WHALE SOUND, GREENLAND
Dr. Kane received special orders in December, 1852, from the then Secretary of the United States navy, “to conduct an expedition to the Arctic seas in search of Sir John Franklin.” The noble-hearted American merchant, Mr. Grinnell of New York, who had organised De Haven’s expedition, placed a brig, the Advance, at his disposal. Mr. Peabody, the American benefactor of the London poor, contributed handsomely to the outfit, which was aided by several scientific institutions. The United States Government detailed ten officers and men from the navy, which with seven others made up the full complement of the expedition. Leaving New York on May 30th, 1853, South Greenland was reached on July 1st. Several Danish settlements were visited on the way north, where they received much hospitality, and obtained skins, fur clothing, and native dogs.
As we have already seen, Baffin was the discoverer of Smith’s Sound. From the year 1616, the date of his visit, until Kane explored it, no European or American had sailed over its waters. The voyage of the Advance thither was one of peril and difficulty. [pg 234]Storm succeeded storm; the little brig was constantly beset and nearly crushed in the ice, and sometimes heeled over to such an extent that it seemed a miracle when she righted. Dr. Kane’s description of some of the dangers through which they passed is very graphic.
“At seven in the morning we were close on to the piling masses. We dropped our heaviest anchor with the desperate hope of winding the brig; but there was no withstanding the ice-torrent that followed us. We had only time to fasten a spar as a buoy to the chain, and let her slip. So went our best bower.
“Down we went upon the gale again, helplessly scraping along a lee of ice seldom less than thirty feet thick; one floe, measured by a line as we tried to fasten to it, more than forty. I had seen such ice only once before, and never in such rapid motion. One upturned mass rose above our gunwale, smashing in our bulwarks, and depositing half a ton of ice in a lump upon our decks. Our staunch little brig bore herself through all this wild adventure as if she had a charmed life.
“But a new enemy came in sight ahead. Directly in our way, just beyond the line of floe-ice against which we were alternately sliding and thumping, was a group of bergs. We had no power to avoid them; the only question was, whether we were to be dashed in pieces against them, or whether they might not offer us some providential nook of refuge against the storm. But as we neared them we perceived that they were at some distance from the floe-edge, and separated from it by an interval of open water. Our hopes rose as the gale drove us towards this passage and into it; and we were ready to exult when, from some unexplained cause—probably an eddy of the wind against the lofty ice-walls—we lost our headway. Almost at the same moment we saw that the bergs were not at rest, that with a momentum of their own they were bearing down upon the other ice, and that it must be our fate to be crushed between the two.
“Just then a broad sconce-piece, or low water-washed berg, came driving up from the southward. The thought flashed upon me of one of our escapes in Melville Bay; and as the sconce moved rapidly alongside us, M’Garry managed to plant an anchor on its slope and hold on to it by a whale line. It was an anxious moment. Our noble tow-horse, whiter than the pale horse that seemed to be pursuing us, hauled us bravely on, the spray dashing over his windward flanks, and his forehead ploughing up the lesser ice as if in scorn. The bergs encroached upon us as we advanced; our channel narrowed to a width of perhaps forty feet; we braced the yards to clear the impending ice-walls.... We passed clear, but it was a close shave—so close that our port quarter-boat would have been crushed if we had not taken it in from the davits—and found ourselves under the lee of a berg, in a comparative open lead. Never did heart-tried men acknowledge with more gratitude their merciful deliverance from a wretched death.” And so the narrative continues—a long series of hairbreadth escapes from the nippings and crushing of the ice. Kane says at this juncture:—
“During the whole of the scenes I have been trying to describe I could not help being struck by the composed and manly demeanour of my comrades. The turmoil of ice under a heavy sea often conveys the impression of danger when the reality is absent; but in this fearful passage the parting of our hawsers, the loss of our anchors, the abrupt crushing of our stoven bulwarks, and the actual deposit of ice upon our decks, would have tried the [pg 235]nerves of the most experienced ice-man. All—officers and men—worked alike. Upon each occasion of collision with the ice which formed our lee coast, efforts were made to carry out lines, and some narrow escapes were incurred by the zeal of the parties leading them into positions of danger. Mr. Bonsall avoided being crushed by leaping to a floating fragment; and no less than four of our men at one time were carried down by the drift, and could only be recovered by a relief party after the gale had subsided.
“As our brig, borne on by the ice, commenced her ascent of the berg, the suspense was oppressive. The immense blocks piled against her, range upon range, pressing themselves under her keel and throwing her over upon her side, till, urged by the successive accumulations, she rose slowly, and as if with convulsive efforts, along the sloping wall. Still there was no relaxation of the impelling force. Shock after shock, jarring her to her very centre, she continued to mount steadily on her precarious cradle. But for the groaning of her timbers and the heavy sough of the floes we might have heard a pin drop; and then as she settled down into her old position, quietly taking her place among the broken rubbish, there was a deep breathing silence, as though all were waiting for some signal before the clamour of congratulation and comment should burst forth.” After the storm had abated, the crew went on the ice-beach and towed the vessel a considerable distance, being harnessed up, as Kane says, “like mules on a canal.” Shortly afterwards a council was called to consider the feasibility of proceeding northward or returning southward to find a wintering place, and the latter idea was the more favourably received. After some further discussion it was resolved to cross the bay in which they now were to its northern headland, and thence despatch sledging parties in quest of a suitable spot to “dock” the brig. On the way across the vessel grounded and heeled over, throwing men out of their berths and setting the cabin-deck on fire by upsetting the stove. She was surrounded with ice, which piled up in immense heaps. These alarming experiences were repeated on several occasions. Dr. Kane meantime took a whale-boat, well sheathed with tin, ahead of the brig, and after about twenty-four hours came to a solid ice-shelf or table, clinging round the base of the cliffs. They hauled up the boat and then prepared for a sledge journey. The rough and difficult nature of their icy route may be inferred from the fact that it took them five days to make a direct distance of forty miles, while they had travelled twice that distance in reality. They then arrived at a bay into which a large river fell. This Kane considers the largest stream of North Greenland; its width at the mouth was three-fourths of a mile. Its course was afterwards pursued to an interior glacier, from the base of which it was found to issue in numerous streams. By the banks of this river they encamped, lulled by the unusual music of running waters. “Here,” says Kane, “protected from the frost by the infiltration of the melted snows, and fostered by the reverberation of solar heat from the rocks, we met a flower growth, which, though drearily Arctic in its type, was rich in variety and colouring. Amid festuca and other tufted grasses twinkled the purple lychnis, and the white star of the chickweed; and, not without its pleasing associations, I recognised a solitary hesperis—the Arctic representative of the wallflowers of home.” After a careful examination of the bays and anchorages, Rensselaer Harbour, the spot where he had left the Advance, was chosen for their winter quarters, and a storehouse and observatory were erected ashore.