Stray Leaves From An Arctic Journal Part 14

"We tacked ship, and stood to the N.E. compa.s.s (_N.W. true_); saw some ice aground on a sand-bank, with only six feet water on it at low water, but standing on the N.E. compa.s.s (_N.W. true_), found deep water from five to eight miles across from the sand to the north sh.o.r.e. When past the sand, open water as far as we could see from the masthead, and extending from about _N.E. to N.N.W.

compa.s.s_ (N.W. to W.S.W. true). We then returned, being fine and clear, and could not see what we were in search of (whales).

"Leaving the north land, a long, low point, running up to a _table-top mountain, we came across to the south side, which was bold land right out of the sound_.

"We saw the _Pinnacle Rocks at the end of that sound_ (_Princess Charlotte's Monument_); and _this and the low land between that sound_ and _Lancaster Sound_, as we were running to the S.E., makes me confident is the same place which we were up in the 'Pioneer.'

"The distance we ran up the sound in the 'Prince of Wales,' I think, to the best of my judgment, was about a hundred and fifty or sixty miles, &c.

"(Signed) ROBERT MOORE,

"Ice quarter-master, H.M.S. 'Pioneer.'

"To Lieut. Sherard Osborn."

The italics in the above letter serve to show how correctly these observations of my quarter-master agreed with the sound we were up; and taking this, together with the description of the land seen by Captain Stewart and Dr. Sutherland, during their late journey up the eastern side of Wellington Channel, I believe that a very narrow intervening belt of low land divides Jones's Sound from Baring Bay, in Wellington Channel, and that, turning to the northward, this sound eventually opens into the same great Polar Sea which washes the northern sh.o.r.es of the Parry group.

[Headnote: _ERECTION OF A CAIRN._]

Unable to advance, we returned, upon our wake, to the conical island on the north side of the sound; and a boat, with two officers in it, was sent to erect a cairn. They returned next morning, having found, what interested me very much, numerous Esquimaux traces, though of very ancient date, and shot several birds--a seasonable increase to our stock for table-consumption. One of the sportsmen a.s.sured me that, in spite of the increased number of glaciers around us, and other appearances of a more severe climate than we had been in the habit of seeing in Barrow's Strait, he was of opinion that there was much more vegetation in our neighbourhood than in the more southern lat.i.tude of Cornwallis Island. The specimens of plants brought off in the boat, such as poppies, saxifrage, and moss, were all finer than we had seen elsewhere; and reindeer horns, near the Esquimaux ruins, showed that these animals were to be found.

The island was a ma.s.s of gray-coloured granite, with some dark ma.s.ses of ferruginous-coloured rock intermixed, the whole much broken and rent by the agency of frost and water.

Monday, the 18th of August, we proceeded along the northern sh.o.r.e, towards another entrance which had shown itself on the north side of Leopold Island,--the Jones's Sound of the old charts,--which we now proved not to have been blocked up by either land or glaciers.

The land about Cape Hardwicke was little else, in my opinion, than a group of islands,--an impression in which I became the more confirmed when the ice obliged us to strike off directly to the eastward; and Cape Clarence stood out bold and clear, with a midnight sun behind it: and the light streamed through the different ice-choked channels between Capes Hardwicke and Clarence, throwing up the land, _where there was land_, in strong and dark relief.

Beyond Cape Clarence I saw no symptom of land, nor did any one else either. It is said to recede; very possibly it may; but as neither we, nor the "Resolute" and "a.s.sistance," (who all reached a higher lat.i.tude than any discovery-ships have been since Baffin's memorable voyage,) ever saw land north of Cape Clarence, I trust, for the sake of geography, that the beautifully-indented line which now joins the land about Smith's Sound to that of Clarence Head, in our charts, may be altered into a dotted one, as denoting that the said coast exists rather in the imagination of channel-closing voyagers than actually in the north-west corner of Baffin's Bay.

A mult.i.tude of grounded icebergs showed a shoal, which appears to bar the northern entrance to Jones's Sound; and, during the night, a sudden gale from the north, together with high water in the tides, set them all floating and dancing around us in a very exciting style. Edging constantly along large floe-pieces, we were eventually carried next day into the packed ice, through which our way had to be found under double-reefed sails, the two pretty screw-schooners thrashing away in gallant style, until a dead calm again left us to steam our best; indeed, all night of the 19th was a constant heavy tussle with a pack, in which the old floe-pieces were being glued together by young ice, varying from two to five inches in thickness; patches of water, perhaps each an acre in extent, were to be seen from the crow's nest, and from one to the other of these we had to work our way. By-and-by the Cary Isles showed themselves to the northward, and then the flat-topped land between Cape York and Dudley Digges.

