June 6th. Friday. This was one of the most exciting days we had—eight of us all on edge and each trying to get ahead of his neighbor. This friendly rivalry added zest to the trip. We were quite close to the Duck Islands, which made the starting point of the Melville Bay passage.
The day was glorious and we spent most of it fast to a floe. The exciting thing was when late in the evening a crack occurred near the Arctic. It was not more than a mile or two across the floe to the open water at the Duck Islands, and this crack appeared to extend the whole way. When it was wide enough the Arctic and Aurora immediately entered, but before we had gone any distance, the ice closed astern of us, preventing any of the others entering. For a short time we were caught, and it looked like the nips, then the floe seemed to swing, closing behind us and opening in front, so that we steamed away with a cheer, leaving the others barred out. The Bear, after a short time, succeeded in breaking a way for herself and the Thetis, and all the rest followed like ducks.
I was aloft for a time watching this game of follow the leader and keenly interested in this Arctic race. We entered the patch of open water about midnight, and steaming across made fast to the ice at the islands.
June 7th. Saturday. It was wonderful how little we slept when there was excitement. I enjoyed it' so much that I was afraid of missing anything by going below, but after the race we had just finished, as we had all hooked on, I felt that it was safe to turn in as there was nothing but dense pack ahead. The Arctic and Aurora were lying very close to the Bear, and the Thetis was not far off. We were on the west side of the Middle Duck, the rest of the fleet being on the other side. It was evident that there were no explorers here to be rescued, for the approach of the fleet was rather imposing and they would have seen it.
After a rest, taking a gun I made my way on shore. We were too early for eggs, but there were plenty of ducks and the shooting was rather good. Numbers of phalarope (Lobipes Hyperboreus) were about. They were graceful little birds and no doubt bred here later. Coming back for the dingey I rowed out to a point of ice past which there was a flight of ducks, but was astonished to find the birds so shy in such a quiet place. Perhaps the sight of the ships invading this sanctuary made them a little nervous. I managed, however, to add considerably to my bag. There did not appear to be any loosening of the ice, so none of the ships made any effort to move. I went on board the Arctic during the afternoon and received a supply of apples from Captain Guy. The surgeon returned with me and spent the evening on the Aurora. As our boiler required some repair this was attended to during the day and it made a wonderful difference to the temperature of the cabin having no heat in the engine room for a few hours.
June 8th. Sunday. A peaceful day and perfectly calm with some fog. All the ships were hooked on to the floe. Crawford of the Arctic came on board and we took our dingey and went to one of the islands. Some men from the relief ships were there. They were shooting with eight bores, the first time I had ever seen guns of that calibre; I saw them make some long shots. We secured a few ducks, eider and long tailed.
During the afternoon we went on board the Bear, and again met Lieutenant Emory and his officers. Lieutenant Colwell showed us the ship. The arrangement of the berths in the cabin was splendid; they were curtained off by drawing out poles, and by pushing these in the sleeping quarters were reduced in size, and the saloon enlarged.
I should say that the Bear was the fastest ship of the fleet, except, perhaps, the Arctic, which had powerful engines. The only thing against the Arctic was her great length which made it difficult to turn her about in small water holes, and to manouvre amongst the ice as some of the others were able to do.
The Wolf and Narwhal had moved off and were caught in the pack by bedtime.
We were then on the threshold of Melville Bay, the reputation of which was most unsavory.
Perhaps the most interesting occurrence there during historic times was the loss of nineteen ships and a total of £140,000 damage to the fleet on June 19th, 1830. This event has been called the Baffin's Bay Fair, because the one thousand men who suddenly found themselves homeless upon the ice, made the best of their circumstances and enjoyed themselves immensely.
Before the ships went down they secured quantities of liquor and food and afterwards established comfortable camps. There was an abundance of wood from the wrecks, so they made bonfires around which they danced. The curious part of it was that no lives were lost, and that the entire party ultimately reached home safe.
