True Tales of Arctic Heroism in the New World

Even in good weather the making of camp is the worst feature of arctic travel. Everything is frozen solid, from the bread to the bacon, from the tent to the sleeping-bags, which become as stiff as a board. Now conditions were worse than usual owing to the increasing violence of the blizzard. With snow-blinded eyes and a high, annoying wind the putting up of the tent was most difficult, but it was finally done. This gave a wind-protected place where the cook could light his lamp, melt his snow for tea, and thaw out the frozen meat.

Meanwhile the two other men unpacked the sledge and removed the articles into the tent. It was found that the driving wind had sifted fine snow into the provision bags, the sleeping-gear, and everything that was at all exposed. It was a necessary but most tedious labor to carefully brush every particle of snow from each article before moving it into the tent. They knew that a neglect so to do would be felt the next morning through coatings of ice over their gear. While the cook was busy the other sledgemen fed and picketed the dogs. If left loose these domesticated wolves might possibly return to their fellows at the ship, where good food and fighting company were to be had. If they remained at the camp a loose dog would swallow down everything in the shape of skin, hide, or food. More than once an arctic "tenderfoot" has wakened to find his means of travel vanished – sledge-thongs and dog harness entirely gone down the capacious throats of his ravenous team. Egerton, alive to the situation, carefully stored harnesses and camp gear in the tent with the provision bags.

So bad was the weather that it took six hours of steady labor to make camp, change foot-gear, cook, eat, and enter their sleeping-bags.

With the night passed on the blizzard, and morning came – clear, calm, and bitter cold. Even in the tent the temperature was forty-two degrees below freezing. Frost-bitten hands, ravenous dogs, slowly melting snow, and the watched pot that never boils made slow the striking of camp. It was five and a half hours after leaving their sleeping-bags before they were getting a spark of warmth into their benumbed limbs by steady travel over the arctic trail. Though it was bitter cold the dogs kept taut their traces and progress was rapid for several hours. From time to time Petersen would sigh, and to Egerton's question, "What is the matter?" answer that it was only a pain that would pass. But Egerton felt anxious, as the Dane fell back now and then, and when he said that the cramps in his stomach were terrible, halt was made in a sheltered spot where the cooking-lamp could be lighted. In a half-hour a bowl of boiling-hot tea was served, the finest known restorative of vigor and warmth in cases of arctic exposure – far surpassing rum, brandy, or any alcoholic stimulant. The Dane ate neither the offered bread nor the bacon, and indeed of the latter Egerton said that it was frozen so solidly that even a well man could not put tooth through the lean parts.

Soon they came to very bad travelling, across steeply inclined snow slopes along the bordering cliffs of the ice-bound sea that they were forced to follow. In one place the trail led to a snow-drift thirty feet across, whose steep seaward face ended on a rocky ledge with a sheer outward fall of about thirty feet. It was clearly impossible to move the sledge across, and, Alpine-glacier fashion, a road was slowly hewn out with pick and axe. In other bad places the loaded sledge plunged headlong from the top of high hummocks into masses of rubble-ice in the intervening valleys. In such work animals are quite useless, for the Eskimo dog pulls hard and steady only under conditions where the sledge moves constantly forward. When once stalled the dog team sits on its haunches, welcoming a rest, and watches events composedly. In such cases the skilled driver untangles the traces, straightens out the team, calls out shrilly, cracks his whip loudly, and, as the dogs spring forward, gives a timely and skilful twist to the upstanders which helps the sledge to a new start. If the sledge does not then move it must be unloaded and the dogs again started, or it must be hauled by man-power to an easier part of the trail.

This exhausting labor fell on the young officers, as Petersen was so sick as to be unable to do his part. Standing around, the Dane began to lose that warmth of vigorous circulation that alone keeps a man alive in arctic cold. When finally the dog driver was seized with fits of spasmodic shivering and his face showed frequent frostings, with bits of seriously frozen flesh, Egerton became greatly alarmed. As they were then making their way through very bad ice, camping at once was impossible. From time to time, however, the officers, quitting the sledge, took the sufferer in hand, and by five or ten minutes of work would get him so thawed out that he could safely go on.

