True Tales of Arctic Heroism in the New World Part 3

The delay caused by differences of opinion nearly proved fatal, owing to the rapidly forming new ice through which the boats were only moved by rolling them. The illy clad men now suffered terribly from the cold, as the temperature was often at zero or below. It was so horrible to sleep in the open, crowded boats that they sought the sh.o.r.e whenever possible.

Generally there was neither time nor was there fit snow to put up a snow-hut, and then the men followed another plan to lessen their terrible sufferings and sleepless nights. Each of the seamen had a single blanket, which had been turned into a sack-shaped sleeping-bag so that their feet should not become exposed and freeze while they were asleep. Each of the three messes dug a trench, in a convenient snow-drift, long enough and wide enough to hold the seven sleeping-bags when arranged close together. Thrown over and covering the trench was a canvas sail or tent, and the canvas was then overlaid with thick layers of snow, which thus prevented any of the heat of the men from escaping.

Very carefully brushing off any particles of snow on their outer garments, the men carefully wormed themselves into their sleeping-bags, and by huddling together were generally able to gain such collective heat as made it possible for them to drop off to sleep.

Whenever practicable they supplemented their now reduced rations by the hunt, but got little except foxes and hares. The audacity of the white arctic foxes was always striking and at times amusing. Once a thievish fox crept slyly into a tent where the men were quietly awaiting the return of a comrade for whose convenience a candle was kept lighted. The candle smelt and looked good to Master Fox, who evidently had never seen such a thing as fire before. Running up to the candle, he boldly snapped at it, when his whiskers were so sorely singed that he departed in hot haste. All laughed and thought that was the end of the affair. But a few minutes later, discomfited but not discouraged, Master Fox, with his scorched head-fur, appeared again in the tent. He had learned his lesson, for avoiding the candle he snapped up the sou'wester of the engineer and made off with it though a watching sailor threw a candlestick at him.

The weather soon became most bitterly cold, and as they sailed or rowed toward Fury Beach the sea-water often froze as it fell in driblets on their garments. Food was reduced a third, as Ross knew that a return in boats was now doubtful. A gale drove them to a wretched spot, a rocky beach six feet wide beneath frowning cliffs many hundreds of feet high.

Their food was now cut off one-half, and the daily hunt brought little--a few foxes and sea-gulls, with an occasional duck from the southward-flying flocks.

Near Batty Bay they were caught in the ice-pack two miles from land and their fate was for a time doubtful. Only by almost superhuman efforts did they effect their release. The cargo was carried ash.o.r.e by hand, and by using the masts as rollers under the hulls of the boats--though often discouraged by their breaking through the new, thin ice--they managed at last to get the boats safe on sh.o.r.e. It might be thought that three years of arctic service would have taught the men prudence, but here one of the sailors in zero weather rolled a bread-cask along the sh.o.r.e with bare hands, which caused him to lose the tips of his fingers and obliged other men to do his duty.

It was now necessary to make the rest of the journey to Fury Beach overland. Fortunately there were some empty bread-casks out of which the carpenter made shift to build three sledges. The party left everything behind for the journey of the next spring, taking only tentage, food, needful tools, and instruments. The way lay along the base of precipitous cliffs, with deep drifts of loose snow on the one hand, and on the other rough ridges of heavy ice pushed up from the sea. Hard as were the conditions of travel for the worn-out seamen, they were much worse for the crippled mate, Taylor, who could not walk with his crutches, and who suffered agony by frequent falls from the overturning sled on which he had to be hauled. The first day broke one sledge, and with zero temperatures the spirits of the men were most gloomy. Being obliged to make double trips to carry their baggage, some of the sailors complained when told off to return for the crippled mate. Ross shamed them into quiet by telling them how much better was their case to be able to haul a shipmate than was that of the wretched mate dependent on others for life and comfort.

How closely the party was pressed by fate is shown by their eating the last morsel of their food the day they reached Somerset House. As they approached a white fox fled from the house, but though dirty, cold, hungry, and exhausted, they were happy to reach this desolate spot which they now called home.

Apart from the death of the carpenter, the winter pa.s.sed without any distressing events, though some of the men failed somewhat in strength.