[Headnote: _EASTERN SIDE OF BAFFIN'S BAY._]

Our last hope of doing any service this season lay in the expectation that open water would be found along the northeast side of Baffin's Bay; but this expectation was damped by the disagreeable knowledge that our provisions on board the steamers were too scanty to allow us to follow up any opening we should have found.

On the afternoon of the 28th of August, a strong water-sky and heavy bank showed the sea to be close at hand to the south, as well as a strong breeze behind it. We rattled on for Wolstenholme Island, reached under its lee by the evening, and edged away to the north, quickly opening out Cape Stair, and finding it to be an island, as the Cape York Esquimaux, on board the "a.s.sistance," had led us to believe.

Pa.s.sing some striking-looking land, which, although like that of the more southern parts of Greenland, was bold and precipitous, intersected with deep valleys, yet comparatively free from glaciers, we saw the Booth Sound of Sir John Ross, and shortly afterwards sighted what proved afterwards to be the southern bluff of Whale Sound. We could not approach it, however, and, choosing an iceberg, we anch.o.r.ed our steamers to await an opening.

On Thursday, the 21st of August, I started in a boat with Mr.

MacDougal, to see if we could get as far as Whale Sound. The bay-ice, in which we could neither pull nor sail, whilst it was too thin to stand upon, or track the boat through, materially checked our progress.

By the afternoon we reached a close pack-edge, which defied farther progress; but, on landing, we found ourselves to be at the entrance of a magnificent inlet, still filled with ice, which extended to the eastward for some fifteen miles, having in its centre a peculiarly-shaped rock, which the seamen immediately christened "Prince Albert's Hat," from its resemblance to a marine's shako. The numerous traces here of Esquimaux were perfectly startling; their tent-places, winter abodes, caches, and graves, covered every prominent point about us. Of what date they were, it was impossible, as I have elsewhere said, to form a correct idea. The enamel was still perfect on the bones of the seals which strewed the rocks, the flesh of which had been used for food. On opening one of the graves, I found the skeleton of an old man, with a good deal of the cartilage adhering to the bones, and in the skull there was still symptoms of decaying flesh; nothing, however, was seen to denote a recent visit of these interesting denizens of the north. Each cache, or rather, circle of stones, had a flat slab for a cover, with a cairn near it, or else an upright ma.s.s of stone, to denote its position; and some of the graves were constructed with a degree of care and labour worthy of a more civilized people: several had huge slabs of stone on the top, which it must have required a great many men to lift, and some ingenuity to secure.

Scurvy-gra.s.s in great abundance, as well as another antis...o...b..tic plant, bearing a small white flower, was found wherever we landed; and I likewise observed London-pride, poppies, sorrel, dwarf willow, crow-feet gra.s.s, saxifrage, and tripe-de-roche, besides plenty of turf, which, with very little trouble, would have served for fuel,--and this in lat.i.tude 76 52' N. Large flocks of geese and ducks were flying about; the great northern diver pa.s.sed overhead, and uttered its shrill warning cry to its mate, and loons, dovekies, and plalaropes, in small numbers, gave occasional exercise for our guns.

[Headnote: _VISIT FROM ESQUIMAUX._]

The coast was all of granitic formation: and if one might judge from the specimens of iron pyrites and copper ore found here and there, the existence of minerals in large quant.i.ties, as is the case about Uppernavik, may be taken for granted.

The 22d, 23d, 24th, and 25th of August pa.s.sed without a favourable change taking place; indeed, by this time our retreat, as well as advance, had been barred by the pack. Pressed up from Baffin's Bay by the southerly gales of this season of the year, the broken floes seemed to have been seeking an outlet by the north-west. The winter was fast setting in, temperature falling thus early, and the birds every day more scarce.

About one o'clock on the morning of the 26th August, I was aroused and told that Esquimaux were coming off on dog-sledges. All hands turned out voluntarily to witness the arrival of our visitors. They were five in number, each man having a single sledge. As they approached, they uttered an expression very like Tima! or rather Timouh! accompanied by a loud, hoa.r.s.e laugh. Some of our crew answered them, and then they appeared delighted, laughing most immoderately.

