[Contents]CHAPTER VIICHAPTER VIISHIPWRECKOn Monday July twenty-sixth we struck a hidden rock off Northumberland Island which is at the mouth of Whale Sound away up at Latitude 77 degrees and twenty minutes north, on the east side of Baffin Bay. We were cruising around the island trying to locate some Eskimo whom we wanted to get on board to help us hunt. We were just getting into the good game territory. The evening before we saw seventeen walrus from the deck.Captain Bob had been told back at Cape York that certain Eskimo were at places where they usually lived, but when we got in sight of them the tupiks were deserted. These[73]people move about a lot following up where the hunting is best, and probably the fact that the ice had gone out of the fjords and bays unusually early had made them change about unexpectedly.Anyway, we were pretty close in shore, examining four sod houses on a point. A big wall of rock stuck out of the mountain behind, coming down toward the water. It is what geologists call a “dyke”—harder rock which stands up under the rain and snow, like a wall, with the softer stuff sloping down from it on either side, sort of washed away.Well, this “dyke” evidently stuck well out underneath the surface of the water. Afterward we found there was deep water on both sides of it, right close up. But we managed to hit the very outer knob of it, about ten feet or so below the surface.It was about twelve thirty in the morning when we hit, broad daylight of course, with the sun shining brightly and fortunately no[74]wind or sea running. It was very, very exciting. I was almost thrown out of my bunk when we hit. There was a jar and a jolt and then everything stopped. We had often hit into light ice, which jarred the vessel a bit, but never anything like this.As quick as I could I put on my pants and was just getting on my stockings when Dad called down from the skylight for all hands to get on deck and never mind dressing. I woke up Bob Peary and Doc and we all rushed on deck.We moved oil casks for half an hour from the after part of the ship to the bow so as to take the strain off the stern where the vessel had struck and was sticking on the rocks. It was just high tide when we hit. We raised the foresail, jib and jumbo and had the engine going full speed, but she didn’t budge. Then, as the tide began to leave us, we took a lot of stores ashore in our dories and started in to do what we could for the next tide.The Morrissey on the Reef Off Northumberland Island.TheMorrisseyon the Reef Off Northumberland Island.[75]TheMorrisseywas listing on her port side at an angle of forty-five degrees or worse, and everything was in a dreadful mess on board. You just couldn’t stand even on the dry deck and where it was slimy with oil, as most of it was, the only possible way to get around was to hang on to a rope. And at that, what with moving around the heavy oil drums there were plenty of bad spills. Cap’n Bob cut his hand badly and Doc bandaged it up right away. Down in the cabins everything was in a heap. It was funny to see the clothes hanging on hooks from the ceiling stand right out crazily at a wild angle from the walls, like drunken men.The tide went down leaving the vessel high and dry, except for the bow which was in the water, tipped down at a bad angle and the stern up on the rocks. Cap’n Bob lashed ten empty oil drums on either side close to the keel at the stern, to help raise her when the water came in.View from Shore of the Wrecked Morrissey.View from Shore of the WreckedMorrissey.[76]We just had to be ready for any emergency in case theMorrisseyproved to be hurt so badly she couldn’t float, or especially if a storm came up which would have broken her to pieces quickly and made landing stuff very hard and perhaps impossible. And you must remember we were nearly one thousand miles from the nearest Danish settlement and more than 2000 miles from Sidney, the nearest big place.One thing we put ashore at once and very carefully was the emergency low power radio set with which Ed Manley, our radio operator, could keep in touch with the world in case our big outfit on board was lost. That little set which might have been so awfully important was given us by the National Carbon Company who make the Eveready batteries.And then the noon tide came and we were dreadfully disappointed. For the water didn’t rise to within about three feet of the midnight tide when we struck, so we were left with no[77]hope of getting off until the next tide. And that was pretty bad, because all that listing and pounding was dreadfully hard on a vessel, and would surely break one up less strong than the good oldMorrissey, which is built of oak and is unusually sturdy.But the water did get high enough to wash in over the deck on the low port side, even if the vessel couldn’t raise. There was a bad leak strained in her side and she leaked so badly we all had to help bail with pails lowered with ropes through the skylight into the mid-ships cabin. We couldn’t use the pumps because she had such a bad list, and tip forward, that they didn’t get at the water.My bunk and two others filled up with water all mixed with oil, and my things, especially in the locker underneath, got pretty well spoiled. Luckily someone lifted out my bedclothes.The stove in the galley and in the after cabin had to be put out, as there was danger[78]they would spill over and set the ship on fire. The big galley stove was braced up with seal hooks to keep it from sliding. Billy the cook moved in to shore and kept making coffee there so the men had something hot to help keep them going. Before it was all over most everyone had been working continuously more than forty hours. I was at it more than twenty-five, and was pretty dead tired.The Captain ordered all the food put ashore and there was a lot more to do, lashing more casks and trimming the cargo and movinggasolineto land, for the motor boat in case we got stuck, and kerosene for the primus stoves. Then, too, they put out the big heavy anchor, taking it in the dories quite a way from the ship and dropping it, so that we could haul on it with the windlass.While the tide was down there was a lot of work to do on the banged-up bottom of the vessel. The false keel, which is a big timber on the very bottom below the real keel, was[79]pretty well ripped off aft of the mainmast, and a lot of oakum was loosened out of the garboard seam. Lying down on the wet rocks we filled in a lot of oakum, which is a sort of fibre like shredded bagging or say potato sacking, with caulking tools, which is a blunt kind of chisel and a mallet or hammer to pound the stuff into the seams or cracks.Then we got a lot of Billy’s dish washing soft soap and mashed it up with a hammer and worked it in our hands into a kind of pasty putty. We put this in on top of the oakum. We worked in the water until the tide got up around our boots, and then climbed the ladder up on deck. I was able to help quite a bit on this job, and afterward there was plenty to do bailing.On shore we put up one of our small tents and took in most