True Tales of Arctic Heroism in the New World

Inexpressible was the joy of the party when, fifty miles south of Point Barrow, the masts of the Belvedere, a whale-ship fast in the ice, were sighted. Four days later they were at the point, their marvellous journey of eighteen hundred miles ended and their coming welcomed as a providential relief.

They found conditions frightful as regards the shelter, health, and sanitation of the shipwrecked whalers. Three ships had been lost and another was ice-beset beyond power of saving. The captains of the wrecked ships had abandoned the care and control of their men as to quarters, clothing, food, and general welfare. Provisions were very short, and the seamen were depending on their safety through successful hunting among the caribou herds in the neighborhood of Point Barrow, which were rapidly disappearing.

Jarvis at once took charge of the situation. Dr. McCall found the seamen's quarters in a most horrible condition, its single window giving but a feeble glimmer of light at midday, and its ventilation confined to the few air draughts through cracks in the walls. Eighty seamen occupied for sleeping, shelter, and cooking a single room twenty by fifty feet in size, wherein they were so badly crowded that there was scarcely room for all to stand when out of their bunks together. Moisture was continually dropping from the inner ceiling and walls, which were covered with frost. Their bedding was never dry, sooty grease was coated over all things, and no place was free from great accumulations of filth and its accompaniments. The whalers were "scarcely recognizable as white men," and large numbers of them would without doubt have perished of disease but for the opportune arrival of the relief party.

Order, cleanliness, decency, and discipline were instituted, the men were distributed in light, airy rooms, their clothing was washed and renovated, and intercourse with the natives prohibited. By inspection, precept, and command the general health greatly improved. At every opportunity individual men were sent south by occasional sledge parties. Hunting was systematized, but it failed to produce enough food for the suffering whalers. Recourse was then had to the herds driven north by Lopp and Artisarlook, and with the slaughter of nearly two hundred reindeer suitable quantities of fresh meat were issued. Out of two hundred and seventy-five whalers only one died of disease. Captain Tuttle by daring seamanship reached Icy Cape July 22, 1898, and took on board the Bear about a hundred men whose ships were lost.

With generous feeling Jarvis gives credit in his report to the whaling agent, A. C. Brower, and to "the goodness and help of the natives [Eskimos], who denied themselves to save the white people," subordinating with true heroic modesty his work to all others.

Gold and commerce have peopled the barren Alaskan wastes which were the scenes of this adventurous journey with its unique equipment and its cosmopolitan personnel of Eskimo, Lapp, and American.

While these men worked not for fame but for the lives of brother men, yet in Alaskan annals should stand forever recorded the heroic deeds and unselfish acts of Jarvis and McCall, of Bertholf and Lopp, and of that man among men – Eskimo Artisarlook.

THE MISSIONARY'S ARCTIC TRAIL

"Blest river of salvation!
Pursue thy onward way;
Flow thou to every nation,
Nor in thy richness stay;
Stay not till all the lowly
Triumphant reach their home;
Stay not till all the holy
Proclaim —The Lord is come!"

    – S. F. Smith.
Among the heroic figures in the history of the human race there should be none to command greater admiration than the typical missionaries who, in foreign lands and among uncivilized tribes, have devoted their lives to the good of man and to the glory of God. Of the countless many through the ages may be named a few whose labors, actuated by a spirit of lofty endeavor, particularly appeal to the imagination and love of the people. Such men were Schwarz and Carey, in India; Livingstone, in Africa; Egede, in Greenland; Eliot and Whitney, in America. Of earnest missionaries in North America there are many worthy of special notice, and among these are not a few of French birth whose memories remain fragrant through heroic deeds and unselfish labors. Their work has entered into the life of the people, though Père Marquette is perhaps the only one whose deeds have affected the growth of a nation. Of French missionaries in late years whose activities have been exerted within the arctic circle may be mentioned M. Emile Petitot, who served fifteen years in the arctic regions of Canada, principally in the water-sheds of the Anderson, the Mackenzie, and the Yukon. Apart from his labors of piety and of love among the Indian tribes of northwestern Canada, M. Petitot, in a dozen or more volumes, has contributed largely to our knowledge of the customs, of the beliefs, of the methods of life, and of the human qualities of the aborigines among whom he has labored. Stationed on the shores of Great Slave Lake in 1863, in the autumn of the following year he descended the Mackenzie and proceeded via Fort Simpson for missionary labors at Fort Good Hope. With his experiences in such voyages, and especially with his visit to the shores of the polar sea, this tale is principally concerned.

