The Ice Master (33 page)

“Eskimo igloo,”
²⁷
he said. His expression was difficult to read.

“Ardegar,”
²⁸
said Bartlett heartily and urged him onward.

They pressed on, until suddenly the skipper found himself in the lead. Kataktovik was a good, strong walker, but now he fell back near the dogs, and then behind them. Kataktovik was certain that the Siberian Eskimo would kill him, no matter what the captain said.

The captain told him it was hogwash and repeated all he had already told him about the hospitality of these people. They were safe now, he said, and these Eskimos would give them a place to dry and mend their clothes. Perhaps they could get some new dogs to help them on their way, or convince one of the Eskimos to go with them on their journey, which would make it easier for them.

Kataktovik would have none of it.

“Maybe,” Bartlett said,
²⁹
in one last effort to appease him, “we get tobacco.”

The younger man was still skeptical, but at this prospect, he agreed to go on.

The objects on the horizon were soon revealed to be people, who were running about, back and forth, excited at the approach of these strangers. Kataktovik fell back again behind the dogs, and Bartlett told him, “You drive the
³⁰
dogs now and I will go ahead.” He saw the relief in the Eskimo's face as he strode forward.

When Bartlett was within yards of the Siberian Eskimos, he stuck out his hand and said in English, “How do you
³¹
do?” The Eskimos shook his hand excitedly, talking rapidly in a language he didn't comprehend. They greeted Kataktovik the same way, and neither he nor Bartlett could understand a word they were saying. The language of the Siberian Eskimos was vastly different from that of the Alaskan Eskimos, and none of the Siberian Eskimos seemed to speak any English. Although the captain tried to explain who they were and to tell them what had happened and where they had come from, they clearly didn't know what he was talking about.

They were hospitable, though, and quickly unhitched the dogs and fed them, then transferred the sled to a section of their house, where they stored it away from the bad weather. A stooped old woman led Bartlett by the arm, pushing him into her house. His head knocked against the low ceiling and he took a seat in the spacious room. The house itself was built of driftwood and covered with a dome-shaped roof of saplings. Over the entire structure were stretched walrus skins, held in place by ropes and fastened to the ground by heavy stones.

The Chukches, as the Siberian Eskimos were called, did not use snow igloos. Instead, they built these arangas, as they termed them. Inside, this particular living space measured about ten feet by seven and was separated from an outer room by a curtain. In the outer room they kept sleds and equipment, and this was where Bartlett's sled was being stored now.

The old woman fussed about Bartlett, brushing the snow from his clothes with a tool called a snow beater, which was shaped like a sickle. She gave him a deerskin to sit on and hung his boots, stockings, parka, and fur jacket up to dry. As Bartlett pulled on a pair of deerskin stockings she had given him, he looked over at Kataktovik to see how he was faring.

The young man appeared stunned but relieved. He was being fussed over as well, and soon both of the weary travelers were sitting in front of a dish of frozen reindeer meat, “eating sociably with
³²
twelve or fourteen strangers to whom, it might be said, we had not been formally introduced.”

The Chukches lighted and heated the aranga with a lamp fueled by walrus or seal oil. They also used this for cooking. In all, there were three lamps in this house, which meant the temperature rose to about a hundred degrees.

There were three families, all neighbors, gathered tonight in the aranga to eat and drink with the strangers. They brewed strong Russian tea, which they were terribly fond of drinking. The old woman dusted off her best cups, unwrapping the exquisite china from dirty cloths, and then spat into each cup to clean it.

Bartlett decided to hell with being polite and asked Kataktovik to fetch his own mug from the sled. There was no way he was drinking from those cups, and when Kataktovik brought him his mug, which was much larger than the cups she was offering, the woman looked hurt. He couldn't tell, though, if it was from her disappointment because he was not using her finest china, or her alarm that, given the size of his mug, he obviously planned to drink more tea than anyone else.

