After a long and dangerous besetment in the polar ice to the north of Bering Strait, the American whaling-ship Navrach was abandoned August 14, 1897. Twenty-one of her seamen perished on the moving ice-pack of the Arctic Ocean in their efforts to reach land across the drifting ice. Captain Whitesides with his brave wife and six of the crew intrusted their fortunes to the sea, and almost miraculously escaped by using a canvas boat, which was alternately hauled across the floes and launched where open water was reached. On landing at Copper Island, off the coast of Asia, the party was in danger of death through starvation when rescued by the United States revenue-cutter Bear, which chanced to touch at that point. The news of the loss of the Navrach and the reports of very bad ice conditions in the Arctic Ocean created great alarm in the United States, owing to the fact that no less than eight whale-ships with crews of two hundred and sixty-five men were missing that autumn. Appeals for prompt aid were made to the President of the United States by the members of the chamber of commerce of San Francisco and by other interested persons. Refitting in three weeks' time, the United States revenue-cutter Bear, manned by volunteers under Captain Francis Tuttle, R.C.S., sailed from Seattle on November 27, 1897, and wintered at Unalaska. The story of the relief of the whalers, happily and heroically accomplished by this expedition, forms the substance of this sketch.
From the character of the duties of the revenue-cutter service its officers and men are not favored with such frequent opportunities for adventurous deeds as are those of the army and of the navy, but whenever occasion has arisen they have ever shown those qualities of courage, self-sacrifice, and devotion which go far to inspire heroic action.
As the period of navigation had already passed for the northern seas, the Bear was to winter at Dutch Harbor, Unalaska, communicating with the distressed seamen by an overland expedition, which should aid and encourage them until the spring navigation should make their rescue possible. If practicable the land party was to be set ashore on the north side of Norton Sound, near Cape Nome, which would require some eight hundred miles of sledge travel at the least.
From the eager volunteers for this arduous and novel service, Captain Tuttle approved of Lieutenant D. H. Jarvis, commanding, Lieutenant E. P. Bertholf, and Dr. S. J. McCall, with a reindeer driver, Koltchoff.
With dauntless courage and skill Captain Tuttle skirted the growing ice-fields of Bering Sea, seeking in vain a lead through which he could reach Norton Sound, but it was finally clear that the ship could not be put north of Nunavak Island without danger of her loss as well as sealing the fate of the whalers. The winter darkness, storm conditions, an uncharted coast, and drifting ice forced him to land the party as far north of Kuskowim Bay as could be safely reached. Fortunately, on December 16, a wild, stormy day, the shore ice drifted far enough seaward to enable a hasty landing to be made near Cape Vancouver. There were forebodings of evil in attempting this winter journey now stretched out to fifteen hundred miles, under conditions which increased its perils. But with the splendid confidence and magnificent vitality of youth, the fearless revenue-officers hailed with satisfaction the beginning of their arduous journey of mercy and relief.
South of the landing was a deserted village, but fortunately a few miles to the north, near Cape Vancouver, was the still occupied Eskimo settlement of Tunanak. Ashore, Jarvis found himself in difficulty, for the snow-free rocky beach was impassable for his sledges, while he was without boats. Here, as elsewhere on this journey, the native aid was obtained on which he had counted from the knowledge of the kindly feelings of these children of the ice that he had gained in his past cruises in the Bering Sea region. As there was now an ice-free channel along the coast, the Eskimo sea-hunters deftly lashed together in pairs their kayaks (skin canoes), catamaran fashion, and piled thereon helter-skelter the various supplies. Jarvis and Bertholf watched this cargo-stowing with great anxiety, not unmingled with doubt as to the outcome of the voyage. Following the progress of the kayaks and shouting advice and encouragement from the sea-shore, they were dismayed to see now and then a breaking wave threaten to overwhelm the boats and to find that the short sea trip had ruined much of the precious flour and indispensable hard bread.
Overhauling his cumbersome, heavy sledges and inspecting his few unsuitable dogs, he knew that they could never do all the work required. Fortunately he found a half-breed trader, Alexis, who agreed to furnish dogs, sledges, and serve as a guide to the party as far as the army post at Saint Michael. As the half-breed knew the short shore route and was familiar with the location and supplies of the succession of native villages, this enabled them to drop much of their heavy baggage and travel light. Their outfit was carefully selected, consisting of sleeping-bags, changes of clothing, camp-stoves, rifles, ammunition, axes, and a small supply of food.
Their three native sledges were open box-frames, ten feet by two in size and eighteen inches high, resting on wooden runners a foot high. Tough, pliant lashings of walrus hide bound together with the utmost tightness the frame and the runners. This method of construction, in which not a bit of iron enters, avoids rigidity and thus gives a flexibility and life to the sledge which enables it to withstand shocks and endure hard usage, which would soon break a solid frame into pieces. A cargo-cover of light canvas not only closely fits the bottom and sides of the box-frame but overlaps the top. When the cargo-cover is neatly hauled taut and is properly lashed to the sides of the sledge the load, if it has been snugly packed, is secure from accidents. Its compact mass is equally safe from thievish dogs, from the penetrating drift of the fierce blizzards, and from dangers of loss through jolts or capsizings.
