Fatal North Read online

  “Suppose I arrive at the North Pole and the sun has descended?” continued Hall, Arctic dreamer extraordinaire. “Suppose there is an island at the North Pole; around it is the sea. I see a star upon the horizon. If I were to remain a thousand years at the Pole, that star will remain on the horizon without varying one iota in height. With the finest measuring instruments you have, you will not, from one day to the next, be able to determine one iota of change. It will be the easiest thing in the world to determine when you arrive at the North Pole. The phenomena displayed there will be deeply interesting, provided there is land there, and I am satisfied that I will find land there. From what I have heard from the Eskimos, I am satisfied that I will find people living there, too.”

  Hall said he and his crew expected to be gone from their families and country for approximately thirty months before their return home in the winter of 1873.

  To that estimate, he added with emphasis: “God willing.”

  It had been a thrilling narration, and the crowd gave him another ovation.

  “Many who have written to me,” Hall went on, his voice with a softer edge, “or who have appeared to me personally, think that I am of an adventurous spirit and of bold heart to attempt to go to the North Pole. Not so. It does not require that heart which they suppose I have. For the Arctic region is my home. I love it dearly—its storms, its winds, its glaciers, its icebergs. When I am among them, it seems as if I were in an earthly heaven.

  “Or perhaps,” he added wistfully, eyes moistening, “a heavenly earth.”

  Before the evening came to a close, Hall acknowledged his gathered officers. He first introduced Sidney O. Buddington, who would serve as sailing master and ice pilot for the trip, and as such, operate the vessel and navigate her through the Arctic waters. In his late forties, he was a heavy, lumbering man who showed the world a cheerful face with a florid complexion. He had thinning gray hair and a full beard, generously dappled with salt and pepper. A native of Groton, Connecticut, he had worked on commercial whalers in northern waters for more than thirty years, and had been a shipmaster for two decades. He was familiar with the perils of ice navigation. Hall had known Buddington for ten years, and though he hadn’t been his first choice for sailing master, Hall had confidence in him.

  Next was Dr. Emil Bessels, chief of the expedition’s scientific corps and ship’s physician. He was twenty-seven years old, slight and somewhat delicately built, and of a quick and nervous temperament that suggested he was easily offended. With his jet black hair and beard and dark and bright eyes, he was a handsome man built on a rather small scale. A native of Germany, Bessels, who came from family wealth, was a graduate of the famous University of Heidelberg, where he had studied zoology and entomology.

  Bessels had not been Hall’s first choice, either. He had originally recruited an American Army doctor from San Francisco who had been on an Arctic voyage twelve years earlier but who lacked an extensive science background. Bessels had been recommended by a distinguished German geographer to the National Academy of Sciences, which was setting up the protocol for the expedition’s scientific experiments, covering the fields of astronomy, meteorology, geology, glaciology, oceanography, botany, ornithology, and zoology. Bessels not only had a medical degree but was an expert in the natural sciences, and as such, came with more impressive qualifications for the expedition. Too, he had sailed on a Swedish sealing vessel in 1869, and made extensive observations in the seas between Nova Zembla and East Greenland. Understanding that he needed to appease the scientific community—especially given his own lack of scientific training—Hall went along with the change. Bessels, who had been serving as a volunteer surgeon in the Prussian Army in the Franco-German War, was released from his duties and caught a ship to the United States, arriving six weeks prior to the expedition’s departure. For a time he had stayed at the Manhattan home of Professor Joseph Henry, president of the National Academy of Sciences. During his stay Mrs. Henry met with a severe fall and sustained injuries of a serious nature. She was attended to by the visiting doctor, who impressed her with his ability in the practice of medicine as much as he did in discussing the general sciences with professors Henry, Newcomb, Hilgard, and the other savants of the prestigious National Academy.

