Tyson considered how different his feelings would be if they were drifting northward, into the Arctic night, instead of away from it. That would have been cheerless, if not altogether hopeless. Heading south, there was still hope they could make it if they had adequate daylight to hunt productively. He hoped yet to land safely on the coast of Labrador come spring or, better yet, to drift to the whaling grounds and have the good fortune to be picked up.
Two days after Christmas, Joe and Hans went hunting. They found the ice broken in many places and saw two seals but could not get them. The sun had not been seen in the sky since October, and they could see plainly in a kind of twilight for only about two hours in the middle of the day—an hour before and an hour after noon—and only then if the weather was clear.
That night Hannah tried to make a meal from a few pieces of dried sealskin she had saved for repairing clothing. Even after cooking, the remnants remained very tough. The natives had extremely strong teeth that could rip through almost anything, but when Tyson tried, his jaws ached as he chewed the old skin. They also ate all the refuse of the oil lamp: dried-out, burnt blubber. They were now willing to eat anything that would aid in sustaining life.
Hans shot a seal the next day but lost him. If they had been catching plenty of seal, such an accident would have gone unnoticed. But to the men, it seemed very stupid. Later that day Joe shot and killed a seal in a stretch of open water. As it floated away from him he shouted as loud as he could for his kayak, and some of the men carried it over to him. After getting in, he paddled off and was fortunate enough to bag his game.
It was a Greenland seal, a pretty creature when observed in its natural habitat. Its fur is a shiny white and beautifully spotted on the back and sides. It ordinarily weighs fifty to sixty pounds, and appears singly or in families.
To divide a seal properly, Eskimo-style, first the “blanket”—the skin, which includes the blubber—is taken off. It is inseparable as it comes from the creature, and is opened carefully in such a way as to prevent the blood from being lost. With the seal placed in such a position that the blood will run into the internal cavity, the blood is then scooped out and either saved for future use or passed around for each participant to drink a portion. The liver and heart, which the Eskimos consider delicacies, are divided equally so that all in the family get a piece. The brain is a tidbit, too, and is either reserved or divided. The eyes are given to the youngest child to eat. Then the flesh is cut up into equal portions, according to the size of the company. The entrails were usually scraped and allowed to freeze, and later eaten. The skins were usually saved by the natives for clothing, and also for many other domestic purposes, such as kayaks, the reins and harnesses for dog sleds, and tents. In fact, almost everything an Eskimo wore or used was furnished by the seal. Even the membranous tissues of the body were stretched and dried for the purpose of making semi transparent windows to their huts.
In their present circumstances of near starvation, they had but two uses for the seal: to eat it and reserve portions of the blubber for the lamps. The seal that Joe shot and recovered was but a small one, and when eighteen hungry people (the nineteenth, baby Charlie Polaris, was breast-feeding) were finished, there was nothing left but the skin and entrails. They would eat those, too, but not that night. The meal gave everybody new strength. The blubber derived from the little seal was almost invaluable to them for their lamps, and would last three weeks—warming their food and igloos, and providing light.
New Year’s Day, January 1, 1873, was the coldest day they had yet experienced on the floe: minus 29 degrees. If they had been well fed and better clothed, they would have thought less about it, but as it was, the bitter wind flayed one through and through, letting each person know every weak and sore spot in his abused body.
“We cannot join in the glad shout at the birth of another year,” Tyson wrote. “I have dined today on about two feet of frozen seal’s entrails and a small piece of congealed blubber. I only wish we had plenty of even that, but we have not.”
The natives went hunting every day as the light slowly increased, but were still thwarted by so little open water. On January 3, Joe found three seal holes in the ice, but it was so intensely cold that he could not stay to watch them. It stayed very cold for four days, making the ice firm and compact.
They were drifting in the widest part of Baffin Bay. Land to the west was still visible in the distance, now about eighty miles off, and solid ice extended in all directions as far as one could see. While there was more chance of open water on the Greenland or eastern side of the bay, Tyson knew there was little or no chance of the southward current taking them to it.
Provisions were disappearing faster than they should. Because Tyson distributed the rations, he knew there must be pilferage among the men, and as they were under no control, it did not surprise him. He would have set a round-the-clock watch to guard the stores if it was possible to stand the cold nights, but in their weakened condition it would have been fatal. Certainly, his own clothing—the same he had been wearing when he took to the ice that fateful night—was too thin to consider standing guard. He had been wintering without coat or pants, wearing only short breeches that went as far as the tops of his boots. None of the men had been willing to share with him any extra clothing they had, preferring to wear multiple layers for their own comfort.
Tyson was shocked to learn that the men were still planning to strike out for Greenland—next month, when they thought Disco would be due east and within reach, as they were told by their chosen adviser. They would not listen to reason or to anyone else. If they were risking only their own lives, the decision would have been bad enough, but the safety of the whole was imperiled, especially since they were determined to take the only boat. Having burned up one in their fires, they would not hesitate to appropriate the other.
On January 13, the thermometer stood at 40 degrees below zero. A gale came on for the next two days, bringing hope that it would open the ice for the hunters. When the wind abated three days later, the two Eskimos set off early for seals, which everyone prayed they would find.