Of a single piece for each dog, the harness used by the natives is of seal-skin; the half-breeds often make it of light canvas, not only as better suited to the work but especially for its quality of non-eatableness which is a vital factor during days of dog-famine on long journeys. The harness is collar-shaped with three long bands; the collar slips over the dog's head and one band extends to the rear over the animal's back. The other bands pass downward between the dog's legs and, triced up on each side, are fastened permanently to the back-band, where there is also attached a drag-thong or pulling-trace about two feet long. In harnessing, the three loops described are slipped respectively over the head and legs of the dog.
The animals are secured in pairs to the long draught-rope of the sledge by the Alaskan pioneers, who much prefer this method to the old plan of the natives whereby the dogs were strung out in single file. With the dogs in couples the draught-line is shorter, so that the better-controlled animals will haul a larger load.
In the first day's journey they crossed a mountain range two thousand feet high, and in making the descent of the precipitous northern slope Jarvis records a sledging expedient almost unique in sledge travel. The four Eskimo drivers detached the dogs from the sledge, and winding around the runners small chains so as to sink in the deep snow and impede their progress, prepared to coast down the mountain. Two men secured themselves firmly on each sledge, and when once started the descent was so steep that the sledges attained a fearful speed, which brought them almost breathless to the bottom of the range in ten minutes.
Jarvis describes in graphic language the trying task of feeding the always famished, wolf-like dogs: "They are ever hungry, and when one appears with an armful of dried fish, in their eagerness to get a stray mouthful the dogs crowd around in a fighting, jumping mass, which makes it difficult to keep one's balance. After throwing a fish to each dog, it takes all of us with clubs to keep off the larger fellows and to see that the weaker ones keep and eat their share. When being fed they are like wild animals—snarl, bite, and fight continually until everything is eaten."
As the dogs, worn-out by the hard journey, could not be replaced by fresh ones at the Eskimo colony of Ki-yi-lieng, Bertholf and Koltchoff waited there to bring them up later, while Jarvis and McCall pushed on, marching across the Yukon delta in temperatures below zero daily. They found the natives of this alluvial region wretchedly poor and illy protected against the bitter cold. To the eye they were a motley crowd, as they had levied tribute for clothing on the birds of the air, the beasts of the tundra, the fish of the river, and the game of the sea. There were trousers and heavy boots from the seal, inner jackets of the breasts of the wild geese, fur ornamentation of the arctic fox, and the poorer Eskimos even made boots, when seal were lacking, from the tanned skin of the Yukon salmon.
With all their dire poverty they were not unmindful of their duty to strangers and always offered the shelter of the khazeem (a hut built for general use by the unmarried men, from which women are rigidly excluded). His sense of fastidiousness had not yet left Jarvis, who surprised the Eskimos by tenting in the midwinter cold rather than endure the tortures of the stifling khazeem, which to the natives was a place of comfort and pleasure. Of this half-underground hut Jarvis says in part: "The sides are of drift-wood, filled in with brush. The roof is ingeniously made by laying logs along the sides and lashing them thereto with walrus thongs. Two logs notched on the ends to fit securely are then laid across the first logs on opposite sides, but a little farther in toward the centre. This method is repeated until a sort of arch is formed, which is filled in with earth-covered brush leaving a small hole in the centre of the roof. Other drift-wood, split in rough slabs, forms the floor, leaving an entrance space about two feet square. From this hole in the floor, which is always several feet below the level of the surrounding ground, an entrance passage has been dug out large enough for a man to crawl through it into the main earth-floored room. Over the entrance opening is hung a skin to keep out the air, while the roof opening is covered with the thin, translucent, dried intestines of the seal or walrus, which gives faint light during the day.
"In the khazeem the animal heat from the bodies of the natives, with that from seal-oil lamps, raises the temperature so high that the men sit around with the upper part of the body entirely naked. The only ventilation is through a small hole in the roof, invariably closed at night in cold weather. The condition of the air can be better imagined than described, with fifteen or twenty natives sleeping inside the small room."
The culmination of danger and suffering on the march in the delta journey was at Pikmiktellik, when they strayed from the trail and nearly perished in a violent storm. Almost as by miracle they staggered by chance into the village long after dark, so exhausted that without strength to put up their tent they gladly occupied the dreaded khazeem.
Twelve days brought them to Saint Michael, where they were given cordial and humane aid from Colonel (now General) George M. Randall, United States Army, and the agents of the Alaska Commercial and North American Trading Companies. Without such help Jarvis must have failed. The feet of his dogs were worn bare by rapid, rough travel of three hundred and seventy-five miles, the rubber-covered, goat-skin sleeping-bags were cold and heavy, which in bitterer weather would be actually dangerous. Deerskin clothing and fresh dogs were necessary for rapid travel with light loads on which final success depended.
Leaving orders for Bertholf, yet far behind, to bring up relief supplies from Unalaklik to Cape Blossom, by crossing the divide at the head of Norton Bay, Jarvis and McCall pushed ahead on January 1, 1898. The third day out they met a native woman travelling south on snow-shoes, who told them that she was with her husband and Mate Tilton of the Belvedere; the two parties had passed each other, unseen, on trails three hundred feet apart. Tilton brought news even worse than had been expected. Three ships had been crushed by the ice-pack, two losing all their provisions, while five other ships were frozen up in the ocean ice. As the worn-out mate went south, Jarvis pushed on with new energy, realizing the great need ahead.
