CHAPTER XXX
THE EAST COAST OF GREENLAND. SCORESBY—CLAVERING—GRAAH—KOLDEWEY
The east coast of Greenland is difficult of access owing to the great flow of ice from the polar basin. Until the days of Scoresby it was only sighted from a distance. Henry Hudson was the first to discover it, and give it the quaint name of “Hudson’s Hold with Hope” in 73° N. On the old Dutch maps of Peter Plancius (1666) and Van Keulen (1707) we find “Land van Lambert” as far north as 78° 20′; “Land van Edam” in 77° 10′ N., seen in 1655; “Gael Hamke” in 74°, seen in 1654. Cape Bruer Ruys and Bontekoe Island on the Dutch chart were identified by Clavering, as well as Gael Hamke Bay. These were merely the sighting of high land at a distance. In the summer of 1822 the younger Scoresby, in his Liverpool ship, resolved to combine whaling with geographical discovery. He forced his way through the ice into open water near the coast in company with two other whalers, one commanded by his father. This eminent Arctic navigator completed a careful survey, landing at several points, from Gael Hamke Bay to as far south as 69° N. He made botanical and geological collections, and completed a chart of his discoveries.
In the very next year Scoresby was followed by one of the most promising of Arctic voyagers who, like Mecham, was cut off in his prime. Douglas Clavering was the eldest son of General Clavering by Lady Augusta Campbell, daughter of the fifth Duke of Argyll. Born at Holyrood House in 1794 he served as a midshipman under Captain Broke in the famous action between the Shannon and Chesapeake. But young Clavering’s bent was in the direction of the scientific branches of his profession, and the friendship he formed with Captain Sabine led that distinguished officer to apply for the Pheasant for his pendulum observations in the tropical zones because Clavering commanded her. These were successfully taken and useful observations were also made with reference to the equatorial currents.
The Board of Admiralty then decided that Sabine should swing the seconds pendulum in Norway, Spitsbergen, and, if possible, on the east coast of Greenland. For this service Clavering, then a Fellow of the Royal Society, received command of the Griper, the old gun brig of Parry’s first voyage. Sabine completed his pendulum observations in Norway and Spitsbergen, and Captain Clavering proceeded to the difficult service of forcing the Griper through the heavy ice drift to the East Greenland coast. First he tried to force the ship through in Lat. 77° 30′ N. but found an unbroken field 200 miles across. Then he tried vainly again in 75° 30′, but finally reached the coast water in 74° 5′ S., and found an island where his friend Sabine could establish his observatory[134]. While the pendulum was being swung, Clavering was intent on geographical discovery and on completing a survey. His furthest northern points were two rocks called Ailsa and Haystack. The island they had first discovered, and one of its headlands, recalled memories of the Chesapeake action, and were named Shannon Island and Cape Philip Broke. A great bay was identified as Gael Hamke’s, but the most important result of Clavering’s expedition was the discovery of natives as far north as this bay, in 74° N. This position is an immense distance from those in the southern part of the east coast where Eskimos were afterwards found, and no natives have ever been met with since anywhere near the place where Clavering fell in with them. It was on the 18th of August, 1823, that he and his small party came across a seal-skin tent pitched on the beach, on the north side of Gael Hamke Bay. This tent was 12 feet in circumference and five feet high, the frame being of wood and whale’s bone. There were also a small seal-skin canoe, harpoons, and spears tipped with what appeared to be meteoric iron. The natives fled and hid behind rocks, but eventually they returned and became friendly. They were clothed in seal-skin with the hair inwards. Men, women, and children all told, only numbered twelve.
It is very improbable that this small family of Eskimos had worked their way northwards over the immense distance from the settlements near Cape Farewell. The alternative is that they were descendants of the emigrants who found their way to the upper reaches of Sir Thomas Smith’s Channel many centuries ago. One branch went south bringing with it the tradition of the uminmak or musk ox; the other, still following the uminmak, reached the east coast, and slowly took a long road to extinction. Nearly fifty years passed away between Clavering’s voyage and the next visit to this part of the east coast, and in the interval the dwellers in Gael Hamke Bay had become extinct, leaving many vestiges.
