CHAPTER XVI
OVER THE ICE TOWARDS WRANGELL ISLAND
On the morning of February 19, I called the cook at four o’clock, so that we had an early breakfast for the start of the advance guard.
There were two parties, each with a sledge and four dogs. In the first party were Malloch, Hadley, Williamson and Breddy; in the second Munro, Maurer, Williams and Chafe. Each party would have man-harness to help out the dogs when necessary.
On the first party’s sledge were six cases of man pemmican, two cases of biscuit, two gallons of oil, 84 tins of milk, 2,400 tea tablets in tins hermetically sealed, one Mannlicher rifle, 250 rounds of ammunition, one Ross revolver (Malloch’s own), 400 rounds of ammunition, one Primus stove, one gallon of alcohol, 500 22-calibre cartridges, one 401 Winchester, 100 rounds of ammunition, one pair of ski, matches, a pickaxe, hatchets, sleeping-robes and a tent. On the other sledge were five cases of man pemmican, two cases of biscuit, 84 tins of milk, two gallons of oil, one gallon of alcohol, 2,400 tea tablets, one Primus stove, one Mannlicher rifle, 250 rounds of ammunition, matches, pick-axe, hatchets, a tent, snow-shoes and a tracing of the map of Wrangell Island. Every man had a new suit of Jaeger underwear given him. The parties were to pick up supplies along the trail so that they would thus be replacing supplies used on the march, and take full loads with them in to the land. For this march was to take these eight men clear through to Wrangell Island and they were saying good-by to Shipwreck Camp for good. The men shook hands all around and got away about eight o’clock in the morning.
On one of the sledges they had a passenger. While we were fitting out the ship at the navy yard at Esquimault, some one presented us with a cat, as black as the ace of spades. She was kept in the forecastle at first; after a while she got aft and Mr. Hadley became greatly interested in her, training her to do tricks. When the ship was crushed and we were working to get things out of her before she sank I told the men to be sure not to forget the cat, but to put her in a basket and place her in the box-house. There she became very much at home. Early in her residence she got into difficulties with a dog, that had wandered through the entrance, by landing suddenly like an animated bunch of porcupine quills on the dog’s nose. The dog shook her off and tried to take his revenge. We saved the cat just in time. After that she never bothered the dogs again. When the advance party now started for the land Hadley and Maurer made a deer-skin bag to carry the cat and she rode on a sledge in state. Her food consisted chiefly of pemmican scraps.
With the rest of the party and all the supplies we could carry, I had intended to start the day after the earlier party. Kerdrillo, however, was in no condition to travel. He had hurt his back going in to Herald Island and it gave him a good deal of pain, so it seemed wise to wait until he was better. We had two lame dogs and the delay on account of Kerdrillo would give them, too, a chance to recuperate. Ice travel is as hard on dogs as on men and, besides that, the dogs were always fighting among themselves, if they were not sharply watched, and one of them had so bad a tear in his leg that Mamen had to take nine stitches in it, using the regulation surgical needle and silk thread. We had twelve dogs left besides Nellie, one of the dogs that had had pups. We had built a snow-house for her and her pups, but as it was clear that the pups would not be of service to us now, we had to have them killed to save Nellie’s strength. She improved enough to be of value later on.
For several days while we waited we had a high easterly gale and snowdrift. I wondered how the eight men of the advance guard were getting along and what they thought had become of the rest of us. Daily I had to rub poor Kerdrillo’s back and put plasters on it. His improvement was slow but fortunately his condition was not the only bar to our immediate departure, for the weather was too bad for efficient travel and it was far better for us to be eating supplies in camp where we had plenty than to be consuming them detained by the storm in some igloo along the trail. We fed the dogs seal meat, for we had several seal left, and also pemmican, for we still had plenty of that, and I was feeding the dogs all they would eat, to get them in as good condition as possible for the final march. This would be continuous travel with little sleep and now, on account of the storm, hard going and extra work in locating the trail.
The Eskimo occupied some of their time in camp fitting up harpoons and spears to save ammunition. They also put our snowshoes in good condition and spliced hatchet-handles on to the handles of the snow-knives so that they could wield them better in cutting out snow-blocks for igloos.
The supply-tent was all snowed under, but by digging around I succeeded in getting out a few things that I wanted. We all had a shave and a bath and changed our underclothing. I used a fork to comb my hair for I had given my comb to Keruk; it is surprising what an excellent comb a fork makes,—I recommend it for Arctic use.
There was just a little tobacco left. Mamen found a small piece of chewing-tobacco under the boards. Keruk, whom we all called “Auntie,” had a little and when I wanted tobacco I would ask Auntie for a pipeful.
