They were going north in search of an undiscovered continent, which Stefansson wrongly suspected lay beneath the vast polar ice cap. They had set sail on June 17, 1913, a week later than planned. It was late in the season to be heading so far north, and they could do nothing but hope for clear seas and good weather.
This was to be the grandest and most elaborate Arctic expedition in history. It was also to be the most comprehensive scientific attack on the Arctic of all time, widely advertised as having the largest scientific staff ever taken on an expedition. Stefansson, the man who had dreamed it up, was well known for his unrelenting ambition and his grand ideas.
Yet the vessel Stefansson had chosen to take them north was a twenty-nine-year-old wooden whaler, which had been retired for years and which he had picked up for a bargain. At thirty-nine meters long and 251 tons, she was clearly an old ship whose day had passed. Originally built for the fishing industry in California—the word “karluk” means “fish”—the ship was not naturally equipped for ice breaking or sailing in the polar seas. In fact, before2 the purchase of the ship by the naval service, she had been condemned by a naval expert who stated that he did not find her a safe ship for freight carriage, much less ice breaking.
It was no matter to Stefansson, who purchased her for the irresistibly low price of ten thousand dollars. Also, he felt he knew the ship, having sailed on her briefly in 1908 and 1909. At the H.M.C. Dockyard in Esquimalt, British Columbia, the vessel underwent the first of many overhauls to prepare her for the voyage. On March 29, a lengthy list of repairs was submitted, including a new stern post, new water tanks, new sails, and a complete overhauling of the engines. Additional work was ordered in April, and again in May.
All the crucial decisions of the expedition had been made by the time Bartlett arrived in Esquimalt in June 1913. The Karluk had undergone extensive overhauling, but he immediately ordered four thousand dollars worth of additional repairs.
Her decks were cluttered and soiled, piled high with drums of coal oil and cartons of supplies and ropes and bags and large skin boats. Large, bulky sacks of supplies had been thrown onto random boxes and tools. Underneath this wild disorganization, the ship’s wood was stained, weathered, and warped in places, and the decks creaked when the men walked about.
Below deck was just as bad. The cabins were unpainted and crowded with junk and debris from previous trips, and cockroaches swarmed everywhere. The ship stank throughout of whale oil. She was far from the powerful Arctic ice vessel many of the men had expected. As chief engineer John Munro noted, her engine was nothing but “an old coffee3 pot.”
The night before the Karluk was to sail from the Esquimalt Naval Yard, Bartlett sent a message to the deputy minister of the naval service, telling him that the ship would never be able to make the voyage. As far as he was concerned, the ship was “absolutely unsuitable to4 remain in winter ice.”
But there was5 no other vessel to replace the Karluk. She was the cheapest and the readiest ship available, and as far as Vilhjalmur Stefansson was concerned, she would do just fine.
BEFORE THE TELEGRAM from Stefansson had arrived, Captain Bartlett had been trying to raise money and interest in an Antarctic expedition. His last true adventure had been the quest for the North Pole with Admiral Robert Peary in 1909, and Bartlett was restless to head either north or south to one of the polar regions. He missed the sea, the ice, the life aboard a ship. He was a man who never felt at home on land.
He had spent the spring of 1913 with the sealing fleet off Brigus Harbor, Newfoundland. It had been an unsuccessful run. Too many ships, too few seals. And the old itch had started: he badly wanted to go exploring again. So badly, in fact, that he would continue with the Stefansson trip despite his grave doubts about the Karluk.
Robert Abram Bartlett was born into a seafaring family in 1875. His mother wanted him to become a clergyman; at the age of fifteen he headed to the Methodist College in Saint John’s, Newfoundland. He stuck it out for two years, but was utterly miserable and knew without a doubt that there was only one place where he belonged.
Bartlett was thirty-six years old when he was asked to be master of the Karluk. He had grown into a deep-chested, strongly built man with a ruddy complexion, a long, horselike face, and a distinct seaman’s lurch. He seemed taller than five feet ten inches; his reddish hair was fading and unkempt and his blue eyes had a constant twinkle, as if he was always privately laughing at something.
