The Ice Master (46 page)

The ice was heavy and loose, but just as treacherous and hard to travel as the thicker, more tightly packed ice field through which they had already passed. As well as Bartlett could guess, they were no more than twenty miles from Wrangel Island. As soon as the fog lifted, they would be there in no time at all to bring the castaways to safety. The
Bear
was well stocked, with ninety tons of coal in her bunkers. But the fog didn't lift, and on the evening of August 25, the engines were once again silenced and the
Bear
was allowed to drift.

The next morning, the wind carried them away from Wrangel and swept the
Bear
toward the Siberian shore. For two days, they struggled to fight the wind and the ice, to regain the ground they had lost, but they only succeeded in exhausting their coal supply. On August 27, at 4:12 in the morning, Captain Cochran announced his decision. They would have to turn back to Nome for more coal. They would never make it on what they had left.

Bartlett was devastated. There was nothing he could do to change the situation, short of miraculously producing coal out of his pocket. He knew Cochran was right and that they had no choice, but he was bitterly disappointed. “The days that
³¹
followed were days to try a man's soul,” he said. “I spent such a wretched time as I had never had in my life.”

The
Bear,
so close to her goal, now pointed her nose toward Siberia and headed away from Wrangel Island. She stopped first at Cape Serdze, and Bartlett rushed ashore to inquire about the Russian icebreakers
Taimyr
and
Vaigatch,
which had also been sent to Wrangel, but no one seemed to know anything about their whereabouts or progress.

Afterward, the
Bear
steamed over to East Cape, and Bartlett again went ashore in search of information. The
Vaigatch,
he was told, had managed to get within ten miles of Wrangel Island, closer than any other ship thus far. But on August 4, she received a wireless message that Russia had gone to war, and she immediately headed south with the
Taimyr
to Anadyr, where they would join the battle and serve their country.

This was a bitter blow because, with the
Bear
delayed, Bartlett had held great hope for the Russian ships. They were the strongest of all the possible rescue ships, and the best equipped to deal with the icy waters. But there was nothing to be done now as the
Bear
headed once again for Nome. Nothing to do but hope that the coaling would go as quickly as possible. Bartlett's eye was on the sky and on the calendar. Winter had already arrived, it seemed, and soon they would be in the thick of it. He prayed his men had enough to eat and shelter to keep them warm. “I could only
³²
hope,” he wrote, “that when we reached Nome, we should hear that some other ship had been to the island and taken the men off.”

But when they got to Nome on August 30, no such word awaited them.

September 1914

There were twenty
¹
white men on board the ‘Karluk' when she began drifting with the great ice pack north of Alaska. Nine survive to tell the story.

—E
RNEST
F. C
HAFE, MESS ROOM BOY

M
cKinlay stood atop the lookout point, scanning the hori-zon for a sign—of moving ice, of open water, of a ship. September had begun with sunshine, which was quickly obliterated by heavy snow, thick fog, and chilling winds. Now hunger wasn't their only problem. It was already turning bitterly cold and they weren't prepared for it. Auntie worked at repairing their clothes and creating new ones out of what scant materials she had, and the men helped when they could. But there was little they could do to improve the state of their clothing, which was filthy, thin, and tattered. Still, all hands worked at sorting boots, stockings, and skins and doing the best they could to ready their clothes for winter.

It was too cold now to dig for roots. There was too much open water to go duck hunting; the ducks were now migrating to the bigger space of water, away from the island. The men saw seals out on the ice, but were unable to reach them as well. Hadley sat for hours by holes in the ice, waiting for a seal or an uguruk, but always returned to camp empty-handed. Kuraluk set fox traps, and Williamson wasted thirteen cartridges trying to shoot the crafty little devils, which watched him with what appeared to be great amusement before disappearing unharmed. The men prayed the fox traps would work; they couldn't afford to waste any more ammunition.

Hadley, McKinlay, and the Eskimos were engaging in a healthy competition to see who could save the most food for winter. Kuraluk and his family seemed “bent on outdoing
²
Hadley and I in the saving line,” wrote McKinlay, “but Hadley swears he won't be beaten by a native, even when it comes to saving meat.”

On September 2, Hadley and McKinlay walked just outside of camp to survey the game and ice conditions, neither of which looked good, although there was some open water to be seen in the distance and the ice seemed to be drifting. It was too late in the season, however, for this to inspire hope in the men. After all, they had been disappointed for too long. For two months, they had waited for a ship, expecting one to arrive any day. Now they figured there was no ship coming for them.

The people in Hadley's tent rose every morning before 8:00 to hunt, to chop and pile wood, to forage for scurvy grass, to brace themselves for another miserable winter. Even Auntie and the girls were hunting daily, fishing for tomcod in cracks along the beach. The men in Williamson's tent meanwhile slept until the afternoon, showing their faces around 2:30
P.M
. or so, and spending more and more of their time in the tent. They kept to themselves even more than usual and gave little help around camp. It was worrisome, but there was nothing McKinlay or Hadley could do to change their behavior.

