As soon as the two visitors were seated inside and even before Lopp could ask any questions, Jarvis launched into an explanation of how he had made his way from Seattle to Cape Prince of Wales, what his mission was, and what he desperately hoped Lopp, like Artisarlook, would do to help him. He also told Lopp that he was aware that Lopp owned half of the reindeer at his station and that the other half were owned by the American Missionary Association, which left it up to Lopp to make all decisions regarding the deer. Then, taking a deep breath, Jarvis concluded by stating that, for the sake of the stricken whalers, he needed the entire herd.
For his part, Lopp was shaken not only by what Jarvis had asked of him but also by how exhausted both the officer and Artisarlook appeared. The first thing to be done, he stated, was to have both of them sent to bed. Accommodations, Lopp stated, would also be made for Dr. Call, who had just arrived with Artisarlook’s herd and herders.
For Tom and Ellen Lopp, it would be a sleepless night. They both knew that, aside from the economic hardships that giving up the deer would entail, there were good reasons for turning Jarvis down. For starters, there was really no way of knowing how long Tom would be gone — four months? five months? even longer? — from his wife and four children, all under the age of six. And both Tom and Ellen were aware of the dangers involved. Point Barrow was more than seven hundred miles away. Driving a herd of more than four hundred reindeer over the snow-filled mountains and across frozen bodies of water had to be one of the greatest challenges that anyone in the Arctic had ever faced.
Still, both Tom and Ellen had to agree that there were compelling reasons for saying yes to Jarvis. Tom was the most devoted of all those who wanted the government’s program of supplying reindeer to the indigenous people to flourish. What would be a better demonstration of the value of the program than the success of the rescue mission? And the Lopps did not question the expedition’s motives to risk so much to try to save so many men in peril.
By the time the long night was over, the Lopps had decided. The deer would be given up. Lopp would lead the combined herds to Point Barrow. But, as had been the case with Artisarlook, he would do so only if certain conditions were met. Jarvis would have to give the Lopps a written promise that the deer and all the fawns that were yet to be born would be replaced. Jarvis would also have to pledge that the government would pay Tom $150 a month, and that the herders he intended to take with him would be paid one dollar a day for their services.
Tom Lopp at the time he agreed to drive the reindeer herd to Point Barrow. Before his days in the frozen North were over, Lopp would become recognized as one of the greatest of all Arctic heroes.
There were many sacrifices attached to the Lopps giving up their reindeer. Many of the indigenous people who worked with the animals had become extremely fond of them.
Among those Tom Lopp employed were a number of people from a region that spread across Finland and Sweden called Lapland. Known both for their reindeer-herding skills and the distinctive hats they wore, several of the Laplanders agreed to accompany Lopp’s herd to Point Barrow.
Lopp’s commitment was an enormous sacrifice. As Tom would later write, “You can imagine at what cost this decision was made — separation of family . . . loss of deer, and breaking our plans for this year and next. But it was an errand of mercy and we were glad to have an opportunity to show . . . that our government cared . . . and would go to great expense to save [those] in distress.”
For a man with no previous Arctic experience, Lieutenant Ellsworth Bertholf had been given a daunting task — traveling without any Cutter Service companion over hundreds of miles of wilderness.
Thanks to Tom Lopp and Charlie Artisarlook, two extraordinary and compassionate men with a particular skill and a commodity that they were willing to share, the components of the race to save the whalers were beginning to come together. The mission’s leaders had managed thus far to acquire enough food to keep them going. They had had frightening mishaps, but no member of the expedition had been seriously injured. With difficulty, they had managed to replace worn-out dogs and damaged sleds. Perhaps most remarkable of all, they had not once gotten lost while traveling in winter Arctic conditions over territory often unfamiliar even to the guides.
But there was another piece of Jarvis’s plan that had yet to fall into place and remained unknown. What had happened to Lieutenant Bertholf? Jarvis had seen him more than a month ago when they had parted ways in Ki-yi-lieug-a-mute. Had Bertholf been able to make it to Unalakleet, where Jarvis had left the note for him giving him new orders? Was he on his way to Cape Blossom with the supplies that Jarvis knew he would desperately need if he was able to get that far?
