Trial by Ice

by Richard Parry

  With each dropping degree in core temperature, the body fights desperately to keep the heart warm. Over eons the human organism has learned to make hard choices to survive. Without a beating heart, life ceases. What are a few fingers or toes compared to the pumping heart? Chill the heart below 90°F and it fibrillates. Death quickly follows. So when faced with its temperature dropping, the body begins to circulate its warming blood in an ever-tightening circle close to the heart, shunting the warmth away from areas of lesser importance to survival and those sites most likely to lose that vital heat.

  The skin, fingers, limbsall have their circulation drastically curtailed. The cerebral cortex, a comparatively new addition to the brain, is also on the hit list. That regionwhich is responsible for thought, judgment, and reason and separates man from animalranks below the brain stem, which processes vital functions. With hypothermia blood shunts away from the cortex, impairing clear thought.

  Panic set in. Tantalizingly, the clouds of snow parted just enough to offer them a glimpse of their ship. Befuddled and robbed of clear thought, the men broke into a terrified run. Stumbling, falling, slipping, they stampeded toward the Polaris.

  The fortunate Meyer and Bryan wore Inuit mukluks, light and designed for the ice. Tough oogrik hide lined the soles of these boots. On some the natives sew a strip of sealskin along the bottom with the hairs facing backward. With each step the hairs grip the ice and resist sliding backward yet easily slip on the forward motionthe precursor of modern waxless cross-country skis. A skilled hunter can skim across the ice using his mukluks like skates.

  Unfortunately the two men had neglected to tighten the drawstrings at the tops of their knee-high boots. When they fell through the ice, seawater rushed inside. Being waterproof works both ways. While the mukluks kept the water inside from freezing and prevented frostbite, the weight of several pounds of water sloshing around with each step added to the men's exhaustion.

  Joseph Mauch wore heavy leather boots, which had become soaked through. Ice encrusted the tops and soles, adding pounds to the already cumbersome boots and making the smooth leather bottoms slick as polished glass.

  In the race to safety, Mauch fell farther and farther behind. The other two sped on without thought for their companion's safety. It was every man for himself. Soon Mauch vanished behind them.

  Meyer and Bryan reached the Polaris at one-thirty in the morning. Layered in ice, the young theologian collapsed and was carried unconscious to his bunk. Heated water bottles and cloths were applied to his chest and under his arms while Hall paced about anxiously.

  Modern methods of treating hypothermia use warmed intravenous fluids, heated gases from a respirator, and even warmed fluids via peritoneal dialysis. When the core temperature drops too low, external heat is essential to rewarm the body.

  During the rewarming process, dangerous shifts of potassium out of the cells occur, which can lead to fatal cardiac arrhythmia.

  One well-documented case involved nearly a dozen Swedish seamen rescued from the North Sea. When brought on board, all the men were talking and able to walk without assistance. They were sent below to rest. The rescuers found every single man dead an hour later.

  Hall and Dr. Bessel knew nothing of potassium shifts and resorted to the usual methods. The Inuit use body heat to warm a victim, stripping naked and climbing in bed with the patient. While highly effective, this method proved too shocking for the white man.

  When the party returned without Mauch, Captain Hall immediately dispatched the Inuit men to find him. They returned dragging the half-dead Mauch. When they found him, he was staggering in circles, incoherent and severely hypothermic. An hour later and they would have found him dead.

  Fortunately neither of the two men developed cardiac problems. Mauch recovered under a mountain of blankets, and Bryan eventually opened his eyes. Seeing Captain Hall, the young man stammered, “Captain, traveling in this country is very discouraging. …”

  After that, no party ventured far from the ship without Hans or Ebierbing as a guide.

  Daylight shortened with each passing day, and the mercury slid lower as the sun departed the region. Bessel's observatory nearly blew over until cables and beams braced it against the howling gusts of wind that would sweep down from the mountains or lash inland across the bay.