The sledges were entirely constructed of bone, and were small, neat-looking vehicles: no sledge had more than five dogs; some had only three. The dogs were fine-looking, wolfish animals, and either white or tan colour. The well-fed appearance of the natives astonished us all; without being tall (averaging about 5 ft. 5 in.), they were brawny-looking fellows, deep-chested, and large-limbed, with Tartar beards and moustachios, and a breadth of shoulder which denoted more than ordinary strength. Their clothing consisted of a dressed seal-skin frock, with a hood which served for a cap when it was too cold to trust to a thick head of jet-black hair for warmth. A pair of bear-skin trowsers reaching to the knee, and walrus-hide boots, completed their attire. Knowing how perfectly isolated these people were from the rest of the world,--indeed, they are said with some degree of probability to have believed themselves to be the only people in the world,--I was not a little delighted to see how well necessity had taught them to clothe themselves; and the skill of the women was apparent in the sewing, and in one case tasteful ornamental work of their habiliments.

I need hardly say that we loaded them with presents: their ecstacy exceeded all bounds when each was presented with a boat-hook staff, a piece of wood some twelve feet long. They danced, shouted, and laughed again with astonishment at possessing such a prize. Wood was evidently with them a scarce article; they had it not even to construct sledges with. York, the interpreter, had before told us they had no canoes for want of it; and they seemed perfectly incapable of understanding that our ships and masts were altogether made of wood. The intelligence shown by these people was very gratifying; and from having evidently been kindly treated on board the "North Star," during her sojourn in this neighbourhood, they were confident of good treatment, and went about fearlessly. On seeing a gun, they laughed, and said, "Pooh!

pooh!" to imitate its sound. One man danced, and was evidently anxious to repeat some nautical shuffling of the feet to the time of a fiddle, of which he had agreeable recollections, whilst another described how we slept in hammocks. After some time, a doc.u.ment was given them, to show any ship they might visit hereafter; and they were sent away in high spirits. The course they had taken, both coming and going, proved them to be from Wolstenholme Sound; and, as well as we could understand, they had lately been to the northward, looking for pousies (seals), and no doubt were the natives whose recent traces had been seen by some of the officers near Booth Inlet, who had likewise observed the remnants of some old oil-cask staves, which once had been in an English whaler.

[Headnote: _GALE IN THE PACK._]

_August 26th, 1851._--Beset against a floe, which is in motion, owing to the pressure of bergs upon its southern face; and as it slowly _coachwheels_ (as the whalers term it) round upon an iceberg to seaward of us, we employ ourselves heaving clear of the danger. A gale--fast rising, and things looking very ugly. The "Intrepid," who had changed her berth from the "insh.o.r.e" to the "offsh.o.r.e" side of the "Pioneer," through some accident of ice-anchors slipping, was caught between the floe and the iceberg, and in a minute inextricably, as far as human power was concerned, surrounded with ice; and as the floe, acted upon by the pressure of bergs and ice driving before the gale, forced more and more upon the berg, we were glad to see the vessel rise up the inclined plane formed by the tongue of the iceberg under her bottom. Had she not done so, she must have sunk. Sending a portion of our crew to keep launching her boats ahead during the night, we watched with anxiety the fast-moving floes and icebergs around us. A wilder scene than that of this night and the next morning it would be impossible to conceive. Our forced inactivity--for escape or reciprocal help was impossible--rendered it the more trying.

Lieutenant Cator has himself told the trials to which the "Intrepid's"

qualities were subjected that night and day; how she was pushed up the iceberg high and dry; and how the bonnie screw came down again right and tight. We meanwhile drifted away, cradled in floe-pieces, and perfectly helpless, shaving past icebergs, in close proximity, but safely, until the gale as suddenly abated, and we found ourselves some six miles north of the "Intrepid," and off the Sound, which, for want of a name, we will call "Hat Sound." Steaming and sailing up a head of water back towards our consort, we soon saw that she was all right and afloat again, though beset in the pack. We therefore took advantage of an opening in the ice to run to the northward alone. About midnight, the Whale Sound of Baffin being then open to our view, but filled with broken ice, and our farther progress impeded by the pack, we again made fast at this, the farthest northern lat.i.tude reached by any of our squadron, viz., 77 north lat.i.tude.

_Friday, August 29th._--Finding progress in this direction hopeless, we rejoined the "Intrepid" as close as the ice would allow us, and learnt that she had injured her rudder and screw-framing. It was now decided to rejoin the "Resolute" and "a.s.sistance" at their rendezvous off Cape Dudley Digges; and as the winter snow was fast covering the land, and pancake-ice forming on the sea, there was little time to be lost in doing so.