of our things, like sleeping bags, blankets, guns and ammunition. Everybody as best they could threw their things together to land. It was exciting, and exactly[80]as if we were abandoning the ship. And awfully sad, too, to see our fineMorrisseyall soaked with water and oil, and everything thrown about so terribly.Where the Morrissey’s False Keel Ripped Off on the Rocks.Where theMorrissey’sFalse Keel Ripped Off on the Rocks.After the unloading work, and after the men had had a mug of coffee and hardtack and whatever Billy could dig out of the cans, it was pretty nearly high tide again, along about eleven o’clock at night. The sun, of course, was always about the same distance above the horizon, only at a different point, so it seemed always a sort of bright afternoon. We were terribly lucky not to have it stormy.All hands were called on board and while three men worked the pumps the others manned the windlass. We had the big anchor and a small one out, to pull on with the windlass.There was a good wind coming up so we had to get her off then or she would surely break up and leave us there. After working for an hour or so we were just about to give up when[81]the wind freshened more. Cap’n Bob ordered all sails hoisted. Everyone got on the halyards and pulled as hard as they could. The wind flattened out the sails and the engine went full speed ahead. But for a good many minutes she held fast and we were most awfully discouraged.Then all at once there was an extra big wave and a puff of wind, and suddenly she gave a sort of groan and slid free of the rocks. After twenty-five hours we were off! We sure were glad.Dad, Carl and myself went ashore to get the stores in order in case it rained, while theMorrisseywas taken around to leeward some place where they could care for her better and see how things were. She seemed to be leaking a lot, and the plan was, in case of the water getting away from the pumps, to beach her.When the Eskimos Came to Shipwreck Camp on Northumberland Island.When the Eskimos Came to Shipwreck Camp on Northumberland Island.We turned in right away, at about half-past two, I suppose. And when we woke up[82]it was two in the afternoon! We were pretty tired, I reckon. And then, too, Carl had been quite sick and had had a pretty hard time to keep going at all.TheMorrisseyhad disappeared. Of course we didn’t have any idea where she was, but there was nothing to do but wait and fix things up as best we could. The next day, in the fog Carl and Dad went out in the motor launch to try to locate the crowd, but they did not find the vessel.So we built a sort of house, the craziest house you ever thought of. Robinson Crusoe never saw a funnier one. It had three walls, all made of food, mostly, with a big sail pulled over for a roof and some tarps to help out. The strongest wall, where the wind blew from, was built of flour sacks laid up on boxes of tinned vegetables. There were bags of potatoes, crates of onions, barrels, dunnage bags, hams and bacons in those walls. Anyway, we felt we had plenty to eat for quite a time.[83]We were especially glad to have a fine lot of specially made Armour pemmican, presented by Dad’s friend, Herman Nichols.We had two big bear skins and these we put on the damp ground with a tarp for a sort of floor. With a primus stove, which works with kerosene, we were quite comfortable even though the wind did blow the sails nearly off the roof. We weighted them down with big rocks, and tied heavy hams that Mr. Swift had given us by ropes at the sides.I got quite sick and had to keep in my sleeping bag about the whole time we were at “Shipwreck Camp.” It was pretty cold with no fire at all to give heat, but we got along first rate. Dad explained that by that time almost surely word would have gotten through from our wireless that the vessel was off the rocks. The trouble was that the water, at the time of the accident, put our wireless out of commission. It took Ed Manley a couple of days to get it going right again.[84]The third day about noon, when Carl was cooking up some tea on the primus, he glanced out of the door of our hut and saw four Eskimos coming toward us a long way off on the side of the mountain. As they got nearer we could see they all were carrying big packs.When they got to the tent the man threw off a little baby he had been carrying in a sling on his back. The mother had a bag of empty cans in her sack, which we recognized as coming from theMorrissey. With the few words we could understand, and a lot of motions and grinning—they are always awfully good-natured and nice—our friends told us they had been aboard the vessel and had been helping pump. She was at anchor on the other side of the island. It seemed she was only a few miles away.So after we had given them a feed, mostly a big can of peas which they loved, Carl and Dad started to find the ship, leaving me to sleep. I forgot to say that we gave the Eskimo[85]some ham, which looked good and they showed us they would like a taste. But they did not like it at all. It was too salty. They use no salt in their meat, and can’t understand us liking it. “Nagga piook” they said, making funny faces. Which means, “No good.”About midnight, eight hours or so later, I heard a yell and woke up to see theMorrisseyout in the bay beyond where she had run aground. Dad and Carl were on board, and as the wind had gone down they had come around to get the stores.I was sent aboard and Doc told me to go right to bed and keep as warm as possible. As my bunk was still pretty damp where it had been drowned out, I turned in to Dad’s bunk in the aft cabin, where the fire was going.When I woke up we were under way and headed south. We planned to go back to Upernivik and beach the vessel there and make repairs. With so many on board it[86]seemed better to Cap’n Bob and Dad not to risk trying to make any repairs on the north side of Melville Bay, which is apt to be a very dangerous place to cross.If theMorrisseyhad struck on a rising tide everything would have been all right. One often goes aground up here where hundreds of rocks and reefs aren’t shown on the charts and where all the information for sailors is terribly incomplete. But of course things like that always happen at the wrong time. It was just hard luck. When the wind came up it was either break up or get off.I have written this in the after cabin as we cross Melville Bay going down to Upernivik. The boat has been in a terrible mess, but is pretty well straightened out now. And everyone has about caught up on sleep.Around my bunk and Mr. Kellerman’s the boards are crushed in. That’s from the great strain put on the frame and beams when the boat laid on her side, so that when she moved[87]or gave a little the light inner framework of the bunks snapped.Dad just asked me if I’d like to go again on another northern trip. And of course I said I would. Really my answer was “I’d like to go anywhere with Cap’n Bob.”[88]
