Chapter IV: Part 4

The architectural skill of these, the most northerly people of the world, was not without interest to Hayes. "I found the huts to be in shape much like an old-fashioned clay oven, square in front and sloping back into the hill. The whole interior was about ten feet in diameter and five and a half feet high. The walls were made of stones, moss, and of the bones of whale, narwhal, and other animals. They were not arched, but drawn in gradually and capped by long slabs of slate-stone stretching from side to side. The floor was covered with flat stones, and the rear half of it was elevated a foot. This elevation, called a _breck_, served both as bed and seat, being covered with dry grass over which were spread the skins of bears and dogs. Under a small corner _breck_ lay a litter of pups[9] and under another was stowed a joint of meat. Above the passageway opened a window, a square sheet of dried intestines, neatly sewed together. The entrance hole, close to the front wall, was covered with a piece of seal-skin. The walls were lined with seal or fox skins stretched to dry. In the cracks between the stones of the walls were thrust whip-stocks and bone pegs on which hung coils of harpoon-lines. The lamps were made of soapstone and in shape much resembled a clam-shell, being about eight inches in diameter. The cavity was filled with oil and on the straight edge a flame was burning brilliantly. The wick which supplied fuel to the flame was of moss. Above the flame hung, suspended from the roof, an oblong, nearly square, cooking-pot made of soapstone. Over this was a rack, made of bear rib-bones lashed together crosswise, on which were placed to dry stockings, mittens, trousers, and other articles of clothing. There were three lamps, and centring around its own particular lamp were three families, one represented by three generations."

Petersen's party went into winter quarters sixteen miles south of Cape Parry, where their equipment was landed, the boats hauled up, and their tents pitched. As the men suffered frightfully in the thin tents, a hut was built in a crevice of a neighboring cliff. With the well-known resourcefulness of the American sailor, they put up quite a comfortable shelter roofed with the sails of the boat. A canvas-covered wooden frame served as a door, and an old muslin shirt greased with seal blubber admitted a feeble light through the hole called a window.

Three weeks had now passed since the party had left Kalutunah, and the attempt to live on the resources of the country had utterly failed, the only game killed by the hunter Petersen being eighteen ptarmigan (arctic grouse). With food for a week only, "to appease the gnawing pains of hunger we resorted to the expedient of eating the rock-lichen, which our party called stone-moss. Black externally with a white interior, it is an inch in diameter and the thickness of a wafer. When boiled it makes a glutinous and slightly nutritious fluid. Poor as was this plant, it at least filled the stomach and kept off the horrid sensation of hunger until we got to sleep."

By the middle of October the situation was impossible, with the cold forty degrees below the freezing-point, their bedding damp, the stone-moss disagreeing with some, and one man sick. They talked of a desperate foot journey to seek aid at Netlik, the native encampment forty miles to the north, but food and strength seemed equally lacking. Even if made, would the journey be profitable? Hayes had already noted that the Eskimos "were poor beyond description. Nature seems to have supplied them with nothing but life, and they appear to have wrested from the animal world everything which they possessed. Clothed wholly in skins, with weapons fashioned of bone, they subsisted exclusively on animal food. [He adds:] There seems no hope for us save in stone-moss."

During an awful blizzard, when hopes were feeblest, two native hunters burst into the hut equally to the astonishment and relief of the boat party. Hayes says: "Invested from head to foot in a coating of ice and snow, shapeless lumps of whiteness, they reminded me of my boy-made snow kings. Their long, heavy fox-skin coats, surmounted by head-hoods, their bear-skin trousers, their seal-skin boots and mittens were saturated with snow. Their hair, eyelashes, and few chin hairs were sparkling with white frost. Each carried in his right hand a whip and in his left a lump of frozen meat and blubber. Throwing the meat on the floor, they stripped off their outer garments and hung them on the rafters. Underneath their frosty garments they wore a shirt of bird-skins. One of these new-comers was the Angekok, the sturdy, good-natured, and voluble Kalutunah. Soon we were rejoicing in a good substantial meal at the expense of our guests."

The next morning when the Inuits were leaving the starving sledge dogs attacked Hayes, who says: "An instant more and I should have been torn to pieces. I had faced death before, but never had I felt as then; my blood fairly curdled in my veins. Death down the red throats of a pack of wolfish dogs was something peculiarly unpleasant.... The poor animals, howling piteously, had been tied separately for thirty-six hours and were savagely hungry. Every line or piece of skin or article of food was out of their reach. One, however, had already eaten the trace by which he was tied."

Of the critical situation Hayes writes: "We had thirty-six biscuits and three pints of bread-dust. Each man had a biscuit a day, a quantity insufficient for our need. The hunt having failed utterly to supply us, we must get our food of the natives or not at all. Accordingly we made with the Angekok a treaty by which his people are to furnish as much food as we might want, and we are to supply them with wood, iron, knives, and needles at rates to be subsequently fixed upon."

It was a fortnight before the Inuits again appeared, and meanwhile the whale-boat was broken up for fuel. All of the party had become frightfully weak and three men were sick. Hayes piteously says: "What _shall we_ do? Will the Eskimos never come? I never go out without expecting to find a corpse when I return."