  Sextant readings placed the winter camp at 81°38' N, roughly forty-seven miles south of their highest sailing. Though they were still higher than any white man had placed his foot, exploring the shoreline revealed the presence of prior travelers. Circles of stones marked where Inuit hunters following the herds of musk oxen and reindeer had anchored their summer tents. Digging among the shale, the men discovered part of a broken sled, spear points carved from walrus teeth, and bone awls. Eagerly, Bessel added these to the expedition's collection. How Hall viewed this is uncertain. On all his past expeditions, he was the one who had collected artifacts. Being excluded from collecting probably strengthened his desire to press on to the Pole. While Bessel gathered artifacts, Hall renewed his zeal for geography and named the distant shores of Ellesmere Island Grinnell Land and Grant Land. The prominence marking the north tip of the bay became Cape Lupton to honor a man who had helped finance Hall's earlier expeditions.

  No one gave a second thought to the fact that they were claiming and naming land where the indigenous people had traveled and lived for hundreds of years.

  On the eighteenth of September, Bessel and Chester left for a weeklong hunt. Wisely, they took both Hans and Ebierbing along. Encountering a herd of musk oxen, Hans released several of his dogs. The animals attacked the musk oxen, and the valiant Arctic beasts instinctively formed a protective circle, heads outward with their young calves inside. Shooting a musk ox took little skill, although several lead bullets from the men's Sharps rifles were needed to bring down the unfortunate bull.

  The party returned with three hundred pounds of fresh meat, a trophy head, and hide. While Hall had taken special pains to ensure that the expedition's tinned meat was the best available, Arctic explorers knew that only fresh meat protected against scurvy. In his living with the Inuit, Hall had adopted their custom of eating his meat raw. In fact, whenever he felt under the weather, a bloody slab of meat returned his vigor.

  This addition to the crew's table provided welcome relief from the salted beef and tinned ham. Since fuel for cooking was precious, most of the meals consisted of warmed meat, bread, and soups removed from tinned cans and flavored with dried apples and other dried fruits. Box-size loaves of baked bread, stored in bags, alternated with tins of stone-hard, unleavened crackers called sailor's biscuit. On another voyage Tyson had sampled musk ox meat from the Labrador coast and found it “scarcely edible” because of the strong odor of musk. This young bull, however, tasted “very much like other beef.”

  The fresh meat, warm surroundings, and relative security fostered good feelings among the party. Buddington, freed of the constant fear of shipwreck, resorted to his old habits of devious raids on the pantry and closet drinking. The new observatory and the plethora of samples kept Dr. Bessel and Frederick Meyer busy collecting specimens and taking measurements. Hall and Tyson consulted over forays along the coast, while the Inuit hunted over the ice pack. Hunched patiently over the holes in the ice, which the seals used for breathing, the Inuit hunters returned almost daily with fresh meat, whereas the sailors, who chased after the animals in whaleboats, had no success at all.

  During this period one of the standard methods of returning specimens to the museums for scientific study was to preserve the horns and hide and the skeleton. Salt or drying handled the hide, but removing flesh from the bony parts required great care. Scarab-type beetles proved helpful, but no such insects served aboard the Polaris. Boiling might loosen the flesh but could easily dissolve the skull sutures and spoil the result.

  So an unlikely ally was put to good use in separating the uneaten parts of the trophy from its skeleton. The bay where Polaris lay at anchor teemed with hundreds
of shrimp despite the frigid water. These voracious eaters would strip flesh from the bones of any animal lowered into the water. An appropriate hole in the ice already existed. Since the freezing of the bay, the crew maintained an opening in the ice as a source of water should the ship catch fire. Grateful for the free meal, the shrimp readily cleaned the bones not used in the cooking. On more than one occasion, Dr. Bessel would enlist these crustaceans in preparing musk ox skeletons for the collection.

  All in all, the newness of their situation, the awesome surroundings, the preparation for winter, and the gathering of scientific material kept everyone busy. With all hands far from idle, there was little work for the devil.

  Captain Hall continued his daily religious services, with special attention to Sunday's observances. The earthy seamen used profanity like a second set of clothing, much to the distress of Herman Sie-man and Noah Hayes, and Captain Hall constantly urged them to improve their speech. But his efforts to keep them whole and fit generally pleased the men.