On December 22, 1897, Bertholf, Koltchoff, and Kalenin, with a young boy serving as a guide, had headed out of Ki-yi-lieug-a-mute with the fresh dogs that Jarvis had asked them to acquire there. Now that they were separated from Jarvis and Call, it was Bertholf’s first command of an Arctic mission on his own. He would have to make all the difficult decisions for his party as they traveled over the treacherous landscape on the route to St. Michael. He had volunteered for the expedition out of a desire to do something both important and heroic, and here was his first chance. He would do everything he could to reach St. Michael in time to catch up with Jarvis and Dr. Call to deliver the dogs to them.
Years after his great Arctic adventure had ended, Lieutenant Bertholf, like all those who had taken part in the Overland Relief Expedition, would never forget the indispensable role that the dogs played in the rescue effort.
“We were off as soon as there was light enough to see,” Bertholf wrote. “As we approached the Yukon . . . we scared up several flocks of ptarmigan, or Arctic grouse — the first game I had seen in the country. As I only had a rifle, Jarvis having taken the shot-gun, I was unable to obtain any, for these birds are perfectly white in the winter, and very hard to distinguish against the background of snow. As Jarvis had left me without a thermometer, I had nothing but my feelings to give me any idea of the degree of cold. The day [Jarvis, Call, and I] separated, the mercury registered 23 degrees above zero, and although some days seemed to be colder than others, I attributed that fact to the rising of the wind. Judge my surprise, then, at finding, when we reached [the next village], that the thermometer registered 15 degrees below zero. Of course I knew it was colder than when we started, but traveling daily in the open air we had not felt the gradual change. As soon as I saw what the thermometer had to say, I began to feel cold.”
Two days later, on December 24, Bertholf and his companions arrived at Kogerchtehmute. The trek across the thin-crusted snow had taken a toll on the dogs’ feet, cutting them so badly that the animals left a bloody trail behind them. As Bertholf would later write, “Under ordinary circumstances when the dogs’ feet become sore in this manner it is best to halt for a few days and allow them a rest, for the cuts seem to heal very quickly in this climate.”
But these were not ordinary circumstances. Resting for a few days was out of the question. Fortunately, Kalenin had a solution. He asked the women in the village to make “boots” for the dogs by sewing pieces of cloth together and tying them to the dogs’ feet. It was an inspired idea, but it wasn’t accomplished the way Kalenin had envisioned. The previous day, one of the natives in the village had died. According to their tradition, no work was to be done during the four days following a death. The men on the rescue mission realized the importance of this custom after they tried and failed to persuade the women to help them. Knowing that they had to keep moving on, Bertholf and Kalenin made the boots themselves, and the party departed for the village of Chukwoktulik, where they arrived on Christmas Day.
Knowing that there was no time to dawdle, Bertholf, Kalenin, and their companions left Chukwoktulik on December 26, determined to make it all the way to St. Michael as quickly as possible. But serious trouble lay ahead. Two days out, Kalenin began complaining of a cold. He also had severe pains in his side. At first, neither the Russian nor
Bertholf thought much about it. As Bertholf would later recount, “I was not enough of a doctor to understand what was his trouble, and besides, I had no medicines with me.” To Bertholf’s alarm, Kalenin’s condition grew so much worse that he was soon unable to walk and had to be carried on one of the sleds. As if this was not enough, the young native guide had taken a fall and had developed a bad sore on his knee. He too found himself unable to walk and was placed upon a sled. Now, only Bertholf and Koltchoff were left to keep running ahead of the four sleds and teams of dogs. Bertholf knew that there were no more villages before St. Michael, and with the snow coming down harder than ever, he was facing a desperate situation. As much as he fought it, he could not completely dismiss the thought that, after all that he had already been through and with so many miles still to go, his role in the great rescue attempt might be about to end in disaster somewhere on a barren, frozen trail.
