CHAPTER XII
Dr. Hayes’s expedition. Winter quarters at Port Foulke.—Greenland coast.—Death of Sonntag.—Dr. Hayes’s journey.—Attempt to cross Smith Sound.—Hayes’s farthest.—“Open Polar Sea.”—Homeward bound.
DR. HAYES’S EXPEDITION
In 1860, Dr. Hayes, who had accompanied the second Grinnell expedition and rendered much valuable service to Dr. Kane and his party, once more sailed from America for the purpose of completing the survey of the north coasts of Greenland and Grinnell Land and to make such explorations as he might find practicable in the direction of the North Pole.
“My proposed base of operations,” writes Dr. Hayes, “was Grinnell Land, which I had discovered on my former voyage, and had personally traced beyond latitude 80°, far enough to satisfy that it was available for my design.”
On the morning of July 8, 1860, the United States was fairly on her way, and, by July 30, Dr. Hayes had the satisfaction of being once more within the Arctic Circle.
“We had some rough handling in Davis’ Strait,” he writes. “Once I thought we had surely come ingloriously to grief. We were running before the wind and fighting a wretched cross-sea under reefed fore and mainsail and jib, when the fore-rail was carried away;—down came everything to the deck; and there was left not a stitch of canvas on the schooner but the lumbering mainsail. It was a miracle that we did not broach to and go to the bottom. Nothing saved us but a steady hand at the helm.”
After several narrow escapes in the ice field, the United States was at length compelled to take up her winter quarters at Port Foulke, on the Greenland coast, about twenty miles to the south of Rensseläer harbour. An abundant commissariat, amply supplied by fresh meat, kept up the general health of the party during the long night, and they escaped scurvy, which had proved so fatal to Dr. Kane’s crew.
A great catastrophe was the death by freezing of Sonntag, the astronomer, who had been a valuable member of Dr. Kane’s expedition, and a much-beloved friend of Dr. Hayes. Accompanied by Hans Hendrik, he had started on a sledge journey to the Etah Eskimo. On February 1, Dr. Hayes writes:—
“Hans has given me the story of his journey, and I sit down to record it with very painful emotions. The travellers rounded Cape Alexander without difficulty, finding the ice solid; they did not halt until they had reached Sutherland Island, where they built a snow hut and rested for a few hours. Continuing thence down the coast, they sought the Esquimaux at Sorfalik without success. The native hut at that place being in ruins, they made for their shelter another house of snow; and, after being well rested, they set out directly for Northumberland Island, having concluded that it was useless to seek longer for natives on the north side of the Sound. They had proceeded on their course about four or five miles as nearly as I can judge from Hans’ description, when Sonntag, growing a little chilled, sprang off the sledge and ran ahead of the dogs to warm himself with the exercise. The tangling of a trace obliging Hans to halt the team for a few minutes, he fell some distance behind, and was hurrying to catch up, when he suddenly observed Sonntag sinking. He had come upon the thin ice, covering a recently open tide-crack, and, probably not observing his footing, he stepped upon it unawares. Hans hastened to his rescue, and aided him out of the water, and then turned back for the shelter which they had recently abandoned. A light wind was blowing at the time from the northeast, and this, according to Hans, caused Sonntag to seek the hut without stopping to change his wet clothing. At first he ran beside the sledge, and thus guarded against danger; but after a while he rode, and when they halted at Sorfalik, Hans discovered that his companion was stiff and speechless. Assisting him into the hut with all possible despatch, Hans states that he removed the wet and frozen clothing, and placed Sonntag in the sleeping-bag. He next gave him some brandy which he found in a flask on the sledge; and, having tightly closed the hut, he lighted the alcohol lamp, for the double purpose of elevating the temperature and making some coffee; but all of his efforts were unavailing, and, after remaining for nearly a day unconscious, Sonntag died. He did not speak after reaching the hut, and left no message of any kind. After closing up the mouth of the hut, so that the body might not be disturbed by bears or foxes, Hans again set out southward, and reached Northumberland Island without inconvenience.”
Early in April, 1861, Dr. Hayes left the ship “to plunge into the wilderness.” Having previously ascertained that an advance along the Greenland shore was utterly impossible, he resolved to cross the sound, and to try his fortunes along the coast of Grinnell Land.
