The Arctic Ocean wreaked its vengeance on the whalers in September of 1871. Forty whaling ships had earlier sailed through the Bering Strait and up the coast of Alaska. Only seven returned. Word had it that the few remaining whales in the Arctic would be coming past Point Barrow in September and they had risked all to get them.

One of those ships‚ the Trident‚ was captained once again by Thomas Boyd. He was back in the Arctic‚ this time he had brought his only son‚ Tom II‚ with him.

Not far from the ship that day‚ was and a small group of ice whales.

The sea was rough and ships were tossing dangerously. Captain Boyd and the other whaling captains pulled their boats into the calm water between the pack ice and land-fast ice between Icy Cape and Point Franklin. Point Franklin had been named after the British explorer who, years later, would be lost attempting to find the Northwest Passage. The crew would wait there for the whales to come south on migration.

As Captain Boyd sailed for Point Franklin‚ he noticed a whale breaching nearby. It had a mark like an Eskimo dancer on its chin.

“Tom‚” he called. “It’s a whale.” Tom II came running.

“Where?” the boy shouted‚ but there were only whale footprints‚ an oval swirl of water created by the pumping flukes of a moving whale‚ and then even those disappeared.

Disappointed‚ Captain Boyd steered his ship toward the shore.

“We’ll wait here‚” he said. “That wind that’s blowing is an easterly one. It will blow the ice pack out to sea‚ and we can anchor in the deep entrance to the lagoon.”

“But the ice seems to be coming closer‚” Tom II observed.

“Captain Roys taught me about these Arctic winds‚” said his father. He knew that Arctic winds can be fickle. They will blow north and then switch southwest‚ toward shore‚ without warning‚ pushing any pack ice before it.

An advancing mass of pack ice was to windward and an unforgiving coast was to their lee. At that moment‚ some lucky ships turned and ran between the great sheet of ice and shore‚ and sailed southwest toward ice-free waters. Others stayed hoping for the east wind or a sea current to take the pack ice away.

“Father, the ice is closing in!” Tom II cried in alarm.

Captain Boyd ran for the wheel. No sooner had he taken hold of it than he heard the sound of wood splintering. He looked fore and aft. Heavy ice had closed around them.

“The ship!” he cried. “Her stern is stove!”

Glancing toward the other thirty-nine ships strung out in a line‚ he saw to his horror that many of them were being crushed between shore and the pack ice.

“Abandon ship‚” Captain Boyd ordered. He turned to Tom II. “Get in the nearest whaleboat. Water is coming in the aft cabin.” He departed.

Tom II scrambled to the cabin with the timbers crackling, put on his winter parka‚ grabbed his mittens‚ and ran to a whaleboat. The ship was listing severely to one side.

Tom II swung into the whaleboat. Rowers dropped onto their seats.

“Lower away‚” he yelled to the men at the stanchion. The whaleboat was lowered onto ice.

“Pull her over the ice to open water!” barked Captain Boyd from the deck. The whalers got out of the whaleboat‚ stepped onto the ice‚ grabbed her lines‚ and pulled with all their might.

The Trident listed to one side even more.

“Abandon ship!” Captain Boyd now shouted again. They lowered the four whaleboats‚ climbed down the ropes and rope ladders‚ and jumped into them. When every last soul was off the ship‚ Captain Boyd slid down a rope into the last whaleboat.

The Trident was rolling onto her beam ends and splintering under the vise-like grip of the ice. Tom II looked back at her and gasped. In the short time since they had abandoned ship‚ the Trident had been completely crushed by ice. Her sails had collapsed‚ her beams were splintered. Whale oil was spilling onto the ice, the hold, and into the water.

All the men were straining to pull the whaleboats over the rough ice.

“To seawater‚” the captain rasped. Suddenly an ice block as big as a house was plowing toward the whaleboat. Tom II grabbed the bench he was sitting on with both hands. His knuckles whitened. The seamen strained and hauled the whaleboat as fast as they could. They finally dragged the boat away from the encroaching ice block and reached ice-free waters. They set the whaleboat afloat‚ jumped in‚ and began rowing away from the ice pack.

Other crews from other ships were desperately hauling their whaleboats as well. Seven ships had slipped free of the ice and were out at sea‚ including the Daniel Webster. The crew of the Trident drew up alongside her and was welcomed aboard. All seagoing whaling ships rescue other whalers in distress. In fact‚ helping fellow sailors is the first law of the sea. Packed like sardines‚ the sailors stood on the Daniel Webster’s deck and in the distance watched the Trident and other ships splinter into shreds.

Thirty-two ships were abandoned in the ice near Point Belcher‚ west of Barrow; amazingly no lives were lost, which was not often the case. The Eskimos saw it as the ocean’s revenge for killing whales for money instead of for food. Later‚ the Yankee whalers would refer to it as the Disaster of 1871.

On the Daniel Webster Captain Boyd sought out her captain. “This might be the end of whaling‚” he said to him. “Too few whales‚ too many wrecks.”

“This is the end of whaling‚” the captain answered. “Black oil has been struck in Pennsylvania. It will be cheaper and it keeps on flowing.”

Captain Tom Boyd stood on the deck with Tom II and looked out on the windy‚ gray Arctic Ocean. A lone whale blew. On his chin was a mark shaped like an Eskimo dancer‚ his hand up‚ his knees bent.

Despite everything‚ Tom II smiled. The whale would be safe for now.

The ship turned south to again face the terrible storms of the Bering Sea.

A blustery six weeks later‚ Captain Boyd and his crew arrived in Hawaii.

Nothing remained of the Trident.