A Voyage to the Arctic in the Whaler Aurora

by David Moore Lindsay

"But 'tis not mine to tell their tale of grief,

Their constant peril and their scant relief,

Their days of danger and their nights of pain;

Their manly courage e'en when deemed in vain."

One of the interesting things about our trip to the Arctic Seas was the possibility of seeing Greely or of possibly finding him or something about him. I shall here give a brief outline of what had been done up to this time towards rescuing the gallant explorer and his intrepid followers.

Every one I met in Newfoundland appeared to know a great deal about Greely, because he had started from there three years before in a St. John's ship, and because both of the previous relief expeditions had been in St. John's ships, and a great many of the Newfoundland men had been with them, and several of our crew at the sealing had been on the Proteus. One heard the Greely expedition and its relief discussed every day. The consensus of opinion was that as the navy had the matter in hand now, they would succeed. The Newfoundlanders, being a maritime people, could not understand how soldiers could be expected to make a success of a voyage of discovery or relief, and the two previous relief trips had been unfortunate. The raison d'etre of the Greely expedition was briefly as follows:

At a certain scientific conference held in Europe a series of circumpolar stations had been decided upon, from which, owing to their proximity to the revolutionary axis of our globe, interesting and useful observations could be made of physical phenomena. As these observations were to be made at the same time in a great many different places, they would probably prove of greater interest and value than those supplied intermittently by expeditions. Now the United States was to have two stations, one at Point Barrow on the Behring Sea side, and one at Lady Franklin Bay on the Davis Strait side. A young officer in the American army, Lieutenant Greely, had volunteered for and been selected to take charge of the Lady Franklin Bay expedition. The steamer Proteus, a Newfoundland sealer, had been chartered to convey the party north. She was a Dundee-built ship, about the size of the Aurora, and her captain and crew were St. John's men. They left St. John's on July 7,1881, having on board Lieutenant Greely and twenty-four men, with supplies for three years. They made the most unprecedented time going north. Crossing the dangerous Melville Bay in thirty-six hours and getting to within a few miles of her destination on August 4th, a few days later she landed the explorers, and having successfully accomplished her mission she returned to her home port.

Melville Bay, the bugbear of many Arctic voyages, is a very different thing when crossed in June by whalers from what it is in July and August; but the whalers must reach their northern station by the end of June, so cannot wait for the ice to drift south.

It was arranged that a relief expedition should go north in 1882 and another in 1883, while the third in 1884 should convey the party back. Now these two previous relief expeditions formed the topic of conversation in St. John's when the inhabitants became tired of discussing seals and politics, and I soon heard a good deal about them. For the first, in 1882, our friend and late neighbor, the Neptune, had been chartered. She was splendid in every way and did as much as any ship of the period could have done towards making the thing a success; but the orders were to leave two hundred fifty rations at Littleton Island and two hundred fifty at the furthest point reached if the ship failed to get to Lady Eranklin Bay, and that should they fail to reach the Bay, the balance of the stores were to be brought back to St. John's. A private in the army had been selected to take charge of this expedition. As he had been accustomed to obeying orders to the letter, he deposited the two hundred fifty rations at Littleton Island, and two hundred fifty at Cape Sabine, the most northern point reached. Then, as they were unable to reach Lady Franklin Bay, he carefully brought back all the balance of the cargo of food sent up for the starving Greely, twenty days' provisions only having been left in the Arctic and this according to orders and probably—"Well, though the soldier knew some one had blundered."

The authorities were a little anxious now about the brave lieutenant, so they began to make preparations for the 1883 relief, and this time they chartered the Proteus and also sent a small navy ship called the Yantic, a craft rather unfitted for Arctic work. The Proteus was commanded by Captain Pike (the St. John's man who had made such a record taking Greely up) and had her Newfoundland crew. This expedition was in charge of a soldier, Lieutenant Garlington, as the Government wished it all to be an army affair. Owing to an accident, a sergeant selected to go on the Proteus was disabled, and Lieutenant Colwell, U. S. N., was added to the expedition in his place. This was fortunate, as things turned out. One of our quartermasters on the Aurora during the first sealing trip had been one of the crew of the Proteus, and he gave me a lot of interesting information about it. They left St. John's about the end of June and had a nice passage to Disco. In fact, they found the road so open that they reached Cape Sabine in about twenty-five days. As they were in a hurry to reach their destination, Lady Eranklin Bay, little time was spent here and no stores were landed. When the ship moved out into Kane Sea she was caught almost at once in heavy polar ice. The officers soon realized that the ship's position was serious, so began to take supplies out of the hold. While so engaged the side of the ship burst in and she filled. The pressure of the ice kept her from sinking for a few hours, then some change of wind or tide opened the ice and down she went. A great lot of provisions and stores had been thrown overboard on to the ice, much being lost in so doing. After the ship went down her crew took their own boats and the soldiers took theirs. Colwell, with the help of both parties, succeeded in landing a lot of provisions and stores at Cape Sabine, and here he cached five hundred rations. It was said that many of the soldiers did not know how to row, and that some members of the crew of the Proteus behaved very badly after the loss of the ship. They probably did not consider that the saving of government supplies was any of their business, and some of them even are said to have looted these supplies. After a rest at Cape Sabine, the entire party proceeded south to meet the Yantic, the supporting vessel. Very little attention had been paid to her, as she was slow and ill adapted for the ice, and it was thought that she probably would never attempt Melville Bay. However, she had crossed this and was following them well, and the series of misunderstandings and misinterpretations of orders which prevented the Proteus people going south from meeting the Yantic coming north, makes a most remarkable story.