Trapped in Ice (21 page)

“I'll lead us back to shelter ... someplace where you can have your puppies ... don't worry ... you have to stop fighting me ... don't fight me.”

Then it dawned on me. Maybe she was fighting because I didn't know where I was going and she did.

“Can you lead us home, girl?”

She just rubbed against me. “If only I could speak Inuktituk ... ” I thought. Then I said, “Can you take us to the Captain ... to Kataktovick?”

Daisy's ears perked up when I mentioned Kataktovick. “Kataktovick! Go on, girl, take us to Kataktovick.”

I stood up and backed off a few steps. The chain hung limply on the ground between us. Daisy didn't move.

“Kataktovick!” I shouted.

She twisted her head around, her muzzle slightly raised and her nostrils twitching. She started to move ... slowly back in the direction we'd just come. I quickly followed, trying to make sure the chain didn't become taut and stop her. She picked up speed, just a gentle trot, but I found myself struggling to keep up. My whole body felt numb and heavy. The effort of picking up my feet was tremendous and I had to force myself to keep moving.

With each step, was I moving closer to the tents, or was I being led farther and farther away? So far away they wouldn't even find my body. That would be even worse than dying within sight of the tent. To be alone on the ice ... not to have a Christian burial ... for Mother to never really know what happened to me ... I fell to the ice.

I pulled my legs in tight to my chest. I had to rest. I couldn't go on. Besides, I seemed to be out of the wind here and it felt warmer. Warmer! I struggled to my feet once more. I had to keep fighting.

“Go on, Daisy, find Kataktovick! Go on!”

She started to move again and I dragged myself after her. I tried not to look at anything except the chain. It was
my lifeline that would lead me to my tent and right into my sleeping sack, where I could close my eyes and go to sleep. Suddenly I tripped and fell. The chain was tight around my waist and I could feel myself moving. Daisy began pulling me slowly across the ice. When she stopped I looked up. There it was, only a few yards away, the tent! But I didn't have the energy to move.

The warm, soft feeling started creeping over me again. So pleasant and gentle and inviting. I thought about being in my bed at home, tucked in under my big bedspread. In the living room Mother would be sitting in her favourite chair, knitting. Father would throw another log on the fire.

“OOOUCH!” I screamed.

I was jolted out of my dream by Daisy, who was standing over me and scraping at me with one of her front paws. I pushed myself up to my knees before she could strike out again. What was wrong with that dog? Had she gone crazy? Or ... was she just trying to keep me going?

I reached over and rubbed her neck. “Come on, girl, let's get inside.” I managed to crawl the last few feet to the tent. I pushed my body against the opening, pressing against it with my full weight. The buckles snapped and I tumbled inside.

 

 

Chapter Twenty-Five

I 
FELL ONTO A TANGLE OF PEOPLE
sleeping inside. There was shouting and cursing at first, then someone lit a lamp.

Suddenly I was picked up like a rag doll.

“Hadley, Anderson, Kataktovick, get off her boots, an' hood and coat. Start on her limbs ... we have to get the blood back in there workin'!” bellowed Captain Bartlett.

“Helen, what happened?” cried Mother. She had a look of terror on her face.

“Dogs,” I muttered quietly. No one paid any attention. “Dogs! The dogs ... are loose on the ice!” I called out.

Everyone stopped. “What are ya sayin', Helen?” asked Captain Bartlett.

“Stakes broke free ... the dogs are loose.” “Kataktovick, take Jonnie an' get some others. Tether a long line ta the shelter an' circle out ta find the dogs. Now!”

They grabbed their things and rushed out. The cold air drove through the opening but I couldn't feel anything. I wanted to go to sleep. My eyes started to close.

“Helen, wake up!” Captain Bartlett yelled in my ear. My eyes opened wide and I tried to sit upright but hands held me in place.

“Get the stove goin' hotter. Somebody gather some snow and melt it down. Everybody else will be takin' turns rubbing her limbs. We have ta work tagether or Helen'll be ... we have ta work tagether.”

