Sailing as astronomer and as second in command, Sonntag met his fate with the expedition on the ice-foot of the West Greenland coast. His dangerous journey was made for reasons vital to the success of the expedition. The incidents of the sledge trip are briefly supplemented by such references to his previous field experiences as show the physical fitness and heroic quality of the man.[10]
The schooner United States was in winter quarters at Port Foulke, near Littleton Island. Without steam-power, the ship had not only been unable to pass to the northward of Cape Sabine, but her unavoidable conflicts with the polar pack had sadly damaged her. Conscious that his ship was so near a wreck as to be unable to renew her voyage toward the north the next summer, Hayes found himself obliged to undertake his polar explorations with dogs over a long line of ice-floes.
Tests of dogs became the order of the day, and Hayes's delight was great when, driving his own team—twelve strong, selected animals with no load—twelve miles in sixty-one minutes, he beat Sonntag by four minutes.
Although knowing the danger of such a journey, Sonntag arranged to climb Brother John's Glacier (named by Kane for his brother) to determine its seaward march. The approach was through a deep canyon. "This gorge is interrupted in places by immense bowlders which have fallen from the overhanging cliffs, or by equally large masses of ice which have broken from the glacier. Sometimes the ice, moving bodily forward, had pushed the rocks up the hill-side in a confused wave. After travelling two miles along the gorge Sonntag made the ascent, Alpine fashion, with which he was familiar, by steps cut with a hatchet in solid ice."
The deep, irregular crevasses common to most glaciers were bridged by crust formations of the recent autumnal snows. These bridges were so uniform with the general surface of the glacier as to make their detection almost impossible. Although Sonntag moved with great caution and continually tested the snow with his ice-chisel, which replaced the Alpine alpenstock, he broke through one bridge. Most fortunately the fall was at a place where the fissure was only about three feet wide, opening either way into a broad crevasse. Still more fortunately he did not fall entirely into the chasm, but as he pitched forward he instinctively extended his left hand, in which he was carrying a mercurial barometer three feet long, which caught on two points of the glacier and thus barely saved his life.[11]
But Sonntag's ardent wish was for a bear hunt which occurred during an unsuccessful attempt to revisit Rensselaer Harbor by dog-sledge, when a bear and cub were killed.
Hayes says: "Sonntag has given me a lively description of the chase. As soon as the dogs discovered the trail they dashed off utterly regardless of the safety of the people on the sledges. Jensen's sledge nearly capsized, and Sonntag rolled off in the snow, but he was fortunate enough to catch the upstander and with its aid to regain his seat. The delay in the hummocks gave the bears a start and made it probable that they would reach the open sea. Maddened by the detention and the prospect of the prey escaping them, the bloodthirsty pack swept across the snowy plain like a whirlwind. The dogs manifested the impatience of hounds in view of a fox, with ten times their savageness. To Sonntag they seemed like so many wolves closing upon a wounded buffalo.
"The old bear was kept back by the young one, which she was unwilling to abandon. The poor beast was in agony and her cries were piteous. The little one jogged on, frightened and anxious, retarding the progress of the mother who would not abandon it. Fear and maternal affection alternately governed her. One moment she would rush forward toward the open water, intent only upon her own safety; then she would wheel around and push on the struggling cub with her snout and again coaxingly encourage it to greater speed.
"Within fifty yards of the struggling animals the hunters, leaning forward, slipped the knot which bound the traces together in one fastening, and the dogs, freed from the sledges, bounded fiercely for their prey. The old bear heard the rush of her enemies and squared herself to meet the assault. The little one ran frightened around her and then crouched for shelter between her legs.