Fatal North (22 page)

I wonder what they had for dinner today. It is not so hard to guess: a fifteen or sixteen pound turkey, boiled ham,
and chicken-pie, with all sorts of fresh and canned vegetables; and celery, with nice white bread; and tea, coffee, and chocolate; then there will be plum pudding, and three or four kinds of pies, and cheese, and perhaps some good sweet cider—perhaps some currant or raspberry wine; and then there will be plenty of apples, and oranges, and nuts and raisins. And if the children have been to Sunday school in the morning, they will have their little treasures, besides all their home presents spread out too. How I wish I could look in upon them! I would not let them know I was here, if I could. How it would spoil their day!

With the arrival of December, complete darkness descended upon them.

There was little change in their way of living. Mostly, they lay still in their bunks; the more quiet they lay, the warmer they stayed and the less food they could live on. The daily allowance was now six ounces of bread and five ounces of canned meat. These ingredients were mixed with brackish water for seasoning and warmed over lamp or fire. Even this inadequate ration was more than they could spare from their depleting stores.

While the darkness lasted, they had little hope of getting seals. Bears only come where seals are to be caught, and foxes usually followed in the trail of bears. However, the first week of December a poor, thin fox wandered into camp in search of food and was shot and killed. It had hardly a pound of flesh on its bones—“all hair and tail,” as one of the men said—but they ate what there was of it, and picked its bones clean.

In the constant darkness, a serious disagreement arose as to which way they were drifting. Frederick Meyer announced his opinion that they were drifting eastward across Baffin Bay and nearing Cape York, on the western shore of Greenland.

Tyson was certain they were not heading east at all. He knew heavy ice such as the floe they were riding did not obey the winds—not as loose, floating surface ice often did. Assuming the currents had not changed their natural course—and
he had seen nothing to indicate that they had—he knew from sailing these waters the past decade that they must be drifting south-southwest, which would put them closer to the eastern shore of Ellesmere Island and perhaps
a hundred fifty miles from Greenland.

Normally, it would not have mattered what opinions were entertained as to the course of the floe, except that the German seamen wanted to believe Meyer, their tacit leader, that they were nearing the coast of Greenland. There was much discussion about taking the boat and heading to land, which they would then follow down to the Danish settlement of Disco, where they knew a large store of provisions had been left for the expedition.

Tyson realized if they started off in the hope of reaching Greenland, the result would be the death of all of them. Too late they would recognize that they were nowhere near Greenland but had the whole of ice-clogged Baffin Bay before them.

Would the men set out for Greenland, leaving Tyson and the Eskimo families to fend for themselves on the floe? If they were left behind without a boat, they could never get off, and would be doomed—awaiting the inevitable breakup of the ice floe underneath their feet, from which there could be no escape.

Tyson would not voice such thoughts without proof of their intentions, but he was concerned about what some of the men might be capable of doing. They openly complained about their miserable circumstances, as if those conditions weren't shared by everyone. In Tyson's view, they did not possess much self-control, courage, or endurance.

Had they moved more quickly to reach shore that first morning they had been separated from
Polaris,
the outcome would have been very different, Tyson knew. They could well have made it back aboard ship. He had since understood that the men that fateful morning had discussed the drift of the
Hansa
crew, and the gratuity of one thousand thalers donated by the Danish government to each man of that party. There had
been talk that if they should drift likewise, they would get double pay from Congress! But Tyson appreciated the difference in the circumstances, even if they did not. The
Hansa
party had had ample time to get all they wanted from the vessel—provisions, clothing, fuel, and even a house frame—because there had been firm leadership aboard ship and no panic. And they had drifted along the east coast of Greenland, where the weather is moderate compared to that of the west coast. If this incident had influenced them in any way, they must have by now—after months of suffering—realized the sad mistake they had made. Why did they think Congress would handsomely reward them for coming back without their ship, and with their popular commander in his grave?

