CHAPTER VIII.

OUR WINTER HARBOR.—PREPARING FOR WINTER.—ORGANIZATION OF DUTIES.—SCIENTIFIC WORK.—THE OBSERVATORY.—SCHOONER DRIVEN ASHORE.—THE HUNTERS.—SAWING A DOCK.—FROZEN UP.

I named our harbor Port Foulke, in honor of my friend, the late William Parker Foulke, of Philadelphia, who was one of the earliest, and continued to be throughout one of the most constant advocates of the expedition.

It was well sheltered except from the southwest, toward which quarter it was quite exposed; but, judging from our recent experience, we had little reason to fear wind from that direction; and we were protected from the drift-ice by a cluster of bergs which lay grounded off the mouth of the harbor.

Our position was, even for the Greenland coast, not so satisfactory as I could have wished. Had I reached Fog Inlet we should have gained some advantages over our present location, and would have been indeed better situated than was Dr. Kane at Van Rensselaer Harbor; and we would then be as sure of an early liberation as we were likely to be at Port Foulke. In truth, the principal advantage which it possessed was that we would not be held very late the next summer, and there was no possible risk of my vessel being caught in a trap like that of theAdvance. Besides this prospect of a speedy liberation to recommendit, there seemed to be a fair chance of an abundant supply of game.

From Dr. Kane's winter quarters we were not very remote, the distance being about twenty miles in latitude, and about eighty by the coast. We were eight nautical miles in a northeasterly direction from Cape Alexander, and lay deep within the recesses of a craggy, cliff-lined bight of dark, reddish-brown sienitic rock, which looked gloomy enough. This bight is prolonged by three small islands which figure in my journal as "The Youngsters," and which bear on my chart the names of Radcliffe, Knorr, and Starr. At the head of the bight there is a series of terraced beaches composed of loose shingle.

The ice soon closed around us.

My chief concern now was to prepare for the winter, in such a manner as to insure safety to the schooner and comfort to my party. While this was being done I did not, however, lose sight of the scientific labors; but, for the time, these had to be made subordinate to more serious concerns. There was much to do, but my former experience greatly simplified my cares.

OUR WINTER HARBOR.

PREPARING FOR WINTER.

Mr. Sonntag, with Radcliffe, Knorr, and Starr to assist him, took general charge of such scientific work as we found ourselves able to manage; and Jensen, with Hans and Peter, were detailed as an organized hunting force. Mr. Dodge, with the body of the crew, discharged the cargo, and, carrying it to the shore, swung it with a derrick up on the lower terrace, which was thirty feet above the tide, and there deposited it in a store-house made of stones and roofed with our old sails. This was a very laborious operation. The beach was shallow, the bank sloping, and the ice notbeing strong enough to bear a sledge, a channel had to be kept open for the boats between the ship and the shore. The duty of preparing the schooner for our winter home devolved upon Mr. McCormick, with the carpenter and such other assistance as he required. After the sails had been unbent, the yards sent down, and the topmasts housed, the upper deck was roofed in,—making a house eight feet high at the ridge and six and a half at the side. A coating of tarred paper closed the cracks, and four windows let in the light while it lasted, and ventilated our quarters. Between decks there was much to do. The hold, after being floored, scrubbed, and whitewashed, was converted into a room for the crew; the cook-stove was brought down from the galley and placed in the centre of it under the main hatch, in which hung our simple apparatus for melting water from the snow or ice. This was a funnel-shaped double cylinder of galvanized iron connecting with the stove-pipe, and was called the "snow melter." A constant stream poured from it into a large cask, and we had always a supply of the purest water, fully ample for every purpose.

Into these quarters the crew moved on the first of October, and the out-door work of preparation being mainly completed, we entered then, with the ceremony of a holiday dinner, upon our winter life. And the dinner was by no means to be despised. Our soup was followed by an Upernavik salmon, and the table groaned under a mammoth haunch of venison, which was flanked by a ragout of rabbit and a venison pasty.

OUR COMMISSARIAT.