It was a matter of rejoicing that in the early spring they obtained fresh meat by killing two bears. The carca.s.s of one of them was set up as a decoy, and one of the seamen stuck a piece of iron hoop into it as a tail. Soon frozen solid, it attracted another bear, who rushed at it and after capsizing it was killed by a volley from sailors lying in wait.

Careful plans were made for the summer campaign. Stoves were reduced to one-fourth of their original weight and sledges were shod from ice-saws.

The three sledges were fitted with four uprights, with a canvas mat hauled out to each corner. On this upper mat the sick and helpless men were laid in their sleeping-bags, and thus could make with comparative comfort any sledge journeys that might be necessary. It was deemed advisable to provide for travel either by land or by sea.

The ice of Prince Regent Inlet held fast far into the summer, and at times there stole into the minds of even the most hopeful and courageous a fear lest it should not break up at all. Birds and game were fairly plentiful, far more so than in the preceding year, but all hope, care, and interest centred in the coming boat journey. No one could look forward to the possibility of pa.s.sing a fifth year in the arctic regions without most dismal forebodings as to the sufferings and fatalities that must result therefrom. The highest cliffs that commanded a view of the inlet to the north were occupied by eager watchers of the ice horizon.

Day after day and week after week pa.s.sed without the faintest signs of water spots, which mark the disintegrating pack and give hopes of its coming disruption. Would the pack ever break? Could that vast, unbroken extent of ice ever waste away so that boats could pa.s.s? A thousand times this or similar questions were asked, and no answer came.

Midsummer was far past when, by one of those sudden and almost instantaneous changes of which the polar pack is possible, a favorable wind and fortunate current dissipated the ice-covering of the inlet, and alongsh.o.r.e, stretching far to the north, an ice-free channel appeared.

With the utmost haste the boats were loaded, the selected stores having long been ready, and with hearts full of hope they started toward the north. Ross and his officers fully realized that this was their sole and final chance of life, and that failure to reach the whalers of Barrow Strait or Baffin Bay meant ultimate death by starvation.

Amid the alternations during their voyage, of open water, of the dangerous navigation of various ice streams, and of the tantalizing land delays, when the violent insetting pack drove them to the cliff-bounded beaches of North Somerset, even the feeblest worked with desperate energy, for all knew that their lives depended on concerted, persistent, intelligent action.

The ice conditions improved as they worked to the north end of Prince Regent Inlet, and finally the pack was so disrupted and wasted that they crossed to Baffin Land without difficulty.

Skirting the northern coast of that desolate land, they sailed to the eastward, hoping almost against hope to see a friendly sail, for the season was pa.s.sing and the nights had begun to lengthen rapidly.

On the morning of August 25, 1833, their feelings were raised to an intense pitch of excitement by the sight of a sail, which failed to detect in turn the forlorn castaways. Though some fell into deep despair as the ship stood away, the more rational men felt a.s.sured of their final safety, since whalers were actually in the strait. A few hours later they were fortunate enough to fall in with and to be picked up by the whaler _Isabella_, a remarkable incident from the fact that she was the arctic ship which Sir John Ross had commanded in his expedition of 1818 to Baffin Bay.

When Ross answered the hail from the astonished captain of the _Isabella_, it was a unique and startling greeting that he received. For when answering that he was Captain John Ross, the captain of the whaler blurted out, "Why, Captain Ross has been dead two years," which was indeed the general belief.

After investigating the affairs of the expedition, a committee of Parliament reported "that a great public service had been performed [with] deeds of daring enterprise and patient endurance of hardships."

They added that Captain John Ross "had the merit of maintaining both health and discipline in a remarkable degree ... under circ.u.mstances the most trying to which British seamen were perhaps ever subjected."

Through daily duty well done, by fidelity to work in hand, and by unfailing courage in dire extremities, Sir John Ross and his expeditionary force won their country's praise for heroic conduct.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] While the north magnetic pole constantly changes its position, yet such movements are very slow, and while at present its exact situation is not known, its locality is quite near this.

