Resolute (28 page)
Authors: Martin W. Sandler
AFTER HANNAH'S DEATH
, her husband, also known as “Eskimo Joe,” served as Frederick Schwatka's interpreter during his 1878 search for Franklin's records.
In January 1861, he decided to put all that he was learning to the test. Accompanied by Hannah and Joe, he embarked upon a dogsled trip that took him all the way to Cornelius Grinnell Bay. For forty-three days he “became” an Inuit, living off whale blubber and sleeping in igloos along the way. When he returned to the
George Henry
, he found that sleeping in his cabin was far less comfortable for him than his nights in the snow houses had been.
When spring arrived, Hall made two more sledge trips. On one of them, he had the opportunity to speak with Joe Ebierbing's grandmother who, in Hall's estimation, was at least one hundred years old. The woman told Hall that as a child she had heard stories of white men who, years before, had arrived in ships and had left behind items that none of the Inuit had ever seen. From her description of these objects, Hall realized that they must have been bricks, coal, and iron. Joe's grandmother went on to relate how her ancestors had passed on stories of how the white men had first arrived in two ships, then in three vessels the following year, and finally in fifteen ships the year after. From his knowledge of Arctic history, Hall knew that what was being told to him coincided exactly with how Martin Frobisher had arrived in the region in the 1570s.
Then came his discovery. Shortly after hearing the story, Hall took a sledge journey to another Inuit village. As he and Joe made their way across the ice, he suddenly spotted an ancient red brick which, according to Joe, was exactly like the ones he had played with as a child, objects thatâhe too was toldâhad been left behind by white men many years before. Hall was overwhelmed. “This relic,” he would write, “was more precious to me than the
gold
which Frobisher sought there under the direct patronage of Queen Elizabeth.”
Exhilarated by his find, Hall returned to the
George Henry
, prepared to begin his trek to King William Island. But his plans were dashed by Buddington, who convinced him that the whaleboatâwhich had been damaged in the storm that had sunk the
Rescue
âwas far too inadequate to make so long and dangerous a journey. Hall could not help but agree. He would be back, next time with a much stronger boat. Meantime, before making his way home, he would concentrate on finding more Frobisher relics.
In mid-July the ice that had imprisoned the
George Henry
finally broke, and Buddington announced that he was heading for the whaling grounds. That too was all right with Hall. Left alone with the Inuit, he was in his new element. He had learned to live like a native and in doing so had found the freedom he had always craved. Equally important, he had learned that much of the Inuit's folklore was true. His conviction had been bolstered. It would be the natives at King William Island who would lead him to whatever survivors of the Franklin party remained.
ALTHOUGH HE PROBABLY
had no way of knowing it, Hall had not been the only American searcher in the Arctic. One month after his departure from New London, Isaac Hayes had left from Boston, intent on proving that the Open Polar Sea was a reality. The goal-oriented, highly educated Dr. Hayes, now twenty-eight years old, was not only confident that this time he would find the Open Sea; he was convinced that once he sailed into it, it would lead him directly to the North Pole.
Like Hall, Hayes had hoped to secure funding for two ships, one that would serve as a depot vessel, and a second that would take him to the Pole. He intended to enter the Polar Sea by first sailing into Smith Sound. From there, with the aid of dogs, he and his crew would pull a boat across the ice until they entered open water.
Hayes attempted to raise the funds for his venture by delivering a series of lectures in which he recounted the adventures of the 1850 De Haven-Kane expedition. But he fell far short of the money he needed. Like so many others, including Hall, he turned to Henry Grinnell, who helped him purchase not two ships, but one, the 133-ton schooner
Spring Hill
, which Hayes renamed the
United States.
The fourteen-man crew that Hayes recruited included August Sonntag, a German emigrant who had been Kane's astronomer; the Inuit Hans Hendrik, who had also been with Kane; and ship's carpenter Gibson Caruthers, who had taken part in Kane's first venture into the Arctic with De Haven. Once in Greenland, the crew would be supplemented by dog drivers, who would be recruited there.
The
United States
sailed from Boston on July 10, 1860, and by the first week of August the party had passed through Davis Strait. Hayes's plan was to stop at the Greenland ports of Prøven and Upernavik, where he would buy dogs and sign on the needed drivers. He reached Prøven on August 6, only to be told that, because of a recent outbreak of rabies, there were no animals available. He had better luck in Upernavik, where he managed to obtain three dog teams and drivers. There, in the harbor, he also encountered the Danish trading ship
Tjalfe.
After visiting the ship, which was on its way home, Hayes was also able to acquire the services of Peter Jensen, an experienced dog driver and interpreter, and two other Danish seamen, anxious for an Arctic adventure.
It should have been an auspicious beginning to the journey. But while the negotiations with the crew of the
Tjalfe
were taking place, Gibson Caruthers suddenly died in his bunk. Hayes found himself forced to convince the more superstitious members of his crew that the carpenter's passing was not a bad omen. He sadly wrote in his journal, which was published in 1867 as
The Open Polar Sea: A Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery Towards the North Pole, in the Schooner
United States:
A valued member of my party, Mr. Gibson Caruthers, had died during the previous night, and I called to ask the missionary to officiate at the funeral service. His consent was promptly given, and the hour of burial was fixed for the following day. The burial of a companion, at any time painful, was doubly so to us, isolated as we were from the world. The deceased had endeared himself to all on board by his excellent qualities of head and heart; and the suddenness of his death made the impression upon his late associates all the more keenly felt. He had retired the night before in perfect health, and was found dead in his berth next morning. To the expedition he was a serious loss. Besides Mr. Sonntag, he was the only member of my party who had been in the Arctic seas, and I had counted much upon his knowledge and intelligenceâ¦The burial-ground at Upernavik is a sad place for human sepulture. It lies on the hillside above the town, and is dreary and desolate past description. It is made up of a series of rocky steps, on which lie, covered over with piles of stones, (for there is no earth,) a few rude coffins
,â
a mournful resting-place for those who sleep here their last sleep in the everlasting winter. The body of poor Caruthers lies upon a ledge overlooking the sea, which he loved so well, and the beating surf will sing for him an eternal requiem.
