Fatal North (25 page)

When the Eskimos returned from their hunt the next day, they reported to Tyson that cracks in the ice where they had been sealing were not limited to the “young ice,” but were cut clear through the old—an indication that their floe might split open at any time. Already heavy pieces from the edge of the floe had dropped off, they said, and icebergs that had accompanied them on their long journey were moving rapidly before the wind.

As yet, they had not been threatened, although if any of the massive bergs surrounding them were driven upon their floe, it would be crushed instantly. This caused some reflection among the crew. The ice, they knew, must break up sometime, and whether they would survive that upcoming catastrophe they could not know. They were at the mercy of the elements.

Early the next morning, Tyson, fighting a freezing wind the entire way, ventured to the edge of the floe to check the ice conditions. He was shocked at the loss of strength he felt with the effort, the first serious exercise he had done in weeks. It was poor encouragement for attempting a fatiguing journey over the ice with an enfeebled company. Before they started out, it would be absolutely necessary to increase the rations. They could not move forward and drag the boat on their present allowance, yet if they had larger rations, how soon all provisions would be gone! One bad storm would likely be death to them all, since they would receive its brutal force in the open with no shelter.

He looked for land in every direction, but all was ice and icebergs, dreary yet enchanting. The sun lit up the massive forms, its rays shooting through the projecting peaks, showing all the colors of the rainbow. Each berg presented, in contour, the effects of its battles with wind and water, rain and storm, and the rough jostling with other bergs it had experienced.

Icebergs do not grow in the water, as many people imagine, but originate at the foot or outlet of glaciers. A sea of ice throws off a large number of rivers of ice, or glaciers, and these slowly make their way to the coast, often reaching the shore over high
rocks. No matter what is in their way, they push on to the sea. Everywhere on the northwestern coast of Greenland these project into Baffin Bay. The foot of the glacier, which can often be measured in miles, projects under the water as well as above it, and when it grows beyond a certain height and depth, the tides force a way under it. This erosion, combined with its own weight hanging over the precipice, finally separates a piece from the parent glacier. From this great breakage, an iceberg is born.

Bergs vary greatly in appearance; some being solid, wall-like ramparts with square, almost perpendicular faces, miles long and half as broad. Others might, at a distance, be mistaken for a splendid palace, a Turkish mosque, or a Gothic church. There is no limitation to form and size, and the most beautiful and most grotesque might sail side by side. One may be a mile square, and the other only forty or fifty feet. Whether large or small, only a small portion of a berg is visible; the greatest mass is always below the water. The proportion varies according to the amount of salt in the water, but a berg never shows more than a seventh or an eighth of itself.

Upon its birth, a new berg sails off to fulfill its destiny. Some are grounded not far from their birthplace; others travel on, get shored up on a floe, and keep it company for hundreds of miles. Some pursue a solitary course toward the open sea and melt in the deep swell of the Atlantic. Others make straight for a ship and send her foundering to the bottom with her precious freight of human souls.

A great berg, Tyson marveled, was terror and beauty combined—not unlike the Arctic itself.

 

The powerful winds had surely carried them past Disco, Tyson thought, and the Germans sensed it, too. They appeared downcast at the thought of their promised land gone forever, and scarcely showed their heads out of their igloo for more than a week. They had dreamed of an abundance of eating and drinking,
taking what they pleased—clothing, liquor, cigars. Each was to buy a gold watch, and then they were to go home by steamer, as passengers—each an Arctic hero in his own estimation. Yet the elements had not favored them, and here they still sat huddled together, freezing and hungry, in huts made of ice.

From the steward and cook, Tyson learned that the Germans were now thinking that any land where they could get something to eat would be good enough. Who knows? he thought. They may yet come to their senses.

It was as yet uncertain when they would have an opportunity of reaching land. Pushed on by strong, unrelenting currents and gale-force winds, they had been moving fast to the southward, but unfortunately they were not approaching either shore. Rather, they were heading down the middle of enormous Baffin Bay.

