We had suffered1 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.
—GEORGE WASHINGTON DE LONG, DECEMBER 31, 1880
On 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 reported2 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 as3 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 and4 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.”
STEFANSSON 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 had5 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 never6 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 orders7 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 were8 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.”
THE MEN OF THE KARLUK were disheartened and solemn, grateful only that they had the sanctuary of their ship to protect them. “What a time9 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 naturally10 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’s11 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.
THE APPROACH OF CHRISTMAS raised their spirits considerably. Christmas Eve was spent in a flurry of activity and preparation for the celebration. Even the uncaring Templeman bustled around the galley, baking cakes and other delicacies.
There was a beautiful aurora that night. It began in the northwest and stretched across the sky in a broad S-shaped curtain, patterned like a kaleidoscope with patches of brightly changing lights that grew and moved with the blink of an eye. The sky was brilliant, color-swept, and alive.
McKinlay thought the Arctic heavens offered a splendid spectacle. Lunar coronas, lunar halos, the magnificent aurora, and other heavenly phenomena provided a lovely counterpoint to their bleak world. Indeed, McKinlay and the rest of the men felt themselves awaken to life when the moon and stars appeared. The stars were so bright and seemed so close that McKinlay felt he could almost touch them. Refraction caused the moon to look three times its normal size, and as it shone down upon him, its light transformed the nearby ice floes and blocks into “the weirdest possible12 figures which boggled the imagination,” he wrote. It seemed pure magic. When describing the wonders of the Arctic sky in his diary, McKinlay recalled the definition of a phenomenon given by George W. Melville, chief engineer of the Jeannette, and recorded in De Long’s diary. “’Gin ye see13 a coo, Jamie, that’s no’ a phenomenon, & gin ye see a tree, that’s no’ a phenomenon; but gin ye see a coo climbing up a tree backwards, that’s a phenomenon, Jamie, that’s a phenomenon.’”
The Arctic sky was, for the men of the Karluk, a phenomenon. And the brilliant aurora on Christmas Eve seemed a gift of the highest nature.
That night the staff and crew of the Canadian Arctic Expedition were overcome with the greatest sense of longing they had felt since sailing from Victoria on that now-distant June evening. Mamen crept into his narrow bunk and lost himself in thoughts of Christmases past and the people who meant the most to him on earth. Where were his brothers, he wondered? Were they at home or were they traveling in foreign countries? And what of his parents?
His thoughts kept returning to his fiancée, Ellen. He could imagine tears spilling down her face, as she cried for him. “Yes, poor little14 one, it is hard to be young and beautiful and to love, without being able to see or to hear from the one one loves. When I think of them, all my beloved ones and the festival, I would rather cry, but I am hardened, the tears will not come. It is on such festive days that longing grips one, one surely does not know how well one is off as long as one is at home, it is only when one gets away that one misses it.. . .”
THEY CELEBRATED a memorable and moving holiday, one of the happiest times they had spent since leaving Esquimalt. McKinlay, Sandy, and Williamson dragged themselves from their bunks at 5:30 A.M. to decorate the saloon. They were bleary-eyed, but excited. December had been a stormy month, but Christmas morning was, miraculously, perfect. The wind had died down to a breeze, the temperature hovered somewhere between minus 13 degrees and minus 22.8 degrees Fahrenheit, cold but bearable now without the wind, and the stars were shining brightly.
McKinlay met the mate and the second engineer in the galley, where they knocked the sleep out of their eyes over a strong cup of tea. Then they went to the saloon where they rolled up their sleeves and did the best they could with the decorations. The brightly colored international code flags were unearthed and draped across the walls, hung from the deck above in festive fashion. For all these months, Hadley had been carrying a good supply of ribbon with him for trading, and now that he wouldn’t need it anymore, McKinlay and the others used it to tie up the room with red, white, and blue. They found a large piece of canvas, and on this they splashed Christmas greetings in red and blue paint, hanging it opposite Bartlett’s chair at the head of the table so that he would have the best view. So the other fellows would have something to look at as well, they grandly draped the Canadian ensign behind the captain’s chair.
When the “lie-a-beds,” as McKinlay dubbed them, had finally risen, they were amazed by what he and Sandy and Williamson had done with the saloon. It was a remarkable improvement. The worn and grimy ship, their home for just over six months, had always been dark, dirty, and depressing. The floor creaked and the air was dank and stuffy. But suddenly, all was brightness, cheer, and color, and the change was wonderful. The men felt their spirits lifting, and it actually felt like a holiday.
