The Ice Master (2 page)

August 1913

The Chief of
¹
the Expedition will be careful not to endanger the lives of the party, and while neglecting no opportunity of furthering the aim of the Government, he will bear in mind the necessity of always providing for the safe return of the party. The safety of the ship itself is not so important.

—O
FFICIAL JOURNAL
,
C
ANADIAN
A
RCTIC
E
XPEDITION
1913–1918
(N
ORTHERN
P
ARTY
1914–1918)

C
aptain Bob Bartlett stood in the crow's nest of the HMCS
Karluk
and damned the ship. She was stuck hard and fast and there was nothing he could do but narrow his eyes against the blinding white that surrounded them and survey the horizon, searching for any sign of passage through the thickening ice field.

Everyone had counted on another month of clear seas, not expecting traces of winter until September. But early on the evening of August 1, 1913, the drifting rafts of white were glimpsed just off the port bow. A few hours later, the ice was seen to starboard. In the distance, sweeping across the horizon, was a blinding band of unbroken white. Here and there, a loose floe of ice caught the sunlight and gleamed like a prism, a shimmering blue.

At first glance, Bartlett had condemned the
Karluk
. She was too slow and her hull was too weak. She would never have the power or strength to break through the ice they would inevitably face on their journey into the great, frozen Arctic. It was foolish to head north in such an ill-equipped, heavily loaded vessel, but expedition leader Vilhjalmur Stefansson had been impatient to be on his way.

They were going north in search of an undiscovered continent, which Stefansson wrongly suspected lay beneath the vast polar ice cap. They had set sail on June 17, 1913, a week later than planned. It was late in the season to be heading so far north, and they could do nothing but hope for clear seas and good weather.

This was to be the grandest and most elaborate Arctic expedition in history. It was also to be the most comprehensive scientific attack on the Arctic of all time, widely advertised as having the largest scientific staff ever taken on an expedition. Stefansson, the man who had dreamed it up, was well known for his unrelenting ambition and his grand ideas.

Yet the vessel Stefansson had chosen to take them north was a twenty-nine-year-old wooden whaler, which had been retired for years and which he had picked up for a bargain. At thirty-nine meters long and 251 tons, she was clearly an old ship whose day had passed. Originally built for the fishing industry in California—the word “karluk” means “fish”—the ship was not naturally equipped for ice breaking or sailing in the polar seas. In fact, before
²
the purchase of the ship by the naval service, she had been condemned by a naval expert who stated that he did not find her a safe ship for freight carriage, much less ice breaking.

It was no matter to Stefansson, who purchased her for the irresistibly low price of ten thousand dollars. Also, he felt he knew the ship, having sailed on her briefly in 1908 and 1909. At the H.M.C. Dockyard in Esquimalt, British Columbia, the vessel underwent the first of many overhauls to prepare her for the voyage. On March 29, a lengthy list of repairs was submitted, including a new stern post, new water tanks, new sails, and a complete overhauling of the engines. Additional work was ordered in April, and again in May.

All the crucial decisions of the expedition had been made by the time Bartlett arrived in Esquimalt in June 1913. The
Karluk
had undergone extensive overhauling, but he immediately ordered four thousand dollars worth of additional repairs.

Her decks were cluttered and soiled, piled high with drums of coal oil and cartons of supplies and ropes and bags and large skin boats. Large, bulky sacks of supplies had been thrown onto random boxes and tools. Underneath this wild disorganization, the ship's wood was stained, weathered, and warped in places, and the decks creaked when the men walked about.

Below deck was just as bad. The cabins were unpainted and crowded with junk and debris from previous trips, and cockroaches swarmed everywhere. The ship stank throughout of whale oil. She was far from the powerful Arctic ice vessel many of the men had expected. As chief engineer John Munro noted, her engine was nothing but “an old coffee
³
pot.”

The night before the
Karluk
was to sail from the Esquimalt Naval Yard, Bartlett sent a message to the deputy minister of the naval service, telling him that the ship would never be able to make the voyage. As far as he was concerned, the ship was “absolutely unsuitable to
⁴
remain in winter ice.”