When a good camping-place was reached, though they had travelled only six miles, Egerton at once stopped, hoping that a good night's rest with warm drink and food would bring the Dane around.

The moment that the tent was up Egerton sent Petersen in with directions to change his clothing, get into the sleeping-bag, and make himself comfortable until dinner was ready. Meanwhile the officers unloaded the sledge, picketed the dogs, and cared for the camp gear.

On crawling into the tent Egerton found Petersen groaning, and on examination was shocked to find that he had crawled into the sleeping-bag without changing his clothing. Especially bad was his failure to replace his damp foot-gear by dry socks – a practice of recognized necessity in arctic travel to prevent the feet from freezing at night.

As he was groaning and complaining of much pain, Egerton set to work to relieve him. Finding that both the hands and the feet were severely frost-bitten, the man was made to strip off all his clothing, damp with the sweat of travel, and put on dry undergarments. While Rawson was busy making tea, Egerton set himself to the labor of thawing out the frost and of restoring circulation by chafing the hardened limbs with his bare hands – a long and difficult task. The sick man took a little hot tea, which his stomach would not retain, but a dose of sal volatile (ammonia) with hot rum and water gave temporary relief. A high wind arose and the cold became most bitter, the temperature in the tent falling to fifty-two degrees below the freezing-point. With a cold that would nearly solidify mercury added to their mental troubles, the sufferings of the party were extreme. The hands, face, and feet of the invalid suffered repeated frost-bites, which the devoted officers were hardly able to remove.

Exhausted as they were by the hard and unusual labors of the day, sleeping only by snatches, they took watch and watch to care as best they might for their sick comrade. Suffering extremely themselves from the cold, they spared no efforts to give such personal services as might comfort and benefit him. Again and again they restored circulation to the frozen parts by chafing alternately with their naked hands and by the application of flannel wraps heated by their own bodies. Such a night seemed endless with its cares, its privations, and its anxieties, and unfortunately the continuing gale made it impossible to move when dawn came.

It was with great relief that they learned from the Dane that his cramps had nearly disappeared, after he had taken his breakfast of hot cocoa and soaked biscuit. This gave way to renewed anxiety when a few hours later Petersen was attacked by violent and recurring fits of ague, which they hoped to dispel by wrapping him up closely in all the available robes and flannels.

Egerton no longer thought of going on to the Discovery, as it was now a question whether or not the Dane would perish before he could be got back to the Alert, less than twenty miles distant. While knowing that travel in such a gale would be fatal to one if not to all, it was certain that death would come to the Dane if they remained in the tent with a cold of fifty-six degrees below freezing.

Rawson and Egerton agreed that the only chance of prolonging life lay in building a snow house. Casting about they found conditions unfavorable for a regular hut, and so decided to burrow a refuge hole in a great snow-drift not far from their tent. First they sank a shaft six feet deep to a solid foundation, and thence under-cut a tunnel inward for some distance. At the end of it they hollowed out a space eight feet square and four feet high. This work was intermittently done, as from time to time they had to return to the terrible duty of thawing out and restoring circulation to the limbs of the freezing man. Within six hours, however, they had the shelter done and the Dane removed to it. Both tent and sledge were drawn over the passageways so as to keep the cold air out and the warmth from their bodies within. The cold being still intense, they ran the risk of asphyxiation to insure Petersen's comfort. Closing every crevice through which could come a breath of air, they lighted their cooking-lamp and thus raised the temperature to seven degrees above zero. Fortunately such transpiration of fresh air took place through the snow as saved them from harm.

The day passed in this manner, small quantities of food being taken from time to time by the sick man only to be rejected later. Indeed, the only improvement in his condition seemed to come from those strong and dangerous, though effective, restoratives, rum and ammonia, and these were almost always followed by physical relapses. Answering repeatedly, to inquiries, that he was warm and comfortable, in making him ready for the night they found that his feet were perfectly gelid from the toes to the ankles and that his hands were nearly as benumbed.