They had marmalade every other day with breakfast—something each man looked forward to—but for Christmas morning breakfast, they were treated to jam as well as marmalade. Afterward, the three weary decorators each napped for an hour before joining the rest of the ship’s company outside on the ice, dressed in their warmest clothes.
McKinlay had spent all of Christmas Eve planning the sports program with Sandy and Williamson. With deliberate care, they laid out the course for the obstacle race and the other races and marked areas for the shot-putting and jumping contests. It was going to be a big event, and for the first time staff and crew were participating together. Until then, everything—chess tournament, nightly gramophone concerts, meals, mess—had been separate, the sailors sticking to their quarters at the front of the ship, the Eskimos to the laboratory, and the staff and officers together at the back.
Fireman Breddy took the first event, the 100-yard sprint. Ten of the men competed, and three or four were injured on the treacherous snow, their mukluks tripping them up and making running difficult. The next two events were the long jump and the standing jump, both won easily by Mamen. As the best athlete on board, he was a fierce and feared competitor. But Bartlett took him aside in the days before Christmas and asked him to participate in only two events so that there would be prizes left for the other men.
When it came time for the sack race, they discovered that all of the sacks they had set aside were frozen, so they had to tie their legs and arms together to simulate what it was like being in one. Sandy came in an easy first, and afterward won the hop, step, and leap event as well.
They retired to the ship for coffee and a smoke because the cold weather froze the tobacco juice in their pipes, making it impossible to smoke outdoors. And then they were back at it in the afternoon, Breddy again winning the first event, this time the 50-yard sprint. Shot-putting was next, and Munro emerged triumphant, in spite of the fact that he had suffered a deep gash in his foot just that morning when he stepped on the jagged edge of a tin buried in the snow. It cut straight through his mukluks and pierced the skin. Dr. Mackay treated the wound, and Munro, now limping, returned to the games, determined not to let his injury interfere with his fun. Mamen also was injured, having twisted his bad knee, but not so badly that he couldn’t walk.
There was a comical hurdle race in which all the participants were disqualified. And then Sandy beat both Chafe and chief engineer Munro at the high jump, with a measurement of four feet four inches, not a bad height considering the uncooperative condition of the ice. The highlight for everyone was the obstacle race. McKinlay, Sandy, and Williamson had put great thought and effort into creating a challenging course. One of the obstacles was a snowdrift, which the men had to climb. Half of them slid down the sides repeatedly, unable to get up and over. The bowlines, too, proved treacherous, especially as McKinlay and his teammates had organized them in the most undignified and awkward positions they could contrive. Munro was the unlucky one, getting tangled up, and was left hanging suspended until they helped him down.
At the dredge house, each runner searched for the life belt with his name on it. The results were hilarious. Williamson and Kataktovik ran off with the wrong belts while Breddy found his, but raced off without getting it fastened. Sandy, meanwhile, discovered his belt lacked fastenings altogether, which was made even funnier by the fact that he was the one who had laid the belts out the night before. Chafe, who had fallen to last place throughout the race, was the only one who managed to secure his belt properly, so he ended up taking the prize.
They ended with the tug-of-war, since no sports program would be complete without one. The two teams from aft faced each other first. Bartlett, Hadley, McKinlay, Williamson, and Sandy pulled against Mackay, Beuchat, Malloch, Chafe, and Kataktovik. Bartlett’s team won the first and third pulls, which meant they went on to face the team from forward: Maurer, Breddy, Clam, Morris, and Kuraluk. After a ten-minute break for Bartlett’s group, they were sufficiently rested to win the first pull. The sailors won the second, though, and then Hadley had to retire because of a frostbitten foot, which meant Munro took his place on the captain’s team. With his injury, Munro couldn’t match Hadley’s wiry strength, and the sailors won again.
It was too dark and too cold then for anything else, so the men retired to the ship to rest and warm their frozen noses, fingers, and toes and to prepare for dinner. McKinlay had typed menu cards for everyone, and these he set at each place at the table. The table itself looked festive, with a small artificial Christmas tree as the centerpiece, and in place of their regular mismatched enameled ware, Templeman had brought out a new set of china. This in itself was a treat because usually there weren’t enough dishes for everyone; there were only nine bowls and seven cups, which meant one or two of them ate their soup from sugar basins. Likewise, there were only eight stools and two chairs, so that for all twelve officers and staff to sit down together, someone had to perch on a box or a canister of dynamite.
