To the Ends of the Earth

by John V. H. Dippel

  At the poles, explorers found themselves caught between what they felt they ought to do and what they had to do. Conflicts between personal ambition and group well-being, between moral rectitude and self-preservation, forced them to make painful choices and then live with the consequences of their decisions. Many returned home with permanent psychological and emotional scars. The various ways in which polar explorers reacted to the extraordinary challenges posed by conditions in the Arctic and Antarctic—how they wrestled with competing imperatives to survive and remain true to their convictions, and how this struggle changed them and, indirectly, the countries that had sent them there—is the subject of this book. In it, I have attempted to understand the explorers’ responses within their historical and cultural contexts, looking at a number of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century expeditions to show how their experiences affected Western notions of courage, morality, conquest, progress, and human capability. Like the knights of medieval legend, polar explorers went forth into unknown territory, faced great obstacles, displayed great courage, and returned home to be greeted as heroes. But, unlike these mythical avatars, the men who went toward the poles did not come back with the same confidence and inner strength. Something precious had been left there. These explorers brought back a different outlook about what humans could achieve, and what they could not.

  The steamship bearing the body of thirty-six-year-old Elisha Kent Kane arrived in New Orleans on February 23, 1857, after having been seen off in Havana—where he had succumbed to a long-weakened heart—by a solemn procession of some eight hundred Cubans, Americans, and other foreigners, led by the governor of the island. In the Louisiana port, the ship was met by a host of dignitaries, and the coffin transferred under military escort to the city hall, where it lay in state before being carried by twelve pallbearers, accompanied by members of the Masonic Order, the Sons of St. George, various civic organizations, diplomats, and elected officials, past a hushed throng of some six thousand persons, to another waiting vessel for the long and winding journey up the Mississippi and then the Ohio and on from there by train to its final stop in Philadelphia—an odyssey lasting four weeks and passing through thirteen states, making it the largest and most elaborate funeral procession the country had thus far witnessed.

  Along this route “whenever it was possible the attempt was made by the people to give expression to the respect which the lofty character and ennobling services of the deceased had excited.”1 The turnout was astonishing. Clustered on the wooded riverbanks, large crowds came to stare and bow their heads reverently to the passing ship and its precious cargo. In death, as in life, the spirit of Kane remained in constant motion, ever seeking new worlds to conquer, ever fascinating. In Louisville and Cincinnati, the Woodruff tied up at the wharf, and thousands more—rich and poor alike—turned out downtown to pay their respects, showing how wide a range of Americans had been touched by Kane's courageous and audacious exploits.2 Speech after speech lauded this beloved hero, who had reached places on earth never before visited by humans and survived unspeakable hardship to return to tell his tale. Flowery encomiums from all over the country hailed his ‘indomitable courage, his untiring zeal, his enthusiastic love of science, and his sympathy for the suffering.”3

  After being taken by rail to Ohio's state capital, Columbus, where so many mourners attempted to cram inside the senate chamber that half of them had to be turned way, Kane's body continued its way by train and boat eastward, on to Philadelphia. During its stopover in Baltimore, “the streets were walled with people, whilst windows, balconies and rooftops were occupied by spectators” in the largest public grieving in the city's history. Early on the morning of March 12, the day the funeral train arrived in his hometown, the streets were oddly quiet, flags hung at half-mast and black bunting adorned shop fronts and windowsills. Before noon the crowd outside Independence Hall had massed so densely that late arrivals could not get anywhere near the doors. They had to crane their necks to catch a glimpse of the entourage bearing Kane's flag-draped casket as it moved slowly atop a black-domed funeral car, drawn by six black horses, toward the soaring Corinthian columns of the Second Presbyterian Church and the nearby cemetery that was to be his final resting place. The eulogy was delivered before a hushed gathering by a fellow Mason from New York, E. W. Andrews, who spoke for over an hour, recounting the legendary feats of moral courage, scientific discovery, and sheer daring that had distinguished Kane's short but extraordinary life—from descending by rope into the crater of an active volcano in the Philippines, to saving the life of a Mexican general, to braving the subfreezing temperatures of the Arctic in search of Sir John Franklin and his men, to discovering the long-dreamed-of “Open Polar Sea”; Andrews paid fulsome homage to Kane's physical and mental energy—“a capacity for labor—a power of endurance—a resoluteness of purpose and an iron will, such as the stoutest and strongest, the Goliaths of earth, have rarely shown.”4

