The Ice Master

by Jennifer Niven

  What’s more, Stefansson claimed that not only were the lives secondary to the work, but that his men recognized this fact and agreed with it. This was untrue and stood in direct opposition to the instructions given to him by the Canadian government.

  After the conference, several of the expedition members talked of resigning. Exasperated with Stefansson’s tactics, they had no confidence in their leader and no enthusiasm for the prospect of working for him. Indeed, many of them were so disillusioned that they harbored little hope of getting any valuable work accomplished. Murray was so agitated that he threatened and intended to quit, and Dr. Anderson, of the Southern Party, even went so far as to hand in his resignation.

  The following morning, Murray called a meeting of the Northern Party to discuss this possible loss of the Karluk. If Stefansson was to be believed, and if the Karluk really did have a chance of being crushed in the ice, Murray and the others felt they should plan ahead and know what was in store for them.

  Murray and Dr. Mackay wrote a letter to Stefansson requesting the absolute assurance that there would be a base onshore, but their leader’s reply to them was indefinite and vague.

  After the disturbing and disheartening meeting with their leader, several of the men began to call him “His Lordship” behind his back. Chipman wrote: “Capt. Bartlett says39 he ‘gave his best to Peary.’ That is the spirit for Arctic work and to be able to give it to any man is inspiring. I wonder to what extent Stefansson is the man to whom I want to give mine.”

  THE KARLUK RAN AGROUND on August 10 in seventeen feet of water. McKinlay was in his cabin, typing some letters, when he heard a commotion from above and felt the Karluk lurch. He ran up to the deck to find her stalled, her engines still going full speed. They were about ten miles from the mouth of the Colville River, the bottom of which was covered in a glutinous mud. Twice she ran aground, and each time Bartlett reversed and re-reversed the engines until he managed to free her. But the ice thickened about her in the meantime, and once free from the shallows, she was trapped by the pack. For some time, she pushed the ice ahead of her, but was unable to break it. She would need more momentum than she was capable of to break through. As Mamen observed, the Karluk was a “poor ice breaker40,” and the ice was a “bad enemy.”

  Bartlett stood in the barrel for the entire day and cursed Stefansson and the ship. Mamen, as usual, kept him company. The two had become fast friends, despite the difference in their ages and backgrounds. In Mamen, Bartlett recognized a young man with great ambition and strength—bold, honest, and seemingly unafraid of anything.

  Mamen, in return, admired the captain and his brilliant career, as well as his robust character. He was, thought Mamen, the only real man on board, unlike all of the crewmen, who were crass, and the scientists, who were lazy and useless. Beuchat did nothing but sleep all day. McConnell seemed capable of doing nothing but typing. According to Mamen, most of his colleagues “do indeed not41 know how to sew a button on their pants, much less how to darn a sock. It is disgusting to see such ignorant persons who can do only what they have been trained to do.. . . It is maddening to see people who always must have other people do everything for them.”

  It was rare for Bartlett to confide his frustrations or feelings in anyone, but as he cursed a blue streak, damning the broken-down ship that carried them and the leader who had purchased her and gotten them into this mess, Mamen was there to hear it. And he had to agree with him. Stefansson, for all his past glory and honors, was a rotten leader, from what he could see, and one needed look no further than his choice of vessel for proof. The Karluk was an old, weak ship. She should never have been made to do the work she was doing.

  THE STAFF AND OFFICERS gathered nightly in the saloon for Victrola concerts. Each mess room—that of the scientists and of the crewmen—had a gramophone and there were over two hundred records aboard. They were mostly classical with some ragtime thrown in for variety. The Prologue from Pagliacci and Bach’s “Air for G String” were special favorites with everyone, but they soon discovered that Bartlett had no patience for ragtime.

  The members of the staff very quickly discovered that Mackay got an enormous kick out of singer Harry Lauder’s recording of the comic song “I’ve Something in the Bottle for the Morning.” The doctor would rock with laughter as he listened to it and was such a hilarious sight that soon his shipmates played the record over and over again just to watch him. Second mate Charles Barker was the only one who had any objections to this ritual. Personally, he found Harry Lauder to be quite “coarse and vulgar42” and did not at all approve of the nightly attention he was receiving in the saloon. Dr. Mackay silenced him in typical Mackay fashion, with caustic remarks, so that Barker, time and again, had no choice but to leave the room while Mackay enjoyed his favorite song.

