The Sledging Campaign Opens—A Push for the “Discovery”—Petersen
Breaks Down—Shelter in a Snowdrift—Difficulties in Retreat—A
First of April Chase—Programme of Spring Sledging—Limited
Hopes—Departure of Main Detachments—Double Banking—The Camp—A
Night in a Tent—A Typical Floeberg—The Hare’s Sanctuary—Coat
of Arms—Castle Floe—Parhelia—Road-finding in the Fog—Mirage—A
Crevasse.
The failure to communicate with H.M.S. “Discovery” in the autumn had
to some extent disarranged our plans. Communication was absolutely
necessary to ensure co-operation, and the sooner it was effected the
better, for our consort had as much sledging work to get through as
she could possibly complete in the season.
Robeson Channel had to be crossed, and the rugged northern shore of
Greenland explored in search of land poleward. Petermann’s Fiord
had not yet been traversed, and Lady Franklin Sound might possibly
open northwards, and afford a favourable route for the “Discovery’s”
sledge-crews to penetrate as far as the shore of the Polar Sea.
The short travelling season in the far north is limited on the one
hand by the lingering cold of winter, and on the other by the summer
thaw of the surface snow and the renewed motion of the ice. As soon,
therefore, as travelling was at all possible, a dog sledge was got
ready to carry despatches to our sister ship. Two energetic young
officers and Niel Petersen the Dane were detailed for this duty.
On the morning of 12th March everyone in the ship gathered on the
floes to see them off. Their team of nine dogs carried the “Clements
Markham” down the smooth ice of our exercise mile at a gallop, and in
a few minutes the red and white sledge pennant with its crossed arrows
was lost to sight amongst the hummocks off Cape Rawson.
Three days passed in preparing the ship for spring, and the low
temperature and strong wind made us think anxiously of our absent
messmates, but we never for a moment supposed that they would suffer
anything more than the recognised hardships of sledging in bad weather.
On the evening of the third day, our heavy winter awning had just been
taken down from over the deck, and the men were coming inboard after
their day’s work, when some one caught sight of the dog sledge coming
back to the ship. There were but two men running alongside, and they
came on silently, without the usual joyful signalling that marks a
returning party. Poor Petersen lay on the sledge, marvellously changed
in three days, mottled with frost-bite, and apparently dying. His
companions had succeeded in carrying him back to the ship only just in
time. They themselves were much fatigued, and their fingers raw with
frost-bites incurred in attempts to restore Petersen’s frozen limbs.
When they had slept, as only tired men can, we heard their story.
They had not been a day away when Petersen found he had greatly
overrated his strength, and became unable to assist in the heavy work
of guiding the sledge along the steep incline under the cliffs,
lowering the dogs and sledge down precipitous places, and hauling
them up again. Next day he was badly frost-bitten, for a cramped and
enfeebled man cannot long resist strong wind and a temperature of
minus 34°. It was impossible either to proceed or retreat without
risking his life, and the breeze freshened, so that they could not
pitch the tent. The only course left was to dig a pit in the snow,
which was, fortunately, somewhat hardened by the wind. So they at once
set about shovelling out a hole, and when it was six feet deep they
excavated it below till they got a space eight feet square. It took
six hours’ hard labour before they were able to move Petersen, wrapped
up in the tent and tent robes, into it, and cover the top closely in
with the sledge and drifting snow. But once well covered in, and the
sledge lamp lit, they had the satisfaction of seeing the temperature
rise to 7° above zero. But Petersen could not be warmed. They made
tea for him—he could not take it; pemmican disagreed with him; and a
little soup was made from the Australian meat carried for the dogs. By
turns they chafed his limbs for hours at a time, and thawed his frozen
feet under their own clothes, Eskimo fashion, then swathed feet and
hands in their flannel wrappers, and lay close on either side trying
to warm him; but in a very short time, although he said his feet were
warm and comfortable, they were found frozen so hard that the toes
could not be bent, and the whole process had to be gone through again.
