Following the acquisition of Alaska, the trickle of Americans moving north swelled, and among the traders and entrepreneurs were also scientists and explorers, all seeking to learn more of the flora and fauna and of geological and geographic formations. The readily accessible coastal areas were a particular draw, as was the Bering Strait, with what lay beyond especially magnetic. The North Pole had hereto proven to be unreachable from the east, but access to it might be had from this western gateway.
Among the first to pass through that entrance on his way to the pole was Lieutenant Commander G.W. De Long. A resolute, strong-willed officer, De Long once sailed the waters off northern Greenland and had clearly heard the siren song of the Arctic. His story and that of his heroic crew are among the most dramatic in United States naval lore, indeed, of Arctic lore. And farfetched as it may be, it has its genesis at Lake Tanganyika in central Africa with the search for the celebrated Dr. Livingstone.
Livingstone was a Scottish missionary who in his twenties travelled to Africa to bring the word of the Lord to the natives. He spent the better portion of thirty years there not only preaching, but also exploring “the dark continent.” At one point six years passed without word from him or knowledge of his whereabouts — he became lost to the world. The British press picked up the story and milked it for all it was worth, inflaming public imagination, as well as raising every sort of speculation.
The excitement over the mystery flowed to America via the New York Herald, a paper owned by James Bennett, a flamboyant millionaire reputed for his eccentricities. (At the home of one Fifth Avenue dowager and no worse for wear, he distinguished himself by urinating in the fireplace.) Bennett knew a good story when he saw it, and this one captivated him. He resolved to unravel the mystery by financing an expedition to find the missing man — the Herald would hold exclusive rights to the tale.[6] To head the search he appointed Henry Stanley, a journalist with a penchant for global adventure. Legend has it that when Stanley asked Bennett how much money was available for the project, the latter replied, “Draw £1,000 and when you have gone through that, draw another £1,000, and when that is spent, draw another £1,000, and when you have finished that, draw another £1,000, and so on … but find Livingstone!”
Stanley fulfilled his commission. Accompanied by two hundred porters, he travelled seven hundred miles through tropical forests in equatorial heat, and on November 10, 1871, he encountered the missing man. It was there that the alleged celebrated exchange took place. “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?” he asked with characteristic Victorian courtesy. To which the other replied with similar reserve, “Yes, that’s my name.” The story made headlines worldwide, and the Herald bathed in the glory. Its circulation skyrocketed to eighty-four thousand and before long the paper was styling itself as “The most largely circulated journal in the world.” Such was Bennett’s brilliant success that he schemed for an equally spectacular follow-up, and thus came to be De Long’s ill-fated expedition to the North Pole.
Age-old wisdom had it that Arctic Ocean waters lying at a distance from coastal areas were ice-free. This assertion was forcefully endorsed by the eminent German cartographer of the time, August Petermann, Queen Victoria’s Geographer Royal. He advised Bennett that once having cleared Bering Strait, an expeditionary vessel would find itself in open waters free to sail to the North Pole. The warm Kuso-Siwo current flowing north from the Philippines past Japan and into the Arctic through the straits, he claimed, made a relatively easy passage possible. The hare-brained expert went on to suggest that Wrangel Island — a large island in the Chukchi Sea, some ninety miles from mainland Siberia — was in fact an extension of the Eurasian landmass that stretched north to the pole.
His mind made up, Bennett lost little time in getting on with it. He searched out and engaged thirty-four-year-old De Long and sent him to Britain to acquire a suitable vessel. This the officer did — the 430-ton barque Pandora, a former Royal Navy gunboat, and then the personal yacht of Sir Allan Young. At $6,000, the price was right and Bennett bought it, renaming it the Jeannette. It was then sailed to San Francisco for refitting in the naval shipyard. The enterprising publisher by that time had worked his influential Washington connections and had successfully persuaded Congress to pass a bill bringing the expedition under the jurisdiction of the Navy. The ship’s company was to be drawn from its ranks and the refit and procurement overseen by naval personnel. Bennett agreed to bear full costs of the project — an irregular partnership, indeed, one that was deeply resented by the Navy, which viewed the project as unwarranted civilian encroachment.