  For weeks the sailors had grumbled over a common complaint: food. The preferential treatment given to the officers by the galley irked them. Jackson, the cook, knowing which side his bread was buttered on, naturally spent more time and imagination preparing the meals for the aft mess, where the officers dined. Some of this is to be expected. Sailing vessels never were democracies.

  However, as time passed, the difference between what the men ate and what the officers ate grew more and more striking. In fact, Buddington abetted the inequity by encouraging Jackson in his lavish preparation of the officers' table. He may even have ordered him to do so.

  Before the ship sailed from Washington, it was Buddington who had ordered the sailors to direct all questions concerning the mess to him and not to Captain Hall. So here was the perpetrator of the injustices acting as the magistrate; naturally nothing was resolved, and the problem grew. Captain Buddington never complained, but the men did. In desperation, they spoke to Hall.

  When the men brought the inequity to his attention, Captain Hall acted promptly. The change had occurred without his knowledge, he assured them. It was contrary to his wishes, and he did not approve of it. Everyone would eat the same food, he vowed. They should all live together as brothers, and Jackson would prepare identical meals for forward and aft messes.

  After his gratifying sermon to that effect one Sunday, the crew wrote a letter of appreciation to Captain Hall. Herman Sieman penned the note:

  The men forward desire publicly to tender their thanks to Capt. C. F. Hall for his late kindness, not, however, that we were suffering want, but for the fact that it manifests a disposition to treat [us] as reasonable men, possessing intelligence to appreciate respect and yield it only when merited; and he need never fear that it will be our greatest pleasure to so live that he can implicitly rely on our services in any duty or emergency.

  Deeply touched, Hall responded in kind:

  Sirs,

  The reception of your letter of thanks to me of this date I acknowledge with a heart that deeply feels and fully appreciates the kind feeling that has prompted you to this act. I need not assure you that your commander has, and ever will have, a lively interest in your welfare. You have left your homes, friends, and country; indeed you have bid a long farewell for a time to the whole civilized world, for the purpose of aiding me in discovering the mysterious, hidden parts of the earth. I therefore must and shall care for you as a prudent father cares for his faithful children.

  Your commander, C. F. HALL,

  United States North Polar Expedition

  In winter quarters, Thank God Harbor

  Lat. 81°38' N., long. 61°44' W. Sept. 24, 1871

  As is often the case, what went unstated revealed as much as what was written. Interestingly, Hall's letter dealt with the “men” and did not include the officers. Neither Captain Buddington nor Dr. Bessel considered himself among the “faithful children” to Hall's father figure.

  DEATH

  Joseph Mauch, captain's clerk, came into the cabin in the morning and told us that there had been some poisoning around there.

  —HENRY HOBBY, TESTIMONY AT INQUEST

  The morning of September 27 the barometer plummeted, and one hour before noon a fearsome storm struck. Swirling walls of sleet and snow engulfed the Polaris and erased all view of land or sea. Wind jangled the rigging and tore at the canvas tenting. Attempts to clear the lines of ice failed, since the sleet cut the men's eyes so badly, they were forced to retreat below decks to safety. The gale lasted three days. During that time the surrounding ice broke and crowded the anchored vessel. While Providence Berg shielded the ship from direct assault as the ice rolled into the bay, nothing could protect the ship from the rolling blocks sweeping in from the sides. Once again the icy jaws clamped down on the vessel.

  For three days the frightened men huddled below and listened to the slabs of ice crashing and grinding along the hull. Hourly, Schuman and Alvin Odell, the assistant engineer, scoured the bilge looking for leaks as the planking groaned and complained while tons of ice pressed upon all sides. The ice and snow banked against the sides for insulation vanished. What little the wind failed to wipe away fell into the frothing sea as cracks and fissures opened around the hull. Roiled by wind and waves, the Polaris rocked from side to side, lifting at times when bergs wedged under the stem and stern.

