True Tales of Arctic Heroism in the New World

by A. W. Greely

With the opening summer of 1852 affairs were most critical, as the ship remained fast in the ice, with no signs of relief. In July Surgeon Alexander Armstrong urged that the allowance of food be increased, as the year of short rations had caused scurvy among one-third of the crew. As all fresh meat was then gone, M'Clure refused to make larger food issues.

At this critical juncture, Woon, a sergeant of marines, shot two musk-oxen under rather thrilling and unusual circumstances. While hunting, the sergeant discovered two musk-oxen lying down, one of them evidently asleep. Creeping quietly toward them, taking advantage of such cover as the nature of the ground afforded, he was within nearly a hundred yards when the alarmed oxen scrambled to their feet. Firing at the larger ox, he wounded him, but not fatally. The musk-ox charged him, stopping within about forty yards. A second shot only caused the animal to shake his black mane and toss his horns in a threatening manner. Meanwhile the second ox ran forward, as though to help his comrade, and was in turn wounded by a shot from the now alarmed hunter. The second animal then rushed toward the sergeant in a thoroughly enraged attitude, and though much smaller than his companion advanced with much more courage than had the first. With his last ball the hunter fired at the larger animal, as being more important to the larder, who, shot through the brain, fell dead in his tracks.

Hastily loading his musket with a part of his remaining powder, the sergeant was forced to use the screw of his ramrod as a missile, with which he pierced the neck of the steadily advancing musk-ox. As this still failed to check the advance the hunter withdrew slowly, reloading his gun with his single remaining missile, the ramrod of the musket. By this time the thoroughly enraged animal was within a few feet of the sergeant when the last shot was fired. The ramrod passed diagonally through the body of the ox, making a raking wound from which the animal fell dead at the very feet of the anxious hunter. The larger musk-ox, with its shaggy mane, curly horns, menacing air, and formidable appearance, was quite a monster. Its huge head and massive horns made up one hundred and thirty pounds of its full weight of seven hundred and sixty-seven pounds.

During the brief arctic summer, under the surgeon's orders, the valleys were searched for sorrel and scurvy grass, which contributed to the improved physical health of the men. It was not possible, however, to dispel the mental dejection that affected all of the crew as the summer passed without such changes in the ice as would permit the Investigator to be moved. All knew that the ship's provisions were inadequate for another year, which must now be faced. If game was not killed in much larger quantities, it would be necessary to face death by starvation, unless some unforeseen and providential relief should come to them.

After long deliberation M'Clure made known his plans to the assembled crew on September 9, 1852. In April twenty-eight men and officers would be sent eastward with sledges to Beechey Island, five hundred and fifty miles distant. At that point they would take a boat and stores there cached and endeavor to reach the Danish settlements on the west coast of Greenland. Nine other men would endeavor to reach the Hudson Bay posts via the Mackenzie River, taking up en route the cache of provisions deposited by the Investigator on Prince Royal Islands in 1850. Thirty of the healthiest of the crew would remain with the ship for the fourth arctic winter, awaiting relief from the British Admiralty in 1854.

Of necessity the daily allowances were again reduced, so that the amount of food issued was six ounces of meat, ten of flour, and two and one-half of canned vegetables. Surgeon Armstrong records that "the feeling was now one of absolute hunger, the cravings of which were ever present."

The ration was generally eaten by the officers at a single meal, and to insure exact fairness, and to remove any ground for complaint, the mess adopted the rule that turn about should be taken in the disagreeable duty of making the daily issue. The officer of the day arranged the food in as many portions as there were persons. Then, in an order fixed by lot, each officer inspected the various piles of food and chose that which most pleased him. The officer making the division for the day took the lot left.

It is to be presumed that the men suffered even more than the officers on these starvation rations. Certainly they were unable to restrain their feelings as well as did the officers, and on October 4, 1853, occurred an act doubtless unprecedented in the royal navy. Suffering from prolonged cravings of hunger, made more acute by the late reduction of food and by the severe winter cold, the ship's crew assembled on the quarterdeck in a body and asked Captain M'Clure for more food, which he refused to grant.

By hunting, which duty now fell almost entirely on the officers, a few ounces of fresh meat—deer, field-mice, or even wolf—were now and then added to their meagre meals. The fortunate hunter, besides his game perquisites of head and heart, also enjoyed other privileges that almost always brought him back to the ship in a condition that made him a frightful spectacle from blood and dirt. When he killed a deer or other animal, the first act of the hunter was to put his lips to the mortal wound and take therefrom a draught of fresh, warm blood that ebbed from the dying animal. In taste and in effect this blood was found to be very like a warm uncooked egg. As water for washing was precious and rarely to be had, owing to lack of fuel, and then in small amounts, the ghastly spectacle that a man presented when the blood of an animal was glued over his face, and was frozen into the accumulated grime of weeks without washing, may be better imagined than described.

The awful cold in which lived and hunted these half-starved men taxed to the utmost their impaired powers of endurance. For two days in January the temperature was ninety-one degrees below the freezing-point, and the average for that month was four degrees below that of frozen mercury.