True North Page 4

  After proceeding cautiously through fogbound seas for two weeks, Kite became hemmed in by ice in the Belle Isle Straits at the northern tip of Newfoundland. The ship was secured to an iceberg, and block ice was taken aboard to replenish the water supply. A playful snowball fight broke out one afternoon, as they waited for the summer breakup to progress. On the third day, a narrow passage through the ice suddenly appeared, and Kite took it.

  For the next several days the vessel was tossed on rough seas, during which time most passengers stayed in their bunks, too sick to eat or move about. By the time the gale let up, they had been pushed far into the Davis Strait.

  In the mist off the starboard bow lay their first sight of Greenland, the mysterious land discovered by Norsemen five hundred years before Columbus arrived in America. Although its perimeter was not then known, Greenland would prove to be a great pear-shaped island nearly 1,500 miles long and 900 miles across at its widest. Excepting the southern tip and some rocky fringes, it was all ice up to two miles thick at its center.

  Everyone came on deck for the view. Steep, black cliffs two thousand feet high with towering tops covered by sparkling snow rose vertically from the sea. Dwarfing these majestic fortresses from the rear was an ice dome reaching two miles into the sky. In front of the coastal cliffs sat gleaming icebergs of all sizes and shapes—some azure blue and others pure white—waiting to break free and be launched into the sea.

  They followed the shoreline north until putting in at the Danish settlement of Godhavn, on the island of Disko, for a brief stop. The highlights of the visit were a European-style dinner as the guests of the governing Danish official and his wife, and a hike up a 2,400-foot summit from which the icebergs dotting the horizon looked like an armada under full sail.

  Then it was on to Upernavik, the most northern Danish settlement, consisting of four frame houses, a tiny church, and a scattering of native turf huts built into the hillsides. They were properly greeted by the governor and his wife, and did some duck hunting, bagging several dozen and finding more than a hundred eggs to fry up for breakfast.

  With no doctor in residence, Cook was asked to treat the infirm. He took his ship’s medical bag and made house calls, even performing minor surgery on one Eskimo—removing a bone fragment from a badly healed broken arm.

  The next morning they departed, making their way slowly through the floating ice that marked the entrance to the formidable Melville Bay ice pack. With stops and starts as the ice allowed, they sailed on. Several afternoons were spent by Cook, Astrup, Gibson, and Henson measuring and sawing the lumber for the structure they planned to build at their winter camp.

  On July 14, after standing on the bridge as Kite butted her way through the ice, Peary went below to warm up. When he came back on deck, he stepped behind the wheelhouse to glance over the stern. The vessel at that moment was reversing its engine—a back-and-forth maneuver was often used by the experienced captain and capable ice master, Richard Pike, to gain forward momentum for the reinforced bow to slice through the ice.

  At that instant, a heavy chunk of ice jammed the rudder. The wheel was torn from the helmsman’s grip, spinning so wildly that its spokes were invisible. Simultaneously, the heavy iron tiller swung over, striking Peary in the leg.

  Josephine reached her husband first. She found him standing unsteadily on his left foot, looking “pale as death.”

  “Don’t be frightened, dearest,” said Peary, who later revealed he had heard his leg snap. “I have hurt my leg.”

  He was carried to a cabin below. Ice-cold from shock, he was covered with blankets and given a shot of whiskey. His boot was cut off and trousers torn open. Both major bones of the right leg were fractured below the knee.

  Cook, along with several doctors from the Academy of Natural Sciences, examined the leg. They concurred that the break was a clean one, and it was easily set. The leg was rested in a cotton-padded box with room for swelling. Cook administered an injection of morphine to help Peary sleep.

  The next day, after checking for infection, Cook dressed the wounded leg and fashioned a sturdy splint to further immobilize it. He told Peary he would have to remain bedridden and not put any weight on his leg for a month.

  The first several nights Peary suffered mightily. More painkillers and sedatives were administered; delirium and sleeplessness followed.

  Day and night, Josephine and Cook took turns nursing him. At one point, Josephine asked her husband, withering in pain, if he could tell her what she could possibly do to make him more comfortable.

  “Oh, my dear, pack it in ice until some one can shoot it!”

  There was hushed talk among expedition members as to the advisability of continuing on, given Peary’s incapacitating injury. Even Josephine found herself wishing she could take him “to some place where he can rest in peace.” No one dared broach the subject with Peary. In answer to anyone who asked, Cook shared his opinion that their leader would have a full recovery, and by spring—when most of the expedition’s work was planned—he should be fine.

  In the small hours of July 26, Peary was awakened by Captain Pike and informed that Kite was abreast of McCormick Bay, two miles north of Cape Cleveland, and that because of unbroken ice to the north they could proceed no farther. Kite would soon have to turn for home or risk being icebound until next year.

  Peary gave the order for his team to disembark and set up winter camp.

  When it was time, the leader was carried off the ship, lashed to a plank.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ARCTIC TENDERFOOTS

  COMPARED WITH REGIONS they had seen on their course of more than a thousand miles up the coast, the spot where they ended up was a desolate land. Although they were in position for exploring northern Greenland come springtime, there appeared to be few prospects for game and no signs of natives in the area.