[Contents]CHAPTER VIICHAPTER VIISHIPWRECKOn Monday July twenty-sixth we struck a hidden rock off Northumberland Island which is at the mouth of Whale Sound away up at Latitude 77 degrees and twenty minutes north, on the east side of Baffin Bay. We were cruising around the island trying to locate some Eskimo whom we wanted to get on board to help us hunt. We were just getting into the good game territory. The evening before we saw seventeen walrus from the deck.Captain Bob had been told back at Cape York that certain Eskimo were at places where they usually lived, but when we got in sight of them the tupiks were deserted. These[73]people move about a lot following up where the hunting is best, and probably the fact that the ice had gone out of the fjords and bays unusually early had made them change about unexpectedly.Anyway, we were pretty close in shore, examining four sod houses on a point. A big wall of rock stuck out of the mountain behind, coming down toward the water. It is what geologists call a “dyke”—harder rock which stands up under the rain and snow, like a wall, with the softer stuff sloping down from it on either side, sort of washed away.Well, this “dyke” evidently stuck well out underneath the surface of the water. Afterward we found there was deep water on both sides of it, right close up. But we managed to hit the very outer knob of it, about ten feet or so below the surface.It was about twelve thirty in the morning when we hit, broad daylight of course, with the sun shining brightly and fortunately no[74]wind or sea running. It was very, very exciting. I was almost thrown out of my bunk when we hit. There was a jar and a jolt and then everything stopped. We had often hit into light ice, which jarred the vessel a bit, but never anything like this.As quick as I could I put on my pants and was just getting on my stockings when Dad called down from the skylight for all hands to get on deck and never mind dressing. I woke up Bob Peary and Doc and we all rushed on deck.We moved oil casks for half an hour from the after part of the ship to the bow so as to take the strain off the stern where the vessel had struck and was sticking on the rocks. It was just high tide when we hit. We raised the foresail, jib and jumbo and had the engine going full speed, but she didn’t budge. Then, as the tide began to leave us, we took a lot of stores ashore in our dories and started in to do what we could for the next tide.The Morrissey on the Reef Off Northumberland Island.TheMorrisseyon the Reef Off Northumberland Island.[75]TheMorrisseywas listing on her port side at an angle of forty-five degrees or worse, and everything was in a dreadful mess on board. You just couldn’t stand even on the dry deck and where it was slimy with oil, as most of it was, the only possible way to get around was to hang on to a rope. And at that, what with moving around the heavy oil drums there were plenty of bad spills. Cap’n Bob cut his hand badly and Doc bandaged it up right away. Down in the cabins everything was in a heap. It was funny to see the clothes hanging on hooks from the ceiling stand right out crazily at a wild angle from the walls, like drunken men.The tide went down leaving the vessel high and dry, except for the bow which was in the water, tipped down at a bad angle and the stern up on the rocks. Cap’n Bob lashed ten empty oil drums on either side close to the keel at the stern, to help raise her when the water came in.View from Shore of the Wrecked Morrissey.View from Shore of the WreckedMorrissey.[76]We just had to be ready for any emergency in case theMorrisseyproved to be hurt so badly she couldn’t float, or especially if a storm came up which would have broken her to pieces quickly and made landing stuff very hard and perhaps impossible. And you must remember we were nearly one thousand miles from the nearest Danish settlement and more than 2000 miles from Sidney, the nearest big place.One thing we put ashore at once and very carefully was the emergency low power radio set with which Ed Manley, our radio operator, could keep in touch with the world in case our big outfit on board was lost. That little set which might have been so awfully important was given us by the National Carbon Company who make the Eveready batteries.And then the noon tide came and we were dreadfully disappointed. For the water didn’t rise to within about three feet of the midnight tide when we struck, so we were left with no[77]hope of getting off until the next tide. And that was pretty bad, because all that listing and pounding was dreadfully hard on a vessel, and would surely break one up less strong than the good oldMorrissey, which is built of oak and is unusually sturdy.But the water did get high enough to wash in over the deck on the low port side, even if the vessel couldn’t raise. There was a bad leak strained in her side and she leaked so badly we all had to help bail with pails lowered with ropes through the skylight into the mid-ships cabin. We couldn’t use the pumps because she had such a bad list, and tip forward, that they didn’t get at the water.My bunk and two others filled up with water all mixed with oil, and my things, especially in the locker underneath, got pretty well spoiled. Luckily someone lifted out my bedclothes.The stove in the galley and in the after cabin had to be put out, as there was danger[78]they would spill over and set the ship on fire. The big galley stove was braced up with seal hooks to keep it from sliding. Billy the cook moved in to shore and kept making coffee there so the men had something hot to help keep them going. Before it was all over most everyone had been working continuously more than forty hours. I was at it more than twenty-five, and was pretty dead tired.The Captain ordered all the food put ashore and there was a lot more to do, lashing more casks and trimming the cargo and movinggasolineto land, for the motor boat in case we got stuck, and kerosene for the primus stoves. Then, too, they put out the big heavy anchor, taking it in the dories quite a way from the ship and dropping it, so that we could haul on it with the windlass.While the tide was down there was a lot of work to do on the banged-up bottom of the vessel. The false keel, which is a big timber on the very bottom below the real keel, was[79]pretty well ripped off aft of the mainmast, and a lot of oakum was loosened out of the garboard seam. Lying down on the wet rocks we filled in a lot of oakum, which is a sort of fibre like shredded bagging or say potato sacking, with caulking tools, which is a blunt kind of chisel and a mallet or hammer to pound the stuff into the seams or cracks.Then we got a lot of Billy’s dish washing soft soap and mashed it up with a hammer and worked it in our hands into a kind of pasty putty. We put this in on top of the oakum. We worked in the water until the tide got up around our boots, and then climbed the ladder up on deck. I was able to help quite a bit on this job, and afterward there was plenty to do bailing.On shore we put up one of our small tents and took in most of our things, like sleeping bags, blankets, guns and ammunition. Everybody as best they could threw their things together to land. It was