The Kuro-Si-Wo Current, the “black tide” of Japan, somewhat akin to
our Gulf Stream, rises in the equatorial oceans south of Asia, flows
eastward, is partly deflected northward by the Philippines, and then
impelled by the southwest monsoons flows at a speed reaching three
knots past Japan in a northeasterly direction, a deep blue stream
some twelve degrees warmer than the surrounding Pacific Ocean. It was
a commonly accepted belief that eastward of Kamchatka, it separated
into two branches, one flowing southward along the west coast of North
America to temper the coasts of Alaska and British Columbia, while
the second branch continued northward through Behring Strait into the
Arctic Ocean.
As is well known, for several centuries most of the attempts to reach
the North Pole had gone by way of Baffin Bay and Greenland, where
without exception they were all blocked by ice. Ours was the first
expedition to make the attempt by way of Behring Sea, De Long being
willing to test the theory that the warm waters of the Kuro-Si-Wo,
flowing northward through the Arctic Ocean, might give a relatively
ice-free channel to a high northern latitude, perhaps even to the Pole
itself; while if it did not, the shores of Wrangel Land (of which
next to nothing was yet known), stretching northward and perhaps even
crossing the Pole to reappear in the Atlantic as Greenland as many
supposed, would offer a base in which to winter the ship while sledge
parties could work north along its coasts toward the Pole.
On these two hypotheses rested mainly our choice of route. With the
_Jeannette_ in the Behring Sea at last, it remained only to pick up our
sledging outfit and put our theories to the test. So for St. Michael’s
on the mainland of Alaska we headed, where six hundred miles to the
northward of Unalaska on the fringe of the Arctic Circle our dogs
awaited us and our rendezvous with the _Fanny A. Hyde_ was to take
place.
The passage took us six days, and many were the discussions round our
wardroom mess table while we steamed on through Behring Sea approaching
the real north, as to the correctness of these theories. Especially
heated were the arguments with respect to the extent of Wrangel Land
whose very existence some polar authorities doubted altogether, since
the late Russian Admiral Wrangel (for whom it was named) in spite of
a most diligent search, egged on by native reports, never himself was
able to find it. As for Kellett and the whaler Long, who afterwards and
some years apart claimed to have seen it and even to have coasted its
southern shores, they were not everywhere believed.
Aside from these uncertainties, speculation waxed hot over a secondary
object of our voyage, to us an unfortunate but unavoidable complication
to our task, a search for Professor Nordenskjöld, a Swedish explorer.
Attempting that sixteenth century dream, never yet realized, of the
Northeast Passage from Europe to the Orient via the Siberian Ocean, he
had sailed northward the year before us in the _Vega_ from Stockholm to
circumnavigate Asia. Nordenskjöld, so it was reported, had successfully
reached by the winter time of 1878 Cape Serdze Kamen on the coast of
Siberia only a little north of Behring Strait, where almost in sight of
his goal, he was frozen in. Since then, except for an unverified rumor
from the natives of that occurrence, nothing further had been heard of
him or of his ship and naturally both in Sweden and in Russia there was
considerable anxiety over his fate.
As a consequence, before sailing from San Francisco, we had been
ordered by the Secretary of the Navy to search off Cape Serdze Kamen
for Nordenskjöld, to assist him if necessary, and only after assurance
of his safety, to proceed northward on our own voyage. But we were
hopeful that because of the very open summer reported at Unalaska by
whalers coming in from the north, Nordenskjöld had been enabled to
resume his voyage southward and that we should on our arrival at St.
Michael’s obtain some definite news of his safe passage through Behring
Strait, thereby obviating the necessity of our dissipating what few
weeks were left of summer weather in searching the Siberian coasts for
him instead of striking directly for the Pole with the _Jeannette_
while the weather held.
So one by one, the days rolled by till on August 12 we finally dropped
our mudhook in St. Michael’s. After securing my engines, I came on deck
to find De Long turning from the unprepossessing collection of native
huts and the solitary warehouse which made up the Alaska Company’s
settlement there, to survey gloomily the empty harbor. Here he had
confidently expected to find the _Fanny A. Hyde_ waiting with our coal,
but no schooner was anywhere visible.
