THE SHIP BEACHED FOR REPAIRS AT THE HEAD OF ETAH FIORD
From Joe Island to Hans Island our course lay close to the Greenland shore among very large and heavy floes. We passed east of Hans Island, and from Hans Island to Cape Calhoun had practically open water. From Cape Calhoun until we came to a stop heavy floes were encountered again, becoming more and more closely packed as we advanced. While passing Franklin and Crozier Islands a fresh northeasterly wind enabled us to set foresail, mizzenspencer, and forestaysails, and for a little while gave the Roosevelt a speed of ten knots. From the afternoon of the 29th until 6 P. M. of September 5th we were unable to move, the ice which held us drifting slowly but steadily to the southwest and packing against Bache Peninsula and into Buchanan and Princess Marie bays. During most of this time the weather was fine and numbers of seals were observed upon the ice, several of which the Eskimos secured.
In the evening of the 8th, the ice slackened to the southeast, I abandoned the idea of picking up my Victoria Head Depot, and the Roosevelt was headed for Cairn Point on the Greenland coast. From the evening of September 5th until midnight of September 7th, we were able to make intermittent runs of a few hours duration, the sum total of which placed us somewhat more than half across Kane Basin. During the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th we lay imprisoned among very heavy old floes close to a group of four icebergs, a position which caused me considerable uneasiness, particularly as a strong southerly gale was blowing during two days of the time.
At 7 P. M. of the 11th we made another short run and during the five following days we worked southeastward at every opportunity, gaining a mile or two at almost every tide, then being nipped and crowded (wedged is the better word, perhaps) southwestward toward Sabine, by some huge field of ice forging down along the Greenland coast.
The weather was getting very sharp now, the young ice formed and became extremely tough with great rapidity, and while this time I had at heart no doubt of our eventual escape unless some unforeseen event occurred, still the lateness of the season and our surroundings were such as to make a repetition of the Polaris’s experience, and a winter’s drift in the pack by no means impossible.
The unforeseen contingency seemed to have arrived when it was reported on the 14th that the propeller was loose, and if we did any backing we would lose it. Such a loss would of course mean a certainty of wintering in the pack. Much to my relief an examination of the propeller showed that only the nuts holding the blades in place were loose, and these after nearly two days of effort were with much difficulty tightened up, and this danger, for a time at least, averted. During the night of the 14th a floe not less than eight or ten miles in diameter, crowding south on the ebb-tide, wedged us and the ice about us over to within ten miles of Cape Sabine. In return, however, for this apparent injury it gave us a bear, the first seen by the Expedition, and left along its northern edge a line of cleavage through which we were able to butt and squeeze a passage eastward once more, and reach a series of areas of young ice from three to five inches in thickness. To many a ship this ice would have been as impracticable as the heavy floes through which we had been working; but to the fine bow of the Roosevelt, which Captain Dix had so carefully moulded, it proved no obstacle, and she walked steadily through it in spite of her crippled propeller and reduced boiler power.
And when after rounding the northeastern angle of the floe and heading more to the south, it was possible to set the sails to the fresh northerly wind, she trod the ice under her fore-foot with a steady roar at a four or five knot pace. Finally after one or two temporary delays where the corners of big floes locked together, the ship, at 4 A. M. of the 16th, pushed her nose into open water somewhat north of Littleton Island and steamed into Etah, thus ending a most gallant battle with the ice which had begun on July 4th and lasted for seventy-five days.
During the crossing of Kane Basin six seals, one bearded seal, two hood seals, and one polar bear were obtained. Soundings made by Marvin at various points across the basin, showed a very regular bottom, and depths much less than in Robeson and Kennedy Channels or between Sabine and Littleton Island. These soundings ranged from 101 to 139 fathoms.
At Etah I found not only the Eskimo families whom I had transplanted there the summer before, but others who had come since with a view to meeting the ship on her return. They had given up hopes of our return this season until some three days previous when active old Ahmah, Merktoshah’s wife, walking overland to Anoritok had seen our smoke far out in Kane Basin. From these natives I learned that the season had been an unusual one, the ice everywhere remaining until very late. As soon as we arrived the heavy anchor and cable which we had left here the year before were taken on board, and Captain Bartlett reconnoitred several places in the vicinity looking for a suitable place to beach the Roosevelt and repair her stern and propeller. Nothing satisfactory was found and we steamed up to the head of the fiord in the northeast corner of which was a place that could be made to do. Here the stern of the Roosevelt was warped close inshore at high tide, and during the next few tides the stern was calked, the stern-post, which had been twisted back and forth by the ice so many times that it was now only a menace to the propeller, was cut away, and the nuts fastening the propeller-blades set up again. Some ballast was also taken on board between times. During all this time the wind was blowing strongly from the north and Smith Sound seen out through the mouth of the fiord was a cauldron of whirling clouds, fog and snow. When this work was completed we steamed back to Etah and took on board the coal. This work was greatly hampered first by the strong wind which on one trip swamped our boat raft, and afterwards by the young ice through which it was at times almost impossible to warp the raft back and forth between the ship and the shore. The lower portion of the coal also was frozen and had to be loosened with dynamite. Late in the evening of the 20th, the Roosevelt steamed out of Etah leaving about half of my Eskimos there.