CHAPTER XVI
OVER THE ICE TOWARDS WRANGELL ISLAND
On the morning of February 19, I called the cook at four o’clock, so that we had an early breakfast for the start of the advance guard.
There were two parties, each with a sledge and four dogs. In the first party were Malloch, Hadley, Williamson and Breddy; in the second Munro, Maurer, Williams and Chafe. Each party would have man-harness to help out the dogs when necessary.
On the first party’s sledge were six cases of man pemmican, two cases of biscuit, two gallons of oil, 84 tins of milk, 2,400 tea tablets in tins hermetically sealed, one Mannlicher rifle, 250 rounds of ammunition, one Ross revolver (Malloch’s own), 400 rounds of ammunition, one Primus stove, one gallon of alcohol, 500 22-calibre cartridges, one 401 Winchester, 100 rounds of ammunition, one pair of ski, matches, a pickaxe, hatchets, sleeping-robes and a tent. On the other sledge were five cases of man pemmican, two cases of biscuit, 84 tins of milk, two gallons of oil, one gallon of alcohol, 2,400 tea tablets, one Primus stove, one Mannlicher rifle,250 rounds of ammunition, matches, pick-axe, hatchets, a tent, snow-shoes and a tracing of the map of Wrangell Island. Every man had a new suit of Jaeger underwear given him. The parties were to pick up supplies along the trail so that they would thus be replacing supplies used on the march, and take full loads with them in to the land. For this march was to take these eight men clear through to Wrangell Island and they were saying good-by to Shipwreck Camp for good. The men shook hands all around and got away about eight o’clock in the morning.
On one of the sledges they had a passenger. While we were fitting out the ship at the navy yard at Esquimault, some one presented us with a cat, as black as the ace of spades. She was kept in the forecastle at first; after a while she got aft and Mr. Hadley became greatly interested in her, training her to do tricks. When the ship was crushed and we were working to get things out of her before she sank I told the men to be sure not to forget the cat, but to put her in a basket and place her in the box-house. There she became very much at home. Early in her residence she got into difficulties with a dog, that had wandered through the entrance, by landing suddenly like an animated bunch of porcupine quills on the dog’s nose. The dog shook her off and tried to take hisrevenge. We saved the cat just in time. After that she never bothered the dogs again. When the advance party now started for the land Hadley and Maurer made a deer-skin bag to carry the cat and she rode on a sledge in state. Her food consisted chiefly of pemmican scraps.
With the rest of the party and all the supplies we could carry, I had intended to start the day after the earlier party. Kerdrillo, however, was in no condition to travel. He had hurt his back going in to Herald Island and it gave him a good deal of pain, so it seemed wise to wait until he was better. We had two lame dogs and the delay on account of Kerdrillo would give them, too, a chance to recuperate. Ice travel is as hard on dogs as on men and, besides that, the dogs were always fighting among themselves, if they were not sharply watched, and one of them had so bad a tear in his leg that Mamen had to take nine stitches in it, using the regulation surgical needle and silk thread. We had twelve dogs left besides Nellie, one of the dogs that had had pups. We had built a snow-house for her and her pups, but as it was clear that the pups would not be of service to us now, we had to have them killed to save Nellie’s strength. She improved enough to be of value later on.
For several days while we waited we had a higheasterly gale and snowdrift. I wondered how the eight men of the advance guard were getting along and what they thought had become of the rest of us. Daily I had to rub poor Kerdrillo’s back and put plasters on it. His improvement was slow but fortunately his condition was not the only bar to our immediate departure, for the weather was too bad for efficient travel and it was far better for us to be eating supplies in camp where we had plenty than to be consuming them detained by the storm in some igloo along the trail. We fed the dogs seal meat, for we had several seal left, and also pemmican, for we still had plenty of that, and I was feeding the dogs all they would eat, to get them in as good condition as possible for the final march. This would be continuous travel with little sleep and now, on account of the storm, hard going and extra work in locating the trail.
The Eskimo occupied some of their time in camp fitting up harpoons and spears to save ammunition. They also put our snowshoes in good condition and spliced hatchet-handles on to the handles of the snow-knives so that they could wield them better in cutting out snow-blocks for igloos.
The supply-tent was all snowed under, but by digging around I succeeded in getting out a few things that I wanted. We all had a shave and a bath and changed our underclothing. I used afork to comb my hair for I had given my comb to Keruk; it is surprising what an excellent comb a fork makes,—I recommend it for Arctic use.
There was just a little tobacco left. Mamen found a small piece of chewing-tobacco under the boards. Keruk, whom we all called “Auntie,” had a little and when I wanted tobacco I would ask Auntie for a pipeful.
On the twenty-third the storm was breaking at last. Huge banks of snow were piled high around the camp; we were all snowed in. The two crippled dogs were in the box-house with us; the other dogs were in the snow-igloo, which had been occupied by the men who had now gone to the land. It took us nearly all day on the twenty-third to dig our way through the snow from the box-house to the igloo in order to feed the dogs. We dug the supply tent out and busied ourselves getting ready for our departure. In fact we stayed up all night, giving the final touches to our clothing.
At 4A.M.on February twenty-fourth we had coffee and began loading our sledges. As soon as Kerdrillo’s sledge, a remodeled Nome sledge, was loaded I started him off. With him went his wife and their two children, and Templeman, the cook. Keruk carried her baby, Mugpi, on her back all the way to Wrangell Island; the older girl covered the entire distance on foot, sometimes evenhelping her father with the sledge. Kerdrillo had five dogs. His sledge was loaded with four cases of man pemmican, forty-eight tins of milk, two tins of biscuit, one case of oil, 2,400 tea tablets, in hermetically sealed tins, one 30.30 Winchester rifle, 200 rounds of ammunition, one tent, one Primus stove, one axe, two pickaxes, candles, a gallon of alcohol, matches, snow-knives and sleeping robes.
The rest of us had two sledges, one with three dogs, driven by Kataktovick, the other with four dogs, driven by myself. On Kataktovick’s sledge were three cases of man pemmican, thirty-six cases of milk, two cases of biscuit, ten gallons of oil and 2,400 tea tablets. My own sledge carried four cases of man pemmican, two cases of biscuit, thirty-six cases of milk, twelve tins of coal oil, 2,400 tea tablets, one tent, matches, one Primus stove, one axe, two pickaxes, candles, snow-knives, one gallon of alcohol, one pair of snowshoes, one pair of ski, one Mannlicher rifle, 250 rounds of ammunition, one Colt revolver, 100 rounds of ammunition, sleeping-robes, rope and spare harness. We had to leave a Peary sledge in camp because there were not dogs enough to make a team to haul it. As it was, our three sledges, with their four-hundred-pound loads, were heavily burdened for the dogs we had, with some of them in a half-crippled condition.