Coming from the highly civilized and elaborately circumscribed life of France, M. Petitot was vividly impressed with the enormous and underlying difference in the methods of life in the two countries, the more so on account of his youth. He says of this: "It is well to know the advantages of an isolated life. There is an entire exemption from taxes, tithes, levies in kind, quit-rents, poll-taxes, tariffs, customs duties, town duties (octroi), inheritance-taxes, land rents, forced labor, etc., etc."

On the other hand he finds in the northern wilds "Perfect security, unchanging peacefulness, liberty to plant, to cut, to clear land, to mow, to reap, to fish, to hunt, to take and to give, to build and to tear down" – in short, unrestricted personal liberty of action as of thought.

In changing his station to the far north he made his first voyage down the magnificent Mackenzie, which in the area of its drainage basin, its outflow, its length, and its wondrous scenery is scarcely surpassed by any other river of the world. His first stage of travel brought him to Fort Simpson, where he came in contact with the chief factors or agents of the Hudson Bay posts to the north, who gathered there in early autumn to bring the winter furs and to obtain the annual supply of food and of trading goods known as their outfit. For these men it was the holiday season of the year, the only break in the fearful monotony of their isolated lives, when they see their kind and speak their native tongue.

The final glass had been drunk, the precious outfit[17 - M. Petitot tells us that the yearly outfit for the chief factor was, in pounds, 600 flour, 800 sugar, 200 each of rice, raisins, and salt, 100 tea, 20 chocolate, 10 black pepper, and liberal amounts of twisted or nigger-head tobacco.] had been stowed safely under cover, the final word said, and then the Indian steersman dexterously turned his paddle. The voyage to the real north thus began, and the missionary's happiness was complete, though he travelled with six Indians, the factor staying behind. Drifting throughout the night, he could scarce believe his eyes when the sharp air of the cold morning awoke him. He had left a land of green trees and now the foliage of the elms that bordered the Mackenzie were as yellow as straw. The single night of polar cold had checked the life-giving sap with the same startling rapidity with which it had been caused to flow by a spring day of warm, invigorating sunshine.

Then the priest, with the mountains in view, realized the justness of the poetic Indian name, the Giant of the Highlands, given to the "noble Mackenzie, with its vast outflow, its great length, its immense width, and its majestic mountainous banks."

The river could be as terrible as it was majestic; and then came the first touch of terror from the north, a tornado storm known as the "white wind." Whirling downward from a cloudless sky, its furious force lashed the water into waves, filled the air with sand and gravel, and barely missed sinking the boats as they were rushed to the bank. There, standing in water to their waists, the voyageurs held fast to the ends of the boats until a brief lull made possible their discharging. For a night and a day the storm-bound travellers were thus imprisoned on a narrow ledge in wretched plight – without fire, drenched to the skin, unable to sleep, shivering under the biting northerly gale.

Near their destination they had to run the fearful rapids of the Ramparts, the most dangerous of the many swift currents of the Mackenzie. Their skiffs flew with frightful velocity, plunging down descents that were falls in low stages of water and being helplessly whirled around and around. Three danger spots were passed under conditions that made the missionary hold his breath, while admiring the dexterity and composure of the Indian steersman. It seemed an interminable eight miles, this series of rapids walled in by the towering, precipitous Ramparts, with only two points of refuge in its inhospitable cliffs even for a canoe.

Petitot soon made himself at home at the mission of Fort Good Hope, situated on the arctic circle. He found the Hare Indians alert, loquacious, companionable, warm-hearted, and childlike in their sympathies and feelings. Speaking of the free, happy Indian life he says: "How can such misery be combined with such contentment with their lot? How does the sweet pride of a free man inspire their abject nomadic life? Ask its secret from the bird which flies warbling from shrub to shrub, waving its swift wings, drying its rain-wet plumage in the sun, tranquilly sleeping on a twig, its head under its wing."

