SLEDGE JOURNEY OF BRAINARD AND LOCKWOOD
As early as February 19, 1882, Lockwood and Brainard made a dog-sledge trip to one of the depots, deposited the previous autumn, a journey over the foot-ice of twenty miles. On the 29th of February, Lieutenant Lockwood, accompanied by Brainard, four other men, and two dog teams, made an experimental trip to Thank God Harbor preparatory to his proposed grand expedition along the coast to northern Greenland. Visiting the grave of Charles Francis Hall, Lockwood wrote in his journal the following touching tribute:—
“The head-board erected by his comrades, as also the metallic one left by the English, still stands. How mournful to me the scene, made more so by the howling of the winds and the thick atmosphere! It was doubtless best that he died where he did. I have come to regard him as a visionary and an enthusiast, who was indebted more to fortune than to those practical abilities which Kane possessed. Yet he gave his life to the cause, and that must always go far toward redeeming the shortcomings of any man. The concluding lines of the inscription on the English tablet, I think good. ‘To Captain Hall, who sacrificed his life in the advancement of science, November 8, 1871. This tablet has been erected by the British polar expedition of 1875, which followed in his footsteps and profited by his experience.’”
Dr. Pavy, accompanied by Sergeant Rice and Eskimo Jens with a dog-sledge, started March 19, 1882, for the north of Grinnell Land. A supporting sledge under Sergeant Jewell accompanied him as far as Lincoln Bay. On April 1, an unfortunate accident to a sledge runner caused a five days’ delay at Cape Union. Sergeant Rice and Eskimo Jens made a forced march back to Fort Conger and secured a new runner. Storms retarded their advance, but in spite of the rough condition of the ice, all supplies were brought up to Cape Joseph Henry and left there April 20. Two days later a violent storm set in, and after it subsided, the party pushed on toward Cape Hecla. A lane of open water was seen extending from Crozier Island round Cape Hecla. As this channel rapidly increased in width, a retreat was decided on, but to his consternation, before land could be reached, Dr. Pavy found himself adrift on a floe in the Polar Ocean. Fortunately the floe was driven against the land near Cape Henry, and after abandoning all articles not absolutely indispensable, he escaped to the mainland, but was obliged to give up further explorations.
In the meantime, Lieutenant Lockwood had completed his preparations, and the advance party, consisting of Sergeant Brainard and nine men dragging four Hudson Bay sledges, left Fort Conger April 3, 1882, to be followed the next day by Lieutenant Lockwood with two men and one dog-sledge, under instructions to explore the coast of Greenland near Cape Britannia “in such direction as (he) thought best to carry out the objects of the (main) expedition,—the extension of knowledge regarding lands within the Arctic Circle.”
The 5th of April, Lockwood joined the advance party at Depot A. On the afternoon of the 8th, they reached Cape Sumner. Bags of pemmican were added to the sledge loads for dog food. The parties encountered violent gales and extreme cold (81° below freezing) as they pushed on to Newman Bay. The hard experience of sledge travel was already telling upon the men, and at this point four were sent back, being unfit for continued field work. Pushing on for Repulse Harbor, with three hundred rations and eight men, Lockwood advanced in the face of storms, rough ice, and broken sledges, at the average rate of nine miles per day. The men suffered much from snow-blindness, and the unwonted fatigue of dragging the heavy sledges through areas of soft, deep snow. At Cape Bryant, which was reached April 27, a rest of two days was taken, during which Brainard, with two companions, visited the highest point of Cape Tulford.
On the 29th of May, Lieutenant Lockwood sent back the supporting sledge-men and, with Brainard and the Eskimo Christensen, the dog-sledge and twenty-five days’ rations, pursued his journey north across the Polar Ocean to Cape Britannia, which was reached May 5, after six journeys, the last a very short one.
“From the top of the mountain, 2050 feet,” writes Lockwood, “which forms Cape Britannia, I got a good view all around. Towards the northeast lay a succession of headlands and inlets as far as I could see—some 15 or 20 miles—and this was the character of the coast beyond as far as I got.”
FARTHEST NORTH
They had followed out the letter of their instructions and had reached the destination mentioned therein, but finding it possible to continue their explorations, they pushed on over land never before explored by man, crossing the frozen ocean and reaching Mary Murray Island the 10th of May. The party were now suffering from cold and insufficient food. To husband their rations, they had eaten very little of late.