A boy's-eye view of the Arctic

by Kennett Longley Rawson

Expedition plane at the stern of the Bowdoin.

In three days all of the planes were assembled and ready to go. It indeed gave us a thrill to see them soaring up from the waters of Etah Fiord and flying over a land and sea which never before had seen the shadow of a bird larger than a glaucous gull. The Eskimos also looked on with wide-eyed wonder, and many were the “Ahs” and “Naveos” as the great birds left the water amidst clouds of spray and went skimming over berg and glacier.

Launching first plane at Etah.

We had got away to a propitious start for our flying, and the prospects for success in the fullest measure seemed bright. Our hopes rose all too soon, however, for at this point old Torngak, the evil spirit of the North, angered at this invasion of his realm, took a hand in the proceedings. With driving snow and squalls he came sweeping down on us before we had been in Etah three days. Then his tactics changed, and he blanketed us in fog. For but three days of the entire summer did he sulk in his tent; during the remainder of the time he was either hovering in the offing or engaged in active offense through driving storms or insidious fog. But in spite of these handicaps, on every occasion at all suitable for flying the Commander and the aviators were away in their endeavor to penetrate the unknown area. To do this it was necessary to lay down a base between Etah and the Polar Sea. The planes were of the type known as amphibian, equipped to land either in the water or on the land. Equipped with skids they might possibly utilize the ice. An examination of the drift ice of Smith Sound precluded all possibility of its being used as an aviation field, covered as it was with pools of water, cracks, and pressure ridges. The ice covered the mountains of Ellesmere Land, threatening disaster to any plane which had to make a forced landing.

It was therefore necessary to rely on the water of the fiords, which should afford a safe, ice-free landing place. Time after time the aviators searched for open water, but fate was against them, and at nearly every visit the waters were choked with cakes of ice large enough to puncture a plane. Several times they found an apparently ice-free spot, but in a few hours the ice would return, rendering it impossible to again utilize that point for a base. The Commander had confidently believed from his sledging experience, and from the testimony of the Eskimos, that these fiords would be free of ice. The unforeseen presence of the ice can probably be explained, however, by the unprecedentedly short and cold summer we were experiencing. Not even in the memory of the oldest Eskimo had such unfortunate meteorological conditions prevailed.

In addition to the remarkable summer, or rather lack of summer, with which we were embarrassed, the usual run of engine trouble and other mishaps fell to our lot. One morning I was sitting down in the forecastle when the alarming news became known that a plane was sinking. Robbie and John Jaynes immediately took energetic measures to save the plane, and all hands came tumbling on deck. At the moment I arrived, the plane had sunk until the water was level with the propeller shaft of the inverted motor. She lay poised for a final plunge to the depths, and John and Robbie were desperately striving to get a line on the shaft. Rocheville, a Navy mechanic, lay aft on the tail gallantly trying to counter-balance the weight of the water forward and bring the plane on a level keel. The line was soon made fast, and just in time, as in another second she would have taken the last plunge. All hands then tailed on the line, and gradually the plane emerged. In a short time the deck was above water, and the aircraft was in a position to be bailed out. It was a fortunate rescue, but the plane never flew again in spite of our efforts.

The days not occupied in overhauling the planes or not rendered worthless by storms were devoted to flights over Ellesmere Land in search of a base. The presence of drifting ice, however, had dealt our planes a deathblow. By the 20th of August the Commander realized that the planes could not add to the results he had obtained with dog sledges in 1914. At best they might put him at the edge of the Polar Sea, but they would never carry him out over the unexplored district on which he had previously traveled off shore one hundred and fifty miles.

In the realm of science, however, the expedition produced notable results. Lieutenant Benjamin Rigg of the Coast and Geodetic Survey obtained valuable sets of magnetic and tidal observations at nearly every point at which we tarried. The first automatic tidal recorder to be used in the far north was also put in operation by him. Dr. Koelz, the expedition’s naturalist, also did some very valuable work. His collection of fish and bird specimens was large and contained many rare species. The National Geographic photographers obtained excellent photographs of Arctic scenes and people. For the first time far northern scenes were recorded by the new natural color process of photography. All-together the scientific results more than justified the expedition and made up for the unfortunate termination of the flying.