For a day and a night they struggled in this way against the fatal
cold, and then, fortunately for them, the wind lessened, and leaving
provisions and fuel, dogs’ food, and all that could be dispensed with,
behind, they took the only course open to them, and struck out for
the ship. The only possible road was the one they had come, and it
was rugged in the extreme. On the left rose high cliffs banked with
treacherous snow, and on the right rounded and broken ice piled in
towers and pinnacles upon the shore. In some places round headlands
it was utterly impossible to get the sledge safely past with the man
and tent robes lashed on it, and one had to help him round as best he
could, while the other held in the eager dogs and tried to guide the
sledge. The poor brutes were so anxious to get back to the ship that
constant halts were necessary to disentangle their harness, no easy
task with frost-bitten fingers. The last headland was the worst. In
spite of every effort the sledge slipped sideways, then upset, and
rolled down into a deep ditch, turning over three times as it went,
and dragging the dogs after it. When it was at length got out, a
comparatively smooth road lay before them, and they drew up alongside
the ship, most thankful that their comrade was still able to recognise
the friends that crowded round him. For days the poor fellow lay in
a very uncertain state. Severe amputations were unavoidable, but he
rallied wonderfully for a time, and when the main detachments of
sledges left the ship we bade him a hopeful good-bye.
Five days passed before the weather became calm enough for a second
attempt southward, but on the 20th the dog-sledge again started for
the “Discovery.” The settled weather that favoured our travellers this
time, enabled us to take active measures to prepare our sledge crews
for their coming work. Each day a pair of crews left the ship for
practice with their sledges, and thus a store of pemmican, bacon, &c.,
was deposited at Black Cape to help forward the Greenland division of
sledges from the “Discovery.”
Before breakfast on 1st of April a man came down with a report that
a large white animal had just been seen a quarter of a mile from the
ship. This seemed a very extraordinary piece of news, for our walking
parties had scoured the whole country, sometimes as much as thirteen
hours away from the ship, without finding even a track of game, and
had as yet brought nothing on board except one small white feather
from the breast of a ptarmigan or snowy owl.
The general opinion at first sight was that the date added a peculiar
significance to the story, but at any rate it was advisable to lose
no time in seeing whether the mysterious animal was sufficiently
“materialised” to leave any tracks. Accordingly two of us took our
rifles, and sure enough we found a large wolf track at the spot
indicated. For hours we patiently followed the marks. They took us
a long circuit shoreward. There appeared to be three animals, but
we could not be certain, for the track often doubled on itself. All
at once an unpleasant suspicion flashed across us—could it be that
anything had happened to our travellers, and that we were following
their dogs in mistake for wolves? The tracks were very large,
measuring as much as six inches long by four and a-half wide, and
the centre nails were long, and turned outwards. While we debated,
our suspicions were set at rest by a loud howl, not as prolonged as
a black Canadian wolf’s, but wolfish certainly, for there was no
mistaking the fierce misery of the note. He had caught sight of us,
and, as usual with his species, given a view halloo. Presently we saw
him, three hundred yards off—a gaunt, yellowish white beast—cantering
along at a swift slouching gait. When we stopped, he stopped. We lay
down, and one of us rolled off on the snow out of sight, and made
a long detour in hope of surprising him, but he seemed to know the
range of our rifles to a nicety, and at length we saw him canter off
southwards unharmed by the long shots we sent after him. As we walked
back, we could not but wonder what had induced wolves to come north
into a desert where for miles and miles there was not so much as a
stone above the snow. The mystery was soon explained. Tracks of four
hunted musk oxen were found a couple of miles off. No doubt the wolves
had driven them from some southern feeding-ground. They travelled so
rapidly that our hunting party despatched after them failed even to
catch sight of them.
The discovery that there was some game in the country was a very
cheering one. If it was not a land flowing with milk and honey, it
was at any rate not so bad as it might be, and we went back to our
sledging preparations with a hope that we should fall in with either
the wolves or the oxen during our travels.
The weather was now sufficiently settled to warrant the departure
of the main travelling parties. It was arranged that they should
consist of two separate divisions of eight-men sledges. Lieutenant
Aldrich, with the sledge “Challenger,” would explore the shore to the
north-west in search of land trending northward. He would be supported
by Lieutenant Giffard’s sledge, the “Poppie,” which would travel with
the “Challenger” to a distant point, re-provision her there, return
to Floeberg Beach, and then carry out depôts of food and fuel for the
“Challenger’s” homeward journey.