THE DISCOVERY OF THE NORTHWEST Pa.s.sAGE

"He came not. Conjecture's cheek grew pale.

Year after year, in no propitious gale His banner held its homeward way, And Science saddened at her martyr's stay."

--ANON.

Few persons realize the accompaniments of the prolonged search by England for the northwest pa.s.sage, whether in its wealth of venturesome daring, in its development of the greatest maritime nation of the world, or in its material contributions to the wealth of the nations. Through three and a half centuries the British Government never lost sight of it, from the voyage of Sebastian Cabot, in 1498, to the completion of the discovery by Franklin in 1846-7. It became a part of the maritime life of England when Sir Martin Frobisher brought to bear on the search "all the most eminent interests of England--political and aristocratic, scientific and commercial." To the search are due the fur-trade of Hudson Bay, the discovery of continental America, the cod-fishery of Newfoundland, and the whale-fishery of Baffin Bay. For the discovery of the northwest pa.s.sage various parliaments offered a reward of twenty thousand pounds sterling.

An enterprise that so vitally affected the maritime policy of England, and in which the historic explorer, Henry Hudson, and the great navigator, James Cook, met their deaths, involved many heroic adventures, among which none has engaged more attention than the fateful voyage of Sir John Franklin and his men, by which the problem was solved.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Franklin's route on the northwest pa.s.sage.]

Among the many notable and interesting paintings in the Tate Gallery, one of the famous collections of pictures in London, is one by Sir John Millais, ent.i.tled "The Northwest Pa.s.sage." A young girl is reading tales of arctic travel and of bold adventure to her listening father, whose tightly closed right hand she affectionately fondles as the thrilling story reaches its climax. On the table is an outspread map of North America, consulted often by the attentive readers, whereon blank s.p.a.ces denote regions as yet unknown to man. The tale done, the old, grizzled, weather-beaten sailor, whose clinched hands and fixed eyes betray his strong emotion, cries out: "It can be done, and England should do it!"

Few pictures, in t.i.tle and in subject, have more forcibly portrayed that pride of achievement which is the glory of Britain.

The tale of the northwest pa.s.sage in its last phase of discovery cannot anywhere be found in a distinct and connected form. As a record of man's heroic endeavor and of successful accomplishment at the cost of life itself, it should be retold from time to time. For it vividly ill.u.s.trates an eagerness for adventurous daring for honor's sake that seems to be growing rarer and rarer under the influences of a luxurious and materialistic century.

When in 1845 the British Government decided to send out an expedition for the northwest pa.s.sage, all thoughts turned to Franklin. Notable among the naval giants of his day through deeds done at sea and on land, in battle and on civic duty, he was an honored type of the brave and able captains of the royal navy. Following the glorious day of Trafalgar came six years of arctic service--whose arduous demands appear in the sketch, "Crossing the Barren Grounds"--followed by seven years of duty as governor of Tasmania. But these exacting duties had not tamed the adventurous spirit of this heroic Englishman. Deeming it a high honor, he would not ask for the command of this squadron, for the expedition was a notable public enterprise whereon England should send its ablest commander.

When tendered the command the public awaited eagerly for his reply.

He was in his sixtieth year, and through forty-one degrees of longitude--from 107 W. to 148 W.--he had traced the coast of North America, thus outlining far the greater extent of the pa.s.sage. But his arctic work had been done under such conditions of hardship and at such eminent peril of life as would have deterred most men from ever again accepting such hazardous duty save under imperative orders.

Franklin's manly character stood forth in his answer: "No service is dearer to my heart than the completion of the survey of the northern coast of North America and the accomplishment of the northwest pa.s.sage."

Going with him on this dangerous duty were other heroic souls, officers and men, old in polar service, defiantly familiar with its perils and scornful of its hardships. Among these were Crozier and Gore, who, the first in five and the last in two voyages, had sailed into both the ice-packs of northern seas and among the wondrous ice islands of the antarctic world.

Sailing May 26, 1845, with one hundred and twenty-nine souls in the _Erebus_ and the _Terror_, Franklin's ships were last seen by Captain Dennett, of the whaler _Prince of Wales_, on July 26, 1845. Then moored to an iceberg, they awaited an opening in the middle pack through which to cross Baffin Bay and enter Lancaster Sound.

