MY FARTHEST NORTH
While we were in Etah, Dr. Koelz, the expedition’s naturalist, decided
that he would like to travel a few miles up the Greenland shore to
collect specimens. As he needed someone to help him row the dory and
run the outboard motor which he intended to use, I volunteered to go
with him. This arrangement being approved by the Commander, we cast off
from the ship at about ten o’clock on the night of August 15th. With
us journeyed two Eskimos, Panikpa and Kanga, who wished to reach the
Eskimo settlement of Anoritok which is just beyond Refuge Harbor, the
Commander’s headquarters in 1923-24.
We made our way down Etah Fiord in the calm of the Arctic night, with
scarcely a breath of wind ruffling the surface of the water. Soon we
were off Sunrise Point where Hayes and his men used to walk from their
ship to observe the sunrise after the long, five-month, winter night.
We now emerged from the shelter of the cliffs. As we did so we were
hit by a savage squall. It was too late to retreat into the fiord as
turning about was a maneuver fraught with danger. All we could do was
to plug ahead off the lee shore under the shelter of an iceberg and
then square away for the north. This I did and in a few moments we
were clear of the berg and then away we went before wind and sea. A
very steep, choppy sea, probably fourteen or fifteen feet high, was
running in from the southward. Under ordinary conditions a sea of that
height would not be cause for any great concern, but these waves had
nearly vertical faces and the crests were breaking continually. The
only thing to do was to keep the dory running off before the sea as she
would be capsized or swamped if she turned broadside on for even the
briefest interval. I held the tiller stick in both hands and kept our
little vessel’s head pointing straight to leeward in spite of incessant
attempts on the part of the waves to “broach her to.”
The Eskimos were quite frightened when they saw those big seas. Old
Panikpa kept waving for us to go closer to the shore. But even one
glance at that unbroken line of jagged rocks and leaping surf convinced
both Koelz and myself that it would be suicidal to attempt a landing
on that stretch of shore-line.
All went well for about ten minutes. Then as I glanced aft over my
shoulder I saw a tremendous comber seemingly hang directly over my
head. I thought to myself that if we ever came out of that one with
the boat still floating we would be lucky. The water mounted higher
and higher on the stern as the dory’s tail cocked skyward until it was
just level with the top of the coaming. Then with a swish the crest of
the wave came crashing down over the counter. The engine was drenched
and immediately stopped. I was soaked through and through and there
were several inches of water in the boat. We started to swing broadside
on, in the trough of the sea. One more wave would have finished us
for good, and with a dead engine this was all too probable, in fact
inevitable if the boat should swing enough to present her side to the
sea. I yelled to Koelz to grab the oars and keep her off side before it
until I got the engine going. Koelz with great presence of mind fitted
the thole pins and soon had the oars shipped. In a few seconds we were
again slowly moving along on our course, owing to skillful handling by
the Doctor. In a few moments the engine was in running order and we
were bowling along as merrily as before.
In a short time we were in calm water in the channel between Littleton
Island and the mainland. It was named by Inglefield, the first man to
penetrate upper Smith Sound. In the channel between the island and the
mainland lies the wreck of the old _Polaris_ which broke the world’s
record for farthest north, in 1871. On this island, Sir Allen Young,
in the _Pandora_, left mail for the British North Polar Expedition. On
the first Greely Relief Expedition of 1882, Beebe deposited a cache
of provisions there. It has always received prominent mention in all
Arctic journals dealing with this region, and Dr. Koelz and I were
interested in seeing it at close quarters.
The wind was still blowing with great force, so hard in fact that I
shut down the motor and rigged a sail with a tarpaulin and an oar,
which made the boat go even faster than it did with the motor. In a few
moments we were through the channel and bound up the coast for Cape
Hatherton. For several hours we continued under sail until at last we
were pretty close to the Cape. We then cut in for the shore and made
our way through loose ice to the beach. We landed at five o’clock in
the morning after a rather exciting voyage, to say the least.
Sleep now appeared about the most desirable sensation possible for
human beings to experience and rolling our blankets on the hard
ground we went to it. We slept for what seemed years, but we awakened
eventually. Now the question was whether it was morning, afternoon or
night. The never-setting midnight sun gave but little clew to the time,
and our watches had stopped! The time went on and soon we did not know
what day it was. This was an awful fix, as we would not know when the
days we had planned to remain in this vicinity had elapsed. But we did
not let the time question bother us, and we started to accomplish the
tasks we had set ourselves.
Our primary object was to collect as many bird and fish specimens as
possible, which we set about to do immediately. But another wish which
we entertained, though it was subordinate to the first, was to make
as high a latitude on the Greenland coast as our meager equipment
and time, spared from our real objective, would warrant. With this
goal in mind we set forth on what we considered to be our second day
out from the ship. The gas which we had saved by sailing rendered a
considerable trip under engine power practicable. Thus we set forth
from our camp with all the gasolene we had, beyond a surplus to enable
us to buck a storm if we had to on the way back to the ship from the
camp. In an hour or so we were around Cape Hatherton and bound on up
the coast. There was not much pack ice in sight except far to the
westward, and the iceblink gave promise of more to the northward. A
breeze from that direction also hindered our advance, but by noon
we were off the mouth of Refuge Harbor. Here we were on the edge of
Kane Sea, and we could see the glittering Polar pack slowly drifting
southward. We crossed the entrance to the harbor in a few moments, and
I hove away to round Cairn Point. At this juncture Koelz espied several
large floes moving in towards the entrance of the harbor. Beyond them
there were wide levels of half a mile or so between the scattered pans
of the pack.
I was hoping that my companion might express a wish to go on to
the most northern Eskimo village in the world--Anoritok, some five
miles beyond Refuge Harbor, where some of the Smith Sound natives
happened to be living. Possibly we might have done this had it not
been for running ice off Cairn Point which Koelz considered a bit
dangerous. Reluctantly we gave up the idea and headed back for Refuge
Harbor. There the ice had not broken out as it usually does, and if
the _Bowdoin_ had been there she might have had great difficulty in
reaching the open water beyond.
After a leisurely lunch we started back to our camp and arrived there
some time in the evening, probably as the sun was bearing pretty well
north. The next two days we spent in collecting specimens, and then
Koo-e-tig-e-to arrived with a letter from the Commander requesting
us to return to the ship, as he would have to start south in a short
while and wanted us there in plenty of time. So once again our little
boat put to sea; this time bound south--away from the glorious land of
the midnight sun and the glittering ice fields. Our stay in the Arctic
fairyland had been all too short. I realized with sorrow that in a few
days we would be bound for civilization and the pleasant days in Etah
and north of there would be but a memory.
On the way to Etah we stopped at Polaris beach where the crew of the
_Polaris_ wintered after the wreck of their ship. There we found some
old pieces of iron belonging to that ship. We also stopped for a few
moments on Littleton Island. But in a short time we had left the island
and Cape Ohlsen astern. Cape Ohlsen recalls the name of one of Kane’s
men who died close by. We were thankful that the bones of none of our
men lay bleaching on this inhospitable coast. Thus we started onward
filled with memories, until with a start I found we were off Sunrise
Point. In a few moments we were in Etah and aboard the ship after a
most enjoyable trip up the coast. We learned that it was August the
20th, thus we had been away five days.