The northern division, under the command of Captain Markham, would
consist of his sledge, the “Marco Polo,” and Lieutenant Parr’s, the
“Victoria,” supported by the “Alexandra,” commanded by Mr. White,
and the writer’s own sledge, the “Bulldog.” In addition to these, a
four-man sledge led by Briant, a petty officer of H.M.S. “Discovery,”
would help us forward for three or four days. The routes of both
detachments lay together as far as Cape Joseph Henry. At that point
the northern parties would replenish their stores from the supporting
sledges and from the large depôt of pemmican placed there in the
autumn, then, leaving the land, endeavour to force a passage due
northward over the floes. Meantime, a depôt for their return would be
carried out by the “Bulldog,” and left at some suitable spot at Cape
Joseph Henry. Owing to the impossibility of depositing autumn or,
indeed, any other depôts, sledge-travelling _away from a coast_ has
never yet been carried to any distance. We looked upon this attempt
in the light of a more than doubtful experiment. It nevertheless
promised a higher northern latitude than the coast-line route. When
we compared notes amongst ourselves after we had started, one or two
thought that N. lat. 86° might be attainable, but the majority drew
the line at 85°.
[Illustration: CAMP OF SLEDGE PARTY.]
On the morning of 3rd April all hands mustered for the last time on
the floes beside the ship. The final preparations were complete,
and our seven heavily-laden sledges lay ranged in a line, with
their knotted drag-ropes stretched on the snow. When every point in
their dress and outfit had been carefully inspected, the men closed
together, and joined heartily in the short service read by the
chaplain. All felt the serious nature of the work they were about to
undertake, but nevertheless looked forward to it eagerly. Then the
order was given, and the sledge crews took their places—fifty-three
men and officers in all. A little group of twelve only remained by the
ship, every one of them regretting that it was not their duty to share
hard work and exposure with their messmates. With three cheers the men
took leave of their comrades and of the gallant little ship that had
so well sheltered them, and the whole detachment moved forwards. The
last to leave us was the Captain. He walked on a little while with
each sledge, giving us a few words of advice or encouragement before
he bade us God-speed.
[Illustration: PLATE XI.—WINTER QUARTERS, FROM AMONGST THE FLOEBERGS,
LOOKING SOUTH, MARCH, 1876.—p. 50.
Quarter of a mile north of the “Alert” a field of polar floe had
been pushed on shore, and split up into a number of floebergs, with
lanes and streets between them. This view of our winter quarters was
obtained from the top of one of the fragments. Beyond the ship Cape
Rawson may be seen forming the western portal of Robeson Channel,
while away across the strait the snowy hills of Greenland make the
eastern.]
For a mile or more the sledges crept slowly along in the same order as
they had started, dragging through the snow with much difficulty. The
whole depth of the runners buried in the soft snow made them pull, as
one of the men said, “like a plough with a cart-load on it.” The two
leading sledges pulled the heaviest, though the weight per man was
about equal in all. They carried specially-built boats, wonderfully
light in proportion to their size, weighing respectively 740 and 440
lbs., but difficult to manage, because they distributed the weight
over the whole length of the sledge. Every time a sledge stuck, it
took a united effort with a “One, two, three, haul!” to start it
forward again. Soon, in order to save the men, it became necessary to
double-bank the sledges—that is to say, two crews pulled one sledge
forward and then walked back for the other. Even the sledges without
boats pulled very heavily. We could not but confess that the
labour was harder than we had expected, but if others had gone through
it we could. Crews loaded with exactly the same stores as ours, and
pulling the same 240 lbs. a man, had accomplished all the longest
journeys on record. Every ounce of weight on each of the seven sledges
had been carefully thought over. Not so much as an unnecessary screw
was carried. The sledge-rifle, for example, had four inches cut off
its barrel and all the brass-work removed from its stock. Both men
and officers knew that no reduction was possible unless the number
of days’ travel was curtailed, or some other change made in the
well-tried arrangements of their successful predecessors. On one
point, however, our parties deviated from precedent. Tea instead of
rum for lunch was most decidedly an improvement.
