KANE'S RESCUE OF HIS FREEZING SHIPMATES
"Men in no particular approach so nearly to the gods as by giving safety to their fellow-men."—Cicero.
In 1853 the United States co-operated a second time in the search for Sir John Franklin, and sent into Smith Sound an expedition fitted out through the liberality of Henry Grinnell and George Peabody. Doctor Elisha Kent Kane, United States Navy, commanded the expedition, and placed his brig Advance in winter quarters in Rensselaer Harbor, West Greenland, whence he planned by boats and sledges to "examine the coast lines for vestiges of the lost (Franklin's) party." This sketch relates particularly to Kane's personal and heroic endeavors to save from death one of his own field parties.
Among arctic explorers there is no more striking and interesting figure than that of Elisha Kent Kane, whose enthusiasm created and individuality dominated the search of 1853. Well-intended, his expedition was fallacious in plan, unsuitably equipped, inadequately supplied, and manned by inexperienced volunteers. It seemed doomed to utter and dismal failure, yet through the activities of the versatile leader its general results exceeded those of any other arctic expedition of his generation. With a literary charm and a beauty of expression unexcelled by any other polar explorer, Kane revealed to the world the human relations and racial qualities of the Etah Eskimo, told of the plant and animal life of that desolate region, recorded the march of physical forces, and outlined the safe and practicable route whereby alone the north pole has been reached. But if his mind was imbued with a spirit of philosophy, and if his poetic vision saw first the beautiful, yet his sense of duty and strength of will inevitably involved his exposure to any and all privations that promised definite results.
The autumnal journeys of 1853 had led to nothing promising in the neighborhood of the Advance, so throughout the winter he was busy in preparing for the spring sledge trips in order to search the northern coast line for the lost explorers. Thus planning and laboring he definitely recognizes the unfavorable situation. "The death of my dogs, fifty-seven in all, the rugged obstacles of the ice, and the intense cold (the temperature had fallen to one hundred degrees below the freezing-point) have obliged me to reorganize our whole equipment. We have had to discard all our India-rubber fancy-work. Canvas shoemaking, fur-socking, sewing, carpentering are all going on. Pemmican cases are thawing, buffalo robes drying, camp equipments are in the corners." He adds: "The scurvy spots that mottled our faces made it plain that we were all unfit for arduous travel on foot at the intense temperatures of the nominal spring. But I felt that our work was unfinished."
Smith Sound and West Greenland.
The very start of the party, on March 19, 1854, indicated clearly that two errors, frequent in arctic work, had been committed—overloading and too early a start in periods of extreme cold. Kane had himself noticed that in extreme cold, say fifty degrees below freezing, "the ice or snow covering offers great resistance to the sledge-runners. The dry snow in its finely divided state resembles sand, and the runners creak as they pass over it." In a temperature of seventy-one degrees below freezing "we packed the sledge and strapped on the boat to see how she would drag. Eight men were scarcely able to move her.... Difficulties of draught must not interfere with my parties." Erroneously attributing the trouble to the thin runners of his Eskimo sledge, he changed it for one with broad-gauged sledge-runners, and then added two hundred pounds of pemmican to the load.
The party started to the north in a temperature of seventy-five degrees below freezing, and even with extra men in the rue-raddies (canvas shoulder-belts for dragging the sledge) they were barely able to move the sledge forward over the smooth, level floes near the brig.
When the sledgemen came to rough ice they promptly dumped both boat and pemmican, realizing the impossibility of hauling them. Soon they came to high, uptilted ice-hummocks, separated by precipitous ice-chasms filled with drifting snow. It then became necessary to divide the load and so travel three times over the same road.
Meanwhile they seemed to be advancing over a sea of desolation whereon were utterly lacking the signs of life—few enough even there along the shore. From the snow-covered floes were entirely absent the tiny traces of the snowy ptarmigan, the weaving, wandering trails of the arctic fox, and the sprawling foot-marks of the polar bear. Once, indeed, they saw a short distance seaward a blow-hole, where lately a seal had come for needful air, as shown by the thin glassy ice-covering, unbroken for days.
