WE TAKE THE AIR
Early on the morning of August 1st, we broke through the last of the
pack of Cape York and laid our course around the shore ice as yet
unbroken from the Cape. In a short time we had rounded it and were
finally out of Melville Bay, a departure which caused no sorrow on
the part of any of us. The body of water which we had now entered was
known as Smith Sound, a name given it by William Baffin in honor of one
of his supporters. It stretches from Cape York to beyond Etah where
it opens out into Kane Basin. Usually the Sound is free from pack ice
except on the western side where a heavy stream of it flows to the
southward.
For several hours we sailed without seeing a sign of any living thing
save a few birds. Suddenly two kayaks darted out from the shore. With a
few deft strokes of the paddle their occupants brought them alongside,
and we heard the musical hail “Ochshinai!” followed by a demand for
“bacca.” In response to their hail Robbie tossed them two plugs
which they aptly caught, waved their arms with delight and yelled,
“Quoin-amik!” (Thank you!). As we sailed away, we could see them
lovingly caressing their prizes.
The wind freshened as we bent our course to the north and we were soon
bowling along with a bone in our teeth. The coast flashed by. Soon Cape
Alexander, “the Cape Horn of the North,” which lies half-way between
the Pole and the Arctic Circle, hove in sight. As we rounded this
wicked old promontory, the customary vicious squall snapped at us. We
were soon past the cape, however, and once again entered smooth waters.
Here we could see the walrus breaking water all about us, and every now
and then a savage, white-tusked face would leer at us as we scudded
along. Now and then almost beneath our bows an entire herd would blow
and disappear in a mass of white water. At nine o’clock that night, we
worked our way into Foulke Fiord, and there dead ahead lay the haven of
our hopes, the goal of our endeavors--Etah!
[Illustration: Commander MacMillan: with an eskimo child; in flying
costume; in the ice barrel.]
[Illustration: Brother John’s glacier and Alida Lake, Etah, North
Greenland.]
There in the bright light of the Arctic night glistened the tranquil
waters of the fiord, and the crumbling cliffs reflected a ruddy
welcome. Far away up the fiord sparkled a great glacier, an arm of
the huge inland Mer de Glace. Close at hand bubbled and splashed a tiny
stream which tumbled down among the rugged boulders from the melting
snow above and trickled across the coastal intervale which was rich
with lush grass. We stood there staring and straining our eyes for some
sign of the expected village. All we saw on the slope above the fringe
of grass was the hillside in which there were two holes in the ground,
the remains of igloos of a former age, only these and nothing more!
In a few moments we had rounded Provision Point, so named from its use
as a supply depot on the Commander’s previous expeditions. Thinking
this location favorable for an anchorage, he immediately ordered the
anchor dropped. A quick heave with the anchor chain announced the
successful completion of the outward voyage. We of the ship personnel
had consummated our mission; now it was for the aviators to accomplish
theirs.
The clatter of the anchor chain acquainted Melkon with the fact that we
had arrived.
“What kind of postage stamps do they use here?” he called up the
companionway.
Receiving no enlightenment on this subject, he started up on deck.
Poking his head above the hatch he inquired with a puzzled expression
on his face:
“Why, where is the post office?”
The Commander extended his arm shorewards with a dramatic gesture and
said simply and significantly:
“Look!”
Melkon took one long look at those two holes in the ground and scanned
that stern and rock-bound coast. Then it dawned upon him that we were
now in the real Arctic, far beyond the last pale of civilization and
its appurtenances. With a subdued air he replied:
“Ah, now I understand.”
We had rather expected to find a considerable encampment of Eskimos
and were somewhat disappointed to see that the country was apparently
depopulated. But in a short time from the upper end of the fiord by the
glacier we saw two kayaks approaching. Soon the Commander recognized
their occupants as Noo-ka-ping-wa and In-you-gee-to, both old friends
and companions of the Commander’s on former sleighing expeditions.
They were delighted to see the Commander, and informed us that they
represented the entire male population of the town with the exception
of old Ak-kom-mo-ding-wa, who was coming as rapidly as his advanced
years would allow. He soon appeared in a dilapidated canvas canoe,
a gift of some explorer. He had abandoned the kayak in favor of the
canoe, as the smaller craft’s cramped quarters no longer felt as
comfortable as of yore. He was a comical old loafer, and his behavior
caused us much amusement. His lazy habits and good-natured disposition
soon gained for him the sobriquet of, “The Beloved Vagabond.”