Still Bertholf pushed on, and on December 31, 1897, just as he was truly beginning to despair, a huge object loomed incongruously ahead of him. It was the abandoned steamboat Healy, locked solidly in a frozen canal. Carefully moving Kalenin and the native guide aboard the vessel, Bertholf and Koltchoff found lifesaving refuge for the night. The next day, with the Russian and the Alaskan guide once again aboard the sled, they managed to travel the final twelve miles to St. Michael.
It was January 1, 1898. But, for Bertholf, it was hardly a propitious beginning of a new year. He had struggled mightily to reach St. Michael with the fresh dogs for Jarvis and Call before his fellow officers arrived there. But when he entered the village, he was told that he had missed them by only a few hours. Bertholf could not have been more disappointed. Despite all the delays he had suffered, he had come so agonizingly close. His first inclination was to chase after the two men, but he had an even deeper concern when Kalenin’s condition worsened.
Fortunately, there was a doctor in the village and it did not take him long to determine that the Russian had a severe case of pneumonia. So severe, in fact, that after immediately being put to bed, Kalenin remained at St. Michael under the doctor’s care for three full months. He wasn’t able to return to his own home at Tununak until April. Bertholf had grown increasingly fond of the man with whom he had traveled so many miles since he, Jarvis, and Dr. Call had first come ashore. Moreover, given all that Kalenin had done, Bertholf felt responsible for him. “As Alexis had been very faithful and his illness was undoubtedly due to exposure while in the service of the expedition,” Bertholf would write, “I considered it my duty to see that he was properly cared for, and before I left St. Michael I gave an order to the agent of the Alaska Commercial Company at that place to furnish nurses for Alexis, and whatever else [the doctor] considered necessary to further his recovery.”
Kalenin was not the only one that Bertholf was obliged to leave behind. Koltchoff had agreed to accompany the expedition as far as St. Michael. Now that they were there, it was time to part ways with the man who, like Alexis Kalenin, had served Bertholf so well.
Having bid farewell to Koltchoff and having done all he could for Kalenin, Bertholf was anxious to move on to Unalakleet, where he hoped he might at last catch up with Jarvis and Dr. Call. But agonizing as it was, he knew that he would have to delay his departure until the cuts on his dogs’ feet, which had opened up again on the trek to St. Michael, were healed. To his increased frustration, it was not until January 6 that he felt that the dogs were fit enough to take him to Unalakleet. There were now only enough healthy dogs to make up two teams, one for himself and one owned by the guide he was able to hire to replace the young man whose knee was still not fully healed. “Although [Unalakleet] is but sixty miles from [St. Michael],” Bertholf would write, “it took us three days to make the trip, for the road led along the shore, where the ice had shelved and piled up, making an exceedingly rough and hummocky trail. Imagine a road strewn with rocks and boulders of all sizes, packed close together, and some idea of our trail will be gained. Our progress was necessarily slow, as the sled required constant watching and guiding to keep it from overturning, which, however, it did very frequently, despite our best efforts, and the next three days were very fatiguing; but we finally pulled into [Unalakleet] on the evening of the 8th, without any serious mishaps. We passed two natives, however, on the way, who were packing their load on their backs, their sled having been broken by the difficult trail.”
Reduced to having only two teams, Bertholf’s arduous journey was made even more difficult by the fact that his route out of St. Michael took him along a landscape where huge mounds of ice had formed.
Only a few hours out of St. Michael, Bertholf was startled to see another team coming toward him. It was the same Belvedere’s mate, George Fred Tilton, who earlier had encountered Jarvis and Dr. Call. Bertholf was astounded to learn that Tilton was trying to make it all the way to San Francisco. But it was clear to both men that neither had time for lengthy discussion, and after wishing each other luck, they continued traveling on, each convinced the other would not be able to reach his goal, each hoping that somehow he was wrong.
