THE LAND OF THE LOST ESKIMOS, 1930
CONTINUED
I certainly expected that the Morrissey would leak badly as the result of what we had been through, but I was amazed to find that nothing was seriously wrong with her except that the worm steering gear had been bent. We could thank Essex, Massachusetts, for the fact that the hull had stood up, and the McWilliams yard for the staunchness of the new rudder post and the reinforcements on the rudder. Having no forge, we weren’t quite sure how to go about straightening the bent worm gear, but after experimenting with several methods Jim Dove managed to fix it by using saws and files, doing a nice piece of work.
Then we rested up a bit before steaming to the southward, close to Bass Rock. At times we had brilliant sunshine that burned off the fog and showed us the mountain tops, cold and clear-looking, and lighted up the heavy bergs and paleocrystic floes, frozen into fast ice. It looked for all the world like the view you get of New York’s downtown skyline on a foggy, misty morning, coming into the slip on a ferryboat from Staten Island. Pinnacles of ice looked exactly like skyscrapers. Yes, sir, it was a beautiful sight, but as we could testify, it was no place to be caught.
We had reached a point a few miles off Walrus Island when we sighted the steamer Gothaab anchored in Griper Roads, Germania Harbor, and we were anchored close to her by six bells. Her captain Riis Carstensen, was an old friend of mine and of the Morrissey, for he commanded the Iceland Faulk when my schooner needed repairs so badly in 1926, furnishing us with a diver who repaired our hull where it had been damaged when we went ashore. I had not seen Captain Carstensen since, and it was a real pleasure to meet him here. He came aboard, accompanied by Doctor Lauge Koch, and gave us invaluable information as to ice conditions, the whereabouts of game, good harbours, and of the ruins of the Eskimo winter houses that we had come to find.
Ed Manley and Harry Whitney went to Walrus Island while we were here and made still and moving pictures of the eider ducks sitting on their nests, with the glaucous gulls hovering around, waiting for the ducks to leave, when they swooped down and stole the eggs. Glaucous gulls should do well in Wall Street. We on the Morrissey were impatient to be off, and as soon as our photographers returned we weighed anchor and set our course for Shannon Island, taking with us two young Danes, Jim van Huen and A. Schwack, trappers from the Germania Harbor station. This saved them the necessity of making the trip in a motorboat, or waiting for the freeze-up, and they were glad to be aboard. Schwack in particular was glad to be with us, for he had been isolated from the world for more than a year, and he went after our Victrola, with its new records, the way a bear goes after a seal. It did us good to watch him.
Progress was slow, owing to poor visibility and the many bergs that had moved out from the fjords and the bights of the islands, and when we were five or six miles from Cape Philip Broke the wind freshened considerably. This meant that the cove where I had planned to land was a lee shore so we returned to the fast ice and tied up, taking advantage of the opportunity to fill our tanks with fresh water from a pool on the ice. We were desirous of establishing communication with Junius, however, so I sent one of our sledges ashore with a load of gasoline, calcium chloride, and food. We were having almost constant fog, and after a day or so I began to worry about the sledge party. I was afraid that the ice inshore had broken clear of the island, and the chances were that if this had happened, the ice bridge between Hochstetter Foreland and Shannon Island had also broken down. When visibility improved, we found that this was so, and we got underway at once, steaming slowly toward the island, and getting within four miles of the campsite at Cape David Gray before we were stopped by a big sheet of ice. We tied onto this until we found that it was moving to the eastward, when we cast off and waited for the inside corner to clear the fast ice. After this happened we steamed in, and were relieved to see the sledge party on the ice foot. They had an addition to the party, as Will Bartlett and Jim van Huen, acting on my instructions, had captured a muskox calf.
Junius reported that he was having great success in his explorations, so I decided to leave him where he was with his three men, while the Morrissey went to Cape Philip Broke for a day or two of walrus and bear hunting. We wanted to get walrus and bear groups for the Academy of Sciences at Philadelphia. We spent most of our time on the way getting Shannon, the muskox calf, accustomed and resigned to his new surroundings. When he was first brought aboard and installed in the house we had made for him on deck, the little fellow raised an awful row, butting his head against the boards and yelling blue murder for his mother. But he got hungry after a bit, and the warm milk in the nursing bottle, to which was attached a large nipple brought for just such use by Harry Whitney, proved a magnet that Shannon, homesick as he was, could not resist, and soon he was suckling away as pleasantly as could be. That was the start, and before we were through he was as tame and as amusing as a Newfoundland pup.