  The men began to run nightly bridge tournaments in the smoking room and, determined to find some diversion, cleared the amidships deck and set their sights on boxing. Mackay, thinking himself something of an expert—as he always did—taught them all they needed to know about the sport.

  Many of the matches ended in draws, and none of them lasted for more than two two-minute rounds. It was Dr. Mackay versus Southern Party geologist J. J. O’Neill, however, who brought about “the trial.” “Sheriff” Chipman, assisted by Burt McConnell, served the summons on O’Neill, charging him with assault and battery. The charges were simple—Mackay claimed that his thumb was sprained as a result of O’Neill hitting it repeatedly with his head. Mackay would not rest until O’Neill paid for his crime.

  It was, of course, all in fun. As expected, O’Neill pled “not guilty,” and the trial was soon under way. McKinlay, speaking for the doctor, stated that the defendant had “swung his head43 three times against his thumb, inflicting thereby grievous bodily injury.” It was an absurd image, but even so, most of the witnesses called took the case extremely seriously, and defense counsel Burt McConnell, in particular, got so carried away by his newfound position of power that he forgot to see the humor in it. Instead, he conducted himself as if he were in a real courtroom.

  When court was adjourned an hour later, Mackay consulted with the prosecution and suggested they drop the charges. Only a few seemed to possess a sense of humor great enough to recognize that it was a farce, and they did indeed end the trial; for the rest of the day, McKinlay regretted not being able to deliver his character assassinations of each witness, something that had taken him hours to prepare.

  Bartlett often entertained the men with vivid stories. He also spent a notable amount of time cutting pictures from the illustrated papers and magazines they had on board, an activity that quite naturally piqued the interest of his shipmates. The editors of the ship’s newsletter, the Karluk Chronicle, voiced the intense shipwide curiosity as to just where it was Bartlett was putting these clippings.

  The ever-private Bartlett hated personal questions of any kind. “At the earnest44 request of the Editor, however,” the Chronicle reported, “Capt. Bartlett will unbend just this once, and confess that he has the artists’ love of the beautiful, and that the picture he clipped from the paper strongly reminded him of a young lady of whom he is very fond. He further states that it is nobody’s d. . . business what pictures he cuts out, or what he does with them afterward.”

  Crew and staff had not yet learned to live in perfect harmony and their existences were quite separate—they lived, ate, worked, and relaxed at opposite ends of the ship. A few of the scientists—usually McKinlay, Mamen, and Malloch—did roll up their sleeves and pitch in now and then to help the crew tie up coal sacks, divide up boxes of provisions, and tidy and rearrange the deck.

  Each day, the men rose early for breakfast, which ended promptly at 8:00, except on Sundays when they were allowed more flexibility. (Otherwise, it was breakfast at 7:30 A.M., dinner at 11:30 A.M., and tea at 5:30 P.M.) McKinlay, Mamen, Mackay, and the rest of them only wanted to sleep as long as possible. “Eat when you45 feel like it; sleep when you feel like it,”
Captain Bartlett had told them early on. “And have plenty of both for you never know how soon you will have neither.”

  They ate so much that Templeman attempted to close off his galley to the bloody scientists, some of whom—Beuchat being one of the prime suspects—were rude enough to devour everything in sight, without any consideration for the crewmen, who were forced to eat at sporadic hours, depending on their individual work schedules. Templeman was going to put a stop to it, if it was the last thing he did. McKinlay, because he often kept Sandy company on watch, was an exception and was thus permitted to eat whatever he wanted to. But as McKinlay noted in his journal, “From now on46, ‘scientists’ has become a ‘dirty word’ with the crew!”

  Mamen exercised religiously, and then would retreat to his bunk to pour over his books on polar exploration. Murray made depth soundings, and Malloch took latitude and longitudinal observations. McKinlay charted the daily temperature and studied navigation and nautical astronomy. Because he regularly joined Sandy on watch, the two had become friends and would often spend hours side by side, looking out onto the spectacular sea. There was usually nothing but gray mist and darkness and water to the far horizon.