At last, after two weeks, the natives returned, coming from a hunt with the greater part of three bears. While the starving men "were fattening on the juicy bear's meat they left us," yet there was a key-note of fear in the statement that the natives "were very chary of the meat, as we obtained only enough to suffice us for a few days." Their gratitude for trifles and the willingness of the natives to give their last bit of food was shown a few days later by a young Eskimo. "He had nothing on his sledge but two small pieces of blubber, four birds, about a pound of bear meat, a bear-skin, and a small lamp. All these he laid at our feet."

Temporarily saved from death by starvation through food from the natives, the whites planned for the future. There was much wild talk about wintering at Cape York, of hiring the natives to take them across the unknown ice of Baffin Bay to Upernavik. Finally it was agreed that life depended on their obtaining supplies from or by their return to Kane and the _Advance_--either of these alternatives a difficult as well as a bitter resort. The distance along the ice-foot of the winding coast was estimated to be about three hundred miles, and it was hard to admit that their departure from the brig against the wishes and advice of their commander had been a serious mistake. At least they would try their friend Kalutunah on their various schemes before admitting their error.

The Angekok came with food, as usual, and at the same time there was a new visitor, a widow with a load of frozen birds--the little auks killed the summer before and stored for winter consumption. She declined to eat the walrus and held fast to her own food. It appeared at last that she was a patient of the medicine-man, Kalutunah, whose power over his comrades lay in his virtues as a sorcerer. Hayes says: "The widow greatly interested me. She ate birds for conscience' sake. Her husband's soul had passed into the body of a walrus as a temporary habitation, and Angekok Kalutunah had prescribed that for a certain period she should not eat the flesh of this animal. As bear and seal were scarce, she was compelled to fall back on birds. This penance [he adds] was of a kind which every Eskimo undergoes upon the death of a near relation. The Angekok announces to the mourners into what animal the soul of the departed has passed, and henceforth, until the spirit has shifted its quarters, they are not to partake of the flesh of that animal."

The party, cheered by the food brought by Kalutunah, broached to him their wishes. He listened gladly to the tales of the delight and charms of Upernavik sung by Petersen, but declined to attempt the ice journey across Baffin Bay, which was known to him only as a great, ice-filled ocean wherein had perished many of his tribe, as had lately the husband of the bird-eating widow. Neither would he sell his dogs, without whom he could neither travel nor hunt. To their surprise he consented to take one of the party north to the _Advance_. The commander of the boat-party, Petersen, decided to make the journey, and with him a seaman, Godfrey, was unwisely allowed to go, and the sledge was also accompanied to the native settlement at Netlik by two other men. The Netlik visit resulted in feasts for the men who stopped there, but Petersen and Godfrey turned back a few days later to the boat camp. They said that they were in fear of their lives from an Eskimo, Sip-su, with whom they had trouble. Hayes records the despair of the party at this situation, saying: "We are at the end of our plans and in two days more shall be at the end of our provisions. We are destitute--helpless. What _shall_ we do?"

The day that food failed he rejoices thus: "Again the Eskimos appear to us more as our good angels than as our enemies. Kalutunah and another hunter came to us to-day and threw at our feet a large piece of walrus beef and a piece of liver." Doubtless through the friendly influence of the Angekok other hunters came to the starving whites from time to time with meat--even the dreaded bully, Sip-su--receiving in payment bits of wood or of iron.

It was none the less clear that the party, unable to hunt itself, could not hope to live through the winter on meat from the natives who at times were themselves on the verge of starvation. It was decided to obtain a sledge and dogs wherewith to make the journey back to the brig.

To build a sledge Hayes examined those of the Inuits of which he says: "It was the most ingeniously contrived specimen of the mechanic art that I have ever seen, made wholly of bone and leather. The runners, square behind and rounded upward in front, about five feet long, were slabs of bone; not solid, but composed of pieces of various shapes and sizes cunningly fitted and tightly lashed together. Near their margins were rows of little holes, through which were run strings of seal-skin, by which the blocks were fastened together, making a slab almost as firm as a board. These bones were flattened and ground--a work of months for a single runner--into the required shape with stones.

"The runners were shod with ivory from the tusk of the walrus, ground flat and its corners squared with stones; it was fastened to the runner by a seal-skin string which was looped through two counter-sunk holes. This sole, though composed of a number of pieces, was uniform and as smooth as glass.

"The runners, fourteen inches apart, were fastened together by bones tightly lashed. These cross-bars were the femur of the bear, the antlers of the reindeer, and the ribs of the narwhal. Two walrus ribs were lashed, one to the after-end of each runner, for upstanders, and were braced by a piece of reindeer antler secured across the top."

Quite hopeless of building anything that should be as good as this, they succeeded in making an indifferent sled from the remains of their boats, which had been broken up and largely used for fuel. Four dogs were bought, but a single day's journey showed how impossible it was to hope to reach Kane with such a wretched field outfit. They must resort to the natives, and especially to Kalutunah the Angekok.

After endless efforts the boat party succeeded in obtaining dog teams sufficient to enable them to make the return journey to the _Advance_. As Petersen had gone ahead with one man, it left Hayes to conduct to the ship the other men, one being too sick to travel. It was a journey full of suffering from the extreme cold, of danger especially in rounding the precipitous cliffs of Cape Alexander, where the strong sea current from the north and the tides from the south cause danger spots that often bring death to the midwinter sledgemen.