But there was
⁵
no other vessel to replace the
Karluk
. She was the cheapest and the readiest ship available, and as far as Vilhjalmur Stefansson was concerned, she would do just fine.

B
EFORE THE TELEGRAM
from Stefansson had arrived, Captain Bartlett had been trying to raise money and interest in an Antarctic expedition. His last true adventure had been the quest for the North Pole with Admiral Robert Peary in 1909, and Bartlett was restless to head either north or south to one of the polar regions. He missed the sea, the ice, the life aboard a ship. He was a man who never felt at home on land.

He had spent the spring of 1913 with the sealing fleet off Brigus Harbor, Newfoundland. It had been an unsuccessful run. Too many ships, too few seals. And the old itch had started: he badly wanted to go exploring again. So badly, in fact, that he would continue with the Stefansson trip despite his grave doubts about the
Karluk
.

Robert Abram Bartlett was born into a seafaring family in 1875. His mother wanted him to become a clergyman; at the age of fifteen he headed to the Methodist College in Saint John's, Newfoundland. He stuck it out for two years, but was utterly miserable and knew without a doubt that there was only one place where he belonged.

Bartlett was thirty-six years old when he was asked to be master of the
Karluk
. He had grown into a deep-chested, strongly built man with a ruddy complexion, a long, horselike face, and a distinct seaman's lurch. He seemed taller than five feet ten inches; his reddish hair was fading and unkempt and his blue eyes had a constant twinkle, as if he was always privately laughing at something.

Everything about him was powerful—his voice, his figure, his presence. He was famous for spouting profanities, both at his crew and in everyday conversation. He was the same on the ship and off, always, unfailingly, himself.

For all his rough appearance, Bartlett had a soft spot for beauty. He loved women, although he was a confirmed bachelor, and his heart truly belonged to his mother, whom he wrote every day, no matter where he was. He also loved music, and on ships he kept Shakespeare close at hand, as well as George Palmer's translation of the
Odyssey
, which he would quote from frequently. His constant companion, though, was Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the
Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
. Its pages were now frayed, and it was held together by surgeon's plaster to keep it from falling to pieces. That little book had gone with him on voyages to foreign ports while he was serving his years of apprenticeship to get his British master's certificate in 1905. The book had also been with him on both his trips with Peary aboard the
Roosevelt
, and to Europe after Peary's attempt at the North Pole. It had accompanied him on a hunting trip in the Arctic in 1910, and on numerous sealing trips.

From the beginning, he knew he was Stefansson's second choice for skipper. Whaling captain C. Theodore Pedersen had been the one hired first to pilot the
Karluk
, engage the crew, and see to the outfitting of the ship. But Pedersen resigned at the last minute, disgusted with Stefansson's questionable methods.

When Pedersen dropped out, it was Admiral Peary who recommended Bartlett. With a reputation as the world's greatest living ice master, Bartlett was a good second choice, and Stefansson was lucky to have him.

Bartlett had been at the helm of the ship
Roosevelt
in 1909, from which Peary launched his expedition to the North Pole. Peary had let Bartlett blaze the trail, but when it had come time to make the run for the Pole, the admiral had taken Bartlett aside, thanked him for his contribution, and asked the captain to see his team back to the ship. Peary took a photograph of Bartlett, against a blast of Arctic wind, standing the farthest north of any British citizen in history. Then Bartlett turned back at eighty-eight degrees north.

Bartlett took his leave with his usual staunch good cheer and watched his commander forge on toward the coveted North Pole. “Our parting was
⁶
simple. He wished me good luck, told me to be careful of the new ice, and I told him I was sure he would make it.”

Bartlett was gracious and uncomplaining, but it had been a bitter blow. For five years he had accompanied Peary on his quest for the Pole and they had never before gotten so close. Publicly, Bartlett later supported Peary's decision to take his manservant Matthew Henson to the Pole instead of Bartlett. The captain maintained, with apparent conviction, that Henson was the only choice to have gone, because Henson was a better dog driver than Bartlett.