Everything about him was powerful—his voice, his figure, his presence. He was famous for spouting profanities, both at his crew and in everyday conversation. He was the same on the ship and off, always, unfailingly, himself.
For all his rough appearance, Bartlett had a soft spot for beauty. He loved women, although he was a confirmed bachelor, and his heart truly belonged to his mother, whom he wrote every day, no matter where he was. He also loved music, and on ships he kept Shakespeare close at hand, as well as George Palmer’s translation of the Odyssey, which he would quote from frequently. His constant companion, though, was Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Its pages were now frayed, and it was held together by surgeon’s plaster to keep it from falling to pieces. That little book had gone with him on voyages to foreign ports while he was serving his years of apprenticeship to get his British master’s certificate in 1905. The book had also been with him on both his trips with Peary aboard the Roosevelt, and to Europe after Peary’s attempt at the North Pole. It had accompanied him on a hunting trip in the Arctic in 1910, and on numerous sealing trips.
From the beginning, he knew he was Stefansson’s second choice for skipper. Whaling captain C. Theodore Pedersen had been the one hired first to pilot the Karluk, engage the crew, and see to the outfitting of the ship. But Pedersen resigned at the last minute, disgusted with Stefansson’s questionable methods.
When Pedersen dropped out, it was Admiral Peary who recommended Bartlett. With a reputation as the world’s greatest living ice master, Bartlett was a good second choice, and Stefansson was lucky to have him.
Bartlett had been at the helm of the ship Roosevelt in 1909, from which Peary launched his expedition to the North Pole. Peary had let Bartlett blaze the trail, but when it had come time to make the run for the Pole, the admiral had taken Bartlett aside, thanked him for his contribution, and asked the captain to see his team back to the ship. Peary took a photograph of Bartlett, against a blast of Arctic wind, standing the farthest north of any British citizen in history. Then Bartlett turned back at eighty-eight degrees north.
Bartlett took his leave with his usual staunch good cheer and watched his commander forge on toward the coveted North Pole. “Our parting was6 simple. He wished me good luck, told me to be careful of the new ice, and I told him I was sure he would make it.”
Bartlett was gracious and uncomplaining, but it had been a bitter blow. For five years he had accompanied Peary on his quest for the Pole and they had never before gotten so close. Publicly, Bartlett later supported Peary’s decision to take his manservant Matthew Henson to the Pole instead of Bartlett. The captain maintained, with apparent conviction, that Henson was the only choice to have gone, because Henson was a better dog driver than Bartlett.
The captain respected Peary above all men and would stand by him in the controversy surrounding his Pole discovery, including suggestions that Peary had never reached the Pole at all, and that he had chosen the African-American Henson so that he himself could be the only white man to reach the world’s highest point. Bartlett had not been at Peary’s side to witness his true and actual attainment of the Pole, but Peary’s word was good enough for him. He was convinced the admiral had reached his goal, although today it is generally accepted that he did not.
Later, Bartlett said of him: “I thought Peary7 then—and I think him yet—the most wonderful man, the greatest, bravest, noblest man that ever lived.”
STEFANSSON WAS A DIFFERENT animal altogether, and Bartlett knew he could never respec
t him as he did Peary. Stefansson arrived three days before the Karluk was scheduled to sail, in a flurry of flashbulbs and newspaper reporters. The first thing he did, before introducing himself to his crew and staff, was to hold a five-hour conference for the benefit of the press and the public. Elegant and intense, he had a way with people. His energy was contagious, so fiercely did he believe in what he was setting out to accomplish.
Stefansson’s Nordic roots showed in his looks. He had commanding blue eyes; a high, impressive brow; and, at times, a formidable expression. He was not an imposing man or a man of great height or physical stature. To look at him, it was hard to believe he was the fierce Arctic explorer who boasted about living with the Eskimo and surviving in the Arctic wilderness. Yet he possessed extraordinary stamina, fueled by his great confidence in himself and in his work.