On September 5, Kuraluk caught a young fox in one of his traps, and Hadley's tent made a small meal of it for supper that night. The meat was tender and tasty, although Hadley told McKinlay that foxes were generally eaten only out of desperation, since the meat was so “rank.” But they were desperate, and the meat tasted wonderful.

By the next morning, that meal of fresh meat was already a distant memory. On September 6, Hadley, McKinlay, and the Eskimos were forced to eat breakfast from their winter stores. All of their food was gone now except for the scraps they had saved for the coming months. Miraculously, Hadley and Kuraluk returned from the day's hunt with a seal. It was a glorious sight, and that evening they feasted on seal meat and blubber, gorging themselves on meat and blood soup. Tomorrow they would be back on short rations, trying to save every scrap of this seal for the winter. Who knew if or when they would find more meat?

They stayed up later than usual that night, discussing their situation, not that there was anything new to say. They had exhausted the game in this barren region. There was nothing left for them at Cape Waring, and no reason to stay. They decided the only thing to do was move up the north coast to a new winter site. They would build a hut out of driftwood and pray that there was still some wildlife left on the island. They would pack up camp and leave for the new location tomorrow. There, they would build their house and prepare for the winter they now thought they would have to face.

A
T
R
ODGER'S
H
ARBOUR,
Munro, Maurer, and Templeman could hear the walrus bellowing, the low, mournful cries thundering and booming like a series of foghorns. The sound was grim, disturbing, and continuous, the men helpless to do anything about the noise or the walrus.

There was heavy ice off the coast, but a cold wind had started blowing. They had been hoping for such a wind to buffet the ice and open the way for a ship to come. Still, they didn't dare let themselves dream that a ship could reach them this late in the season.

They talked at night of pies and other foods they craved, and of their friends back home. On September 2, they ran out of the sealskins they had been living on, but later that day they were lucky enough to get three foxes. The next day, by some miracle, they were able to kill three more.

They rationed the food and trusted in the Lord, who, they knew, must be providing for them and who would not see them lost. They were counting the days, hoping that each one would bring a ship. They encouraged each other as much as they could, but it was little consolation. Their minds were strained past the breaking point and their bodies were wasting away.

But as Munro said, “Every cloud has
³
a silver lining.” On September 6, he wrote in his diary, “The Lord had
⁴
been good to us.”

T
HE
B
EAR WAS STILL LOADING
coal on September 3 when Bartlett lunched with Japhet Linderberg, a millionaire mine owner and operator who had shown him so much kindness when the
Karluk
had stopped in Nome the previous July. Bartlett was on edge, after having been forced to turn back from Wrangel Island, and now having to wait five days already while they took on more coal. The wait was agonizing, and the strain showed in his face.

Linderberg was so moved by this that he announced to Bartlett that he would send the ship
Corwin
to Wrangel Island to fetch the men. A former revenue cutter, the
Corwin
had traveled to Wrangel in the 1880s, and now Linderberg was willing to put down twenty thousand dollars of his own money to outfit and crew her and send her up there. Bartlett was greatly touched by the offer. So many people from so many parts of the world had shown a fervent interest in his band of castaways, and he was grateful to be reminded that he wasn't alone in the fight to save them.

He chanced upon Olaf Swenson, owner of the
King and Winge
, later that same day in a popular Nome meeting spot. Bartlett liked Swenson. He was a tall, personable man with a kind face. The
King and Winge
was about to embark on a walrus hunting and trading trip up the Siberian coast, and Bartlett asked Swenson—should he pass by the vicinity of Wrangel Island—to stop there if possible and search for the men of the
Karluk
. Swenson promised the captain he would.

Still, Bartlett's mind did not rest easier. Before returning to the
Bear,
he sent a wire to Ottawa to keep the Canadian government officials apprised of the situation, and to let them know that both the
Corwin
and the
King and Winge
would be looking for his men.

On Friday, September 4, the
Bear
at last left Nome. Bartlett stood at her bow, transfixed, his eyes focused on the sprawling ocean before them. On September 7, the water was smooth and calm, almost unnervingly placid. Bartlett knew that meant ice up ahead. They should run across it before too long. Indeed, by 7:45
P.M.
, they saw the first signs of ice, and soon they could see it stretching before them, vast and tightly packed, the whiteness of it overpowering.

They had no choice. They would have to cut the engine and stop there, on the edge of the ice pack, until daylight came. They were just 131 miles from Rodger's Harbour, but to Bartlett, they might as well have been on the other side of the world.