Notwithstanding the cracks in the old ice, Tyson thought the floe would not break up until later in the season. But there was no telling—the seasons varied much year to year. Still, he believed, and fervently hoped, that the floe would hold together for several weeks yet, allowing them to drift farther south and possibly closer to shore before a lack of food forced their hand.

As soon as the weather grew more moderate, Tyson intended to construct a false keel on the boat, in order to better protect her hull when pulling her across the ice. He had saved the keel of the other boat with this in mind. It was too cold as yet to work with tools, and they had little to work with, but they must get ready soon. Unless there was some change, they must move or starve. They would have to find open waters, for abundant seal would soon be their only source of nourishment.

Upon going into Hans' hut to check on the condition of the nine-year-old boy, Tobias, who had been sick for some time and was reportedly becoming worse, Tyson's heart sank at the sight of the misery the children were enduring. Their mother was trying to pick a few scraps of dried-out blubber from their lamp to feed to the crying children. Having turned thirteen, Augustina was almost as large as her heavy-built mother, but she
looked peaked now. Tobias' head was resting on his sister's lap as she sat on the ground with a skin thrown over her. She seemed to be chewing on a little scrap of something, though he did not see her swallowing anything. Tobias was unable to eat pemmican or bread, and only wanted seal meat, of which there was none. He was sobbing softly, his eyes staring into nothingness.

The youngest girl, Succi, four years old, was crying, too—a kind of chronic hunger whine that seemed to have no beginning and no end, more like a loud whimper.

Tyson could just see the baby's head in his mother's hood, or
capote.
Eskimo babies wore no clothing whatever, and were carried about in this hood, which hung down the mother's back. Like kangaroo offspring, Eskimo babies stayed warm in the coldest weather by being close to their mother.

The sufferings of the children from hunger were painful to witness. Tyson was sorry he had nothing to give them—no chocolate or sugar, nothing. Looking at them, he had no idea how they could take these weakened children across ice-churned waters and an overland journey of hardship and peril. But then, what choice did they have?

On February 5, Tyson began work on the keel of the boat so it would be ready for traveling across ice as soon as possible. That day, as usual, the native hunters went out in search of game. They had been so long without seal that the Eskimos were afraid again of their families starving to death, and of what the men might do in desperation. Tyson could not tell which unthinkable scenario upset them the most.

Soon Hans came hurrying into camp, asking for help with the kayak. Tyson grabbed one end of the little boat, and off they went. Joe was standing at the far end on the floe. There was no open water in sight, but about sixty yards away, on a sheet of thin ice, lay the inert body of a medium-sized seal.

The seal, Tyson learned from the hunters, had stuck his head through the young ice, apparently to gaze at the sun. In its glare, it was dazed or charmed sufficiently that it was less
on the alert for enemies than it should have been. Joe took advantage of the seal's rapt attention elsewhere to put a ball through its head.

Hans got in his kayak, and Tyson pushed him onto the young ice. By sticking his paddle in the ice and shimmying with back and forth movements of his body, Hans slowly slid the kayak toward the seal. The ice would not have borne him had he attempted to walk over it, but with his weight dispersed over a larger surface, it held.

He reached the seal and, making one end of a line fast to its head and the other to the kayak, he turned the latter with the same peculiar movements and got back safely to the floe. When Hans landed with the welcome prize, he was perspiring freely.

On the walk back to camp, Tyson told the hunters he would like to get enough seal in the next forty days to extend the bread and pemmican out until April. This could be done on a restricted allowance, he thought, if everyone stayed put and did not attempt to travel. The hunters nodded but said nothing. He knew that their natural inclination was to head for land anytime they saw it, whether it was the west coast of Baffin Island or Labrador, or the east coast of Greenland. If they were alone on the floe, that's what they would have done much earlier. And perhaps with only the Eskimos in the single boat, they and their families could have made it.

In their hut that night, Tyson joined Joe, Hannah, and Punny in eating their portion of the seal, only partly cooked.

“Anything is good that don't poison you,” Joe commented.

“Yes,” Tyson agreed. “Anything that will sustain life.”

Down it went, everything, even the greasy water in which they had cooked the skin and added some seal's blood. It was amazing how this broth stimulated flagging energies. They saved the rest of the blood by letting it freeze in hollows made in the ice.

