ANNOATOK TO UPERNAVIK
ELEVEN HUNDRED MILES SOUTHWARD OVER SEA AND LAND—AT ETAH—OVERLAND TO THE WALRUS GROUNDS—ESKIMO COMEDIES AND TRAGEDIES—A RECORD RUN OVER MELVILLE BAY—FIRST NEWS FROM PASSING SHIPS—THE ECLIPSE OF THE SUN—SOUTHWARD BY STEAMER GODTHAAB
XXX
Along Danish Greenland
A few interesting days were spent with Mr. Whitney at Annoatok. The Eskimos, in the meantime, had all gone south to the walrus hunting grounds at Nuerke. Koo-loo-ting-wah came along with a big team of dogs. Here was an opportunity to attempt to reach the Danish settlements—for to get home quickly was now my all-absorbing aim. Koo-loo-ting-wah was in my service. He was guarding my supplies in 1908 when the ship Roosevelt had come along. He had been compelled to give up the key to my box-house. He had been engaged to place supplies for us and search the American shores for our rescue. Peary, making a pretended "Relief Station," forced Koo-loo-ting-wah from his position as guardian of my supplies, and forbade him to engage in any effort to search for us, and absolutely prohibited him and everybody else, including Murphy, Prichard and Whitney, from engaging in any kind of succor at a time when help was of consequence. Koo-loo-ting-wah was liberally paid to abandon my interests (by Mr. Peary's orders, from my supplies), but, like Bartlett and Whitney and Prichard later, he condemned Mr. Peary for his unfair acts. When asked to join me in the long journey to Upernavik, he said, "Peari an-nutu" (Peary will be mad.) Koo-loo-ting-wah was now in Peary's service at my expense, and I insisted that he enter my service, which he did. Then we began our preparations for the southern trip.
Accompanied by Whitney, I went to Etah, and for this part of the journey Murphy grudgingly gave me a scant food supply for a week, for which I gave him a memorandum. This memorandum was afterwards published by Mr. Peary as a receipt, so displayed as to convey the idea that all the stolen supplies had been replaced.
At Etah was a big cache which had been left a year before by Captain Bernier, the commander of a northern expedition sent out by the Canadian Government, and which had been placed in charge of Mr. Whitney. In this cache were food, new equipment, trading material, and clean underclothes which Mrs. Cook had sent on the Canadian expedition. With this new store of suitable supplies, I now completed my equipment for the return to civilization.[19]
To get home quickly, I concluded, could be done best by going to the Danish settlements in Greenland, seven hundred miles south, and thence to Europe by an early steamer. From Upernavik mail is carried in small native boats to Umanak, where there is direct communication with Europe by government steamers. By making this journey, and taking a fast boat to America, I calculated I could reach New York in early July.
Mr. Whitney expected the Erik to arrive to take him south in the following August. Going, as he planned, into Hudson Bay, he expected to reach New York in October. Although this would be the easiest and safest way to reach home, by the route I had planned I hoped to reach New York four months earlier than the Erik would.