Indeed, we went into the winter with a most encouraging prospect for an abundant commissariat. The carcasses of more than a dozen reindeer werehanging in the shrouds, rabbits and foxes were suspended in clusters from the rigging, and the hearty appetites and vigorous digestions which a bracing air and hard work had given us, were not only amply provided for in the present, but seemed likely to be supplied in the future. The hunters rarely came home empty-handed. Reindeer in herds of tens and fifties were reported upon every return of the sportsmen. Jensen, who had camped out several days on the hunting-grounds, had already cached the flesh of about twenty animals, besides those which had been brought on board. In a single hour I had killed three with my own hands. Both men and dogs were well provided. The dogs, which, according to Esquimau custom, were only fed every second day, often received an entire reindeer at a single meal. They were very ravenous, and, having been much reduced by their hard life at sea, they caused an immense drain upon our resources.

My journal mentions, with daily increasing impatience, the almost constant prevalence of strong northeast winds, which embarrassed us during this period; but at length the wind set in from the opposite direction, and, breaking up the young ice about us, jammed us upon the rocks. If there was little consolation in the circumstance of our situation being thus altered for the worse, there was at least novelty in the caprice of the weather. For once, at least, the uniform "N. E." had been changed in the proper column of the log-book. It was not without difficulty that we succeeded in relieving the schooner from the unpleasant predicament.

While these preparations for the winter were being made, I must not forget the astronomer and his littlecorps. Between him and the executive officer there sprung up quite a rivalry of interest. While the one desired a clean ship moored in safety and a well-fed crew, he was naturally jealous of any detail of men for the other; and it must be owned that the men worked with much greater alacrity for the follower of Epicurus than the disciple of Copernicus. An appeal to head-quarters, however, speedily settled the question as to where the work was most needed; and, by a judicious discrimination as to what was due to science and what to personal convenience, we managed, while the daylight lasted, to lay the foundation of a very clever series of observations, while at the same time our comfort was secured.

THE OBSERVATORY.

A neat little observatory was erected on the lower terrace, not far from the store-house, and it was promptly put to use; and an accurate survey of the harbor and bay, with soundings, was made as soon as the ice was strong enough to bear our weight. The observatory was a frame structure eight feet square and seven high, covered first with canvas and then with snow, and was lined throughout with bear and reindeer skins. In it our fine pendulum apparatus was first mounted, and Sonntag and Radcliffe were engaged for nearly a month in counting its vibrations. It was found to work admirably. Upon removing this instrument, the magnetometer was substituted in its place, upon a pedestal which was not less simple than original. It was made of two headless kegs, placed end to end upon the solid rock beneath the floor, and the cylinder thus formed was filled with the only materials upon which the frost had not laid hold, namely, beans. Water being poured over these, we had soon, at ten degrees below zero, a neat and perfectly solid column; and it remained serviceable throughout the winter, as no fire of any kind was allowed in this abode of science.[2]

[2]It is proper to mention here that the pendulum and magnetic observations, as well indeed as all others in physical science, were, upon my return, sent to the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, and were placed in the very competent hands of Mr. Charles A. Schott, Assistant in the United States Coast Survey, to whom I am indebted for most able and efficient coöperation, in the elaboration and discussion of my materials, preparatory to their publication in the "Smithsonian Contributions," to which source I beg to refer the reader for details.

PORT FOULKE AND VICINITYClick on image to view larger sized

Click on image to view larger sized

SCIENTIFIC WORK.

In order to obtain an accurate record of temperature, we erected near the Observatory a suitable shelter for the thermometers. In this were placed a number of instruments, mostly spirit, which were read hourly every seventh day, and three times daily in the interval.[3]In addition to this, we noted the temperature every second hour with a thermometer suspended to a post on the ice. Mr. Dodge undertook for me a set of ice measurements, and the telescope was mounted alongside the vessel, in a dome made with blocks of ice and snow.

[3]These instruments were carefully compared at every ten degrees of temperature down to -40°, and the records were subsequently referred to our "standard," a fine instrument which I had from G. Tagliabue.