Realizing that he was nearly in extremities, Egerton and Rawson renewed their devoted efforts. Each officer took a foot, stripped it naked, and set to work to warm it by rubbing it with their bare hands. When circulation was somewhat restored they applied flannels warmed against their bodies, and replaced them as the used pieces became too cold for service. The hands were similarly restored to warmth after two hours of steady work. When the limbs were wrapped up in thick, dry, and warm coverings they thought that the crisis was over.

During the night Egerton was awakened to find the Dane worse than ever. Quite delirious, he had crawled from his sleeping-bag, began to eat snow, and exposed his uncovered body to the cold. Ague fits attacked him, his breath came in short convulsive gasps, and circulation was almost entirely suspended, even in his body. Then followed the same awful and tedious labor of thawing the man out and of guarding against a repetition of such irrational conduct.

With the coming morn the weather was found to be nearly calm, and to their great surprise the condition of Petersen was somewhat improved.

As it was certain death to remain where they were, Egerton decided to start on the journey to the Alert, seventeen miles distant. Though exceedingly feeble, Petersen thought that he could make the journey, Egerton promptly abandoned everything except tent, sleeping-gear, and food for a single day. Over the first part of the trail – most dangerous for a sledge and very rough – Petersen managed to walk under the stimulation of rum and ammonia. When he fell, prostrate and unconscious, on the icy road and could go no farther, he was put into a sleeping-bag, wrapped in warm robes, and lashed securely to the sledge.

The terrible conditions of the homeward journey must be imagined for they cannot well be described. Once the sledge was precipitated down a crevasse twenty-five feet deep, the sledge turning over and over three times in its descent, hurling the dogs in all directions. With beating hearts the officers scrambled down in haste to Petersen, expecting to find him badly injured, but almost miraculously he had escaped with a few bruises. At another point Egerton, who was driving, stopped the team to clear the harness, a frequent duty, as the antics of the dogs tie up in a sadly tangled knot the seal-thong traces by which the sledge is hauled. With one of its occasional fits of uncontrol, the team started on the jump, and dragged the spirited Egerton, who held fast to the traces, a hundred yards through rough ice-masses before he could gain control.

Whenever a stop was made to clear harness or to pick a way through bad ice, the officers went through the slow and painful duty of thawing out Petersen's limbs. Save a brief stop for hot tea to give warmth to and quench the thirst of the invalid, they travelled ten hours, and when in the last stages of physical exhaustion had the inexpressible happiness of bringing their crippled comrade alive to the Alert.

With a generosity in keeping with his heroic conduct toward Petersen, Egerton ascribed his final success to Rawson's labors, for in his official report he says that high praise is due Lieutenant Rawson "for the great aid derived from his advice and help; without his unremitting exertions and cheerful spirit, my own efforts would have been unavailing to return to the ship with my patient alive."

In these hours of splendid devotion to their disabled comrade these young officers, absolutely disregarding personal considerations, displayed that contempt for external good which Emerson indicates as the true measure of every heroic act.

LIFE ON AN EAST GREENLAND ICE-PACK

"And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald."

    – Coleridge.
The second German north polar expedition sailed under Captain Karl Koldewey in 1869, with the intention of landing on the coast of East Greenland, near Sabine Island, whence by winter sledging the explorations of the northern coasts of Greenland and of the north polar basin were to be undertaken. The two ships of the expedition, the Germania and the Hansa, reached by the middle of July the edge of the great ice-pack, which in enormous and generally impenetrable ice-masses streams southward from the Arctic Ocean between Greenland and Spitzbergen. As an accompaniment to this vast ice-field come from the glacier fiords of East Greenland most of the enormous icebergs which are sighted and encountered by transatlantic steamships off the banks of Newfoundland. The ships separating through misunderstanding of a signal, the Germania, a steam-ship, succeeded in working her way through the ice-stream to Sabine Island, where her crew carried out its programme. The Hansa, without steam-power, and so dependent on sails, became entangled in the pack in early August and was never able to escape therefrom. The fate of the Hansa and the experiences of her crew form the subject-matter of this sketch.