The next day, Hans returned with a seal and Joe empty-handed. That was unusual, since Joe was the more skilled hunter.
When he came into camp, Hans announced that it was his seal and would all go to his family.

Tyson would not hear of it. Hans and his family got their share of the provisions with all the rest. In fact, Tyson had been upset with Hans for some time. He found the Eskimo thoughtless, careless, even lazy. He was not very successful at hunting, although he went out most days. He hadn't even built his family's own igloo but had Joe do it. What sort of Eskimo wouldn't build a snow hut for his family? Tyson knew some of Hans' history, that Dr. Hayes' nearly disastrous Arctic expedition had relied on him as their Eskimo hunter and guide. It was no wonder to Tyson that people had died on the journey. Hans was not capable of taking care of himself, much less anyone else in a land so sparse of game. Thank God for Joe. Without his hunting and survival skills, they would be doomed.

Hans dug in. If he didn't get to keep the entire seal, he threatened to quit hunting.

“You were hired and will be paid, if we ever get home, for the very purpose of hunting for the expedition,” Tyson said. “This is not a favor to us on your part.”

Hans remained defiant.

Tyson knew he could not force the native to hunt. “Fine,” he said. “Live off what you hunt, then. In that case, you will go hungry. You will not receive anything more from our stores.”

The next day, Hans went hunting with Joe.

They saw a few seals but could not get any.

On February 12, a fierce gale blew through with such violence during the night that the huts were completely buried in a snowdrift. It was a frightful entrapment, like being buried alive by an avalanche. Long and exhaustive work with little wooden shovels was required to dig their way out to fresh air.

Deciding the Eskimos could use help hunting, Tyson patched up his old thin clothes as best he could, and tried to reclaim a rifle that had belonged to Captain Hall and had been passed to Hans. The Eskimo, who preferred his old Danish rifle, had given Hall's weapon to one of the seamen, who had broken
it but refused to give it up when Tyson said he would like to try to fix it.

They have taken possession of most everything from the first, and are very insolent and do as they please; I see no way to enforce obedience without shedding blood; and should I do that and live, it is easy to see my life would be sworn away should we ever get home. These wretched men will bring ruin on themselves and the whole party yet, I fear… Not a countryman of my own to talk to or counsel with; a load of responsibility, with an utterly undisciplined set of men; impossible to get an order obeyed or to have anything preserved which it is possible for them to destroy. They take and do what they please. If a man ever suffered on earth the torments of wretched souls condemned to the “ice-hell” of the great Italian poet, Dante, I think I have felt it here.

16

Abandoning the Floe

Feb. 14. We are entirely out of seal-meat. We have part of a skin left, which we will serve for lunch. Oh, the filth, the utter filth one is compelled to eat in order to appease the fierce hunger, and to secure a little life and warmth to the body! Tomorrow night it will be four months since we were set adrift on this ice. It is a long time to be starving and suffer as we do, and yet there is no prospect of escaping for a long time to come. There is only one month's provisions left at our present rate of consumption; but we could very easily eat it all in eight days, and not have too much—not have enough.

A
fter several days of violent winds and snowdrifts, the weather cleared enough for hunting on the morning of February 17. Tyson, who had obtained from one of the men the loan of an old Springfield rifle, went out with Joe and Hans. They had the good fortune to kill a seal when it came up to its air hole. It was soon skinned and dressed, and though small, it was a welcome addition to the diet. They also brought in three
dovekies, small Arctic pigeon-like birds—weighing about four ounces each—they brought down with a shotgun.

The next morning, the sun shone through the igloo's ice window made from freshwater ice. It was the first day that the sun had penetrated inside the little hut, but the blessing had its drawback. Though the sun was welcomed, it revealed too plainly the filthy conditions in which they were living. Tyson thought he had known the worst before, but the searching sun uncovered new revelations. He doubted the crusty pan that Hannah cooked with was ever washed. He had seen her rubbing it with her fingers, and he didn't doubt that sometimes she cleansed it in true Eskimo fashion, with her tongue.