Instead of the schooner, the only boat in sight was a native kyack from
which as soon as the anchor dropped, clambered aboard for his mail Mr.
Newman, the local agent, who had about given up hope of seeing us this
year.
That our schooner had not arrived was evident enough without
discussion. But when De Long learned from Newman that they had no
tidings whatever of Nordenskjöld, that they had had so far this season
no communication with Siberia, and that at St. Michael’s they knew
even less of Nordenskjöld and his whereabouts than we when we left San
Francisco, it was obvious from the droop of the skipper’s mustaches
that his depression was complete. No schooner, no coal, and now the
prospect of having to search Siberia for Nordenskjöld instead of going
north!
De Long, as I joined him at the rail to greet Mr. Newman, was polishing
his eyeglasses on the edge of his jacket. Meticulously replacing them
on his nose as I came up, he sourly scanned the settlement ashore.
“A miserable place, Melville! Look at those dirty huts. Only four white
men and not a single white woman here, so the agent says.” He turned
to the Fur Company agent, added prophetically, “Yet do you know, Mr.
Newman, desolate as that collection of huts there is, we may yet look
back on it as a kind of earthly paradise?”
Already immersed in his long delayed mail from home, Newman nodded
absent-mindedly. Apparently he was under no illusions about life in the
far north.
The captain shrugged his shoulders, philosophically accepted the
situation, and after some difficulty in dragging Newman’s attention
away from his letters from home, we got down to business with the
agent, which of course was coal. It developed immediately that St.
Michael’s had only ten tons of coal, which were badly needed there for
the winter. This was hardly a surprise as we had every reason to expect
some such condition, but it settled any vague hopes we had that we
might coal and proceed before our schooner came. We resigned ourselves
to waiting for the _Fanny A. Hyde_.
Next came the matter of our clothing. On that at least was some
compensation for our delay. Through Mr. Newman, arrangements were made
to send ashore all the furs we had acquired at Unalaska and have the
natives (who were experts at it) make them up for us into parkas and
other suitable Arctic garments, instead of having each sailor of our
crew (who at best had only some rough skill with palm and needle on
heavy canvas) attempt with his clumsy fingers to make his own.
With that arranged, the while we waited for our schooner, we settled
down to making the best of St. Michael’s, all of us, that is, except
De Long, who chafing visibly at the delay, thought up one scheme after
another of expediting matters. But each one involved ultimately burning
even more coal than waiting there, so finally the baffled skipper
retired to his cabin to await as best he could our coal-laden tender.
But even for the seamen, making the best of St. Michael’s soon
palled and they gave up going ashore. A liberty meant nothing more
than wandering round in the mud and the grass, for the village had
nothing more to offer a sailor. Even liquor, the final lure of such
God-forsaken ports when all else fails, was here wholly absent, its
sale being illegal in Alaska Territory. The illegality our seamen knew
about, but the absence they refused to believe till a careful search
convinced them that the negligible communication of this spot with
civilization made it the one place in the wide world where the laws
prohibiting liquor were of necessity observed.
So every other distraction failing, we were thrown back on fishing,
the sailor’s last resource. Out of curiosity, we set a seine alongside
the _Jeannette_. The amount of salmon and flounders we caught opened
my eyes—we easily hauled in enough each cast to keep the whole crew in
fresh fish every meal, till our men were so sick of the sight of fish
that the little salt pork or canned meat served out occasionally from
our stores was a welcome change. I see now why these waters are the
world’s best sealing grounds—they are literally alive with food for the
seals, which by the millions swarm over the islands in these shallow
seas. The steamer _St. Paul_ which we had fallen in with at Unalaska on
her way back to America, had her hold packed solid with sealskins, one
hundred thousand of them in that vessel alone, a treasure ship indeed!
While the sailors fished, we in the wardroom cast about in various
ways for diversion. Newcomb (whom privately the captain was already
beginning to regret having brought along, for not only did Newcomb
seem never to have grown up but it was now too late to hope that he
ever would) went into business for himself. Reverting to the habits of
his forbears in far-off Salem, he went ashore with a five dollar bill,
purchased from the Alaska Company’s store a variety of needles, thread,
and similar notions, carted them a mile or two up the coast well out of
sight of St. Michael’s, set up a “Trading Post,” and proceeded to sell
his wares to the innocent Indians at just twice what the company store
was asking for them.