Until the Hansa was fast frozen in the pack, on September 9, Captain Hegemann was prepared for any emergency, whether the ship was crushed or if opening lanes of water should permit escape to Sabine Island from which they were only forty miles distant. Completely equipped and victualled boats were kept on deck so that they could be lowered to the ice at any moment.

When the ship was frozen in the captain faced resourcefully the serious question of wintering in the pack. It was known to him that no ship had ever escaped from such wintering in the drifting ice-pack of the Greenland Sea, and indeed the violent and frequently recurring pressures of the ice-field pointed to the early loss of their ship. Life might be possible, but health and comfort could not be had in boats covered with canvas. Cramped quarters, severe cold, damp bedding, and absence of facilities for cooking forbade such an attempt. While others suggested the snow houses of the Eskimo, one fertile mind urged that a living-house be built of coal, which was done.

Fortunately the coal supply was in the form of briquets, coal tiles nine inches broad, quite like ordinary bricks in shape. Thus went up the most remarkable construction in the annals of polar history, a house of coal on a foundation of ice. The Hansa was moored to one of the so-called paleocrystic floe-bergs several square miles in extent, nearly fifty feet thick, with fresh-water ponds and an uplifted central mass thirty-nine feet high, near which hill the coal house was built to insure its safety. With water from the pools to pour on the finely powdered snow, the arctic masons had a cement that quickly bound together the tiles as they were laid in courses. The ship's spars were laid crossways for the main rafters, and other wood was used for the completion of the roof-frame, over which were stretched reed mattings and sail-cloth. Coal tiles made a level and convenient floor, whence in case of necessity they might draw for fuel in the late winter. With a double door and provision caches in the house they awaited the action of the pack, still comfortable in the ship's cabins.

With joy the hunters learned that the ice-field was not wholly desolate, but that it was the hunting-field of the polar bear, who was followed by the arctic fox, who deftly snapped up under bruin's very nose any outlying bit of seal that was within reach.

In the early days, before the pack had become an unbroken ice-mass, a hunter espied on an adjacent floe a large she bear with her cub. A boat was quickly put off to cross the narrow water-lane, when to the surprise of every one the old bear, followed by the cub, rushed forward to meet them at the edge of the floe, gnashing her teeth and licking her chops, clearly unfamiliar with man and his weapons and anxious for a meal. As they fired the bear fell dead on the snow, but the cub instead of running remained by her side licking and caressing her mother in the most affectionate manner. She paid no attention at first to the advancing hunters, save to alertly elude the many efforts to cast a noose over her head. Finally the cub became alarmed, and with piteous howlings ran away, escaping over the rugged pack despite a shot which wounded her.

In the middle of October came a series of violent blizzards which foretold the coming fate of the ship. The groaning, grinding ice-field was breaking up under enormous pressures that came from the colliding floe-bergs, which were revolving under various forces of wind and sea currents. Though trembling violently, with her masts swaying to and fro, the Hansa was spared, great fissures in the floe near by showing how close was her escape. All of the crew were busy preparing for the worst, fuel, food, and clothing being carried in quantities to the house.

The end came on October 19 within four miles of the East Greenland coast, when a gale sprang up and the collision of the fast ice of the shore and the moving sea-pack had already increased the ice-pressures with fearful results. Mighty blocks of granite-like ice shoving under the bow of the ship raised it seventeen feet above its former position in the ice, while the after part of the Hansa was frozen in so tightly or jammed so badly that it could not rise, under which conditions it was certain that the stern would be racked and strained beyond service.

The dangerous situation was dramatic in the extreme. With the dying wind the sky cleared, the stars shone with keen brilliancy, the cold increased sharply to forty-five degrees below the freezing-point, while, as if in mockery of man's sorrows, the merry dancers flashed upward in dagger-shaped gleams wavering an instant and then vanishing, only to come again in new forms with ever-changing colors. To a mere observer it would have been a perfect picture of adverse arctic conditions, wonderful in its aspects and surpassingly beautiful to an artistic eye.