  Their first night ashore, a tent was set up and some supplies stacked inside. Everyone except Peary and Josephine rowed back to the ship for another load, but before they could return, a violent storm rolled in and the ship was forced to move farther away from shore. The couple spent the night sitting on boxes in the 7-by-10-foot canvas tent, which the wind tore at and rain leaked through. Josephine feared that every unrecognizable sound outside was a polar bear about to burst in and devour them. They had no weapon with them, and her husband was incapable of outrunning trouble. Not wishing to worry him, she said nothing about her terrible fears. At one point during the long night, she heard some peculiar grunts and snorts coming from the direction of the beach. Cautiously, she peered out. In a section of open water just in front of them, several white whales were frolicking. She was mesmerized by their graceful movements; they seemed to be chasing each other the way children play tag.

  Work began in earnest the next day after the remainder of the expedition’s gear was unloaded and Kite, amid cheerful and enthusiastic goodbyes, turned for home. The prefabricated frame for a two-room structure quickly went up on a rocky, sandy flat adjacent to a stream trickling with glacial runoff. After boarding up and tar-papering the walls, they christened their new home Red Cliff House, after a row of reddish cliffs to the south.

  The largest room served as the men’s quarters, with five bunks, a potbellied stove, a long table for meals, a workbench, and storage space. The Pearys’ room was furnished with a double bed behind draped curtains, a bookcase filled with the expedition’s library, and a small table.

  They were situated on the eastern shore of McCormick Bay on the isolated northwest coast of Greenland. The bay was mostly covered with ice, thin in some places. Inland, much of the winter snow cover had melted during the summer. When they looked more closely, they were heartened to find flowers and grass, a few birds singing, and signs of small game. In the bay, they spotted seals and walrus, although no one had any idea how to prey upon them.

  Arctic tender
foots dropped in one of the cruelest environments on Earth, they would have to learn how to survive as they went along. Even Peary had no experience this far north—latitude 78 degrees, some seven hundred miles from the Pole. His previous trek to Greenland had been five hundred miles to the south, and he had been gone only five months, through summer into early fall. He had never wintered over in the Arctic.

  One of the first things Josephine realized in setting up housekeeping was that they had neglected to bring a broom. Before long she made a makeshift one, using bird feathers. Instead of going to the market as she would at home, she daily went into the supplies storehouse and selected canned goods to go with the next day’s meals. She would bring into the kitchen beans or peas or corn or tomatoes, along with peaches or pears or plums or apricots, placing the frozen cans on a shelf next to the stove to thaw out. Flour, sugar, tea, and coffee were delivered to the kitchen in fifty-pound tins. This fare was complemented with the results of any successful hunt, which included everyone’s favorite, fresh venison, as well as birds and bear, the latter of which no one liked and was soon dropped from the menu. Also, hot biscuits and fresh cornbread were served daily. The cooking was done on kerosene oil stoves, while the interior of Red Cliff was heated by stoves that burned coal, an ample supply of which had been offloaded from Kite.

  An integral part of the expeditionary plan was to obtain the assistance of local Eskimos for help in building sledges, traveling across the ice, and hunting, because game was needed for fresh meat as well as for fur and skins for winter clothing. There was also the matter of obtaining trained dogs to pull their sledges.

  The Pearys had brought from home two large Newfoundland dogs, although Jack and Frank were so domesticated as to be useless for hunting or any work. The plan, in the event Eskimo dogs were unavailable, was for the men to pull the sledges across the inland ice of Greenland come spring, as had been done with varying degrees of success on previous Arctic expeditions. However, no one was looking forward to that thankless, backbreaking task. They had all heard the dreadful stories about the icy graves of human sledge haulers.*

  Cook, as second in command, assumed added responsibilities while Peary was still bedridden. Chief among these was to find local natives and persuade some to camp nearby. Most previous expeditions up the Greenland coast, including those by Americans Elisha Kent Kane, Adolphus Greely, and Dr. Isaac Hayes and all the expeditions of the British, who tended to make the world English wherever they ventured, had dismissed the value in utilizing the knowledge and experience of Eskimos. Peary and Cook agreed that this was a mistake.

  A whaleboat was fitted out for a cruise on the bay looking for signs of natives. Gibson and Astrup, expert boatmen and hunters, were included in the party, as was Verhoeff. Josephine and Henson stayed at Red Cliff to care for Peary, who during his confinement to bed had turned into a difficult patient.

  The whaleboat passed a rocky island with a huge black cliff. In one of its crevasses was a great rookery of birds, mainly nesting ducks. The party approached quietly. When the birds startled and took flight, the men raised their guns and shot into the moving wall. Their loud reports echoed against the rocks, as waves of birds fell from the sky. They scooped the feathered bodies off the water’s surface, taking as many as they could carry aboard the boat in canvas bags.

  Before they reached shore, an argument broke out between Gibson and Verhoeff over the number of birds shot. When Verhoeff, who had a cantankerous streak, accused the bigger man of being a liar, Gibson grabbed him by the nape of the neck and tossed him overboard like unwanted cargo.