There is an interesting oil painting of this event in the museum at Peterhead.
June 9th. Monday. We seemed permanent fixtures now and felt that we owned the place in spite of the ducks. I took the dingey with a boy and pulled off to a long point of ice on the west side of the island not far from where we lay. We were able to hide behind a heavy piece of ice with the boat and I shot a number of ducks in the handsome plumage of that season. Then landing, found numbers of old nests made of feathers and down. They had been driven into crevices of rock by storms and one could have collected a quantity of down. While on the island I saw and heard my first finner whale. He was making a great noise as he breathed. Finners have little oil and short bone, so they are not pursued. They are also very quick in their movements and consequently dangerous. This one came up several times in different water holes about the islands and then disappeared.
At dinner we were discussing vegetables and all agreed that the best on board the ship were the tinned carrots. They were simply boiled and put up in pieces six or seven inches long. They were absolutely as fresh and sweet as the day on which they were prepared. We called them Carnoustie carrots, as they had come from that place. Our Dundee meat was excellent at this time. We had a good supply of it, and very seldom saw salt beef or salt pork on the cabin table during the voyage.
The steak for breakfast was served on a sort of metal basket; a handle crossed the middle of this and on each side there was a lid. The steak was under one lid and fried onions under the other. We also had hot rolls every morning, although ship's bread was always on the table.
June 10th. Tuesday. Early in the morning the Aurora unhooked and for a little while managed to push her way northwest. The Wolf and Narwhal had gained by moving on. There was always a chance of a lead opening and letting one through. We had reached the Duck Islands first, by taking the lead while the others hesitated. We now entered the pack further than we wished to and then spent some time trying to extricate ourselves.
There was always danger of being beset in the pack and carried down the straits again; in it there was no safe anchorage, as it might twist and turn in any direction, and a low temperature might even freeze the ship up, whereas following the shore floe gave one a lead of open water every time the pack floated off, and should it be driven in the ship could generally find a bay or indentation in which she was fairly safe.
In consequence of this the captains became nervous when they found themselves beset in the pack. At night we were almost out of sight of the islands. The Wolf and Narwhal were not far from us.
June 11th. Wednesday. Before morning we managed to work north some distance. The Wolf, Narwhal and Arctic were close to us. The relief ships during the day were joined by the Triune, Cornwallis and Nova Zembla.
We all made some headway, but in the afternoon we were so nearly caught once or twice that we steamed back towards the islands and arrived almost at our old anchorage by the following morning.
June 12th. Thursday. In the morning a lot of us were back at the old anchorage again, but the Arctic was still to the north, close to the Thetis and Bear. The Wolf and Narwhal were out in the pack to the west of us, but in the afternoon these last joined us. During the day I shot a lot of ducks, all eider and king eider, afterwards landing on a floe from which a peninsula ran out having a narrow isthmus covered with very high hummocks. Crossing this isthmus to the peninsula beyond, I came upon the perfectly fresh footprints of a bear and two cubs, leading from the water to the big hummocks over which I had come and over which my route back lay. Having only a sixteen bore and number four shot, this discovery was disquieting for a time, as a bear with cubs might fight. However, she did not materialize.
All the other ships were closer inshore during the evening, while we moved west a little. During the night we moved off up a lead.
June 13th. Friday. We were hard and fast, the Cornwallis, Triune, Esquimaux and Narwhal in sight close inshore. The Arctic and Wolf out with the expedition ships. They were apparently beset. We lay frozen up all day, with not even a duck to shoot. The Sugarloaf, a high mountain on the Greenland coast, showed up well and made a good landmark.
June 14th. Saturday. The day began with a heavy snow storm, but shortly after breakfast it cleared off. The ice opened to the west, so we steamed in that direction, leaving the fleet of older ships apparently fast inshore, and we did not see any of them again for a long time. We made very little headway at first, but found the ice slack after dinner and managed to push through it.
