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“In case of employing reindeer, which, from their strength, docility, and hardy habits, appear the best suited to this kind of travelling, there would be an evident advantage in setting out much earlier in the year than we did; perhaps about the end of April, when the ice is less broken up, and the snow much harder upon its surface, than at a more advanced part of the season. But this, it must be recollected, would involve the necessity of passing the previous winter on the northern coast of Spitzbergen, which, even under favourable circumstances, would probably tend to weaken in some degree the energies of the men; while, on the other hand, it would be next to impossible to procure there a supply of provender for a number of tame reindeer, sufficient even to keep them alive, much less in tolerable condition, during a whole winter. In addition to this, it may be observed, that any party setting out earlier must be provided with a much greater weight of warm clothing, in order to guard against the severity of the cold, and also with an increased proportion of fuel for procuring water by the melting of snow, there being no fresh water upon the ice, in these latitudes, before the month of June.”

Parry’s attempt to reach the Pole, hauling heavy boats over the ice, brings into prominence the determination and daring of English sailors. Parry’s record of 82° 45′ remained unbroken forty-eight years, when a new record was again made by English sailors in an exactly similar way to that of Parry, but in a different region.

The next expedition of importance after Parry’s was that of Sir John Franklin in search of the North-West Passage, and does not strictly come within the scope of this book. Although the many expeditions which were sent out in search of Franklin and his men were the means of tracing a great extent of coast-line among the islands which lie to the north of America, only one had any special bearing on the struggle for the Pole. This was the one commanded by Dr. Kane, and will be treated in the next chapter.

CHAPTER II
KANE’S EXPEDITION (1853, ’54, ’55)

In December 1852, Dr. Kane received orders from the Secretary of the U.S. Navy to conduct an expedition to the Arctic seas in search of Sir John Franklin. Dr. Kane’s plan of search was based upon the probable extension of the land-masses of Greenland to the Far North – a fact at that time not verified by travel, but sustained by the analogies of physical geography. As inducements in favour of his scheme, he mentioned —

“(1) Terra firma as the basis of our operations, obviating the capricious character of ice-travel.

“(2) A due northern line, which, throwing aside the influences of terrestrial radiation, would lead soonest to the open sea, should such exist.

“(3) The benefit of the fan-like abutment of land, on the north face of Greenland, to check the ice in the course of its southern or equatorial drift, thus obviating the great drawback of Parry in his attempt to reach the Pole by the Spitzbergen Sea.

“(4) Animal life to sustain travelling parties.

“(5) The co-operation of the Esquimaux; settlements of these people having been found as high as Whale Sound, and probably extending still farther along the coast.

“We were to pass up Baffin’s Bay, therefore, to its most northern attainable point; and thence, pressing on toward the Pole as far as boats or sledges could carry us, examine the coast-lines for vestiges of the lost party.”

Kane left New York on the 30th May 1853, in the Advance, a “hermaphrodite brig of 144 tons.” The entire party numbered eighteen. At Fiskernaes, Greenland, he engaged Hans Christian, aged nineteen, as an Esquimaux hunter.

The pack was encountered in Melville Bay on 28th July, and Kane was fortunate in passing through to the North Water by 4th August. Smith Sound was entered on 7th August. A boat with a stock of provisions was buried at the north-east point of Littleton Island, and a cairn was erected on the western cape. About 40 miles north of Littleton Island the ice was met, and the Advance was forced into Refuge Harbour. After a great deal of warping, the brig reached Rensselaer Harbour in latitude 78° 37′.

When Kane attained the latitude of 78° 41′, he made a curious observation. He states: “We are farther north than any of our predecessors, except Parry on his Spitzbergen foot-tramp.” This was far from the truth. Much higher latitudes had been reached centuries before. In the seventeenth century both the English and Dutch had reached a higher latitude in the Spitzbergen Sea: Tschitschagoff in 1765 reached 80° 21′; Phipps in 1773 reached 80° 37′; and Scoresby in 1806 reached 81° 12′ 42″. Had Kane’s statement been confined to the route between Greenland and America, it would have been correct, but referring as he did to Parry’s Spitzbergen voyage, he was entirely astray.