  Hall was not about to be pushed around by those eminent men of science, however. When he first read their scientific instructions for the expedition, he found them so elaborate and detailed that he worried they might overshadow the main objective. Through correspondence with Professor Henry, Hall sparred with a worthy opponent; each was resolute, while not eager to offend the other. “From the fact that the National Academy was mentioned in the appropriations bill in connection with scientific instructions,” wrote Henry to Hall, “it is evident Congress did not intend that scientific operations should be neglected.” Hall immediately countered to Henry: “The primary objective of our expedition is geographical discovery, and to this, as the main end, our energies will be bent.” In the face of Hall’s intransigence, Henry finally granted that the main purpose of the expedition was to reach the North Pole. In his copy of the scientific instructions, Hall boldly underlined the last four words of this sentence: “Great difficulty was met with in obtaining men of the proper scientific acquirements to embark in an enterprise which must necessarily be attended with much privation, and in which, in a measure, science must be subordinate.”

  Mindful of the audience’s scientific bent, Hall asked Bessels to say a few words about the plans for scientific discoveries during the expedition. Bessels nodded curtly and walked stiffly to the lectern, which appeared oversized in front of his small frame.

  Though not obvious to observers that Hall and Bessels had any personal dislike for each other, the foundation for future trouble over the scientific agenda had been laid. Professor Henry, by then a warm champion of Bessels, had addressed this concern in a final missive to Hall. “I doubt not that you will give every facility and render every assistance in your power to Dr. Bessels, who, though a sensitive man, is of a very kind heart.” Later in the same letter, he repeated a similar phrase and issued an early storm warning: “As I have said, Dr. Bessels is a sensitive man; I beg, therefore, you will deal gently with him.”

  Beginning by apologizing to the audience for his unfamiliarity with English, Bessels briefly praised Hall’s enthusiasm, then plunged into what he clearly considered the most important aspect of the journey: the science. “If anything could be a stimulus to us during our trip,” he said in accented but educated English, “I think it will arise from the fact that such eminent men of science, such as compose this society, are watching with interest the actions of our expedition.”

  Hall next introduced George Tyson—the last officer to join the ship’s complement. Tyson, forty-two, was a tall, lanky man with muscular arms and the big, callused hands of a sailor. He had a full beard like most of his shipmates, and thick brown hair brushed back. His most notable feature was his sensitive, brooding eyes, which suggested he had seen much and was little surprised by anything put before him.

  Returning to the United States from his first Arctic journey, Hall had spent time aboard ship with Tyson, who had been shipwrecked in northern waters. From their many long discussions Hall came away impressed with Tyson’s character as well as his knowledge of the Arctic region. Believing that a more able man could not be found, Hall had wanted Tyson on the expedition from the beginning. The previous year he had offered him the sailing-master position, but Tyson had already made a commitment to a whaler and had to decline. When that trip was canceled, Tyson contacted Hall, who by then had hired Buddington. By special arrangement with Secretary of Navy George Robeson, under whose jurisdiction the expedition was operating, Hall was able to create at the last minute the uncommon post of assistant navigator for Tyson. In fact, Tyson’s appointment papers had not yet been delivered from the Navy Department. To his duties Hall had added “master of sledges.” In no uncertain terms, Hall intended to have the capable Tyson wit
h him on the final, historic dash to the Pole.

  Tyson, a native of New Jersey whose family had moved to New York City early in his childhood, was a former iron-foundry laborer who as a boy had dreamed of a seagoing life. He first shipped out at age twenty-one, and did not see a Fourth of July within the United States for twenty years, having spent those summers whaling. While there was little he could not do on a ship, he was given to a natural reticence and modesty that made him popular with other quiet men of the sea.

  Hall next introduced the first mate, Hubbard C. Chester. He was clean-shaven except for a wide, expansive brush mustache, which, together with a straight part that ran down the middle of his wavy hair, gave him a rakish appearance. He was in every way a man’s man, with the big, broad, finely chiseled physique of a Roman gladiator, and a powerful baritone voice that commanded attention from the most lackluster crew. Thirty-four years old, Chester, a native of Noank, Connecticut, had been mate on a whaler that Hall had caught a ride on six years earlier. He had been impressed with Chester’s marked force of character and shipboard abilities, and the veteran sailor was also gifted at handling small craft. Chester had spent the past ten years whaling, principally in the Bering Strait, but had also rounded Cape Horn, and taken a long voyage in the Pacific, as far as the Sandwich Islands and then to San Francisco. He had returned to New York by train in time to join the expedition.