  Pulling into a natural boat harbor with a sandy beach, Gibson made a campfire from lumber scraps. They had been on the water for twenty-four hours with little food and no sleep, doubtless the main reason for rising tensions. As an unhappy Verhoeff warmed up from his submersion, ducks were roasted. They ate like gluttons and slept soundly on the sand around the fire.

  Hours later Verhoeff awoke everyone in alarm, saying he had seen a bear in the nearby rocks. Each grabbed his gun and readied himself to defend against the marauder, when out from the rocks stepped a small, dark man. The man, frightened at the reception, darted back behind the rocks. They put down their guns. Hoping to appear friendly, they spoke and laughed among themselves, stoked the fire, and put more ducks on the spit. The man came out and cautiously approached.

  “Chimo,” he said, with a curious smile. It sounded like a welcome.

  He was dressed in a garment sewed together from bird skins, with the feathers worn next to the body for warmth. Over that was a sealskin wrap with the fur on the outside, and a close-fitting hood attached to the neck. He had no visible weapon, not even a knife. How could that be in this untamed territory? Did the native have companions with weapons hiding in the rocks?

  Mulling over these thoughts, the men were keenly aware of their vulnerability. They were only four in number and had no large ship with them. Stories of “wild men” this far north did not tell of their friendliness, although there was no record of overt hostility. They sometimes visited ships and were happy with receiving gifts, but usually kept to themselves. They spoke a language different from that of the Eskimos in southern Greenland and in every other way were isolated from other tribes and self-reliant in a brutal environment. At stops Kite had made above Cape York, a few of these elusive northernmost natives were spotted, but efforts to interact with them had been unsuccessful.

  The visitor spoke some more and smiled. The men spoke back and smiled. Neither side understood the other. But if body language was key, it was positive. The men handed over a roast duck, which pleased the Eskimo. He also seemed to like the coffee he sipped, but spat out a spoonful of baked beans.

  The visitor was not much more than five feet tall. Gibson, standing next to the native, towered over him by better than a foot. The native looked up at the big white man in awe. From then on, Gibson made most of the attempts to communicate, as it seemed a good idea to let their biggest man do the talking.

  Suddenly, the Eskimo turned and hastily retreated to the rocks and disappeared. It was decided, for reasons of diplomacy and safety, not to follow. When the visitor reappeared, he had a young woman at his side. She was about four and a half feet tall, with long black hair pulled back in a bun. Her skin was the same dark bronze as the man’s, and like him she had high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes. The two approached, holding hands like lovers. The woman wore a similar combination of bird skins and sealskin, along with fox-skin trousers that fit into long-legged boots made of tanned sealskin.

  “Ah-ting-ah?” she asked one of the men, looking him squarely in the eye. Failing to elicit a response, she moved onto the next man.

  “Ah-ting-ah?”

  When all four men failed to answer, she started down the line again. Food was offered, and gifts, but she wouldn’t take anything.

  “What does the fool woman mean?” Gibson asked softly.

  “She is crazy,” said Astrup under his breath.

  She continued, more intent than ever to have an answer. Standing before the short and slight Verhoeff, who was closer to her size, she took hold of the lapel of his jacket and said urgently, “Ah-ting-ah?” Then, she pushed him back gently and said rather flirtatiously, “Ah-ting-ah.”

  Verhoeff was dumbfounded.

  Gibson had an idea. He stood before the woman, peered down into her black eyes and pointed at her, repeating what she had said. “Ah-ting-ah?”

  “Manee,” she said. Pointing to her husband, she said, “Ikwah.”

  All along, Manee had been asking their names. How stupid she must have considered them, Cook thought, men unable to speak their own names.

  Cook soon realized ah-ting-ah was interchangeable for “What is your name?” and “What is the name of this?” When he held up a rock and said, “Ah-ting-ah,” Manee told him how to say it in her language. It was a rudimentary start of comm
unication, but it was a beginning. More words were learned and smiles exchanged.

  Soon, Manee and Ikwah went into the rocks and brought forth two little girls; a baby riding on Manee’s back in a pouch lined in blue-fox fur, her head covered in a skull cap made of sealskin, and a toddler, dressed in layers like her parents and shyly holding her mother’s hand.

  In the sand, Cook sketched a map of the bay and showed the position of their headquarters. The diagram seemed fully understood. By means of much sign language, an invitation was extended. The couple spoke to each other, then nodded acceptance. They, their children, and all their belongings were soon in the whaleboat.

  On the return trip, a native settlement of summer tents was spotted on a small offshore island. They stopped and found twenty-five men, women, and children and about a hundred dogs in residence. The white men, in the company of an Eskimo family, were readily accepted. They spent several days hunting on land and sea with the locals. Before leaving, Cook invited the entire village to cross over the bay when the ice froze solid, and camp near them.

  Eskimo hunters with families moved nowhere without their wives, children, dogs, and everything they owned. Given the nature of life on the ice cap, they could not know when or if they would be able to return from a faraway place to someone or something left behind. Also, importantly, a man and woman formed a partnership for survival. The men hunted, fished, and built shelter, while the women cooked, prepared animal skins, and made clothing. Each needed the other to make a decent life in the harsh conditions.