Of their treatment while travelling up the coast one instance is given by Hayes: "We received all manner of kind attentions from our hosts. The women pulled off our boots, mittens, coats, and stockings and hung them up to dry. My beard was frozen fast to the fur of my coat, and it was the warm hand of Kalutunah's wife that thawed away the ice. Meats of different kinds were brought in and offered to us."

Of the passage around the cape Hayes records: "For the space of several feet the ice-foot was not more than fifteen inches wide, and sloping. A halt was called and men and dogs crouched behind the rocks for shelter. The furious wind, still lashing the waves against the frozen shore at our feet, whirled great sheets of snow down upon us from the overhanging cliffs. We could not face the pitiless storm at our backs, and to go forward seemed impossible. Discarding my mittens and clinging with my bare hands to the crevices in the rock, I moved cautiously along the sloping shelf. Below the breaking surf yawned to receive any victim who made an inadvertent step. I shall not soon forget the joy and thankfulness with which I found myself upon the broad ice-belt at the farther side of this dangerous place. The dogs were driven forward by their native masters and, seized by the collars, were dragged around the point. The sledges were pushed along the shelf and turned on one runner and held until the dogs could stretch their traces and, bounding forward, at the word whirled them around in safety before they could topple over the precipice."

Finally Van Rensselaer Harbor was reached, and the returning wanderers, blinded, frost-bitten, and exhausted, staggered on to the deck of the _Advance_. With his generous heart their old commander Kane received them with open arms and brotherly greetings.

One cannot but class as astounding these human experiences, which marked the first extended relations between the men of Etah and the adventurous explorers who had come from the outside world. In this instance there had been brought face to face the hitherto unknown men of the stone age and the representatives of the high and vaunted civilization that aims to uplift and to dominate all the nations of the earth.

On the one hand were the Etahs, who were actual children of the stone age--clothed in skins, without wood or metal, having neither houses nor boats, using stone utensils in their rude huts of skin or of rock, and living solely by the hunt. Following the chase with weapons of bone, through untold hardships they wrested, day by day, precarious food from their home environment--a habitat on one of the most desolate reaches of the arctic coasts. Their struggles for mere existence under these harsh conditions of uncertainty were such as--either among the men of the stone age or in the imperial cities of to-day--engender intense selfishness and lead to deadly contests in order to save the strong at the expense of the weak.

On the other hand were the men of the civilized world, provided with boats, furnished with selected food, especially equipped for polar service, and armed with the best weapons. Engaged in the mission of relieving the men of Franklin's missing squadron, with their superior knowledge and their trained minds, they were supposed to be able not only to be self-reliant and self-sustaining, but also to extend aid to the needy.

Through the irony of fickle fortune the civilized men had found themselves unable to maintain life by the chase of the land and sea game of the region. In dire distress, with failing food, they faced certain death unless aid should come from outside sources.

To the savage and famine-threatened men of Etah the appalling condition of their alien visitors was clearly evident. Moreover, if the helpless white men were simply left to themselves they must soon perish, leaving for the Inuits untold wealth of hitherto unknown treasures,--of iron and wood, of cloth and cordage, of robes and of weapons.

In this fearful crisis, amid arctic cold and in polar darkness, savage humanity rose to heroic heights. Selfishness and covetousness stood abashed among these children of the stone age, and in their stead were awakened holy feelings of human pity and a spirit of self-denying charity.

Their deeds show that in the white north as in the sunny south there abide the true spirit of brotherly love and a recognized sense of human interdependence. After the Etah manner, there recurred the episode of the Samaritan charity of ancient Judea. Yet the action of the Inuit even surpassed the deed of the good man of Palestine, for Etah aid was not the outcome of a rich man's loving generosity to a penniless sufferer, but it also paralleled the widow's mite, for Kalutunah, the savage sorcerer, and his tribesmen gave the sole food of to-morrow for their wives and children to save from death the rich and alien white men of the unknown south. Does heroism rise to nobler deeds in the midst of our superior civilization and higher development?

FOOTNOTES:

[8] See map, page 95.

[9] In order to raise the puppies and save them from the devouring jaws of the ravenous, starving dogs, litters are kept in the huts, or elsewhere in a protected place, until they are large enough to run about and seek their mother's aid when attacked.

DR. RAE AND THE FRANKLIN MYSTERY

"An age which passes over in silence the merits of the heroic
deserves as a punishment that it should not bring forth such an one
in its midst."--FORSTER.

In 1845 Captain John Franklin, royal navy, in command of the ships _Erebus_ and _Terror_, sailed with one hundred and twenty-nine souls to make the northwest passage. His orders carried him via Lancaster Sound and Cape Walker, and he was provisioned for three years. The ships were last seen by civilized men in Baffin Bay, whence they passed from the knowledge of the world. In 1847 great anxiety prevailed as to the fate of the expedition, and fears of its loss grew stronger from year to year. More than a score of ships, with crews of nearly two thousand men, at an expense of millions of dollars vainly sought, between 1847 and 1853, news of the missing squadron, and the British Parliament offered a reward of ten thousand pounds sterling for the first accredited information regarding the lost explorers.