Severe storms and deep snow made travel very slow, and at times the runners sank so deep that the body of the sledge dragged, while the dogs were almost buried in their efforts to struggle on. They soon realized that actual arctic travel is far from being like the usual pictures of dog-sledging. Instead of frisky dogs with tails curled over their backs, with drivers comfortably seated on the sledge cracking a whip at the flying team, snarling dogs and worn-out men tramped slowly and silently through the unbroken snow.
It very rarely occurs that there is either a beaten or a marked trail, so the lead is taken by a man who keeps in advance, picking out the best road, while his comrades are hard at work lifting the sledge over bad places or keeping it from capsizing. The king dogs, who lead the way and set the pace, never stray from the broken path save in rare instances of sighting tempting game, but follow exactly the trail-breaker. One day Jarvis came to fresh, deep snow, where it took all four men to break a way for the sledge, and when they themselves were worn out they had the misery of seeing their utterly exhausted dogs lie down on the trail, indifferent equally to the urging voice or the cutting whip. That wretched night the party had to make its camp in the open instead of at one of the native huts which were always in view.
The dog teams were sent back from the Swedish mission, Golovin Bay, where reindeer were available. Of this new and unusual method of travel, Jarvis, who drove a single-deer sledge, says: "All hands must be ready at the same time when starting a deer-train. As soon as the other animals see the head team start they are off with a jump, and for a short time they keep up a very high rate of speed. If one is not quick in jumping and in holding on to his sledge, he is likely either to lose his team or be dragged bodily along.
"The deer is harnessed with a well-fitting collar of two flat pieces of wood from which short traces go back to a breastplate or single-tree under the body. From this a single trace, protected by soft fur to prevent chafing, runs back to the sledge. A single line made fast to the halter is used for guiding, and, kept slack, is only pulled to guide or stop the deer. A hard pull brings the weight of the sledge on the head of the deer and generally brings him to a stop. No whip is used, for the timid deer becomes easily frightened and then is hard to control and quiet down. The low, wide sledges with broad runners are hard to pack so as to secure and protect the load." As the dogs naturally attack the deer, it was henceforth necessary to stop outside the Eskimo villages, unharness the animals, and send them to pasture on the nearest beds of reindeer moss.
Jarvis thus relates his straying during a violent blizzard: "Soon after dark my deer wandered from the trail, became entangled in drift-wood on the beach, and finally wound up by running the sledge full speed against a stump, breaking the harness, dragging the line from my hand, and disappearing in the darkness and flying snow. It was impossible to see ten yards ahead, and it would be reckless to start off alone, for the others were in advance, and I might wander about all night, become exhausted, and perhaps freeze. I had nothing to eat, but righting the sledge I got out my sleeping-bag in its lee and made myself as comfortable as possible." His comrades were greatly alarmed as a reindeer dashed by them, and fearing disaster hastened back on the trail, which, although followed with difficulty on account of the blinding snow, brought them to the lieutenant still unharmed.
If the relief expedition was to be of use to the shipwrecked men it was important that food should be carried north. As this was impossible by sledge, it was evident that the sole method was to carry meat on the hoof. The sole sources of supply consisted of two herds of reindeer, at Teller and at Cape Prince of Wales. If these herds could be purchased, and if the services of skilled herders could be obtained and the herd could be driven such a long distance then the whalers could be saved. To these three problems Jarvis now bent his powers of persuasion and of administrative ability, feeling that lives depended on the outcome and that he must not fail.
The reindeer belonged in part to an Eskimo, Artisarlook, and in part to the American Missionary Society, under the control and management of Mr. H. W. Lopp. Without the assent and active aid of these two men the proposed action would be impossible. Would he be able to persuade these men to give him their entire plant and leave themselves destitute for men whom they had never seen and knew of only to hold them in fear? Would they consider the plan practicable, and would they leave their families and go on the arctic trail in the midst of an Alaskan winter? If they thought it a bounden duty, what was to happen to their families during their absence? Day after day these questions rose in the lieutenant's mind to his great disquietude.
With Jarvis and Bertholf there was the stimulus of the esprit de corps, the honor of the service, always acting as a spur to their heroic labors, while in the case of Dr. McCall there was also that sense of personal devotion to the relief of suffering that inspires the medical profession as a whole.
On January 19 Jarvis reached the house of Artisarlook, when he "almost shrank from the task." From this untaught, semi-civilized native, wrestling for a bare subsistence with harsh, forbidding nature, what favor could be expected? The starving men were of an alien race, and of that class from which too often his own people had reaped degradation, suffered outrage, and endured wrongs too grievous to be ignored or forgotten. To relieve these men Artisarlook must voluntarily loan his entire herd of reindeer without certainty of replacement. He must leave behind him his wife, unprotected and subject to the vicissitudes of an arctic environment. He must also endure the hardships and sufferings incident to a midwinter drive, in the coldest month of the year, of reindeer across a country unknown to him—a desperate venture that might cost him his life. Altruistic souls of the civilized world might make such sacrifices, but would this Alaskan Eskimo?