The 30th and 31st, the "Pioneer" made fruitless attempts to reach the "Intrepid." The leads of water were evidently separating us more and more: she was working in for Wolstenholme Sound, whilst we were obliged to edge to the westward.

September 1st, 1851, came in on us. From the crow's nest one interminable barrier of ice spread itself around; and as the imprisonment of our vessels would have entailed starvation upon us, it was necessary to make a push, and endeavour, by one of us at any rate reaching supplies, to secure the means of rescue to both.

[Headnote: _FORCING THROUGH THE PACK._]

A lucky slackening of the ice encouraged us to enter the pack, and we entered it. It was a long and tough struggle, sometimes for an hour not making a ship's length of headway, then bursting into a crack of water, which seemed an ocean by comparison. s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g and heaving, my gallant crew working like Britons, now over the stern, booming off pieces from the screw as she went astern for a fresh rush at some obstinate bar; now over the bows, coaxing her sharp stem into the crack which had to be wedged open until the hull could pa.s.s; now leaping from piece to piece of the broken ice, clearing the lines, resetting the anchors, then rushing for the ladders, as the vessel cleared the obstacles, to prevent being left behind,--light-hearted, obedient, and zealous, if my heartfelt admiration of them could have lightened their labours, I should have been glad indeed. Late in the evening, the "Intrepid" was seen working inside of Wolstenholme Island: we made fast to a lofty iceberg, to obtain a good view, for the most promising lead of water; and the experienced eye of a quarter-master, Joseph Organ, enabled him to detect the glisten of open water on the horizon to the westward. For it we accordingly struck through the pack. Never were screw and steam more taxed. To stop was to be beset for the winter, and be starved and drifted Heaven knows where. An iron stem and a good engine did the work,--I will not bore the non-professional reader how. A little before midnight the "Resolute" and "a.s.sistance" were seen, and by four o'clock on the morning of the 2d September we were alongside of them. Shortly afterwards our amateurs and visitors left us, and the three vessels cruised about, waiting for the "Intrepid," it being generally understood that when she rejoined the squadron we were to return to England.

We learned that the ships had been in open water as high as the Cary Islands: _they had seen no land on the west side, north of Cape Clarence_. On Cary Islands they had found traces of the remote visits of whalers, and had shot immense numbers (about 700) of birds, loons especially. On one occasion they had been placed in trying circ.u.mstances by a gale from the southward amongst the packed ice, the extraordinary disappearance of which to the northward, was only to be accounted for by supposing the ice of Baffin's Bay to have been blown through Smith's Sound into the Polar Sea, a small gateway for so much ice to escape by. In my opinion, however, the disappearance of the ice, which a fortnight earlier had spread over the whole sea between the Arctic Highlands and Jones's Sound, under the influence of southerly gales, confirmed me the more strongly in my belief that the north-west portion of Baffin's Bay is open, and forms no _cul-de-sac_ there any more than it does in Jones's Sound, Lancaster Sound, or Pond's Bay.

From Hudson's Straits, in lat.i.tude 60 N., to Jones's Sound, in lat.i.tude 76 N., a distance of 960 miles, we find on the western hand a ma.s.s of islands, of every conceivable shape and size, with long and tortuous channels intersecting the land in every direction; yet vain men, anxious to put barriers in the way of future navigators, draw large continents, where no one has dared to penetrate to see whether there be such or not, and block up natural outlets without cause or reason.

[Headnote: _ESQUIMAUX TRACES._]

I will now, with the reader's permission, carry him back to a subject that here and there has been cursorily alluded to throughout these pages--the Esquimaux traces and ruins, every where found by us, and the extraordinary chain of evidence which, commencing in Melville Island, our farthest west, carries us, link by link, to the isolated inhabitants of North Greenland, yclept Arctic Highlands.

Strange and ancient signs were found by us in almost every sheltered nook on the seaboard of this sad and solitary land,--signs indubitably of a race having once existed, who have either decayed away, or else, more probably, migrated to more hospitable portions of the Arctic zone.

That all these traces were those of the houses, caches, hunting-posts, and graves of the Esquimaux, or Innuit, there could be on our minds no doubt; and looking to the immense extent of land over which this extraordinary race of fishermen have been, and are to be found, well might Captain Washington, the talented compiler of the Esquimaux vocabulary, say, that they are one "of the most widely-spread nations of the globe."