The Jeannette was a solid ship built to accommodate heavy cannons. With a length of 142 feet and a beam of twenty-five, she was powered by sail, but also capable of moving by steam. Shipyard carpenters pretty well gutted the vessel and set about reinforcing the hull with layer upon layer of pine planks — the finished hull grew to nineteen inches in thickness. Massive wooden beams, twelve by fourteen inches, were fitted athwartship to strengthen the sides; the old boiler was scrapped and replaced by a couple of new compact units; two updated engines were installed; coal storage capacity was increased by 50 percent; the quarters below-deck were renovated; and the entire ship was thoroughly insulated.
The ship’s complement was made up of five officers and twenty-eight men. Lieutenant Charles Chipp, De Long’s shipmate from a previous expedition to Greenland, was appointed second-in-command. Master John Danenhower came on board as navigator, George Melville as engineer, and James Ambler as the ship’s surgeon. Attached to the wardroom were three others: Jerome Collins from the staff of the Herald, Raymond Newcomb, a naturalist and taxidermist, and William Dunbar, the ice-pilot. As for the lower deck, De Long had clear views on the sort of man he wanted, as seen in his instructions to Chipp:
Single men, perfect health, considerable strength, perfect temperance, cheerfulness, ability to read and write English, prime seamen of course. Norwegians, Swedes and Danes preferred. Avoid English, Scotch and Irish. Refuse point-blank French, Italians and Spaniards. Pay to be Navy pay. Absolute and unhesitating obedience to every order, no matter what it may be.[7]
On July 8, 1878, following a week of banquets and farewells, the Jeannette put out to sea amid waving flags and cheering crowds. As she moved down the harbour, an Army band cheered them on with lively tunes, but a stony silence came from the Navy — not one ship saluted the Arctic-bound vessel. Thirty-five days later, they had reached St. Michael Island at the entrance of Bering Strait where they made their rendezvous with the Fanny A. Hyde. The supply schooner had been following the Jeannette in order to re-provision and re-coal her. The work was completed within a few days and a huge amount of other requirements was also brought on board: sixty-nine pairs of sealskin boots, three small native boats called baideras, forty Eskimo dogs, five dog sleds, forty sets of harness, and tons of compressed fish for dog food. Two Russian natives joined the ship, Alexsei and Aneguin, to attend the dogs and drive the sleds. The Fanny A. Hyde was ordered to follow a further distance in order to make one final refuelling down the line.
From the start, the dogs proved to be “the damnedest nuisance ever seen on board ship,” roaming free on the decks, snarling and fighting in pairs and in groups. Alexsei and Aneguin had their hands full as they beat them apart. When gale winds hit the vessel, it would heel badly and churning water would pour over the wretched creatures, which then scurried about, tails between legs, in search of shelter. One particularly vicious storm carried a rushing wall of water that hit the vessel with force enough to smash the windows of De Long’s cabin, flooding it and most of his belongings. That same wave also carried away the two toilets that had stood on the deck, a loss which subsequently proved to be more than distressing for the men.
By August 27, having passed the two Diomedes, the Jeannette was nearly clear of the Bering Strait and awaited the Fanny A. Hyde for a final transfer of coal. The refuelling process was backbreaking, but with the task completed, 132 tons of the stuff was stowed
in the bunkers below and an additional twenty-eight tons piled on deck. With a final farewell and many “hurrahs,” the supply schooner pushed off, carrying with it the last letters home from members of the crew. The Jeannette was now on its own at the gateway to the pole and ready to pursue its chosen path, and sail she did — to her doom.
As they progressed, Collins took daily readings of water temperature and to everyone’s chagrin they gave no evidence of the warm Kuso-Siwo current; day after day the temperatures remained constant, the same at one fathom as at twenty-five fathoms. Newcomb put out a dredge, but found none of the gathered sea-life specimens were symptomatic of tropical waters. Furthermore, as they progressed west along the coastline, the formations of ice grew thicker and more widespread. Herr Petermann’s assertions, it appeared, were dead wrong, and at this early stage more than one curse was thrown his way.
