Four Degrees Celsius (9 page)

Ice continued to be the issue both for the rescue teams and for the Domex men and their guides.

October 25, 1929

Richard Pearce's Diary, Kent Peninsula

Another day of blasted hopes. We got up at five — or at least the alarm went off then — and had our breakfast of half slice of bacon and a little piece of fish. We got away in good time and were making nice headway over rough hummocks of ice when we bumped into open water. It was a real blow. Our course was switched and we ran alongside the water half a mile or so, and found that tide and wind had united to make a break 100 yards or so wide between us and Cambridge Bay.

The men were devastated. Nearly a quarter of the way across the strait, they had no choice but to turn back to where they had begun their day. Since the igloos had deteriorated in the intervening hours, the Inuit did repairs and rebuilt another large structure. All were dismayed by their slow progress and the setback.

The next day dawned warmer and the Inuit, who had thus far been the most accurate weather predictors, said more warm weather was on the way. One would think that the far reaches of the Arctic Circle would be covered in ice, yet during the latter weeks of October 1929, cold temperatures had given way to a warm spell that had melted the ice in the strait.

The group was down to very sparse rations. The food consisted of whitefish and herring, which just happened to be the food brought for the dogs. None of the men wanted to cheat the dogs, who had been working so hard, but there was no option. Pearce commented, “There is a lot better food in the world, but it is a question of root, hog, or die, and life is sweet.”
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The Inuit decided the only option was to send Charlie and Jimmie back to Dease Point for supplies.

When the “three-day” trek to Cambridge Bay began, they had packed enough food for seven days. Seven days had now passed, but still the group was nowhere near the Hudson's Bay Post at Cambridge Bay. Charlie and Jimmie anticipated a two-day return journey and set off with a dog team of eleven to bring back more dog food and the food the Domex men had left in their planes for trophies. They had caught some fine trout while at Dishwater Point, which they intended to mount for the colonel and Pearce when they returned to Winnipeg. There were ground squirrels as well, to be taken to a taxidermist upon arrival home. Food for survival, however, was far more essential than a scrap of fur or a trout mounted on a wall!

October 28, 1929

Richard Pearce's Diary, Kent Peninsula

As the Eskimos prophesied, it is another warm day. The other igloo fell in, and ours shows signs of following suit. Charlie and Jimmie should be back either tomorrow or the next day and we are hoping to have a good feed before starting for Cambridge. The morale of the occupants of the other igloo is not so high today. The caving in of the igloo is perhaps responsible. It is now seven weeks since we landed at Dease Point. It seems more like seven years … The ice conditions in the straits is not very satisfactory today. A wind came up and big leads show close to shore. We had three meals of dog feed today, and it remains to be seen how it is going to affect the Colonel and me. Some of the other boys have had spells of sickness.

Living on such scant rations weakened the group both physically and mentally. The strain they were under was almost unbearable. Stomachs were reacting violently to what was being consumed as food, and there was not a thing they could do about it. Just when they thought things couldn't get worse, one igloo caved in and the second was showing signs of doing the same. Both food and shelter were no longer sources of comfort and solace, but of frustration and trepidation.

Major Baker remarked that he could do without food, but being without tobacco was more than he could stand. The colonel and Pearce took pity on him, and between the two of them emptied their pockets and scraped up enough tobacco together to make one cigarette, which they rolled in toilet paper. A very grateful Baker savoured that single cigarette, making it last as long as he could.

A wind was blowing, much to the horror of the group who were acutely aware that a very thin layer of ice was all that stood between them and drowning. This wind continued to increase the leads (expanses of seawater opened when the ice began to fracture) in the strait, making the crossing impossible. A small crack in the ice could expand to a broad gap of icy water within minutes, which could result in their being stranded on a small ice floe. They estimated that there were about thirty-eight miles to go to Cambridge Bay, but it may as well have been the same distance as to the moon, because, unless the waters froze, they were trapped.

