CHAPTER XXXI.
A NEW START.—SPECULATIONS.—IN A FOG.—POLAR SCENERY.—STOPPED BY ROTTEN ICE.—LOOKING AHEAD.—CONCLUSIONS.—THE OPEN SEA.—CLIMAX OF THE JOURNEY.—RETURNING SOUTH.
A NEW START.—SPECULATIONS.—IN A FOG.—POLAR SCENERY.—STOPPED BY ROTTEN ICE.—LOOKING AHEAD.—CONCLUSIONS.—THE OPEN SEA.—CLIMAX OF THE JOURNEY.—RETURNING SOUTH.
The unexpected breaking down of my strong man, Jensen, was a misfortune only one degree less keenly felt than the previous failure of the foot party, and it troubled me much; for, while I lost the services of a stout arm and an active body, I was naturally anxious about his safety. With a helpless man on my hands, and with four hundred and fifty miles of rough ice between me and the schooner, and with but scant depots of provision by the way, calculated only for a journey with empty sledges, I must own that I was somewhat perplexed.
When the morning came, Jensen was found to have improved but little and was scarcely able to move. I promptly determined to leave him in charge of McDonald, and to push on with Knorr alone. Lest accident from rotten ice (the only one that I had to fear) should befall me, I left with McDonald five dogs, with directions to await us as many days, and then make the best of his way back to Port Foulke.
Our simple breakfast over, I was once more plunging through the hummocks, making my last throw. Our track lay across a bay so deep that the distance would be more than quadrupled if we followed its tortuous windings of the shore upon the land-ice.
My purpose now was to make the best push I could, and, traveling as far as my provisions warranted, reach the highest attainable latitude and secure such a point of observation as would enable me to form a definite opinion respecting the sea before me, and the prospects of reaching and navigating it with a boat or with the schooner. I had already reached a position somewhat to the northward of that attained by Morton, of Dr. Kane's expedition, in June, 1854, and was looking out upon the same sea from a point probably about sixty miles to the northward and westward of Cape Constitution, where, only a month later in the season, his further progress was arrested by open water.
It only remained for me now to extend the survey as far to the north as possible. By the judicious husbanding of my resources I had still within my hands ample means to guarantee a successful termination to a journey which the increasing darkness and extent of the water-sky to the northeast seemed to warn me was approaching its climax.
IN A FOG.
Our first day's journey was not particularly encouraging. The ice in the bay was rough and the snow deep, and, after nine hours of laborious work, we were compelled to halt for rest, having made, since setting out, not more than as many miles. Our progress had been much retarded by a dense fog which settled over us soon after starting, and which, by preventing us from seeing thirty yards on either side, interfered with the selection of a track; and we were, in consequence, forced to pursue our course by compass.
POLAR SCENERY.
The fog clearing up by the time we had become rested, and the land being soon reached, we pursuedour way along the ice-foot with much the same fortune as had befallen us since striking the shore above Cape Napoleon. The coast presented the same features—great wall-sided cliffs rising at our left, with a jagged ridge of crushed ice at our right, forming a white fringe, as it were, to the dark rocks. We were, in truth, journeying along a winding gorge or valley, formed by the land on one side and the ice on the other; for this ice-fringe rose about fifty feet above our heads, and, except here and there where a cleft gave us an outlook upon the sea, we were as completely hemmed in as if in a cañon of the Cordilleras. Occasionally, however, a bay broke in upon the continuity of the lofty coast, and as we faced to the westward along its southern margin, a sloping terraced valley opened before us, rising gently from the sea to the base of the mountains, which rose with imposing grandeur. I was never more impressed with the dreariness and desolation of an Arctic landscape. Although my situation on the summit of the Greenlandmer de glace, in October of the last year, had apparently left nothing unsupplied to the imagination that was needed to fill the picture of boundless sterility, yet here the variety of forms seemed to magnify the impression on the mind, and to give a wider play to the fancy; and as the eye wandered from peak to peak of the mountains as they rose one above the other, and rested upon the dark and frost-degraded cliffs, and followed along the ice-foot, and overlooked the sea, and saw in every object the silent forces of Nature moving on through the gloom of winter and the sparkle of summer, now, as they had moved for countless ages, unobserved but by the eye of God alone, I felt how puny indeed are all men's works andefforts; and when I sought for some token of living thing, some track of wild beast,—a fox, or bear, or reindeer,—which had, elsewhere, always crossed me in my journeyings, and saw nothing but two feeble men and our struggling dogs, it seemed indeed as if the Almighty had frowned upon the hills and seas.