After the reindeer meat, their hosts served some walrus meat, which smelled rancid. Bartlett did his best with it, but had to push his plate away. The taste was overpowering and he didn't trust the meat, which was obviously quite old; but Kataktovik loved it.

As far as Bartlett could tell, they thought the captain was a trader; but Kataktovik escaped them and they didn't seem to believe that he was an Eskimo. When he spoke to them in his native language, they held up their hands, touching their faces to say they did not understand him. Then they would speak to him, at which he would throw up his hands helplessly, saying, “Me no savvy
³³
.”

Using his charts, Bartlett showed their hosts where they had come from and, by drawing pictures, managed to tell them about the
Karluk
and what had happened to her. From what he could learn, he and Kataktovik could expect to run into various settlements of Chukches along the coast. He also learned that there were two kinds of people native to the northeastern Siberian shore, coast Eskimos and deer men. The former made their living by hunting, and many of them traveled between the different settlements in skin boats. The latter were an even hardier people. Tuberculosis had indeed become a fixture in the lives of many of them. When they became too ill or old, they apparently were left to die, their bodies given over to the animals to eat.

All night long, Bartlett listened to the incessant coughing of his hosts and hostesses. The air was stifling, thick with the smoke from their Russian tobacco, and the lamps burning all night long. Bartlett slept fitfully and, finally, unable to stand it any longer, he sat up, barely able to breathe. The lamps had burned themselves out and he tried to light a match, but with no luck. He tore open the curtain and breathed deep breaths of the cold, clean air. His hosts regarded him with some surprise and polite disapproval, but didn't say a word.

The next day, on the anniversary of Peary's supposed discovery of the North Pole, Bartlett and Kataktovik set out toward Cape North, one of the bigger rustic settlements in that vast wilderness.

With luck, Bartlett thought, he and Kataktovik would now reach civilization and wire word to the authorities about the men on Wrangel Island. He thought of them all the time and agonized about how they were. “I wondered how
³⁴
the storms which had so delayed our progress across Long Strait had affected Munro's chances of retrieving the supplies cached along the ice from Shipwreck Camp and getting safely back to the main party, and how the men would find life on the island as the weeks went by . . ..”

I
T WAS MINUS SIXTY DEGREES
Fahrenheit on the trail, and Bartlett could not remember ever feeling this cold. His hands were frozen, and it was the first time in his life that he was not able to block out the chill or the frost.

Siberia meant “Sleeping Land.” It was wild country and the coldest region in the northern hemisphere, with temperatures falling to minus ninety degrees Fahrenheit in deepest winter. Only in the heart of Antarctica did temperatures ever dip lower than they did in northeastern Siberia. It was Bartlett's first experience in this place, and he had never known such bitter, destructive cold or such harsh weather, even near the North Pole.

They were caught in a blizzard on their way to East Cape, the wind blowing with hurricane force, the snow sweeping across the land with enough power to knock a man down. It was frightening, but beautiful. Even as it produced mayhem, the Arctic could create great scenes of beauty. Ice crystals often seemed to float in the air, sometimes forming glowing halos around the sun and the moon. And on quiet nights, there was a rustling in the air that the Eskimos called the “whisper of the
³⁵
stars.”

Along the way, Bartlett and Kataktovik ate the usual pemmican and some deer meat given to them by Chukches at Cape North. They had long ago used up their supply of ship's biscuits, most of it ruined by the salt water they had run into on the ice from Wrangel Island. Now Bartlett's arms pained him, and Kataktovik was suffering from sore hands and feet. The sled was growing lighter every day as their food supply diminished, but the dogs still pulled badly. They were worn down and, as Bartlett observed, practically dead on their feet. One of them, Whitey, finally lay down and refused to go on, so they picked him up and put him on the sled. Whenever they stopped at an aranga, Bartlett bartered with the people there and tried to persuade them to sell him a dog or two, but no one seemed willing, or else they had no dogs to spare.

They stayed one night with a man who had seven good dogs, and the man said he would let Bartlett borrow one of them, as long as the captain promised to send it back to him when he reached East Cape. At the next aranga, Bartlett traded his forty-five-caliber Colt revolver for a small but strong dog, which he named Colt.