On the twenty-third the storm was breaking at last. Huge banks of snow were piled high around the camp; we were all snowed in. The two crippled dogs were in the box-house with us; the other dogs were in the snow-igloo, which had been occupied by the men who had now gone to the land. It took us nearly all day on the twenty-third to dig our way through the snow from the box-house to the igloo in order to feed the dogs. We dug the supply tent out and busied ourselves getting ready for our departure. In fact we stayed up all night, giving the final touches to our clothing.
At 4 A.M. on February twenty-fourth we had coffee and began loading our sledges. As soon as Kerdrillo’s sledge, a remodeled Nome sledge, was loaded I started him off. With him went his wife and their two children, and Templeman, the cook. Keruk carried her baby, Mugpi, on her back all the way to Wrangell Island; the older girl covered the entire distance on foot, sometimes even helping her father with the sledge. Kerdrillo had five dogs. His sledge was loaded with four cases of man pemmican, forty-eight tins of milk, two tins of biscuit, one case of oil, 2,400 tea tablets, in hermetically sealed tins, one 30.30 Winchester rifle, 200 rounds of ammunition, one tent, one Primus stove, one axe, two pickaxes, candles, a gallon of alcohol, matches, snow-knives and sleeping robes.
The rest of us had two sledges, one with three dogs, driven by Kataktovick, the other with four dogs, driven by myself. On Kataktovick’s sledge were three cases of man pemmican, thirty-six cases of milk, two cases of biscuit, ten gallons of oil and 2,400 tea tablets. My own sledge carried four cases of man pemmican, two cases of biscuit, thirty-six cases of milk, twelve tins of coal oil, 2,400 tea tablets, one tent, matches, one Primus stove, one axe, two pickaxes, candles, snow-knives, one gallon of alcohol, one pair of snowshoes, one pair of ski, one Mannlicher rifle, 250 rounds of ammunition, one Colt revolver, 100 rounds of ammunition, sleeping-robes, rope and spare harness. We had to leave a Peary sledge in camp because there were not dogs enough to make a team to haul it. As it was, our three sledges, with their four-hundred-pound loads, were heavily burdened for the dogs we had, with some of them in a half-crippled condition.
Photograph copyrighted, 1914, by Lomen Bros., Nome
MUGPI
“Keruk carried her baby, Mugpi, on her back all the way
to Wrangell Island.” [See page 141]
At about noon we finally got away—Kataktovick, McKinlay, Mamen and I. McKinlay, wearing man-harness, helped pull my sledge, while I guided and drove the dogs. On account of his dislocated knee-cap which bothered him constantly and once on the march got out of place and had to be put back, with strenuous efforts on my part and much silent suffering on his, Mamen could not help pull Kataktovick’s sledge but had to limp alongside and make his way as best he could. He chafed very much over his temporary uselessness and I had to cheer him up as well as I could by telling him constantly what wonderful work he had already accomplished.
We placed a record in a copper tank on the ice, telling where the ship was lost and when we left camp, with the names of the members of the various parties as they had left. In camp and on the ice we left behind us two transits, about 3,000 pounds of pemmican, 80 cases of biscuit, 200 sacks of coal, ten cases of gasoline, two drums of coal oil, with various odds and ends; over the camp we left the British ensign flying. I had my charts with me. On the day we left, on account of a sudden clearing up of the atmosphere and a temporary cessation of the almost continuous whirling snowdrift, I had a good view of Wrangell Island, the first sure view I had had of it.
We had reached a point beyond the second camp by nightfall. Here we stopped. We had intended to make the third camp, but it was getting very dark, we had been up all the previous night, had worked hard all day and were very tired, so we were forced to pitch our tents and had to spend a miserable night under canvas. The tent was not large enough for us, yet all four of us occupied it and our breathing filled it with condensation. Our dogs, too, were rather sluggish the first day out, for they had been well stuffed with food during the time of our enforced delay in camp.
We welcomed daylight the next morning and turned out at four o’clock, and after our standard ration of tea, biscuit and pemmican, were soon on the march. All hands were glad to be off and the dogs, too, worked better than on the first day, so we made good progress. In most places the road had been destroyed by the storm of the past few days, so the work of the preliminary sledging parties was of little use to us, though sometimes we could make out where the trail led; chiefly, however, we had to make our own way, guided by the empty pemmican tins and flags, where these still stayed up, and by the sight of Wrangell Island to the southwest. We managed to keep the general direction of the travelled road from camp to camp, though it often took time and care to study out the way to go.
SHIPWRECK CAMP
“We placed a record in a copper tank on the ice, telling where the ship was lost and when we left camp, with the names of the members of the various parties as they had left.... Over the camp we left the British ensign flying.” [See page 143]
At the fourth camp I found a note from Munro saying that they had been held up there by open water and a heavy gale, the same, evidently, which had detained us at Shipwreck Camp, and that they had shot a polar bear near by. This I knew even before I read the note for I found a big piece of bear-meat that they had left in the igloo for us. They had been unable to take all the pemmican at the cache here along with them; we picked up a few tins of it but could not take any more, for we were already overburdened.