When Smith Sound was reached, Kane had more than fifty dogs, but many of them soon died. Preparations for the winter were made without delay: a storehouse was formed on a small island in the harbour; an observatory was built on another island; and a deck-house was made to protect the Advance.

Arrangements were then made to form provision-dépôts along the Greenland coast for the purpose of northern exploration. The first dépôt party left on the 20th of September, and returned on the 15th of October. On the 25th of September this party reached Cape Russell, where the first cache of pemmican, together with some bread and alcohol for fuel, was made. A second cache was made at Cape Bonsall, about 30 miles to the north-east of the first dépôt. They reached their highest latitude, 79° 50′, on 6th October. A third cache was placed on a low island near the Humboldt Glacier.

A sunless winter of one hundred and forty days now closed upon them. The influence of the long, intense darkness was found most depressing. Most of the dogs died during this winter from convulsions. The temperature went down to as low as 68° F. below zero during February. The dreadful scurvy made its appearance, and by the middle of March only two members of the party were free of it. The supplies of the expedition were found to be altogether inadequate, both as regard provisions and fuel. On the 19th of March 1854, the first spring party left the brig, with the object of forming more dépôts. The temperature was about 40° F. below zero. On 31st March three of this party made their appearance at the brig unexpectedly. Kane graphically describes the incident: “They were swollen and haggard, and hardly able to speak. Their story was a fearful one. They had left their companions in the ice, risking their own lives to bring us the news: Brooks, Baker, Wilson, and Pierre were all lying frozen and disabled. Where? They could not tell: somewhere in among the hummocks to the north and east: it was drifting heavily round them when they parted. Irish Tom had stayed by to feed and care for the others; but the chances were sorely against them. It was in vain to question them further. They had evidently travelled a great distance, for they were sinking with fatigue and hunger, and could hardly be rallied enough to tell us the direction in which they had come. My first impulse was to move on the instant with an unencumbered party: a rescue, to be effective or even hopeful, could not be too prompt. What pressed on my mind most was, where the sufferers were to be looked for among the drifts. Ohlsen seemed to have his faculties rather more at command than his associates, and I thought that he might assist us as a guide; but he was sinking with exhaustion, and if he went with us we must carry him. There was not a moment to be lost. While some were still busy with the newcomers and getting ready a hasty meal, others were rigging out the ‘Little Willie’ with a buffalo-cover, a small tent, and a package of pemmican; and, as soon as we could hurry through our arrangements, Ohlsen was strapped on in a fur bag, his legs wrapped in dog-skins and eider-down, and we were off upon the ice. Our party consisted of nine men and myself. We carried only the clothes on our backs. The thermometer stood at −46°, 78 degrees below the freezing-point. A well-known peculiar tower of ice, called by the men the ‘Pinnacly Berg,’ served as our first landmark: other icebergs of colossal size, which stretched in long beaded lines across the bay, helped to guide us afterward; and it was not until we had travelled for sixteen hours that we began to lose our way. We knew that our lost companions must be somewhere in the area before us, within a radius of 40 miles. Mr. Ohlsen, who had been for fifty hours without rest, fell asleep as soon as we began to move, and awoke now with unequivocal signs of mental disturbance. It became evident that he had lost the bearing of the icebergs, which in form and colour endlessly repeated themselves; and the uniformity of the vast field of snow utterly forbade the hope of local landmarks.

“Pushing ahead of the party, and clambering over some rugged ice-piles, I came to a long level floe, which I thought might probably have attracted the eyes of weary men in circumstances like our own. It was a light conjecture; but it was enough to turn the scale, for there was no other to balance it. I gave orders to abandon the sledge, and disperse in search of footmarks. We raised our tent, placed our pemmican in cache, except a small allowance for each man to carry on his person; and poor Ohlsen, now just able to keep his legs, was liberated from his bag. The thermometer had fallen by this time to −49.3°, and the wind was setting in sharply from the north-west. It was out of the question to halt: it required brisk exercise to keep us from freezing. I could not even melt ice for water; and, at these temperatures, any resort to snow for the purpose of allaying thirst was followed by bloody lips and tongue: it burnt like caustic.