We kept a sharp lookout for bears, too, but not one did we see, despite the fact that we were in good bear country, with lots of seal around. I attributed this to the bright sun and warm weather making the bears lazy. We steamed out to the point of Koldeway Island, and by six bells we had made Cape Bismark, with no bears reported, although I had offered a prize of $10 to the man spotting the first one. I considered extending our search into Denmark Haven, as indications to the north and east pointed to open water, but I decided against it because I was not sure of how good our propeller was after its encounter in the ice, and because I did not want to get too far away from the Shannon Island party.
So we retraced our course, and on our way back spied a large bull walrus on the ice. We hove to and put out a boat, only to have the walrus go into the water before getting within firing distance. But it broke water near where the whaleboat stopped, and we fired a shot that crippled it. Jim Dove planted a harpoon in its huge bulk before it dove again, and the float attached to the weapon marked our treasure. We wondered, though, whether Jim had planted the harpoon firmly enough, having some doubts about this, and sure enough, when we put a strain on the line, it pulled out. It was a large bull, and we hated to lose it. How large we will never know, but I remember that every time we got to talking about it, a gain was apparent, and by and by it would have dwarfed a whale.
We were still grumbling over losing the walrus when Jim Dooling, in the crow’s nest, sang out that he had spotted a bear. Jim Dove and Jim van Huen saw the animal a second too late, and lost out on the prize money. The wind was blowing fresh on the weather edge of the ice, and considerable swell was making, but we got whaleboat away with men and dogs aboard. The small boat was rolled around pretty badly, and as it neared the edge lost its rudder. This was serious business, for if the craft got broadside to it it was apt to capsize or get stove in against the floes. Luckily the steering oar was aboard, and this was speedily put into service, taking the boat out of her predicament. A safe landing was effected, and it was a great sight to see the men and dogs pile onto the ice.
The bear had spotted them and turned tail, but the dogs soon had him at bay. The ice was so hummocky that even from the crow’s nest a lot of the fighting between bear and dogs was not visible, but we did see Jim Dove catch up with the procession and end the battle with his rifle. Leaving the bear on the ice, the crew brought the whaleboat back, and we took it aboard, dropping the dory to get the skin, meat, and bones of the bear. The job of getting the dory off the ice and back to the Morrissey would not have been difficult had they been content to bring out light loads. But, no. They put dogs, men, skin, meat, and bones into it and watched their chance. Seeing what they were up to, I ran down to make a lee for them, and although the dory was very low in the water when it reached us, we hauled the entire load aboard.
After we got underway again two more bears were spotted, but we could not get at them, and we continued on around Cape Philip Broke. Here we found that we were cut off from the Bird camp, as all the ice in Freeden Bay had moved out in large sheets before the strong northeaster. This being the case, we tied onto a big sheet and kept a weather eye open for a good exit in case the sheet wheeled on the cape in passing seaward. But by the next morning the bay was completely freed and we steamed as close to the camp as we could, sending the whaleboat ashore.
While it was gone the wind dropped, and the force of the tide and current asserted themselves again, bringing the ice back into the bay. I saw this, and immediately gave orders to heave up the anchor and to start the engine. Ed Manley took the latter task in hand, and for a half an hour he worked over it, with no success. All that time the ice kept working in, and things were getting ticklish. We had managed to work out of one jam, but we had been very lucky, and if we were caught this time we might get bad breaks. The percentage favoured it, and I was getting really worried, when Ed had an inspiration. It occurred to him that perhaps the firing plugs of the engine were dirty, and he took a look. They were. He didn’t wait to clean them, but yanked them out, shoved in new ones, and tried the engine again. It worked like a charm, and off we went, just in time to keep clear. I was delighted to get out of that place, I can tell you.
But out we were, and we steamed slowly across the bight to the eastern shore, where I threw over the dredge, getting starfish, clams, and small crustacean that established this as a feeding ground for walrus, although we saw only one with its young. It is a question whether walrus are becoming scarce or whether the narwhal on the outside are driving them away. I should like to determine which was the case, for it was an ideal spot for them. As for the group we spotted, we did not go after them as the wind was strong and the water shallow.