On Christmas night, however, they didn’t seem to notice. As they all took their places, Bartlett produced a bottle of whiskey and filled the glasses, giving only a drop to the teetotalers—himself and Malloch and McKinlay. Before either Malloch or McKinlay could protest even this small amount, Bartlett whispered that they must follow his example.
When asked once why he abstained from drinking, Bartlett had answered, “Because God gave15 me my body and I propose to take care of it.”
“But you drag your body all around and put it out in the cold and get it wet and do a lot of other things that damage it more than liquor would,” the inquisitive party pointed out.
“But every time I have a good reason to do so,” Bartlett replied.
Now, with just one drop of whiskey in his glass, Bartlett addressed the Karluk’s company. “Fellows16,” said the captain, “I want you to drink one toast. Stand, please.”
Everyone rose and held their glasses high, watching Bartlett expectantly. They had not had whiskey since crossing the Arctic Circle on July 27, except for the times Dr. Mackay prescribed it for seasickness, and they knew the significance of this event.
In a solemn voice, the captain continued, “To the loved ones at home.”
It was a heartfelt sentiment, and his words were met with silence. The glasses were raised, the whiskey drunk, and the men, too moved to speak, sat down again.
“What thoughts passed17 through our minds,” wrote McKinlay afterward. “For a spell no one moved or spoke; in spirit, we were, each of us, thousands of miles away. How were these loved ones faring? Were they all in good health? Were they prospering? We did not ask ourselves if they were thinking of us, for we knew that their thoughts would linger long on us that day. God grant that any news they may have received of our plight did not cause them any undue anxiety.”
After a silent blessing, the men dug into the meal before them. It was as grand and elaborate a feast as they could make from the provisions at hand: mixed pickles, sweet pickles, oyster soup, frozen lobster, bear steaks, ox tongue, potatoes (which had been saved from the start of the voyage for this very occasion), green peas, asparagus with cream sauce, mince pies, plum pudding, mixed nuts, tea, cake, and strawberries.
The men ate until they were stuffed, and afterward, as a special treat, they opened Christmas boxes which had been given to them by the ladies of Victoria, British Columbia, to save for the holiday. One of these contained an assortment of cakes, shortbread, sweets, cigars, cigarettes, and a harmonica for the “baby” of the expedition. It was handed to Mamen, who promptly tried his best to make it hum.
After their feast, the men retired for an hour of rest, rising again at 7:30 P.M. to continue the celebration. But all were exhausted, worn out from the unaccustomed physical exertion. They had no strength left for anything but smoking and listening to the gramophone, which they did until, one by one, they all gave in to sleep.
Mamen felt the pain from his knee injury later that night and discovered his kneecap had been dislocated. Dr. Mackay looked it over and treated it with iodine, but the young athlete suffered for most of the night. Still, nothing—not even this—could dull the excitement and joy of the day’s festivities. It had been, as Mamen noted, a happy day in all respects.
THE CRACKING OF THE ICE was like a gunshot, blasting through the silent blackness of their frozen world. They heard the report at 10:00 A.M. on December 26. It was the unmistakable rupturing of the ice. The sound was ominous and everyone rushed above deck to investigate. They had just finished breakfast, most of them lazy and sluggish after the celebration of the day before.
Now as they stood outside, a fresh southeast breeze building around them, they saw the long, spiraling crack in the ice along the entire length of the starboard side of the Karluk. The ice was pressing in so tightly around the sides of the ship—even breaking through the gangway—that the men were afraid she would be crushed that very moment.
They had dreaded this, had prayed against it. With their recent proximity to land, they knew the ship was now especially vulnerable to ice pressure, and Bartlett and his men were terrified that she would end up in the middle of a pressure ridge where she would, no doubt, be crushed once the ice began to move.
Murray and Beuchat swore, in loud and desperate words, that it would be the last of them, and most of the men were deathly frightened. All their plans, all those miles traveled, and here they were. If the ship were crushed, what would become of them? How would they ever get word to the outside world?