Later a series of good leads opened up and we worked a long way north. When I turned in, the relief ships with the Arctic and Wolf were in sight ahead of us.
We passed a curious pillar of rock called the Devil's Thumb; it was a long way off. Every one took off his hat to it as was the custom.
Steering amongst ice was sometimes very dangerous for the man at the wheel, because the ship going astern was liable to bump her rudder against the ice. This, of course, sent the wheel flying around. We had a man hurt in this way by receiving a blow from the wheel during the afternoon.
June 15th. Sunday. We had good leads all the morning and were never blocked for any length of time. By breakfast time we overtook the Arctic and Wolf with relief ships. Then we all hooked on to a heavy floe in an open pool of water. Very shortly we were off again, but it looked dangerous, so we tied up. The Wolf was the first to be free. She entered a lead and it closed behind her, exactly as it had done with us at the Duck Islands. However, later in the day the pack drew off and we all steamed along the edge of the shore floe, the Thetis bringing up the rear. This was an exciting race, and no one turned in while the water remained open. The Wolf had the lead, the Arctic and Aurora being together. Occasionally some of us would diverge a little, but we were in line pretty well all the time.
June 16th. Monday. I turned in when I found the way blocked and all the ships tied up, as everything seemed frozen solid, except the pool in which we lay. Seven bells awoke me to find things as they had been. Captain Fairweather shot a Sabine gull after breakfast and I shot some looms, which were picked out of the water by Jock the dog, who retrieved very well. I went on board the Wolf with the Captain, and saw Captain Burnette. During the evening the Arctic steamed off and we followed with the Wolf, but the lead closed so we all were caught. The Aurora. managed to push out into the loose ice in a little while, but the Wolf remained and the Arctic was fairly in the nips.
The evening was fine and we saw land to the north and dozens of bergs to the east of us. There was a crack running into the floe for two hundred yards close to our ship. It was probably twenty-five yards wide at the entrance. A great many looms flew up this and returned when they found it a blind lead. The dingey was lowered and the Captain and myself had a few hours' shooting and secured a great many. They were tied in bunches and hung upon the chains connecting the quarter davits.
June 17th. Tuesday. All were frozen up. I tried stalking a seal, as there were several in sight, but I could not get near any of them. The Arctic was still nipped, the Wolf was with us and the relief ships a little way east. During the evening we were all moving around, except the Arctic.
We were ahead and the Wolf next, the Bear bringing up the rear. Later the Thetis fell back, for she could not keep up. Cape York was in sight and all four of us were rather close together.
With the Aurora leading, we kept this up all night, every one greatly excited. In the small hours we were all up to a barrier. Among the Arctic ice it would have been useless to roll the ship as we had done at Newfoundland, the young ice on that coast being very different from the Arctic floe met with in Melville Bay.
June 18th. Wednesday. The race for Cape York and the north was far too exciting to permit of sleep, so for the following few days I never undressed, but kept going up and down all the time. If we stuck I lay down, and when the engine started I went up.
At one A. M. we were with the Wolf and relief ships, pounding away at the floe which separated us from the open water at Cape York. The Aurora was the first to break through, when we all gave a great cheer and shouted, "The north water!" I immediately went forward, and sitting on the jib-boom, realized that I was the nearest white man to Greely, possibly the nearest to the pole. I sat there for a long time as we were steaming fast towards the land through open water.
As we neared the shore the Bear passed us. She was a faster ship and she reached the shore floe some minutes before us.
Seeing a party land on the ice from the Bear, we turned off southwest. As the Thetis and Wolf were coming up, the Captain went on board the former and bade the commander good-by, and good luck, then we crept off to the southwest with the Wolf. The Bear having spoken the Thetis, steamed west after us, the weather being rather thick.
Finding the ice heavy to the west, we tried a lead to the north, but were beset for some time.