  When Hall came to his second mate, William Morton, he asked him to say a few words. A native of Ireland, Morton, nearing fifty, had spent most of his life at sea, including thirty years in the U.S. Navy—most of it aboard man-of-wars. He was grizzled and aged beyond his years, with a nearly white, full beard, reddish-gray hair, and dark bags under his eyes. He looked like a man ready for a rocker on a shady veranda, not another sea adventure. Indeed, he already had a considerable Arctic reputation—doubtless why Hall asked him to speak. Morton had made two memorable Arctic voyages with Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, an intrepid American Navy officer turned explorer, in search of survivors from the ill-fated Sir John Franklin expedition. On one occasion Morton crossed by sledge the great Humboldt Glacier with an Eskimo guide. Upon looking out on open waters, he announced that he had discovered the long-sought open Polar Sea, believed to be the route to the North Pole. It was, in fact, the route that Hall was planning to take; in Morton, he had along his own personal guide to the promised land. Morton had given long and faithful service to Kane, who had died in 1857 at age thirty-seven after a long illness.

  Morton was a man of few words, but his simple eloquence greatly affected his receptive audience this evening. He told of his pleasure at serving under Dr. Kane, who months before his death had been awarded the coveted British Arctic medal for his efforts in the heroic but ultimately futile search for Franklin survivors. “It was my sad fortune to lose as brave a man as ever lived,” Morton said of his former commander. “He has passed from among us into a world where martyrs receive their reward.”

  After the introductions, Hall had one additional comment.

  “I have chosen my own men. Men who will stand by me through thick and thin. Though we may be surrounded by innumerable icebergs, and though our vessel may be crushed like an eggshell, I believe they will stand by me to the last.”

  The ship of destiny at her moorings in the Brooklyn Navy Yard was a two-masted, schooner-rigged, white-oak, 387-ton, 140-foot vessel with a war record.

  Under orders from President Grant, the U.S. Navy had given Charles Francis Hall the privilege of selecting any ship in its fleet for his expedition. After visiting several boatyards, he had chosen USS Periwinkle, a screw tug built at Philadelphia in 1864, christened America, then renamed when the Navy purchased her later that year.

  Periwinkle had joined the wartime Potomac flotilla in early 1865 as a gunboat, operating primarily in the Rappahannock River. When a fleet of oyster schooners was threatened by a Confederate force, Periwinkle took part in blockading the mouths of the Rappahannock and Piankatank rivers to protect the fishing fleet. She also interrupted contraband business between lower Maryland and Virginia, cleared rivers of mines, and fought guerrillas ashore. After the war, she was based in Norfolk, where Hall had found her.

  The ship was sent to Washington Navy Yard and hauled up on the ways. One of the navy’s best ship constructors was assigned to the job, under orders from the Secretary of the Navy to spare neither pains nor expense in equipping the ship for Arctic service. The first time Hall visited the ship during the refitting, a hundred mechanics, carpenters, and other tradesmen were humming about the vessel like busy bees, much to his delight. Her wales, planking, clamps, and ceiling were removed and her decks taken out. She was rebuilt with thirteen extra tons of new timbers, making her four hundred tons. To strengthen her to withstand ice, new deck beams of increased size were put in, and she was newly planked inside and out. The bottom was thoroughly caulked, then double-planked, caulked, and coppered. New bulkheads and inboard works, new spars, rigging, and sails were added. She was rigged as a top-sail schooner, and her two masts were very long—dwarfing her pair of smoke stacks—giving her enough canvas to produce a good rate of speed independent of steam, if needed.