  Not until the death of Abraham Lincoln eight years later would there be another such national outpouring of grief. Without exaggeration, it could be said that America had lost one of its most illustrious and most admired sons—a man whose deeds and character epitomized all that the country aspired to be. But who was this young doctor from Philadelphia, of diminutive stature and frail constitution, and why had his life and death touched millions so deeply? And why is he all but forgotten today? To answer these questions, one has to go back to the era that produced Kane and understand what it longed for in its heroes.

  By the middle of the nineteenth century, the United States was like a giddy teenager going through an awkward growth spurt. Over the previous decade its population had swelled by nearly 36 percent, reaching twenty-three million. The growth of factories in New England was spurring a transition from agriculture to manufacturing, with both sectors now producing roughly the same amount of income. In terms of wealth, the new nation was rapidly closing the gap with major European powers like England and Germany. Geographically, the United States had expanded westward all the way to the Pacific, gobbling up huge territories that added over a million square miles to its dominion—more than the total area of Western Europe, including Scandinavia—thus fulfilling its Manifest Destiny. But, despite all these material gains, America remained internally divided, insecure, and uncertain about its place in the world. Long-simmering tensions over slavery were coming to a head, with newly acquired Western territories turning into battlegrounds for deciding the nation's racial makeup. Whether or not the nation could remain united was now an open question: most people still used the plural form in referring to their country, as in “The United States were developing rapidly.”5 Diplomatically, the government had declared its right to dominate the Western Hemisphere under the Monroe Doctrine, but it had not yet promulgated a vision for dealing with the wider world. For the time being, the young republic was too self-preoccupied to do that. It was an optimistic age, but also a perilous one, as many fundamental issues had still to be resolved and there was little agreement about how to go about building the future.

  The United States was by no means alone in achieving tremendous domestic progress and economic growth while, at the same time, being beset by political and international conflicts. In countries like England, France, Denmark, Holland, and Germany, industrialization had widened the gap between rich and poor and created resentment and demands for reform. In 1848, revolutions occurred in several European states, with two monarchies being overthrown and serfs freed in Austro-Hungary. The Congress of Vienna (1814) had created a durable framework for order and peace in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, but national rivalries and territorial ambitions persisted. As so often happens, beleaguered and unpopular governments looked for ways to divert unhappy subjects from challenging their authority by cultivating patriotism and national pride. Overseas exploration and colonization served this need well. Planting the flag on distant shores attested to a country's collective will, prowess, and courage. Foreign conquest gave milit
ary forces a chance to hone their skills and display their might. Far-flung empires raised a nation's profile and made its people feel superior. “Surplus” population—unfortunates left out of the Industrial Revolution—could be siphoned off to these faraway lands to reduce unemployment and unrest at home. Concomitantly, undeveloped corners of the world promised new raw materials, trade partners, and investment prospects. In addition, bringing “civilization” to “less advanced” peoples fulfilled a moral imperative to “enlighten” less fortunate peoples and help them advance. All this could be accomplished without risking the kind of devastating internecine war that had ravaged the Continent during the century's early decades. Thus, starting with England's opium wars in China in the 1830s, a New Imperialism informed the foreign policies of many European countries. In intent as well as in consequence, this ideology mirrored the expansionist impulse that was propelling frontiersmen, farmers, and cavalry troops over the Rocky Mountains.

  For ambitious, adventuresome, and able-bodied young men, the conquering and settling of new lands brought enticing opportunities to prove themselves, make good money, widen their horizons, and escape a humdrum and often impoverished life. With their formidable navy and prosperous economy, the British had taken the lead in dispatching missions to the Far East and elsewhere.