For this piece of sharp practice at the expense of the natives who were
helpfully engaged in making up our fur clothing, gleefully related to
the wardroom mess on his return aboard, Newcomb earned the immediate
contempt of his fellow New Englander, Dunbar, who burst out,
“You damned Yankee pedlar!” And from that day on, our ice-pilot who
himself hailed from the land of the wooden nutmegs and was therefore
perhaps touchy of making New England’s reputation any worse, refused
again to speak to Newcomb, though some of the rest of us, including
myself, felt with Newcomb that there was at least some humor in the
situation.
Tiring of fish and of St. Michael’s, I organized a duck-hunting party
with Dr. Ambler, Dunbar and Collins for my companions. For a while, I
hesitated over including Collins, for by now I had discovered he also
had a serious flaw in his character—his sole idea of humor was getting
off puns, and so far all the attempts of his shipmates in the wardroom
to cure him of it had failed. But as Collins was also our best hand
with a shotgun, I decided to stand the puns for a few hours on the
chance of increasing our bag of game and asked him to go.
We purposely took a tent and camped ashore all night to be ready for
the ducks at dawn. We got about a dozen (Collins knocked down most of
them) but without blinds to work from or decoys to attract our game,
it was a tough job and we tramped a long way along the marshy beaches
looking for game. During this search we separated, and I with my
shotgun at “ready” was scanning the beach for ducks just below a small
bluff, when suddenly there came sliding down its precipitous slope on
all fours, face first with hands and feet spread out in the mud in a
ludicrous attempt to stop himself, our meteorologist, Collins!
The spectacle was so comical that unthinkingly I roared out to Ambler,
“Look at the old cow there, sliding down the hill!” but I soon enough
regretted my outburst for it was evident that Collins, plastered with
mud from his mishap and in no humor to see anything funny in his
antics, was furious and took my remark as a deep personal insult. So
all in all, my hunting party was no great success, and by the time I
signalled our cutter to stand in and pick us up, we were all so stiff
from sleeping on the hard ground, so throbbing in every muscle from
our tramp, and so sullenly did Collins keep eyeing me, that I began to
doubt whether a dozen ducks were worth it.
Dr. Ambler, lolling back on the cushions in the sternsheets of the
cutter, homeward bound, apparently took a similar view.
“About once a year of this satisfies me completely, chief.” He paused,
ruefully massaged his aching calves, then in his careful professional
manner continued, “As a doctor, I’m convinced that man’s an animal that
must take to hard work gradually. No more plunging headlong into it for
me! I prescribe a day’s complete rest in our berths for all hands here
the minute we hit the ship!”
The doctor, I believe, followed his own prescription, and perhaps
Collins and Dunbar did too, but I didn’t have time. We had broken a
pump-rod on our way to Alaska, temporarily stopping our boiler feed. In
that emergency, the spare auxiliary I had installed at Mare Island was
immediately cut in on the feed line, saving us from hauling fires and
going back to sail alone, but it left us with no reserve pump and it
was up to me somehow to provide another rod. Neither Unalaska nor St.
Michael’s could help me in the least—a machine shop in those primitive
trading posts had never even been dreamed of.
With the help of Lee, who was a machinist, and of Bartlett, fireman,
first class, I now set about supplying a new pump-rod from our own
resources. While at Mare Island, in view of the uncertainty of repair
faculties in the Arctic, like prudent engineers we had acquired for
the _Jeannette_ quite a set of tools. I won’t exactly say we stole
them, for after all they merely moved from one spot owned by Uncle Sam
to another also under his jurisdiction, but at any rate, in good old
Navy fashion during our stay at the Navy Yard everything not nailed
down in the machine shop there that appealed to us and that we could
carry, somehow moved aboard the _Jeannette_, and now all our recent
acquisitions came in handy. I rigged up a long lathe. Out of some
square stock once intended by the Navy Yard for forging out chain
plates for the _Mohican_, we turned out a very favorable replica in
iron of our broken rod, squared off the shoulders for the pistons, cut
the threads for the retaining nuts, and long before the schooner showed
up in port, had the disabled pump reassembled with the new rod and
banging lustily away on the line once more, hammering feed water into
our steaming boiler, thus making good my promise to the captain when
the old rod broke. This particularly pleased De Long, who I am afraid,
like most Line officers, underestimating the resourcefulness of Navy
engineers and particularly Scotch ones, had been fearful that we might
have to turn back or at least take a long delay while we awaited the
arrival, on the _St. Paul’s_ return trip, of a new rod from the United
States.