Only two hundred miles away, the rescue pilots were circling the waters at Burnside River. From the air, the ice appeared to be suitable for a ski landing. Spence was the first to touch down. To his relief, the ice held. Brown followed suit, landing in Spence's tracks. Both planes taxied further down the ice before cutting their engines. Cruickshank was third to land, but as he touched down, the ice, degraded by the rough landings of 'CZ and 'SO and now rubbery, gave way under his skis. 'SQ, with Cruickshank, Walker, and Semple aboard, plunged into the icy depths of Burnside River.

Cruickshank and crew felt the rotten ice give way under their fully-loaded plane, and they plunged, nose-first, into the frigid waters of the Burnside River.
Courtesy of Western Canada Aviation Museum.

The propeller and engine hit full force into the ice with a deafening crash. Frigid water and chunks of ice rushed into the cockpit through the ripped fuselage and open cracks and seams in the aluminum cowling. Hollick-Kenyon, still airborne, watched in horror as 'SQ's cockpit sank with her crew still on board. Spence and Brown saw the crash and had killed the engines on their planes, but since a ski plane has no brakes, they had to wait for the drag friction of the ice to slow their planes to a complete stop. Pushing open the side doors, the men clambered out of 'CZ and 'SO and raced towards the wreckage.

Unable to get to 'SQ because of the broken ice surrounding the plane, they could only stand powerlessly and watch for signs of life.

Peril on Ice

October 27, 1929

Andy Cruickshank's Diary, Burnside River

Ice broke and ship [plane] sank immediately … Engine completely submerged, cabin and cockpit full of ice and water.

From the air the scene below looked horrific. Hollick-Kenyon needed a safe place to land his plane, but he could not shake the image of the submerged 'SQ. Not knowing whether Andy Cruickshank, Alf Walker, and Pat Semple had survived, he forced his pilot's training to override his fears and flew on without conscious thought. He continued further on down Burnside River until he spotted an open area. He lined up his landing path and descended. Pilot and crew held their breath as the skis touched down. Thankfully, the ice held and 'SL and crew landed safely. After securing the aircraft, the adrenaline-charged men dashed back, barely able to breathe, to the scene of the crash. It would be the longest two-and-a-half miles they had ever run, but also perhaps the fastest, at least on that frigid terrain.

At the crash site the men from the Burnside post and the pilots and crews of the other planes watched helplessly. The impact of the crash had broken the ice into great chunks, and the seawater was seeping up among them, making it impossible to reach 'SQ. Time stood still.

All were greatly relieved when Cruickshank threw open the overhead hatch above the pilot's cockpit, and three very wet, cold, and shaken men emerged from the wreckage. With freezing fingers, the badly shaken pilot and crew grappled hand over hand along the twenty-five foot length of a wing until their feet touched stable ice. As the onlookers gathered round, Cruickshank shook off offers of help and expressions of concern, commenting only that as soon as his skis had touched down he knew he was in trouble. The eroding force of the currents, combined with the powerful impacts of 'CZ and 'SO, had destabilized the ice beneath the skis of 'SQ. Taxiing along the same tracks as Brown and Spence weakened the surface even more, but there was not a thing he could do to forestall the inevitable — the ice simply gave way under the weight of his fully loaded plane, and the aircraft sank into the icy water of the Burnside River.
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After Cruickshank, Semple, and Walker climb out of the overhead hatch and gather their wits about them, they discuss their options.
Provincial Archives of Manitoba, Canadian Air Lines Collection #612.

The engine and cockpit were completely submerged and filled with ice and salt water, while the wings rested on the surface of the broken ice. Some windows of the aircraft had been cracked (thankfully, not the overhead hatch) and there was a very large tear in the fuselage. The propeller tips were bent, the carburetor and magnetos were soaked, and the instruments and cylinders were full of water. (Magnetos are the electrical generators that provide the current to the spark plugs in an internal combustion engine.) The rescue team was now reduced from the five original search planes to three. This was a huge blow, as it meant that the area they could cover in a day of searching was almost halved, effectively doubling the time needed to accomplish their mission. The possibility of success was becoming increasingly remote.

