Never shall I forget my impressions, as, on this bracing April day, with the thermometer from 30° to 35° below zero, Mr. Peary and I, shod with snow-shoes, climbed over the deep-drifted snow to the summit of a black rock, destined in a few years to be engulfed by the resistless flow of the glacier, and from this elevated point looked out across the mighty stream of ice to the opposite shore, so distant as to be indistinct, even in the brilliant spring sunshine that was lighting all the scene. Looking up the glacier, the vast ice river disappeared in the serene and silent heights of the ice-cap. To think that this great white, apparently lifeless, expanse, stretching almost beyond the reach of the eye, is yet the embodiment of one of the mightiest forces of nature, a force against which only the iron ribs of mother-earth herself can offer resistance! As we stood there silent, a block of ice larger than many a pretentious house, yet but an atom compared with the glacier itself, pushed from its balance by the imperceptible but constant movement of the glacier, fell with a crash from the glacier face, sending the echoes flying along the ice-cliffs, crushing through the thick bay ice, and bringing the dogs, far below us, to their feet with startled yelps.
The glacier, which forms much of the eastern wall of Inglefield Gulf, has a frontage of about ten miles, and is the largest of the series of giant glaciers in which are here concentrated the energies of the ice-cap. North of it lie the Smithson Mountains, and farther beyond, a vast congeries of ice-streams which circle westward and define the northern head of the gulf. To the eastern sheet, upon whose bosom no human being had ever stepped, and on whose beauty and grandeur no white person had ever gazed, we gave the name of Heilprin Glacier, in honor of Prof. Angelo Heilprin, of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
On the upward voyage to Greenland we had passed numbers of glaciers, beginning with the great Frederikshaab ice-stream. I had seen the distant gleaming of the Jakobshavn Glacier, and after passing Upernavik we were never without a glacier in sight, and yet it was not until September, when Mr. Peary was able to get out in the boat, and we went to the head of McCormick Bay to see the inland ice-party off, that I came in actual contact with one of these streams of ice. About eight miles above Redcliffe, on the same side of the bay, there is a hanging glacier, which has peered at us past the shore cliffs ever since we entered McCormick Bay. This glacier is supported upon a great pile of gravel, looking like a railway fill, which gives it the appearance of being upon stilts. It was a peculiar experience to see the red-brown rocks and cliffs glowing in the sun, and this great vertical wall of blue ice standing out beyond them, with little streams of water trickling down from it, and occasionally fragments of ice breaking away and dashing down with a muffled, metallic sound; and more than this, to find the ever-constant friend, the Arctic poppy, growing actually beneath the overhanging walls of the glacier. The great glaciers, too, that surround Tooktoo Valley, with its green meadows and glistening lakes, will always remain with me an exquisite recollection.
Returning to our sledge, we made a direct line for our camp, which was reached after an absence of ten hours.
Wearied with our journey, we immediately prepared to rest, and selected a sheltered nook on the sea ice, where the snow was several inches deep, and where we were protected from the light breeze which blows almost constantly by a huge buttress of ice, part of the ice-foot. The memory of the delightful sleep of the night before, when we lay right out in the sunshine, helped me to hurry the sleeping-bags into place and crawl into mine without losing much time.
Tawanah came to me and asked if I would not like to have my kamiks and stockings put up on the rocks where the sun could shine on them and dry out what little moisture they might contain, and I told him to take them away. In what seemed to me only a few minutes, but what was actually four hours, I was awakened by some one grasping both sides of my sleeping-bag, evidently trying to stand it and its contents on end. The words “Don’t roll over; try to stand up as quickly as you can; the tide has risen above the ice,” rang in my ears. On looking about me I saw that I had been lying in about six inches of water and peacefully sleeping.
Fortunately I had a sealskin cover over my deerskin bag, and the water had not penetrated it; therefore my deerskin knickerbockers and flannel wrapper, which I always take off after I have pulled myself down in the bag, fold and place under me, were perfectly dry. My poor husband did not fare so well. He had folded his trousers, kamiks, and stockings and placed them under his head as a pillow, and of course they were soaking wet. Not having a cover to his sleeping-bag, the water had soaked through, and it was this that had wakened him.
After a time we managed to dry out, and, continuing our journey, reached our little island at midnight. As we approached the island numbers of ptarmigan were seen flying about the rocks, a circumstance which determined us to name the spot Ptarmigan Island. We secured a few of these beautiful, snow-white birds, and, after taking observations for position, proceeded on our course to Tawanah’s igloo, which we reached shortly after four A. M.
While preparing the morning meal, I was the center of an admiring circle. Men, women, and children formed a perfect ring about me. Never had they seen such a stove, and never such cooking. They chattered incessantly, and plied me with so many questions that I began to despair of getting anything to eat. Finally I gave each a tin of coffee and some crackers, and this kept them busy long enough for me to eat my meal, and we then turned in.
We awoke about four o’clock in the afternoon, and at once began our exploration of the surrounding cliffs and the neighboring glacier, which Mr. Peary considered one of the first magnitude, and named, after the distinguished secretary of the American Geographical Society, the Hurlbut Glacier. It was nine o’clock before we were through with exploring, photographing, and making observations, and then we made a dash for the east end of Herbert Island.