For six days we waited in St. Michael’s, eyes glued to the harbor
entrance, undergoing as the captain feelingly expressed it that “hope
deferred which maketh the heart sick,” when at last on August 18 the
_Fanny A. Hyde_ showed up, beating her way closehauled into the harbor.
She was a welcome sight not only to our careworn skipper but to all of
us, who long before had completely exhausted in a couple of hours the
possibilities of St. Michael’s, and in our then state of ignorance,
were eager to move on into the even more barren Arctic.
In fact, so eager were we to be on our way that the captain signalled
the schooner not to anchor at all but to come alongside us directly,
prepared immediately for coaling.
The next three days were busy ones for all hands, lightering coal in
bags up from the schooner’s holds, dumping it through the deck scuttles
into our bunkers, and there trimming it high up under the deck beams to
take advantage of every last cubic inch of the _Jeannette’s_ stowage
space. Most of this work of muling the coal around we had to do with
our own force, for the schooner with a crew of six men only and being
a sailing vessel, with no power machinery of any kind, could assist us
but little. Here our deck winch, made of those old steam launch engines
which I had fitted aboard at Mare Island, came in very handy in saving
our backs, for with falls rigged from the yardarms by our energetic
Irish bosun, I soon had the niggerheads on that winch whipping the bags
of coal up out of the schooner’s holds and dropping them down on our
decks in grand style.
Needless to say, however, with coal littering our decks and coal dust
everywhere, with staterooms and cabins tightly sealed up to prevent
its infiltration, and with our whole crew as black as nigger minstrels,
we carefully abstained from taking aboard any other stores and least of
all our furs or dogs from ashore, till coaling was completed and the
ship washed down.
At this coaling we labored steadily until late on the twentieth of
August when checking the coal we had already transferred and what was
left aboard the schooner, I came to the conclusion that there would
still be twenty tons remaining on the _Fanny A. Hyde_ for which we
could find no stowage, even on our decks, and entering the captain’s
cabin, I suggested to him that instead of dismissing our escort at St.
Michael’s as intended, he take a chance and order her to follow us on
our next leg, the three hundred mile journey across Norton Sound and
Behring Strait to St. Lawrence Bay in Siberia, where that last twenty
tons of coal she carried, which otherwise would go back to the United
States, would just about replenish what we burned on the way over to
Asia.
To put it mildly, when I sprang this suggestion on him De Long greeted
it with a cheer, but he went me one better.
“That twenty tons she’ll certainly carry along for us, chief, but
that’s not all! What’s left in her now, and how long’ll it take you to
get her down to that last twenty tons?”
“She’s got fifty tons still aboard her, captain,” I answered. I looked
at my watch. It was getting along toward evening already. “But the
last thirty tons which we can take aboard from her, will go almighty
slow! Trimming it down inside those stifling bunkers to top ’em off
for a full due is the devil’s own job—it’ll take us all day tomorrow
certainly!”
De Long, who, downcast over the non-arrival of the schooner, had not
cracked a smile for a week, now stroked his long mustaches gleefully.
“Fine, chief! Pass the word to Lieutenant Chipp to belay any more
coaling. He’s to knock off immediately and start washing down. Here’s
where we get back one of those lost days, anyway.” De Long regarded me
with positive cheerfulness. “We’ll sail tomorrow! If the _Fanny Hyde’s_
going to carry twenty tons for us to Siberia, she might as well carry
the whole fifty that’s still aboard her! So instead of coaling here
any more, we’ll quit right now, swing ship in the morning to check
our compasses, then load furs, stores, and dogs in the afternoon, and
sail tomorrow night from this God-forsaken hole! How’ll that suit you,
chief?”