The seat of this race (arguing from traditions extant during Baron Wrangell's travels in Siberia) might be placed in the north-east extreme of Asia, the western boundary being ill defined; for on the dreary banks of the Lena and Indigirka, along the whole extent of the frozen _Tundra_, which faces the Polar Sea, and in the distant isles of New Siberia, rarely visited by even the bold seekers of fossil ivory, the same ruined circles of stone, betokening the former abode of human beings, the same whalebone rafters, the same stone axes, the same implements of the chase, are to be found as to this day are used, and only used, by the Tchuktches of Behring's Straits, the Innuit of North America, or the Esquimaux of Hudson's Straits and Greenland,--a people identical in language (of which they all speak different dialects), habits, and disposition.

Supposing, then, that from the east of Asia these people first migrated to the American continent, and thence, eventually wandered to the eastern sh.o.r.es of Greenland, it became an interesting question to us, how the lands upon our northern hand, in our pa.s.sage to the west up Barrow's Strait, should bear such numerous marks of human location, whereas upon the southern side they were comparatively scarce; and how the natives residing in the northern portion of Baffin's Bay should have been ignorant that their brethren dwelt in great numbers southward of the glaciers of Melville Bay.

Some amongst us--and I was of this number--objected to the theory summarily advanced, that at a remote period these northern lands had been peopled from the south, and that the population had perished or wasted away from increased severity of climate or diminution of the means of subsistence. Our objections were argued on the following grounds:--If the Parry group had been colonized from the American continent, that continent, their nursery, would have shown signs of a large population at points immediately in juxtaposition, which it does not do.

From the estuary of the Coppermine to the Great Fish River, the Esquimaux traces are less numerous than on the north sh.o.r.e of Barrow's Strait. To a.s.sert that the Esquimaux have travelled from the American continent to the bleak sh.o.r.es of Bathurst Island, is to suppose a savage capable of voluntarily quitting a land of plenty for one of gaunt famine: on the other hand, it seems unreasonable to attribute these signs of a by-gone people's existence to some convulsion of nature, or some awful increase of cold, since no similar catastrophe has occurred in any other part of the world. Contrary to such opinions, we opined that the traces were those of a vast and prolonged emigration, and that it could be shown, on very fair premises, that a large number of the Innuit, Skraeling, or Esquimaux--call them what you please--had travelled from Asia to the eastward along a much higher parallel of lat.i.tude than the American continent, and, in their very natural search for the most hospitable region, had gone from the _north towards the south, not from the south towards the north_, or, what may yet one day be laid open to the world, reached a high northern lat.i.tude, in which a deep and uncongealable sea gives rise to a milder climate and an increased amount of the capabilities of subsistence.

I will now lightly sketch the probable route of the Esquimaux emigration, as I believe it to have taken place in the north-east of Asia. The Tchuktches, the only independent tribe in Siberia, are seen to a.s.sume, amongst that portion of them residing on the sea-coast, habits closely a.n.a.logous to those of the Esquimaux. The hunters of Siberia tell how a similar race, the Omoki, "whose hearths were once more numerous on the banks of the Lena than the stars of an Arctic night," are gone, none know whither. The natives now living in the neighbourhood of Cape Chelajskoi, in Siberia, aver that emigration to a land in the _north-east_ had occurred within the memory of their fathers; and amongst other cases we find them telling Wrangell, that the Onkillon tribe had once occupied that land, but, being attacked by the Tchuktches, they, headed by a chief called Krachnoi, had taken shelter in the land visible northward from Cape Jakan.

This land, Wrangell and others did not then believe in. British seamen have, however, proved the a.s.sertion to be a fact; and Captains Kellett and Moore have found "an extensive land" in the very direction the Siberian fishermen declared it to exist. It is not my purpose to enter into a disquisition upon the causes which brought about this emigration. Sad and bitter necessity alone it must have been which thrust these poor members of the human family into localities which, even in Asia, caused the Russians to exclaim, "What could have led men to forsake more favoured lands for this grave of Nature?" Choice it could not have been, for, in America, we see that the Esquimaux has struggled hard to reach southern and genial climes. In the Aleutian Isles, and on the coast of Labrador, local circ.u.mstances favoured the attempt, and the Indian hunter was unable to subsist in lands which were, comparatively, overflowing with subsistence for the Arctic fishermen; but elsewhere the bloodthirsty races of North America obliged the human tide, which for some wise cause was made to roll along the margin of the Polar Sea, to confine itself purely to the sea-coast; and although vast tracts, such as the barren grounds between longitudes 99 and 109 W., are at the present day almost untenanted, still a sufficient population remains to show that an emigration of these tribes had taken place there at a remote period.