The last voyage of the Karluk

by Bob Bartlett; Ralph T. Hale

We got away from our igloo at six o’clock the next morning and found that the going continued good for a while. After a time we came to another patch of rough, heavy ice, with open leads, which we had to cross. Then we came to a long strip of firm, young ice and had good travelling, later reaching older floes and raftered ice; we managed to make our way round the ends of the rafters and did not have to use the pickaxe at all. This was a great relief for we wasted no time in making a road. The dogs, however, were pretty nearly worn out and could only be made to work by constant urging; in fact, during the day two of them gave out completely.

We made camp at half past seven. The land was not over fifteen or eighteen miles away, so we knew that we had done a good day’s work.

At about one o’clock the next morning, while we were asleep, the ice split near the igloo and opened about two feet. We had to get out of the igloo at once because, although the crack did not come inside, it was so near that the walls split on the south end. Shortly after we got out the ice began to move about and we had to work fast to save the dogs. Some of them had been tethered and others loose; now we let them all loose to give each a better opportunity if the ice broke up any more, taking our chances on getting them together again in the morning. We removed everything from the igloo and loaded up the sledge, lashing everything tight. The night was fine and clear, with brilliant star-light and no wind whatever, all of which was in our favor, though it was still so dark that we could not see our way around.

We stayed up the rest of the night and at dawn had some meat and pemmican and drank some tea. As soon as it was light enough we got away, hoping that by night we should be on land. The ice was in motion everywhere, however, and there were open leads on every hand. We had light enough to see what we had to do but there was a great deal of condensation and we could not see very far. The ice was grinding and groaning, and splitting in all directions about us as we travelled and the noise made the dogs so uneasy that at times they were practically useless. Finally, about three o’clock in the afternoon, the light was so bad and the ice was moving so constantly that we could not get along so we stopped, built our igloo, drank some tea and turned in.

At six o’clock the next morning, the fourth of April, we left the dogs and the sledge in camp and went ahead with pickaxes to make a trail through the rough ice. It was a fine, clear day. From a high rafter I could see an open lead on the other side of the belt of rough ice, and beyond the lead the ice-foot, itself, as it is called in Arctic parlance,—the ice which is permanently attached to the land and extends out into the sea.

At ten o’clock, leaving Kataktovick to continue the road-making with the pickaxe, I went back to the camp, harnessed up the dogs and drove them along the trail that we had made. When we reached the open lead we had to look for a place to cross. Finally we found a point where the moving ice nearly touched the still ice. The dogs, however, were so frightened that they were afraid to stir. We tried to make them jump across the crack but they lay down and would not budge. While we delayed thus the crack widened; the moving floe was drifting away. I made up my mind that it was now or never, so I cut the traces, jumped across the widening gap and pulled the sledge across. Then I threw a rope to Kataktovick and pulled him across flying. The dogs we managed to grasp by traces or wherever we could get hold of them and dragged them across. Before long the lead had opened to a considerable width. We were now on the land ice, free from open water, and had only rafters, rough ice and deep snow to contend with. I sent Kataktovick on towards the land to see how the going was and I started in to make a road with the pickaxe, while the dogs rested by the sledge. In about an hour he came back and said that after he had got through the rough ice he had found the going good. We both worked on the road with our pickaxes and in the afternoon got about through the rough ice to smoother going beyond. I went back and brought up the dogs and the sledge and by the time I reached Kataktovick he was through the rough ice. It was a fine, clear day, without any wind; the temperature, I should judge, was about fifty below zero.

The good going did not last long for we soon came to rough ice, with deep, soft snow. Here we had to wear our snowshoes again. For a good part of the way across from Wrangell Island we had not been able to use them because the ice was too rough and jagged and, furthermore, we had had so much jumping to do, getting across the leads, that we could not spare the time necessary to put the snowshoes on and off, or run the risk of breaking them. Our footgear was wet, too, and the ugsug rawhide straps across the toes sank in so far that there was danger that our feet would freeze by the stopping of the circulation. Yet, wherever it is practicable to wear them, snowshoes are indispensable in Arctic travel and I should as willingly do without food as without snowshoes. At this point we threw all the supplies off the sledge excepting enough for one day and, with the sledge light, made the road with pickaxes towards the land.

CAPTAIN BARTLETT’S CHART OF THE ALASKAN COAST FROM THE MACKENZIE RIVER TO BERING STRAIT

The Eskimo now showed by his manner that he was feeling more optimistic. Finally, as we were working our way through the rough ice, he said that he smelled wood-smoke, and asked whether I smelled it, too. I did not but I had no doubt that he did, for an Eskimo’s sense of smell is remarkably acute. I felt sure that we were not far from human habitation, though just what this might be I could only guess. From the leaves of the “American Coast Pilot” that I had with me, I was able to learn that “the northeast coast of Siberia has been only slightly examined, and the charts must be taken as sketches and only approximately accurate. The first examination was by Cook, in 1778; the next exploration was by Admiral von Wrangell in 1820; in 1878, Baron Nordenskïold, in the Vega, passed along the coast, having completed the N. E. passage as far as Pitlekaj, where he was frozen in and wintered. In 1881 the coast was examined in places by Lieut. Hooper of the U. S. S. Corwin, and the description of the salient points here given is from the report of the Corwin.” This was not exactly what could be called up-to-date information. In the Karluk’s library had been a copy of Nordenskïold’s “Voyage of the Vega,” but it was in German, a language which I am unable to read. The pictures indicated that woods extended in places down to the shore and that reindeer lived in the woods. What I particularly wanted to know, however, was in what condition the Siberian natives now were, what food they had to eat, and whether they were afflicted with tuberculosis, to which so many primitive races have succumbed after contact with the beneficent influences of civilization, for more than thirty years had elapsed since Nordenskïold’s journey and in that length of time radical changes in numbers or habitation might have come to the whole population.