exciting, and exactly[80]as if we were abandoning the ship. And awfully sad, too, to see our fineMorrisseyall soaked with water and oil, and everything thrown about so terribly.Where the Morrissey’s False Keel Ripped Off on the Rocks.Where theMorrissey’sFalse Keel Ripped Off on the Rocks.After the unloading work, and after the men had had a mug of coffee and hardtack and whatever Billy could dig out of the cans, it was pretty nearly high tide again, along about eleven o’clock at night. The sun, of course, was always about the same distance above the horizon, only at a different point, so it seemed always a sort of bright afternoon. We were terribly lucky not to have it stormy.All hands were called on board and while three men worked the pumps the others manned the windlass. We had the big anchor and a small one out, to pull on with the windlass.There was a good wind coming up so we had to get her off then or she would surely break up and leave us there. After working for an hour or so we were just about to give up when[81]the wind freshened more. Cap’n Bob ordered all sails hoisted. Everyone got on the halyards and pulled as hard as they could. The wind flattened out the sails and the engine went full speed ahead. But for a good many minutes she held fast and we were most awfully discouraged.Then all at once there was an extra big wave and a puff of wind, and suddenly she gave a sort of groan and slid free of the rocks. After twenty-five hours we were off! We sure were glad.Dad, Carl and myself went ashore to get the stores in order in case it rained, while theMorrisseywas taken around to leeward some place where they could care for her better and see how things were. She seemed to be leaking a lot, and the plan was, in case of the water getting away from the pumps, to beach her.When the Eskimos Came to Shipwreck Camp on Northumberland Island.When the Eskimos Came to Shipwreck Camp on Northumberland Island.We turned in right away, at about half-past two, I suppose. And when we woke up[82]it was two in the afternoon! We were pretty tired, I reckon. And then, too, Carl had been quite sick and had had a pretty hard time to keep going at all.TheMorrisseyhad disappeared. Of course we didn’t have any idea where she was, but there was nothing to do but wait and fix things up as best we could. The next day, in the fog Carl and Dad went out in the motor launch to try to locate the crowd, but they did not find the vessel.So we built a sort of house, the craziest house you ever thought of. Robinson Crusoe never saw a funnier one. It had three walls, all made of food, mostly, with a big sail pulled over for a roof and some tarps to help out. The strongest wall, where the wind blew from, was built of flour sacks laid up on boxes of tinned vegetables. There were bags of potatoes, crates of onions, barrels, dunnage bags, hams and bacons in those walls. Anyway, we felt we had plenty to eat for quite a time.[83]We were especially glad to have a fine lot of specially made Armour pemmican, presented by Dad’s friend, Herman Nichols.We had two big bear skins and these we put on the damp ground with a tarp for a sort of floor. With a primus stove, which works with kerosene, we were quite comfortable even though the wind did blow the sails nearly off the roof. We weighted them down with big rocks, and tied heavy hams that Mr. Swift had given us by ropes at the sides.I got quite sick and had to keep in my sleeping bag about the whole time we were at “Shipwreck Camp.” It was pretty cold with no fire at all to give heat, but we got along first rate. Dad explained that by that time almost surely word would have gotten through from our wireless that the vessel was off the rocks. The trouble was that the water, at the time of the accident, put our wireless out of commission. It took Ed Manley a couple of days to get it going right again.[84]The third day about noon, when Carl was cooking up some tea on the primus, he glanced out of the door of our hut and saw four Eskimos coming toward us a long way off on the side of the mountain. As they got nearer we could see they all were carrying big packs.When they got to the tent the man threw off a little baby he had been carrying in a sling on his back. The mother had a bag of empty cans in her sack, which we recognized as coming from theMorrissey. With the few words we could understand, and a lot of motions and grinning—they are always awfully good-natured and nice—our friends told us they had been aboard the vessel and had been helping pump. She was at anchor on the other side of the island. It seemed she was only a few miles away.So after we had given them a feed, mostly a big can of peas which they loved, Carl and Dad started to find the ship, leaving me to sleep. I forgot to say that we gave the Eskimo[85]some ham, which looked good and they showed us they would like a taste. But they did not like it at all. It was too salty. They use no salt in their meat, and can’t understand us liking it. “Nagga piook” they said, making funny faces. Which means, “No good.”About midnight, eight hours or so later, I heard a yell and woke up to see theMorrisseyout in the bay beyond where she had run aground. Dad and Carl were on board, and as the wind had gone down they had come around to get the stores.I was sent aboard and Doc told me to go right to bed and keep as warm as possible. As my bunk was still pretty damp where it had been drowned out, I turned in to Dad’s bunk in the aft cabin, where the fire was going.When I woke up we were under way and headed south. We planned to go back to Upernivik and beach the vessel there and make repairs. With so many on board it[86]seemed better to Cap’n Bob and Dad not to risk trying to make any repairs on the north side of Melville Bay, which is apt to be a very dangerous place to cross.If theMorrisseyhad struck on a rising tide everything would have been all right. One often goes aground up here where hundreds of rocks and reefs aren’t shown on the charts and where all the information for sailors is terribly incomplete. But of course things like that always happen at the wrong time. It was just hard luck. When the wind came up it was either break up or get off.I have written this in the after cabin as we cross Melville Bay going down to Upernivik. The boat has been in a terrible mess, but is pretty well straightened out now. And everyone has about caught up on sleep.Around my bunk and Mr. Kellerman’s the boards are crushed in. That’s from the great strain put on the frame and beams when the boat laid on her side, so that when she moved[87]or gave a little the light inner framework of the bunks snapped.Dad just asked me if I’d like to go again on another northern trip. And of course I said I would. Really my answer was “I’d like to go anywhere with Cap’n Bob.”[88]
CHAPTER VIICHAPTER VIISHIPWRECK
CHAPTER VII
