The Ice Master (14 page)

December 1913

We had suffered
¹
mishap, and danger had confronted us often; we had been squeezed and jammed, tossed and tumbled about, nipped and pressed, until the ship's sides would have burst if they had not been as strong as the hearts they held within them; we were not yet daunted, but were as ready to dare as ever.

—G
EORGE
W
ASHINGTON
D
E
L
ONG
, D
ECEMBER
31, 1880

O
n September 21, the day after leaving the
Karluk,
Stefansson, Wilkins, McConnell, Jenness, and the two Eskimo hunters had reached Thetis Island, just four miles north of the mainland of Alaska. Two days later, a blizzard arrived and the ice, from what they could tell, began drifting swiftly westward. The
Karluk
was, they figured, being swept along with it. Stefansson could only hope that she would eventually free herself and head on to Herschel Island.

In the meantime, he and his group crossed over to the mainland and headed west, and on the morning of October 5, they set out for Cape Halkett. When they stopped at a small Eskimo settlement, Stefansson tried to seek out news of the
Karluk,
but no one knew anything. There was only word of three other vessels—the
Polar Bear,
the
Belvedere,
and the
Elvira—
that were caught in the ice about seventy miles from Herschel Island.

Stefansson decided that he and Wilkins, McConnell, Jenness, Jimmy, and Jerry should make the trek to Point Barrow, camping at Eskimo villages along the way. Afterward, they would all head east to Herschel Island, where they hoped to meet up with the Southern Party.

They had reached Point Barrow on October 12 and, according to McConnell, everyone but Stefansson was anxious to get there, presumably because he was not looking forward to telling the Canadian government that the
Karluk
was missing. They were given a hearty welcome at the Cape Smythe Trading Station and learned that the
Alaska
and the
Mary Sachs
were now docked at Collinson Point, where they were planning to winter.

At Point Barrow, Stefansson was met by Eskimos who told him they had seen a vessel, but that it was too far off to be recognized. Another Eskimo reported
²
seeing a two-masted schooner with no signs of life aboard. Still another Eskimo told Stefansson that he had seen the
Karluk
the week before, and had tried to reach her, but the ice would not permit.

McConnell observed, “It looks as
³
if the
Karluk
is up against it and has drifted past Pt. Barrow, as she must have been five miles out to sea when he saw her and there will be no opportunity for her to get to shore.”

Stefansson settled into Point Barrow, sending Jenness and Wilkins on ahead so as to save the cost of boarding them in Cape Smythe. Then he and McConnell got down to the business of writing articles and telegrams and dispatches to newspapers, as well as writing a report to the Canadian government. Stefansson also dictated a form letter addressed to Bartlett to be distributed among Eskimos and “white men” along the coast, in case Bartlett should come ashore.

On the night of October 25, Wilkins saw a light on the northwestern horizon, which gave them hope of finding the
Karluk
. Everyone turned out to see if it was, in fact, a ship, far out in the ice. “A field-glass and
⁴
finally a telescope was produced—it was the star Arcturus,” Jenness wrote in his diary. “There was a fine aurora—a bow stretching from the northwest round to the northeast and almost reaching the zenith.”

S
TEFANSSON WAS ALSO
in no hurry to reach Collinson Point, Alaska, where the Southern Party of his Canadian Arctic Expedition was camped. When he finally did arrive on December 15, he found the
Alaska
with a hole in her side and the
Mary Sachs
frozen in the gravel of the beach. No one knew anything of the missing
Karluk
. No one even knew that she was lost or that Stefansson had broken away from the Northern Party.

Stefansson's arrival was something Dr. Anderson and Kenneth Chipman and the other members of the Southern Party had dreaded ever since they had become separated from the
Karluk
back in August. “What we had
⁵
always expected
might
happen,
had
happened,” wrote Chipman. No one was happy to see Stefansson.

