The Ice Master

by Jennifer Niven

  Bartlett and Kataktovik were only half a mile from Icy Spit when they were assaulted by the withering northwest wind, which gathered itself up until it was blowing with great ferocity. They couldn’t see more than a dozen yards ahead of them, but the snow was hard beneath their feet, which made that part of it good going. They followed the shore to Bruch Spit and stopped in the evening near Skeleton Island, where they built their igloo for the first night.

  As they followed the shore the next morning, they strained for any sign of the lost parties. So far, nothing, and conditions along the shore were discouraging. High cliffs plummeted down to the water’s edge, obliterating any sign of a beach. They passed Hooper Cairn, built by a group from the United States revenue cutter Corwin in 1881. They did not see any game, except for one raven and a lemming.

  The wind nearly knocked them off their feet at times, especially when they passed under the high cliffs, where the wind would sweep in after them as if trying to carry them away. A cloud of snow seemed to shroud the island permanently, which explained why Wrangel was always so hard to spot from Shipwreck Camp. The snow, mixed with pieces of shale from the cliffs and bits of sand, sliced at their cheeks, the only exposed part of their bodies.

  On the twentieth, two days after leaving Icy Spit, they crossed the spit on the south side of Rodger’s Harbour, which was on the southeastern shore of the island. Then they followed the beach, searching for encampments or signs of life. They had hoped that maybe, just maybe, Sandy and his party, or Dr. Mackay and his men had landed here. But again, there were no signs that anyone had been there before them.

  Bartlett had planned to head from Rodger’s Harbour across Long Strait, and then to Cape North on the Siberian coast, but he suddenly realized that they would have to take another route. The ice off the coast of the harbor had been pressed into great ridges, and valleys of snow swelled in between. Better to stick to the shoreline instead. To build a road through the ice rafters and chasms of snow would be too dangerous and would waste time they didn’t have to spend.

  Another decision had to be made then—whether to travel on the island or on the shore ice until the point where they had to head out across the sea ice. The surface of the land was rocky and rough, and the ice onshore was so jumbled and uneven that they needed a pickaxe just to get across. They were discouraged and weary, having journeyed for two days, and were still on the island, no nearer to Siberia than they were when they left Icy Spit, or so it felt.

  They tried again the next day to conquer the pressure ridges and valleys of snow. Surely, they could find a way through it. But they had to give up. They would just have to find another way.

  As they followed the shoreline westward, the conditions began to improve, so much in fact that they made it past Selfridge Bay and all the way to Blossom Point, at the southwest corner of the island.

  They were finally on their way, but they had seen no sign of the missing parties. Bartlett prayed that Sandy and Dr. Mackay would find their way to the others, and then he set his sights fully and finally toward Siberia. It would be a long haul across the ice, and he knew, by what he had seen already, what kind of conditions they were in for. The air ahead of them was heavy with condensation, which meant open water. Not a good sign. And at the edge of the stationary ice, just five miles from land, they ran into a towering ice ridge. It took them two hours to cut a road through.

  They slept in their snow goggles, just to get used to them. The goggles were vital out there in the high winds and the snow. A man could go blind without them. Bartlett’s left eye was already giving him trouble.

  Immediately after leaving Blossom Point, the captain and Kataktovik lost sight of the island. The sky was too overcast, the air too thick, and the snow, once again, covered it in a great shrouded blanket of white.

  THE CAPTAIN HAD ONLY been gone a few days when the dissension began. All the team spirit they had developed on the trail was quickly deteriorating and, without Bartlett to keep them at peace, the different personalities began to clash.

  Templeman had an unbridled tongue and an almost pathological capacity for lying, not to mention his excessive drug habit, which had been significantly curbed since they had been shipwrecked. Then there was Hadley, with his pungent way of speaking, and his gruff demeanor. McKinlay liked him in spite of it all; he was a good man to have on your side, but McKinlay tried to stay out of his way and to bother him as little as possible. And there was Munro, who seemed completely overwhelmed by his appointed charge.