Suddenly the weather changed, the clear atmosphere giving way to a frosty fog, which shut out any distant views, and save for their compass bearings they did not know the direction of their march, nor indeed whether the frozen sea continued or that land, so desired, was near or far.
The coming of a northeast blizzard caused frightful sufferings to these inexperienced arctic sledgemen. Neither wind or snow proof, the tent was speedily filled with the drifting, sand-like snow, which saturated the sleeping-gear and nearly stopped the cooking. Travel in such weather would have been dangerous for strong, active men, but Baker was too sick even to walk, and so the days were passed in endeavors to keep themselves warm and bring about a state of comfort. Still they went on with courage the first fine day, though their progress was very slow, and there seemed to be no definite hope of reaching land where their depot of provisions could be cached.
A second blizzard ended the advance of the worn-out, thoroughly discouraged men. When the weather cleared Brooks, the mate in charge, found further progress hopeless. "The hummocks in front consist of pieces of ice from one to two feet thick, having sharp edges and piled up from ten to fifteen feet high. Single piles sometimes exceeded thirty feet in height, and at a distance have the appearance of icebergs. We failed to perceive a single opening in their chain." His wise decision to return was all that saved any member of the party.
Of the conditions under which the men slept, Sonntag, who was one of the sledgemen, says: "The evaporation from the bodies of the sleepers became condensed on the blanket-bags and buffalo-skins, which acquired a lining of ice as soon as the men emerged from them in the morning, and when required for use at night these bedclothes were stiffly frozen. The labor of sledge-hauling was so excessive that, notwithstanding the severity of the cold, the men were often thrown into profuse perspiration, and this was soon followed by the clothes being frozen together so firmly that they were not thawed asunder until the men entered their sleeping-bags."
Inspired by the fact they that were homeward bound, the men worked with desperate energy, and camped only when they were ready to drop with exhaustion. The last part of the march was through deep snow, which sifted into every crevice of the men's garments, and, melting there from the heat of the body, saturated their clothing. The most essential rules for the safety of arctic sledgemen are the careful brushing of all snow from the garments before entering the tent and the replacing of the always damp foot-gear with dry socks. Exhausted and unadvised, most of the men sought refuge from the fearful cold by crawling unbrushed into their frozen sleeping-bags, without even removing their boots let alone their socks. That day of the march had been one of awful cold, the average temperature being more than seventy degrees below freezing, and the imprudent sledgemen paid that night the exacting penalty of their rash ignorance. The following morning the situation was hopeless unless help could be had from the brig. The feet of four of the men were so badly frozen that they could not even walk, much less drag the sledge. It was impossible for the four well men to haul their four disabled shipmates to the Advance, thirty miles distant.
At the call for volunteers for the dangerous journey, which must be made in one march, all four of the well men responded, and astronomer Sonntag, with two Danes, Ohlsen and Petersen, made the journey. Irish Tommy, as the crew called Seaman Hickey, rebelled at first because he was not accepted, but his generous heart reconciled him to remaining when it was pointed out that his qualities as cook and as handy-man made him the best person to care for his crippled shipmates.
Kane tells the story of the rescue in language that cannot be improved. "We were at work cheerfully, sewing on moccasins by the blaze of our lamps, when, toward midnight, we heard steps and the next minute Sonntag, Ohlsen, and Petersen came into the cabin, swollen, haggard, and hardly able to speak. 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 and among the hummocks to the north and east; it was drifting heavily around them when they parted."
With impaired health, in feeble strength, ignoring the protests of his officers against such exposure, the heroic Kane waited not a moment, but decided to take the field and risk his life, if necessary, to rescue his crippled shipmates.