The members of the Southern Party were afraid—and rightfully so—that Stefansson would try to take command over them. Anderson and Chipman were especially worried. From the beginning of the Canadian Arctic Expedition enterprise, Anderson had made it clear that he required complete control of the Southern Party without Stefansson's usual interference. Otherwise, he wanted no part of it. He had threatened to quit the expedition in July 1913 and agreed to withdraw his resignation only after he was promised that Stefansson would not challenge his authority. Stefansson reassured him once again that he had no intention of doing so.

Then he promptly began ordering provisions and equipment he felt the Southern Party needed. In addition, Stefansson announced that he intended to take the
Mary Sachs
from them to use as his own vessel, thus replacing the lost
Karluk
. Once again outfitted, he would continue on his way and the Southern Party could hire more men and purchase another ship to replace the
Mary Sachs
.

Stefansson had already sent the story of the
Karluk
to the newspapers, although there were a good many inaccuracies in his version. Stefansson had a habit of changing facts to suit himself, sometimes even changing his own altered facts later, therefore giving several different accounts of the same story. Now he claimed he could get away with these falsities in his reports to the papers because they were just that—reports—so “he could never
⁶
be held responsible legally.”

He broke the story of the
Karluk
to the members of the Southern Party: he said he knew nothing of his ship's whereabouts and had no idea if she was still afloat, or had come aground somewhere, or what condition his men were in.

He blamed the entire catastrophe on Bartlett. Stefansson claimed that he was frightened of the skipper and was unable to stop him from steering the
Karluk
into the ice pack. Yet it was hard to imagine that a man of Stefansson's stature and conviction could really be frightened to the point of intimidation by anyone, even someone as imposing as Bartlett, who had treated his leader with the same polite respect he had shown Peary and, in Stefansson's own words, “always took orders
⁷
pretty well.” Bartlett didn't admire Stefansson as he did Peary. Yet he treated Stefansson with typically polite “yes sirs,” and “no sirs,” and “anything I can do, sirs.”

Stefansson claimed that the captain had scored such a victory in getting Peary to the Pole that he was anxious to repeat that glory with the
Karluk
. The
Roosevelt
, Peary's ship on the triumphant 1909 expedition, had followed leads and gone out into the ice, succeeding beautifully. Stefansson also said that G. J. Desbarats in Ottawa had told Bartlett that he had confidence in him, which Stefansson looked on as interference by the naval service. This official bolstering and encouragement of Bartlett, in Stefansson's eyes, helped to remove from him some of the moral responsibility for the lost
Karluk.

Stefansson was being criticized sharply by the Canadian Government and by the press for abandoning his ship and her company, and he was quick to defend himself. He had already written his Northern Party off as dead, and as far as he was concerned, the deaths were justified in the name of science and progress. “The newspapers were
⁸
saying that the entire complement of the
Karluk
had perished, that my plans were unsound, and that the expedition had failed. Editors especially, who presumably had been through high school, were asserting that all the knowledge ever gained in the Arctic was not worth the sacrifice of one young Canadian.”

T
HE MEN OF THE
K
ARLUK
were disheartened and solemn, grateful only that they had the sanctuary of their ship to protect them. “What a time
⁹
it would be to be adrift on the ice tonight,” observed McKinlay, and they thanked God that they were not.

Bartlett had never known a colder December. The barometer fell steadily throughout the month, temperatures plunging as low as minus thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit. The wind shifted to north-northeast, and the
Karluk
began drifting south, southeast, west, and then north. Everyone, as usual, was on alert. The sky was thick with snow and the wind was unrelenting. The storms seemed to push away the stars and black out the moon, and when these disappeared, dark, heavy clouds took their places.

On December 22, the darkest day of the year, the gale was still strong but the starlight was splendid. The cold and the wind crept into the ship, in frigid, whispering blasts, which numbed the men as they worked and slept.

The
Karluk
drifted strongly to the northwest, and they were now only 140 miles from Wrangel Island's longitude. They had been carried hundreds of miles off course, far to the west of Alaska and Herschel Island, and they were still faithfully following the route of De Long's
Jeannette.

The ship was leaking alarmingly and it took them at least an hour and a half each day to pump her dry. The men pumped with their own physical power because the steam was still shut off while engine repairs continued.