Tyson recognized just how desperate their plight had become:
Jan. 16.1 hear a pleasant sound, because it is a promising one for water; the ice is pushing and grinding, which will surely open cracks. It seems strange to think of watching and waiting with pleasure for your foundations to break beneath you; but such is the case. In our circumstances, food is what we most want; with enough seal meat we can face all other sorts of danger, but with empty stomachs we are ill prepared to meet additional disaster.
At eleven-thirty that morning, he heard a glorious sound—a life-inspiring shout. The natives were calling for the kayak. That meant they had found water, and water meant seals.
Tyson called to the men to get the kayak. They had not yet turned out from their igloo to begin the day, and a long time passed before there was any response to his call. Eventually, help came, and they carried the little boat about a mile, where they found Joe and Hans and, nearby, a dead seal floating in the water. Joe quickly paddled out and retrieved it, and the small party returned to camp in triumph.
Upon their arrival, Tyson directed the seal be taken into Joe and Hannah’s igloo to be divided up. However, the Germans, led by John Kruger, one of the worst of the malcontents among the crew and a man whom Tyson had come to suspect was pilfering at least some of the stores, snatched the carcass and took it toward their own hut.
Tyson reached for his pistol—only to discover he had left it in the igloo. At that moment he realized he would have gladly killed Kruger where he stood, no doubt triggering a fatal gunfight.
With such evil intentions being openly displayed by the men, and short fuses possessed by all, Tyson realized it might be impossible to save the party—worthy and worthless alike—from disobedience and lawlessness.
The men divided the seal to suit themselves, and the division went hard on the Eskimos and their families, the very men who had h
unted day after day, in cold and storm, while these men lay idle on their backs or sat playing cards in the shelter of their igloos, mainly built by these same natives whom they wronged.
That night, Joe and Hans told Tyson that they had very often suffered before for the want of food in the North, but they had never before endured anything like the present circumstances. The daily allowance was not enough to furnish heat or enable their bodies to resist the cold. Considering that they were outside battling the elements so much more than the rest, walking around and hunting, they really ought to be given a larger allowance of food. Tyson gladly would have, but he knew it would cause open mutiny among the armed men, destroying any semblance of harmony.
Jan. 17. The natives are out as usual, hunting for seal. They only got a small portion of the meat and a little blubber of the one last caught, the men keeping an undue proportion for themselves. This way of managing discourages the hunters very much; they labor, and see others consuming the fruits of it. But they dare not say much, for they are afraid for their lives.
How the last two dogs continued to live Tyson did not know.
Attempting to hunt for their own food, on January 16 they had a skirmish with a bear and came limping into camp somewhat disabled. Two days later, Joe found signs on the floe that one of the dogs had encountered two bears earlier that morning, and evidently had held them at bay for some time. One of the bears must have struck the dog, because he came bleeding into camp with a superficial wound that needed treatment. That bears were rising from the water and wandering on the floe was a good sign: seal must be close by. And if a big bear could be shot, it would provide a bountiful addition to their impoverished larder, but alas, the hunting was equally bad for man and beast.
On January 19, Joe saw a number of seals, but the wind was blowing heavily and it was very cold at the time. He tried to shoot the closest one, but he was shaking so with the cold that he could not hold his gun steady, and his fingers were so numb that he could not feel the trigger of the gun. The seal escaped.
Later that day, a great and unexpected event occurred: the sun reappeared after an absence of eighty-three days. The previous year, when they were on board Polaris, it had been absent for one hundred and thirty-five days, but they were far south of the previous year’s winter quarters, so the sun had shown itself that much earlier.
Tyson happened to be the first to salute the rising orb. He had not been expecting it for several more days, and was therefore surprised as well as delighted. It was a blessed sight, giving happiness and renewed hope. The sun meant more than light to them, it meant better hunting, better health, relief from despondency—hope in every sense now that their path to rescue would be lit.
When the English steward, John Herron, came out of his hut and saw the sun shining for the first time, he broke into an impromptu jig. Tyson realized that it was the first display of merriment on the ice floe, so destitute had been their situation.
After the sun dipped down about one o’clock that afternoon, Tyson thought he could again see, in the gathering darkness, land to the west.
An hour later, Meyer, a fount of all knowledge for his German brethren, announced that they had drifted within a few miles of the land—that being the western coast of Greenland! And furthermore, they were exactly due west of Disco.
Meyer had a few navigational instruments; he had forbade anyone else from using them, and had even turned down Tyson’s request to take his own readings. Nevertheless, Tyson was certain that the meteorologist was mistaken as to their position, whether due to his inexperience in these waters, inexactness of the instruments, or his mishandling of them.
The men became anxious again to try for Greenland.
“We should not pass Disco,” Meyer said. “No other place will suit us as well. There’s food, tobacco, and rum there, left for us by Congress and already paid for.”
“We can take what we please!” added one of the men excitedly.
“Yes, indeed,” Meyer promised, as if the provisions left for the expedition by the U.S. Navy supply ship belonged personally to him.
“Listen to me,” Tyson said urgently. “Your lives depend on what I am to say. I have sailed these seas too often to be deceived about our course. As long as we are able to see land to the west, we cannot possibly be close to Greenland.”