We camped early on the first day’s march. The spot selected was a
little bay inside one of the curious hook-shaped promontories of the
coast. The process of camping is a simple one. When camping-time
comes, an officer goes on in advance and selects a flat piece of
snow—a spot where it is soft for about six inches down is best. Then
the sledge halts. Everything is unpacked. The cook of the day lights
up his stearine lamp under a panful of snow for tea. The tent, with
its poles already secured in it, is pitched, with its door away from
the wind, and secured by ropes to the sledge at one end, and to a
pickaxe driven into the snow or ice at the other; then a waterproof is
spread over the snow inside, and over it a robe of duffle, a material
like close blanket. The sleeping-bags and haversacks are next passed
in, and the men, beginning with the innermost—for there is not room
for all at once—change their snow-saturated moccasins and blanket
wrappers for night pairs carried in the haversack. Moccasin, worsted
stockings, and blanket wrappers all pull off together, frozen hard
into one snowy mass about the foot. Meantime others are “banking up”
snow all round the tent outside. Nothing adds more to the warmth of
the tent than thorough “banking up.” In about an hour from the time
of halting, every one, except the cook, is packed inside his bag.
All wear close-fitting Berlin wool helmets, enclosing head and neck,
and leaving only the face exposed; the men call them “Eugénies,” for
they were the thoughtful gift of the Empress. The cook soon gives
notice that tea is ready, and each man sits up in his bag and gets his
pannikinful, softening his biscuit in it as it cools to a drinkable
temperature. After tea comes half-a-pound of pemmican—a peppery
mixture when one’s lips are blistered with hot and cold pannikins,
and cracked with sun and frost. An ounce of preserved potato is
warmed up with it, and greatly improves its flavour. When the cook
has trimmed his lamp for the morning, and scraped out the pannikins,
his duties are over, and he changes his foot coverings, wriggles into
his bag, and squeezes himself down next the door. Finally, about half
a wine-glassful of rum with a little water is served out all round.
This, however injurious under other circumstances, helps to tide over
the chilly moments when one’s frozen clothes melt, and acts much as a
bellows does to a feeble fire. The heads soon disappear into the bags,
and everyone goes to sleep as fast as the cold and cramp in his feet
and legs will let him.
The hardships of sledging are made up of innumerable small worries.
For the first two or three days we were all plagued with cramp; we
could hardly bend up our knees to tie a moccasin or put on a foot
wrapper without being obliged to kick out suddenly, overbalancing
ourselves and our neighbours into a general mêlée, like a row at
Donnybrook Fair. When the men began to get warm in their bags, muffled
remarks about the cramp gradually gave place to smothered snores that
would last till morning, and then the performers would wake with a
firm conviction that they had never slept at all. On our first night
of spring sledging the temperature fell to minus 35°, and many lay
awake with the cold. Four nights afterwards it was nearly ten degrees
colder, but the tents were better banked up and the under robes and
coverlet better laced together; some of us, moreover, had discovered
that turning the mouth of the bag under and lying on it greatly
increased the warmth. The officer is the outside man at the end of the
tent away from the door. It is his duty to call the cook the first
thing in the morning. It is no easy thing to wake at the right hour
when the sun shines impartially all the twenty-four. The watch is
often consulted two or three times before five o’clock comes. Then the
cook turns out, lights his lamp, has a pipe, sets some snow melting,
and scrapes down cocoa for breakfast; afterwards he walks in over his
sleeping companions, and brushes down the snowy festoons of frozen
breath hanging from the tent.
[Illustration: THE DAY’S MARCH DONE.]
Cocoa and pemmican are disposed of soon after seven. The frozen
blanket wrappers and moccasins that have served for a pillow have to
be got on again, and about eight the sledge is again ready to start.
Packing is cold work, and everybody is anxious to be off and get up a
little warmth with exercise.
In our next day’s march we visited the snow-house built by Petersen
in the autumn, and found its roof level with the snow. A fox had
taken up his quarters in it, and made very free with the dog biscuit.
That night we camped near a conspicuous mass of ice on the shore of a
small island. The spot afterwards became a well-known landmark. Partly
by accident, and partly because the striking piles of ice made a
definite point to march for, the numerous shorter sledge parties often
halted there for lunch or camp. Upon one such occasion the drawing
reproduced in this book was obtained (Plate No. 12). The floeberg
itself was not a very large one, but it afforded an excellent example
of the structure of polar floe. We could not but wonder what enormous
force had pushed it upwards on the sloping beach till its flat upper
surface stood forty feet above the floes around it. The lower half was
made of what may be called conglomerate ice, the upper was stratified
with the usual white and blue layers—white where the ice was spongy
with air-cells, blue in the denser layers between. High overhead might
be seen a section, in olive-tinted ice, of what had once been a summer
pool, and on top of all, like sugar on a cake, lay last season’s snow,
slowly condensing into ice.