The fog was so thick that nothing could be seen ahead. We saw nothing further of the Thetis as she remained at Cape York to pick up the party landed by the Bear.
I turned in for a time during the night, as the ship was beset by heavy ice. We had now completed the passage of Melville Bay without accident and nearly every one on board felt that the greatest danger of the voyage was over, so we would work our way to the west and look for whales. In the race from St. John's to Cape York we had been beaten by the Bear only, and that by just a few minutes. The Arctic, Thetis and Wolf were all close, but in the last lap the Aurora and Bear were neck and neck almost to the winning post.
"And now there came both mist and snow
And it grew wondrous cold,
And ice, mast-high, came floating by
As green as emerald."
I noticed a rather curious phenomenon while coming up the Greenland coast, but thinking that there was probably some simple explanation, made no note of it. One evening while in the passage at the foot of the stairs I heard a peculiar whistling. It was like the noise one sometimes hears when standing beside a telegraph pole. The steward was in the pantry and I drew his attention to it. The sound was very distinct in the pantry, and not noticeable in the saloon, which was on the same deck but a little further aft. The steward said he had heard it before and we concluded it was due to a vibration of the taut rigging conducted down the mizzenmast to this particular place. The engine was silent at the time, otherwise the noise of machinery would have drowned everything else.
I listened to the peculiar whistle several times after and always heard it very distinctly in the pantry. The steward had sailed Arctic waters for years, but he made no comment on this subject and never mentioned having heard it on other ships, nor did any; one else on board the Aurora speak of it at all; in fact, we were probably the only two who noticed it.
Years after I came across the following passage in "Old Whaling Days," by Captain Barron:
"From latitude 69 N. to latitude 74 N. on the east side and in Melville Bay, not far from the land, a strange phenomenon is heard resembling a very weird whistling in a high note and gradually dying away to a very low one. It is only heard when it is calm, and most distinctly when in a boat or in a ship's lazarette which is nearly level with the water. On deck it is seldom heard." The above interested me as it describes what I noticed. Captain Barron believes it to be connected with the Aurora Borealis, which he states can be heard but not seen when the sun shines on a summer's night in the Arctic.
June 19th. Thursday. The engine starting up brought me on deck. The fog had lifted and the Arctic and Wolf could be seen astern, while the Bear was to the north of us. Some time after we were steaming through a nice lead into open water ahead. I was on the bridge, where the second mate was in charge, and the Captain was in the crow's nest, which he seldom left. Presently we noticed the lead very narrow, being little wider than the ship. A moment later we were among crunched up ice and within twenty or thirty yards of the open water and the ship was slowing up owing to her progress being impeded by the ice. The Captain called down, "Get over there, some of you men, and push that ice out of the way with poles." We were almost through, and it looked as though a few pieces pushed away would relieve the situation. Specksioneer Lyon and twenty others were immediately over, and began pushing. Almost at once Lyon called up, "It's coming together, sir," and sure enough we were caught between two points of great floes coming together and the Aurora was in the greatest danger of being lost within the next few minutes. The Captain immediately came down and began giving orders. All boats were provisioned and lowered away. I rushed to my cabin and was rolling up my blankets, when he brought the log, which he asked me to put with my things. I took my bundles on deck with a rifle and gun, and by this time the ship was so squeezed that my door would not open or shut, and she had a heavy port list. As the Arctic and Wolf were a short distance astern of us, there was no danger to life and I thoroughly enjoyed the excitement of being shipwrecked so comfortably. With a bump the ship righted herself greatly and presently, after straining and groaning, she slipped up considerably. Her water line was now above the crunching ice and she was for the time being tolerably safe. This all happened in a very short time and it was a wonderful escape. I went on to the ice forward with the mate and engineer; and while there the ship slipped up higher still, so that she was almost out of the water.