Early one September day with the mercury falling and ice building up all about, De Long gingerly squeezed and butted the Jeannette through the floes under steam. By four o’clock, a heavy fog had set in and visibility became nil; to proceed farther was folly. They would wait out twenty-four hours, hoping that the fog would clear. Orders were given for the ice anchors to be run out and in order to save coal, the boilers were shut down. During the night, the temperature fell to 23°F and as morning dawned they found themselves solidly encased and surrounded by ice as far as the eye could see. Once steam was gotten up again, effort was made to break the bond; engines were driven full ahead and then full astern with no result — the ship would not dislodge. By the evening of September 6, 1879, the helpless Jeannette was immobile, firmly frozen into the Arctic ice pack — and so it remained for nearly two years.
The path of the Jeannette as it was carried by the floes from September 6, 1879 to the time of its sinking two years later. The broken line traces the route the survivors took as they made their way to the Siberian mainland.
Map by Cameron McLeod Jones.
To make matters worse, on the following day a submerged tongue of ice projected below the hull and heaved up the port side, causing a nine degree list to starboard and making work hazardous on the slippery, ice-covered deck. The same underwater projection also immobilized the two-ton rudder by ramming it hard to starboard. The temperature fell to 16°F, the crew’s efforts to free the vessel even more gruelling. Only so much work with drills, axes, and saws could be undertaken before having to break to warm up in the ship’s 50°F interior. The ice continued to accumulate and by the week’s end it measured nearly fifteen feet thick.
With currents carrying the imprisoning ice pack northwest and the Jeannette’s hull continuing to withstand intense pressures, life on board for the men settled into a routine. Watches were kept; meteorological, astronomical, and magnetic observations recorded; dogs exercised; hunting expeditions organized on the floes; and daily positions taken. Weeks passed into months and by mid-December De Long began to worry over the possible appearance of scurvy — no Arctic expedition had yet been free of the dreaded illness. It was common knowledge that proper diet, salt-free water, and exercise were the best preventative measures. They had on board an ample reserve of lime juice, but that was not enough, he reckoned. Exercise was essential, and he issued the following order:
Until the arrival of spring, and on each day without exception, when the temperature is above thirty degrees below zero, the ship will be cleared regularly by all hands from eleven a.m. till one p.m. During this period every officer and man will leave the ship for exercise on the ice, which should be as vigorous as possible. No one except the officer entering the noon observations in the log will for any purpose during this period return to the ship
(signed) George Washington De Long, Commanding
Diarrhea, however, did hit the ship with a vengeance and incapacitated many. In addition to suffering from fatigue, which the sickness engenders, the unfortunate men had to endure the extreme discomfort of having to get up in the middle of the night to dash half-dressed across rough ice in sub-zero temperatures to the canvas privies set up at a distance — such was the pain inflicted by the wave that had swept away the two upper-deck toilets.
Dr. Ambler determined that the cause of the diarrhea was impure drinking water. By early December their supply of fresh water had been nearly depleted. Since Petermann had assured them that “beginning at a certain thickness the ice is almost free of salt” and therefore easily made into water, only so much had been brought on board. Having discovered that sea ice was in fact heavy with salt throughout, they turned to melting snow. What was consumed seemed clear and had an acceptable taste, but upon testing Dr. Ambler discovered an excessive saline content. Snowfall in those parts was paltry and the stuff they had been gathering lay too close to the sea ice. If snow was not the answer, distillation was, and in quick order Melville and his men fashioned an effective still. Its drawback was that for the generation of steam the ship’s boilers consumed large amounts of coal. Only ninety tons of the “black diamonds” remained, and the needs of the cook were indisputable, as well as that of the heating plant — without heat, certain death. Furthermore with depleted bunkers, how would the Jeannette ever make it to the pole once it became freed? Coal had to be rationed. The question then: how much water was necessary to meet minimum requirements? The answer, Melville calculated, was forty gallons a day or about a gallon and a quarter per person, “the irreducible quantity.”