Next morning at five o’clock sharp, we were roused out for an early
start at constructing a landing place for the planes. After a hasty
breakfast we piled into the boats and rowed over to the beach which
had been chosen for the assembling of the planes. It was strewn with
boulders and small rocks, and the only way of ridding the beach of them
was to pry them out and roll them away. At this task everybody was soon
engaged from the Commander down. All morning we labored, and by noon
the sand was well cleared of them.
Our next task was to construct the runway for hauling the planes up to
the beach, since the wheels would otherwise sink in the soft sand. For
this purpose we requisitioned the sides of the cases in which the wings
had been packed. To get them ashore was somewhat of a problem, and we
tried several methods before we hit upon the ultimate one of lashing
two boats together, thus forming a raft of sufficient stability upon
which to load them.
After landing the planes, crosspieces were nailed under them, and these
were weighed down with heavy rocks to keep the whole apparatus from
floating away with the tide. When the runway was completed, the Navy
men began bringing in the wings. In a short time the first fuselage was
slung over the side of the _Peary_, into the water, and then brought
ashore lashed between two boats in order that it might not tip over.
When the plane had grounded on the runway, all hands tailed on her
tackle and walked her up the beach. Then the wings were set up, and the
aviators secured them to the fuselage while we supported them on our
backs. Having been assembled, the plane was then rolled back into the
water and taken off to its anchorage.
[Illustration: The _Peary_.]
[Illustration: Expedition plane at the stern of the _Bowdoin_.]
In three days all of the planes were assembled and ready to go. It
indeed gave us a thrill to see them soaring up from the waters of
Etah Fiord and flying over a land and sea which never before had seen
the shadow of a bird larger than a glaucous gull. The Eskimos also
looked on with wide-eyed wonder, and many were the “Ahs” and “Naveos”
as the great birds left the water amidst clouds of spray and went
skimming over berg and glacier.
[Illustration: Launching first plane at Etah.]
We had got away to a propitious start for our flying, and the prospects
for success in the fullest measure seemed bright. Our hopes rose all
too soon, however, for at this point old Torngak, the evil spirit of
the North, angered at this invasion of his realm, took a hand in the
proceedings. With driving snow and squalls he came sweeping down on us
before we had been in Etah three days. Then his tactics changed, and
he blanketed us in fog. For but three days of the entire summer did
he sulk in his tent; during the remainder of the time he was either
hovering in the offing or engaged in active offense through driving
storms or insidious fog. But in spite of these handicaps, on every
occasion at all suitable for flying the Commander and the aviators were
away in their endeavor to penetrate the unknown area. To do this it was
necessary to lay down a base between Etah and the Polar Sea. The planes
were of the type known as amphibian, equipped to land either in the
water or on the land. Equipped with skids they might possibly utilize
the ice. An examination of the drift ice of Smith Sound precluded all
possibility of its being used as an aviation field, covered as it was
with pools of water, cracks, and pressure ridges. The ice covered the
mountains of Ellesmere Land, threatening disaster to any plane which
had to make a forced landing.
It was therefore necessary to rely on the water of the fiords, which
should afford a safe, ice-free landing place. Time after time the
aviators searched for open water, but fate was against them, and at
nearly every visit the waters were choked with cakes of ice large
enough to puncture a plane. Several times they found an apparently
ice-free spot, but in a few hours the ice would return, rendering
it impossible to again utilize that point for a base. The Commander
had confidently believed from his sledging experience, and from the
testimony of the Eskimos, that these fiords would be free of ice. The
unforeseen presence of the ice can probably be explained, however,
by the unprecedentedly short and cold summer we were experiencing.
Not even in the memory of the oldest Eskimo had such unfortunate
meteorological conditions prevailed.
In addition to the remarkable summer, or rather lack of summer,
with which we were embarrassed, the usual run of engine trouble and
other mishaps fell to our lot. One morning I was sitting down in
the forecastle when the alarming news became known that a plane was
sinking. Robbie and John Jaynes immediately took energetic measures
to save the plane, and all hands came tumbling on deck. At the moment
I arrived, the plane had sunk until the water was level with the
propeller shaft of the inverted motor. She lay poised for a final
plunge to the depths, and John and Robbie were desperately striving
to get a line on the shaft. Rocheville, a Navy mechanic, lay aft on
the tail gallantly trying to counter-balance the weight of the water
forward and bring the plane on a level keel. The line was soon made
fast, and just in time, as in another second she would have taken the
last plunge. All hands then tailed on the line, and gradually the plane
emerged. In a short time the deck was above water, and the aircraft
was in a position to be bailed out. It was a fortunate rescue, but the
plane never flew again in spite of our efforts.