The surgeon of the Arctic paid us a visit at this time and took the two photographs here reproduced after some retouching. The first one shows the ship in the nips; in it I happened to be in the foreground. In the second she has slipped up and is almost out of the water. The mate, engineer and myself were on the ice in front at the time. Sailors were a little superstitious, and did not like their ship being photographed while in distress, so these pictures were very hurriedly taken. For some hours the Aurora rested in this position and we knew that eventually the ice would open and let her into the water. Our principal anxiety was about the stem post and rudder; but these fortunately escaped injury. Our propeller had only two blades, so when the ship was sailing or stuck in the ice the propeller was always stopped with the blades up and down. While in this position the whole thing could easily be unshipped, and we carried an extra one. As looms were flying about in numbers along the floe edge just in front of the ship I shot a big bag of them. They fell into the water, but drifted against the ice edge where I picked them up. The Arctic and Wolf were pretty tightly caught astern of us, but they had not to abandon the ships as we had. During the afternoon the pack was tighter than ever and it made weird sounds at times. We had our meals on board and were all very happy at our wonderful escape, especially the Captain, who was determined to take home a cargo of whales in his own ship instead of returning as passenger on one of the others. During the night a crack occurred under the bows. This opened by degrees, letting the ship down. We hoisted up our boats and the shipwreck was over. When whalers go into Melville Bay they generally arrange a quantity of provisions so that it can be easily reached in event of their suddenly having to leave the ship as we had done.
June 20th. Friday. After our escaping from the nips, we steamed in a northerly direction, with the Arctic and Wolf a heavy fog came on. I was very tired, so went and lay down.
As the engine room was aft, a person in any of the staterooms could easily hear the bell there being rung from the crow's nest. How long I had been lying down, I don't know, but something awoke me. I knew, from the sound of the engine, we were going fast ahead, but I heard the bell ring, "stop her," and then immediately full speed astern. Knowing that something was wrong, I rushed on deck; it was very thick and I heard some one say, "O my God, we are lost!" and just then on the starboard side of the ship, I saw a great berg towering above us. We just missed it! All was well! We steamed dead slow for awhile and I realized that those who "went down to the sea in ships" could have a great deal of excitement in two days. About an hour after this a steam whistle blew right ahead. The fog instantly lifted a little and there was the Arctic shooting across our bows. We both stopped, and the Captain went over to her. When the Captain came on board again the fog was gone and we were off Conical Rock. The ice was loose here and the two ships kept together until we passed Cape Dudley Diggs. Here we drifted farther apart, but were within sight of each other all the way to Wolstenholm Island.
During the night we arrived at the island, but found that the Rear had been there ahead of us, so we directed our course towards Carey Islands, the ice being loose, but the weather pretty thick.
June 21st. Saturday. Heavy fog and plenty of ice, so our speed was slow. Sometimes it cleared a little and we could see for several miles ahead. There were numbers of birds about, principally guillemot and eider duck. They probably had headquarters at Wolstenholm, and Carey Islands. Natives repaired to Wolstenholm at this season of the year and collected eggs; but Carey Islands were in the middle of the Sound and, I fancy, left pretty well undisturbed. During the afternoon it became very thick, and for a time we stopped steaming, as we could not make out the leads and there was some heavy ice about. Late in the evening it cleared a little and we ran in to Carey Island. The Arctic was ahead of us, and the Wolf in the distance. I wrote some letters in the evening as I thought there might be a chance of sending them on board the Bear. Our Captain had decided to go from this place to the whaling ground, and leave the Greely part of it to the expedition ships, as the owners would not thank him for risking the vessel in higher latitudes and possibly missing his chance for whales in Lancaster Sound. The Arctic had a boat on shore, but saw nothing of explorers or records. The Bear left the islands after midnight, but was not near us, so I had no chance of sending my letters. This was the last we saw of the relief ships. They picked Greely up within twenty-four hours at Cape Sabine. We knew nothing of it until later, when we heard the news from some of the slower ships, which met the expedition returning with the rescued, and their story was as follows: June 22nd. After the Bear left Carey Islands, she joined the Thetis and they proceeded to Cape Sabine, where they arrived during the evening. From records found on Brevoort Island near Cape Sabine, they knew where the explorer was, and he was picked up by Lieutenant Colwell of the Bear almost at the place where he, Colwell, landed after the loss of the Proteus. Of the twenty-five who left with Greely a few years before, but seven were now alive, and the story they told of starvation and death was in tune with others we have all read of Arctic exploration and was doubly impressive when told to us, situated as we were in the dreary regions where the tragedy had been enacted. Greely had done his work well. His two years at Fort Conger had been well spent. Lockwood had attained latitude 83° 24' in 1882, beating all previous records. Most valuable magnetic observations had been made and the interior of Grinnell Land had been explored. The orders to abandon Fort Conger were carried out in 1883 and then their troubles began. Relief had not come, depots of provisions had not been established, and in a very dejected state they had arrived at Cape Sabine, where they established their final camp, the history of which supplies Arctic literature with its blackest chapter.