Baffin Bay, he pointed out, was three hundred miles wide.
“Disco is a very high, rocky island,” Tyson went on. “You must recall that from our stop there. I have been there many times, and know all of the coast north and south of it well. Disco can easily be seen on a clear day at sea eighty miles distant.”
Tyson locked eyes with Meyer.
This arrogant self-professed “German count”—this man of such questionable wisdom—had caused Hall considerable trouble and been put down for it. Hall had had the power and authority to do so; Tyson did not. Since their commander’s untimely death, the German element, including the doctor, had assumed more control over the expedition. Tyson did not know whether Meyer intentionally wished to make trouble for him or not, but his illusions and misinformation had that effect on the men, and everyone else on the floe whose lives depended on calm and rational judgment.
Had Meyer by whatever quirk of fate been left on Polaris, Tyson was certain that the German seamen would have behaved better, for they would not have had anyone to mislead them. His influence over them was considerable because they thought of him as educated, as a scientist, and because he was also their countryman, they fancied he took more interest in their welfare.
Tyson went on to tell the men that he wanted to get off the ice as badly as they, but that their chance of making landfall would be much improved if they waited until next month, then tried for Holsteinborg, the next Danish settlement down the coast, two hundred miles south of Disco. “Not only will the drift probably take us closer to Holsteinborg, but the weather and ice conditions will be better for travel by small boat.”
The men listened, then filed silently back to their hut.
Tyson had no idea what they would decide. But he knew if they opted for killing themselves through stubbornness and stupidity, they would in all likelihood doom the rest of the party—men, women, and children—who had fought so hard to stay alive.
Charles Francis Hall, engraving based on the only known photograph of him, taken during the winter of 1870. (From the collection of Chauncey Loomis)
USS Polaris being fitted for her voyage to the Arctic at the Washington, D.C., Navy Yard. This is the only known photograph of the ship. (Smithsonian Institution)
George Tyson (ARCTIC EXPERIENCES, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1874)
Hannah, “Tookoolito” (NARRATIVE OF THE SECOND ARCTIC EXPEDITION COMMANDED Br CHARLES F. HALL, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1879. From the collection of Chauncey Loomis.)
Joe, “Eiberbing” (NARRATIVE OF THE SECOND ARCTIC EXPEDITION COMMANDED Br CHARLES F. HALL, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1879. From the collection of Chauncey Loomis.)
Captain Tyson and the Party Who Spent a Half Year on an Ice Floe (from left to right) Front row: Peter Johnson, Frederick Anthing In the boat: The Eskimos—Hannah, Joe, Punny, Merkut Hendrik, Succi Hendrik, Augustina Hendrik, Tobias Hendrik, Hans Hendrik, and William Jackson, the cook (seated on the boat)
Standing: Captain George Tyson, Gustavus Lindquist, William Nindemann, John Herron, John W.C. Kruger, Frederick Jamka, Sergeant Frederick Meyer (The Tyson Collection, National Archives)
Sidney O. Buddington (ARCTIC EXPERIENCES, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1874)
Dr. Emil Bessels (Photograph by Julius Ulke. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution)
Grave site of Charles Francis Hall. (Photograph by Chauncey Loomis)
Charles Francis Hall in his grave, 1968. (Photograph by Chauncey Loomis)
15
Terror and Beauty
Alone in the igloo he shared with Joe and Hannah, Tyson was startled when German seaman
John Kruger barged in uninvited.
Wearing a long-barreled pistol at his side, Kruger angrily accused Tyson of “spreading lies” about his stealing food and committing other improprieties. The seaman berated Tyson in the most foul and hateful language, even threatening him with personal violence.
Tyson did not have far to be pushed. Fed up with the likes of this troublemaker, whom he had been ready to shoot a few days earlier for seizing Joe’s seal catch, he coolly told Kruger that he was willing to let him try his “skill or luck” in any contest.
Tyson placed his hand on the butt of his loaded pistol.
Kruger, twenty-nine, seemed surprised by the overt challenge. He had apparently expected Tyson, older by more than a decade, to back down. When he left shortly thereafter, the seaman seemed to have shrunk a size or two. Perhaps, Tyson thought, he had been boasting to his cohorts about what he could do to the American officer and had been dared by them to act imprudently.
I know not how this business will end; but unless there is some change, I fear in a disastrous manner, Tyson wrote in his journal. They are like so many willful children—all wanting to do as they please, and none of them knowing what to do.
The next day, Tyson received word that the Germans had decided against trying for Greenland, at least for the time being. He found himself thinking the decision had less to do with their collective wisdom than the fact that they had been housed all winter, safely out of the worst elements and not having to fend for themselves. While in their igloo the men might talk bravely about their plans, but let them get out in the cold for a short time and all their pluck was frozen out of them.
For two days in a row Joe brought home game, a small seal on January 23 and a considerably larger one the next day. He had been obligated to go about six miles, hopping dangerously from one floe to another, until finding seal. Joe had staked out blow holes, and the moment a seal put up his snout to breathe, he was quickly speared.
Fatal North Page 17