  On Sunday, October 1, the maelstrom subsided as suddenly as it had arrived. A cobalt-blue sky, devoid of clouds and sharp as crystal, filled the heavens. Slanting rays from the low-hanging sun striped long purple and violet shadows across the blinding white landscape. For all the surrounding beauty, everyone aboard realized how dangerous this harbor could become and how precarious the safety of the Polaris was.

  More provisions, including some precious coal, were moved ashore. Several feet of drifted snow had buried those supplies previously placed on the beach. A day passed while these were moved beneath the shadows of bluffs farther inland.

  The fractured ice field re-formed, mending the cracks brought by the storm. Captain Hall's thoughts turned to probing along the coastline by land. On October 10 Hall led an exploratory party of two sleds, each pulled by a team of seven dogs. He and his faithful Ebierbing had one sled while Chester sat in the sled basket of the second, driven by Hans. Before he left, Hall took Tyson aside. He pointed to Captain Buddington, who wandered just beyond earshot, and whispered to Tyson, “I cannot trust that man. I want you to go with me, but I don't know how to leave him on the ship.”

  Tyson shrugged. “I would like to go,” he admitted, biting back his desire. Inwardly he hoped his disappointment did not show. Duty came first, he realized. “But, of course, I'll remain and take care of the ship,” he added.

  Hall nodded. “I'd like to reach a higher latitude than Parry did before I come back from this trip,” he said. He then explained to Tyson that this foray would seek out the best route for the main thrust in the spring. He hoped to find the land route that would be better than traveling over the ice floes and pressure ridges of the ever-changing straits.

  Under diamond-bright stars the two teams raced off into the velvet night on a northeasterly track. Clouds rolled in later that night, and another snowstorm layered a foot of fresh snow over the sled tracks.

  The next morning Hans Christian returned with his empty sled. He carried a note from Captain Hall. In his excitement the meticulous planner had forgotten several vital things. The party camped five miles from the ship, waiting for Hans to return with the items. The letter, addressed to Sidney Buddington, read like a shopping list:

  Sir,

  Just as soon as possible attend to the following, and send Hans back immediately:

  Feed up the dogs (14) on the seal-meat there, giving each 2 pounds.

  In the mean time order the following articles to be in readiness:

  My bearskin mittens

  3 or 4 pairs of seal skin mittens (Greenland make)

  8 fathoms lance warp

  20
fathoms white line for dog lines

  1 pair seal skin pants, for myself

  12 candles, for drying our clothing

  Chester's seal skin coat

  1 candlestick, 1 three-cornered file, 4 onions

  1 snowshoe

  1 cup, holding just one gill

  1 fireball and the cylinder in which it hangs

  Have the carpenter make, quick as possible, an oak whip handle, and send the material for 2 or 3 more.

  A small box that will hold the 1 pound of coffee which I have

  A small additional quantity of sinew

  Try and raise, if possible, 2 pairs of seal skin boots that will answer for both Chester and myself

  Hall then ordered Bryan to calibrate his watch with the ship's chronometer and send it with Hans. He wrote more detailed instructions for Tookoolito to sew a bag for the timepiece, which Hans was to wear around his neck on the return trip.

  As an afterthought, he wrote, “Tell Dr. Bessel to be very mindful that the chronometers are all wound up at just the appointed time every day.”

  Whether he meant to or not, Hall's letter surely rankled both Buddington and the good doctor. The long list of demandssome vital, others trivialmade the sailing master appear to be his servant. Who was Buddington to be packing C. F. Hall's things like a mother sending her boy to summer camp? The men must have muttered below decks. And what was Hall thinking while he sorted his own gear that he should forget so many things? In his efforts to micromanage everyone else's work, was he being overwhelmed? The sailors must have shaken their heads over a commander who would focus on the winding of a watch yet forget his essential mittens and pants.

  Overlooking the forest for the trees, the saying goes. Hall's actions must have shaken those of the crew who supported him and strengthened the innuendos cast by Buddington that their commander was dangerously in over his head. The ice's incessant chewing on the ship's hull served as a constant reminder to all aboard that disaster hovered around the corner, waiting for just such an omission or a mistake to destroy them.