On June 22nd Schley arrived at Cape Sabine. No Arctic expedition had ever done so well by this date, its first year. A week or two later there would probably not have been one survivor. This relief expedition had been perfectly successful in its gallant dash and had arrived not a minute too soon.
"Here winter holds his unrejoicing court;
And through his airy hall the loud misrule
Of driving tempest is forever heard.
Here the grim tyrant meditates his wrath,
Here arms his winds and all-subduing frost.
Moulds his fierce hail and treasures up his snows
With which he now oppresses half the globe."
June 22nd. Sunday. It was blowing very hard from the south, and there was much ice, so we had a difficult time picking our way. The weather was also bitterly cold. Again birds were very numerous. We were making our way to Princess Charlotte's Monument on the west side, and it was slow work. The Arctic was ahead of us and not moving on any faster. We felt the loss of the relief ships. They were always a cause of some excitement, and there was a chance of finding Greely so long as we kept going north. Now that that interest was removed, I consoled myself with the knowledge that we were nearing the magnetic pole, and would soon be steaming up Lancaster Sound, the highway to the northwest along which so many brave men had gone never to return. During the afternoon it became more squally, and when I turned in we were making little headway, but the wind was going down.
June 23rd. Monday. We were steaming in tolerably open water when I came on deck. The Arctic was ahead. Birds were numerous—some geese with hundreds of eider and guillemot. After breakfast we saw land ahead, that is, to the west, and during the afternoon were within a mile or so of it,—Princess Charlotte's Monument. There was much loose ice to the south and a straight floe edge to the north of us, and to this we hooked on two hundred yards to the east of the Arctic. We did not care to go closer to the rocks lest the ice should come in on us. I saw Dr. Crawford take the Arctic's launch and go ashore to look for eggs. Returning a couple of hours after, steam went down and the Arctic was obliged to unhook and go after them. It appeared that the boiler was too exposed and the cold so intense that they simply could not keep steam up. The launch had been keeping under the lee of the floe as much as possible, and when steam went down she began to drift away from this into rough water. For a few minutes things looked bad for her, as she was a wretched sea boat with her heavy boiler and engine. During the night we unhooked and worked our way towards the south.
June 24th. Tuesday. Day fine, but blowing from the south. A lot of ice on the coast, and to the south and east all was white. We were now where whales might be seen and preparations were made. Foregoers and lines were tested, harpoons examined, guns cleaned and fired to make sure they would work, lines coiled away in boats, and every one was on the lookout. We never heard of Disco or Cape York now. All was Lancaster Sound and Pond's Bay, with weird tales of cold days spent rock-nosing off Cape Kater and in Cumberland Gulf. All these preparations did not hurry matters in the least. The king of this country decided that we should remain for a day or two where we were, and so in the evening we were hooked on almost where the morning found us.