“It was indispensable, then, that we should move on, looking out for traces as we went. Yet when the men were ordered to spread themselves, so as to multiply the chances, though they all obeyed heartily, some painful impress of solitary danger, or perhaps it may have been the varying configuration of the ice-field, kept them closing up continually into a single group. The strange manner in which some of us were affected I now attribute as much to shattered nerves as to the direct influence of the cold. Men like McGary and Bonsall, who had stood out our severest marches, were seized with trembling-fits and short breath; and, in spite of all my efforts to keep up an example of sound bearing, I fainted twice on the snow.

“We had been nearly eighteen hours out without water or food, when a new hope cheered us. I think it was Hans, our Esquimaux hunter, who thought he saw a broad sledge-track. The drift had nearly effaced it, and we were some of us doubtful at first whether it was not one of those accidental rifts which the gales make in the surface-snow. But, as we traced on to the deep snow among the hummocks, we were led to footsteps; and, following these with religious care, we at last came in sight of a small American flag fluttering from a hummock, and lower down a little Masonic banner hanging from a tent-pole hardly above the drift. It was the camp of our disabled comrades: we reached it after an unbroken march of twenty-one hours. The little tent was nearly covered. I was not among the first to come up; but, when I reached the tent-curtain, the men were standing in silent file on each side of it. With more kindness and delicacy of feeling than is often supposed to belong to sailors, but which is almost characteristic, they intimated their wish that I should go in alone. As I crawled in, and, coming upon the darkness, heard before me the burst of welcome gladness that came from the four poor fellows stretched on their backs, and then for the first time the cheer outside, my weakness and my gratitude together almost overcame me. ‘They had expected me: they were sure I would come!’

“We were now fifteen souls; the thermometer 75° below the freezing-point; and our sole accommodation a tent barely able to contain eight persons: more than half our party were obliged to keep from freezing by walking outside while the others slept. We could not halt long. Each of us took a turn of two hours sleep; and we prepared for our homeward march.

“We took with us nothing but the tent, furs to protect the rescued party, and food for a journey of fifty hours. Everything else was abandoned. Two large buffalo-bags, each made of four skins, were doubled up, so as to form a sort of sack, lined on each side by fur, closed at the bottom, but opened at the top. This was laid on the sledge; the tent, smoothly folded, serving as a floor. The sick, with their limbs sewed up carefully in reindeer-skins, were placed upon the bed of buffalo-robes, in a half-reclining posture; other skins and blanket-bags were thrown above them; and the whole litter was lashed together so as to allow but a single opening opposite the mouth for breathing.

“This necessary work cost us a great deal of time and effort; but it was essential to the lives of the sufferers. It took us no less than four hours to strip and refresh them, and then to embale them in the manner I have described. Few of us escaped without frost-bitten fingers: the thermometer was at 55.6° below zero, and a slight wind added to the severity of the cold.

“It was completed at last, however: all hands stood around; and, after repeating a short prayer, we set out on our retreat. It was fortunate indeed that we were not inexperienced in sledging over the ice. A great part of our track lay among a succession of hummocks; some of them extending in long lines, 15 and 20 feet high, and so uniformly steep that we had to turn them by a considerable deviation from our direct course; others that we forced our way through, far above our heads in height, lying in parallel ridges, with the space between too narrow for the sledge to be lowered into it safely, and yet not wide enough for the runners to cross without the aid of ropes to stay them. These spaces, too, were generally choked with light snow, hiding the openings between the ice-fragments. They were fearful traps to disengage a limb from, for every man knew that a fracture or a sprain even would cost him his life. Besides all this, the sledge was top-heavy with its load: the maimed men could not bear to be lashed down tight enough to secure them against falling off. Notwithstanding our caution in rejecting every superfluous burden, the weight, including bags and tent, was 1100 pounds.

“And yet our march for the first six hours was very cheering. We made by vigorous pulls and lifts nearly a mile an hour, and reached the new floes before we were absolutely weary. Our sledge sustained the trial admirably. Ohlsen, restored by hope, walked steadily at the leading belt of the sledge-lines; and I began to feel certain of reaching our half-way station of the day before, where we had left our tent. But we were still 9 miles from it, when, almost without premonition, we all became aware of an alarming failure of our energies.

“I was, of course, familiar with the benumbed and almost lethargic sensation of extreme cold; and once, when exposed for some hours in the midwinter of Baffin’s Bay, I had experienced symptoms which I compared to the diffused paralysis of the electro-galvanic shock. But I had treated the sleepy comfort of freezing as something like the embellishment of romance. I had evidence now to the contrary.