[Illustration: PLATE XII.—A FLOEBERG, SIMMON’S ISLAND, APRIL, 1876.—p.
59.
The great stratified masses of salt ice that lie grounded along the
shores of the Polar Sea are nothing more than fragments broken from
the edges of the perennial floes. We called them floebergs in order to
distinguish them from, and yet express their kinship to, icebergs—the
latter and their parent glaciers belong to more southern regions.
Partly because it was a conspicuous point to push on for before
halting for lunch, the floeberg on Simmon’s Island became a familiar
landmark in the many trips of the supporting sledges across Black
Cliff Bay; and the chill hour while tea was preparing was often spent
in speculating on the enormous force required to push the huge square
mass so high on shore.]
A day’s march beyond the island and its floebergs we came to a spot
where many traces of game had been seen in the autumn, but after a
long search, while the sledges halted to take in a depôt of pemmican,
we only found one hare track, and it led down over the crest of an
inaccessible cliff, so we returned to camp empty-handed. During the
night we reflected that it was a pity to lose nine pounds of fresh
meat without another effort; so in the morning, while the sledges were
packed, we walked along the floes to a point under where the tracks
had been lost, and by carefully searching the crest of the cliff with
a telescope the tracks were discovered and traced downwards, along
narrow ledges and abrupt slopes, to a sheltered nook, half way down
the cliff, that looked utterly inaccessible to anything but a bird.
There, in her sanctuary, poor pussy sat, in fancied security, till
the rifle brought her tumbling downwards to the floes just as the
last sledge reached the spot. This solitary hare was the only fresh
food procured by our northern sledge-crews. From henceforth they were
beyond the limits of game, and in this one condition our parties
differed widely from those whose precedent they were attempting to
follow. The longest journeys ever accomplished were made by Sir
Leopold M’Clintock and Lieutenant Meecham. The former obtained
forty-six head of game, including eight reindeer and seven musk oxen;
the latter no less than seventy-seven head, including nine deer and
four oxen.
Our party was now reduced to six sledges. The seventh returned, as
had been arranged, carrying with them a man who had been an invalid
since the day after leaving the ship. From this point the road lay due
northward over floes half-a-mile wide, with hedges of hummocks between
them. The surface looked smooth enough, but it was only a crust over
soft snow, and broke under one’s weight into slabs most uncomfortable
to travel over. Nothing can exceed the monotony of sledge-travelling.
Day after day the same routine is gone through; day after day the
same endless ice is the only thing in sight. A dark stone projecting
above the snow on a cape we were approaching was the only coloured
thing in sight for two whole marches, and it had a most disagreeable
fascination for our eyes. In order to compensate for this blankness
of scenery, every man had been advised to decorate the back of his
holland overall with such devices as seemed good to him. Accordingly
the back view of our sledge-crews was an extraordinary spectacle.
One man’s back bore a large black anchor with the motto “Hold fast,”
another displayed a complicated hieroglyphic savouring of Freemasonry.
Here was a locomotive engine careering over a beautifully green sod,
and on the next back a striking likeness of the Tichborne claimant
bespoke the bearer’s admiration for the “distressed nobleman.” Here,
again, was an artistic effort which had cost its author many a week
of painstaking execution, but neither he nor anyone else could tell
what it was. Union-jacks, twelve-ton guns, and highly mythical polar
bears, were of course common. These decorations were most useful in
identifying the various men—no easy matter when all were dressed
alike, and every face was swollen and blistered with sun and frost,
and blackened with stearine smoke.
On 7th April, some difference of temperature in the still air treated
us to a display of mirage. Almost all day long, as we marched
forwards, the conical mountains of Cape Joseph Henry raised themselves
up in pale shadow against the sky, and spread out into great flat
table-lands, spanning the valleys with bridges, and constantly
flickering into new shapes.