The days not occupied in overhauling the planes or not rendered
worthless by storms were devoted to flights over Ellesmere Land in
search of a base. The presence of drifting ice, however, had dealt
our planes a deathblow. By the 20th of August the Commander realized
that the planes could not add to the results he had obtained with dog
sledges in 1914. At best they might put him at the edge of the Polar
Sea, but they would never carry him out over the unexplored district on
which he had previously traveled off shore one hundred and fifty miles.
In the realm of science, however, the expedition produced notable
results. Lieutenant Benjamin Rigg of the Coast and Geodetic Survey
obtained valuable sets of magnetic and tidal observations at nearly
every point at which we tarried. The first automatic tidal recorder
to be used in the far north was also put in operation by him. Dr.
Koelz, the expedition’s naturalist, also did some very valuable work.
His collection of fish and bird specimens was large and contained
many rare species. The National Geographic photographers obtained
excellent photographs of Arctic scenes and people. For the first time
far northern scenes were recorded by the new natural color process of
photography. All-together the scientific results more than justified
the expedition and made up for the unfortunate termination of the
flying.
On this strip of coast upon which Etah is located dwells a group of
people--the northernmost race in the world. These people are known
to the white race as Eskimos, which means “meat eaters,” but among
themselves the appellation Innuit, “the people,” is applied.
They are a very strange group and little is known about them. It is
thought that they are of Mongolian origin. Whence they came and by what
path, however, has always remained a mystery and is apparently little
closer to solution now than formerly. At the present time they are
distributed along the Arctic coasts of America, Greenland and Eastern
Asia.
The particular branch of the race which lives on the North Greenland
shore was unknown until 1818, when Sir John Ross worked his little
vessel through the ice of Melville Bay to Cape York. As he lay off
the Cape he observed several black dots moving towards him over
the ice. These soon resolved into Eskimos, and dog sleds. On their
nearer approach he entered into a conversation with them through an
interpreter from South Greenland. He then told them he came from far
to the south. Upon the receipt of this information they assumed an
incredulous air and informed him that surely no one could live in the
south as all their ice drifted off in that direction and by this time
that region must be absolutely choked with it.
For many years these “Arctic Highlanders,” to use the rather poetical
name Ross gave them, remained unvisited. In 1850-51, however, Saunders
wintered among them in the ship _North Star_. He was the first man ever
really to live with them. To-day on the bay named after his ship, Knud
Rasmussen, the explorer, maintains a trading station.
Two years after the departure of Saunders, the little brig _Advance_
with Elisha Kent Kane, “America’s first Arctic explorer,” in command,
rounded Cape York, and gallantly beat up Smith Sound to Renssaeler
Harbor. While Kane was there the Eskimos sledged up to see him. With a
gun on his shoulder he went forth to meet them, with so great suspicion
did he regard them. But they appeared peaceable and he had no occasion
to employ the firearm. Kane brought back the first reliable reports on
the Eskimos. However, he did not make much use of their knowledge and
skill, nor of their dog teams, in his explorations. Seven years after
Kane, in 1860, Dr. Isaac Israel Hayes, one of Kane’s men, revisited
Etah and entered into extensive relations with the natives. For the
first time did the Eskimos aid in the work of exploration in which they
were later to take so conspicuous a part with Peary and MacMillan. But
Hayes never fully trusted them, and for awhile he considered himself
and his men the objects of a conspiracy on the part of the Eskimos to
murder them all.
After Hayes, with the exception of a winter which the crew of the
_Polaris_ spent just north of Etah, the Eskimos remained unvisited
until the arrival of Peary. Peary quickly realized the great value of
the Eskimo and his sturdy team of dogs. He gained their confidence
and esteem. Without experiencing any of the evils which the earlier
expeditions had expected from the Eskimos, he worked with them for
eighteen years. It was largely due to the skill and energy of the
Eskimos and the power in their sturdy dogs that Peary eventually
conquered the Pole. In 1876 Markham, of the English North Pole
Expedition, reported to his government that he considered it impossible
to attain the Pole. He relied on the unaided labors of his men to pull
the sledges, a terrific task which well demonstrated the bravery and
stamina of the British. In a little over a month, Markham and his men
traveled seventy-three miles from the ship, advancing their sledges by
man power alone, and nearly dying with exhaustion. Peary in three days
by the aid of Eskimos and dog sledges exceeded this distance with ease.