  One day in July, Sandy and McKinlay had fought to keep their balance as the waves climbed higher, until they loomed over their heads. Everything movable was being thrown about the deck and slamming into everything else. Later that night, McKinlay recorded in his journal how the salt of the sea had burned his lips and tongue, and how the bitter chill of the water stung his skin. Still, he was as exhilarated as he had ever been in his life. Because of the storm’s violence, Sandy had lashed his friend to a stanchion to ride out the peak of it. The wind increased and the waves rose twenty feet high, slamming against the ship and dashing her sides and deck, immersing the engine room, and throwing the ship back the way she had come. It was cold on the bridge, and windy, but McKinlay found himself glowing all over.

  McKinlay, like the others, had signed onto this voyage seeking the chance to do good work, to see more of the world, to aid in the furthering of science, and to find a bit of adventure. Like most of them, he was inexperienced in exploration. But the worries he might have had about his clumsiness and his naiveté were disappearing. He felt good and strong and healthy. The Arctic seemed to agree with him.

  STEFANSSON WANTED to press onward at any cost. He was anxious about the signs of an early winter, impatient to be on his way. Bartlett, to the contrary, wanted to give the ship a rest, turn her back toward the coast, away from the ice, or simply let her drift for the winter. He knew they would not be able to make it much farther, even if the surrounding ice let up. It would be only a temporary reprieve, and soon after, he knew, there would be more ice waiting for them.

  But Stefansson urged him forward, past the peak of Point Barrow, eastward along the northern Alaskan coast toward Herschel Island. He directed Bartlett to hug the shore so they could keep sight of land. They would be safe from the drifting ice as long as they did so, but the Karluk was so heavily loaded that she sat terribly low in the water and ran aground repeatedly.

  Bartlett was, as Mamen observed, “a man who47 utilizes all chances to get ahead.. . .” Stefansson demanded forward movement, and they could make no progress running aground. The Karluk’s bow was too thin to forge through the ice, so finally Bartlett did what he had done in the past with Peary’s ships—on August 12, he headed northward, following the open leads in the ice, all the while keeping her as much on course to Herschel Island as possible. “We steamed along48 through the open water,” he wrote, “and because the ice near the shore was closely packed, we were driven farther off shore than I liked. We had to follow the open lanes, however, and go where they led.” Apparently, Stefansson was49 sleeping when the decision was made to take the ship out into the pack.

  Bartlett had good reasons for following the lanes of open water—aside from running aground, the ship was at risk from crushing ice pressure, which was always greater and more dangerous near land. But it turned out to be a controversial decision, which would alter their course irrevocably. They quickly lost sight of land. Every now and then, a lead would bring them back toward the coast, but then, once again, they would be led away from it.

  It was a no-win situation. To stay close to land meant to sacrifice the chance to move forward, which Stefansson insisted upon doing. But to follow the open leads meant to separate the ship from the relative safety of the nearby land mass, and to risk being carried off course.

  Both Stefansson and Bartlett were strong personalities who harbored their own strong opinions about what to do. Stefansson did not seem to understand—or care about—the deficiencies of his ship or the risks involved with pressing onward. A frustrated Bartlett, tired of running aground, steered the ship into the open water and ignored Stefansson’s warnings.

  Later on, looking back, Bartlett felt he had done what was best at the time, navigating the ship as he had done with the ships under Peary’s command. Stefansson had demanded they keep going, and Bartlett had complied the only way he could. Whether he would have done it over again, or whether or not it was the best decision is harder to say. It was a chance call based on his desire to get Stefansson where he wanted to go.

  On August 11, Bartlett took a nap, his first sleep in two days. Afterward, he returned to the crow’s nest to keep watch and continue his search for a passageway through the ice.

  MAMEN SPENT THE MORNING of August 11 writing a letter to his beloved fiancée, Ellen, and then climbed up to the barrel to keep the captain company. They were treated to sunshine and snow that day, and in the afternoon the ship was able to buck the ice for several miles. The Karluk jumped and twisted as she rammed through the pack, and the crow’s nest was shaking so violently that Mamen was sure they would be catapulted to the deck.