Shortly after this the whaleboat returned, bringing Junius with a number of most interesting specimens, and seven hours later the hunters who had gone in on the launch came back empty-handed, as the muskoxen had moved into the interior of the island. All hands were aboard once more, and I headed for Clavering Island, where I knew we would find a safe anchorage, enabling us to put all hands ashore to expedite work to be done. On our way Jim van Huen shot another bear, and that was his last act on the Morrissey, for a motorboat came alongside at Germania Harbor and ordered him, with Schwack, to return to the station and take a load of supplies to Shannon Island. We had hoped they could continue with us to Clavering Fjord and the west side of Clavering Island. Jim in particular had been of great help to us, and while he had little rest, I believe he enjoyed life on the Morrissey.
We continued on down the coast, and eventually worked past Dahl Island into new waters. We got a magnificent view of Jordan Hill with the blue haze shimmering over its massive beauty, and we anchored near it, sending our hunters ashore. They came back with a muskox, a ringed seal, and 10 barnacle geese. Bill Boone and Junius went ashore also, and found two Eskimo houses and 11 tent rings, but the finds were without interest, and we steamed over to the Sandoggen on the south side of Wollaston Foreland, where we found the Gothaab again and anchored under her stern. Captain Carstensen gave us some explicit directions about finding the Eskimo ruins, and we pushed on to Clavering Island.
Once we were at anchor, I sent Harry Whitney, Hans Brunn, Jim Dove, and Bill Boone ashore in the whaleboat, and when they landed they spotted a bull muskox, a cow, and two calves, and they realized that here was a chance to get the group for the Academy. In addition, they had been told to try for a mate for Shannon, and this looked like a good opportunity. They bagged the bull and cow easily, but the calves were to be taken alive, and that was another kind of cruise. The animals headed away from shore at full speed, and our boys saw that a marathon lay ahead. Muskoxen are very agile, but the gang felt they just had to have those calves, so the chase was on. One of them got away, but Jim managed to corner the other in a blind canyon. With no other way to go, it turned and tried to rush out, but Jim remembered his football days, and brought it down with a bone-shaking tackle. This floored the calf, and Jim hung on until Bill Boone reached the scene, and the result was that little Maureen came aboard. At first she showed the truth of the old saying about the female of the species being deadlier than the male, but the same means that were used to subdue Shannon were brought into play, and eventually she decided to behave herself. Both she and Shannon were very popular on board the Morrissey, and served as mascots.
The Gothaab spoke to us while we were here, and told us that the ruins were about two miles farther to the eastward. I knew that, but felt that we were in a safer anchorage. I realized, however, that the time element entered into our work, as Captain Carstensen advised us to be out by the middle of August, and it was now August 3, so I tried to find a suitable anchorage nearer our operations. The hunt was fruitless, and we ended up where we had been before.
We went ashore early in the day, and went right to the ruins, which were on the exact spot indicated by Captain Clavering who, in 1823, was the last white man to see any of these Eskimos alive. There was no frost in the ground, which meant that our digging was not hampered, but it may also have explained why things were in a poor state of preservation. The houses reminded me of ovens, or kilns. Each consisted of a single room, the floor of which was several feet below the surface of the ground, and a tunnel that came out some distance from the house itself on the side slope of a hill. The roofs had collapsed long before, but there was enough left so that we could figure out how they had been made. Pieces of driftwood and whalebone had been interwoven and placed on top of the stone that lined the inner walls, and the roofline came several feet above the surface. The roof was filled with moss and stuccoed with earth, making the structure practically watertight. The only ventilation came from the tunnel, that served as exit and entrance, and it was no trouble to guess that the atmosphere in the house became pretty heavy when the Eskimos lived in it awhile.
The ruins were covered with flowers, grass, debris, and nests of lemming. These curious little animals, members of the rodent family, with short tail and hairy feet, are very numerous in this part of the country. As I said, the roofs of the houses had collapsed years before, but we removed the wood and whalebone bit by bit and eventually uncovered a lot of interesting things: tools, hunting and cooking utensils, sledges, sewing kits, toys, and many other things that can now be seen at the Museum of the American Indian. It was a good haul, all right, and we were able to guess at the characters of the inhabitants of the different houses from the way things had been kept, whether they had been thrifty and industrious, or shiftless and lazy. We worked all day uncovering our specimens, and when we returned to the schooner we were all in.