  They began to quarrel, and the thing they quarreled most often and most violently over was food. The first bone of contention was the division of the biscuits. In all, they had five cases, each of which contained five hundred biscuits. Munro and McKinlay consulted and decided to distribute one case and an additional 214 biscuits to each party of four, and one case plus thirty-six biscuits to each party of three. This arrangement actually gave each man in the three-person party one-sixth of a biscuit more than the rest of them, but Williamson and Breddy, who were in one of the three-person parties, couldn’t seem to understand this. Instead, they demanded the biscuits be divided evenly among each group, regardless of the size of the party.

  There was much complaining, too, about the wasteful way in which the Eskimos were using their provisions. They burned the stove all day and smoked fresh tea instead of being frugal, seeming to think they would fall back on the other parties when their supplies had run out. The men blamed Hadley, who shared their igloo and who should have known better.

  They had begun to ration their food now, due to Munro’s failure to reach Shipwreck Camp. In McKinlay’s tent, McKinlay, Mamen, Malloch, and Templeman cut themselves down to five biscuits per day with one pound of pemmican. They were hopeful, though, because Templeman had taken a short walk earlier and found a feather on the ground. They couldn’t tell what type of bird it belonged to, but it was a good sign.

  Through it all, McKinlay acted as counsel to Munro, who sought his advice about everything. McKinlay was also called in frequently to smooth over hard feelings or difficulties. He was pleased to be of help, and happy to know that he had some influence with the other members of the party. It made him feel useful, and pleased that he was not letting the captain down.

  Per Bartlett’s instructions, Munro and McKinlay were planning a search trip to Herald Island to look for Sandy and the rest of his party, leaving in two days, no matter what the weather. Mamen, meanwhile, had asked Munro for permission to go to Rodger’s Harbour, seventy miles or so across the island on the southern coast. He would take Kuraluk and they would find the most suitable camping places along the way. Once everyone reconvened at Icy Spit, another attempt would be made at reaching Shipwreck Camp. None of the trips would last more than a week due to the shortage of dog feed.

  As the weather mercifully began to improve over the next few days, so did the health of some of the sick men. Williamson and Breddy were soon able to move around a bit. The healthier members of the party even managed, after a great deal of swearing and urging, to get Templeman and Malloch outside into the good weather, to dry out their skin clothing in the warm sunshine. The sky was clear, and for the first time, they could feel the warmth of the sun on their upturned faces. A pronounced wind still chased through now and then, awakening the drifts again, but it remained the best day they had seen in a long time.

  THERE HAD BEEN A CHANGE in plans, and now Malloch and Templeman were going with Mamen and Kuraluk to Rodger’s Harbour. They would set up a camp there, and afterward Mamen and Kuraluk would return with the dogs for the journey to Shipwreck Camp. The captain had instructed them, after all, to settle in different camps about the island, and Mamen argued that now was as good a time as any to do so. Mostly, though, he was sick to death of Munro and anxious to get away from him. McKinlay would join them as soon as he returned from Herald Island.

  On the morning of March 23, the men loaded up the sleds, and the two parties set out—Mamen, Malloch, Templeman, and Kuraluk for Rodger
’s Harbour, and Munro and McKinlay for Herald Island.

  THE ICE BETWEEN WRANGEL ISLAND and Siberia was always shifting and breaking up beneath their feet. Great leads of water surrounded them on all sides, and each step required thought and caution. It was the most treacherous kind of Arctic travel, and Bartlett and Kataktovik quickly developed a routine to get through it.

  The dogs and sled were left beside an open lane of water while Kataktovik headed in one direction and Bartlett took the other, searching for a point where they could cross. When they found one, the person who discovered it would fire a revolver or climb up to the nearest ice ridge and signal, providing the drifting snow and heavy fog allowed him to be seen. The ice didn’t always cooperate, God knows, and more often than not the best they could do was to find a place where the ice almost formed a bridge across the water. Then they would hurl the dogs over to the other side and drag the sled quickly as they jumped for it. When this wasn’t an option, they searched for a floating ice floe, which they could use as a sort of boat to transport them to the other side.