The Franklin mystery was solved through the labors of Dr. John Rae, a Scotch surgeon in the employ of the Hudson Bay Company, whose marvellous endurance and restless energy are evident from the statement that in his various journeys of exploration he walked more than twenty thousand miles. The conditions under which Rae gained information as to the fate of Franklin are herein set forth.

* * * * *

Twice before had Rae been engaged in the Franklin search, in 1848-50 with Sir John Richardson, and later under the auspices of the Hudson Bay Company. In these combined journeys of five thousand three hundred and eighty miles he had explored much of Wollaston and Victoria Lands, from Fort Confidence as a base. The doctor then found at Parker Bay the butt of a flag-staff, which from its tack and line, bearing the special mark of the royal navy, had evidently belonged to one of Franklin's ships. Now, in 1853, he was in command of a Hudson Bay Company's party to complete the exploration of Boothia Peninsula.

Leaving Chesterfield Inlet by boat, Rae was en route to Repulse Bay, his intended head-quarters, when he fell in with a herd of walruses, from which, in spite of his terrified crew, who feared these sea-monsters, he obtained an enormous animal that furnished enough blubber for his cooking-lamps throughout the winter. That Rae's walrus hunt was not without danger was evident from the experiences of four Eskimos off this very coast on Rae's previous visit. The natives lashed together their four kayaks, and while in pursuit of walruses were attacked by a ferocious male. Striking down the first kayak with his enormous tusks, the infuriated animal ploughed through the miniature fleet, capsizing and breaking up the four tiny crafts and drowning the unfortunate hunters.

It was the middle of August when Rae pitched his tents on the barren shores of Repulse Bay, where the outlook for food and comfort were not promising--the shore being free from Eskimo hunters, whose absence indicated that the migratory game was pasturing inland that year. Summer was rapidly passing, yet thick masses of old ice clung to the shore and immense drifts of snow still filled the ravines.

The party had food and fuel for three months only, while the work in hand meant a stay of nine months. The doctor began to collect supplies systematically, and knew how to work to the best advantage as he had once wintered at Repulse Bay. One party spread fish-nets at the best places along the shore, the second took the field for deer and other large game, while the last busied itself in gathering fuel for the winter. Rae had earlier found that bunches of the arctic saxifrage made excellent fuel when dried, and as there were neither trees nor shrubs the hills and valleys were scoured for this useful plant.

With true Scottish pertinacity, Rae set the pace for his men and then outdid them all in turn. Supplementing the mental training of the Caucasian by extended experiences in the hunting-field of the Hudson Bay region, he astonished and discomfited his men through astounding success in the pursuit of game. In knowledge of woodcraft, in keenness of vision, in keeping the trail, in patient waiting, and in hunter's wiles he was without equal among his men. The Indian deer-hunter, Mistegan, had come north especially selected to kill game for the party. When the Indian kept the field for ten hours and brought in a deer, Rae kept it for twelve hours and killed two or three animals. Pushed by his white rival, Mistegan did his best and shot twenty-one deer in six weeks, while Rae had to his credit forty-nine head--the whole party of eight killing only one hundred and nine.

To the amazement of all, after a long absence roaming over the far-distant hills to the west, Rae brought word that he had slain a musk-ox--the sole wanderer that year from the herds of the barren grounds to the southwest.

The weather became bitter cold, with the temperature down to zero, and sea-fishing then failed. Rae turned his efforts to the newly frozen lakes, where the hooks and nets, skilfully set, yielded two or three salmon or lake trout daily--no mean addition to their larder for men who were living on the game of the country.

October was a dismal period with its shortening days, its gloomy skies, and high winds, which with zero temperatures blew piercingly through the wretchedly thin tents. Life in daylight was only endurable when men were on the trail or hunt. But now the wise old monarchs of the herds were turning their heads southward in their annual migration, and only twenty-five deer were killed during the month.

However, the bitter wind did good and needful work, for in time it packed into marble-like drifts the autumnal snows. This gave work for native snow-knife and deft hands, which soon erected two large snow houses, on the southerly side of Beacon Hill, where they were well sheltered from the prevailing northwesterly gales.

With Indian inclinations to idleness, some of the men looked forward eagerly to the completion of the snow houses. They were viewed as comfortable places for the long winter, where the cheerful pipe, with tales of the trail and ample food, should make content the trapper's heart and body. Rae had no such notion, for he had lived too long with natives and with half-breeds not to know that daily work was needful not only for the health, but even more for the morale and efficiency of his men.

Finding that the fish-nets of the lake were much cut up by a small, shrimp-like water insect, the favorite food of the salmon, he transferred them to the rapids of North Pole River, which kept open nearly all winter. Some of the men made the six-mile tramp across the rough country to daily drag the nets, while the rest kept the field where an occasional fox, wolf, partridge, or wolverine rewarded their efforts.

After a time there was much grumbling at days of fruitless hunting. Rae was equal to the occasion, and he set the discontented hunters at work scraping under the snow for saxifrage, their sole supply of fuel. To complaints he tersely said: "No saxifrage, no tea." Only men familiar with the white north know what a deprivation it would have been to these half-breeds to give up the hot tea, which they daily look forward to with intense longing and drink with deep satisfaction.