The captain respected Peary above all men and would stand by him in the controversy surrounding his Pole discovery, including suggestions that Peary had never reached the Pole at all, and that he had chosen the African-American Henson so that he himself could be the only white man to reach the world's highest point. Bartlett had not been at Peary's side to witness his true and actual attainment of the Pole, but Peary's word was good enough for him. He was convinced the admiral had reached his goal, although today it is generally accepted that he did not.

Later, Bartlett said of him: “I thought Peary
⁷
then—and I think him yet—the most wonderful man, the greatest, bravest, noblest man that ever lived.”

S
TEFANSSON WAS A DIFFERENT
animal altogether, and Bartlett knew he could never respect him as he did Peary. Stefansson arrived three days before the
Karluk
was scheduled to sail, in a flurry of flashbulbs and newspaper reporters. The first thing he did, before introducing himself to his crew and staff, was to hold a five-hour conference for the benefit of the press and the public. Elegant and intense, he had a way with people. His energy was contagious, so fiercely did he believe in what he was setting out to accomplish.

Stefansson's Nordic roots showed in his looks. He had commanding blue eyes; a high, impressive brow; and, at times, a formidable expression. He was not an imposing man or a man of great height or physical stature. To look at him, it was hard to believe he was the fierce Arctic explorer who boasted about living with the Eskimo and surviving in the Arctic wilderness. Yet he possessed extraordinary stamina, fueled by his great confidence in himself and in his work.

When he set out to organize the Canadian Arctic Expedition in the spring of 1913, thirty-three-year-old Stefansson was already famous, celebrated for his contributions to the world of anthropology and ethnology, particularly his studies of Eskimo life. He believed the Arctic was a “friendly” place where anyone with good sense could thrive. With this latest expedition, he would head into the northern regions above Canada. Stefansson was determined to be the one to discover the last, unknown continent by exploring the vast, unexplored region that lay beneath the ice between Alaska and the North Pole.

By 1913, the Northeast and Northwest Passages had long been found, and so had the Bering Strait. The Greenland ice cap had been crossed, and the North Pole was claimed for America by Peary. But the Arctic remained much of a mystery, and the majority of its highest frozen regions were still unexplored.

The American Museum of Natural History and the National Geographic Society had allotted $45,000 to the expedition. This sum was too little to carry out Stefansson's ambitious plans, so he traveled to Ottawa in February 1913 to seek additional assistance from the Canadian government, which offered to take over the operation completely. Without consulting the
⁸
American Museum, the National Geographic Society, or his partner Dr. Rudolph Martin Anderson, Stefansson accepted the offer.

By orders of the Canadian government, the goals of the expedition were expanded, and two ships instead of one were to be employed, the
Karluk
and the
Alaska
. The expedition was also divided in two—a land-based Southern Party, functioning under the leadership of Dr. Anderson and sailing aboard the
Alaska,
and an ocean-based Northern Party, led by Stefansson on the
Karluk
. The scientists of the Southern Party would pursue anthropological studies and geographical surveys in the area around Coronation Gulf and the islands off the Canadian north coast. The staff of the Northern Party would search for the undiscovered, hidden continent in the great unknown high above Canada while also undertaking geographical, oceanographical, marine biological, geological, magnetical, anthropological, and terrestrial biological exploration.

In relinquishing its obligation to back the expedition, the National Geographic Society was emphatic on one point: the exploration, as financed by the Canadian government, must begin in May or June of 1913, otherwise the Society would once again have claim over the expedition and would send them north the following year. The Canadian government did not want to lose this grand venture, nor did Stefansson want to lose their generous backing. Thus, in April of 1913, Stefansson found himself short of time. He and his men would need to leave no later than June if they were to have a chance of safely traversing the ice-covered waters and beating the brutal Arctic winter. The plan was to head up the coast of Alaska to remote Herschel Island, where both Northern and Southern Parties would reconvene to sort out equipment and staff before continuing on into the far reaches of Canada. They hoped to reach Herschel Island by early August.

The need for haste governed every preparation, from refitting the ship to hiring the crew to provisioning the
Karluk
with enough supplies to sustain both the Northern and Southern Parties. Stefansson even damned and dismissed the required purity tests for pemmican, that standard of all polar diets, calling them suicidal delays. The important thing, above everything else, was to make that deadline.