This clearly shows the superiority of the Eskimo method of travel.
Peary never had cause to regret his employment of the Eskimo, and they
did not play him false in spite of the beliefs of the older explorers.
Four years after the Pole had been conquered, the American flag again
entered Smith Sound. This time it snapped in the breeze over the head
of one who would bring it new renown. Upon the scene had appeared the
fit successor of the great Peary--MacMillan. With the aid of Eskimos
and dog teams in the spring of 1914 he turned his steps westward
over Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg Land. One hundred and fifty miles he
penetrated the Polar Sea towards the land which Peary had seen. But
he found this land had been nothing but a mirage, and regretfully he
and his Eskimos turned their steps homeward. For four years he lived
among them, and studied their way of living, and his researches greatly
extended our knowledge concerning them. Thus at last the Eskimo came
into his own as the helpmate and companion of the white man on his
trips in the Arctic regions.
On the 1925 MacMillan expedition I had the opportunity of observing
them and their interesting customs. At the time of year in which I
was among them they were living in sealskin tents or tupiks. The rock
igloos had been abandoned for their summer airing. The Eskimos removed
the dome of their arched rock igloos on the arrival of warm weather.
This airing of the igloos is about the only sanitary act the natives
perform. They rarely if ever wash themselves or their clothes.
Their methods of food preservation also are rather distasteful to a
civilized person. After walrus or other meat has been secured, it is
cut up and then stacked in a pile. Then over all is placed a large
number of rocks. In this way it is stored until there is need of it. In
a few days these caches can be located by the smell alone.
But at all things requiring a good eye, a cool head and a steady hand,
they excel. A good example of this is the way in which they make their
rope. It is made by taking the skin of a seal which has been so skinned
that the hide comes off in concentric bands. Then one of the natives
pulls the band along while another holds a knife. Even a small tremble
in the hand of the one holding the knife would cut through the thin
line, ruining it, but so accurate is their handiwork that the lines
vary in width hardly at all and the rope seems so uniform that one
would think it had been made in a machine. They also skin small seals
in such a way that the skin pulls off absolutely whole with but one
perforation. This skin is so carefully removed from the flesh that it
will hold air without leaking!
They display the greatest ingenuity in the manufacture of all their
instruments and utensils. The point in their harpoons, and the way
they employ the sealskin bag to float the walrus which sinks when it
is killed, all show the innate skill and ingenuity in the race. They
are never at a loss and never “stumped.” Once someone was repairing
a sledge, and he could not find a drill. An Eskimo stepped forward
and coolly shot a hole through the runner. They are like that in
everything, always alert, always on the job.
[Illustration: Eskimo kiddie with his mother’s coat on.]
[Illustration: Even Eskimo boys of Ig-loo-da-houny have a sweet tooth.]
Their philosophy of life is also interesting. The hard struggle they
wage against the inhospitable environment in which they live has
not made them an ill-tempered, sullen race. On the contrary, they
are always laughing and smiling. A good joke is much enjoyed. On one
occasion several of our photographers wanted pictures of live ducks
on the nest. The Eskimos learning of this wish took a dead duck and
propped it up on a nest with walrus whiskers so that it looked quite
lifelike. Then they motioned to the photographers who cautiously crept
forward, making every effort to keep from making a noise. The Eskimos
meanwhile nearly died laughing. They are little inclined to worry. Old
Panikpa admirably summarized their outlook on life when asked if he was
not worried on a very dangerous strip of ice. “No,” he replied, “I let
Peary do all the worrying.”
[Illustration: In-you-gee-to makes a coil of rawhide line out of skin
of which he is justly proud.]
[Illustration: The only Eskimo family in Etah.]
One may think them unintelligent and mentally deficient, but they
have keen intellects and they use some very clever devices, in one
instance utilizing advanced engineering principles. In the building of
their circular rock igloos they employ the cantilever principle--an
engineering method used in some of our greatest bridges. One would
not expect an Eskimo to know a principle which our greatest engineers
employ.
Altogether these children of the ice are a group of people from whom
we may learn much. Though they are one of the world’s most primitive
peoples, they are in some respects the peers of those who are generally
considered to be the most highly civilized.