On Monday July twenty-sixth we struck a hidden rock off Northumberland Island which is at the mouth of Whale Sound away up at Latitude 77 degrees and twenty minutes north, on the east side of Baffin Bay. We were cruising around the island trying to locate some Eskimo whom we wanted to get on board to help us hunt. We were just getting into the good game territory. The evening before we saw seventeen walrus from the deck.Captain Bob had been told back at Cape York that certain Eskimo were at places where they usually lived, but when we got in sight of them the tupiks were deserted. These[73]people move about a lot following up where the hunting is best, and probably the fact that the ice had gone out of the fjords and bays unusually early had made them change about unexpectedly.Anyway, we were pretty close in shore, examining four sod houses on a point. A big wall of rock stuck out of the mountain behind, coming down toward the water. It is what geologists call a “dyke”—harder rock which stands up under the rain and snow, like a wall, with the softer stuff sloping down from it on either side, sort of washed away.Well, this “dyke” evidently stuck well out underneath the surface of the water. Afterward we found there was deep water on both sides of it, right close up. But we managed to hit the very outer knob of it, about ten feet or so below the surface.It was about twelve thirty in the morning when we hit, broad daylight of course, with the sun shining brightly and fortunately no[74]wind or sea running. It was very, very exciting. I was almost thrown out of my bunk when we hit. There was a jar and a jolt and then everything stopped. We had often hit into light ice, which jarred the vessel a bit, but never anything like this.As quick as I could I put on my pants and was just getting on my stockings when Dad called down from the skylight for all hands to get on deck and never mind dressing. I woke up Bob Peary and Doc and we all rushed on deck.We moved oil casks for half an hour from the after part of the ship to the bow so as to take the strain off the stern where the vessel had struck and was sticking on the rocks. It was just high tide when we hit. We raised the foresail, jib and jumbo and had the engine going full speed, but she didn’t budge. Then, as the tide began to leave us, we took a lot of stores ashore in our dories and started in to do what we could for the next tide.The Morrissey on the Reef Off Northumberland Island.TheMorrisseyon the Reef Off Northumberland Island.[75]TheMorrisseywas listing on her port side at an angle of forty-five degrees or worse, and everything was in a dreadful mess on board. You just couldn’t stand even on the dry deck and where it was slimy with oil, as most of it was, the only possible way to get around was to hang on to a rope. And at that, what with moving around the heavy oil drums there were plenty of bad spills. Cap’n Bob cut his hand badly and Doc bandaged it up right away. Down in the cabins everything was in a heap. It was funny to see the clothes hanging on hooks from the ceiling stand right out crazily at a wild angle from the walls, like drunken men.The tide went down leaving the vessel high and dry, except for the bow which was in the water, tipped down at a bad angle and the stern up on the rocks. Cap’n Bob lashed ten empty oil drums on either side close to the keel at the stern, to help raise her when the water came in.View from Shore of the Wrecked Morrissey.View from Shore of the WreckedMorrissey.[76]We just had to be ready for any emergency in case theMorrisseyproved to be hurt so badly she couldn’t float, or especially if a storm came up which would have broken her to pieces quickly and made landing stuff very hard and perhaps impossible. And you must remember we were nearly one thousand miles from the nearest Danish settlement and more than 2000 miles from Sidney, the nearest big place.One thing we put ashore at once and very carefully was the emergency low power radio set with which Ed Manley, our radio operator, could keep in touch with the world in case our big outfit on board was lost. That little set which might have been so awfully important was given us by the National Carbon Company who make the Eveready batteries.And then the noon tide came and we were dreadfully disappointed. For the water didn’t rise to within about three feet of the midnight tide when we struck, so we were left with no[77]hope of getting off until the next tide. And that was pretty bad, because all that listing and pounding was dreadfully hard on a vessel, and would surely break one up less strong than the good oldMorrissey, which is built of oak and is unusually sturdy.But the water did get high enough to wash in over the deck on the low port side, even if the vessel couldn’t raise. There was a bad leak strained in her side and she leaked so badly we all had to help bail with pails lowered with ropes through the skylight into the mid-ships cabin. We couldn’t use the pumps because she had such a bad list, and tip forward, that they didn’t get at the water.My bunk and two others filled up with water all mixed with oil, and my things, especially in the locker underneath, got pretty well spoiled. Luckily someone lifted out my bedclothes.The stove in the galley and in the after cabin had to be put out, as there was danger[78]they would spill over and set the ship on fire. The big galley stove was braced up with seal hooks to keep it from sliding. Billy the cook moved in to shore and kept making coffee there so the men had something hot to help keep them going. Before it was all over most everyone had been working continuously more than forty hours. I was at it more than twenty-five, and was pretty dead tired.The Captain ordered all the food put ashore and there was a lot more to do, lashing more casks and trimming the cargo and movinggasolineto land, for the motor boat in case we got stuck, and kerosene for the primus stoves. Then, too, they put out the big heavy anchor, taking it in the dories quite a way from the ship and dropping it, so that we could haul on it with the windlass.While the tide was down there was a lot of work to do on the banged-up bottom of the vessel. The false keel, which is a big timber on the very bottom below the real keel, was[79]pretty well ripped off aft of the mainmast, and a lot of oakum was loosened out of the garboard seam. Lying down on the wet rocks we filled in a lot of oakum, which is a sort of fibre like shredded bagging or say potato sacking, with caulking tools, which is a blunt kind of chisel and a mallet or hammer to pound the stuff into the seams or cracks.Then we got a lot of Billy’s dish washing soft soap and mashed it up with a hammer and worked it in our hands into a kind of pasty putty. We put this in on top of the oakum. We worked in the water until the tide got up around our boots, and then climbed the ladder up on deck. I was able to help quite a bit on this job, and afterward there was plenty to do bailing.On shore we put up one of our small tents and took in most of our things, like sleeping bags, blankets, guns and ammunition. Everybody as best they could threw their things together to land. It was exciting, and exactly[80]as if we were abandoning the ship. And awfully sad, too, to see our fineMorrisseyall soaked with water and oil, and