We had left the cook and the bos’n aboard, and found they had been having troubles of their own. The cook has been with me on every trip I have made to the north, but he still takes me quite seriously, and he told me all about what happened. His greeting was about like this: “Sir, you nearly lost your cook and bos’n today. Shannon jumped overboard, and if we had not caught him, Jim and I had made up our minds to take some grub, make for the shore, and stay there. We sure would never have dared face you again, sir.”
So Shannon had gone overboard, and they had got him back. When we went ashore in the morning I had given order that he be given the run of the ship, as he was tame and at home, and also because he was a long-haired animal, with no great love for the water, which was very cold. So while cookie was below and the bos’n was at work on the muskox skins, Shannon, who had little room to stretch his legs, hopped up onto an oil drum to take a look at the scenery. No one knows whether he fell or jumped, but in he went, and struck out for shore. Nobody heard the splash, and the first indication our men had that anything was wrong was when the bos’n saw him swimming and mistook him for a seal. He yelled to cookie and ran for the rifle. He was all set to fire when Billy came on deck, missed Shannon, and sang out for Jim to lay off if he valued his skin.
The two of them grabbed the painter of the dory, hopped in and took out after Shannon, who was swimming for dear life. They couldn’t have rowed any harder if they were in a Yale-Harvard crew race, for they knew someone would be in for a fine dressing down if Shannon were missing when I came on board. It was a close thing, and the dory came up with Shannon just as his feet found bottom. It was no time for figuring, and the cook made a wild leap out of the dory and got the calf by the neck. Had he ever made shore, they’d never in the world would have caught him, but as it was he was trussed up and ignominiously brought back aboard, to be wrapped in hot blankets and fed warm milk. For punishment he was not allowed on deck for some time.
I have mentioned the nests of lemming on shore. There was another species of wildlife that was abundant. The mosquitoes were right there to greet us, and they overlooked nothing in the way of a stinging welcome. It never seemed to pall on them, and they kept right on stinging long after the novelty had gone out of it. We never did find out what it was that had driven the Eskimos away, but the mosquitoes were as good a bet as any.
We continued our excavating the next day, and as we looked over the village I was interested by the skill which the Eskimos had picked the site for their quarters. With the southern exposure they could see the first gleam of the sun on its return in the spring and its last parting rays in the fall were prolonged as much as possible. The hunting grounds, both on land and the sea, were right at their doors. As I stood there and looked about I could only ask myself over and over again why they had left this place. They had everything to make a settlement perfect for their needs, and these ruins were only a part of many extending up this whole coast from Scoresby Sound to Cape Bismarck and beyond. There must have been thousands of Eskimos along this stretch. But they are gone now, every last one of them, with only the ruins of their former homes and their implements left to tell us of their culture and industry.
Junius discovered another village near Site One, as we called the first ruins, and we uncovered five houses, two of them large and well-built, and the other three small, with no rock walls. An empty grave was found here, although none had been discovered at Site One. Our finds in the second village were not of particular interest save in one house, in which were a very old type of bottle and a piece of iron. They might have been picked up on the ice, or it was possible that they had been obtained from Captain Clavering. We also found blubber in this house, in such an excellent state of preservation that it burned as readily as when first cut. And clinging to some of the boulders that lay on top of the ruins I found a lot of red algae that colours the snow of the crimson cliffs of Cape York. We had also found it on the Diomede Islands in Bering Strait.
On my way back to Site One I climbed one of the mountains, and was gratified to see little or no ice in the offing. The day was warm and beautiful, with brilliant sunshine, and the sky was filled with fleecy white clouds sailing in fathomless blue. The waters of the fjords reflected the sky, the image being broken by occasional pieces of gleaming white ice floating idly. And in the background the towering mountains, with their browns and yellows and grays, made a most imposing picture. The soft air produced a dreamy quiet that was undescribably peaceful, and it was difficult to believe that within a short time terrific gales and storms might come to change the place into a raging inferno.
