A Voyage to the Arctic in the Whaler Aurora

by David Moore Lindsay

There is an interesting oil painting of this event in the museum at Peterhead.

June 9th. Monday. We seemed permanent fixtures now and felt that we owned the place in spite of the ducks. I took the dingey with a boy and pulled off to a long point of ice on the west side of the island not far from where we lay. We were able to hide behind a heavy piece of ice with the boat and I shot a number of ducks in the handsome plumage of that season. Then landing, found numbers of old nests made of feathers and down. They had been driven into crevices of rock by storms and one could have collected a quantity of down. While on the island I saw and heard my first finner whale. He was making a great noise as he breathed. Finners have little oil and short bone, so they are not pursued. They are also very quick in their movements and consequently dangerous. This one came up several times in different water holes about the islands and then disappeared.

At dinner we were discussing vegetables and all agreed that the best on board the ship were the tinned carrots. They were simply boiled and put up in pieces six or seven inches long. They were absolutely as fresh and sweet as the day on which they were prepared. We called them Carnoustie carrots, as they had come from that place. Our Dundee meat was excellent at this time. We had a good supply of it, and very seldom saw salt beef or salt pork on the cabin table during the voyage.

The steak for breakfast was served on a sort of metal basket; a handle crossed the middle of this and on each side there was a lid. The steak was under one lid and fried onions under the other. We also had hot rolls every morning, although ship's bread was always on the table.

June 10th. Tuesday. Early in the morning the Aurora unhooked and for a little while managed to push her way northwest. The Wolf and Narwhal had gained by moving on. There was always a chance of a lead opening and letting one through. We had reached the Duck Islands first, by taking the lead while the others hesitated. We now entered the pack further than we wished to and then spent some time trying to extricate ourselves.

There was always danger of being beset in the pack and carried down the straits again; in it there was no safe anchorage, as it might twist and turn in any direction, and a low temperature might even freeze the ship up, whereas following the shore floe gave one a lead of open water every time the pack floated off, and should it be driven in the ship could generally find a bay or indentation in which she was fairly safe.

In consequence of this the captains became nervous when they found themselves beset in the pack. At night we were almost out of sight of the islands. The Wolf and Narwhal were not far from us.

June 11th. Wednesday. Before morning we managed to work north some distance. The Wolf, Narwhal and Arctic were close to us. The relief ships during the day were joined by the Triune, Cornwallis and Nova Zembla.

We all made some headway, but in the afternoon we were so nearly caught once or twice that we steamed back towards the islands and arrived almost at our old anchorage by the following morning.

June 12th. Thursday. In the morning a lot of us were back at the old anchorage again, but the Arctic was still to the north, close to the Thetis and Bear. The Wolf and Narwhal were out in the pack to the west of us, but in the afternoon these last joined us. During the day I shot a lot of ducks, all eider and king eider, afterwards landing on a floe from which a peninsula ran out having a narrow isthmus covered with very high hummocks. Crossing this isthmus to the peninsula beyond, I came upon the perfectly fresh footprints of a bear and two cubs, leading from the water to the big hummocks over which I had come and over which my route back lay. Having only a sixteen bore and number four shot, this discovery was disquieting for a time, as a bear with cubs might fight. However, she did not materialize.