“Bonsall and Morton, two of our stoutest men, came to me, begging permission to sleep: ‘they were not cold: the wind did not enter them now: a little sleep was all they wanted.’ Presently Hans was found nearly stiff under a drift; and Thomas, bolt upright, had his eyes closed, and could hardly articulate. At last, John Blake threw himself on the snow, and refused to rise. They did not complain of feeling cold; but it was in vain that I wrestled, boxed, ran, argued, jeered, or reprimanded: an immediate halt could not be avoided.

“We pitched our tent with much difficulty. Our hands were too powerless to strike a fire; we were obliged to do without water or food. Even the spirits (whisky) had frozen at the men’s feet, under all the coverings. We put Bonsall, Ohlsen, Thomas, and Hans, with the other sick men, well inside the tent, and crowded in as many others as we could. Then, leaving the party in charge of Mr. McGary, with orders to come on after four hours’ rest, I pushed ahead with William Godfrey, who volunteered to be my companion. My aim was to reach the half-way tent, and thaw some ice and pemmican before the others arrived.

“The floe was of level ice, and the walking excellent. I cannot tell how long it took us to make the 9 miles; for we were in a strange sort of stupor, and had little apprehension of time. It was probably about four hours. We kept ourselves awake by imposing on each other a continued articulation of words; they must have been incoherent enough. I recall these hours as among the most wretched I have ever gone through: we were neither of us in our right senses, and retained a very confused recollection of what preceded our arrival at the tent. We both of us, however, remember a bear, who walked leisurely before us and tore up as he went a jumper that Mr. McGary had improvidently thrown off the day before. He tore it into shreds and rolled it into a ball, but never offered to interfere with our progress. I remember this, and with it a confused sentiment that our tent and buffalo-robes might probably share the same fate. Godfrey, with whom the memory of this day’s work may atone for many faults of a later time, had a better eye than myself; and, looking some miles ahead, he could see that our tent was undergoing the same unceremonious treatment. I thought I saw it too, but we were so drunken with cold that we strode on steadily, and, for aught I know, without quickening our pace.

“Probably our approach saved the contents of the tent; for when we reached it the tent was uninjured, though the bear had overturned it, tossing the buffalo-robes and pemmican into the snow: we missed only a couple of blanket-bags. What we recollect, however, and perhaps all we recollect, is, that we had great difficulty in raising it. We crawled into our reindeer sleeping-bags, without speaking, and for the next three hours slept on in a dreamy but intense slumber. When I awoke, my long beard was a mass of ice, frozen fast to the buffalo-skin: Godfrey had to cut me out with his jack-knife. Four days after our escape, I found my woollen comfortable with a goodly share of my beard still adhering to it.

“We were able to melt water and get some soup cooked before the rest of our party arrived: it took them but five hours to walk the 9 miles. They were doing well, and, considering the circumstances, in wonderful spirits. The day was most providentially windless, with a clear sun. All enjoyed the refreshment we had got ready: the crippled were repacked in their robes; and we sped briskly toward the hummock-ridges which lay between us and the Pinnacly Berg.

“The hummocks we had now to meet came properly under the designation of squeezed ice. A great chain of bergs stretching from north-west to south-east, moving with the tides, had compressed the surface-floes; and rearing them up on their edges, produced an area more like the volcanic pedragal of the basin of Mexico than anything else I can compare it to.

“It required desperate efforts to work our way over it, – literally desperate, for our strength failed us anew, and we began to lose our self-control. We could not abstain any longer from eating snow: our mouths swelled, and some of us became speechless. Happily the day was warmed by a clear sunshine, and the thermometer rose to −4° in the shade: otherwise we must have frozen.

“Our halts multiplied, and we fell half sleeping on the snow. I could not prevent it. Strange to say, it refreshed us. I ventured upon the experiment myself, making Riley wake me at the end of three minutes; and I felt so much benefited by it that I timed the men in the same way. They sat on the runners of the sledge, fell asleep instantly, and were forced to wakefulness when their three minutes were out.