Not knowing how long the weather would hold good, I was anxious to get away as soon as possible, but there was much to be done before we could pull out of there. Junius had finally discovered the burial ground for which we had been searching. We had just about concluded that the Eskimos had sunk their dead in the fjords when we found a curious mound of boulders near the mouth of a partially dry riverbed. By curious, I mean that it was man-made, and not natural. We dug around and uncovered three skeletons buried in a primitive way, knees tied to their chests, with a number of their belongings beside them. We took photographs and made measurements and then refilled the graves. That took most of the day, and the rest was spent in photographing the houses we had cleaned up, getting their dimensions, and making a map of the villages for our report to the museum.
When this was completed, and while our men were carrying our array of specimens to the beach, Junius and I went to another spot where we had located two or three more ruins. These we uncovered, and obtained more things of interest for the collection. And had I felt it wise to remain longer in this locality, we would undoubtedly have found many other homes. But we had everything necessary for our purposes save the final answer to what became of the Eskimos, and I deemed it prudent to avoid unnecessary risks when it was unlikely that they would materially benefit the collection.
On August 10, I sent all hands ashore at Sansdoggen to gather willow for bedding and grasses for food for Maureen and Shannon, and we were on our way. Hans Brunn decided that he wanted to winter here, so he left us and we headed for the open sea. We followed the loose ice, which took us a little to the northward, and found open water the next day, only to be driven to retreat back into the ice by the heavy swell that was running. Fog shut us in here, and forced me to give up the idea of going into Scoresby Sound, plans being changed to take us to Angmagsalik. I guessed wrong on this, too, for appearances persuaded me to try it from the north, instead of going to the south and then cutting in.
The ice did not seem to be very wide off Cape Jordensen, and as the wind was offshore it seemed to be fairly loose. I hoped that if I worked into it, the going would be easier and that I would be able to continue south. But after we were well in the wind dropped and the ice began to tighten up. It was very heavy and washed out, and when the Morrissey struck a growler it was like hitting a brick wall. The ice spurs beneath the surface made navigation very hazardous, as we had to be careful of the propeller and there was always the chance of our hull being stove in below the waterline.
It was quite a pounding, and we had no shock absorbers. The granite-like blocks of ice finally caused the nails in our bow plates to work loose. When those steel plates had been installed I had thought them unnecessarily heavy, but I changed my mind about that now, and blessed the old dock superintendent at Sydney who fixed up that stem. We would be easing along, when we would hit a growler, shake as though the engine were going at full speed astern, and stop dead, to resume our way as the obstruction moved sluggishly to the side. With the nails pulling out, the plates were loose, and I had to drop men over the bow to drive wooden pegs into the holes. This did not tighten up the plates to any extent, and that was another reason for caution.
On August 22, we tied onto a berg, having sent the canoe around it in a search for spurs and sounding. We got at least 20 fathoms wherever we tried, and that was all right. Nor were there any spurs, and that was better yet. But early the next morning, with the ice running like the very Devil in the current and wind, a large floe came around the berg before we spotted it, and piled up on our bow. I was below when I felt the shock, and I rushed on deck to see our bowsprit snap off three feet from the end, while all our head gear and stays carried away with it. There was a real mess, and we had our hands full, rigging preventers and other staying so that we could, if we ever got a chance, carry our sail.
We were in a real jam, for the ice continued to run, the water holes filled up, and we could not have moved if we wanted to. On the night of August 25 we were in the only hole around, and that was just about big enough for the Morrissey. If this closed in on us – well, we had been in the same situation recently enough to have a vivid picture of what might happen. The full moon rode high in the heavens, and gave us enough light for working, but it also meant that we would get an unusually high tide, with the probability that the ice, pushing shoreward, would drive our berg over the ridge on which it was stranded into shore. That would be our finish, and I had all hands on deck, ready to abandon ship, for I had a hunch that the berg would float. We waited, doing nothing, saying little, as the tide flooded. So many times in the north there is nothing to do but wait, and see whether there are exceptions to inevitability.
This proved to be an exception, for nothing happened except that the berg rolled a little, and then settled down to an even keel again, while the growlers shifted a little shoreward. And finally the ice opened a bit, we cast off, and slowly, as slowly as we could go, worked out to the looser ice. Of all the forlorn places, with no game on the land, no fish in the sea, and no vegetation on shore, this was the worst. We called it the place that God forgot, and we weren’t far wrong, either. Nor were our troubles over as we steamed away from it. The wooden pegs couldn’t stand the pounding any better than could the nails in the bow plates, and we had to replace them. And twice we got hung up on submerged tongues of ice, with imminent danger of being stove in. It was luck that saved us both times.
