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THE FAR NORTH:
THE FAR NORTH:
EXPLORATIONS IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS. BY ELISHA KENT KANE, M.D., COMMANDER, SECOND “GRINNELL” EXPEDITION IN SEARCH OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. EDINBURGH: WILLIAM P. NIMMO & CO. 1879. EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY M’FARLANE AND ERSKINE, ST JAMES SQUARE. « 3 » « 4 » « 5 »...
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PREFACE.
PREFACE.
In May 1845, Sir John Franklin sailed from England with the ships Erebus and Terror , on an expedition to attempt the discovery of a “North-West Passage,” or water communication between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, to the North of the American Continent. No intelligence was received from him after the year following. Numerous expeditions were fitted out and despatched in search of Franklin and his brave crew, both from this country and from America. In 1854, Dr Rae returned with information
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CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER I.
ORGANIZATION—NEW YORK TO THE NORTH WATER. In the month of December 1852, I had the honour of receiving special orders from the Secretary of the Navy of the United States, to “conduct an expedition to the Arctic Seas in search of Sir John Franklin.” I had been engaged, under Lieutenant De Haven, in the Grinnell Expedition, which sailed from the United States in 1850 on the same errand; and I had occupied myself for some months after our return in maturing the scheme of a renewed effort to rescue
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CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER II.
THE NORTH WATER TO THE WINTERING GROUND. My diary continues:—“We passed the ‘Crimson Cliffs’ of Sir John Ross in the forenoon of August 5th. The patches of red snow, from which they derive their name, could be seen clearly at the distance of ten miles from the coast. It had a fine deep rose hue, and all the gorges and ravines in which the snows had lodged were deeply tinted with it. I had no difficulty now in justifying the somewhat poetical nomenclature which Sir John Franklin applied to this l
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CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER III.
OUR FIRST WALK OUT—THE DEPÔT PARTY. In the first portions of our journey, we found a narrow but obstructed passage between the ice-belt and the outside pack. It was but a few yards in width, and the young ice upon it was nearly thick enough to bear our weight. By breaking it up we were able with effort to make about seven miles a day. After such work,—wet, cold, and hungry,—the night’s rest was very welcome. A couple of stanchions were rigged fore and aft, a sail tightly spread over the canvas c
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CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER IV.
DOMESTIC TROUBLES—RETURN OF THE DEPÔT PARTY. The island on which we placed our observatory was some fifty paces long by perhaps forty broad, and about thirty feet above the water-line. Here we mounted our transit and theodolite. The magnetic observatory adjoined, and had rather more of the affectation of comfort. No iron was used in its construction. Here were our magnetometer and dip instruments; and the tide-register was placed on board the vessel. Our meteorological observatory was upon the o
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CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER V.
OUR FIRST WINTER. “ November 7. —The darkness is coming on with insidious steadiness, and its advances can only be perceived by comparing one day with its fellow of some time back. “Except upon the island of Spitzbergen, which has the advantages of an insular climate and tempered by ocean currents, no Christians have wintered in so high a latitude as this. They are Russian sailors who make the encounter there, men inured to hardships and cold. “ November 9. —Wishing to get the altitude of the cl
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CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VI.
AN ANXIOUS SEARCH. “ Not a man now, except Pierre and Morton, is exempt from scurvy; and, as I look around upon the pale faces and haggard looks of my comrades, I feel that we are fighting the battle of life at disadvantage, and that an Arctic night and an Arctic day age a man more rapidly and harshly than a year anywhere else in all this weary world. “ March 13. —Since January, we have been working at the sledges and other preparations for travel. The death of my dogs, the rugged obstacles of t
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CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VII.
THE FIRST STRANGE FACES—THE ESQUIMAUX. The week that followed has left me nothing to remember but anxieties and sorrow. Nearly all our party, as well the rescuers as the rescued, were tossing in their sick-bunks, some frozen, others undergoing amputations, several with dreadful premonitions of tetanus. I was myself among the first to be about; the necessities of the others claimed it of me. Early in the morning of the 7th I was awakened by a sound from Baker’s throat, one of those the most frigh
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CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER VIII.
A NEW EXPLORATION—RETURN OF SPRING. The month of April was about to close, and the short season available for Arctic search was upon us. The condition of things on board the brig was not such as I could have wished for; but there was nothing to exact my presence, and it seemed to me clear that the time had come for pressing on the work of the expedition. The arrangements for our renewed exploration had not been intermitted, and were soon complete. I leave to my journal its own story. “ April 25.
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CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER IX.
ADVENT OF THE SECOND YEAR. “ Map 30, 1854. —It is a year ago to-day since we left New York. I am not as sanguine as I was then: time and experience have chastened me. There is everything about me to check enthusiasm and moderate hope. I am here in forced inaction, a broken-down man, oppressed by cares, with many dangers before me, and still under the shadow of a hard wearing winter, which has crushed two of my best associates. Here, on the spot, after two unavailing expeditions of search, I hold
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CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER X.