Everyone's weaknesses were most felt in the flesh, on attempting to do any kind of work. Tyson could not imagine where Joe and Hans found the reserves to go forth and hunt. While the crewmen were evidently uneasy, and their talk and plans at times bold, whenever they ventured outside and faced the cold, they were glad to creep back again to their shelter and such safety and certainty that they found there.

However, the Germans are organized now,
Tyson wrote,
and appear determined to control their destiny. They want to be masters here. They go swaggering about with their pistols and rifles, presented to each of them after the death of Captain Hall. I see the necessity of being very careful; any disorder would be ruinous. They think the natives a burden, particularly Hans and his family, and they would gladly rid themselves of them. Then they think there would be fewer to consume the provisions, and if they moved toward the shore, there would not be the children to lug. With the return of light and game, I hope things will be better, if I can manage to keep all smooth till then. But I must say I never was so tired in my life.

One day in their igloo Joe, who had all along kept his rifle and pistol and had not been willing to lend them to Tyson even for hunting, gave him the handgun and ammunition. Hannah
sat next to him, their daughter wrapped in furs and asleep in her arms.

“Why are you giving me your pistol?” Tyson asked.

“Not like look in men's eyes,” Joe said solemnly.

Tyson had never seen the Eskimo hunter afraid of anything, but he was now.

“They are very hungry, sir,” Hannah said. “Joe and Hans not get enough seal.”

“You're doing your best,” Tyson protested. “Without you they'd be dead men.”

“Afraid for family,” Joe said. “Help protect?”

With horror Tyson realized the couple's worst fear was not abandonment on the ice by the rest of the party. It was far more evil: Joe and Hans would be killed first, then their wives and children would be killed—and they all would be
eaten.

“With my life if they should try to harm any of you,” Tyson promised.

It was a dark moment for them, facing the unthinkable.

Tyson brooded for days. Aside from the obvious crime against humanity, it would be the worst possible decision for the men to kill the natives. They were the party's best hunters; in winter or spring, no white man could catch seal like an Eskimo, who had practiced it all his life. It would be killing the goose which lay the golden egg.

Yet, Tyson sadly agreed with Joe and Hannah; he could not trust what that group of desperate, frightened, and hungry men were capable of doing—they who stayed to themselves so much and spoke only their language and did only what they wanted to do.

Keeping the pistol at his side whenever he ventured out, he kept a close watch. He was armed for the first time, and it would go hard with anyone who tried to harm his friends Joe, Hannah, young Punny, and the other Eskimos—the very people who had been doing the most to see that everyone survived on this
God-made raft.

Dec. 7. Joe and Hannah are much alarmed. Cannibalism! God forbid that any of this company should be tempted to such a crime! If it is God's will that we should die by starvation, let us die like men, not like brutes, tearing each other to pieces.

Dec. 16. The fear of death has long ago been starved and frozen out of me; but if I perish, I hope that some of this company will be saved to tell the truth of the doings on Polaris. Those who have baffled and spoiled this expedition ought not to escape.

14

The Sun Rises

F
or Christmas dinner they divided up their last ham, which they had been saving for the occasion. That day they also saw land for the first time in months. It showed itself to the west—at a distance of forty to fifty miles. In all likelihood it was desolate Baffin Island, the largest island in Canada and 950 miles long. If the Germans were relieved they had not followed their leader's advice and set off to the east to find Greenland across treacherous miles of icy seas, they kept it to themselves.

The shortest and darkest day of the year was now behind them, and their southward drift was helping them to gain fast on the light. Bright streaks of twilight were beginning to show in the sky.

Tyson considered how different his feelings would be if they were drifting northward, into the Arctic night, instead of away from it. That would have been cheerless, if not altogether hopeless. Heading south, there was still hope they could make it if they had adequate daylight to hunt productively. He hoped yet to land safely on the coast of Labrador come spring or, better yet, to drift to the whaling grounds and have the good fortune to be picked up.

Two days after Christmas, Joe and Hans went hunting. They found the ice broken in many places and saw two seals but could not get them. The sun had not been seen in the sky since October, and they could see plainly in a kind of twilight for only about two hours in the middle of the day—an hour before and an hour after noon—and only then if the weather was clear.