Of the crisis Jarvis writes: "I almost shrank from the task. He and his wife were old friends, but how to induce them to give up their deer—their absolute property—and how to convince them that the government would return an equal number at some future time was quite another matter. Besides, he and the natives gathered about him were dependent on the herd for food and clothing. If I took the deer and Artisarlook away these people were likely to starve unless some other arrangements were made for their living.
"I explained carefully what the deer were wanted for; that he must let me have the deer of his own free will, and trust to the government for an ample reward and the return of an equal number of deer.
"Artisarlook and his wife Mary held a long and solemn consultation and finally explained their situation. They were sorry for the white men at Point Barrow and they were glad to be able to help them. They would let me have their deer, one hundred and thirty-three in number, which represented their all, if I would be directly responsible for them.
"I had dreaded this interview for fear that Artisarlook might refuse, but his nobility of character could have no better exposition than the fact that he was willing to give up his property, leave his family, and go eight hundred miles to help white men in distress, under a simple promise that his property should be returned to him."
Has there ever been a finer instance of the full faith of man in brother man than is shown in this simple pact, by word of mouth, under the dark, gloomy sky of an Alaskan midwinter? Far from the business marts of crowded cities, in the free open of broad expanses of country, there are often similar instances of man's trusting generosity and of personal self-sacrifice, but more often between those of kindred race than between the civilized man and the aborigine.
Giving written orders on the traders to tide over the winter for the natives, Jarvis pushed on, leaving Artisarlook and his herders to follow with the deer. Meantime the lieutenant had adopted the native garb, saying: "I had determined to do as the people who lived in the country did—to dress, travel, and live as they did, and if necessary to eat the same food. I found the only way to get along was to conform to the customs of those who had solved many of the problems of existence in the arctic climate." His clothing consisted of close-fitting deerskin trousers and socks, with hair next to the skin; deerskin boots, hair out, with heavy seal-skin soles; two deerskin shirts, one with hair out and the other with hair toward the skin; close hoods, with fringing wolfskin, and mittens, the whole weighing only about ten pounds. In stormy weather he wore an outer shirt and overalls of drilling, which kept the drifting snow from filling up and freezing in a mass the hair of the deerskins.
The five days' travel to the Teller reindeer station, near Cape Prince of Wales, were filled with most bitter experiences. The temperature fell to seventy-two degrees below freezing; the sea ice over which they travelled became of almost incredible roughness; while fearful blizzards sprang up. With increasing northing the days became shorter and the exhausted reindeer had to be replaced by dogs. Much of the travel was in darkness, with resultant capsizings of sledges, frequent falls, and many bodily bruises. Of one critical situation he reports: "The heavy sledge was continually capsizing in the rough ice. About eight o'clock at night I was completely played out and quite willing to camp. But Artisarlook said No! that it was too cold to camp without wood (they depended on drift-wood for their fires), and that the ice-foot along the land was in danger of breaking off the shore at any minute. In the darkness I stepped through an ice-crack, and my leg to the knee was immediately one mass of ice. Urging the dogs, we dragged along till midnight to a hut that Artisarlook had before mentioned. A horrible place, no palace could have been more welcome. Fifteen people were already sleeping in the hut, the most filthy I saw in Alaska, only ten by twelve feet in size and five feet high. Too tired to care for the filth, too tired even to eat, I was satisfied to take off my wet clothing, crawl into my bag, and to sleep." Failure to find the house and to have his frozen clothing dried would have cost the lieutenant his life.
On arriving at Teller station he had a new problem to solve—to win over the agent. He had high hopes, for although this representative of a missionary society was living on the outer edge of the world, yet he had become familiar with the vicissitudes of the frontier, and from vocation and through his associations was readily moved to acts of humanity. Jarvis set forth the situation to Mr. W. T. Lopp, the superintendent, adding that he considered Lopp's personal services to be indispensable, as he knew the country, was familiar with the customs and characteristics of the natives, and was expert in handling deer. Lopp replied that "the reindeer had been builded on by his people as their wealth and support, and to lose them would make a break in the work that could not be repaired. Still, in the interests of humanity he would give them all, explain the case to the Eskimos, and induce them to give their deer also [aggregating about three hundred]." Lopp also gave his own knowledge, influence, and personal service, his wife, with a noble disregard for her own comfort and safety at being left alone with the natives, "urging him to go, believing it to be his duty."
It is needless to recite in detail the trials and troubles that daily arose in driving across trackless tundras (the swampy, moss-covered plains), in the darkness of midwinter, this great herd of more than four hundred timid, intractable reindeer. Throughout the eight hundred miles of travel the reindeer drivers had to carefully avoid the immediate neighborhood of Eskimo villages for fear of the ravenous, attacking dogs, who, however, on one occasion succeeded in stampeding the whole herd. For days at a time the herders were at their wits' ends to guard the deer against gaunt packs of ravenous wolves, who kept on their trail and, despite their utmost vigilance, succeeded in killing and maiming several deer. A triumphal but venturesome feat of Lopp's was the driving of the herd across the sea-floes of the broad expanse of Kotzebue Sound, thus saving one hundred and fifty miles of land travel and two weeks of valuable time.