When he finally reached Unalakleet, Bertholf was again disappointed to find that he had failed to catch up with Jarvis and Dr. Call. What he was not prepared for, however, was the fresh set of orders that Jarvis had left behind for him. He was not to join up with his fellow officers. Instead, he was to carry out a separate mission of transporting one thousand pounds of provisions more than five hundred miles to Cape Blossom. It was a daunting assignment. He had just lost the help of two very capable men. What would he do if he could not replace them? But Bertholf could not help but be proud of the fact that Jarvis had developed enough faith in him to trust him to carry out a mission so vital to the success of the entire rescue effort.
As Bertholf quickly learned, it was an assignment even more challenging than his commander had realized, for Jarvis had greatly underestimated the load Bertholf would need to carry. He had forgotten to figure in the more than three hundred pounds of supplies that Bertholf and those who accompanied him would also have to take along to sustain themselves on the long, arduous journey. And then there was the more than three hundred pounds of fish that would be needed to feed the dogs along the way. All told, Bertholf would not, as Jarvis had indicated, be transporting one thousand pounds of provisions for hundreds of miles. He and his dogs would be carrying more than sixteen hundred pounds of supplies.
Under any circumstances, it would have been an incredible challenge. But Bertholf had only two sets of dogs and two sleds to carry this enormous load. According to Jarvis’s orders, he was to be given another team and sled at Unalakleet, but there was none available to him. The best he could do was elicit a promise at the village’s trading company that when he reached the settlement of Koyuk, some four days away, another team of dogs and another sled would be waiting for him.
On January 16, with the temperature hovering at nearly forty degrees below zero, Bertholf and his native companion, now accompanied by several additional guides and helpers, set out for Koyuk. Fortunately, his route was across an open landscape that he might have expected would make for much easier traveling. But as he was rapidly learning, in the Arctic winter, there was no such thing. “Our guide,” he would later write, “led us through a comparatively level country, and had the snow not been very deep and soft, we would have made a quick trip across. As it was, we were obliged to use snowshoes nearly all the time, and often had to tramp back and forth ahead of the [dogs] in order to pack the snow down for the little fellows.”
As Bertholf would discover, traveling with such heavy loads, even over relatively unchallenging terrain, could present potential problems.
By this time, Bertholf, while still hardly a veteran of the frozen North, had learned much about how to cope with the hardships of Arctic winter travel. In particular, he had become skilled in meeting the challenge of camping out overnight in the frozen wilderness areas between villages.
“One of us,” Bertholf would write, �
��would pitch the tent while another chopped a supply of firewood, and still another unharnessed the dogs and unloaded the sleds, [making sure that the provisions were securely covered,] for the dogs would devour everything left within reach. Boots or . . . clothing left carelessly exposed were always found half chewed in the morning, for the poor little fellows never get a square meal when travelling in the winter, and are ravenous. We would then start the fire in the stove, and another outside the tent to help melt the snow or ice, to obtain water for drinking and cooking. The beans, which had been boiled before starting, were always frozen so solid they had to be chopped off with the axe, and indeed everything that had the least moisture in it was frozen solid in a day. Our meals consisted of pork and beans cooked in the camp kettle, tea, and, when the hard bread gave out, ‘flap-jacks.’ We would mix up a batter of flour and water, and make the flap-jacks as large as the frying-pan to save time, using the bacon for grease, and when that was gone seal oil took its place.”
Bertholf quickly learned that nothing was more important than caring for the dogs. “After the meal was finished,” he would relate, “we would proceed to the very trying task of feeding the dogs. Each man took in his arms one dried fish for each dog, and then tried to get his team all together and away from the others. The poor hungry little fellows would jump up after the fish, and in their eagerness to obtain a mouthful it was a difficult matter to keep from being knocked down and bitten. But finally a fish would be thrown to each one, and then you would have to stand by with a club to drive off any dog that gulped his fish down and then tried to steal from the others. As soon as all the fish intended to be used had been given out and devoured, and the dogs saw no more was coming, they would lie down quietly and go to sleep, and we would then go to our tent [and] close the flap to keep out as much cold air as possible.”
The Impossible Rescue Page 7