Since leaving Cairn Point we had looked most anxiously for bears; but although we had seen many tracks, especially about Cape Frazer, not a single animal had been observed. A bear, indeed, would have been a godsend to us, and would have placed me wholly beyond anxiety respecting the strength of the dogs, as it would not only have put new life into them, but would have given them several days of more substantial rations than the dried beef which they had been so long fed upon.
QUITTING THE LAND-ICE.
After a ten hours' march, we found ourselves once more compelled to camp; and four hours of the following day brought us to the southern cape of a bay which was so deep that, as in other cases of like obstruction, we determined to cross over it rather than to follow the shore line. We had gone only a few miles when we found our progress suddenly arrested. Our course was made directly for a conspicuous headland bounding the bay to the northward, over a strip of old ice lining the shore. This headland seemed to be about twenty miles from us, or near latitude 82°, and I was very desirous of reaching it; but, unhappily, the old ice came suddenly to an end, and after scrambling over the fringe of hummocks which margined it, we found ourselves upon ice of the late winter.
Mt. Murchison. Church's Pk. C. Lieber. Mt. Parry. C. Eugénie. C. Frederick VII. C. Union.THE SHORES OF THE POLAR SEA.(FROM A SKETCH BY DR. HAYES.)
Mt. Murchison. Church's Pk. C. Lieber. Mt. Parry. C. Eugénie. C. Frederick VII. C. Union.THE SHORES OF THE POLAR SEA.(FROM A SKETCH BY DR. HAYES.)
Mt. Murchison. Church's Pk. C. Lieber. Mt. Parry. C. Eugénie. C. Frederick VII. C. Union.
THE SHORES OF THE POLAR SEA.
(FROM A SKETCH BY DR. HAYES.)
STOPPED BY ROTTEN ICE.
The unerring instinct of the dogs warned us of approaching danger. They were observed for some time to be moving with unusual caution, and finally they scattered to right and left, and refused to proceed further. This behavior of the dogs was too familiar to me to leave any doubt as to its meaning; and moving forward in advance, I quickly perceived that the ice was rotten and unsafe. Thinking that this might be merely a local circumstance, resulting from some peculiarity of the current, we doubled back upon the old floe and made another trial further to the eastward. Walking now in advance of the dogs they were inspired with greater courage. I had not proceeded far when I found the ice again giving way under the staff, with which I sounded its strength, and again we turned back and sought a still more eastern passage.
Two hours consumed in efforts of this kind, during which we had worked about four miles out to sea, convinced me that the ice outside the bay was wholly impassable, and that perseverance could only end in disappointment; for if we happened to break through, we should not only be in great jeopardy but would, by getting wet, greatly retard, if not wholly defeat our progress to the opposite shore. Accordingly we drew back toward the land, seeking safety again upon the old floe, and hauling then to the westward, endeavored to cross over further up the bay; but here the same conditions existed as outside, and the dogs resolutely refused to proceed as soon as we left the old ice. Not wishing to be defeated in my purpose of crossing over, we held still further west and persevered in our efforts until convinced that the bay could not be crossed, and then we had no alternative but to retreat to the land-ice and follow its circuit to our destination.
With the view of ascertaining how far this coursewas likely to carry us from a direct line, I walked, while the dogs were resting, a few miles along the shore until I could see the head of the bay, distant not less than twenty miles. To make this longdétourwould occupy at least two if not three days,—an undertaking not justified by the state of our provisions,—and we therefore went into camp, weary with more than twelve hours' work, to await the issue of further observation on the morrow.
