The Open Polar Sea / A narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States"

by I. I. Hayes

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE.

I will not now detain the reader with the full details of my plans for the future, arranged to meet this new exigency; suffice it here to observe that, after taking Jensen and Kalutunah into my counsels, I was fully convinced that, by bringing out two ships,—mooring one of them in Port Foulke, and pushing north with the other,—a practicable scheme of exploration could be inaugurated, and that its success as well as safety would be secured. To this end, I proposed to myself to establish a permanent hunting station or colony at Port Foulke; to collect about that place all of the Esquimaux;[12] organize a vigorous hunt; and make that hunt yield whatever was essential for sustaining indefinitely an extended system of exploration toward the North Pole. In the practicability of establishing such a station, Jensen, whose experience in the Greenland colonies was extensive, fully agreed with me, and he was much delighted with the plan, accepting without hesitation my proposal to make him superintendent of it; Kalutunah was overjoyed with the prospect of bringing all of his people together; and, in this aspect alone, the scheme possessed much that was to me personally gratifying. My intercourse with this fast-dwindling race had caused me to feel a deep interest in them and to sympathize with their unhappy condition. The hardships of their life were telling upon them sadly, and, if not rescued by the hand of Christian philanthropy and benevolence, in less than half a century these poor wanderers of the icy sea will have all passed away.

[12] The Esquimaux may, to a limited extent, be even made available in exploration, as has been shown by the experience of Mr. C. F. Hall, who is now, with no other reliance than the natives, energetically pushing his discoveries westward from Repulse Bay.

My plans for the future did not, however, assume definite shape at the period of which I write, nor could they until the schooner should be set free.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE ARCTIC SPRING.—SNOW DISAPPEARING.—PLANTS SHOW SIGNS OF LIFE.—RETURN OF THE BIRDS.—CHANGE IN THE SEA.—REFITTING THE SCHOONER.—THE ESQUIMAUX.—VISIT TO KALUTUNAH.—KALUTUNAH'S ACCOUNT OF THE ESQUIMAU TRADITIONS.—HUNTING-GROUNDS CONTRACTED BY THE ACCUMULATION OF ICE.—HARDSHIPS OF THEIR LIFE.—THEIR SUBSISTENCE.—THE RACE DWINDLING AWAY.—VISIT TO THE GLACIER.—RE-SURVEY OF THE GLACIER.—KALUTUNAH CATCHING BIRDS.—A SNOW-STORM AND A GALE.—THE MID-DAY OF THE ARCTIC SUMMER.

Having determined to be guided by circumstances, as set forth in the last chapter, I had now only to await the breaking up of the ice and the liberation of the schooner,—an incident which I could not anticipate wholly without anxiety, owing to our exposure to the southwest rendering the disruption liable to come in the midst of a heavy swell from the sea that would set us adrift in a rolling pack.

THE ARCTIC SPRING.

The spring had already fairly set in when I returned from the north, and each day added to the encroachment of the water upon the ice. A wonderful change had taken place since my departure in April. The temperature had risen steadily from 35° below zero to as many degrees above it; the wintry cloak of whiteness which had so long clothed the hills and valleys was giving way under the influence of the sun's warm rays; and torrents of the melted snow were dashing wildly down the rugged gorges, or bounding in cascades from the lofty cliffs; and the air was everywhere filled with the pleasing roar of falling waters. A little lake had formed in a basin behind the Observatory, and a playful rivulet gurgled from it over the pebbles down into the harbor, wearing away the ice along the beach, and the banks of the lake and stream were softened by the thaw, and, relieved of their winter covering, were, thus early in June, showing signs of a returning vegetation; the sap had started in the willow-stems, while ice and snow yet lay around the roots, and the mosses, and poppies, and saxifrages, and the cochlearia, and other hardy plants, had begun to sprout; the air was filled with the cry of birds, which had come back for the summer; the cliffs were alive with the little auks; flocks of eider ducks swept over the harbor in rapid flight, seemingly not yet decided which of the islands to select for their summer home; the graceful terns flitted, and screamed, and played over the sea; the burgomaster-gulls and the ger-falcons sailed about us with solemn gravity; the shrill "Ha-hah-wee" of the long-tailed duck was often heard, as the birds shot swiftly across the harbor; the snipe were flying about the growing fresh-water pools; the sparrows chirped from rock to rock; long lines of cackling geese were sailing far overhead, winging their way to some more remote point of northness; the deep bellow of the walrus came from the ice-rafts, which the summer had set adrift upon the sea; the bay and the fiord were dotted over with seal, who had dug through the ice from beneath, and lay basking in the warm sun; and the place which I had left robed in the cold mantle of winter was now dressed in the bright garments of spring. The change had come with marvelous suddenness. The snow on the surface of the ice was rapidly melting; and, whenever we went outside of the ship, we waded through slush. The ice itself was decaying rapidly, and its sea-margin was breaking up. The "Twins" had been loosened from their bonds and had floated away; and a crowd of icebergs, of forms that were strange to us, had come sailing out of the Sound in stately and solemn procession, wending their way to the warmer south—their crystals tumbling from them in fountains as they go.