That night on the trail, he decided not to take any chances and brought both of the new dogs into the igloo. He left their harnesses on and then tied their traces together, Bartlett and Kataktovik both lying on top of the traces to keep the dogs from running off.

The temperature outside was at least fifty below, and sometime in the night, Bartlett woke from a sound sleep, shivering with cold. Opening his eyes, he saw the hole in the side of the igloo where the dogs had broken through. They were both long gone. At daylight, Bartlett sent Kataktovik back to the last aranga where they had gotten Colt to see if he had fled home. Hours later, the Eskimo returned with the dog, but there was no sign of the other one.

That night, Bartlett tied Colt's mouth to keep him from chewing his harness and again brought him into the igloo. Once again, Bartlett and Kataktovik fell into a deep sleep, and once again, the skipper awoke in the middle of the night to a blast of cold. Colt had chewed himself free once more and escaped. This time, Bartlett gave up. The dog was too far away by now, and it was better just to go on their way and not waste any more time on the matter.

Down to four dogs again, they made slow and halting progress. Whitey was recovered enough to limp behind the sled, but he could do little more than that, and the others were broken. That night, after Bartlett and Kataktovik had made their camp, some men arrived with Colt. His owner had sent him back with them to give to Bartlett. The captain was astounded by the integrity of this man. It was, as he said, “one of the
³⁶
many instances of fine humanity which I met with among these Chukches. All honor and gratitude to them!”

T
HEY REACHED
C
APE
W
ANKAREM
on April 15. The land was low and rough, and Bartlett and Kataktovik stopped the night at the nicest aranga they had seen so far. It was clean and comfortable, and the people were wonderful. They had heard of these strangers who were journeying along the coast. Men had brought word of them the day before. They seemed honored to have them as guests in their house, and the man proudly brought out copies of old magazines—
National Geographic, Literary Digest, The Illustrated London News
—which he handed to Bartlett.

The captain politely declined, because his eyes were feeling the strain of the hours on the ice and snow, the glare of the sun against all that white, and the stinging snowdrift, which always seemed to follow them. His eyes needed a rest, and he could hardly make out objects or images right now.

T
HEY PASSED
C
APE
O
NMAN
in a blinding snowstorm that made it hard to find their way. Even so, they could see that the place was a ghost town. Empty arangas were the only sign of life left, and they found out later that everyone had moved to Koliuchin Island. They followed the trail, which took them away from land and out onto the ice, until they came to Koliuchin Island.

There was a vast difference in this landscape and Cape Onman. Here, there were signs of prosperity, and a dozen or so arangas littered the area. A young man approached them from one of these, saying, “Me speak
³⁷
'em plenty English. Me know Nome. Me know trader well. Me spend long time East Cape. You come in aranga. Me speak 'em plenty. You get plenty eat here.”

The people of Koliuchin had also already heard about Bartlett and Kataktovik and knew they were trying to reach East Cape. After a dinner of frozen deer meat, cooked seal meat, flapjacks, and tea, the young man who had greeted them said, “I bring you
³⁸
East Cape; how much?” He said he had a good sled and plenty of dogs and could get them there in five days.

Bartlett had forty-five dollars loaned to him by Hadley before he left Wrangel Island.

“How much you
³⁹
pay me?” the man repeated.

“Forty dollars,”
⁴⁰
said Bartlett. He didn't want to part with the money, but it would be worth it to get to East Cape so quickly.

“All right,” the boy said. “You show me money.”

“No.”

“Maybe you have no money.”

“I have the money.”

This seemed to take care of things for now. Kataktovik was suffering from severe pains in his legs, so they delayed the trip a day so that he could rest. They would leave their sled and possessions at Koliuchin Island, and travel on the young man's sled. When they reached Koliuchin Bay, they were told they would find an American trader named Olsen, about whom Bartlett had heard many tales along the coast.