“Brother, full ahead on that!” I exclaimed. “You’ll never get St.
Michael’s hull down any too soon for me!”
So to the intense relief of the crew, Jack Cole was soon piping down
coaling gear. The schooner cast loose, shoved off, and anchored clear,
and as darkness fell the hoses were playing everywhere over the
_Jeannette’s_ topsides, washing down, while from every scupper a black
stream poured into the clear waters of the bay, as a welcome by-product
effectively putting an end to any more fishing in our vicinity.
Our last day at St. Michael’s was perhaps our busiest.
In the morning, steaming slowly round the harbor, we swung ship for
compass deviations, with Danenhower hunching his burly shoulders
constantly over the binnacle while Chipp at the pelorus took bearings
of the sun. By noon this essential task was completed and we anchored
again, commencing immediately after mess gear was stowed to receive
stores from ashore.
The display of furs we received, made up now into clothing, of
seal, mink, beaver, deer, wolf, Arctic squirrel, and fox, all to be
worn by rough seamen, would have caused pangs of jealousy among the
ladies on Fifth Avenue, who would have lingered long over each sleek
garment, lovingly caressing its velvety softness. But instead of that,
disregarded by everyone in our haste, down the hatch shot our furs,
our only concern being to get them aboard and weigh anchor.
Following the clothing came aboard assorted cargo—forty Eskimo
dogs, five dog sleds, forty sets of dog harness, four dozen pairs
of snowshoes, sixty-nine pairs of sealskin boots, ton after ton of
compressed fish for dog food, three small Eskimo skin boats called
baideras, and numberless odds and ends; while to top off all, as a
personal gift Mr. Newman insisted on presenting to the captain a very
handsomely silver-mounted Winchester repeating rifle and eight hundred
rounds of ammunition for it.
Last but not least important, came aboard some new members of our crew,
two Alaskan Indians from St. Michael’s. This pair, Alexey and Aneguin,
carefully selected on the recommendation of the entire white population
of St. Michael’s (all four of them), were after a lengthy pow-wow over
terms with the headman of the native village shipped as hunters and
dog-drivers. Alexey, as senior hunter, was to be paid twenty dollars
a month; Aneguin, his assistant, as a hunter’s mate (to put it in
nautical parlance) was to receive fifteen; and each was to draw from
the company store an outfit worth fifty dollars to start with and on
discharge to receive a Winchester rifle and 1000 cartridges. To the
wife of Alexey and to the mother of Aneguin, thus deprived of their
support, were to be issued at the _Jeannette’s_ expense from the Alaska
Company’s store, provisions to the value of five dollars each monthly
until their men should finally be returned to St. Michael’s.
These terms being finally settled to the satisfaction of all, Alexey
and Aneguin reported aboard at 5 P.M., both for the first time in
their lives dressed in “store clothes” which they had just drawn from
Mr. Newman’s stock, and proud as peacocks in shiny black Russian
hats, topped with flaming red bands. Alexey (who to the best of my
knowledge, aside from our captain, was the only married man aboard)
was accompanied by his Indian wife, a small, shy, pretty woman in furs
oddly contrasting with her husband’s stiffly worn civilized raiment,
and by his little boy. Tightly holding each other’s hands, this tiny
Alaskan group drifted wonderingly over the ship, children all in their
open-mouthed curiosity; while Aneguin, accompanied by his chief and
a delegation of natives come to see him off, was just as naive in
exclaiming over everything he saw, and the excitement of all reached a
high pitch when Captain De Long presented to Alexey’s shrinking little
wife a china cup and saucer with “U.S.N.” in gold on it, and to her
little boy, a harmonica.
As evening drew on and the hour for departure approached, Alexey and
his wife, seated on a sea chest on the poop, clung silently to each
other, till at the hoarse call of the bosun, “All visitors ashore!”
accompanied by significant gestures toward the rail, they parted
affectionately—and forever.
For a few minutes there was a grand scramble of Indians over our
bulwarks into native boats. Then to the rattling of the chain links in
the hawsepipe, our cable came slowly in and with a blast of our whistle
in salute, we got underway for St. Lawrence Bay, on the Siberian side
of Behring Sea.