Munro’s note further said that the trail beyond was badly smashed but we went on as fast as we could, for we wanted to catch up with Kerdrillo and I was anxious to know that the advance party was continuing to get along well. At quarter past four we reached the sixth igloo. These camps were from four to ten miles apart. We found at this camp five gallons of oil, which the advance party left, three cases of pemmican, four cases of biscuit and some alcohol. There should have been another cache near by but the ice had raftered under pressure of the recent storm and destroyed it, thereby losing us a lot of biscuit and pemmican, and, what was just then even more valuable, perhaps, twelve gallons of oil.
At half past four we finally came up with Kerdrillo and his party. We had made the thirty miles from Shipwreck Camp to the sixth camp in two days, going twelve the first day and eighteen the second. Kerdrillo and his family were already occupying the igloo at this camp so we built another for ourselves.
In building a snow-igloo the first thing to do is to find a level place where the ice is heavy and will not crack; it is of course not always possible to find the ideal spot and you have to be content with the heaviest ice you can find and take your chances. The snow should be hard and firmly packed. You start in cutting blocks of snow with a snow-knife, an implement which has a steel blade about a foot and a half long, two inches wide and a sixteenth of an inch thick, with a wooden handle about six inches long, an inch and a half wide and a quarter of an inch thick; we had lengthened the handles of our snow-knives by lashing hatchet-handles to them, as I have already mentioned, so that we could use both hands in wielding them. Sometimes instead of a snow-knife we would use an ordinary hand-saw in cutting the blocks out; we could often do more work with this than with a snow-knife. The Eskimo in the distant past used to use a knife made of stone or bone.
The size of the snow-blocks varied. For the lower tiers of the walls of the igloo we used blocks as large as could be cut without breaking; for the upper tiers the size was somewhat smaller, tapering off to the roof. The blocks varied in thickness from a foot and a half to two feet, according to the condition of the snow. A properly completed igloo is round, with a conical roof which requires considerable skill and practice to make. It took our Eskimo a long time, however, to cover in the roof, so we used to use the tent we had with us for the roof, with our snowshoes and ski for a tent-pole. Our igloos were square instead of round. Inside we would build a bed-platform of snow, large enough for us all to sleep on; we would place our fur sleeping-robes on this platform and lie down to sleep. We slept in our clothes, with no covering over us; it is not safe to use sleeping-bags on the sea-ice for when the ice cracks underneath you, the sleeping-bags hobble your arms and legs and you drown. We never caught cold; in fact “colds” and pneumonia do not exist in the Arctic beyond the limit of habitation of civilized man.
When we got our igloo built we would make a half-circular opening in one of the sides and crawl in; then we would fill up this opening with a snow-block, cut down to fit it tightly enough to make it air-proof. For ventilation we had small holes punched in the walls. Once inside we would light our Primus stove and make our tea, eat our biscuit and pemmican by candlelight, lie down and go to sleep.
We were not ordinarily troubled with insomnia, but sometimes, like a peaceful community the night before the Fourth, we were kept awake in spite of ourselves. Between ten and eleven on the night of the twenty-fifth, for instance, the ice began to crack in the vicinity of our camp and from time to time we in our igloo would feel severe shocks, as of an earthquake. Through the snow walls I could hear the Eskimo out on the ice. Kataktovick went out to see what was up and came back at once to tell me that a crack two or three feet wide had opened through the middle of Kerdrillo’s igloo, which was about five yards away from ours, and that they had nearly lost their little baby but fortunately had got out before anything happened to them.
The ice continued to crack about us all through the night. There was no crack in our igloo so I gave it to Keruk and her children for the rest of the night and we walked back and forth, waiting for daylight. It was not very dark for the stars were shining brilliantly. The temperature was about forty below zero. All around us the ice was breaking and at times we were on a floating island.
ANOTHER VIEW OF SHIPWRECK CAMP
As soon as daylight came I sent McKinlay and Kataktovick, with all the dogs and an empty sledge, back to Shipwreck Camp for about thirty gallons of the oil that we had left there. They had all the dogs from the three sledges and could make good progress.
While McKinlay and Kataktovick were gone Kerdrillo and I went on a scouting tour ahead for a way to see how the road looked. We found that the storm had destroyed the old trail and that the trail newly made by the Munro-Hadley party was already changed somewhat, though as yet not very much. While we were on this scout Kerdrillo caught a glimpse, through our binoculars, of two men of the advance party, just visible against the sky-line on a high rafter eight or ten miles away. When we came back to camp, I had Kerdrillo build another igloo for his party. During the day the ice had all closed up again.
About half past three the next afternoon McKinlay and Kataktovick returned from Shipwreck Camp, with thirty gallons of oil, two tins of alcohol, twelve sealskins, a few fawnskins and 6,000 tea tablets. They said that both ways they had found our trail unaltered; apparently the only movement of the ice had been at the sixth camp, where we were.