“By winding to the right and left,” he writes, “and by occasionally retracing our steps, we managed to get over the first few miles without much embarrassment, but further on the track was rough, past description. I can compare it to nothing but a promiscuous accumulation of rocks piled up over a vast plain in great heaps and endless ridges. The interstices between these closely accumulated ice-masses are filled up to some extent with drifted snow.”
It is not surprising that after such difficult travel, at the end of twenty-five days they had not yet reached halfway across the sound.
“My party are in a very sorry condition,” writes Dr. Hayes. “One of the men has sprained his back from lifting; another has sprained his ankle; another has gastritis; another a frosted toe; and all are thoroughly overwhelmed with fatigue. The men do not stand it as well as the dogs.”
And the next day, April 26, he writes:—
“I feel to-night that I am getting rapidly to the end of my rope. Each day strengthens the conviction, not only that we can never reach Grinnell Land, with provisions for a journey up the coast to the Polar Sea, but that it cannot be done at all. I have talked to the officers, and they are all of this opinion. They say the thing is hopeless. Dodge put it thus: ‘You might as well try to cross the city of New York over the house-tops.’”
Though disheartened, their bold leader was not discouraged, and, sending the main party back to the schooner, he continued to plunge into the hummocks. After fourteen days of almost superhuman exertion, he reached the coast, May 11, when he writes:—
“In camp at last, close under the land; and as happy as men can be who have achieved success and await supper. As we rounded to in a convenient place for our camp, McDonald looked up at the tall Cape, which rose above our heads; and, as he turned away to get our furnace to prepare a much-needed meal, he was heard to grumble in a serio-comic tone: ‘Well, I wonder if that is land, or only “Cape Fly-away” after all?’”
But though land was reached, the trials of the journey along the coast were none the less harassing. With untiring energy, Dr. Hayes pushed on until the 18th of May, when further progress became impossible, owing to a deep bay, mottled with a white sheet and dark patches, these latter being either soft decaying ice or places where the ice had wholly disappeared.
“And now,” writes Dr. Hayes, “my journey was ended, and I had nothing to do but make my way back to Port Foulke. The advancing season, the rapidity with which the thaw was taking place, the certainty that the open water was eating into Smith Sound as well as through Baffin Bay from the south, as through Kennedy Channel from the north, thus endangering my return across to the Greenland shore, warned me that I had lingered long enough.
“It now only remained for us to plant our flag in token of our discovery, and to deposit a record proof of our presence. The flags were tied to the whip-lash, and suspended between two tall rocks, and while we were building a cairn, they were allowed to flutter in the breeze; then, tearing a leaf from my note-book, I wrote on it as follows:—
“‘This point, the most northern land that has ever been reached, was visited by the undersigned, May 18th, 19th, 1861, accompanied by George T. Knorr, travelling dog-sledge. We arrived here after a toilsome march of forty-six days from my winter harbor near Cape Alexander, at the mouth of Smith Sound. My observations place us in latitude 81° 35´, longitude 70° 30´ W. Our further progress was stopped by rotten ice and cracks. Kennedy Channel appears to expand into the Polar Basin; and, satisfied that it is navigable at least during the months of July, August, and September, I go hence to my winter harbor, to make another trial to get through Smith Sound with my vessel, after the ice breaks up this summer.
“‘I. I. Hayes.
“‘May 19, 1861.’”
“I quit the place with reluctance,” he writes. “It possessed a fascination for me, and it was with no ordinary sensations that I contemplated my situation, with one solitary companion, in that hitherto untrodden desert; while my nearness to the earth’s axis, the consciousness of standing upon land beyond the limits of previous observations, the reflections which crossed my mind respecting the vast ocean which lay spread out before me, the thought that these ice-girdled waters where dwell human beings of an unknown race, were circumstances calculated to invest the very air with mystery, to deepen the curiosity, and to strengthen the resolution to persevere in my determination to sail upon this sea and to explore its furthest limits; and as I recalled the struggles which had been made to reach this sea,—through the ice and across the ice,—by generations of brave men, it seemed as if the spirits of these Old Worthies came to encourage me, as their experience had already guided me; and I felt that I had within my grasp ‘the great and notable thing’ which had inspired the zeal of sturdy Frobisher, and that I had achieved the hope of matchless Parry.” The much-discussed “open polar sea,” in which Dr. Hayes had implicit faith, has since been found to be only the south half of Kennedy Channel, which freezes late and opens early, owing to the very high tides, that sometimes rise thirty feet. Dr. Hayes reached the schooner, June 3, after an absence of two months, in which he travelled not less than 1300 miles. After careful examination of his ship, Dr. Hayes found she had greatly suffered from her experience in the ice, and that, for the safety of his party, great care had to be exercised in her navigation.