Or else I'd be losing my toes or fingers or worse was what he was going to say but didn't. All around me people were rushing. I could see them rubbing my arms and legs and hands and feet but I couldn't feel anything. Then, slowly I started to feel a tingle and a bit of pain.

“You're hurting me,” I said feebly.

“You can feel it?” asked Mr. Hadley.

I nodded.

“Good, she's got some life! Everybody rub harder! Rub harder!”

“Please don't! Please!” I pleaded.

“Helen, there isn't any choice. It has ta be done.”

 

“I
T'S TIME TO WAKE UP, HELEN.
”

I opened my eyes and looked around. Except for Mother the tent was empty.

“Get up ... slowly,” Mother said.

I was inside my sleeping sack on top of a stack of skins. I pressed my hands down to try to sit up. I screamed in pain. Part of the skin on my right hand had been torn away.

“Is ... is it going to be okay? Am I going to lose my hand? Is it frostbite?” I gasped.

Mother pulled my head to her chest. “No dear, it's nothing like that, nothing at all. You hurt your hand on the chain but you don't have any frostbite.”

“None? I'm not going to lose any fingers or toes?”

“Nothing. You are going to be all right. You were fortunate you weren't out there very long, praise the Lord.”

“I'll try to get up.”

Mother released her grip. I used my good hand to push off and rose to my feet. I curled my toes and moved my legs up and down. Everything seemed to be working.

“We should get outside. They want to break down the tent.”

I nodded my head in agreement and started to walk to the door.

“Hold on!” Mother called out.

I turned back to face her. She held up my gloves. “You better put these on before you go outside. Remember the Captain said he'd skin you alive if you ever went outside without them again.” I walked back and slipped them on.

The Captain had said a lot of things last night. Some of them not very gentle. But one thing he said stuck in my mind: because of me, they'd found the dogs.

The instant Mother and I emerged from the tent three of the men started to disassemble it. I could tell it was still early morning, because the sun wasn't far above the horizon. There was no wind. The sky above us was completely clear although there was a bank of puffy white clouds off in the distance. The air was almost warm. The blizzard was just a bad memory.

The dogs were hooked up to the sleds and komatiks. I saw Daisy and then did a quick count. All the dogs were there, hooked up in harness.

“I want everybody ta listen up!” the Captain yelled out. Everybody stopped and turned to him.

“We're somewhere between seven and twelve miles off the coast of Wrangel Island. This is the last leg.”

Smiles flashed everywhere and a couple of men yelled for joy. I felt a surge of happiness.

“But it's also the worst leg.” The smiles faded. “Ice is always the most tricky near shore. More currents, open water, fresh leads an' alike. Ta make it worse the storm made a bigger mess. Ice got pushed around, snow put down over top of fresh leads. It's goin' ta be hard ... real hard. We'll be keepin' tagether taday. An' in one straight line, followin' right behind each other. Less chance of somebody fallin' through the ice, that way. Let's move out.”

I took my place beside the sled and we started to move. Between the bright sun and the work of pulling, I could feel sweat trickling under my clothing. I reached up and undid the top few clasps of my parka. The air felt good against my skin.

The surface of the ice was already feeling softer. This made it harder to pull the sled and I was grateful that the load was much lighter than it had been at the start of our trip.

“HELEN!”

Startled, I turned towards Mr. Hadley.

“Don't stray so far out to the side. You may be on the end of a line but I don't want to have to fish you out if you fall through ... stay closer,” he ordered.

I didn't need any more encouragement. I quickly closed the distance.

 

I
SAW THE LEAD KOMATIK
come to a stop. We caught up. I was about to ask what was happening when I saw the
problem. In front of us was a large gash of open water which lapped over the edge of the ice. It wasn't very wide but it extended out in both directions as far as I could see.

“What now, Robert?” Mr. Hadley asked.

“We cross it.”

“And how do we do that?”

“Only two ways ta cross water. Swim or float. Anybody want ta go for a swim?” he chuckled. “Didn't think so. Guess we're goin' ta have ta use a boat.”

“Boat? We don't have a boat,” I said.