The Domex men were struggling on:

October 29, 1929

Richard Pearce's Diary, 39 miles from Cambridge Bay

This is our fifth day here and by the look of things it will not be the last. A stiff wind threatens to break up the ice floes between here and Cambridge. In the afternoon the barometer dropped and there is every reason to believe the storm we are having will become worse. The boys are feeling glummer than they have for some time and some have expressed the wish that we had not left the mud shack with its stove at Dease Point. Of course, the toughest part of it all is the admission from the Eskimos that we probably could have crossed the straits the day after we landed. However, here we are and here we'll stay a while … Our supper tonight was raw fish. It is hard going, but down it went.

Life was anything but easy on this harsh and treacherous portion of the Arctic coast. October 30 dawned colder, with the wind changing direction. A delicate pink light rinsed the landscape, creating an eerie, luminescent glow, but there was nothing delicate about the fierce cold that bullied them unmercifully. The wind cut into their lungs like a knife and their nasal passages crackled and bled. Frostbite was a major concern. Lacking mirrors, the men frequently inspected one another for telltale patches of white on their faces.

The Domex men had learned to live by the terms demanded by the Arctic, and they stayed inside their igloos waiting for conditions to change. Knowing that he needed food in order to generate body heat, Pearce was enticed to eat a little seal blubber for breakfast that day, something he wrote he would never do again. There was very little food left, and unless Charlie and Jimmie arrived back before nightfall, both the dogs and the humans would be completely out of sustenance. In what was possibly hunger-induced imaginings, a very peculiar thought came into Pearce's head. What if the residents at Cambridge Bay might not take the Domex men in because they smelled of seal oil? Where would they go then?

As well as disordered thinking, emotional fragility was another effect of chronic hunger. Powerless and frustrated, the men could do nothing to change nature's moods. Smouldering anger and frustration finally erupted. Rumblings of mutiny surfaced, and some of the expedition members gave notice to Major Baker that they could not stand the waiting anymore and they would be attempting to cross the strait in the morning, with or without the help of the Inuit. This would be the first act of open rebellion, and one that was bound to fail. Navigating the treacherous pressure ridges, ice hummocks, and the possible deadly channels of open water without the Inuit could only spell disaster. MacAlpine was acutely aware of this and the necessity to follow the Inuit decisions, yet he was equally aware that he was losing control. He knew a small mistake in judgment in this remote region of the earth could easily mean death, but for that matter, even good decisions would not guarantee survival. They would need luck as well as the Inuit skill for their trek through the labyrinth of the Arctic channels towards Cambridge Bay.

October 30, 1929

Richard Pearce's Diary, Peechuk Point

Major Baker, while agreeing to the probability of good ice across the straits, told them they could do what they chose, but that in his opinion a change in the wind might again cause the ice to break and form floes and the attempt should not be made without food (which we did not possess) as they might be caught on an ice floe for several days. If they went, they did so on their own responsibility and directly against the Colonel's expressed wishes of playing safety first. We were with the Eskimos who knew ice conditions and would take us over at the first safe opportunity. Furthermore, the party was not to cross without being accompanied by the Eskimos. Major Baker discussed the situation with the Colonel and it was agreed that if Charlie did not return tomorrow and Major Baker could persuade one of the Eskimos to go that he would do so in order to get possible communication by wireless out from Cambridge Bay. This is the saddest entry I have made in my diary, but I feel it is a case of empty stomach and low morale. We have named this place Peechuk Point because the Eskimos use “Peechuk” for all gone, and we are pretty well out of food.

It is remarkable how much disappointment, despair and hopelessness one can stand, and yet somehow find the will to carry on. Hopelessness can and, in both the Dominion Explorers and searchers cases, did lead to both resourcefulness and resilience beyond expectation.

Tommy Siers looked at the submerged 'SQ and said, “The only way we are getting this plane back to Winnipeg is to fly it there, so let's get to work.”
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As head mechanic, only Siers could make this decision, and it would prove to be pivotal in the lives of all the men.