Everyone prepared to abandon ship. Pemmican was already laid out on the deck, some of it in the original cumbersome black tins, other portions sewn up in canvas bags. The Primus stoves had been boxed up, and the fuel and the biscuits and the other provisions were waiting on the ice floe that held them. Now the men transferred the tablets of tea into packages that would be easy to carry. Others picked up their sewing with an urgency they had not felt before. They dressed skins for trousers and shirts and prayed that the ship would last, at least until these garments were finished.
The dogs, on short rations now, and given cooked food only every three or four days, were turned loose in the snow so that they could move around and warm themselves. McKinlay and the Eskimos had constructed two shelters for the dogs on the ice, but the dogs showed no interest in either, preferring instead to stay on the open ice during the daytime, doubling up in a circle, nose under tail, remaining still for hours until the snow covered them.
That night, after the skins were sewn, the pemmican laid out on deck, the Primus stoves stored in boxes, and the tea tablets placed in packages, the men tried to sleep, the joy of Christmas now forgotten. The only traces that remained of the holiday were the many aches and pains from the strenuous exercise of the day before.
The next few weeks would be critical. On board the Karluk, everything suddenly seemed utterly cold, dark, and grim. Even the stove in the Cabin DeLuxe had gone out after supper that night, leaving the room bitterly chilled.
THE WIND DIED DOWN somewhat on December 27, but it was still blowing strong. The Karluk drifted steadily westward, and they were now, the captain calculated, just fifty-three miles from tiny Herald Island, which itself was approximately thirty-eight miles east of larger, albeit equally inhospitable, Wrangel Island. Malloch, taking his daily observations, thought he spotted land in the distance, rising up out of the snow and ice and fog. Sandy climbed to the crow’s nest but could see nothing. On deck, the men noticed a long, low cloud, which hovered over the horizon, suggesting the presence of either Herald or Wrangel Island. The men expected to sight either soon.
The sun was still slumbering below the horizon, but little by little the sky lightened every day. As their dark world grew a little brighter, the men were grateful for the reminder that the sun would not be gone forever. December 21 had held special significance for them, because it was the day the sun had reached its southern limit and begun its journey northward. “We should get18 our first sight of him in about 6 weeks from now,” wrote McKinlay. “People at home cannot realise the significance of this astronomical fact.”
Prizes were awarded to the winners of the Christmas sporting events, but this did little to take their minds off the ice. It was a constant, fearsome presence. Everywhere they looked, their world was ice. Indeed, the ship was only a dark speck in all that white.
The ice crashed, creaked, and groaned. The men had no rest from the unrelenting noise—the splintering roars and muffled rumblings. “I hope no19 catastrophe will come before we get the light back,” Mamen wrote.
According to the chronometer, they were now fifty miles north of Herald Island, and the Karluk, with each day, was still rapidly mimicking the drift of the Jeannette. Careful watch was kept in the barrel as they scoured the expansive white vista for land. They strained their eyes and peered through the field glasses; but the horizon was hazy and there was nothing in sight.
Midday on the twenty-ninth, Mamen was working on a pair of skin boots in the captain’s cabin, when Bartlett said, “I believe I20 saw land this morning. I saw the same indications yesterday.” There was not just the suggestion of land this time, but actual mountain peaks, which he could see in the distance from the crow’s nest.
Meanwhile, up on deck, McKinlay was reading his instruments and studying the icescape. The same low, long cloud hovered in the distance, and the magnetician strained his eyes in that direction until he was positive he could see a rugged peak, rising above the horizon.
“Is that land21 ahead?” he asked Sandy, who was just climbing down from the barrel.
McKinlay pointed toward the mountain peak and Sandy nodded. He had seen it from the lookout but didn’t think it could be seen from the deck. While Sandy took the news to the captain, McKinlay hailed all hands, but by the time they appeared a haze had crept in, obscuring the view. The “bloody scientist” received a lot of ribbing for it, because his shipmates assumed he was pulling a prank, but Sandy confirmed the sighting south-southwest of the ship.
A couple of hours later, the distinctive silhouettes of mountains rose out of the distance, with one peak soaring high above the rest. This, they speculated, was Wrangel Island’s highest point, Mount Berry, 2,500 feet above sea level, rising up out of the middle of the island. McKinlay once again summoned the nonbelievers, who gave a rousing cheer at the sight of land. If they could make it to land, they would be safe and they would not have to worry about being stranded on the ice, in the darkness, and in the cold.