With midwinter past and the sun returned, Rae welcomed with relief the first sign of the far-distant but longed-for arctic spring. Of course, with lengthening days came strengthening cold, and there were weeks during which the mercury was frozen--the true arctic days of no wind, of bright skies, and of beautiful colors in air and on ice.

One day the youngest of the Indians burst into the snow house, crying out in great terror that the clouds were on fire. While the older men rushed out instantly, the phlegmatic Scot followed at leisure. It proved to be an offshoot of one of the brilliant sun-dogs which so wondrously beautify the arctic heavens, especially in the early spring or late winter. These sun-dogs, or mock-suns, arise from refraction and reflection of the solar rays of light from the ice particles that are suspended in the air, and are usually at twenty-two or forty-five degrees distant from the sun itself.

On this occasion the sun-dogs had formed behind a thin, transparent cirrus cloud which greatly extended the area of the sun-dog besides adding very greatly to its already vivid colors. Rae tells us that "three fringes of pink and green followed the outlines of the cloud." The alarm and mistake of the young novice in sun-dogs and solar halos were sources of gibes and fun among his chaffing comrades for many days.

Rae now began his preparations for field work. A snow hut was put up for the use of the carpenter, who was soon busy overhauling the sledge gear. The Hudson Bay sledges were carefully taken apart, scraped, polished, reduced in weight as far as was safe, and then put together with the utmost care so that the chance of a break-down in the field should be reduced to a minimum. The trade articles for use with the Eskimos were gone over and so arranged as to give the greatest variety for use in the field with the least weight. Everything was to be hauled by man-power and the weights must be as small as possible. Beads, files, knives, thimbles, fish-hooks, needles, and chisels were thought to be the best suited to native needs and tastes.

Meanwhile, Rae was disturbed that no signs of Eskimos had been found in their local field journeys. He feared that their absence might mean that there had been a change of route on the part of the reindeer in their migratory paths, for in that region no game meant no inhabitants. Several efforts to locate natives near the fishing-points were made without success. The doctor then put into the field two of his best men, Thomas Mistegan, the deer-hunter, "a trusty, pushing fellow," as we are told, and William Ouglibuck, the Eskimo interpreter of the party. Their journey of several days to Ross Bay showed that the country was bare of natives, but here and there were seen a number of deer migrating to the north, and of these a few were shot. This journey was most disappointing in its results for Rae had hoped to find Eskimos from whom he could buy a few dogs for sledge work.

Rae did not spare himself, for starting in bitterly cold weather he laid down an advance depot which was hauled on Hudson Bay sledges a distance of one hundred and seventy miles. At Cape Pelly stores were cached under large stones, secure, as he said, from any animal except man or bear. Long experience had made him familiar with the enormous strength and destructive powers of the polar bear. Dr. Kane, it will be recalled, tells of the utter ruin of one of his best-built cairns, which he thought to be animal-proof. Yet the bears tore it down and scattered its heaviest packages in all directions.

The long and final trip to the north began on the last day of March, the four sledgemen hauling each a heavily laden sledge. The field ration was almost entirely pemmican, two pounds per day, with a few biscuit and the indispensable tea. The trip began with misfortunes, one man proving so weak in the traces that Rae had to replace him by the Cree Indian, Mistegan, an experienced sledge-hauler of unusual activity.

The route lay overland almost directly north, to Pelly Bay across a broken, desolate country. Violent blizzards and knee-deep snow made travel painful enough, but under Rae's exacting leadership the hardships became extreme. Each sledge with its load approached two hundred pounds, an awful drag, which could be made only by men of iron frame and great endurance, especially when making some twenty miles per day--Rae's standard of travel. The day's march ended, then came the tedious labor of building a snow igloo, wherein at least they were able to sleep with warmth and comfort. While hut-building was in progress the doctor faithfully made sextant observations for latitude or longitude, determined the local variation of the compass, and observed the temperature--in short, did more than any other man of the party.

Day after day they marched on over a land of desolation and abandonment. Neither bird nor man nor beast was to be seen, despite the keen eyes of the Cree hunter, of whom Rae commendingly remarked: "Custom had caused him to notice indications and marks which would have escaped the observation of a person less acute and experienced." In this single particular, of picking up and following a trail, was the remarkable Scottish leader surpassed by any of his Indian hunters or Canadian trappers.

Nearly three weeks of monotonous, heart-breaking travel had thus passed, and they reached the shores of Pelly Bay. Scouring the country near the camp as usual, the trail-hunting Cree, Mistegan, threw up his hands with the welcome message of things seen, which brought Rae to his side. There, clear to the Indian but almost illegible to any other, a few faint scratches on the surface of the ice told that days before there had passed a dog-drawn sledge.

Making camp, Rae began work on his observations, at the same time setting two men at gathering saxifrage for fuel, and putting on the sledge trail Eskimo Ouglibuck and fleet-footed Mistegan. That night Rae was happy to see flying across the bay ice several dog-sledges with triumphant Mistegan in the lead.

There were seventeen Inuit hunters, twelve men and five women. Although several of them had met Rae at Repulse Bay in 1846-7, the greater number were pushing and troublesome, having a certain contempt for men of pale faces who were so poor that they were without even a single dog and had to haul their sledges themselves. After some talk they were ready to sell the seal meat with which their sledges were loaded, but would not, despite liberal promises of needles, agree to hire out their dogs to go westward across land, as Rae desired them to do in order that he might survey the west coast--his sole object on this journey. Although Rae spoke of the delights of chasing musk-oxen, they preferred their seal-hunting grounds which they had just visited with success.