After burying Carruthers, the expedition sailed out of Upernavik Harbor and, on August 25, reached Cape York at Melville Bay. From the time he had planned the expedition, Hayes's goal had been to sail as far north as he could before winter set in, certainly past Smith Sound and past Rensselaer Harbor, where he had spent the disastrous winter with Kane. That way the crew would have the most advantageous starting point from which to launch next summer's breakthrough to the Open Polar Sea.
It was a good plan, but it proved impossible. By the beginning of September, both ice and storms were upon them. Reluctantly, Hayes found a place to winter over in a small bay some twenty miles south of Rensselaer Harbor, which he named Port Foulke. Even for Hayesâwho had experienced more than his share of Arctic conditionsâthe scenes he witnessed during the following difficult winter were almost beyond belief and he vividly described the dramatic environment in his journal:
The imagination cannot conceive of a scene so wildâ¦great sheets of drifting snow rolled down over the cliffs, pouring into every ravine and gorge like gigantic waterfalls. Whirlwinds shot skywards from the hilltops, spraying dense clouds of white through the air. A glacier tumbling into a valley was obscured by a vast cloak of revolving white. The sun was just setting on a black and ominous horizon. But the wildest scene was the sea itself. A solid mass of foam lashed the cape and was hurled through the air by the wind, breaking over the icebergs and fluttering across the sea like a thick fog, rising and falling with each gust. Earth and sea are charged with bellowing soundsâ¦shrieks and wailing, loud and dismal as those of the infernal blast which down in the second circle of the dammed, appalled the Italian bard.
Eloquent as he was, Hayes concluded his entry by stating: “My pen is equally powerless.”
The weather was not the only problem. In December an epidemic broke out among the sled dogs. It was so serious that by January 1, only one sledge team remained. Knowing that he would never be able to reach the Open Polar Sea without an adequate number of teams, Hayes sent Sonntag and Hendrik off to Cape York to obtain dogs from the Inuit who resided there.
The two men set out on their mission on December 21. Confident that theirs would be an easy trip, Hayes sent them off with only twelve days' provisions and no tent. A month later, they still hadn't returned. Now deeply concerned, Hayes sent out a search party, but a sudden storm forced it to return almost immediately. Then, on January 30, Hendrik finally appeared. But there was no Sonntag. From the look on Hendrik's face, Hayes knew that something had gone terribly wrong. And he was right. Because of heavy snow, Hendrik told him, he and Sonntag had been unable to find the village they were heading for and had moved on, seeking another Inuit encampment. Walking along ahead of the sledge, Sonntag had suddenly stepped upon thin ice and plunged into the freezing water. Hendrik told Hayes he had done everything he could to save Sonntag. He had pulled him out of the water, wrapped him in a sleeping blanket, and poured as much brandy as he could down the unconscious man's throat. But, as had happened with young Joseph Bellot so many years before, the Arctic waters had taken their toll. Sonntag had died the next day.
In February, Hayes was still shaken by the loss of the popular astronomer. Because of their deep shared interest in all things scientific, the two men had formed a close bond. The good-natured Sonntag had also been extremely well-liked by the rest of the crew. Hayes's spirits were revived when, blessed with the first good fortune he had received that winter, he was able to obtain the needed dogs from Inuit at a nearby encampment.
On April 3, with twelve men, two dogsleds, and a large sledge carrying the boat he intended to use to traverse the icy waters of Smith Sound, he set out for the Open Polar Sea. By April 24, he realized that the task was nearly impossible. Never could he have imagined the landscape he would encounter. One of the ice floes, by his estimation, encompassed some twenty-four square miles and towered more than twenty feet above the sea. Pushing itself to the limit, the party was only able to move forward three miles a day.
UNLIKE MOST SEEKERS
of the Northwest Passage and many of the searchers for John Franklin who refused to adopt the Inuit practice of using dogs to haul their sleds, Isaac Hayes relied on the animals on both his Arctic ventures. As this sketchâdrawn by Hayes himselfâreveals, there could be problems in handling the spirited animals.
Faced with the reality of the situation, Hayes made a decision. He sent most of the men back to the ship to prepare it so that when the weather finally broke, the
United States
would be able to sail through Smith Sound as quickly as possible. With Peter Jensen and crewmen George Knorr and John McDonald, Hayes pushed on. On May 11, the team reached an enormous rock “to which,” Hayes would later write, “Gibraltar is a pigmy.” Fourteen days later, they had progressed only forty miles. Worse yet, their food was almost gone. At one point the dogs had gotten to their stores and Hayes managed to maintain a black sense of humor about the episode:
I have watched with miserly care every ounce of food; and, last night, I gave to each animal only one and a half poundsâ¦To revenge themselves, they broke into Jensen's sledge, which, owing to the fatigue of everybody, was not unlashed, but covered instead with three feet of snow. The brutes scattered everything around, tried to tear open our tin meatcans with their wolfish fangs, and ate up our extra boots, the last scrap of skin-line that was left, some fur stockings, and made an end of Knorr's seal-skin covered meerschaum pipeâ¦Another dog tore open a seal-skin tobacco-pouch, shook out its contents, and ate it; and another bolted our only piece of soap. This looks bad for our future cleanliness, but thirty-two days, at these low temperatures, have worn off the sharp edge of fastidiousness.