Kataktovick and I, as I have already related, left the island on March 18. The Munro party, starting the day before for Shipwreck Camp, made their way with comparatively little difficulty over the ice until they had crossed the great pressure-ridge that had held us up so long on the way in. Not far on the other side they came to open water, so they had to return to the island.
Various trips were afterwards made out on the ice, on one of which Williams froze his great toe so badly that there was nothing to do but to amputate it, to save the foot and possibly further complications. Perhaps many people would have preferred to risk one danger at a time, rather than be operated on with the means at hand. Williamson was the surgeon; he had shown his natural deftness, as I have mentioned before, by his care of Mamen’s dislocated knee-cap at Shipwreck Camp. His instruments consisted of a pocket-knife and a pair of tin-shears. Perhaps no more painful and primitive operation was ever performed in the Arctic, though the whaling captains have frequently had to exercise a rough and ready surgery, whether it was possible to live up to the requirements of Listerism or not. Williamson did his work well, and his patient did his part with rare grit, so that the result was a success.
Following their instructions to divide into smaller parties, for general harmony and larger hunting areas, Mamen, Malloch and Templeman left the main party on Icy Spit and went down around the southeastern shore of the island to Rodgers Harbor. Here they erected a tent and planned to build a house of driftwood, a plan which on account of circumstances they were never able to carry into effect. Towards the end of May Malloch and Mamen became ill with nephritis and died, Malloch first and Mamen only a few days later. Templeman was thus left alone, until he was joined by Munro and Maurer, who stayed with him until the rescue. They lived on birds’ eggs and seal and, later in the summer, on some Arctic foxes which fortunately came their way.
During the early spring the party at Icy Spit were fortunate in killing polar bear, which gave them fresh meat. As the season advanced they moved down the coast to Waring Point, where they found conditions more favorable for getting birds than on the barren levels of Icy Spit. Here they pitched their tents again and took up a regular routine of life. Hadley, McKinlay, Kerdrillo, Keruk and the two children occupied one tent and Williamson, Chafe, Williams and Breddy the other. Breddy accidentally shot himself later on, making the third death on the island. Hadley and Kerdrillo hunted daily and as the season advanced they were able to get seal and duck, which gave sufficient food after the supplies that we had brought from Shipwreck Camp had become exhausted the first week in June. It was never possible to get a very large supply of food ahead at any one time, and as the summer wore on and they heard nothing from me they faced the prospect of another winter with misgivings. Hadley and Kerdrillo fashioned a rude Eskimo kayak, by making a framework of driftwood and stretching sealskins over it, and Kerdrillo made good use of this in hunting seal after the ice had broken up.
MAKING THE KAYAK ON WRANGELL ISLAND
“Hadley and Kerdrillo fashioned a rude Eskimo kayak, by making a framework of driftwood and stretching sealskins over it, and Kerdrillo made good use of this in hunting seal after the ice had broken up.”
Both at Rodgers Harbor and at Waring Point the anxiety as to the possibility of our not having made a safe crossing to Siberia to bring help increased as the time went on. It required no undue exercise of the imagination on my part to realize the intense relief which the men felt when, on the morning of the seventh of September, the sound of a steam whistle came across the water to those in the tent at Rodgers Harbor and the party from the King and Winge came ashore. This party included Mr. Swenson and members of his own force, together with Eskimo walrus hunters, whom he had taken aboard at East Cape and who had brought the rescue party ashore in their oomiak, and Burt McConnell, who had come up on the King and Winge from Nome. Reunited with these other members of the original ship’s company, McConnell was now able to tell them of his trip ashore with Stefansson in the previous September and briefly how Kataktovick and I had fared in making our trip to Siberia.
The rescuers helped the rescued to gather together the few possessions of value or interest at the camp and then, leaving a notice for any other ship that might come to see about the men, all hands were soon on board the King and Winge, enjoying the luxury of a bath, clean clothes and an ample breakfast. The tent was left standing as it was, but the British flag that had flown so long at half-mast was taken with the rescued men.
With the Rodgers Harbor party safe aboard, the King and Winge steamed to Waring Point. On account of the ice they were unable to get nearer than two miles from shore. Swenson and his party, again accompanied by McConnell, went towards the shore over the ice; Kerdrillo came out to meet them. Escorted by him they covered the rest of the distance to the shore, several of the others rushing out over the ice to meet them. It was found that if it had not been for the snow-storm which was already growing severe the whole party would have migrated that very day to a point on the north side of the island where, if they had to stay through another winter, as seemed not unlikely, they would have a fresh supply of drift-wood to draw on. Their camp at Waring Point was in bad shape. Their tents were wearing out, their food supply was scanty and they had only forty rounds of ammunition left with which to provide themselves with food during the coming winter. To save their cartridges they had lived as far as possible on birds’ eggs, fish which they caught through the ice and gulls which they obtained by angling for them on the cliffs with hook and line, a form of bird-hunting without a shot-gun. The rescue, both here and at Rodgers Harbor, was effected just in time.