  It was lane after lane of open water and uncooperative ice, and it slowed down their journey immensely. So many times, the sled plunged through the young ice, soaking various provisions, including their sleeping gear. Whenever this happened, the dogs would huddle, terrified, in a pack, which was too much weight for the fragile ice beneath them. Bartlett was taxed, calling on all the experience he had ever gleaned as a Newfoundland sealer and an Arctic explorer.

  At night, they spent three quarters of an hour building their igloo and stayed up to mend their clothes, which were ripped every day on the ragged, jutting ice.

  At last the weather began to clear. And then, even better, they shot a seal in a lead of open water and Kataktovik retrieved him with a special device the Eskimos used for just such a thing. It was a large wooden ball, with hooks projecting from it, and a handle about ten inches long. Attached to this was a white cotton fishing line, fifty fathoms long, to which Kataktovik sometimes added lumps of ice to add weight and increase momentum. Then he would spin the contraption around by the handle and send it sailing out beyond the body of the seal. Drawing the line in, he would hook the seal and pull it to the edge of the ice floe. Lying down on his stomach, he then edged himself out over the thin ice to the water’s edge and hooked the seal. Bartlett stood back several feet, attached to Kataktovik by a rope, and as soon as he had the seal, the skipper would haul them both back onto the solid ice.

  The good weather came and went, and the light conditions suddenly worsened. Nights were restless and often sleepless, because the ice was constantly in motion; they were afraid of it splitting beneath them as they slept. To save time, they would forgo making snow roofs for their igloos and would use instead a small tent, which they weighed down with pemmican tins, snowshoes, snow blocks, and a rifle. One night, however, the wind blew so hard that it tore off the canvas roof and they were temporarily buried in snow.

  They had numerous problems with the dogs. They chewed through their harnesses and devoured anything in their path—clothing, sled lashings, provisions. Sometimes Bartlett had to tie their mouths to keep them from chewing themselves free.

  The dogs were fond of running off when they were unleashed; once the entire team got away from the sledge and started running over the trail, the harness dragging behind, in the direction of the island. Afraid that he and Kataktovik would be stranded without the dogs, Bartlett grabbed a pemmican tin and headed stealthily toward them, pretending to open it. The dogs watched him warily and then, drawn by the pemmican, crept back to him. Bartlett quickly took hold of the harness and they behaved for the next several hours.

  One night, Kataktovik gave a great shout as Bartlett was brushing the snow off their sleeping robes. There, at arm’s length, was the largest polar bear Bartlett had ever seen. At least thirteen feet from head to toe, the bear fell at the second shot of Bartlett’s rifle. He was an old bear, from what they could tell, a stunning creature. The skipper cut off a hind-quarter, which was all they could carry, and they had a generous helping of the raw meat because there was no time to cook it. The dogs had not even noticed the bear, a sign of how exhausted they were, and now they fed the animals all they could eat.

  The next morning, they discovered a wide lead that had opened during the night just near their camp. Splitting up as usual, Bartlett heading in one direction, and Kataktovik in the other, they searched to no avail for a crossing point. They met again at the sledge and decided to cross there. A thin layer of young ice filled the lead, too weak to hold a man, but workable, Bartlett thought. He remembered something he had learned among the Newfoundland sealers and figured it just might work here.

  Kataktovik was lighter than the captain, so he laid tent poles across the lead—just as Bartlett had seen the sealers do—and crawled over the young ice, a rope fastened around his middle so that Bartlett could pull him up and back if the ice broke.

  He reached the other side safely, and then they drew the sledge across with only a few of the provisions. Kataktovik unloaded these on the other side and sent back the empty sled, which Bartlett loaded with a few more items. They did this over and over again until all their stores rested on the other side of the ice. The dogs got across on their own, except for one that had to be tied and pulled across, given his penchant for running away. Then Bartlett lay face down on the empty sled and held on for dear life as Kataktovik threw the rope over his shoulder and ran as fast as he could, pulling Bartlett clear, just as the ice buckled.