Rae tells us of a favorite method of seal-hunting followed by these Eskimos in which many of the native women are very expert. On bright days the seals, crawling from their air-holes, delight to bask in the sun and indulge in little cat-naps or siestas. Dozing a half-minute, the seal awakes with alarm, and after quickly looking in all directions falls asleep, with constant repetitions of naps and starts. When a seal is thus engaged the hunter, clad in seal-skin garments, endeavors to make his way between the seal and the air-hole, a process demanding endless patience and involving much fatigue. The hunter lies either on his face or side, and makes his advances while the animal dozes or is looking elsewhere. If obliged to move while the seal is awake, the native makes his advances by a series of awkward motions like those of a seal making its way over the ice. A skilful hunter sometimes gets within a few feet of the animal without arousing its fears, and an on-looker would at a distance be unable to say which figure was the seal and which the man. Seals are unusually curious, and at times one comes forward with friendly air to meet its supposed fellow. When in the desired position the hunter springs up and, running to the air-hole, attacks the animal as he tries to escape. Seals are thus captured even without a spear or other weapon, a blow on the nose from a club killing them.

The active and numerous body of Eskimo visitors were too meddlesome for Scotch patience, and Rae finally sent them away, not, however, before they had stolen, as it was later learned, a few pounds of biscuit and a large lump of fuel-grease.

Rae was now almost directly to the east of the magnetic north pole, the north-seeking end of his compass pointing eight degrees to the _south_ of due _west_. Breaking camp, he turned toward the magnetic pole. Having a heavy load, he decided to cache his surplus supplies until his return, but did not dare to do so near the Eskimos. The cache was made on a rocky hill several miles inland, and it took some time to make it secure from animals and free from observation by travellers. The cache made, Rae was astonished and angry to find that the Eskimo interpreter, Ouglibuck, was gone. Rae never thought of desertion, but keen-eyed Mistegan caught sight of the Inuit fleeing to the eastward toward the camp of his native cousins. As the speediest of the party, the doctor and the Cree started after him, taking that slow dog-trot with which the Indian runners cover so much ground untiringly. It was a sharp run of five miles before the deserter was overtaken.

Rae says: "Ouglibuck was in a great fright when we came up with him, and was crying like a child, but expressed his readiness to return, and pleaded sickness as an excuse."

The doctor thought it best to diplomatically accept the statement that the deserter was sick, but none the less he deemed it wise to decrease the load hauled by the Eskimo, doing so at the expense of the half-breeds. But it was quite clear that Ouglibuck was more than willing to exchange his conditions of hard field work with scant food for the abundant seal meat and the social company of his own people, which had proved so enjoyable during his brief visit to their igloos.

This prompt action of Rae's tided over the critical phase of the expedition, and the temporary delay indirectly brought about the meeting with other natives, from whom came the first news of the missing explorers. Immediately after renewing his western journey, Rae met a native who had killed a musk-ox and was returning home with his dog-sledge laden with meat. Ouglibuck made his best efforts to reinstate himself in the good graces of Rae by persuading the Inuit stranger to make a journey of two days to the westward, thus lightening the loads of the other sledges. Another Eskimo then joined Rae, anxious to see the white men of whom he had heard from the visitors of the day previous.

The doctor asked his usual question, as a matter of form, as to the Eskimo having seen before any white men or any ships, to which he answered in the negative. On further questioning he said that he had heard of a party of _kabloonans_ (white men), who had died of starvation a long distance to the west.

Realizing the full importance of this startling and unexpected information, Dr. Rae followed up this clew with the utmost energy, both through visits to and by questionings of all Eskimos he could find. He also extended his field efforts, during which cairns were searched and the adjoining region travelled over as far as Beecher River, about 69 deg. N. 92 deg. W. His original work of surveying was now made incidental to a search for Franklin!

Nor must it be thought that these journeys were made without considerable danger and much physical suffering. A half-breed, through neglect of Rae's orders regarding changes of damp foot-gear at night, froze two toes. With a courage almost heroic, this Indian labored to redeem himself by travelling along and by doing all his work for several weeks until he could scarcely stand. Imbued with the importance of his new mission, Rae allowed nothing to stand in his way of adding to his precious knowledge and to the possible chance of tracing the wanderings of the lost explorers. He left the lame man with another half-breed to care for him and to cook the food spared for them. The shiftless character of Rae's men was shown by the fact that the well man not only did not shoot anything but did not even gather saxifrage for fuel, but used scarce and precious grease food for cooking.

Yet the fortitude and pride of the cripple was displayed in the return journey, with the outer joint of his great toe sloughed off, thus making it most painful to walk; as Rae remarks, "He had too much spirit to allow himself to be hauled."