With relaxing pressures the great ice-ridges slowly decreasing in height fell apart, and the ship was again on her usual level, but rent fatally and making water fast. In vain did the whole crew strain at the pumps, while the outpouring water from the spouts froze on the deck as it fell – the water gained steadily and orders to save the cargo were given. The worn-out men worked frantically, dragging out bedding, food, clothing, medicines, guns, ammunition, sledges, boat furniture, and everything that could be of service for life on the floe. Best of all, for their comfort and amusement, they hoisted over the rail of the ship's galley heating-stoves, games, and books; they felled the masts for fuel and stripped the sails for house use. Fortunately the energetic seamen were able to strip the ship of all useful articles before she sank on October 22, 1869, in 70° 52′ north latitude, a few miles from the Greenland coast.

They now faced a situation of extraordinary if not of imminent peril. It was barely possible that they might reach the coast, six miles distant, but that was to face starvation, as everything must be abandoned for a cross-floe march. If the shore was reached it was well known to be ice-clad and desolate, as there were to be found neither natives nor land game along the narrow strips of rocky, ice-free beach which stretches from sea-glacier to sea-glacier on this seemingly accursed coast.

The only chances of life were in the shifting and uncertain forces of nature – a cold winter to keep the ice-field intact, a stormless season to save their floe from breaking up under pressures, and the usual Greenland current to set them to the south. With good fortune they might hope to get into open water seven months hence, when by their boats they could possibly reach the Danish settlements of West Greenland. But could they live seven months through a winter barely begun? At least they would do their best. They were fourteen men, all good and true, in health, skilled to the sea, inured to hardships and privations, accustomed to discipline, and inspired by a spirit of comradeship.

Their floe had been wasted at its edges by the enormous pressure, as well as by the action of the sea, so that they were thankful for Hegemann's foresight in placing the coal house remote from the ocean. All that sailor ingenuity could plan was now done to make life healthy and comfortable in their ark of safety. Outer snow walls were erected so that there was a free walk around the main house, giving also a place for the protection of stores against storms and shelter for daily exercise. From their flag-staff was displayed on fine days a flag, emblem of their love for their country, of their faith in themselves, and of aspiration and uplifting courage in hours of danger.

The hunt engaged their activities whenever signs of game were noted. Once a bear and her cub came from the land, and the mother was slain and added to their larder. An effort was made to keep the cub as a kind of pet. After a while she escaped and was caught swimming across a narrow lane of water. To keep her secure they fastened her to an ice-anchor, where she was at first very much frightened, but later she ate with avidity such meat as was thrown to her. To add to her comfort a snow house was built, with the floor strewed with shavings for her bed, but the record runs: "The young bear, as a genuine inhabitant of the arctic seas, despised the hut and bed, preferring to camp in the snow." Some days later she disappeared, and with the heavy chain doubtless sank to the bottom of the sea.

Nor were these castaways unmindful of the charms of arctic nature. Their narratives tell us of the common beauties around them – the snow-crystals glittering in the few hours of sunlight like millions of tiny diamonds. Night scenes were even more impressive, through wondrous views of the starry constellations and the recurring and evanescent gleams of the mystical aurora. Under the weird auroral light the white snow took at times a peculiar greenish tint, and with it, says an officer, "One could read the finest writing without trouble. One night it shone so intensely that the starlight waned and objects on our field cast shadows." But in its main aspects life on the ice-pack was full of dread in which nervous anxiety largely entered.

The barren peaks and rounded snow-capped land masses of the Greenland coast were usually in sight, and once they were astonished as they walked to see thousands of tiny leaves, possibly of the arctic willow, flying about them, signs of a snow-free fiord not far distant. Again the newly fallen snow for a considerable distance was covered with a reddish matter which Dr. Laube thought must be of volcanic origin carried through the air from Iceland two hundred miles away.