  Finally, the Karluk rammed against the edge of a field of old, thick ice and was brought to a sudden halt. The young, or newer, ice was relatively easy to break, but the old ice was solid and impenetrable, especially for a ship like the Karluk.

  The following day, Murray and Wilkins took out the umiak—a large, open wooden boat covered with walrus skins—and dropped Murray’s dredge into a patch of open water, five fathoms deep. One of Murray’s primary concerns as oceanographer was to study and document the sea life in different regions. The result from this dredging was a variety of interesting specimens, which Murray promptly spirited away to his makeshift laboratory, where he spent the rest of the day, cigarette dangling from his hand, studying them through his microscope.

  Meanwhile, Mamen taught members of the staff and crew how to ski, and noted that most of his pupils were stiff as matches. Dr. Mackay and McKinlay were good students, but Beuchat, as expected, was awkward and extremely comical. Afterward, they held a football match on the ice, and although Mamen’s team won, he injured his knee, the same one he had injured long ago in a skiing accident back home. Ever since that initial injury, it had been a little tender, and now it hurt like the devil. He turned in earlier than usual, worn out from the day and discouraged by the pain. He hated physical weakness of any kind, especially in himself.

  ON AUGUST 13, with the mountains of Flaxman Island appearing off the ship’s beam, the Karluk was listing to starboard at a worrisome degree, due to the overloading of coal in her starboard bunker. To protect the port bilges, which could easily be harmed, Bartlett had the men transfer a large part of the deck cargo to the port side to balance her out.

  The following day was a wholly cheerless one for everyone on board. The only exception was the irascible old trapper Hadley, who was “playing guitar and50 singing so that we cannot hear ourselves think,” wrote a disgusted Mamen. Mamen was already in a foul mood that day, his knee aching, the monotony of the ice draining him. The worst of it, though, was that August 14 was Ellen’s birthday and the anniversary of their engagement. Mamen could not believe he was stuck in the ice, so very far way from her, going nowhere.

  The following day dawned brighter,
as it was Bartlett’s thirty-seventh birthday. Freshly barbered and in a splendid humor, the captain was treated to a real celebration that evening. Templeman laid the mess room table with a white linen cloth, which alone created quite a sensation, and everyone gathered at 9:30 P.M. Templeman was an unambitious, rotten cook. But now everyone congratulated him on the feast he had prepared—cold roast beef; tongue; salads; and a variety of cakes, tarts, and fruit desserts. There was so much good food that he was unable to find room for all of it on the table.

  There was lemonade and lime juice for the teetotalers—Bartlett, McKinlay, and Malloch—and whiskey for the rest. They raised their glasses and toasted the health of their captain, and afterward Stefansson gave him a box of cigars. These were passed around the table until all were puffing on them “as if we51 had been in the most fashionable restaurant in London or New York,” wrote McKinlay.

  After dinner Dr. Mackay sang a variety of Scottish songs, followed by Murray, and then McKinlay and Wilkins, who performed a duet. Hadley, of course, played the guitar and sang, Stefansson regaled them with stories, and secretary Burt McConnell gave a concert on the Victrola. Everyone’s spirits seemed brighter, even the typically surly doctor’s, whose mood was magically improved, as usual, by several drinks of whiskey. They turned in that night, close to 3:00 A.M., weary but refreshed, the celebration having given them a much-needed lift.

  FOR DAYS AFTERWARD, they sat frozen into the ice pack, pelted by rain and wind. An oppressive, stifling fog rolled in, covering the ship in a blanket of mist, and Bartlett expected winter in full force at any time.

  “The nights are52 beginning to show a little darkness which carries a warning of approaching winter,” McKinlay worried. “Each morning now we rise, asking ‘How is the weather today?’; each evening we lie down asking ‘Will it come tomorrow?’ It is here one learns what discipline means; the North is a hard school. What worries us most is that we may get no farther & may thus be deprived of opportunity to work; it is not prospect of danger, for there is none.”