June 25th. Wednesday. About noon the wind died down and the currents, setting south, took the ice off the coast so that we were able to crawl along a little; but a few hours later we made fast to the land floe off Cape Horsburgh, as the pack was drifting in again. We saw many walrus here, but did not like to spend time at them, as we wanted to be the first ship up the Sound. At tea time we moved along a little further and by bedtime we tied up again. Some of our tanks were pumped out and cleaned, ready for the anticipated oil. There were a number of seals in sight, but they were left alone, as the time was precious.
June 26th. Thursday. As the ship was hard and fast I took a rifle and went after some seals which were to be seen a mile away. Before going very far I found myself climbing over hummocks of old ice which had drifted down Jones Sound, and it was very difficult walking. On one side of a hummock the snow would be perfectly smooth and frozen hard, while on the other side it would be so soft that one at once went through the surface and had to clamber along in several feet of it.
Again, one would come to a perfectly rotten and honeycombed piece of ice underneath which there was a foot or two of water, and below the water could be seen the solid old floe; this made walking so difficult that I returned to the ship without getting a shot.
June 27th and 28th were uneventful. We moved little, and Cape Horsburgh was in sight all the time, but on:
June 29th, Sunday, we had a good lead along the shore floe and were steaming fast through it when I came on deck. A number of bears were seen about noon, but the wind was from the south and the ice was coming in, so we hurried along. As there were a number of them, they were probably attracted by some dead beast.
Barron tells of seeing once about one hundred bears around a dead whale. He also tells of men being devoured by these creatures.
In the days of muzzle-loaders there was more risk than there is now, because if one came suddenly upon a bear with cubs and missed his shot, there might not be time to load again.
Late in the evening we were off: Cape Warrender and were steaming amongst loose ice at bedtime. Several narwhals were seen during the afternoon, but we paid no attention to them.
June 30th. Monday. Steaming up the Sound towards a solid floe at breakfast time with many white whales in sight. We steered south along the ice edge, and seeing an Eskimo standing on it, we sailed up to him. He was a very uncouth looking individual after the smartly dressed gentlemen on the Greenland side. His clothes did not fit and he was otherwise careless about his appearance. He had in his hand a narwhal's tusk, and as we came close we heard him singing "Bonny Laddie—Highland Laddie." This he had probably learned from his parents, they having learned it from the whalers in sailing-ship days. In old times it was customary to lower the boats and tow the ship through the leads to the above tune. I was told this, so it may be true. The native came on board. He was much more like an American Indian than a Greenland Eskimo. Before he had been many minutes on board he was taken aft and relieved of his tusk by the second mate, getting in return some trifle: the gentleman belonged to Navy Board Inlet, on the south side, and not far away.
The Captain had had a lot of paddles made for some of the boats. It was possible to approach whales with very little noise when the paddles were used, so we tried them frequently for narwhal hunting. As there were numbers of these creatures in sight, we had a couple of boats out after them. A sharp lookout was kept from the crow's nest for whales coming up the Sound. We hooked on to the ice about two miles from the south shore, and put a boat out on either side of the ship and about a hundred yards away. These boats were hooked on by laying the long steering oar on the ice. Our narwhal hunters had no luck, so they came on board.
July 1st. Tuesday. We were fast to the ice with a boat on each side all day. The Captain had a long interview with the native on the subject of whales. He seemed to understand maps well, and was able to point out where he had seen fish; from what I could make out, a good number had been in the Sound. I spent the afternoon in a boat with the Captain trying to get a narwhal. We saw dozens and came pretty close to several lots, but did not get one good shot, although we fired several times.
The harpoons we used for this work were much smaller than the regular whaling harpoon and were made of the same tough Swedish iron.
Before turning in I spent an hour on deck and heard narwhals and white whales breathing about us all the time. Everything looked propitious.