  Afterward, they began the long, laborious job of digging their provisions out of the steadily drifting snow and loading them back onto the sledge. “It was a slow20 job,” Bartlett wrote. “Everything was white; boxes, bags, sleeping-robes, all the objects of our search, in fact, were blended into the one dead tone, so that the effect on the eye was as if one were walking in the dark instead of what passed technically for daylight. The drifts all looked level but the first thing we would know we would stumble into a gulch of raftered ice, heaped full of soft snow, or a crack in the ice, covered by a similar deceptive mass.”

  All in all, though, it had been the best day’s work they had done since leaving Wrangel Island. And that night, they were able for the first time to build their igloo on a solid and reliable floe of old ice. They had their first good night’s sleep, free—at least for the moment—of worry.

  BY EARLY AFTERNOON, McKinlay and Munro came within view of Herald Island, about fifteen miles due west of the northwest point of the island. There was no way they could get through. The ice here looked like the bad ice they had encountered on the journey from Shipwreck Camp to Wrangel Island. It had taken the entire party a week to build a road through that, and now, standing on top of a pinnacle of ice twenty-five feet high, they could see that this bad ice stretched clear to Herald Island. It was like some sort of tortuous obstacle course and it took their breath away. A trail would have to be cut to make the ice passable, and they knew, standing there, that it would be impossible for two of them to do it.

  McKinlay and Munro trained their binoculars on the island, scanning it for any signs of a camp or of human life. The glasses were powerful, and they could see the island clearly. But there was no Sandy, no Barker, no Brady, no Golightly. There was no Dr. Mackay or Murray or Beuchat or Morris. As far as they could see, there was no life at all. No means of living either. Herald Island was, indeed, little more than rock, and it was impossible to reach. They suspected then that their search was fruitless. Sandy was not there; they could see that.

  With heavy hearts, they turned back, retracing their steps, and made camp. They fed the dogs the rest of the pemmican before turning in, determined to return to Wrangel Island tomorrow.

  On the way back, one of the dogs collapsed, and McKinlay and Munro had to put him on the sled. They were pitiful creatures now, barely resembling the fine animals they were when Scotty Allen had sold them to Stefansson. They were skin and bones, weak, and voraciously hungry.

>   Back at Wrangel Island, McKinlay and Munro were told that Mamen and Kuraluk had quarreled on the journey to Rodger’s Harbour, and because of it, Kuraluk had returned. No one knew exactly what had happened, and the Eskimo wasn’t talking; so they were left to wonder what went wrong. On his way home, though, Kuraluk had shot a female bear and two cubs, which was the first good news they had had since reaching land.

  Mamen returned the next day, reporting that he had only gotten as far as Skeleton Island because Malloch was quite ill again and unable to go any further. He had left him there for the moment with Templeman and would return to them after the trip to Shipwreck Camp. He also said that the trouble with Kuraluk was over the building of an igloo, and that he had ordered the Eskimo to return to Icy Spit.

  Kuraluk and Munro set out the next day to retrieve the bear meat. It was a hard trip, heading into a gale blowing from the east; they walked against the wind, their eyes creased into slits, nearly shut from the blast of cold. Everyone else was too sick to go, including McKinlay, who was now planning to move into the big igloo with the rest of the invalids.

  When Munro and Kuraluk returned, they cooked up a grand feed of bear meat and bear broth in the battered pots Munro and Williamson had made from kerosene tins. It was, to everyone, a welcome relief from the pemmican, which they had been eating every day with little variation.

  On the last day of the month, Munro, Chafe, and Clam spent the day preparing to leave for Shipwreck Camp. Munro had decided it was time to make another attempt, now that Chafe and Clam were feeling better. They would take two sleds, the remaining twelve dogs, and their portion of the bear meat. Mamen, meanwhile, was preparing to return to Skeleton Island. He didn’t want to leave McKinlay, but Munro insisted he go back to look after Malloch and Templeman. So Mamen was to leave tomorrow, and McKinlay would have to suffer it out in the big igloo with the other sick men.