The salvage operation began. The aircraft was supported on the ice by the undersurface of the wings, and the skis had touched bottom in the shallow water, making the plane somewhat stable. It was imperative that 'SQ be removed from the ice and salt water in the best condition possible, but with the frigid temperatures the ice was beginning to form where the plane had broken through. Lying on their stomachs and using their bare hands, the men passed a rope into the freezing water and fastened it around the crankshaft of the engine, behind the propeller hub. This was just the beginning in what came to be the most extensive salvage operation in the history of Western Canada Airways.
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The following morning, October 28, while the mechanics, dubbed “the black gang,” worked in the freezing temperatures, the pilots in 'SO and 'CZ began to search the Arctic coast. Having covered the area from Baker Lake to Bathurst and Burnside River, Cruickshank decided that the next area to search would be Ellice River and the surrounding coast. Since the cache had been emptied at Beverly Lake and the Dominion Explorers had never arrived at Bathurst Inlet, he reasoned that the expedition had most likely flown off course due to the winds, bad weather, and inaccurate compass readings because of the magnetic North Pole.

The men discussed possible scenarios. Cruickshank felt that the planes could have run out of gas and likely landed somewhere on the coast. Refusing to entertain the possibility of both planes going down, he therefore surmised that fuel would have been the problem. He only hoped that they had been able to survive for the past seven weeks. Landing near an Inuit camp would mean the best chance of survival, and since there were gathering points of the Inuit at both the mouth of the Ellice River and Dease Point, these would be the next areas in which to perform the search.
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Once airborne, the planes headed eastward following the Ellice River then north toward the Arctic coast along the Kent Peninsula. In such a massive area of the Northwest Territories, it might seem amazing that Cruickshank had sent the search planes right over the area where the downed Domex party had been stranded for the past seven weeks. At the same time, it is another indication of his intimate knowledge of the region.

Unfortunately, neither the pilots nor crews of 'SO and 'CZ saw the tiny camp at Dease Point, but they must have been quite close because later in Pearce's diary he mentions the Inuit hearing planes flying overhead. The area was encrusted with a layer of snow covering the planes, sod house, and the surrounding shattered rock. Inuit staying at Dease Point had been asked to keep the wings of the planes clean, but unfortunately this had not been done. The reality was that this was a challenging area in which to search, and one that was mostly unmapped. All that could be seen from above was a rippling expanse of white, the lakes indistinguishable from land. Visibility was exceptionally poor, but Brown and Spence, with their crews, kept flying.

The Bathurst Mountains were spattered with patches of exposed black rock, and eyes strained at each dark object that could be mistaken for a group of men. Time and time again they thought they had spotted a downed aircraft or survivors, but when flying in for a closer look realized bleakly that they had been fooled by the uneven teeth of the rocky outcrops. Having had no luck, 'SO and 'CZ crews returned via the southern neck of the Kent Peninsula, hugging the western coast of Bathurst Inlet to the base at Burnside River.

Hollick-Kenyon flew sixty miles to Bathurst Inlet to send messages to Winnipeg, where Western Canada Airways had their head office, and to Dominion Explorers in Toronto. Both were anxiously waiting for news of the search operation. With Vance's plane being a write-off until parts could be obtained, and now 'SQ in questionable shape, the bad news had to be told. Up until now, the searchers had been forging ahead with their own plans, a policy agreeable to both WCA and Dominion Explorers, yet, when possible, information of the actions being taken needed to be sent to Winnipeg and Toronto through the wireless. After checking on the condition of the ice and finding open water he dropped messages to be picked up by the people at the Hudson's Bay Post. 'SL then made a search along the coast, again not seeing any sign of the missing men or their planes.

For the next two days, poor weather kept the search crew grounded, so the men put all their efforts into the salvage operation of Cruickshank's 'SQ, now deemed “the old crock.” Siers reported:

A piece of timber 8”x8”x18' was rigged up as a gin pole in front of the engine, its base resting on the ocean bed. Two double blocks were used and the machine gradually came up through the ice but it was found that the weight of the machine sank the gin pole into the mud. To overcome this a 3”x6”x10' piece of timber was lashed and nailed to the 8”x8” and the hitch changed from the 8”x8” to the 3”x6”. This change allowed the machine to be lifted clear of the water and ice. There was a slight but uneven tide. This in itself was a source of annoyance for at times the ice would come up against the fuselage and the tidal water came on top of the ice.
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