“Why, it’s coal!” exclaimed Harry in astonishment; and so it was,—a sort of semi-bituminous coal that is not so very different from cannel coal. The low bluffs were full of it in veins varying from a few inches wide to eight or ten feet. There was enough coal in sight to supply a city, with the promise of countless thousand tons in the veins beneath the surface. “Coal,” he explained to Harluk and the other Eskimos who had gathered about them, much interested by their enthusiasm, “to burn, makes fire, like wood.”
At this the men of the ice shook their heads incredulously. It was time for the midday meal, and Harry essayed to show them that he was right. He built a good fire of willow wood and piled bits of the black stones on it, but it would not ignite that way, and his Eskimo friends wagged their heads and murmured “Kukowillow,” which is an Eskimo word which may be freely translated “big fool.” Here Joe came to his rescue. He carefully built a cylindrical oven of the larger blocks that had fallen from the bluff, and started a snapping wood fire in it. Little by little he added fine coal to this, and was soon gratified to find it ignited. The Eskimos looked on, with smiling incredulity at first, then with wonder, but as the fire grew and began to consume the oven itself, they calmly withdrew from the burning black stones. It was magic, and the stones did not really burn. Joe had only made them think so. Harluk knew he was a great wizard. He had seen his performances at Icy Cape, and this was another one. It was all very well for wizards to burn stones, but the Eskimos knew better than to try it.
This was the Eskimo solution of the matter. The coal measures of northern Alaska extend from the coast near Cape Lisburne eastward far into the interior. The rivers that run to the sea cut through them and expose vast quantities of the precious fuel. On the seashore at Cape Sabine the coal falls from the bluffs under the action of the frost, and may be picked up by the ton. With a little ingenuity this coal may be made to burn and give heat even by very primitive methods, yet the tribes freeze, and eat uncooked food, with these vast reservoirs of warmth untouched beneath their feet. They have seen it burn in the stoves and under the boilers of the whaleships, yet they take no advantage of it. Some have tried to burn it in the open, and failing, were convinced that only the white man’s magic could make use of it. Others have found heat enough in blubber and driftwood or willow twigs, and do not care to try to utilize the more difficult fuel.
Some days later, they found their little river flowing gently into an arm of the sea which Joe, climbing a bluff and taking a survey, declared to be Wainwright Inlet. Harluk, too, recognized the place, and said that the river which they had traversed was the Koo of the tribes. Just north of them was Point Belcher, and Harluk pointed out, on the other side of the inlet, a place which he called “Nunaria,” otherwise “The Village where No One Lives.”
The story of this “Village where No One Lives,” of the events which led up to its settlement and abandonment, is one of the most extraordinary which the Arctic has yet revealed. The annals of New Bedford whaling contain the first part of it. The traditions of the coast tribes reveal the latter part, the wild and tragic sequel. These last Harluk knew well, for the tale has come to be an epic, related about the blubber lamp during the winter night, when the bitter wind blows without, and the Nunatak people are abroad and shout down the smoke-hole.
This is the story compiled from both sources:—
In the summer of 1871, forty or more splendid ships, the pick of the New Bedford fleet, were following the whales along this ice-bound coast. The pursuit had been one of more than common difficulty. The ice was everywhere, and again and again, even in midsummer, the ships had been in great danger from it. Boats were crushed by the shifting floes, and before September was fairly in, three staunch ships, the brig Comet, the barks Roman and Ashawonks, had been wrecked and their crews transferred to other vessels. The season was at an end, and the situation of the remaining ships one of grave peril, for the ice was closing rapidly around them and it seemed impossible to work out of it. There were not provisions enough to winter the crews, and frequent and serious consultations were held by the captains. By way of precaution, men were set to work building up the gunwales of the boats that they might better resist the waves, and they were sheathed with copper to keep the ice from harming them. An expedition of three boats was now sent down the coast to see how far the ice extended. This returned and reported that it was utterly impracticable to get any of the main fleet out; that the Arctic and another vessel were in clear water below the fields which extended to the south of Blossom Shoals, eighty miles below the imprisoned crafts; and that five more vessels, now fast in this lower ice, were likely to get out soon. The leader also reported, what every man knew, that these free vessels would lie by and wait to aid their imprisoned comrades. It is a part of the whaleman’s creed to stand by his mates. To remain with the imprisoned ships was to perish with them, and they decided to abandon them.
It was a sad day. The signals for departure,—flags at the masthead, union down,—were set, and with heavy hearts they entered their boats and pulled away, a mournful flotilla. Women and children, families of the captains, were there, and the keen north wind blew over the frozen sea, chilling the unfortunate fugitives to the marrow. At night they camped on the beach, turning the boats bottom upward and covering them with sails, making a comfortable refuge for the women and children. The rest found shelter as best they might.
“On the second day out,” says one who took part in the expedition, “the boats reached Blossom Shoals, and there spied the rescue vessels lying five miles out from the shore and behind a long tongue of ice that stretched like a great peninsula ten miles farther down the coast. Around this point they were obliged to pull before they could get aboard. The wind blew a gale, the sea threatened the little crafts with instant annihilation, but still the hazardous journey must be performed, and there was no time to be lost in setting about it. The boats started on their almost hopeless voyage, the women and children stifling their fears as best they could. On rounding this tongue of ice, they encountered the full force of the southwest gale, and a sea that would have made the stoutest ship tremble. In this fearful sea the whaleboats were tossed about like corks. They shipped quantities of water from every wave that struck them, and all hands bailing could hardly keep them afloat. Everybody was soaked with freezing brine, and all the bread and flour aboard was spoiled. The strength of the gale was such that the Arctic, after getting her portion of the refugees aboard, parted her cable and lost her port anchor, but brought up again with the starboard one, which held until the little fleet was ready to sail. By the second day all were distributed among the seven vessels, from two to three hundred souls each,—a total of 1219 refugees. They set sail, and reached Honolulu in safety.”
Thirty-four staunch vessels were thus abandoned to their fate, and only one, The Minerva, was released in safety the next summer from the grip of the frost king. More than a million dollars was abandoned to the ice and the Eskimos, and ruin brought home to many a fine old New Bedford shipping concern.