“By eight in the evening we emerged from the floes. The sight of the Pinnacly Berg revived us. Brandy, an invaluable resource in emergency, had already been served out in tablespoonful doses. We now took a longer rest, and a last stouter dram, and reached the brig at 1 p.m., we believe without a halt.

“I say we believe; and here perhaps is the most decided proof of our sufferings: we were quite delirious, and had ceased to entertain a sane apprehension of the circumstances about us. We moved on like men in a dream. Our footmarks seen afterward showed that we had steered a bee-line for the brig. It must have been by a sort of instinct, for it left no impress on the memory. Bonsall was sent staggering ahead, and reached the brig, God knows how, for he had fallen repeatedly at the track-lines; but he delivered with punctilious accuracy the messages I had sent by him to Dr. Hayes. I thought myself the soundest of all, for I went through all the formula of sanity, and can recall the muttering delirium of my comrades when we got back into the cabin of our brig. Yet I have been told since of some speeches and some orders too of mine, which I should have remembered for their absurdity if my mind had retained its balance.

“Petersen and Whipple came out to meet us about 2 miles from the brig. They brought my dog-team, with the restoratives I had sent for by Bonsall. I do not remember their coming. Dr. Hayes entered with judicious energy upon the treatment our condition called for, administering morphine freely, after the usual frictions. He reported none of our brain-symptoms as serious, referring them properly to the class of those indications of exhausted power which yield to generous diet and rest. Mr. Ohlsen suffered some time from strabismus and blindness; two others underwent amputation of parts of the foot, without unpleasant consequences; and two died in spite of all our efforts. This rescue party had been out for seventy-two hours. We had halted in all eight hours, half of our number sleeping at a time. We travelled between 80 and 90 miles, most of the way dragging a heavy sledge. The mean temperature of the whole time, including the warmest hours of three days, was at −41.2°. We had no water except at our two halts, and were at no time able to intermit vigorous exercise without freezing.”

About the beginning of April 1854, Esquimaux made their appearance. For some time they caused trouble through stealing everything they could. Great tact was necessary in dealing with them, but this Dr. Kane possessed, and he was ultimately successful in making them close friends.

On 25th April, the advance party of the next sledging expedition left the brig, and was joined later by Dr. Kane. Deep snow was encountered, and several of the party began to show signs of the dreaded scurvy. A cache of provisions on which they intended to rely was found to have been almost entirely destroyed by bears. Dr. Kane himself became ill, and the whole party had to return when in the neighbourhood of the great glacier of Humboldt. They cached some of their stores, and an india-rubber boat, near Dallas Bay, in lat. 79.5°, long. 66°.

On the 20th May another sledge-party was sent off, and consisted of Dr. Hayes and William Godfrey. They were to cross Smith’s Straits above the inlet and make as near as possible a straight course for Cape Sabine. This they accomplished with great difficulty, and proceeded north on the ice along the west coast as far as latitude 79° 45′. They then returned south as far as Cape Sabine, and recrossed the straits, arriving at the brig on 1st June. This was a remarkable journey. The equipment was as follows: – a light sledge and team of seven dogs, 80 lb. of pemmican, 16 lb. of bread, 18 lb. of lard and rope-yarn for fuel; a reindeer-skin sleeping-bag for each, a lamp and pot for cooking, sextant, pocket-compass, telescope, Sharpe’s rifle, two extra pairs of stockings and one of boots for each. About the third day Dr. Hayes suffered from snow-blindness, and this caused some delay. The dogs’ harness lines had to be frequently repaired, which could only be done ultimately by cutting strips from Godfrey’s seal-skin trousers. Great hummocks of ice from 20 to 40 feet in height were encountered. In crossing these ridges the sledge frequently capsized and rolled over and over, dogs, cargo, and all. In twelve days a distance not less than 400 miles was covered; the last day’s travel, when provisions ran short, was 70 miles.

Dr. Kane had not completed the entire circuit of the frozen waters of Smith Sound. He could not yet say whether it was landlocked or whether a channel existed still farther to the north. This he determined to discover. McGary, Bonsall, Hickey, and Riley were detailed for the first section of the new parties. They were accompanied by Morton, who had orders to keep himself as fresh as possible, so as to enter on his farthest north reach in the best possible condition.