Kane continues: "Rigging out the Little Willie sledge with a buffalo cover, a small tent, and a package of pemmican, Ohlsen (who seemed to have his faculties rather more at command than his associates) was strapped on in a fur bag, his legs wrapped in dog-skins and eider-down, and we were off. Our party consisted of myself and nine others. We carried only the clothes on our backs. The thermometer stood at seventy-eight degrees below the freezing-point....
"It was not until we had travelled sixteen hours that we began to lose our way. Our lost companions were somewhere in the area before us, within a radius of forty miles. For fifty hours without sleep, Ohlsen fell asleep as soon as we began to move, and now awoke with unequivocal signs of mental disturbance. He had lost the bearings of the icebergs. I gave orders to abandon the sledge and disperse in search of foot-marks. We raised our tent, gave each man a small allowance of pemmican to carry on his person, and poor Ohlsen, just able to keep his legs, was liberated.
"The thermometer had fallen to eighty-one degrees below freezing, with the wind setting in sharply from the northwest. 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 any resort to snow for allaying thirst was followed by bloody lips and tongue; it burnt like caustic.
"We moved on looking for traces as we went. When the men were ordered to spread themselves, to multiply the chances, they kept closing up continually. The strange manner in which we were affected I attribute as much to shattered nerves as to the cold. McGary and Bonsall, who had stood out our severest marches, were seized with trembling fits and short breath. In spite of all my efforts to keep up an example of sound bearing, I fainted twice on the snow.
"We had been out eighteen hours when Hans, our Eskimo hunter, thought he saw a broad sledge-track which the drift had nearly effaced. 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 it on to the deep snow among the hummocks we were led to footsteps. 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 with snow. I was not among the first to come up; but when I reached the tent-curtain the men were standing in single 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, and I crawled in. Coming upon the darkness, as I 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 that I would come!
"We were now fifteen souls; the thermometer seventy-five degrees below the freezing-point. Our sole accommodation was a tent barely able to hold eight persons; more than half of our party were obliged to keep from freezing by walking outside while the others slept."
For the return journey: "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 blankets 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 effort, but it was essential to the lives of the sufferers. After repeating a short prayer we set out on our retreat."
The journey homeward was made under conditions of almost insuperable difficulty and distress in which lack of sleep played a greater part than either cold or physical labor, severe as they both were. As the energy of the sledgemen failed the tent of the field party was pitched, and McGary left with orders to move forward after a sleep of four hours.
Not sparing himself, Kane went on with one man and reached the half-way tent, to melt ice and pemmican, in time to save its destruction by a predatory polar bear. He says: "The tent was uninjured though the bear had overturned it, tossing the buffalo-robes and pemmican into the snow. All we recollect is that we had great difficulty in raising the tent. We crept into our reindeer-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."
A few hours later the crippled party rejoined Kane and after refreshment went on toward the ship. Fortunately the weather was fine and the cold less severe. Yet, says Kane, "Our halts multiplied, and we fell, half-sleeping, in the snow. Strange to say, it refreshed us. I ventured on the experiment, making Riley wake me at the end of three minutes. I felt so much benefited 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."
In an utterly exhausted, half-delirious condition, they were met a few miles from the brig by a dog-sledge bringing restoratives. Of the outcome of the sledge journey out and back Kane says: "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.
"The 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 eighty and ninety miles, most of the way dragging a heavy sledge. The mean temperature of the whole time was seventy-three degrees below freezing, including the warmest hours of the three days. We had no water except at our two halts, and were at no time able to intermit vigorous exercise without freezing."
Such remarkable and successful efforts to rescue their suffering shipmates cannot fail to excite the admiration of all, if merely as an astonishing instance of man's physical endurance. Yet on the whole such feelings are subordinate in the hearts of most men to a sense of reverence for the spirit that animated Kane and his fellows to sacrifice their personal comfort and venture their lives for the relief and safety of their disabled comrades.