Of interest to the party were the visits of foxes, who came from the near-by land. Of the first it is said: "With tails high in air they shot over the ice-field like small craft sailing before the wind. For the first moment it seemed as if the wind had caught up a couple of large semicircles of whitish yellow paper and was wafting them along." One was shot as a specimen, but the later visitor in the middle of December was better treated. We are told that "the fox, white with a black-tipped tail, was particularly confiding, even bold. He scratched up the bear flesh buried in the snow, and carried it off to eat as we approached. He then quite unconcernedly took a walk on the roof of our house, and through the small window convinced himself as to what we were doing. Should we shoot it? No! It was a long time since we had seen such a fearless creature. At times we placed nets with a meat bait to tease him, but he always managed to get clear of them."

Meanwhile their coal house with the floe was drifting south slowly, with the coast of Greenland in plain sight, distant from five to fifteen miles. Their safety, always the subject of daily talk, seemed assured until the coming spring, for they were on an immense floe-berg whose area of about four square miles was dotted with hills and vales, while sweet-water lakes gave abundant water for drinking and cooking, a great boon. It was known that surrounding floes were daily grinding huge pieces of ice from the edge of their own, and that the ice-pressures were steadily turning it around, so that one week they saw the rising sun from their single window and the week following noted the setting sun therefrom. At first this floe rotation was completed in twelve days, but later, with reduced size, stronger currents, and high winds, the floe-berg made a full rotation in four days.

At times there were welcome additions to their slim larder of fresh meat. One day a seaman rushed in breathless to say that he was sure there was a walrus near by. All were instantly astir, and soon a walrus was located, a black spot on the clear white of an adjoining floe. With great celerity and caution the whale-boat was launched in the intervening lane of open water, and with notable skill the steersman, Hildebrant, manœuvred the boat within rifle range without disturbing the rest of the sleeping animal. The first shot wounded the walrus so badly that he could move away but slowly. On the approach of the hunters he struggled with great fury, breaking through the young ice and attempting to strike down the hunters as they approached to give him his death wound.

Covered with hide an inch thick, the walrus was so colossal that it took the united strength of ten men, using a powerful pulley, to raise the carcass from the water to the main ice. Under the outer hide was a layer of fat three inches thick, which was almost as acceptable for fuel as was the meat for food to men who had for so long a time been confined to salt and canned meats as their principal diet.

The odor of the burning walrus fat seemed to attract bears from long distances. One inquisitive bruin, sniffing at the meat in one of the boats, fell through the tightly stretched canvas covering, and scrambling out growled at the night light by the outer door of the house and passed on safely. A second animal was wounded but escaped. The third, whose acute hunger brought him one dark night to the house in search of the odorous walrus fat, was received with a volley and was found dead the next morning.

The quiet Christmas holidays, celebrated with German earnestness, had brought to their hearts an unusual sense of confidence, peace, and hope, based on their providential preservation, excellent health, and physical comfort. This confidence was soon rudely dispelled, giving way to deep anxiety at the devastation wrought by a frightful blizzard that burst on them with the opening new year.

Then the crew realized that there was a possible danger of perishing in the pack, since at any time their immense floe-berg might break into countless pieces in the very midst of the polar cold and the winter darkness. With the violent wind arose an awful groaning of the ice-pack, due to the tremendous pressures of the surging ocean beneath and of the crowding floes around. So violent were the movements of the floe itself, and so great the noise of crashing bergs, that they feared to longer remain in the coal house, and in terror of their lives they sought refuge in the open. Although the snow-filled air made it impossible for any one to see a dozen yards, yet at least there was a chance to escape if the floe split under their feet, which was felt to be possible at any moment. They made ready for the worst, though escape from death seemed quite hopeless. Rolling up their fur sleeping-bags and clothing, they filled their knapsacks with food. Forming a human chain they ran safety lines from the house to the several boats, well knowing that in the blinding blizzard one could not otherwise find his way to the boat to which each one had been told off for the final emergency. They then set a watch of two men to note events, and, intrusting their souls to God, the rest of the party crawled into their sleeping-bags for such needed rest and for such possible sleep as might come to the most stolid.