When he set out to organize the Canadian Arctic Expedition in the spring of 1913, thirty-three-year-old Stefansson was already famous, celebrated for his contributions to the world of anthropology and ethnology, particularly his studies of Eskimo life. He believed the Arctic was a “friendly” place where anyone with good sense could thrive. With this latest expedition, he would head into the northern regions above Canada. Stefansson was determined to be the one to discover the last, unknown continent by exploring the vast, unexplored region that lay beneath the ice between Alaska and the North Pole.
By 1913, the Northeast and Northwest Passages had long been found, and so had the Bering Strait. The Greenland ice cap had been crossed, and the North Pole was claimed for America by Peary. But the Arctic remained much of a mystery, and the majority of its highest frozen regions were still unexplored.
The American Museum of Natural History and the National Geographic Society had allotted $45,000 to the expedition. This sum was too little to carry out Stefansson’s ambitious plans, so he traveled to Ottawa in February 1913 to seek additional assistance from the Canadian government, which offered to take over the operation completely. Without consulting the8 American Museum, the National Geographic Society, or his partner Dr. Rudolph Martin Anderson, Stefansson accepted the offer.
By orders of the Canadian government, the goals of the expedition were expanded, and two ships instead of one were to be employed, the Karluk and the Alaska. The expedition was also divided in two—a land-based Southern Party, functioning under the leadership of Dr. Anderson and sailing aboard the Alaska, and an ocean-based Northern Party, led by Stefansson on the Karluk. The scientists of the Southern Party would pursue anthropological studies and geographical surveys in the area around Coronation Gulf and the islands off the Canadian north coast. The staff of the Northern Party would search for the undiscovered, hidden continent in the great unknown high above Canada while also undertaking geographical, oceanographical, marine biological, geological, magnetical, anthropological, and terrestrial biological exploration.
In relinquishing its obligation to back the expedition, the National Geographic Society was emphatic on one point: the exploration, as financed by the Canadian government, must begin in May or June of 1913, otherwise the Society would once again have claim over the expedition and would send them north the following year. The Canadian government did not want to lose this grand venture, nor did Stefansson want to lose their generous backing. Thus, in April of 1913, Stefansson found himself short of time. He and his men would need to leave no later than June if they were to have a chance of safely traversing the ice-covered waters and beating the brutal Arctic winter. The plan was to head up the coast of Alaska to remote Herschel Island, where both Northern and Southern Parties would reconvene to sort out equipment and staff before continuing on into the far reaches of Canada. They hoped to reach Herschel Island by early August.
The need for haste governed every preparation, from refitting the ship to hiring the crew to provisioning the Karluk with enough supplies to sustain both the Northern and Southern Parties. Stefansson even damned and dismissed the required purity tests for pemmican, that standard of all polar diets, calling them suicidal delays. The important thing, above everything else, was to make that deadline.
In an early and ambitious statement, Stefansson boasted that he would hire only British subjects for his expedition. But in the end, the scientific staff would be an international one, some of the most distinguished men in their respective fields, gathered from New Zealand, Norway, Australia, France, Canada, Denmark, the United States, and Scotland. Of these, there were only two scientists of international renown who had polar experience.
Edinburgh native James Murray was a distinguished oceanographer and had served as biologist under Ernest Shackleton. He was a stout, dignified man of forty-six, robust and graying, with a well-trimmed mustache and a crisp way of speaking. He was authoritative, brilliant, and highly respected. He was also, as one of his colleagues observed, “exceedingly over-confident9,” due to his experience with the Shackleton expedition.
Upon signing on with Stefansson, Murray, in turn, put his leader in touch with a comrade from the Shackleton expedition, Alister Forbes Mackay. The hiring of Mackay was actually a favor to Shackleton, who was concerned about the doctor’s reckless behavior and overindulgence in alcohol. Stefansson agreed to engage Dr. Mackay as surgeon to get him away from “the evil influences10 of civilization.”
At thirty-five, Dr. Mackay was a legend, a veteran of Antarctica, having traveled with Shackleton on his famed Nimrod expedition of 1908-1909 and having made a name for himself on the seventh continent by being one of the first three men to locate the South Magnetic Pole, as well as a member of the first party to scale Mount Erebus, the world’s southernmost volcano. In recognition of all he had accomplished on that expedition, he had been awarded the Polar Medal. They had even named an Antarctic glacier for him—Cape Mackay.