THE NORTH-EAST PARTY. “ June 27. —M’Gary and Bonsall are back with Hickey and Riley. They arrived last evening: all well, except that the snow has affected their eyesight badly, owing to the scorbutic condition of their systems. Mr M’Gary is entirely blind, and I fear will be found slow to cure. They have done admirably. They bring back a continued series of observations, perfectly well kept up, for the further authentication of our survey, and their results correspond entirely with those of Mr
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CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XI.
ATTEMPT TO REACH BEECHY ISLAND. All the sledge-parties were now once more aboard ship, and the season of Arctic travel had ended. For more than two months we had been imprisoned in ice, and throughout all that period, except during the enforced holiday of the midwinter darkness, or while repairing from actual disaster, had been constantly in the field. The summer was wearing on, but still the ice did not break up as it should. As far as we could see, it remained inflexibly solid between us and t
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CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XII.
THE SECOND WINTER—DEPARTURE OF HALF OF THE CREW. It was with mingled feelings that we neared the brig. Our little party had grown fat and strong upon the auks and eiders and scurvy-grass; and surmises were rife among us as to the condition of our comrades and the prospects of our ice-bound ship. The tide-leads, which one year ago had afforded a precarious passage to the vessel, now barely admitted our whale-boat; and, as we forced her through the broken ice, she showed such signs of hard usage,
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CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIII.
NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE ESQUIMAUX. I find that my journal is exceedingly meagre for the period of our anxious preparations to meet the winter, and that I have omitted to mention the course of circumstances which led us step by step into familiar communication with the Esquimaux. My last notice of this strange people, whose fortunes became afterward so closely connected with our own, was at the time of Myouk’s escape from imprisonment on board the brig. Although, during my absence on the attempted
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CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE ESQUIMAUX VILLAGE—A WALRUS HUNT. Morton reached the huts beyond Anoatok upon the fourth day after leaving the brig. There were four of them, but two of them are in ruins. They were all of them the homes of families only four winters ago. Of the two which are still habitable, Myouk, his father, mother, brother and sister occupied one; and Awahtok and Ootuniah, with their wives and three young ones, the other. The little community had lost two of its members by death since the spring. They rec
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CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XV.
THE COMING WINTER. “ October 26. —The thermometer at 34° below zero, but fortunately no wind blowing. We go on with the outdoor work. We burn but seventy pounds of fuel a day, most of it in the galley—the fire being allowed to go out between meals. We go without fire altogether for four hours of the night; yet such is the excellence of our moss-walls and the air-proof of our tossut , that, when our housing is arranged, and the main hatch secured with a proper weather-tight screen of canvas, we s
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CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVI.
PREPARATIONS FOR LEAVING THE BRIG. We continued toiling on with our complicated preparations till the evening of the 24th, when Hans came back well laden with walrus meat. Three of the Esquimaux accompanied him, each with his sledge and dog-team fully equipped for a hunt. The leader of the party, Kalutunah, was a noble savage, greatly superior in everything to the others of his race. He greeted me with respectful courtesy, yet as one who might rightfully expect an equal measure of it in return,
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CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVII.
FAREWELL TO THE “ADVANCE.” Our last farewell to the brig was made with more solemnity. The entire ship’s company was collected in our dismantled winter-chamber to take part in the ceremonial. It was Sunday. Our moss walls had been torn down, and the wood that supported them burned. Our beds were off at the boats. The galley was unfurnished and cold. Everything about the little den of refuge was desolate. We read prayers and a chapter of the Bible; and then, all standing silently round, I took Si
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CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE MARCH AND ITS INCIDENTS. I found that Mr Brooks had succeeded in getting his boat and sledges as far as the floe off Bedevilled Reach. I stopped only long enough to point out to him an outside track, where I had found the ice quite smooth and free from snow, and pressed my dogs for the hut. I noticed, to my great joy, too, that the health of his party seemed to be improving under our raw-meat specific, and could not find fault with the extravagant use they were making of it. The invalids at
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CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XIX.
OUR MARCH OVER LAND AND SEA. We had our boats to prepare now for a long and adventurous navigation. They were so small and heavily laden as hardly to justify much confidence in their buoyancy; but, besides this, they were split with frost and warped by sunshine, and fairly open at the seams. They were to be calked, and swelled, and launched, and stowed, before we could venture to embark in them. A rainy south-wester too, which had met us on our arrival, was now spreading with its black nimbus ov
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CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XX.
STARVATION—PLENTY—THE ESCAPE WELCOME. Things grew worse and worse with us: the old difficulty of breathing came back again, and our feet swelled to such an extent that we were obliged to cut open our canvas boots. But the symptom which gave me most uneasiness was our inability to sleep. A form of low fever which hung by us when at work had been kept down by the thoroughness of our daily rest; all my hopes of escape were in the refreshing influences of the halt. It was at this crisis of our fortu
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CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXI.
CONCLUSION. We received all manner of kindness from the Danes of Upernavik. They gave us many details of the expeditions in search of Sir John Franklin, and added the painful news that my gallant friend and comrade, Bellot, had perished in a second crusade to save him. We knew each other by many common sympathies: I had divided with him the hazards of mutual rescue among the ice-fields; and his last letter to me, just before I left New York, promised me the hope that we were to meet again in Baf
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