Rae's collected information was as follows:

In 1850 Eskimo families killing seals near King William Land saw about forty white men travelling southward along the west shore, dragging a boat and sledges. By signs the natives learned that their ships had been crushed and that they were going to find deer to shoot. All were hauling on the sledge except one officer. They looked thin and bought a seal from the natives. Late that year the natives found the corpses of about thirty-five men near Montreal Island and Point Ogle, part in tents and others under a boat. None of the Eskimos questioned by Rae had seen the explorers either living or dead. They learned of these matters from other natives, from whom they had obtained by barter many relics of various kinds.

Rae succeeded in purchasing about sixty articles from the Eskimos. The most important, which left no doubt of their having come from Franklin's squadron, were twenty-one pieces of silver for the table, which were marked with five different crests and with the initials of seven officers of the expedition, including Sir John Franklin.

The natives thought that some of the explorers lived until the coming of wild fowl, in May, 1850, as shots were heard and fish bones with feathers of geese were later seen near the last encampment.

Although Rae had completed his survey only in part, he wisely decided that he had, as he records, "A higher duty to attend to, that duty being to communicate with as little loss of time as possible the melancholy tidings which I had heard, and thereby save the risk of more valuable lives being jeopardized in a fruitless search in a direction where there was not the slightest prospect of obtaining any information."

As may be imagined, Rae's definite reports stirred deeply the hearts and minds of the civilized world, which for seven long years had vainly striven to rend the veil of mystery that surrounded the fate of Franklin and his men.

The silver and other articles brought back by Dr. Rae were placed in the Painted Hall of Greenwich Hospital, among the many historic relics of the royal navy. Even to-day these relics attract the attention and excite the admiration of countless visitors. And well they may, not alone as memorials of the deeds in peace of the naval heroes of England, but also as evidences of the modest courage, the stanch endurance, and heroic efforts of a Scotch doctor, John Rae, through whose arduous labors they were placed in this temple of fame.

SONNTAG'S FATAL SLEDGE JOURNEY

"Death cut him down before his prime,
At manhood's open portal."
--POMEROY.

The remarkable series of physical observations of Kane's expedition, the most valuable scientific contribution of any single arctic party in that generation, was almost entirely due to the scientific training and personal devotion of his astronomer, August Sonntag. While the nature of his duties lay in the observatory, his adventurous spirit sought field service whenever practicable. As shown in "Kane's Rescue of His Freezing Shipmates," Sonntag's prudence kept him from freezing in that terrible winter sledging, while his energy in the long journey for aid contributed to the final rescue of the disabled party.

When Dr. I. I. Hayes outfitted his expedition of 1860 in the _United States_, the glamour of the arctic seas was still on Sonntag, who for service therewith resigned his fine position as associate director of the Dudley Observatory at Albany. Of his expeditionary force Hayes wrote that he "lacked men. My only well-instructed associate was Mr. Sonntag."

Sailing as astronomer and as second in command, Sonntag met his fate with the expedition on the ice-foot of the West Greenland coast. His dangerous journey was made for reasons vital to the success of the expedition. The incidents of the sledge trip are briefly supplemented by such references to his previous field experiences as show the physical fitness and heroic quality of the man.[10]

* * * * *

The schooner _United States_ was in winter quarters at Port Foulke, near Littleton Island. Without steam-power, the ship had not only been unable to pass to the northward of Cape Sabine, but her unavoidable conflicts with the polar pack had sadly damaged her. Conscious that his ship was so near a wreck as to be unable to renew her voyage toward the north the next summer, Hayes found himself obliged to undertake his polar explorations with dogs over a long line of ice-floes.

Tests of dogs became the order of the day, and Hayes's delight was great when, driving his own team--twelve strong, selected animals with no load--twelve miles in sixty-one minutes, he beat Sonntag by four minutes.

Although knowing the danger of such a journey, Sonntag arranged to climb Brother John's Glacier (named by Kane for his brother) to determine its seaward march. The approach was through a deep canyon. "This gorge is interrupted in places by immense bowlders which have fallen from the overhanging cliffs, or by equally large masses of ice which have broken from the glacier. Sometimes the ice, moving bodily forward, had pushed the rocks up the hill-side in a confused wave. After travelling two miles along the gorge Sonntag made the ascent, Alpine fashion, with which he was familiar, by steps cut with a hatchet in solid ice."

The deep, irregular crevasses common to most glaciers were bridged by crust formations of the recent autumnal snows. These bridges were so uniform with the general surface of the glacier as to make their detection almost impossible. Although Sonntag moved with great caution and continually tested the snow with his ice-chisel, which replaced the Alpine alpenstock, he broke through one bridge. Most fortunately the fall was at a place where the fissure was only about three feet wide, opening either way into a broad crevasse. Still more fortunately he did not fall entirely into the chasm, but as he pitched forward he instinctively extended his left hand, in which he was carrying a mercurial barometer three feet long, which caught on two points of the glacier and thus barely saved his life.[11]

But Sonntag's ardent wish was for a bear hunt which occurred during an unsuccessful attempt to revisit Rensselaer Harbor by dog-sledge, when a bear and cub were killed.

Hayes says: "Sonntag has given me a lively description of the chase. As soon as the dogs discovered the trail they dashed off utterly regardless of the safety of the people on the sledges. Jensen's sledge nearly capsized, and Sonntag rolled off in the snow, but he was fortunate enough to catch the upstander and with its aid to regain his seat. The delay in the hummocks gave the bears a start and made it probable that they would reach the open sea. Maddened by the detention and the prospect of the prey escaping them, the bloodthirsty pack swept across the snowy plain like a whirlwind. The dogs manifested the impatience of hounds in view of a fox, with ten times their savageness. To Sonntag they seemed like so many wolves closing upon a wounded buffalo.