everything thrown about so terribly.Where the Morrissey’s False Keel Ripped Off on the Rocks.Where theMorrissey’sFalse Keel Ripped Off on the Rocks.After the unloading work, and after the men had had a mug of coffee and hardtack and whatever Billy could dig out of the cans, it was pretty nearly high tide again, along about eleven o’clock at night. The sun, of course, was always about the same distance above the horizon, only at a different point, so it seemed always a sort of bright afternoon. We were terribly lucky not to have it stormy.All hands were called on board and while three men worked the pumps the others manned the windlass. We had the big anchor and a small one out, to pull on with the windlass.There was a good wind coming up so we had to get her off then or she would surely break up and leave us there. After working for an hour or so we were just about to give up when[81]the wind freshened more. Cap’n Bob ordered all sails hoisted. Everyone got on the halyards and pulled as hard as they could. The wind flattened out the sails and the engine went full speed ahead. But for a good many minutes she held fast and we were most awfully discouraged.Then all at once there was an extra big wave and a puff of wind, and suddenly she gave a sort of groan and slid free of the rocks. After twenty-five hours we were off! We sure were glad.Dad, Carl and myself went ashore to get the stores in order in case it rained, while theMorrisseywas taken around to leeward some place where they could care for her better and see how things were. She seemed to be leaking a lot, and the plan was, in case of the water getting away from the pumps, to beach her.When the Eskimos Came to Shipwreck Camp on Northumberland Island.When the Eskimos Came to Shipwreck Camp on Northumberland Island.We turned in right away, at about half-past two, I suppose. And when we woke up[82]it was two in the afternoon! We were pretty tired, I reckon. And then, too, Carl had been quite sick and had had a pretty hard time to keep going at all.TheMorrisseyhad disappeared. Of course we didn’t have any idea where she was, but there was nothing to do but wait and fix things up as best we could. The next day, in the fog Carl and Dad went out in the motor launch to try to locate the crowd, but they did not find the vessel.So we built a sort of house, the craziest house you ever thought of. Robinson Crusoe never saw a funnier one. It had three walls, all made of food, mostly, with a big sail pulled over for a roof and some tarps to help out. The strongest wall, where the wind blew from, was built of flour sacks laid up on boxes of tinned vegetables. There were bags of potatoes, crates of onions, barrels, dunnage bags, hams and bacons in those walls. Anyway, we felt we had plenty to eat for quite a time.[83]We were especially glad to have a fine lot of specially made Armour pemmican, presented by Dad’s friend, Herman Nichols.We had two big bear skins and these we put on the damp ground with a tarp for a sort of floor. With a primus stove, which works with kerosene, we were quite comfortable even though the wind did blow the sails nearly off the roof. We weighted them down with big rocks, and tied heavy hams that Mr. Swift had given us by ropes at the sides.I got quite sick and had to keep in my sleeping bag about the whole time we were at “Shipwreck Camp.” It was pretty cold with no fire at all to give heat, but we got along first rate. Dad explained that by that time almost surely word would have gotten through from our wireless that the vessel was off the rocks. The trouble was that the water, at the time of the accident, put our wireless out of commission. It took Ed Manley a couple of days to get it going right again.[84]The third day about noon, when Carl was cooking up some tea on the primus, he glanced out of the door of our hut and saw four Eskimos coming toward us a long way off on the side of the mountain. As they got nearer we could see they all were carrying big packs.When they got to the tent the man threw off a little baby he had been carrying in a sling on his back. The mother had a bag of empty cans in her sack, which we recognized as coming from theMorrissey. With the few words we could understand, and a lot of motions and grinning—they are always awfully good-natured and nice—our friends told us they had been aboard the vessel and had been helping pump. She was at anchor on the other side of the island. It seemed she was only a few miles away.So after we had given them a feed, mostly a big can of peas which they loved, Carl and Dad started to find the ship, leaving me to sleep. I forgot to say that we gave the Eskimo[85]some ham, which looked good and they showed us they would like a taste. But they did not like it at all. It was too salty. They use no salt in their meat, and can’t understand us liking it. “Nagga piook” they said, making funny faces. Which means, “No good.”About midnight, eight hours or so later, I heard a yell and woke up to see theMorrisseyout in the bay beyond where she had run aground. Dad and Carl were on board, and as the wind had gone down they had come around to get the stores.I was sent aboard and Doc told me to go right to bed and keep as warm as possible. As my bunk was still pretty damp where it had been drowned out, I turned in to Dad’s bunk in the aft cabin, where the fire was going.When I woke up we were under way and headed south. We planned to go back to Upernivik and beach the vessel there and make repairs. With so many on board it[86]seemed better to Cap’n Bob and Dad not to risk trying to make any repairs on the north side of Melville Bay, which is apt to be a very dangerous place to cross.If theMorrisseyhad struck on a rising tide everything would have been all right. One often goes aground up here where hundreds of rocks and reefs aren’t shown on the charts and where all the information for sailors is terribly incomplete. But of course things like that always happen at the wrong time. It was just hard luck. When the wind came up it was either break up or get off.I have written this in the after cabin as we cross Melville Bay going down to Upernivik. The boat has been in a terrible mess, but is pretty well straightened out now. And everyone has about caught up on sleep.Around my bunk and Mr. Kellerman’s the boards are crushed in. That’s from the great strain put on the frame and beams when the boat laid on her side, so that when she moved[87]or gave a little the light inner framework of the bunks snapped.Dad just asked me if I’d like to go again on another northern trip. And of course I said I would. Really my answer was “I’d like to go anywhere with Cap’n Bob.”[88]
On Monday July twenty-sixth we struck a hidden rock off Northumberland Island which is at the mouth of Whale Sound away up at Latitude 77 degrees and twenty minutes north, on the east side of Baffin Bay. We were cruising around the island trying to locate some Eskimo whom we wanted to get on board to help us hunt. We were just getting into the good game territory. The evening before we saw seventeen walrus from the deck.