Learning the Hare language, baptizing the babes and teaching the adults, he also put up buildings, cared for the sick, and in his garden raised potatoes and turnips under the arctic circle. But ever keeping alive that wandering spirit which had its influence in his choice for a missionary life, Petitot was not content.

With his work well in hand he learned with sadness from some of his Indian flock of the wretched conditions under which the Eskimos of Liverpool Bay were living. Fired with his usual zeal for the wretched, untaught savages, and perchance impelled somewhat by a desire to explore the country to the north, Petitot decided to make a midwinter journey to the polar sea. The agent, Gaudet, pointed out the dangers of travel in winter when the cold was excessive, sometimes ninety degrees or more below freezing, but when the priest insisted he accompanied him to Fort Anderson (or Eskimo) both men following on snow-shoes the dog-team that hauled their camp outfit over the two hundred and fifty miles of snow-covered country.

Fort Eskimo, in 68° 30′ N., on Anderson River, was the most northerly of the Hudson Bay posts, and its factor, MacFarlane, saw with surprise the arrival of this young French priest with the alert bearing and splendid confidence of his twenty-five years. It must be a matter of life or death that brought him. What was his mission? The factor could scarcely trust his ears when he heard that the object was a missionary visit to Liverpool Bay.

MacFarlane told him that the country was so wild that Fort Eskimo was palisaded, flanked with bastions, and loop-holed for rifle-fire, owing to the desperate character of the surrounding and hostile tribes. Meanwhile four Eskimos had come to the fort from Liverpool Bay, including In-no-ra-na-na, called Powder Horn by the traders. The priest had hoped to meet this native, whom the factor said was known to be the greatest scapegrace on the arctic coast. Learning that Petitot was unfamiliar with the Inuit language, and was travelling unarmed, his anxiety increased and he told him that a journey into this unknown country with this savage brute would prove fatal. It was pointed out in vain that the Eskimos were bandits and outcasts – true pirates who, glorying in theft, violence, and fraud, viewed their unbridled passions as so many human virtues that showed the true man (Inuit).[18 - The Eskimos call themselves Inuits, that is, the men of the whole world.]

The pen portrait of In-no-ra-na-na, whom the missionary had chosen as his guide, is worth reproduction as a type of Eskimo dandy no longer seen. "He was a handsome man, well made, of large size, good presence, fine face, and had a nearly white complexion. He wore an elegant suit of reindeer-skin, its hair outside, stylishly cut and made. It can be compared only to the costume of our ancestors in the time of Henry IV. The close coat, old French breeches, and tightly fitting boots were of a beautiful brown skin of the summer coat of the deer bordered with a triple trimming of sea-otter, white wolf, and of the caribou, whose long reddish hairs surrounded his figure like a flaming aureole. Similar fringes around his arms and his legs set them off as by so many phylacteries. A head-dress hollowed out of the scowling head of a wolf surrounded his naked and closely shaven skull, which the Inuit could, if needful, partly cover with a small hood made of the head of a reindeer on which still remained the ears and budding horns of the animal." The usual labrets (ornaments inserted through slits made in the cheeks) of walrus ivory protruded from the great gashes in his face and hideously completed his dress.

As nothing could shake the priest's resolution, Factor MacFarlane decided to send as a companion a baptized Loucheux Indian, Sida-Jan, usually known as General Bottom, who spoke a little Inuit. He would save the situation and maintain the missionary's dignity by acting as his cook, dog driver, and camp servant. Moreover, as the brutal, powerful In-no-ra-na-na was actually going north the factor bribed him by giving goods to the amount of twenty beaver-skins[19 - The beaver-skin was the standard coin of the Hudson Bay territory, its value in our money being fifty cents.] to guard the priest from insult or injury at the hands of his fellow-savages. Thus having done his best MacFarlane cried out, as the whip cracked and the dogs jumped to their traces, "May God protect your days among the bad people."

