CAPTAIN BARTLETT’S CHART OF THE ALASKAN COAST FROM THE MACKENZIE RIVER TO BERING STRAIT
CAPTAIN BARTLETT’S CHART OF THE ALASKAN COAST FROM THE MACKENZIE RIVER TO BERING STRAIT
CAPTAIN BARTLETT’S CHART OF THE ALASKAN COAST FROM THE MACKENZIE RIVER TO BERING STRAIT
The Eskimo now showed by his manner that he was feeling more optimistic. Finally, as we were working our way through the rough ice, he said that he smelled wood-smoke, and asked whether I smelled it, too. I did not but I had no doubt that he did, for an Eskimo’s sense of smell is remarkably acute. I felt sure that we were not far from human habitation, though just what this might be I could only guess. From the leaves of the “American Coast Pilot†that I had with me, I was able to learn that “the northeast coast of Siberia has been only slightly examined, and the charts must be taken as sketches and only approximately accurate. The first examination was by Cook, in 1778; the next exploration was by Admiral von Wrangell in 1820; in 1878, Baron Nordenskïold, in theVega, passed along the coast, having completed the N. E. passage as far as Pitlekaj, where he was frozen in and wintered. In 1881 the coast was examinedin places by Lieut. Hooper of the U. S. S.Corwin, and the description of the salient points here given is from the report of theCorwin.†This was not exactly what could be called up-to-date information. In theKarluk’slibrary had been a copy of Nordenskïold’s “Voyage of theVega,†but it was in German, a language which I am unable to read. The pictures indicated that woods extended in places down to the shore and that reindeer lived in the woods. What I particularly wanted to know, however, was in what condition the Siberian natives now were, what food they had to eat, and whether they were afflicted with tuberculosis, to which so many primitive races have succumbed after contact with the beneficent influences of civilization, for more than thirty years had elapsed since Nordenskïold’s journey and in that length of time radical changes in numbers or habitation might have come to the whole population.
Late in the afternoon we got through the rough ice and for the remaining mile or so to the shore had good going. At five o’clock in the afternoon we landed on the Siberian coast. It was the fourth of April and we had been seventeen days on the march. The distance we had actually gone in making the journey was not less than two hundred miles.
The first thing the Eskimo saw when we reached the land was the trail of a single sledge along the tundra.
“Ardegar(that’s good),†he said; “Eskimo come here.â€
I asked him if it was Siberia and he said it was.
“Where we go?†I asked.
Without a moment’s hesitation he pointed to the east.
A snowstorm had already begun, while we were still on the march, and it was now coming on with rapidly increasing violence, so we set to work at once and in half an hour had an igloo built, and a shelter for our dogs, now reduced to four. When we got inside the igloo we made tea, boiled some of the bear meat we had with us and ate until we could eat no more. Then we turned in. It seemed pretty good to sleep on land again.