While there were eight skilled herders, Lapps and Eskimos, the most effective work was that done by a little Lapp deer-dog, who circled around the herd when on the march to prevent the deer from straying. If a deer started from the main herd the dog was at once on his trail, snapping at his heels and turning him toward the others. Very few deer strayed or were lost, and three hundred and sixty-two were brought to Barrow in good condition.
Travelling in advance, following the shore line by dog-sledge, Jarvis and McCall were welcomed with warm generosity even by the most forlorn and wretched Eskimos, who asked them into their huts, cared for their dogs, dried their clothes, and did all possible for their safety and comfort. The relief party, however, suffered much from the begging demands of almost starving natives, from the loss of straying dogs, and the desertion of several unreliable native employees. They were quite at the end of their food when they reached, at Cape Krusenstern, their depot. This had been brought up across country from Unalaklik through the great energy and indomitable courage of Bertholf, whose journey and sufferings were no less striking than those of his comrades.
Inexpressible was the joy of the party when, fifty miles south of Point Barrow, the masts of the Belvedere, a whale-ship fast in the ice, were sighted. Four days later they were at the point, their marvellous journey of eighteen hundred miles ended and their coming welcomed as a providential relief.
They found conditions frightful as regards the shelter, health, and sanitation of the shipwrecked whalers. Three ships had been lost and another was ice-beset beyond power of saving. The captains of the wrecked ships had abandoned the care and control of their men as to quarters, clothing, food, and general welfare. Provisions were very short, and the seamen were depending on their safety through successful hunting among the caribou herds in the neighborhood of Point Barrow, which were rapidly disappearing.
Jarvis at once took charge of the situation. Dr. McCall found the seamen's quarters in a most horrible condition, its single window giving but a feeble glimmer of light at midday, and its ventilation confined to the few air draughts through cracks in the walls. Eighty seamen occupied for sleeping, shelter, and cooking a single room twenty by fifty feet in size, wherein they were so badly crowded that there was scarcely room for all to stand when out of their bunks together. Moisture was continually dropping from the inner ceiling and walls, which were covered with frost. Their bedding was never dry, sooty grease was coated over all things, and no place was free from great accumulations of filth and its accompaniments. The whalers were "scarcely recognizable as white men," and large numbers of them would without doubt have perished of disease but for the opportune arrival of the relief party.
Order, cleanliness, decency, and discipline were instituted, the men were distributed in light, airy rooms, their clothing was washed and renovated, and intercourse with the natives prohibited. By inspection, precept, and command the general health greatly improved. At every opportunity individual men were sent south by occasional sledge parties. Hunting was systematized, but it failed to produce enough food for the suffering whalers. Recourse was then had to the herds driven north by Lopp and Artisarlook, and with the slaughter of nearly two hundred reindeer suitable quantities of fresh meat were issued. Out of two hundred and seventy-five whalers only one died of disease. Captain Tuttle by daring seamanship reached Icy Cape July 22, 1898, and took on board the Bear about a hundred men whose ships were lost.
With generous feeling Jarvis gives credit in his report to the whaling agent, A. C. Brower, and to "the goodness and help of the natives [Eskimos], who denied themselves to save the white people," subordinating with true heroic modesty his work to all others.
Gold and commerce have peopled the barren Alaskan wastes which were the scenes of this adventurous journey with its unique equipment and its cosmopolitan personnel of Eskimo, Lapp, and American.
While these men worked not for fame but for the lives of brother men, yet in Alaskan annals should stand forever recorded the heroic deeds and unselfish acts of Jarvis and McCall, of Bertholf and Lopp, and of that man among men—Eskimo Artisarlook.
Among the heroic figures in the history of the human race there should be none to command greater admiration than the typical missionaries who, in foreign lands and among uncivilized tribes, have devoted their lives to the good of man and to the glory of God. Of the countless many through the ages may be named a few whose labors, actuated by a spirit of lofty endeavor, particularly appeal to the imagination and love of the people. Such men were Schwarz and Carey, in India; Livingstone, in Africa; Egede, in Greenland; Eliot and Whitney, in America. Of earnest missionaries in North America there are many worthy of special notice, and among these are not a few of French birth whose memories remain fragrant through heroic deeds and unselfish labors. Their work has entered into the life of the people, though Père Marquette is perhaps the only one whose deeds have affected the growth of a nation. Of French missionaries in late years whose activities have been exerted within the arctic circle may be mentioned M. Emile Petitot, who served fifteen years in the arctic regions of Canada, principally in the water-sheds of the Anderson, the Mackenzie, and the Yukon. Apart from his labors of piety and of love among the Indian tribes of northwestern Canada, M. Petitot, in a dozen or more volumes, has contributed largely to our knowledge of the customs, of the beliefs, of the methods of life, and of the human qualities of the aborigines among whom he has labored. Stationed on the shores of Great Slave Lake in 1863, in the autumn of the following year he descended the Mackenzie and proceeded via Fort Simpson for missionary labors at Fort Good Hope. With his experiences in such voyages, and especially with his visit to the shores of the polar sea, this tale is principally concerned.