“By dint of much earnest exertion,” he writes, “and the use of bolts and spikes,—by replacing the torn cut-water, careful calking, and renewal of the iron plates,—it seemed probable that the schooner would be sea-worthy; but I was forced to agree with my sailing master, that to strike the ice again was sure to sink her.”
Dr. Hayes awaited with some anxiety the breaking up of the ice, and the liberation of the schooner. Not until July 14, 1861, did the United States glide out to sea under full sail, and by August 10 she was in latitude 74° 19´, longitude 66°. By the 12th they made land which proved to be Horse’s Head, and three days later found the schooner at anchor in Upernavik harbour.
“While the chain was yet clinking in the hawse-hole,” writes Dr. Hayes, “an old Dane, dressed in seal-skins, and possessing a small stock of English and a large stock of articles to trade, pulled off to us with an Eskimo crew, and with little ceremony, clambered over the gangway. Knorr met him, and, without any ceremony at all, demanded the news.
“‘Oh! dere’s plenty news!’
“‘Out with it, man! What is it?’
“‘Oh! de Sout States dey go agin de Nort’ States, and dere’s plenty fight!’
“I heard the answer, and wondering what strange complication of European politics had kindled another Continental war, called this Polar Emmæus to the quarter deck. Had he any news from America?
“‘Oh! ’tis ’merica me speak! De Sout’ States, you see? and dere’s plenty fight!’
“Yes, I did see! but I did not believe that he told the truth, and awaited letters which I knew must have come out with the Danish vessel, and which were immediately sent for to the Government House.”
The condition of the schooner necessitated putting in at Halifax for repairs, and, four days after leaving, they made the Boston Lights. “We picked up a pilot,” writes Dr. Hayes, “out of the thickest fog that I have ever seen south of the Arctic Circle, and with a light wind stood into harbor. As the night wore on the wind fell away almost to calm; the fog thickened more and more, if that were possible, as we sagged along over the dead waters toward the anchorage. The night was filled with an oppressive gloom. The lights hanging at the mast-heads of the vessels which we passed had the ghastly glimmer of tapers burning in a charnel-house. We saw no vessel moving but our own, and even those which lay at anchor seemed like phantom ships floating in the murky air. I never saw the ship’s company so lifeless, or so depressed, even in times of real danger.”
“I landed on Long Wharf,” he continues, “and found my way into State Street. Two or three figures were moving through the thick vapors, and their solemn foot-fall broke the worse than Arctic stillness. I reached Washington Street, and walked anxiously westward. A newsboy passed me. I seized a paper, and the first thing which caught my eye was the account of the Ball’s Bluff battle, in which had fallen many of the noblest sons of Boston; and it seemed as if the very air had shrouded itself in mourning for them, and that the heavens wept tears for the city’s slain. I was wending my way to the house of a friend, but I thought it likely that he was not there. I felt like a stranger in a strange land, and yet every object which I passed was familiar. Friends, country, everything seemed swallowed up in some vast calamity, and, doubtful and irresolute, I turned back sad and dejected, and found my way on board again through the dull, dull fog.”
Dr. Hayes made another journey beyond the Arctic Circle in 1869, in the Panther, as the guest of the artist Bradford. Over a thousand miles of the Greenland coast was visited, terminating a good way beyond the last outpost of civilization on the globe, in the midst of the much-dreaded “ice-pack” of Melville Bay.
Transcriber’s Note: image is clickable for a larger version
Frobisher’s Map of Meta Incognita