A darkly intense man, Dr. Mackay was, at times, impatient, surly, wry, and forthright. He had a mouth that wilted into a perpetual frown and the years melted away when he broke into one of his rare smiles. One of his colleagues once summed him up as a man who “looked11 . . . as if he had been having a bad weekend.” And he described himself, in typical dry humor, as “a man of12. . . striking appearance. His keen, deep-set, hazel eyes peer out from shaggy brows, at times accentuating both a brooding calm and a boyish smile.”
THEY SAILED AT SUNSET, 7:30 P.M., Tuesday, June 17. The ship was not—nor would it ever be—seaworthy, Bartlett argued, but Stefansson was unconcerned. On the evening of the second day out, the ship ran into driftwood and Bartlett ordered the engines stopped, cursing the ship up and down. On June 23, the steering gear gave out. It would break again and again. And then the engines stopped working.
Aside from Bartlett, the twenty-four men aboard ship were still high from weeks of living as the toast of Victoria, British Columbia. They had been given the keys to the city, had been celebrated and applauded for the great work they were setting out to do. As the culmination of a series of fetes, Stefansson, Bartlett, and Dr. Anderson had been the guests of honor at a special luncheon held at the impressive Empress Hotel. Dozens of dignitaries turned out to celebrate the three noted explorers.
From Esquimalt, the Karluk made her way north along the coast of Alaska, cruising through the famed Inside Passage from June 18 through June 23. The mood aboard ship was festive and frivolous as the men settled into shipboard life. While the crew worked, the scientists, for the most part, lay around deck and loafed. “And to think13,” one of them commented as they sprawled contentedly among the coal sacks, “that we get all this for nothing—the trip to Nome, tobacco, good grub and all the comforts of home. Not only that, but we are getting paid for all the time spent on board.”
On July 2, they had entered the Bering Sea, where they were enveloped in fog and mist. A cautious Bartlett called for half-speed ahead. They were, at least, treated to endless sunlight, as murky as it appeared through the fog. There were only two or three hours of darkness now, and the sun rose every morning around 3:00. In spite of this, the temperature dipped t
o thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, and the men felt the cold acutely. It grew colder, the farther north they traveled, and they could no longer sit out on deck at night for very long.
On July 8, they dropped anchor off the shore of Nome where the Karluk’s engine and steering gear were repaired, and she took on water, coal, and provisions. At 4:00 on the morning of July 27, the Karluk crossed the Arctic Circle. Bartlett claimed, with a twinkle in his eye, that he could feel the bump. They had passed through the Bering Strait and were now entering the vast Arctic Ocean. They celebrated that night with a bottle of wine. Even the teetotalers—Bartlett, among them—celebrated the momentous event, although they abstained from anything stronger than lime juice.
The next morning had brought a thick fog and an unsettling wind from the northwest. The wind picked up rapidly and soon the Karluk was bucking the waves and taking on water. She was in the open, vulnerable and susceptible to each blast of wind and each swell of water. Her nose had dipped dangerously from time to time, and the forecastle deck was drenched. In no time, some of the cabins were badly flooded and most of the men fell terribly ill with seasickness. Many of the scientists retreated to their bunks, where they lay groaning and praying for it to end. Even Stefansson suffered from it, and disappeared into his cabin for some time.
Now, on August 1, a month and a half after her wildly celebrated departure from Esquimalt, the Karluk circled the edge of the ice pack, nosing her way sluggishly through the thickening fields of white. This ice was permanent, the enormous, free-floating rafts a fixed part of the Arctic horizon, yet always shifting and drifting. Each September as temperatures began to drop and winds increased, the ice would inevitably merge into a solid, impenetrable force. Toward the end of the season, the ice would grow violent, crashing and raftering, floe against floe, as they crushed everything that lay in their path, sometimes pushing one another into great ridges, which were as insurmountable and as high as mountains.
The Ice Master Page 2