That night Hannah tried to make a meal from a few pieces of dried sealskin she had saved for repairing clothing. Even after cooking, the remnants remained very tough. The natives had extremely strong teeth that could rip through almost anything, but when Tyson tried, his jaws ached as he chewed the old skin. They also ate all the refuse of the oil lamp: dried-out, burnt blubber. They were now willing to eat anything that would aid in sustaining life.

Hans shot a seal the next day but lost him. If they had been catching plenty of seal, such an accident would have gone unnoticed. But to the men, it seemed very stupid. Later that day Joe shot and killed a seal in a stretch of open water. As it floated away from him he shouted as loud as he could for his kayak, and some of the men carried it over to him. After getting in, he paddled off and was fortunate enough to bag his game.

It was a Greenland seal, a pretty creature when observed in its natural habitat. Its fur is a shiny white and beautifully spotted on the back and sides. It ordinarily weighs fifty to sixty pounds, and appears singly or in families.

To divide a seal properly, Eskimo-style, first the “blanket”—the skin, which includes the blubber—is taken off. It is inseparable as it comes from the creature, and is opened carefully in such a way as to prevent the blood from being lost. With the seal placed in such a position that the blood will run into the internal cavity, the blood is then scooped out and either saved for future use or passed around for each participant to drink a portion. The liver and heart, which the Eskimos consider delicacies, are divided equally so that all in the family get a piece. The brain is a tidbit, too, and is either reserved or divided. The eyes are given to the youngest child to eat. Then the flesh is cut up into equal
portions, according to the size of the company. The entrails were usually scraped and allowed to freeze, and later eaten. The skins were usually saved by the natives for clothing, and also for many other domestic purposes, such as kayaks, the reins and harnesses for dog sleds, and tents. In fact, almost everything an Eskimo wore or used was furnished by the seal. Even the membranous tissues of the body were stretched and dried for the purpose of making semi transparent windows to their huts.

In their present circumstances of near starvation, they had but two uses for the seal: to eat it and reserve portions of the blubber for the lamps. The seal that Joe shot and recovered was but a small one, and when eighteen hungry people (the nineteenth, baby Charlie Polaris, was breast-feeding) were finished, there was nothing left but the skin and entrails. They would eat those, too, but not that night. The meal gave everybody new strength. The blubber derived from the little seal was almost invaluable to them for their lamps, and would last three weeks—warming their food and igloos, and providing light.

New Year's Day, January 1, 1873, was the coldest day they had yet experienced on the floe: minus 29 degrees. If they had been well fed and better clothed, they would have thought less about it, but as it was, the bitter wind flayed one through and through, letting each person know every weak and sore spot in his abused body.

“We cannot join in the glad shout at the birth of another year,”
Tyson wrote.
“I have dined today on about two feet of frozen seal's entrails and a small piece of congealed blubber. I only wish we had plenty of even that, but we have not.”

The natives went hunting every day as the light slowly increased, but were still thwarted by so little open water. On January 3, Joe found three seal holes in the ice, but it was so intensely cold that he could not stay to watch them. It stayed very cold for four days, making the ice firm and compact.

They were drifting in the widest part of Baffin Bay. Land to the west was still visible in the distance, now about eighty miles off, and solid ice extended in all directions as far as one could
see. While there was more chance of open water on the Greenland or eastern side of the bay, Tyson knew there was little or no chance of the southward current taking them to it.

Provisions were disappearing faster than they should. Because Tyson distributed the rations, he knew there must be pilferage among the men, and as they were under no control, it did not surprise him. He would have set a round-the-clock watch to guard the stores if it was possible to stand the cold nights, but in their weakened condition it would have been fatal. Certainly, his own clothing—the same he had been wearing when he took to the ice that fateful night—was too thin to consider standing guard. He had been wintering without coat or pants, wearing only short breeches that went as far as the tops of his boots. None of the men had been willing to share with him any extra clothing they had, preferring to wear multiple layers for their own comfort.