Coming from the highly civilized and elaborately circumscribed life of France, M. Petitot was vividly impressed with the enormous and underlying difference in the methods of life in the two countries, the more so on account of his youth. He says of this: "It is well to know the advantages of an isolated life. There is an entire exemption from taxes, tithes, levies in kind, quit-rents, poll-taxes, tariffs, customs duties, town duties (octroi), inheritance-taxes, land rents, forced labor, etc., etc."
On the other hand he finds in the northern wilds "Perfect security, unchanging peacefulness, liberty to plant, to cut, to clear land, to mow, to reap, to fish, to hunt, to take and to give, to build and to tear down"—in short, unrestricted personal liberty of action as of thought.
In changing his station to the far north he made his first voyage down the magnificent Mackenzie, which in the area of its drainage basin, its outflow, its length, and its wondrous scenery is scarcely surpassed by any other river of the world. His first stage of travel brought him to Fort Simpson, where he came in contact with the chief factors or agents of the Hudson Bay posts to the north, who gathered there in early autumn to bring the winter furs and to obtain the annual supply of food and of trading goods known as their outfit. For these men it was the holiday season of the year, the only break in the fearful monotony of their isolated lives, when they see their kind and speak their native tongue.
The final glass had been drunk, the precious outfit[20] had been stowed safely under cover, the final word said, and then the Indian steersman dexterously turned his paddle. The voyage to the real north thus began, and the missionary's happiness was complete, though he travelled with six Indians, the factor staying behind. Drifting throughout the night, he could scarce believe his eyes when the sharp air of the cold morning awoke him. He had left a land of green trees and now the foliage of the elms that bordered the Mackenzie were as yellow as straw. The single night of polar cold had checked the life-giving sap with the same startling rapidity with which it had been caused to flow by a spring day of warm, invigorating sunshine.
Then the priest, with the mountains in view, realized the justness of the poetic Indian name, the Giant of the Highlands, given to the "noble Mackenzie, with its vast outflow, its great length, its immense width, and its majestic mountainous banks."
The river could be as terrible as it was majestic; and then came the first touch of terror from the north, a tornado storm known as the "white wind." Whirling downward from a cloudless sky, its furious force lashed the water into waves, filled the air with sand and gravel, and barely missed sinking the boats as they were rushed to the bank. There, standing in water to their waists, the voyageurs held fast to the ends of the boats until a brief lull made possible their discharging. For a night and a day the storm-bound travellers were thus imprisoned on a narrow ledge in wretched plight—without fire, drenched to the skin, unable to sleep, shivering under the biting northerly gale.
Near their destination they had to run the fearful rapids of the Ramparts, the most dangerous of the many swift currents of the Mackenzie. Their skiffs flew with frightful velocity, plunging down descents that were falls in low stages of water and being helplessly whirled around and around. Three danger spots were passed under conditions that made the missionary hold his breath, while admiring the dexterity and composure of the Indian steersman. It seemed an interminable eight miles, this series of rapids walled in by the towering, precipitous Ramparts, with only two points of refuge in its inhospitable cliffs even for a canoe.
Petitot soon made himself at home at the mission of Fort Good Hope, situated on the arctic circle. He found the Hare Indians alert, loquacious, companionable, warm-hearted, and childlike in their sympathies and feelings. Speaking of the free, happy Indian life he says: "How can such misery be combined with such contentment with their lot? How does the sweet pride of a free man inspire their abject nomadic life? Ask its secret from the bird which flies warbling from shrub to shrub, waving its swift wings, drying its rain-wet plumage in the sun, tranquilly sleeping on a twig, its head under its wing."
Learning the Hare language, baptizing the babes and teaching the adults, he also put up buildings, cared for the sick, and in his garden raised potatoes and turnips under the arctic circle. But ever keeping alive that wandering spirit which had its influence in his choice for a missionary life, Petitot was not content.
With his work well in hand he learned with sadness from some of his Indian flock of the wretched conditions under which the Eskimos of Liverpool Bay were living. Fired with his usual zeal for the wretched, untaught savages, and perchance impelled somewhat by a desire to explore the country to the north, Petitot decided to make a midwinter journey to the polar sea. The agent, Gaudet, pointed out the dangers of travel in winter when the cold was excessive, sometimes ninety degrees or more below freezing, but when the priest insisted he accompanied him to Fort Anderson (or Eskimo) both men following on snow-shoes the dog-team that hauled their camp outfit over the two hundred and fifty miles of snow-covered country.
Fort Eskimo, in 68° 30′ N., on Anderson River, was the most northerly of the Hudson Bay posts, and its factor, MacFarlane, saw with surprise the arrival of this young French priest with the alert bearing and splendid confidence of his twenty-five years. It must be a matter of life or death that brought him. What was his mission? The factor could scarcely trust his ears when he heard that the object was a missionary visit to Liverpool Bay.
