True Tales of Arctic Heroism in the New World

by A. W. Greely

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.