THE CAMP AT RODGERS HARBOR, WRANGELL ISLAND“Following their instructions to divide into smaller parties, for general harmony and larger hunting areas, Mamen, Malloch andTempleman ... went down ... to Rodgers Harbor. Here theyerected a tent.”See page 319
THE CAMP AT RODGERS HARBOR, WRANGELL ISLAND“Following their instructions to divide into smaller parties, for general harmony and larger hunting areas, Mamen, Malloch andTempleman ... went down ... to Rodgers Harbor. Here theyerected a tent.”See page 319
THE CAMP AT RODGERS HARBOR, WRANGELL ISLAND
“Following their instructions to divide into smaller parties, for general harmony and larger hunting areas, Mamen, Malloch andTempleman ... went down ... to Rodgers Harbor. Here theyerected a tent.”See page 319
At Point Barrow, too, in theBearwe found several shipwrecked crews waiting for a chance to go south. We landed the mails and the various other things we had brought for the station there and then, finding that, as I have related, the schooner that we had found aground had floated, we headed at last for Wrangell Island. I was becoming more and more anxious to get there andhoped that meanwhile the Russian ships or one of the walrus-hunting boats had been there and taken off the men. It was getting late and before many weeks the ice might close in around the island and render it inaccessible to a ship, but it was not altogether this danger alone that worried me but also the feeling that the longer the men were kept on the island the greater would be their suspense and the harder it would be for them to keep up their spirits. Of course, until some one came to rescue them they would not know whether I had ever succeeded in reaching the Siberian coast or not. Every day of this suspense must be telling on them and bringing them face to face with the thought that they might have to spend another winter on the island, an experience which would be likely to kill them all. So altogether these days had been nightmares to me, the more so because naturally under the circumstances I was not in a position to do anything to hasten matters. TheBearhad her own work to do, of course, and only a limited season to do it in. My feeling of relief at being at last on the way to the goal of all my thought and effort may be imagined.
We left on August 28, with a fresh north-north-east wind behind us, and straightened her out for Rodgers Harbor. The harder it blew the better I liked it, for our voyage would be so much thequicker. The only thing I was afraid of was that we might get thick fog or snow and be delayed indefinitely.
On the afternoon of the twenty-fourth we met the ice, large loose pieces similar to the ice I had seen off the southern end of the island on my way across with Kataktovick. The weather became hazy and then we had the fog that I was fearing. All the square sails were taken in and we slowly steamed to the northwest. At eightP.M.the engines were stopped and the ship was headed east half south. During the afternoon countless birds were seen, denoting the proximity of land; it seemed as if we must soon be there. During the next day the ship worked slowly towards the island again and at tenA.M.we met a lot more large, loose ice. We were now between fifteen and twenty miles from the island and if the fog had lifted should have been there in a short time and had the men off. We had about ninety tons of coal in the bunkers. All day long on the twenty-fifth it was thick, but we could see a mile or so ahead and were still going along easily, just keeping the ship under steerage-way. Finally, at eight o’clock in the evening, the engines were stopped, the ship was hove hull to and allowed to drift. The next day the wind had hauled to the north-northwest and sent us driftingaway from the island, towards the Siberian shore. At 4.12A. M.on the morning of the twenty-seventh, Captain Cochran decided to go back to Nome for a new supply of coal. My feelings at this moment can be easily imagined. The days that followed were days to try a man’s soul. In fact, until the final rescue of the men, I spent such a wretched time as I had never had in my life.
We did not return directly to Nome but called at Cape Serdze to make an attempt to find out about a missing boat owned by Dr. Hoar, which had broken away from Point Hope the previous fall. Mr. Wall was away. I went ashore with Lieutenant Dempwolf and tried to find out whether the Russian ships had been to Wrangell Island. I learned from Corrigan that a Russian ship had passed west but that he had not seen her coming back; it turned out that she had gone up to Koliuchin with coal and was not one of the ice-breakers. I gave Corrigan some pipes and tobacco.
From Cape Serdze we went on to East Cape and I went ashore here to see if I could learn anything about the Russian ice-breakers at Mr. Caraieff’s. Mr. Carpendale told me that the report was that theVaigatchhad been within ten miles of Wrangell Island on August 4, when she got a wireless message with news of the war and was orderedsouth to Anadyr with theTaimir. I could only hope that when we reached Nome, we should hear that some other ship had been to the island and taken the men off.