The last voyage of the Karluk

by Bob Bartlett; Ralph T. Hale

My rest was gradually putting me in condition to travel again. At first I was almost as helpless as a child. I suffered no pain, but the swelling in my legs and feet was severe and I seemed to have lost every bit of energy I had ever possessed. My eyes were bloodshot and I was so stiff I could hardly move hand or foot. Kataktovick had little swelling but suffered a good deal of pain in his legs. We were both pretty thin; I had lost thirty or forty pounds and Kataktovick was equally worn down.

Before I began to recover from this swelling of the legs, I developed an acute attack of tonsilitis. It was the first trouble of the kind that I had experienced in all my Arctic work. I recall that on the North Pole expedition, while we were encamped at Cape Sheridan and most of us were away on hunting trips, MacMillan and Doctor Goodsell opened a case of books and both came down with violent head colds. The books were brand new books, too; apparently they had been packed by a man with a cold. The baron had a clinical thermometer with him and he found that my temperature was well above normal. My throat was ulcerated and sore but I used peroxide and alum and after a time the infection subsided.

When the tenth of May came, however, the tonsilitis was still with me and I was conscious that it had weakened my whole system for the time being, in addition to the physical weariness of which the swelling in my legs and feet was a symptom. The baron was anxious to get away, for the season was advancing, and, at any moment, a thaw might set in which would break up the ice in the rivers and interfere with the journey. My legs and feet had more strength in them by now but I could not walk as well as usual. So it was decided that, as we were now ready, we might as well start.

Kataktovick saw us off; we were parting, here. I thanked him, as I bade him good-by, for all that he had done, and told him how greatly I was indebted to him for his constant help and for his faith and trust in me. The money due him would be paid to him later on, I said, after I had got back to civilization. I asked Mr. Carpendale to tell the Chukches what a good boy Kataktovick was. I gave him the rifle we had carried on our journey and some other things we had with us, and then we shook hands warmly and parted.

The day was not a cold one; the thermometer, in fact, was about freezing and there was a good deal of fog. Consequently, the travelling was not so easy as it might have been but we had good dogs and good drivers, and, as we had postponed our start until the late afternoon when the snow was beginning to get harder, we made considerable progress before we stopped at ten P.M. at an aranga for tea and bear meat. We then kept on our way until four o’clock in the morning—the light was sufficient now for travelling all through the twenty-four hours—and then we reached another aranga, where we slept. We had intended to make an aranga still further on before stopping but the snow was soft and the fog was so thick that we had difficulty in telling where we were, so we decided not to risk too much in the face of such adverse weather conditions but to stop while we could.

We drank our tea and turned in. At about eleven A. M. we awoke and breakfasted on some things we had brought with us from East Cape. It was now snowing very hard and there was no use in setting out, so we decided to wait until night. At six P. M. it was snowing harder than ever, so there was nothing to do but to have supper and turn in again. During the day I read a good deal. Mr. Carpendale had given the baron some books and now, as later on in the journey, when I could not sleep I would read. I recall that at this time I was absorbed in Robert Hichens’s “Bella Donna.” The light inside the aranga was poor so I bundled myself up in my furs and sat in the outer apartment among the dogs and sledges where I could see.

My own dogs I had left with Mr. Caraieff at East Cape. He agreed to keep them until I should want them again. The problem of feeding our dogs along the way to Emma Harbor promised to be a fairly pressing one and so it proved; in fact, the baron was constantly worried by it. The season had advanced and the supply of meat which the natives had laid in during the previous fall was beginning to be exhausted.

The snow turned again to rain during the night of the twelfth and it looked very much as if we should be unable to travel. My throat was gradually getting better but was still sore and painful. We ate a good supper of reindeer meat well cooked by the baron and went to bed.

Not long after midnight the rain held up and the wind, which had shifted to the northwest, cleared the air and lowered the temperature, so that a crust formed on the snow and the going was fairly good. We got away at about two o’clock on the morning of May 13, and for a while made good time, but before long the wind dropped and veered to the southeast, bringing in a pelting rain from Bering Sea. I had tried to get an oilskin coat at East Cape but could find none to fit me; my fur clothing got soaked through after a while and, though it was a rather warm rain, I was afraid of a recurrence of the tonsilitis. Occasionally I dropped off the sledge for exercise to keep warm but my legs were still weak and I could not keep up with the dogs, so I had to get on again and ride. As the temperature grew colder the rain turned to a very wet snow-storm, accompanied by a thick fog. We could hardly see ahead of the dogs and steered altogether by compass.

We were bound for a reindeer settlement half way along the north side of St. Lawrence Bay and after a while we brought up at what seemed to the natives a place they knew; on looking around, however, they discovered that they were uncertain where they were. Working our way along slowly, we finally got out to the slopes of the bay shore and stopped. The Eskimo were deep in a discussion of where they were and, as the baron told me, seemed clear enough about it, when suddenly the dogs started, pell-mell. I managed to drop on to the sledge and before I could do more than catch my breath we were tearing down hill at a terrific pace. The dogs had scented the reindeer and had started in their direction without more ado. How we got along without being flung bodily against the numerous boulders that lined our pathway and killed outright, I never knew; we reached the bottom of the slope without a mishap. Here we came across a trail which brought us to the settlement.