Captain Bob had been told back at Cape York that certain Eskimo were at places where they usually lived, but when we got in sight of them the tupiks were deserted. These[73]people move about a lot following up where the hunting is best, and probably the fact that the ice had gone out of the fjords and bays unusually early had made them change about unexpectedly.
Anyway, we were pretty close in shore, examining four sod houses on a point. A big wall of rock stuck out of the mountain behind, coming down toward the water. It is what geologists call a “dyke”—harder rock which stands up under the rain and snow, like a wall, with the softer stuff sloping down from it on either side, sort of washed away.
Well, this “dyke” evidently stuck well out underneath the surface of the water. Afterward we found there was deep water on both sides of it, right close up. But we managed to hit the very outer knob of it, about ten feet or so below the surface.
It was about twelve thirty in the morning when we hit, broad daylight of course, with the sun shining brightly and fortunately no[74]wind or sea running. It was very, very exciting. I was almost thrown out of my bunk when we hit. There was a jar and a jolt and then everything stopped. We had often hit into light ice, which jarred the vessel a bit, but never anything like this.
As quick as I could I put on my pants and was just getting on my stockings when Dad called down from the skylight for all hands to get on deck and never mind dressing. I woke up Bob Peary and Doc and we all rushed on deck.
We moved oil casks for half an hour from the after part of the ship to the bow so as to take the strain off the stern where the vessel had struck and was sticking on the rocks. It was just high tide when we hit. We raised the foresail, jib and jumbo and had the engine going full speed, but she didn’t budge. Then, as the tide began to leave us, we took a lot of stores ashore in our dories and started in to do what we could for the next tide.
The Morrissey on the Reef Off Northumberland Island.TheMorrisseyon the Reef Off Northumberland Island.
TheMorrisseyon the Reef Off Northumberland Island.
[75]
TheMorrisseywas listing on her port side at an angle of forty-five degrees or worse, and everything was in a dreadful mess on board. You just couldn’t stand even on the dry deck and where it was slimy with oil, as most of it was, the only possible way to get around was to hang on to a rope. And at that, what with moving around the heavy oil drums there were plenty of bad spills. Cap’n Bob cut his hand badly and Doc bandaged it up right away. Down in the cabins everything was in a heap. It was funny to see the clothes hanging on hooks from the ceiling stand right out crazily at a wild angle from the walls, like drunken men.
The tide went down leaving the vessel high and dry, except for the bow which was in the water, tipped down at a bad angle and the stern up on the rocks. Cap’n Bob lashed ten empty oil drums on either side close to the keel at the stern, to help raise her when the water came in.
View from Shore of the Wrecked Morrissey.View from Shore of the WreckedMorrissey.
View from Shore of the WreckedMorrissey.
[76]
We just had to be ready for any emergency in case theMorrisseyproved to be hurt so badly she couldn’t float, or especially if a storm came up which would have broken her to pieces quickly and made landing stuff very hard and perhaps impossible. And you must remember we were nearly one thousand miles from the nearest Danish settlement and more than 2000 miles from Sidney, the nearest big place.
One thing we put ashore at once and very carefully was the emergency low power radio set with which Ed Manley, our radio operator, could keep in touch with the world in case our big outfit on board was lost. That little set which might have been so awfully important was given us by the National Carbon Company who make the Eveready batteries.
And then the noon tide came and we were dreadfully disappointed. For the water didn’t rise to within about three feet of the midnight tide when we struck, so we were left with no[77]hope of getting off until the next tide. And that was pretty bad, because all that listing and pounding was dreadfully hard on a vessel, and would surely break one up less strong than the good oldMorrissey, which is built of oak and is unusually sturdy.
But the water did get high enough to wash in over the deck on the low port side, even if the vessel couldn’t raise. There was a bad leak strained in her side and she leaked so badly we all had to help bail with pails lowered with ropes through the skylight into the mid-ships cabin. We couldn’t use the pumps because she had such a bad list, and tip forward, that they didn’t get at the water.
My bunk and two others filled up with water all mixed with oil, and my things, especially in the locker underneath, got pretty well spoiled. Luckily someone lifted out my bedclothes.
The stove in the galley and in the after cabin had to be put out, as there was danger[78]they would spill over and set the ship on fire. The big galley stove was braced up with seal hooks to keep it from sliding. Billy the cook moved in to shore and kept making coffee there so the men had something hot to help keep them going. Before it was all over most everyone had been working continuously more than forty hours. I was at it more than twenty-five, and was pretty dead tired.
The Captain ordered all the food put ashore and there was a lot more to do, lashing more casks and trimming the cargo and movinggasolineto land, for the motor boat in case we got stuck, and kerosene for the primus stoves. Then, too, they put out the big heavy anchor, taking it in the dories quite a way from the ship and dropping it, so that we could haul on it with the windlass.
While the tide was down there was a lot of work to do on the banged-up bottom of the vessel. The false keel, which is a big timber on the very bottom below the real keel, was[79]pretty well ripped off aft of the mainmast, and a lot of oakum was loosened out of the garboard seam. Lying down on the wet rocks we filled in a lot of oakum, which is a sort of fibre like shredded bagging or say potato sacking, with caulking tools, which is a blunt kind of chisel and a mallet or hammer to pound the stuff into the seams or cracks.
Then we got a lot of Billy’s dish washing soft soap and mashed it up with a hammer and worked it in our hands into a kind of pasty putty. We put this in on top of the oakum. We worked in the water until the tide got up around our boots, and then climbed the ladder up on deck. I was able to help quite a bit on this job, and afterward there was plenty to do bailing.
On shore we put up one of our small tents and took in most of our things, like sleeping bags, blankets, guns and ammunition. Everybody as best they could threw their things together to land. It was exciting, and exactly[80]as if we were abandoning the ship. And awfully sad, too, to see our fineMorrisseyall soaked with water and oil, and everything thrown about so terribly.