Franklin's orders directed that from Cape Walker, Barrow Strait, he should "endeavor to penetrate to the southward and to the westward, in a course as direct to Bering Strait as the position and extent of the ice, or the existence of the land at present unknown, may admit."

His progress to the west being barred by heavy ice, he sailed up the open channel to the west of Cornwallis Land, reaching 77 N., the nearest approach to the north pole in the western hemisphere that had been reached in three centuries, and exceeded alone by Baffin in 1616, who sailed forty-five miles nearer. Returning to the southward, the squadron went into winter quarters at Beechey Island, 74 42' N., 91 32' W.

Knowing the virtue of labor, the captain set up an observatory on sh.o.r.e, built a workshop for sledge-making and for repairs, and surely must have tested the strength and spirit of his crews by journeys of exploration to the north and to the east. It is more than probable that the energy and experiences of this master of arctic exploration sent the flag of England far to the north of Wellington Channel.

Affairs looked dark the next spring, for three of the men had died, while the main floe of the straits was holding fast later than usual. As summer came on care was given to the making of a little garden, while the seaman's sense of order was seen in the decorative garden border made of scores of empty meat-cans in lieu of more fitting material.

They had built a canvas-covered stone hut, made wind-proof by having its cracks calked, sailor-fashion, by bunches of long, reddish mosses. This was the sleeping or rest room of the magnetic and other scientific observers, who cooked their simple meals in a stone fireplace built to the leeward of the main hut. Here with hunter's skill were roasted and served the sweet-meated arctic grouse savored with wild sorrel and scurvy gra.s.s from the near-by ravines.[2]

Looking with eager eyes for all things new, as must those who sailed with Franklin, they saw strange sights--unknown forms of nature to non-arctic sailors. In the days of melting snow, during the quick-coming, swift-flying polar spring, among all things white and colorless, they must have been struck by the high colors of the many little fresh-water pools whose vivid greens and brilliant reds catch and please an eye wearied and dulled by the sombre arctic landscape. Around the edge of these tiny ponds form thick coatings of bright-green, thread-like algae (fresh-water plants somewhat like kelp or sea-weed).

The stones at the bottom of the centre of the pools were incrusted by the red snow plant whose rich colors gave a sense of life to the near-by shallows.

In such haste Franklin put to sea that the customary rule was not observed of building a cairn in a prominent place and of placing therein a record of operations to date. Doubtless the sea opened suddenly by one of those offsh.o.r.e winds which bring ice-free water as by magic. But they must have left the land for the open sea with the free joy of the sailor, not knowing that fate had been kinder to the three comrades who rested under the arctic sky in the quiet island graves than to those who with brave hearts and high hopes sailed ever onward and onward.

Soon Franklin sighted Cape Walker, whence he should sail to the west and south as conditions of the land and the ice might permit. From the record recovered from the cairn at Point Victory, he seems to have been forced to go south through Peel Sound into Franklin Strait, where we know that both the flag-ship _Erebus_ and the _Terror_ were beset in the floe-ice of the open sea and were frozen up in the winter pack twelve miles north-northwest of King William Land. This besetment, on September 12, 1846, must have been a grievous blow to Franklin, who was now practically a.s.sured of the existence of the northwest pa.s.sage along the continental coast of North America. He was directly to the north of and only eighty-four miles distant from Cape Herschel, King William Land, which in 1839 had been discovered and visited by that successful explorer, Thomas Simpson, one of the most active of the many energetic agents of the Hudson Bay Company.

The polar winter, tedious and dreary at any time, must have been of fearful and almost unendurable length to those eager, ambitious men who, helpless and idle in their ice-held ships, knew that they had substantially finished the search which for two hundred and forty-nine years had engaged the heart and hand of the best of the marine talent of England. The winter pa.s.sed, oh! how slowly, but it ended, and with the welcome sun and warmer air of coming spring there was a cheerful sense of thankfulness that death had pa.s.sed by and left their circle unbroken and that "all were well."[3]