"The old bear was kept back by the young one, which she was unwilling to abandon. The poor beast was in agony and her cries were piteous. The little one jogged on, frightened and anxious, retarding the progress of the mother who would not abandon it. Fear and maternal affection alternately governed her. One moment she would rush forward toward the open water, intent only upon her own safety; then she would wheel around and push on the struggling cub with her snout and again coaxingly encourage it to greater speed.

"Within fifty yards of the struggling animals the hunters, leaning forward, slipped the knot which bound the traces together in one fastening, and the dogs, freed from the sledges, bounded fiercely for their prey. The old bear heard the rush of her enemies and squared herself to meet the assault. The little one ran frightened around her and then crouched for shelter between her legs.

"The old and experienced leader, Oo-si-so-ak, led the attack. Queen Ar-ka-dik was close beside him, and twenty other wolfish beasts followed. Only one dog faced her, and he, young, with more courage than discretion, rushed at her throat and in a moment was crushed by her huge paw. Oo-si-so-ak came in upon her flank, Ar-ka-dik tore at her haunch, and other dogs followed this prudent example. She turned upon Oo-si-so-ak and drove him from his hold, but in this act the cub was uncovered. Quick as lightning Karsuk flew at its neck and a slender yellow mongrel followed after. The little bear prepared to do battle. Karsuk missed his grip and the mongrel tangled among the legs of the cub was soon doubled up with a blow in the side and escaped yowling. Oo-si-so-ak was hard pressed, but his powerful rival came to his relief with his followers upon the opposite flank, which concentrated onslaught turned the bear in the direction of the cub in time to save it, for it was now being pulled down by Karsuk and his pack.

"Disregarding her own tormentors, she threw herself upon the assailants of the cub, and to avoid her blows they quickly abandoned their hold, which enabled her to once more draw under her the plucky little creature, weakened with loss of blood and exhausted with the fight. The dogs, beaten off from the cub, now concentrated on the mother, and the battle became more fierce than ever. The snow was covered with blood. A crimson stream poured from the old bear's mouth and another trickled over the white hair of her shoulder, from shots fired by Hans and Jensen. The little one was torn and bleeding. One dog was crushed almost lifeless, and another marked with many a red stain the spot where he was soothing his agony with piteous cries.

"Sonntag now came up, but their united volley, while weakening her, was not sufficient to prevent her from again scattering the dogs and sheltering her offspring, which then sank expiring. Seeing it fall, she for a moment forgot the dogs, and licking its face tried to coax it to rise. Now, apparently conscious that the cub no longer needed her protection, she turned upon her tormentors with redoubled fury, and flung another dog to join the luckless mongrel.

"For the first time she seemed to know that she was beset with other enemies than dogs, when, his rifle missing fire, Hans advanced with an Eskimo spear to a hand-to-hand encounter. Seeing him approach, the infuriated monster cleared away the dogs with a vigorous dash and charged him. He threw his weapon at the animal and turned in flight. The bear bounded after him, and in an instant more neither speed nor dogs could have saved him. Fortunately Sonntag and Jensen had by this time reloaded their rifles, and with well-directed shots rolled her over on the blood-stained snow."

In early December a great misfortune befell the expedition through an epidemic disease attacking the dogs. "The serious nature of this disaster [says Hayes] will be apparent when it is remembered that my plans of operations for the spring were mainly based upon dogs as a means of transportation across the ice. Unless I shall be able to supply the loss, all of my plans would be abortive." The first dog attacked, Karsuk of the bear-fight, was the best draught animal of the best team. Of the effect of the malady he adds: "I have never seen such expression of ferocity and mad strength exhibited by any living creature as he manifested two hours after the first symptoms were observed. I had him caught and placed in a large box, but this aggravated rather than soothed the violence of the symptoms. He tore the boards with indescribable fierceness, ripping off splinter after splinter, when I ordered him to be shot." About the middle of December there remained only nine dogs out of the original pack of thirty-six.

It occurred both to Hayes and to Sonntag that the best method of replacing their lost animals was to open communication with the Eskimos of Whale Sound. If they could induce several native families, through offers of stores and food, to come north to Foulke Harbor, they would bring along their dog teams which would thus be available for the sledge journeys of the coming spring.

There were supposed to be several Inuit families living on the south side of Whale Sound, which was distant a midwinter sledge journey of at least one hundred and fifty miles. Hayes says: "That we should communicate with these people at the earliest practicable moment was a matter of the first importance. When the moon came it was arranged that Sonntag should make the journey, taking a single sledge and Hans as a driver."

Sonntag and Hans started with a team of nine dogs on the day of the arctic midnight, December 21, when the sun had reached its greatest southern declension. Hayes writes on the 22d: "Sonntag set out yesterday to reach the Eskimos. We had talked the matter over from day to day, and saw clearly it was the only thing to do. It was evident that if we waited for daylight they would be beyond our reach."

Five weeks later came the news of Sonntag's death, which is told by Hans in his "Memoirs":[12]