These ice tongues are among the most dangerous things in the north, and they are formed by the water temperatures. The surface temperature is 34.3 degrees Fahrenheit at 10 fathoms it is 30.4 degrees. These are average temperatures for the conditions I am describing. The deeper water is polar current that comes from the north with the ice, and the latter cannot melt it, as its temperature is below freezing. But the surface layer of water, perhaps half a fathom deep, is warmed by the summer sun until it reaches the temperature given above. This comparatively warm stratum has a strong action on the edges of the floes, thawing them at and a little under the surface, and eating far into the ice. In the meantime the sun melts the ice above the surface and this lightens the floe, which rises and brings the tongues just under the surface, where they cannot always be spotted, and where they can do a lot of damage. It was, I am sure, action of this kind that was directly responsible for the loss of the Titanic in 1912, for the same thing happens to bergs, although in the latter case there is sometimes a thin floor of ice above the surface on the edge that makes walking very treacherous.
As we went on the ice tightened again and became very heavy. Bergs were frequently seen plowing through the lesser ice, and we had to watch that we didn’t get caught and crushed between them and the floe ice. This was near the edge, where the swell got in its work. We finally got to the edge, but it was too heavy for us to break through until we found a narrow strip of loose ice and worked clear. This was on August 28, and now we could hook her up for Angmagsalik.
As we went we picked up Eskimos in their kayaks, and by the time we got inside the head of the bight we must have had 20 or 30 of them aboard. Here we met the uminak, or women’s boat, loaded down with men, women, and children who had seen us for some time and were coming to greet the stranger. It reminded me of a reception in New York harbour coming up the Bay from Quarantine to the Battery. Men, women, children, and dogs lined the shores, cheering or barking, as the case might be, and following us as we made our way to the anchorage. The Danish authorities gave us the keys to the city, and we had a fine time, but the season was really late now, and it was time to be getting on. We hove up anchor on the morning of August 30, and steamed out with an escort of kayaks.
These dropped astern as we worked into the ice, which was heavy but loose until we got to the main water, and then we picked up a strong breeze from the north-northeast that enabled us to stop our engine and reach along under full canvas. As long as the wind was over the quarter I had no fears for our jib and head stays and we drove her, making excellent time in spite of rain and fog. We were not far from the edge of the ice, and used our thermometers constantly. No matter how thick the fog, thermometers enable you to keep off the ice, for they will note the significant drop in water temperature and warn you in time. By September 7 we had the Funk Islands abeam.
That night the forestay carried away, and we had to drop all canvas and proceed under power while we rigged more preventer tackles, which enabled us to set trysail, foresail, and jumbo. Under this canvas we footed very fast, and at 9:00 p.m. on September 9 we tied up at the dock at Brigus.
I landed Maureen and Shannon here, giving them the run of the place, and causing every child in town to play hooky to see them. This was not their permanent home, but just a chance to give them their land legs while we had the bent worm on the steering gear straightened out better than we had been able to do it, got a new bowsprit, and new forestay. This done, we loaded our animals aboard and were off to New York, hitting the Pollok Rip Lighthouse right on the nose, and carrying a fair tide and a light breeze to Woods Hole. I anchored in Quick’s Hole, in Elizabeth Islands, and then ran on down through Vineyard Sound, Block Island Sound, and Long Island Sound to City Island. We were passed by the doctor there, and then steamed on to the McWilliams yard at Staten Island.
Within a day or two all our archaeological and ethnographical specimens were delivered to the Museum of the American Indian. The polar bear, walrus, and muskox skins for the Academy of Sciences at Philadelphia were shipped there, and will shortly be on exhibition. Shannon and Maureen, dearly beloved by all on board, were sent to the Bronx Zoo to conform with quarantine regulations, and later went to Ruly Carpenter’s estate where they are thriving.
And the Morrissey, another cruise in her log, was laid up, the crew paid off and sent to their homes, while their captain began chafing to be off again on new adventures in the far north.