Many explorers who had made trips to the Arctic regions observed that the ice always drifted toward the southeast, and entered the Atlantic ocean between the islands of Spitzbergen and Greenland. It was thought that there must be a strong southeast current to carry this pack of floating ice always in the same direction. Instead of trying to sail northward between Spitzbergen and Greenland, where they must meet that great ice pack, these men said: “Let us enter the Arctic ocean through Bering strait and sail northward toward the pole. If the ship is caught in the ice pack, she will drift along with the pack into the Atlantic ocean. Perhaps the drift will carry the ship across the North Pole.”
De Long sailed from San Francisco on the Jeannette, July 8, 1879. It was a beautiful sunny day, and many vessels were gathered in San Francisco bay to attend the departure. Guns were fired, flags waved, and cheers given with a will for the brave men who were going to risk their lives in the search for the North Pole.
The Jeannette sailed away through the Pacific ocean. She crossed Bering sea in a heavy gale, and passed through Bering strait in safety. After rounding East cape, the watch in the crow’s nest saw some rude huts along the beach. They were the homes of the Tchuktches, the Siberian race which inhabits this peninsula.
The ice alongshore prevented De Long from landing, and the natives, seeing this, launched a large skin boat and went out to the ship. The Indian chief went with them, and they all boarded the Jeannette. These people could furnish very little information, because no one on board knew their language and they could speak no English. But De Long learned, by means of signs and motions, that Nordenskjöld, with the Vega, had wintered to the northwest of them, and that a few weeks before he had passed out through Bering strait.
The Tchuktches had a delightfully original way of asking for liquor. They bent their elbows and uttered the word “Schnapps.” But they did not get anything to drink, and soon returned to the shore.
The next day some men from the Jeannette succeeded in landing. They found the Tchuktches living in tents made of skin, and very dirty. They ate the raw flesh of the walrus and drank the blood. Their chief wore a red calico gown as a mark of his high rank. It was a cool garment for so cold a place, but the natives do not feel the cold as keenly as we should.
After sailing along the Siberian coast for a short distance, the Jeannette bade farewell to land and started on her perilous journey.
In the Arctic regions the ice is divided into what is known as young ice and the pack. Young ice is that which is forming all the time. It is thin at first, and vessels can usually cut their way through. The pack is the old ice which has been formed for many years, and is composed of large pieces, called floes, which are often thirty or forty feet thick and extend over a great surface both above and below the water.
The floes sometimes close up and float together as a pack, squeezing in everything between them. Sometimes they separate, leaving channels of water between. The pack floats with the wind and the current, and there is little chance of escape from it. If a ship is caught in the ice pack, it must float with it until a storm or some other change of weather breaks up the pack. When a ship is strong enough to resist the pressure of the ice pack, there is some chance of escape in the spring, but so tremendous is the power of the ice that Arctic voyagers avoid the pack if possible.
It seems to have been De Long’s intention deliberately to enter the pack and drift with it, for when, on September 6, he saw an opening between the Siberian and the American packs, he slipped in. At first the Jeannette pushed her way bravely, but after a few hours she was unable to proceed, and soon she was frozen in solidly.