Stored below deck was a small boiler designed to steam-power the generator for “Edison’s newfangled carbon lamps.” This was harnessed to a makeshift condenser and the flow of water began with minimal expenditure of coal. In their second Arctic winter, however, when the supply was near gone, the irreducible was reduced. The primitive windmill jerry-rigged to power the boiler did work, but it was insufficient.
Christmas: “the dreariest day I ever spent,” wrote De Long. The officers gathered in the wardroom, a morose lot indeed, as thoughts turned to wives and family, to roaring fireplaces, bright decorations, and festive tables laden with fine foods. Overhead, the ceiling’s insulating felt drooped with frost and moisture; the sloping deck was saturated with condensation dripping from the walls; the permeating smell of dampness and the unwashed hung heavy. A single flickering flame of a smoky lamp broke the gloom, as glasses of Irish whisky were raised in a toast to loved ones. De Long sent three quarts of the precious liquid to the deckhands below “to inject conviviality.”
In early November, Danenhower had begun to complain to Ambler of an eye difficulty, which the surgeon tried by various mean to attend. The surgeon concluded that the condition was “syphilitic iritis,” a deep-seated inflammation of the inner eye. By New Year’s, the swelling had grown severe enough to place the suffering navigator in a pitch-black cabin for total eye rest, but within days the painful condition intensified. The murky substance developing over the stricken eye was growing thicker and beginning to cause the iris to adhere to the lens. The situation grew critical enough for Ambler to contemplate cutting into the eye to relieve it from the sight-threatening viscidity.
As Ambler pondered the situation further, the heavy ice welded to the Jeannette’s hull heaved abruptly with a thunderous clap, throwing everyone on board into momentary panic. The noise had resounded unlike any other cracking of ice heard before, but then, just as suddenly an eerie silence descended and the crew breathed sighs of relief. The moment of relaxation, however, was shattered by the appearance of a stoker from below yelling that water was flooding the engine room. Despite the solidly reinforced hull and massive beams supporting it, the ship’s sides had been punctured by the ramming ice. It was reckoned that the initial flow of water was sixty gallons per minute.
All hands sprung to work. Hand pumps were manned as the boiler was fired up to run the steam pumps. A bucket brigade was organized, and another group painstakingly hauled food stores and perishable goods from below. The outside temperature had fallen to -40°F, causing scuppers, hoses, and pipelines to choke. Since much of the labo
ur involved handling iron, the freeze made work that much more painful. The men struggling in the bilge suffered most as they laboured in waist-high water to stem the flow by stuffing caulking into the openings. Eventually matters were brought under control and the immediate crises passed. Weeks earlier, De Long took precautionary measures in the event of having to abandon ship. A forty-day supply of food was assembled on deck, the ship’s cutters and whaleboats were prepared for lowering, the dinghies secured to the sleds, and every man had a knapsack and sleeping bag at the ready. Thankfully the measures proved unnecessary for the moment.
While the men scurried about and pumps clanked and shuddered, Danenhower continued to suffer in dark isolation. Ambler visited him and found his condition considerably deteriorated, so much so that he informed De Long and the patient that unless surgery was performed immediately, sight in the left eye would be lost. The agonized officer agreed and the procedure got underway. Imagine the situation: Danenhower prone on the bunk of his dingy, feebly-heated cabin; deck at a nine-degree list with pumps clamouring; no ophthalmological equipment, merely a magnifying glass and scalpel; insufficient morphine and limited stock of brandy. Two sailors gripped the patient’s arms and a third took his legs as Ambler’s half-numbed fingers punctured the cornea to explore the inner eye.
It was a successful operation, as noted succinctly in Ambler’s record: “Performed paracentesis and let out a lot of turbid fluid, operating on the temporal side.” De Long’s notation is more fulfilling: the operation “was beautifully performed by Doctor Ambler and borne with heroic endurance. I hardly know which to admire most, the skill and celerity of the surgeon or the nerve and endurance of Danenhower.” Such was the mettle of the Jeannette’s men.
Arctic Obsession Page 20