“Sure we do. You standin' on 'er right now.” Jonnie laughed.

“I don't understand.”

The Captain turned to Jonnie. “Break out the pick-axes. I'll show ya all where ta cut.”

The Captain explained how this was an old sealer trick. Cut free a block of ice and it becomes a boat. The men used the axes to cut off the section of the ice on which our sleds rested. The Captain said the important thing was to make it big enough so it wouldn't tip over or flip, but not so big that it would be hard to move across the open water.

Within fifteen minutes the final pieces connecting our “boat” to the main mass of ice were cut. Using the pickaxes as poles the men pushed against the shore. At first nothing seemed to happen and then a thin dark line appeared and grew.

I felt a gentle sway. “We're floating!”

“We've been floatin' for the last six months. You just couldn't feel it after we left the
Karluk
,” Captain Bartlett noted. “But we were all floatin' nevertheless.”

“But this is different.”

“That it is. Feels almost like being aboard ship again. Makes me a real Cap'n again,” he said. There was a smile in his eyes.

Our progress over the next few hours was continually stopped by open water. The Captain guided us around two gaps, but we had to be “ferried” across the rest. It took time to chop free each ice boat. I noticed how they were cutting a smaller chunk of ice for us to stand on each time.

What I also noticed was the thickness of the ice. At the time the
Karluk
was crushed the ice was twice as thick as my height. Now it was no more than two or three feet thick. I wondered if that was just because we were cutting near an opening or if this was the thickness of the ice everywhere now. I didn't want to ask because I wasn't sure if I was ready for the answer.

The sun had made its way more than halfway across the sky already. The only clouds were the ones in the distance, now dark and stormy looking, extending right down from the sky to the ice. There was something about the clouds. They seemed to be shaded or patterned at the bottom. They almost looked like low-lying hills. I knew better than to even let my heart get excited. It was probably nothing more than a trick of the light. Captain Bartlett had told us about how Peary had thought he'd seen an entire island, ringed with mountains, which turned out to be nothing but an illusion of light and ice and clouds. Nevertheless, I kept my eyes focused on the horizon, watching those clouds. It didn't make sense, but I thought as long as I kept staring at them they wouldn't go away.

“You see it too, don't you, Helen?” Mother asked quietly. “Do you think it's real?”

“I don't know,” I answered without turning my head or taking my eyes off the distant shading. “It's hard to tell.”

“I've been looking at it for the past hour. The clouds shift and move but right along the horizon it stays the same. Hills ... I'm sure its hills.”

“You're right,” interjected Mr. Hadley. “It's Wrangel Island, no two ways about it.”

“Not clouds or light?” I asked.

He shook his head and smiled. “It's Wrangel ... we're going to make it ... thank God, we're almost there.”

We stopped for supper. There was still almost five hours of daylight left. Enough light and enough time to get us onto land. It was funny how we all sat in a long row, staring at the island staring back at us. It dominated the horizon from one side to the other.

I could clearly see the low-lying hills and the mountains stretching skyward behind them. Some of those mountains were so high their tops were blurred in the clouds. We were told that in places the island rose so sharply out of the sea it would be impossible to go ashore.

Captain Bartlett, accompanied by Kataktovick, had gone ahead to mark our next steps. I'd heard two of the sailors talking about how they might find open water between the shore and the ice, and about how we could be close but not be able to land.

“Here they come,” Michael announced. “And they're really moving!”

The komatik was being pulled by a full team of dogs. I could see they were coming at us at an alarming pace.

“Everybody get up and get ready to move. They're not travelling that hard to have us not ready when they get
here,” Mr. Hadley ordered. Instantly everyone was stand ing and ready to go.

The komatik slid into our midst. Captain Bartlett stopped and then bent over. His breath was coming in steamy gasps and his chest heaved up and down. People started peppering him with questions. He raised his hand and everybody fell quiet. He took a deep breath and straightened up.

“We've found a way. Ice looks like it goes clear up ta the shore. We have ta move quick. No tellin' how long before it all shifts again an' we find nothin' but open water.”