They stood there, watching it until the darkness eventually seemed to swallow the island and its glorious peaks. From its appearance, the land seemed too large for Herald Island, which was noted in the Pilot Book as being only four miles long. The chronometers suggested it was Herald, but the chronometers had been inaccurate from the beginning of the voyage. The scientists and Bartlett concluded tentatively, therefore, that it must be Wrangel Island instead, especially since the depth agreed with the listed depth northeast of the island. Bartlett placed it at approximately longitude 177 degrees west.
The sighting of land came as a welcome surprise to the ship’s company, and it was all the inspiration Dr. Mackay, Murray, and Beuchat needed to put into motion their plans to set out on their own. Immediately, they began preparations to leave the Karluk, intent on reaching the island and waiting there for the arrival of a ship and the coming of hunters in summer or fall. Bartlett would not oppose their going, as much as he objected to any breaking up of the party. He recognized their resolve on the matter and was also quite sick of them. It would be, if anything, a relief to see them go. No one, however, looked on their departure with any great confidence or support.
The Karluk was drifting straight toward Wrangel Island, the land growing more and more visible, although still faint in the ever-present darkness. However, the closer they drifted toward land, the greater the ice pressure. Indeed the ice was now alive, churning and splintering, leaving long, dark chasms of water, and raftering onto other floes, severing in all directions around the ship. The men anxiously awaited a strong wind that was threatening to blow in from the northeast. If this happened, the ship would be in grave danger of being crushed.
They packed all the necessary stores and readied them for transfer to the nearby ice. Tea was soldered into thin-sheet tin cases, cooking pots were made by cutting down gasoline tins, and the sewing, as always, continued.
“In one way22 it looks as if it had been only a few weeks,” Mamen reflected, “but when I look back and think it over more closely it seems as if I had been here for years. . .. It is really a year since I left my dear home and fatherland. Yes, who thought then that I would land up in the Arctic, frozen in . . . without a possibility of getting out, drifting with the wind and currents. I wonder where I will be next year at this time, likely in the ice or on the bottom of the sea as food for the living things in the depths, or perhaps back again to civilization.”
ON THE LAST DAY of the year, the men were in dangerously low spirits, and as the Karluk drifted southeasterly, they tried to distract themselves with plans for a special New Year’s Day football match between Scotland and All Nations.
But mostly they reflected on their fates and wondered what the year ahead would bring. “The last day23 of the year, New Year’s Eve,” wrote Mamen in his diary. “Yes, the time goes, 1913 is gone and will never return. New Year’s Eve is quiet for us . . . but I have chosen this life myself and will have to be content with it. Well, I am content although it looks dark many a time, the perils threaten one continuously and one has to be wide awake and vigilant, but I hope everything will be well and . . . that the new year of 1914 will bring us better luck than the last one did.”
For the moment, the Karluk was safe. Locked fast in the ice, at the mercy of the Arctic drift, she had survived these four perilous months. But the end was clearly upon them.
At 11:30 P.M. on December 31, McKinlay and four of the others turned on the noisiest of their gramophone records and sang and danced, making as much commotion as possible in order to wake the ones who were already sleeping. This, on top of the bottle of whiskey given to them by the captain, roused the early-to-bed out of their comfortable bunks, and a party was begun.
The traditional sixteen bells were struck at midnight, welcoming in 1914. Afterward, McKinlay marched up and down the deck, “raising the devil24 with the dinner bell.” Then they joined together around the saloon table and—six months after setting sail for their great northern adventure—toasted the New Year, with whiskey for the drinkers and lime juice for the teetotalers. It was a toast of hope and ardent wishes for a safe and healthy future.
Munro and Murray were appointed to carry the good wishes and best greetings of the men to Bartlett, along with the rest of the whiskey and a box of candied fruit. They emerged sometime later from his cabin, having shared some cake and whiskey with the captain, much to the envy of their comrades. And then as Bartlett sat locked in his room and agonized over what was to be done, the rest of them rang in the New Year with recitations of poems by Robert Burns, and a heartfelt rendition of “Auld Lang Syne.”
Temporarily they could lay their fears aside, flushed with whiskey and cakes and the excitement of the New Year.