  Among the places that caught their eyes early on were the largely unexplored polar caps. These regions had fascinated Europeans as far back as the days of the ancient Greeks and the Vikings. During the more recent Age of Discovery (which commenced with Columbus's voyages to the New World), English explorers had searched in vain for a Northwest Passage that would provide a shorter commercial route to the Pacific. Sea journeys by the Italian John Cabot, Henry Hudson, William Baffin, and Martin Frobisher had probed the periphery of the Arctic and aroused popular curiosity about what might lie beyond. Some had envisioned vast (mineral) riches, others a “lost civilization” and tropical paradise at the top of the world.6 (Leading geographers reasoned that the North Pole would be free of ice and warmer than anywhere else because the sun shone constantly there for part of the year.) Early in the nineteenth century, English fascination with this fanciful hyperborean realm was rekindled, largely thanks to the efforts of an old China Hand and colonial administrator named Sir John Barrow.

  Barrow—an accomplished painter, cartographer, diplomat, and travel writer, as well as a founder of the Royal Geographical Society—had been appointed Second Secretary to the Admiralty in 1804 and happily held that position for the next forty years. Once the wars with France had ended, he realized that the Royal Navy had lost its raison d’être: hundreds of still-commissioned warships were bobbing at their moorings, their crews idle or demobilized, many of their officers forced into retirement, and the remaining ones dispirited, with no prospect of making a good career at sea.7 (Indeed, British men-o’-war would not take part in any major battles between 1827 and 1914.) When a whaling captain reported in 1817 that Arctic waters along the coast of Greenland had been unusually free of ice the previous two years, Barrow jumped at the idea of sending ships northward to search—once again—for the fabled Northwest Passage, and perhaps even reach the North Pole. After having caught a tantalizing glimpse of the fogbound Far North from the deck of a whaler when he was only in his teens, Barrow had contracted an incurable dose of “Arctic fever.”8 Now he was convinced that the earth was entering a warming phase, and that this was thus a propitious moment for voyages into the unknown.9 As a contemporary of his would write a few years later, Barrow hoped to revive “that bold and masculine spirit of discovery which, disdaining danger, seeks to extend the knowledge and dominion of man to the utmost limits of the globe he inhabits.”10 In the past, the British people had “derived much glory…from such enterprises; and it is in some sort a national duty to foster them—conducing, as they do, not merely to the extension of knowledge, but also to the life and energy of the national character.” Unfortunately, the ships dispatched by the Admiralty in 1818 encountered conditions much less favorable than those they had expected. One party—with one vessel commanded by David Buchan, the other by Lieutenant John Franklin—found ice in June already clogging the waters around the island of Spitsbergen, off the northernmost coast of Norway. Buchan's ship, HMS Dorothea, was trapped after going only thirty miles further north. The Scottish lieutenant then gave up and headed back to England, with a frustrated Franklin reluctantly trailing along in his wake. Meanwhile, another expedition, this one led by John Ross, crept up along the eastern coast of Baffin Bay, also in search of the Northwest Passage, but had to turn back when Ross spotted what he mistakenly took to be a mountain range blocking his way. It turned out to be only a mirage.

  Neither expedition had made any significant discoveries, but, thanks to Barrow's felicitous pen, their adventures were soon added to the pantheon of heroic British Arctic narratives stretching back more than two centuries. In a volume he published that very same year, A Chronological History of Voyages into the Arctic Regions, Barrow reminded his readers of their illustrious seagoing tradition, noting that even these recent failures could not detract from the courage and fortitude they had exhibited in increasing knowledge about this mysterious part of the planet.11 In so linking the legendary feats of yesteryear with the relatively modest ones of his own day, Barrow set a hagiographical tone for later books about polar explorers, encouraging his contemporaries to think of their era as more momentous than they might have felt it was—to soar in their minds and hearts higher and further, as brave seafarers were doing in Arctic waters. Much like Antonio in Shakespeare's The Tempest, he urged them to embrace a greater destiny by believing that “What's past is prologue.”