Eskimo fashion, they ran over the crisp, crackling snow in single file, the leader I-you-ma-tou-nak (the itchy) breaking the trail, followed by the great chief In-no-ra-na-na (Powder Horn), Sida-Jan (Bottom), and Petitot. When asked why they always thus marched in single file the Inuits answered: "The best-fitted leads and the others form the tail. It is the order of the ducks and cranes who plough the air, of the reindeer in migration, and of the buffalo or musk-oxen changing their pasture-grounds."

The calm cold was not felt, though the mercury was frozen, until the leader stopped short on the middle ice of the frozen Anderson, over which their route lay, and began to unload his sledge while the others were busy cutting through the snow for water. Petitot had a Hudson Bay sledge with steel-clad, smooth bottom, while the native sledges ran on two rough, solid side runners of wood. These runners drag fearfully when not shod with ice, which coating usually wears off in a few hours of land travel. So throughout the day, from time to time the Eskimo sledge was turned upside down, and its ice runners renewed by frequent wettings of the injured surfaces, the water freezing as it was applied.

As they were about camping the first night they met two young Inuits who had a stone lamp and fresh whale blubber – essentials for a warm meal – so the two parties joined forces to build a snow hut. Warned by the factor not to endanger his life or impair his dignity by working with his hands, the poor priest nearly froze as the house was reared, his undergarments, damp with the perspiration of travel, chilling his body bitterly. He tells us how deftly two of the natives carved from the snow-drifts on the river wedge-shaped slabs. The builder skilfully laid the blocks in spiral fashion, slicing them to fit and matching them quite closely with his snow-knife. The master-workman sprinkled with water the rising walls, which when finished formed a dome-like structure of dazzling whiteness, though hermetically sealed. Then with a few strokes of the snow-knife a door-way was carved out and to the windward of it was built a circular snow wall. Meanwhile an Eskimo built of snow inside the hut the customary divan – a raised shelf where the natives sleep – whereon were arranged the bear and reindeer skins for bedding. Close by the door was suspended the black pot-stone lamp, and directly opposite was placed the proverbial chamber-pot – always present in the Inuit huts.

After being brushed for the twentieth time with the reindeer wisp, to remove every particle of snow from his fur garments, Petitot seated himself in a corner of the divan, a place of honor. When all the Inuits were within the hut they carefully drew up the circular snow wall to the very door-way and poured water over the crevices. When it froze the six travellers were in a hermetically sealed snow house, there being no window or other opening through which a breath of wind could come.

The missionary's sufferings were intense that first night of arctic travel. Smoky soot from the dirty lamp and the nauseous effluvia from his unkempt bed-fellows were bad enough, but the excessive heat and impure air became quite unendurable. The outside cold was about eighty degrees below freezing, while the inside temperature was about eighty degrees above, so that the inner snow-blocks sweat freely, the globules of water forming on the surface ready to shower down on them at the slightest shock.

The Inuits stripped as usual to the skin, but the shame-faced priest felt obliged to keep on his clothes, removing his outer fur garments only. He says: "I slept feverishly in cat-naps, with constant nightmare. Tormented by my garments, perspiring terribly from the heat, crowded between my companions like a packed herring, sickened by unhealthy odors, and suffocated by unbreathable air, what fearful agony I suffered that night! [He adds: ] Save their odor and their nudity, the company of the inmates was not disagreeable. Nor did the food prove less repulsive, especially the opaline, greenish-white whale blubber, which, cut into long, thin strips, forms a choice delicacy known to the Inuits as ortchok. The native with his left hand holds the dainty morsel above the greedily upturned open mouth which it at once fills. Gripping the ortchok fast with his teeth, with a knife in his right hand he cuts it off as near the lips as he can, swallowing it with a gurgle of joy."

When Petitot asked for cooked blubber his host promptly pulled out the melting piece from the smoking, dirty lamp, and was surprised that such a delicacy was refused. When later tasted the raw blubber was found to be insipid, though the fresh oil therefrom was not unlike olive oil in its flavor.

