The "Pelican" once scraped the sunken ledges near Cartwright, but no
H.B.C. ship has left her "bones" to rot on that iron-bound shore.
Little is known of the wrecks that do take place on this coast, but I
have heard of appalling disasters amongst the hardy fishermen. On the
Nova Scotian coast, collision with ice and subsequent loss of life is
not infrequent. Every year there are wrecks of some kind. Ocean-going
steamers have been forced ashore and become total wrecks. And so it is
remarkable that H.B.C. ships have never met with disaster, especially
considering their many ports of call.
In 1908 I was a passenger on the "Pelican" (Captain Alex. Grey) bound
for Fort Chimo, Ungava. From the time we left Quebec till we passed Cape
Harrison, North of Hamilton Inlet, Labrador, we had enjoyed fair
weather. But the clouds and rising sea denoted a change.
We were then standing off the coast nearly twelve miles and steaming at
about seven knots. The wind kept veering between N. and N.E., finally
blowing straight down the coast about north. We stood farther out to
sea. At nightfall it was blowing half a gale with rain coming down--and
mist. Our speed then was not more than three knots and gradually getting
less till about 2 o'clock in the morning when the wind increased to a
living gale, screeching and howling through the rigging and stopping all
progress. It was then decided to run for shelter, but the nearest
harbour was forty miles south, a place named _Webek_. Captain Grey had
been in this harbour only once, about twenty-five years before, and no
one else aboard had ever anchored there. They turned the ship and we
came scudding south in the blackness of night, then lay-to till dawn,
and picking up the land approached at half speed.
To give some idea of the gale outside, when we finally came to an
anchorage about 8 o'clock in the morning, the swell was so great in the
harbour with the continued violence of the wind that we kept steaming to
the anchors to prevent dragging and as the sailors say we were rolling
"like maggots in an oak apple." Several fishing schooners had run in the
day before and even in shelter the crews had abandoned some of the
vessels, as they were dragging their anchors and in imminent danger of
going ashore.
The Captain was on the bridge all night. For hours he stood in the bow
of the boat hanging in the starboard davits peering through the gloom
and mist, looking for landmarks and the harbour entrance. He had on a
black sou'wester and oil-skin coat and great long sea-boots. His face
was streaming with the rain and spray--a gigantic, picturesque figure,
and on this particular morning, unusually silent.
When the ship was snug and safe he came off the bridge, and all he said
was, "Aye, aye, a little wind," and then he turned in.
The entries in the log were quite commonplace--all in the day's work, as
it were--and one would never glean from them that a ship and cargo worth
a quarter of a million had been safely brought to a haven of refuge
through exceptional seamanship and courage.
It was in 1894 that Captain Grey in the "Erik," when near Resolution
Island at the entrance of the Straits, ran into an iceberg. It happened
at night in a thick fog. The ship was moving slowly at the time and
before the lookout saw or could give warning she had poked her nose into
the 'berg. Her long bowsprit of pitch pine was crumpled up like so much
matchwood, and the gear attached to it and one of the catheads was
carried away.
Masses of ice came thundering down on her forecastle head, doing much
damage to the woodwork. In the meantime the lookout sprinted aft, the
watch below came tumbling up on deck and made for safety. The ship was
put astern and hove to till daylight. They steamed up next day close
enough to see a hole as big as a house which they had punched in the
side of the 'berg. All the damage to the ship fortunately was done above
the water line.
When the "Erik" returned to Rigolet in October she was sporting a dinky
little jib-boom made from one of the spare spars carried on deck for
just such an emergency.
Mr. John Ford, a passenger on his way to Georges River Post, told me he
never saw Captain Grey more cool or collected. He gave orders as if
nothing unusual were taking place. And at breakfast next morning all he
said in reference to it was, "Aye, aye, a little ice."