The
Karluk
vibrated and shuddered continuously from the force of the winds and the movement of the ice. Outside, it was dark as pitch, and the only solace they found was sitting before the dim glow of the saloon stove. They piled as much fuel into the stove as they could.

Enormous snowdrifts mounted around the
Karluk,
covering most of the ship's perimeter. On the lee side, snowdrifts grew higher than deck level, soon towering above the ship, threatening to cave in on top of her at any moment. As the storm roared on, the wind sometimes reached a velocity of eighty miles an hour.

On December 23, the storm was still raging in its sixth day with no sign of relief. Bartlett was extremely anxious, and for once, he wasn't able to disguise it. The men watched him stride the deck agitatedly, pensive and especially withdrawn and were struck with fear to see him this way.

Dr. Mackay, Murray, and Beuchat now began to dwell on the more morbid details of the demise of De Long and his men. The drift of the
Jeannette
was no longer as interesting as the tragic fate of her company. The fate of De Long was, they were certain, to be their own. The doctor and his comrades talked of nothing else, so McKinlay and Mamen began to avoid them altogether.

Maurer, Clam, and the rest of the crewmen were not aware of De Long or the
Jeannette,
but they did know as well as anyone how grave their situation was. They worked every day in the thick of things, and they understood the sea far better than their scientific counterparts. They had no Arctic experience among them, but they could see the dangers.

Maurer wrote, “You would naturally
¹⁰
think that a sense of loneliness would come over the crew; but, on the contrary, we were always in good spirits. Each one seemed to realize the situation we were in, but avoided talking about it—except occasionally we would revert to it and wonder how long and far we would drift before we were crushed, and what would be the result.”

Meanwhile, the
Karluk
drifted rapidly west. The men could see signs of open water in the distance, and the watchman reported a lead opening up ahead, over a mile away. Low clouds hovered above the horizon indicating land. They could only guess it was Wrangel Island, that barren, wretched place that De Long had written of in his journals.

McKinlay, Mamen, and Malloch found solace in Bartlett's cabin. Each had been keeping busy as best he could and visits to the captain were a welcome reward during those long days.

McKinlay had been teaching English to Kataktovik, who was an eager student, borrowing paper from the magnetician so that he could practice his English and write letters. Mamen, to everyone's surprise, had won the chess tournament, beating the illustrious Dr. Mackay in a brutal tie-breaker, and accepting the promised box of fifty cigars for first place while Sandy took the box of twenty-five for second. Malloch had finally returned to the Cabin DeLuxe after suffering the cold of the chart house for as long as he could. He endured some good-natured ribbing from his friends, but he was too sleepy to care. He could do without pride if it meant being warm again.

The three endured cutting remarks from Dr. Mackay each time they returned from their visits to Bartlett. The drugs, no doubt, had something to do with his bitterness, and the fact that he and the captain were still not on speaking terms.

Bartlett was alone on that ship and he felt it. Despite all of the personality clashes among the scientists and crewmen, they at least had each other. Thus it was that the more perceptive members of the group—McKinlay, Mamen, and, sometimes, Malloch—found themselves in the captain's cabin, passing long hours on those winter days.

Bartlett sat there as they conversed, after the work was done for the day, and told them about his life on land as the toast of high society, a realm he was proud to be invited into, but one where he didn't feel he truly belonged. Indeed, he felt awkward anywhere on land. The captain recommended books to McKinlay so that he could read them and they could discuss them afterward. Bartlett loved to pick up his worn and dog-eared volumes of Shakespeare and Browning and Shelley and Keats—not to mention his favorite of all, the
Rubáiyát
—and read aloud from them. He thumbed the pages with his clumsy, thick-fingered hands, soiled and rough, and looked up at his companion, crinkling his blue eyes with delight.

“Gosh now, that's
¹¹
a mighty fine thing. How do you suppose he knew how to say it that way?” Then Bartlett would shake his head, marveling, and continue to read. For a few moments, it seemed, he was able to forget about the cold and the ice, the helpless ship, the leader who had, it seemed, abandoned them, and the precious lives for which he alone, as captain, was responsible.