  She had a round stern, with nothing about it that could catch the ice, and a well with a hoisting apparatus so that the propeller could be taken up at short notice; the rudder could also be unshipped in the event of submerged ice. The bowsprit, a spar running out from the stern to which cables that helped stabilize the main mast were attached, was rigged so that it could be run in immediately if there was danger of coming in contact with ice. Her bow was reinforced, made strong enough to resist any shock it was likely to receive. The stern had sheets of boiler iron bent around it and bolted through the solid wood. From these, similar plates were carried aft forty feet on each side, two feet above and below the waterline so that the ice would have no chance of cutting into the wood. In these respects, Polaris was better protected against ice than any vessel ever built; in a real sense, it was the world’s first icebreaker.

  Special cabin heating was installed, generated by small coal-burning stoves added to each compartment. The ship was not without amenities: a little cabin, handsomely carpeted, had been fitted up, and a cabinet organ, donated by the manufacturer, had been placed in it.

  When the work was completed, all agreed that everything deemed necessary for safety and comfort had been done, and that no ship, even one especially built, could have been better adapted to Arctic service. Wrote Hall to a friend after visiting the ship: “I am very much in love with it.” He was also elated when the government paid for the shipyard work without charging it to the $50,000 appropriation.

  To Hall, there was just one thing wrong: the name. He could not fathom going Arctic exploring on a ship named after an evergreen herb of the dogbane family. The rebuilt Periwinkle was launched at the Washington Navy Yard in April 1871, renamed by her commander as Polaris, after a conspicuous bright star in the northern hemisphere which, until the year 1500, would mark the location of the north celestial pole. Hall’s choice of name expressed his sanguine expectation of success.

  A month later, a twenty-one-gun salute by a military honor guard echoed across the rows of piers and locks. On the deck of his ship, freshly scrubbed and full of snap, Hall awaited the presidential party that emerged from black horse-drawn carriages.

  Warmly shaking hands with Hall at the top of the gangway, President Grant said he was pleased to hear how well preparations for the Arctic expedition were coming along and had come to see for himself. Hall took the President, the Secretary of the Navy, and other officials on an inspection of the ship. Then, on the main deck under a brilliant sky, the chaplain of the Congress led a brief service, blessing the ship, her crew, and commander on their long journey.

  A month later in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, only twenty-four hours before the departure of Polaris for Arctic waters, another religious service was conducted aboard ship, the regular Sunday services for all hands, only with visiting members of a
local Baptist congregation.

  Standing close to Hall were his loyal Eskimos, Joe and Hannah, with their adopted daughter, Punny, age four, a beautiful child with porcelain skin and almond-shaped eyes. (Joe and Hannah had lost their own child, a young boy, to illness.) Joe, a Greenland Eskimo, was a swarthy fellow with a straight black mustache and coal-dark eyes. He was barely five feet tall, but pound for pound, when it came to hunting or driving a dog team on the ice, Hall would have taken Joe over any man alive. His English was limited, but Hall, from his years of living with the Eskimos, was conversational in Inuktitut.

  They had met on Hall’s first trip to the Arctic a decade earlier. One day he was in his cabin aboard ship, writing in his journal, when he heard a soft, sweet voice behind him murmur, “Good morning, sir,” with a distinctive English accent. Hall turned, expecting to see a refined English lady before him. To his surprise, there stood a stout Eskimo woman, all of four feet ten, dressed not in skins or furs but in crinoline and wearing a large bonnet. He had heard of Joe and Hannah before meeting them, as they were well known throughout the Baffin Island region. In the early 1850s an English whaling captain had taken them home with him, and they had stayed several years in England, where they aroused so much curiosity that they were given an audience with Queen Victoria and dined with Prince Albert. At that first meeting, Hall couldn’t resist asking the couple what they had thought of the Queen. “Very pretty,” Joe said, smiling. Hannah was more impressed with where the Queen lived. “Fine place, I assure you, sir,” she offered. The couple had subsequently accompanied Hall on his overland expedition, and without their assistance and knowledge in surviving the Arctic rigors, he would have surely died.