  More in love with this mystique than interested in the actual facts, a British public hungry for heroes in a dull and listless time responded to this appeal with great enthusiasm. They snatched up copies of Barrow's book and became mesmerized by the fate of polar expeditions that had set sail after Buchan's and Ross's ships. When William Edward Parry, who had accompanied Ross on his fruitless journey through Baffin Bay, returned to the Arctic the following year to “clear up the Ross fiasco,” he kept a journal.12 When he was preparing this account for publication, Parry thought about emulating Barrow and including a summary of earlier Arctic expeditions to immodestly point how his one voyage had surpassed the “repeated exertions of two centuries” in locating the likely entrance to the Northwest Passage.13 But space limitations prevented him from doing so. Despite Parry's leaden, career officer's prose, the public was “thrilled” by his richly illustrated depiction of dodging huge icebergs, “warping” (hauling) his two ships through channels in the ice, observing dazzling auroras, groping through blinding snowstorms, and shooting walruses, polar bears, musk ox, and white whales.14 Readers were predisposed to fill in the blanks in his account with their own vivid imaginings of what the Arctic must be like. (So were artists like the German Caspar David Friedrich, whose dramatic rendering of one of Parry's ships heeled over and crushed by massive ramparts of ice—Das Eismeer—was so unsettling that it went unsold until after Friedrich's death.) Evincing the same insatiable appetite, the British public devoured hundreds of newspaper articles about the ships dispatched northward by the Admiralty during the next two decades—twelve expeditions all told. Arctic devotees read whatever books they could get their hands on, went to plays, visited art exhibitions, and attended lectures, almost compulsively absorbing all the drama and romance the Far North had to offer.15 Neither the explorers’ frequent failures nor the severe deprivation they suffered could dampen this public ardor.

  If anything, the descriptions of horrendous Arctic conditions only increased readers’ fascination. Dealing with such an implacably hostile environment connected these explorers with a long tradition of stoic perseverance and self-sacrifice in British legend and history, going back as far as Arthurian knights and exemplified more recently by the death of Lord Nelson at Trafalgar. Polar expeditions honored a “growing belief in the Englishman's abilit
y to survive anywhere and to triumph over any adversity through faith, scientific objectivity, and superior spirit.”16 Hardship and pain were the explorer's inseparable companions, the test of his mettle. As modern-day fables, these Arctic adventures mattered more for what they attempted than what they actually attained. For in the striving character was revealed, and character—British character—was what really mattered. The various reasons put forth as official justification for further exploration—charting a trade route to the East, hunting for whales, reaching the Open Polar Sea, compiling information about wind currents, temperatures, and astronomical phenomena, mapping the coastlines, attaining a new Farthest North or reaching the Pole itself—appeared to be means for achieving that greater end.17

  The public perceived the Arctic explorer as a romantic figure who fulfilled its need for larger-than-life heroes. Regardless of whether he succeeded or failed, he was idealized. But fame brought him concrete rewards as well. His exploits were a highly marketable commodity, with booksellers lining up to offer him contracts. For example, the eminent London publisher John Murray II forked over one thousand guineas—over $100 thousand in today's money—for the rights to print Parry's journal. (Murray had a keen eye for profitable romantic tales, having published wildly popular works by Walter Scott, Jane Austen, and Washington Irving. A few years before, his edition of Byron's Prisoner of Chillon and Other Poems had sold seven thousand copies in just one week.) An admiring Parliament offered Parry £5 thousand—or about $500 thousand now—in prize money if he made it as far as 110 degrees west longitude in his quest for the Northwest Passage. (Shortly after his return from this voyage, the explorer was also promoted to the rank of commander and made a Fellow of the Royal Society.) In addition to the government, there were plenty of wealthy individuals eager to bankroll Arctic explorers—newspaper editors, lecture-circuit promoters, philanthropists, and industrialists alike.