VIEW FROM THE CLIFF.
Surprised at the condition of the ice in the bay, I determined to climb the hill above the camp, with the view of ascertaining the probable cause of our being thus baffled; and to ascertain if a more direct route could not be found further to the eastward than that by the land-ice of the bay; for it was now clear that it was only possible to continue our journey northward in one or the other of these directions. The labors of the day made it necessary, however, that I should procure some rest before attempting to climb the hill to such an elevation as would enable me to obtain a clear view of the condition of the ice to the opposite shore.
After a most profound and refreshing sleep, inspired by a weariness which I had rarely before experienced, to an equal degree, I climbed the steep hill-side to the top of a ragged cliff, which I supposed to be about eight hundred feet above the level of the sea.
The view which I had from this elevation furnished a solution of the cause of my progress being arrested on the previous day.
The ice was everywhere in the same condition as in the mouth of the bay, across which I had endeavored to pass. A broad crack, starting from the middle of the bay, stretched over the sea, and unitingwith other cracks as it meandered to the eastward, it expanded as the delta of some mighty river discharging into the ocean, and under a water-sky, which hung upon the northern and eastern horizon, it was lost in the open sea.
Standing against the dark sky at the north, there was seen in dim outline the white sloping summit of a noble headland,—the most northern known land upon the globe. I judged it to be in latitude 82° 30´, or four hundred and fifty miles from the North Pole. Nearer, another bold cape stood forth; and nearer still the headland, for which I had been steering my course the day before, rose majestically from the sea, as if pushing up into the very skies a lofty mountain peak, upon which the winter had dropped its diadem of snows. There was no land visible except the coast upon which I stood.
The sea beneath me was a mottled sheet of white and dark patches, these latter being either soft decaying ice or places where the ice had wholly disappeared. These spots were heightened in intensity of shade and multiplied in size as they receded, until the belt of the water-sky blended them all together into one uniform color of dark blue. The old and solid floes (some a quarter of a mile, and others miles, across) and the massive ridges and wastes of hummocked ice which lay piled between them and around their margins, were the only parts of the sea which retained the whiteness and solidity of winter.
I reserve to another chapter all discussion of the value of the observations which I made from this point. Suffice it here to say that all the evidences showed that I stood upon the shores of the Polar Basin, and that the broad ocean lay at my feet; thatthe land upon which I stood, culminating in the distant cape before me, was but a point of land projecting far into it, like the Ceverro Vostochnoi Noss of the opposite coast of Siberia; and that the little margin of ice which lined the shore was being steadily worn away; and within a month, the whole sea would be as free from ice as I had seen the north water of Baffin Bay,—interrupted only by a moving pack, drifting to and fro at the will of the winds and currents.
To proceed further north was, of course, impossible. The crack which I have mentioned would, of itself, have prevented us from making the opposite land, and the ice outside the bay was even more decayed than inside. Several open patches were observed near the shore, and in one of these there was seen a flock ofDovekie. At several points during our march up Kennedy Channel I had observed their breeding-places, but I was not a little surprised to see the birds at this locality so early in the season. Several burgomaster-gulls flew over head, making their way northward, seeking the open water for their feeding grounds and summer haunts. Around these haunts of the birds there is never ice after the early days of June.
THE JOURNEY ENDED.
And now my journey was ended, and I had nothing to do but make my way back to Port Foulke. The advancing season, the rapidity with which the thaw was taking place, the certainty that the open water was eating into Smith Sound as well through Baffin Bay from the south, as through Kennedy Channel from the north, thus endangering my return across to the Greenland shore, warned me that I had lingered long enough.
PLANTING THE FLAG.