MacFarlane told him that the country was so wild that Fort Eskimo was palisaded, flanked with bastions, and loop-holed for rifle-fire, owing to the desperate character of the surrounding and hostile tribes. Meanwhile four Eskimos had come to the fort from Liverpool Bay, including In-no-ra-na-na, called Powder Horn by the traders. The priest had hoped to meet this native, whom the factor said was known to be the greatest scapegrace on the arctic coast. Learning that Petitot was unfamiliar with the Inuit language, and was travelling unarmed, his anxiety increased and he told him that a journey into this unknown country with this savage brute would prove fatal. It was pointed out in vain that the Eskimos were bandits and outcasts—true pirates who, glorying in theft, violence, and fraud, viewed their unbridled passions as so many human virtues that showed the true man (Inuit).[21]
The pen portrait of In-no-ra-na-na, whom the missionary had chosen as his guide, is worth reproduction as a type of Eskimo dandy no longer seen. "He was a handsome man, well made, of large size, good presence, fine face, and had a nearly white complexion. He wore an elegant suit of reindeer-skin, its hair outside, stylishly cut and made. It can be compared only to the costume of our ancestors in the time of Henry IV. The close coat, old French breeches, and tightly fitting boots were of a beautiful brown skin of the summer coat of the deer bordered with a triple trimming of sea-otter, white wolf, and of the caribou, whose long reddish hairs surrounded his figure like a flaming aureole. Similar fringes around his arms and his legs set them off as by so many phylacteries. A head-dress hollowed out of the scowling head of a wolf surrounded his naked and closely shaven skull, which the Inuit could, if needful, partly cover with a small hood made of the head of a reindeer on which still remained the ears and budding horns of the animal." The usual labrets (ornaments inserted through slits made in the cheeks) of walrus ivory protruded from the great gashes in his face and hideously completed his dress.
As nothing could shake the priest's resolution, Factor MacFarlane decided to send as a companion a baptized Loucheux Indian, Sida-Jan, usually known as General Bottom, who spoke a little Inuit. He would save the situation and maintain the missionary's dignity by acting as his cook, dog driver, and camp servant. Moreover, as the brutal, powerful In-no-ra-na-na was actually going north the factor bribed him by giving goods to the amount of twenty beaver-skins[22] to guard the priest from insult or injury at the hands of his fellow-savages. Thus having done his best MacFarlane cried out, as the whip cracked and the dogs jumped to their traces, "May God protect your days among the bad people."
Eskimo fashion, they ran over the crisp, crackling snow in single file, the leader I-you-ma-tou-nak (the itchy) breaking the trail, followed by the great chief In-no-ra-na-na (Powder Horn), Sida-Jan (Bottom), and Petitot. When asked why they always thus marched in single file the Inuits answered: "The best-fitted leads and the others form the tail. It is the order of the ducks and cranes who plough the air, of the reindeer in migration, and of the buffalo or musk-oxen changing their pasture-grounds."
The calm cold was not felt, though the mercury was frozen, until the leader stopped short on the middle ice of the frozen Anderson, over which their route lay, and began to unload his sledge while the others were busy cutting through the snow for water. Petitot had a Hudson Bay sledge with steel-clad, smooth bottom, while the native sledges ran on two rough, solid side runners of wood. These runners drag fearfully when not shod with ice, which coating usually wears off in a few hours of land travel. So throughout the day, from time to time the Eskimo sledge was turned upside down, and its ice runners renewed by frequent wettings of the injured surfaces, the water freezing as it was applied.
As they were about camping the first night they met two young Inuits who had a stone lamp and fresh whale blubber—essentials for a warm meal—so the two parties joined forces to build a snow hut. Warned by the factor not to endanger his life or impair his dignity by working with his hands, the poor priest nearly froze as the house was reared, his undergarments, damp with the perspiration of travel, chilling his body bitterly. He tells us how deftly two of the natives carved from the snow-drifts on the river wedge-shaped slabs. The builder skilfully laid the blocks in spiral fashion, slicing them to fit and matching them quite closely with his snow-knife. The master-workman sprinkled with water the rising walls, which when finished formed a dome-like structure of dazzling whiteness, though hermetically sealed. Then with a few strokes of the snow-knife a door-way was carved out and to the windward of it was built a circular snow wall. Meanwhile an Eskimo built of snow inside the hut the customary divan—a raised shelf where the natives sleep—whereon were arranged the bear and reindeer skins for bedding. Close by the door was suspended the black pot-stone lamp, and directly opposite was placed the proverbial chamber-pot—always present in the Inuit huts.
After being brushed for the twentieth time with the reindeer wisp, to remove every particle of snow from his fur garments, Petitot seated himself in a corner of the divan, a place of honor. When all the Inuits were within the hut they carefully drew up the circular snow wall to the very door-way and poured water over the crevices. When it froze the six travellers were in a hermetically sealed snow house, there being no window or other opening through which a breath of wind could come.
The missionary's sufferings were intense that first night of arctic travel. Smoky soot from the dirty lamp and the nauseous effluvia from his unkempt bed-fellows were bad enough, but the excessive heat and impure air became quite unendurable. The outside cold was about eighty degrees below freezing, while the inside temperature was about eighty degrees above, so that the inner snow-blocks sweat freely, the globules of water forming on the surface ready to shower down on them at the slightest shock.