But the wind would still give us no rest, and, setting in again from a southerly direction, the ice was once more broken up, and we were again driven upon the rocks, and a second time compelled to saw a dock for the schooner and haul her off-shore. This operation was both laborious and disagreeable, even more so than it had been on the former occasion. The ice was rotten, and so tangled up with the pressure that it was not easy to find secure footing; and the result was that few of the party escaped with less than one good ducking. These accidents were, however,uncomfortable rather than dangerous, as there was always help at hand.

DRIVEN ASHORE BY THE ICE.

The schooner was, for a time, in rather an alarming situation, and there were many doubts as to whether we should get her off; but not even the consciousness of this circumstance, nor the repeated plunges into the water by the giving way and tilting of the ice, could destroy the inexhaustible fund of good-humor of the ship's company. From this happy disposition I must, however, except two individuals, who were always apt to be possessed of a sort of ludicrous gravity when there was least occasion for it, and, as is usual with such persons, they were not very serviceably employed. One of them, with great seriousness and an immense amount of misdirected energy, commenced chopping into my best nine-inch hawser, that was in nobody's way; and the other, with equal solemnity, began vigorously to break up my oars in pushing off pieces of ice which were doing nobody any harm. He even tried to push the schooner off the rocks, alone and unaided, with the tide-pole, an instrument which had cost McCormick two days to manufacture. Of course, the instrument was broken; but the poor man was saved from the sailing-master's just indignation by following the fragments into the sea, where he was consoled, in the place of prompt assistance, with assurances that if he did not make haste the shrimps would be after him, and leave nothing of him but a skeleton for the Commander's collection. The temperature was not below zero, and no worse results followed our exposure than a slight pleurisy to the mate and a few twitches of rheumatism to the destroyer of my oars.

Our efforts were, however, finally rewarded withsuccess, and the schooner was once more in safety. The air falling calm, and the temperature going down to 10° below zero, we were now soon firmly frozen up, and were protected against any further accidents of this nature, and were rejoiced to find ourselves able to run over the bay in security. In anticipation of this event, I had set Jensen and Peter to work making harness for the dog's, and on that day I took the first drive with one of my teams. The animals had picked up finely, and were in excellent condition, and I had satisfied myself both as to their qualities and those of their driver, Jensen. The day was indeed a lively one to all hands. The ice having closed up firmly with the land, the necessity no longer existed for keeping a channel open for the boats; and the hunters, being able now to get ashore with ease, set off early in the morning, in great glee, after reindeer.

FROZEN UP.

On the day following, the hawsers by which we had thus far been moored to the rocks were cut out of the ice and elevated on blocks of the same material. We also made a stairway of slabs of this same cheap Arctic alabaster, from the upper deck down to the frozen sea; and, a deep snow falling soon afterward, we banked this up against the schooner's sides as a further protection against the cold.

During the next few days the teams were employed in collecting the reindeer which had been cached in various places, and when this labor was completed our inventory of fresh supplies was calculated to inspire very agreeable sensations.

The schooner being now snugly cradled in the ice, we had no longer occasion for the nautical routine, so I adopted a landsman's watch, with one officer and one sailor; the sea day, which commences at noon,was changed to the home day, which begins at midnight; and, conscious that we had reached the dividing line between the summer sunlight and the winter darkness, we settled ourselves for the struggle which was to come, resolved to get through it with the cheerfulness becoming resolute men, and to make ourselves as comfortable as possible. And the personal characteristics of my associates augured well for the future. While there was sufficient variety of disposition to insure a continuance of some novelty in our social intercourse, there was enoughespritto satisfy me as to the continuance of harmony in the performance of individual duty.

THE DAY ENDED.

The sun sank out of sight behind the southern hills on the 15th of October, not to be seen again for four long months. The circumstance furnished the subject of our conversation in the evening, and I could easily read on the faces of my companions that their thoughts followed him as he wandered south; and a shade of sadness fell for a moment over the table about which we were grouped. We had all been so intent upon our cares and duties, during the past five weeks, that we had scarcely noticed the decline of day. It had vanished slowly and as if by stealth; and the gloom of night following its lengthening shadow made us feel now, for the first time, how truly alone we were in the Arctic desert.

Port Foulke

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