It now only remained for us to plant our flag in token of our discovery, and to deposit a record in proof of our presence. The flags[10]were tied to the whip-lash, and suspended between two tall rocks, and while we were building a cairn, they were allowed to flutter in the breeze; then, tearing a leaf from my note-book, I wrote on it as follows:—
"This point, the most northern land that has ever been reached, was visited by the undersigned, May 18th, 19th, 1861, accompanied by George F. Knorr, traveling with a dog-sledge. We arrived here after a toilsome march of forty-six days from my winter harbor, near Cape Alexander, at the mouth of Smith Sound. My observations place us in latitude 81° 35′, longitude 70° 30′, W. Our further progress was stopped by rotten ice and cracks. Kennedy Channel appears to expand into the Polar Basin; and, satisfied that it is navigable at least during the months of July, August, and September, I go hence to my winter harbor, to make another trial to get through Smith Sound with my vessel, after the ice breaks up this summer.I. I. Hayes."May 19th, 1861."
"This point, the most northern land that has ever been reached, was visited by the undersigned, May 18th, 19th, 1861, accompanied by George F. Knorr, traveling with a dog-sledge. We arrived here after a toilsome march of forty-six days from my winter harbor, near Cape Alexander, at the mouth of Smith Sound. My observations place us in latitude 81° 35′, longitude 70° 30′, W. Our further progress was stopped by rotten ice and cracks. Kennedy Channel appears to expand into the Polar Basin; and, satisfied that it is navigable at least during the months of July, August, and September, I go hence to my winter harbor, to make another trial to get through Smith Sound with my vessel, after the ice breaks up this summer.
I. I. Hayes.
"May 19th, 1861."
[10]These were a small United States flag (boat's ensign), which had been carried in the South Sea Expedition of Captain Wilkes, U. S. N., and afterwards in the Arctic Expeditions of Lieut. Comg. DeHaven and Dr. Kane; a little United States flag which had been committed to Mr. Sonntag by the ladies of the Albany Academy; two diminutive Masonic flags intrusted to me,—one by the Kane Lodge of New York, the other by the Columbia Lodge of Boston; and our Expedition signal-flag, bearing the Expedition emblem, the Pole Star—a crimson star, on a white field—also a gift from fair hands. Being under the obligation of a sacred promise to unfurl all of these flags at the most northern point attained, it was my pleasing duty to carry them with me—a duty rendered none the less pleasing by the circumstance that, together, they did not weigh three pounds.
[10]These were a small United States flag (boat's ensign), which had been carried in the South Sea Expedition of Captain Wilkes, U. S. N., and afterwards in the Arctic Expeditions of Lieut. Comg. DeHaven and Dr. Kane; a little United States flag which had been committed to Mr. Sonntag by the ladies of the Albany Academy; two diminutive Masonic flags intrusted to me,—one by the Kane Lodge of New York, the other by the Columbia Lodge of Boston; and our Expedition signal-flag, bearing the Expedition emblem, the Pole Star—a crimson star, on a white field—also a gift from fair hands. Being under the obligation of a sacred promise to unfurl all of these flags at the most northern point attained, it was my pleasing duty to carry them with me—a duty rendered none the less pleasing by the circumstance that, together, they did not weigh three pounds.
This record being carefully secured in a small glass vial, which I brought for the purpose, it was deposited beneath the cairn; and then our faces were turned homewards. But I quit the place with reluctance.It possessed a fascination for me, and it was with no ordinary sensations that I contemplated my situation, with one solitary companion, in that hitherto untrodden desert; while my nearness to the earth's axis, the consciousness of standing upon land far beyond the limits of previous observation, the reflections which crossed my mind respecting the vast ocean which lay spread out before me, the thought that these ice-girdled waters might lash the shores of distant islands where dwell human beings of an unknown race, were circumstances calculated to invest the very air with mystery, to deepen the curiosity, and to strengthen the resolution to persevere in my determination to sail upon this sea and to explore its furthest limits; and as I recalled the struggles which had been made to reach this sea,—through the ice and across the ice,—by generations of brave men, it seemed as if the spirits of these Old Worthies came to encourage me, as their experience had already guided me; and I felt that I had within my grasp "the great and notable thing" which had inspired the zeal of sturdy Frobrisher, and that I had achieved the hope of matchless Parry.
Cape Union