On August 20th Captain Sabine’s tents and instruments were embarked; the Griper was in sight of Scoresby’s discoveries further south until the 13th September, when there was a gale which drifted her to the southward amongst heavy floes and loose ice. They lost three ice anchors and the kedge, but Clavering bored his way through the ice into the open sea, where he encountered a series of heavy gales, making the coast of Norway on the 23rd. Pendulum observations were taken at Trondhjem, and the Griper reached Deptford on the 19th of December, 1823[135].
The next attempt to explore the east coast of Greenland was from the extreme south. Captain Graah of the Danish navy organised an expedition in March, 1829, at Nenortalik, the nearest settlement to Cape Farewell on the west side[136]. It consisted of four native boats, two being kayaks and two the larger women’s boats. On reaching the east side the masses of ice piled on the beach rendered their progress very slow. Graah went on with one boat, sending the rest back on June 23rd, and by the 28th he had advanced as far north as 65° 18′ N. where he was stopped by an insurmountable barrier of ice. He went back to a place called Nugarlik in 63° 22′ N., where he wintered. On this coast between 60° and 65° N. Graah found 500 to 600 inhabitants. He returned to the settlements on the west side of Greenland in 1830. His object was to find the lost colony, for it was not then understood that the East Bygd was on the west side[137].
The distance from Graah’s furthest to the southern point of Scoresby’s survey remained undiscovered, and its exploration was reserved for Danish seamen. Dr Petermann had long been urging his countrymen to join the noble band of Arctic explorers, and in the spring of 1868 he fitted out a small vessel at his own risk, with Karl Koldewey, a native of Hoya in Hanover, in command. Unable to approach the east coast of Greenland, that able navigator made for the Spitsbergen seas, attaining a latitude of 81° 5′ N., sailing down Hinlopen Strait, sighting Wiche’s Land, and returning to Bergen on September 30th, 1868.
Interest in Arctic work was thus aroused in Germany, a committee was formed, and it was resolved again to despatch an expedition under Koldewey to the east coast of Greenland. A vessel of 143 tons was built at Bremershaven, at a cost of £3150, and named the Germania. The schooner Hansa, of only 76¾ tons, was bought as a consort, with Captain Hegeman of Oldenburg in command.
Captain Koldewey’s expedition sailed from Bremershaven on the 15th June, 1869, and reached the edge of the ice in 74° 47′ N. On September 14th the Hansa was closely beset and drifted south all through the winter until she was destroyed by the ice. Officers and crew then took to their three boats and eventually reached the Danish settlement of Friedrichsthal. Meanwhile the Germania worked her way through the ice, and reaching land on the 5th August, her winter quarters were finally fixed in a small bay in one of Clavering’s Pendulum Islands, in 74° 24′ N. Julius Payer, a Lieutenant in the Austrian army who was born at Teplitz in 1842, was the moving spirit of the expedition in the work of sledge-travelling and in the ascent of glaciers and mountains. He made one journey in September, but the principal work was undertaken after the winter was over. The details were not thought out with that close attention and full knowledge of all that has gone before which alone can secure great results; nevertheless, all being quite new to the work, the journey was highly creditable, as the ice surface was very bad. Captain Koldewey and Lieutenant Payer were the leaders, and starting on the 24th March they reached their furthest point in 77° N. on the 15th April. A lofty cape in 76° 47′ N. was named Cape Bismarck. Then, as there were no depôts and provisions were running short, the return journey was commenced, and they reached the ship on the 27th April. The distance covered, there and back, was about 300 miles and took 35 days, during eight of which they were confined to the tent by gales. Omitting these, their rate was a little over ten miles a day. Four other short sledge journeys were made. As soon as the vessel was freed from her winter quarters, exploration was commenced along the coast and a branching fjord was discovered in 73° 15′ N. extending far into the interior of Greenland. It received the name “Franz Josef.” Along its shores two peaks, 7218 and 11,417 feet high respectively, were named after Petermann and Payer. The scenery was described as magnificent, exceeding in beauty, says Payer, anything to be seen in the Alps. After the discovery of this large fjord the Germania returned to Bremen in September, 1870.