As a kind of dessert they drew on their small supply of congealed seal-oil, so rancid as to be offensive. To this food neither time nor circumstance reconciles the white man.

The meal over the natives took to the soothing evening pipe, and gradually began the talk of the day and of the morrow. Mindful of the precious store goods in his pack and of his promise to the factor, Powder Horn chanted the glory of Fort Anderson, and then sang to the young stranger Inuits the praises of the missionary, whom he proclaimed to be the Son of the Sun; despite his protestations, transforming the priest into a demi-god.

The long day's march had seen the scattering groves dwindle and fail – first the bankerian pine, followed in order by the balsam poplar and the aspen. Now as they broke their morning camp the canoe birch was a stunted, wretched shrub scarcely attaining the dignity of a tree, and even this was gone when they made their next camp near the Anderson delta, leaving here and there unsightly and rare specimens of the hardy larch and the arctic spruces.

Next day they parted company with the young natives, who carried with them the pot-stone lamp, much to the priest's annoyance, as he was nearly frozen when they entered the igloo on the river ice. Powder Horn under pressure showed his ingenuity in providing a substitute. Picking up a piece of drift-wood, he hollowed it out lamp-shaped, and covered its bottom and sides with pebbles and flat stones. As moss was lacking for the wicking, he plucked a pinch of hair from his deerskin sleeping-robe, twisted it into a mesh, and the lamp was ready. During the night a violent gale buried the igloo in a snow-drift. The river ice was under such storm-pressures and it oscillated so strongly and continuously to and fro that they all feared that the river would open and swallow them up. Throughout the whole night the roaring of the wind, the groaning of the ice, and the quivering of the igloo made sleep impossible.

As they passed the river's mouth the third day the landscape was one of frightful sterility. Snow became thin and scanty, the ice was rougher, and the bare spots of ground seemed to have no signs of vegetation, trees and shrubs failing utterly. Nature was worse than dead with its apparent desolation. Here both man and beast was doomed alike to a constant and eternal struggle for bare existence in this adverse environment.

The lack of material and the ingenuity of the Inuits in wresting a bare subsistence from this forlorn country was indicated by a most efficient fox-trap made entirely of ice.

Long after dark the wearied sledge dogs with loud howlings broke into a rapid run, and were welcomed with fierce yells from the rival teams of the Eskimo village, a dozen large snow houses on the shores of Liverpool Bay. So dim was the light and so strange the garments and the attitudes of the native women, fur-clad and crawling on all-fours from the huts, that the missionary could scarcely distinguish them from the dogs.

Introduced to the people of the village by his Inuit protector as the Son of the Sun, he was made welcome after the manner of the country. His efforts at conversions did not bear visible fruit, though the natives listened gravely to his sermons on kindness and goodness, on chastity and honesty, on wifely fidelity and motherly love.

Doubtless he was best remembered in after days, as he himself suggests, "As the man who ate when a little pocket-sun [chronometer] told him; who guided himself on the trail by a live turning-iron [compass]; who made fire by rubbing a bit of wood on his sleeve [matches]; and who by looking hard at something white [prayer-book] made it possible for the Inuit to catch black foxes – the most valuable of all their furs."

Father Petitot made his plans the following summer to renew his efforts to improve the method of life of these wretched and remote natives, and to instil in them moral lessons which his later acquired knowledge of the Eskimo dialect would facilitate. An epidemic, however, destroyed many of the Inuits as well as of the Indian tribes in the Mackenzie region, thus preventing a renewal of the missionary's crusade against immorality and misery.

Nevertheless the adventurous midwinter mission of Father Petitot, in facing fearlessly the danger of death, in enduring uncomplainingly its physical tortures, and in taking up a daily life, Inuit fashion, under such almost revolting conditions, displayed the heroism of the true missionary. While Petitot's self-sacrifice, in the way of physical comforts and of personal sufferings, is not the most remarkable in the annals of the church in arctic history, yet it may well serve as an example for the aspiring and altruistic souls who are willing to do and to dare for the welfare of their fellow-man.

SCHWATKA'S SUMMER SEARCH

"On Fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And glory guards with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead."

    – O'Hara.