The Inuits stripped as usual to the skin, but the shame-faced priest felt obliged to keep on his clothes, removing his outer fur garments only. He says: "I slept feverishly in cat-naps, with constant nightmare. Tormented by my garments, perspiring terribly from the heat, crowded between my companions like a packed herring, sickened by unhealthy odors, and suffocated by unbreathable air, what fearful agony I suffered that night! [He adds:] Save their odor and their nudity, the company of the inmates was not disagreeable. Nor did the food prove less repulsive, especially the opaline, greenish-white whale blubber, which, cut into long, thin strips, forms a choice delicacy known to the Inuits as ortchok. The native with his left hand holds the dainty morsel above the greedily upturned open mouth which it at once fills. Gripping the ortchok fast with his teeth, with a knife in his right hand he cuts it off as near the lips as he can, swallowing it with a gurgle of joy."
When Petitot asked for cooked blubber his host promptly pulled out the melting piece from the smoking, dirty lamp, and was surprised that such a delicacy was refused. When later tasted the raw blubber was found to be insipid, though the fresh oil therefrom was not unlike olive oil in its flavor.
As a kind of dessert they drew on their small supply of congealed seal-oil, so rancid as to be offensive. To this food neither time nor circumstance reconciles the white man.
The meal over the natives took to the soothing evening pipe, and gradually began the talk of the day and of the morrow. Mindful of the precious store goods in his pack and of his promise to the factor, Powder Horn chanted the glory of Fort Anderson, and then sang to the young stranger Inuits the praises of the missionary, whom he proclaimed to be the Son of the Sun; despite his protestations, transforming the priest into a demi-god.
The long day's march had seen the scattering groves dwindle and fail—first the bankerian pine, followed in order by the balsam poplar and the aspen. Now as they broke their morning camp the canoe birch was a stunted, wretched shrub scarcely attaining the dignity of a tree, and even this was gone when they made their next camp near the Anderson delta, leaving here and there unsightly and rare specimens of the hardy larch and the arctic spruces.
Next day they parted company with the young natives, who carried with them the pot-stone lamp, much to the priest's annoyance, as he was nearly frozen when they entered the igloo on the river ice. Powder Horn under pressure showed his ingenuity in providing a substitute. Picking up a piece of drift-wood, he hollowed it out lamp-shaped, and covered its bottom and sides with pebbles and flat stones. As moss was lacking for the wicking, he plucked a pinch of hair from his deerskin sleeping-robe, twisted it into a mesh, and the lamp was ready. During the night a violent gale buried the igloo in a snow-drift. The river ice was under such storm-pressures and it oscillated so strongly and continuously to and fro that they all feared that the river would open and swallow them up. Throughout the whole night the roaring of the wind, the groaning of the ice, and the quivering of the igloo made sleep impossible.
As they passed the river's mouth the third day the landscape was one of frightful sterility. Snow became thin and scanty, the ice was rougher, and the bare spots of ground seemed to have no signs of vegetation, trees and shrubs failing utterly. Nature was worse than dead with its apparent desolation. Here both man and beast was doomed alike to a constant and eternal struggle for bare existence in this adverse environment.
The lack of material and the ingenuity of the Inuits in wresting a bare subsistence from this forlorn country was indicated by a most efficient fox-trap made entirely of ice.
Long after dark the wearied sledge dogs with loud howlings broke into a rapid run, and were welcomed with fierce yells from the rival teams of the Eskimo village, a dozen large snow houses on the shores of Liverpool Bay. So dim was the light and so strange the garments and the attitudes of the native women, fur-clad and crawling on all-fours from the huts, that the missionary could scarcely distinguish them from the dogs.
Introduced to the people of the village by his Inuit protector as the Son of the Sun, he was made welcome after the manner of the country. His efforts at conversions did not bear visible fruit, though the natives listened gravely to his sermons on kindness and goodness, on chastity and honesty, on wifely fidelity and motherly love.
Doubtless he was best remembered in after days, as he himself suggests, "As the man who ate when a little pocket-sun [chronometer] told him; who guided himself on the trail by a live turning-iron [compass]; who made fire by rubbing a bit of wood on his sleeve [matches]; and who by looking hard at something white [prayer-book] made it possible for the Inuit to catch black foxes—the most valuable of all their furs."
Father Petitot made his plans the following summer to renew his efforts to improve the method of life of these wretched and remote natives, and to instil in them moral lessons which his later acquired knowledge of the Eskimo dialect would facilitate. An epidemic, however, destroyed many of the Inuits as well as of the Indian tribes in the Mackenzie region, thus preventing a renewal of the missionary's crusade against immorality and misery.
Nevertheless the adventurous midwinter mission of Father Petitot, in facing fearlessly the danger of death, in enduring uncomplainingly its physical tortures, and in taking up a daily life, Inuit fashion, under such almost revolting conditions, displayed the heroism of the true missionary. While Petitot's self-sacrifice, in the way of physical comforts and of personal sufferings, is not the most remarkable in the annals of the church in arctic history, yet it may well serve as an example for the aspiring and altruistic souls who are willing to do and to dare for the welfare of their fellow-man.