the
land-ice of the bay; for it was now clear that it was only possible to
continue our journey northward in one or the other of these directions.
The labors of the day made it necessary, however, that I should procure
some rest before attempting to climb the hill to such an elevation as
would enable me to obtain a clear view of the condition of the ice to
the opposite shore.
After a most profound and refreshing sleep, inspired by a weariness
which I had rarely before experienced, to an equal degree, I climbed
the steep hill-side to the top of a ragged cliff, which I supposed to
be about eight hundred feet above the level of the sea.
The view which I had from this elevation furnished a solution of the
cause of my progress being arrested on the previous day.
The ice was everywhere in the same condition as in the mouth of the
bay, across which I had endeavored to pass. A broad crack, starting
from the middle of the bay, stretched over the sea, and uniting with
other cracks as it meandered to the eastward, it expanded as the delta
of some mighty river discharging into the ocean, and under a water-sky,
which hung upon the northern and eastern horizon, it was lost in the
open sea.
Standing against the dark sky at the north, there was seen in dim
outline the white sloping summit of a noble headland,--the most
northern known land upon the globe. I judged it to be in latitude 82°
30′, or four hundred and fifty miles from the North Pole. Nearer,
another bold cape stood forth; and nearer still the headland, for which
I had been steering my course the day before, rose majestically from
the sea, as if pushing up into the very skies a lofty mountain peak,
upon which the winter had dropped its diadem of snows. There was no
land visible except the coast upon which I stood.
The sea beneath me was a mottled sheet of white and dark patches, these
latter being either soft decaying ice or places where the ice had
wholly disappeared. These spots were heightened in intensity of shade
and multiplied in size as they receded, until the belt of the water-sky
blended them all together into one uniform color of dark blue. The old
and solid floes (some a quarter of a mile, and others miles, across)
and the massive ridges and wastes of hummocked ice which lay piled
between them and around their margins, were the only parts of the sea
which retained the whiteness and solidity of winter.
I reserve to another chapter all discussion of the value of the
observations which I made from this point. Suffice it here to say that
all the evidences showed that I stood upon the shores of the Polar
Basin, and that the broad ocean lay at my feet; that the land upon
which I stood, culminating in the distant cape before me, was but a
point of land projecting far into it, like the Ceverro Vostochnoi Noss
of the opposite coast of Siberia; and that the little margin of ice
which lined the shore was being steadily worn away; and within a month,
the whole sea would be as free from ice as I had seen the north water
of Baffin Bay,--interrupted only by a moving pack, drifting to and fro
at the will of the winds and currents.
To proceed further north was, of course, impossible. The crack which
I have mentioned would, of itself, have prevented us from making the
opposite land, and the ice outside the bay was even more decayed than
inside. Several open patches were observed near the shore, and in one
of these there was seen a flock of _Dovekie_. At several points during
our march up Kennedy Channel I had observed their breeding-places,
but I was not a little surprised to see the birds at this locality so
early in the season. Several burgomaster-gulls flew over head, making
their way northward, seeking the open water for their feeding grounds
and summer haunts. Around these haunts of the birds there is never ice
after the early days of June.
[Sidenote: THE JOURNEY ENDED.]
And now my journey was ended, and I had nothing to do but make my way
back to Port Foulke. The advancing season, the rapidity with which the
thaw was taking place, the certainty that the open water was eating
into Smith Sound as well through Baffin Bay from the south, as through
Kennedy Channel from the north, thus endangering my return across to
the Greenland shore, warned me that I had lingered long enough.
[Sidenote: PLANTING THE FLAG.]
It now only remained for us to plant our flag in token of our
discovery, and to deposit a record in proof of our presence. The
flags[10] were tied to the whip-lash, and suspended between two tall
rocks, and while we were building a cairn, they were allowed to flutter
in the breeze; then, tearing a leaf from my note-book, I wrote on it as
follows:--
"This point, the most northern land that has ever been reached, was
visited by the undersigned, May 18th, 19th, 1861, accompanied by
George F. Knorr, traveling with a dog-sledge. We arrived here after
a toilsome march of forty-six days from my winter harbor, near Cape
Alexander, at the mouth of Smith Sound. My observations place us in
latitude 81° 35′, longitude 70° 30′, W. Our further progress was
stopped by rotten ice and cracks. Kennedy Channel appears to expand
into the Polar Basin; and, satisfied that it is navigable at least
during the months of July, August, and September, I go hence to my
winter harbor, to make another trial to get through Smith Sound
with my vessel, after the ice breaks up this summer.
"I. I. Hayes.
"_May 19th, 1861._"
[Footnote 10: These were a small United States flag (boat's ensign),
which had been carried in the South Sea Expedition of Captain Wilkes,
U. S. N., and afterwards in the Arctic Expeditions of Lieut. Comg.
DeHaven and Dr. Kane; a little United States flag which had been
committed to Mr. Sonntag by the ladies of the Albany Academy; two
diminutive Masonic flags intrusted to me,--one by the Kane Lodge of New
York, the other by the Columbia Lodge of Boston; and our Expedition
signal-flag, bearing the Expedition emblem, the Pole Star--a crimson
star, on a white field--also a gift from fair hands. Being under the
obligation of a sacred promise to unfurl all of these flags at the most
northern point attained, it was my pleasing duty to carry them with
me--a duty rendered none the less pleasing by the circumstance that,
together, they did not weigh three pounds.]
This record being carefully secured in a small glass vial, which I
brought for the purpose, it was deposited beneath the cairn; and
then our faces were turned homewards. But I quit the place with
reluctance. It possessed a fascination for me, and it was with no
ordinary sensations that I contemplated my situation, with one solitary
companion, in that hitherto untrodden desert; while my nearness to
the earth's axis, the consciousness of standing upon land far beyond
the limits of previous observation, the reflections which crossed
my mind respecting the vast ocean which lay spread out before me,
the thought that these ice-girdled waters might lash the shores of
distant islands where dwell human beings of an unknown race, were
circumstances calculated to invest the very air with mystery, to deepen
the curiosity, and to strengthen the resolution to persevere in my
determination to sail upon this sea and to explore its furthest limits;
and as I recalled the struggles which had been made to reach this
sea,--through the ice and across the ice,--by generations of brave men,
it seemed as if the spirits of these Old Worthies came to encourage me,
as their experience had already guided me; and I felt that I had within
my grasp "the great and notable thing" which had inspired the zeal of
sturdy Frobrisher, and that I had achieved the hope of matchless Parry.
[Illustration]