O
N THE THIRD DAY AT SEA,
the men of the
King and Winge
saw the mountains. The peaks rose up in the distance, out of the ice, sharp and malevolent. There was nothing beautiful or graceful about them. They were stark, jagged, colorless, and forbidding. It was the most isolated, barren land they had ever seen. Draped in mist, the mountains seemed encased by the mighty wind, which blew in white, translucent waves.

The most disturbing factor, though, was the ice. Immense, sprawling ice fields filled the horizon, shimmering with myriad hues of blue, green, and white. Some of the ice grew into massive pressure ridges, looming over the island, higher than the ship's mast. One hundred, two hundred feet high
—
they were magnificent, and daunting. These ice mountains were intimidating, making each man suddenly aware of how small and insignificant he was.

In the middle of it all, protected and remote, sat Wrangel Island. It was a lonely, unreachable fortress. And somewhere, on her shores, were one woman, two children, and twenty men. Or sixteen men. Or twelve men. Or fewer. No one could be sure. They didn't know what they would find if they ever made it through. They were almost afraid to know. Had any survived? What if no one was there to greet them when they reached the island? What if the ship broke through the ice, only to discover they had perished weeks ago waiting for help to come?

The ice pack was dense and forbidding, hugging the shoreline protectively for miles and miles. The ice was loose, the ice was thick, the ice shifted and grew around them. While that tough little schooner fought her way through the pack, there was time to reflect on what the men of the
Karluk
must have lived through these past several months.

The
King and Winge
crept along the coastline, Swenson, and the rest of the men straining their eyes for any sign of life. Swenson was a man of his word. He had promised Bartlett in Nome that he would look for his men, and that was exactly what he was doing. He had delayed his hunting and trading work and had purchased an umiak and hired fifteen Eskimos for the journey to Wrangel Island. He ordered his engineer to get as much speed out of the little schooner as he could, and then pointed her nose northward. Burt McConnell had been hitching a ride from Point Barrow to Nome on the schooner and, at the last minute, asked to join Swenson on his mission. Now they stood on deck, staring in the direction of Wrangel Island.

Between gaps in the ice cliffs, they could see the land beyond. It was barren and still. There seemed to be nothing living on its banks, neither man nor animal. All the while, the ship pulled closer to shore, and yet they still saw nothing. They tried not to be disheartened. Bartlett had said his men would be at Rodger's Harbour, where he had instructed them to wait, but they could have been further inland, or at their original Shore Camp, on the other side of the island.

The ship pressed on. Swenson and McConnell took turns looking through the glasses. Stealthily, slowly, they drew closer to the island. Suddenly, the lookout in the crow's nest shouted out. It was a tent. Barely standing, but it was a tent. They strained for a view of it, but they had trouble seeing past the great pressure ridges of ice.

Then a break, and there it was, dilapidated and torn, a flimsy summer tent that couldn't have been sufficient shelter for anyone in this bitter cold and wind. They had hoped to find twenty-three people on this island, yet the only sign of life they saw was one four-man tent. There were no sleds, no dogs.

And then they caught sight of something jutting out of the island landscape, just beyond the tent, that made their hearts stop. A crude, wooden cross, plain and strong, was planted in the ground, and just behind it stood a flagpole. This was shocking proof of life
—
and death.

They were half a mile away from shore when Captain Jochimsen fired off rockets and started blowing the ship's whistle. He blew it repeatedly, at intervals, pausing while the ship's entire company watched; still, no one appeared. Their hearts sank.

Again, the captain blew the whistle, and again all waited. Finally, they saw the tent flap open and a man emerge, on his hands and knees.

They were just offshore now and Swenson dropped anchor. Aboard the
King and Winge
, they were elated. But on the island, the man showed no signs of joy or excitement. He didn't wave his arms and shout, even though they could tell by the direction of his gaze that he saw them. He didn't run up and down the beach to attract their attention. Instead, he crouched like an animal and watched. And then slowly he rose to his feet, straightening himself to his full height, and stood beside the tent, gazing in their direction. More than once, he brushed his hands across his eyes as if to clear away something that might be there, deceiving him, altering his vision.

They continued to sound the horn and all on deck began to wave to him. He did not respond and, suddenly, he turned and crawled back into the tent. His behavior was mystifying. The poor fellow was probably out of his mind.

But as quickly as he disappeared, the man returned, holding something in his hands. As they watched, he walked over to the flagpole, his gait slow and lumbering, and raised the British flag to half-mast.

The flag seemed to confirm what the cross had already suggested. Was it possible that this man was the only survivor, that there, at the foot of that cross, lay the rest of the
Karluk
's company?

This question was quickly answered as two more men appeared from the tent. The three of them stood together and watched the ship. Still, no one waved, no one shouted, no one jumped for joy. They were clearly stunned and disbelieving. Swenson and the rest of his party expected more men to come then, but none did.

When the ship was two hundred yards from shore, the first mate and his crew launched the umiak. Swenson and McConnell climbed aboard.