Where the Morrissey’s False Keel Ripped Off on the Rocks.Where theMorrissey’sFalse Keel Ripped Off on the Rocks.
Where theMorrissey’sFalse Keel Ripped Off on the Rocks.
After the unloading work, and after the men had had a mug of coffee and hardtack and whatever Billy could dig out of the cans, it was pretty nearly high tide again, along about eleven o’clock at night. The sun, of course, was always about the same distance above the horizon, only at a different point, so it seemed always a sort of bright afternoon. We were terribly lucky not to have it stormy.
All hands were called on board and while three men worked the pumps the others manned the windlass. We had the big anchor and a small one out, to pull on with the windlass.
There was a good wind coming up so we had to get her off then or she would surely break up and leave us there. After working for an hour or so we were just about to give up when[81]the wind freshened more. Cap’n Bob ordered all sails hoisted. Everyone got on the halyards and pulled as hard as they could. The wind flattened out the sails and the engine went full speed ahead. But for a good many minutes she held fast and we were most awfully discouraged.
Then all at once there was an extra big wave and a puff of wind, and suddenly she gave a sort of groan and slid free of the rocks. After twenty-five hours we were off! We sure were glad.
Dad, Carl and myself went ashore to get the stores in order in case it rained, while theMorrisseywas taken around to leeward some place where they could care for her better and see how things were. She seemed to be leaking a lot, and the plan was, in case of the water getting away from the pumps, to beach her.
When the Eskimos Came to Shipwreck Camp on Northumberland Island.When the Eskimos Came to Shipwreck Camp on Northumberland Island.
When the Eskimos Came to Shipwreck Camp on Northumberland Island.
We turned in right away, at about half-past two, I suppose. And when we woke up[82]it was two in the afternoon! We were pretty tired, I reckon. And then, too, Carl had been quite sick and had had a pretty hard time to keep going at all.
TheMorrisseyhad disappeared. Of course we didn’t have any idea where she was, but there was nothing to do but wait and fix things up as best we could. The next day, in the fog Carl and Dad went out in the motor launch to try to locate the crowd, but they did not find the vessel.
So we built a sort of house, the craziest house you ever thought of. Robinson Crusoe never saw a funnier one. It had three walls, all made of food, mostly, with a big sail pulled over for a roof and some tarps to help out. The strongest wall, where the wind blew from, was built of flour sacks laid up on boxes of tinned vegetables. There were bags of potatoes, crates of onions, barrels, dunnage bags, hams and bacons in those walls. Anyway, we felt we had plenty to eat for quite a time.[83]We were especially glad to have a fine lot of specially made Armour pemmican, presented by Dad’s friend, Herman Nichols.
We had two big bear skins and these we put on the damp ground with a tarp for a sort of floor. With a primus stove, which works with kerosene, we were quite comfortable even though the wind did blow the sails nearly off the roof. We weighted them down with big rocks, and tied heavy hams that Mr. Swift had given us by ropes at the sides.
I got quite sick and had to keep in my sleeping bag about the whole time we were at “Shipwreck Camp.” It was pretty cold with no fire at all to give heat, but we got along first rate. Dad explained that by that time almost surely word would have gotten through from our wireless that the vessel was off the rocks. The trouble was that the water, at the time of the accident, put our wireless out of commission. It took Ed Manley a couple of days to get it going right again.[84]
The third day about noon, when Carl was cooking up some tea on the primus, he glanced out of the door of our hut and saw four Eskimos coming toward us a long way off on the side of the mountain. As they got nearer we could see they all were carrying big packs.
When they got to the tent the man threw off a little baby he had been carrying in a sling on his back. The mother had a bag of empty cans in her sack, which we recognized as coming from theMorrissey. With the few words we could understand, and a lot of motions and grinning—they are always awfully good-natured and nice—our friends told us they had been aboard the vessel and had been helping pump. She was at anchor on the other side of the island. It seemed she was only a few miles away.
So after we had given them a feed, mostly a big can of peas which they loved, Carl and Dad started to find the ship, leaving me to sleep. I forgot to say that we gave the Eskimo[85]some ham, which looked good and they showed us they would like a taste. But they did not like it at all. It was too salty. They use no salt in their meat, and can’t understand us liking it. “Nagga piook” they said, making funny faces. Which means, “No good.”
About midnight, eight hours or so later, I heard a yell and woke up to see theMorrisseyout in the bay beyond where she had run aground. Dad and Carl were on board, and as the wind had gone down they had come around to get the stores.
I was sent aboard and Doc told me to go right to bed and keep as warm as possible. As my bunk was still pretty damp where it had been drowned out, I turned in to Dad’s bunk in the aft cabin, where the fire was going.
When I woke up we were under way and headed south. We planned to go back to Upernivik and beach the vessel there and make repairs. With so many on board it[86]seemed better to Cap’n Bob and Dad not to risk trying to make any repairs on the north side of Melville Bay, which is apt to be a very dangerous place to cross.
If theMorrisseyhad struck on a rising tide everything would have been all right. One often goes aground up here where hundreds of rocks and reefs aren’t shown on the charts and where all the information for sailors is terribly incomplete. But of course things like that always happen at the wrong time. It was just hard luck. When the wind came up it was either break up or get off.
I have written this in the after cabin as we cross Melville Bay going down to Upernivik. The boat has been in a terrible mess, but is pretty well straightened out now. And everyone has about caught up on sleep.
Around my bunk and Mr. Kellerman’s the boards are crushed in. That’s from the great strain put on the frame and beams when the boat laid on her side, so that when she moved[87]or gave a little the light inner framework of the bunks snapped.
Dad just asked me if I’d like to go again on another northern trip. And of course I said I would. Really my answer was “I’d like to go anywhere with Cap’n Bob.”
[88]