[Illustration: PLATE XIII.—ON THE NORTHERN MARCH, APRIL 8, 1876.—p. 60.
On the sixth day’s march of the united northern and western parties
from the ship, this sketch was outlined in pencil while the sledges
passed across a floe, little if at all under one hundred and fifty
feet in thickness. Like most heavy floes, its edges were piled with
rubble ice, cemented and smoothed off with snow-drift, showing
a perpendicular wall outside, but sloping inside to the general
undulating surface. The easiest road lay right across it, and with
the aid of picks a natural gap in its walls was soon converted into
a practicable path. The united crews of the “Bulldog” and “Marco
Polo” are hauling the latter sledge down through the gap, while the
“Challenger’s” and “Poppie’s” have just reached the spot with the
first of their sledges.]
On the seventh day’s march we crossed a floe so much raised above its
fellows that it got the name of “The Castle.” Its surface was about an
acre in extent, and, judging from its height over the water, it could
not be less than one hundred feet—perhaps one hundred and fifty—in
thickness. It was walled in all round by lines of _débris_, piled upon
its edges and cemented together with snow, perpendicular outside, but
sloping inwards, so that the inside looked like a vast saucer. The
easiest road for the sledges lay right across it. Several breaches
occurred in its walls, and with the aid of picks they were soon made
practicable. A sketch made as the boats passed across represents a
scene familiar to many of our sledge parties, for “Castle Floe” was
subsequently crossed on no less than thirteen separate occasions
(Plate No. 13).
[Illustration: CREVASSE NEAR CAPE JOSEPH HENRY.]
Sunlight amongst the ice is often very beautiful, but at the same time
very inconvenient. It had already peeled our faces, now it attacked
our eyes. Every crystal of snow reflected a miniature sun, and the
path of the rays seemed literally sown with gems, topaz and sapphire
generally, but here and there a ruby. Similar colours, but with a
curious metallic lustre like oil on water, tinted the fleecy clouds
overhead, and the sun itself was almost always surrounded by circles
similar to those seen round the moon in winter, but exquisitely
rich and brilliant in rainbow-hued colour. No painter could hope to
produce the faintest resemblance to such effects. The light was in
fact altogether too bright for mortals, and we could only face it
with goggles on. The gem-like gleams especially produced a quick pain
in the back of the eye that considerably lessened their æsthetic
effect. The officers, who have to travel well in advance and climb
hummocks to find a road for the sledges, cannot wear goggles
continuously; vapour from the eye freezes on the inside of the glass,
and it requires the keenest sight to detect differences of level and
distance in the white blank of the prospect. On our eighth day’s
journey a faint mist took away all shadow from the ice, and though a
man might be seen several hundred yards off, it was quite impossible
to tell whether the next step was up or down, into a hole, or against
a hummock. That day, pioneering was done rather by touch than sight.
When the fog lifted, we found ourselves close to Cape Joseph Henry,
and next forenoon the depôt left there in the autumn was transferred
to the advancing sledges.
Half-a-mile northward from the depôt, a bank of snow, evidently the
accumulation of ages, sloped down from a small hill to the sea. In
one place a great slice of the bank had broken bodily from the mass
above, leaving a deep crevasse. This was bridged over and completely
concealed, except in two places, where the roof had fallen in and
exposed its perpendicular walls of green ice streaked with layers
of earth and sand. The bank was in fact a miniature “discharging
glacier,” the only one yet met with on this coast. A few yards below
the openings, the bridge was strong enough to bear the heavily-laden
sledges of the western parties. Their course lay through the valley
to the left, for though the snow on shore was in many places soft
and deep, a short cut across the isthmus promised better travelling
than the crush of floes round the cape. The prospects of the northern
party were less encouraging. Looking northward from the hill over the
crevasse, an icy chaos spread to the horizon. Mirage every now and
then raised lines and flakes of distant pack into view, but all as
rough and rugged as the ice-floes at our feet.
The detachments separated on 11th April. We of the supporting sledges
bade both good-bye with three cheers, and watched them slowly wind
out of sight amongst the hummocks, the one to the westward, the other
poleward; and as we retraced our steps on the return journey, their
“One, two, three, haul!” came faintly to us across the ice.
[Illustration: MIRAGE, 7TH APRIL, 1875.++]