They left the vessel on the 4th of June, and made for the Humboldt Glacier. Here Morton was joined by Hans with the dog-sledge, and the two set out on the 18th June, pursuing a northerly course nearly parallel with the glacier, and from 4 to 7 miles distant from it, according to the condition of the ice. The icebergs given off by the glacier presented great difficulties, but these were finally overcome. On the 21st of June, Kennedy Channel was sighted, and they directed their course towards the cape at the eastern side of the entrance – Cape Andrew Jackson. Here they found open water, and it was with great difficulty that the cape was rounded. Still proceeding north, they reached Cape Constitution in latitude 81° 22′. An attempt to pass this cape failed. Morton climbed up the cliff to a height of 500 feet, and could get no farther. As far as he could see not a speck of ice was visible. He stated: “As far as I could discern, the sea was open, a swell coming in from the northward and running crosswise, as if with a small eastern set. The wind was due north – enough of it to make white caps – and the surf broke in on the rocks below in regular breakers. The sky to the north-west was of dark rain-cloud, the first that I had seen since the brig was frozen up. Ivory gulls were nesting in the rocks above me, and out to sea were mollemoke and silver-backed gulls. The ducks had not been seen north of the first island of the channel, but petrel and gulls hung about the waves near the coast.”

Morton was absent on this journey thirty days. The open condition of Kennedy Channel, discovered by him, had a most important bearing on some of the expeditions which followed Kane’s. It gave strong support to the theory of an open polar sea, which was believed in by many until the British Expedition of 1875. Dr. Kane himself wavered between the arguments for and against. He, however, was aware of the fact that open water, which had frequently been described as a polar sea, had been found by many explorers in various parts of the Arctic regions, which on further investigation was found to be merely temporary. And Dr. Kane, after referring to this fact, wrote: “All these illusory discoveries were no doubt chronicled with perfect integrity; and it may seem to others, as since I have left the field it sometimes does to myself, that my own, though on a larger scale, may one day pass within the same category.”

All the sledge-parties had now returned to the brig, and the season of Arctic travel had ended. The question now to be faced was how they were to pass a second winter in the event of the ice not liberating the brig, which seemed likely. As Dr. Kane remarked, “there never was, and I trust never will be, a party worse armed for the encounter of a second Arctic winter. We have neither health, fuel, nor provisions.”

He first determined to examine the condition of the ice to the south. He found that for 35 miles the straits were absolutely tight. He then resolved to make an attempt to communicate with Beechy Island and obtain assistance from Sir Edward Belcher’s squadron, which was in search of Franklin in Wellington Channel. A whale-boat was mounted on a sledge, and Kane with five of his men started off on the tremendous undertaking. On some rocky islets near Littleton Island over 200 eider ducks were killed in a few hours. They ultimately reached within 10 miles of Cape Parry, but were stopped there by a solid mass of ice. They returned to Northumberland Island, and obtained an abundance of auks and eiders. The ice still remaining solid, they decided to return to the brig. There was still no sign of the ice breaking up. On 15th August, Dr. Kane wrote: “The season travels on: the young ice grows thicker, and my messmates’ faces grow longer, every day. I have again to play buffoon to keep up the spirits of the party.” On the 18th of August the amount of wood was reduced to 6 lb. a meal. A suggestion was now made by some of the party that an effort should be made to reach the Danish settlements. On 24th August, Dr. Kane called all hands and frankly explained his reasons which determined him to remain with the brig. He gave his permission, however, to such as were desirous of making the attempt to reach the settlements to do so. Eight men decided to remain with Dr. Kane. The others received a liberal share of the resources, and left the brig on 28th August. One of this party – George Riley – returned a few days afterwards. Dr. Kane now took steps to make the brig as warm as possible in view of the fact that there was little fuel left. Moss and turf were collected with which the quarter-deck was well padded. A space about 18 feet square was enclosed below, and this was packed from floor to ceiling with inner walls of the same material. The floor was covered 2 inches deep with oakum, on the top of which was placed a canvas carpet. The entrance to this space was from the hold by a low moss-lined tunnel. The whole arrangement was an imitation of the igloë of the Esquimaux. The outer-deck planking of the brig was now stripped off and stacked for firewood. On the 11th September the stock of game consisted of six long-tailed ducks and three ptarmigan.