July 2nd. Wednesday. I had a dream during the night that we had succeeded in killing a narwhal and that our youngest harpooner, Gyles, had killed it. Dreams were often recounted at the breakfast table, so I told this, and, as luck would have it, before dinner Gyles killed our first narwhal. My night visions were subsequently treated with great respect, except by the steward, who felt, no doubt, that I was infringing a little on his rights. A coldness sprang up between us such as only professional jealousy can create, and which evinced itself the following day when he did not ask me to help him to pick the raisins for the duff—Thursday being duff day. The forenoon success gave quite an impetus to the narwhal fishing, but no more were captured, as the elusive beasts always went down just as we were almost within shot.
The narwhal (Monodon Monoceros) is to me the most beautiful of the whale species. The one captured by us was twelve feet long without the tusk. This measured four feet in length and about four inches around the base. It ended in a rather sharp point and had a spiral groove running from right to left. The horn, or rather tooth, protrudes from the upper jaw of the male, generally on the left side. It only protrudes from the female head as a freak. On the right side a small undeveloped horn is found embedded in the skull of the male, but two undeveloped teeth are found in the female. The narwhal is the only vertebrate animal in which bilateral symmetry is not the rule. The body is whitish, marbled with blackish brown, and about four of them yield a ton of oil. With an axe I easily split the cancellous skull and removed the embedded tusk. We saw hundreds of white whales this day (Delphinapterus leucas). These are cousins of the narwhals, but generally a little larger. The Aurora had great luck the previous year up Prince Regent's Inlet in getting a good catch of them. This was managed by driving them ashore. They were skinned and the skin made into leather. Each side counted as one skin.
They go in schools like porpoises, but generally only three or four abreast, therefore, it takes a large school a considerable time to go past. They are peculiar in having no dorsal fin, and their yellowish white colour makes them rather conspicuous.
July 3rd. Thursday. 'Before breakfast a bear was seen in the water and shot by McLean from a boat. Bears are always lucky and we knew that something better would soon come. While at breakfast a female narwhal was killed. It must have been fourteen feet long. I removed the two little embedded horns. Narwhals were very difficult to capture with the appliances in use at this time, the harpoon gun being only effective at ten or fifteen yards. As the beast generally went down when one was about twenty yards away, a long shot had to be taken with a very clumsy gun. Very little of the narwhal showed above water, just the top of its head and back. Of course there was a good sized animal immediately under the water, so that a harpoon might miss the back and still lodge in the whale. It was very cold and we had several snow showers. The bear was skinned and the skin salted and put in a barrel, no attempt being made to dry or otherwise cure any of the bear skins taken during the voyage. They were kept green.
July 4th. Friday. During the night there was a fall of snow and a breeze from the east had driven some loose ice up the Sound, and pieces were constantly breaking off the floe. These drifted down the Sound with the current; but when there was wind from the east much of this broken ice would drift up and surround us. We were dodging about under canvas in the morning, and the wind, which was bitterly cold, was going down. During the forenoon we sailed up to the floe edge and hooked on about eight miles from the south side, putting two boats on the bran, that is, one on each side of the ship. The loose ice had drifted away, and as the afternoon was very fine the Captain decided to try the unies, as the narwhals were called, and I went with him. One does not generally see very many unies together, but they were in fours and fives all over the place this afternoon and very shy. Just as the boat would get within twenty-five yards or so, off they would go. The Captain made a long shot at one and got fast. For a few minutes the line ran out rapidly, but the shot had been a long one and the harpoon drew, so we came on board disappointed.
Paddles were used instead of oars, as they made less noise. On the fishing ground we avoided noise as much as possible and for this reason the ship seldom steamed, but kept her fires banked and moved about under canvas.
"Hoist out the boat at once and slacken sail."
July 5th. Saturday. A beautiful day. After breakfast I was in a bran boat on the starboard side of the ship and one hundred and fifty yards away, when I heard a commotion on board, and in less time than it takes to tell, all our boats, except the upper quarter ones, were in the water and hurrying off: towards us. Our steering oar was holding the boat to the ice, so it did not take long to get away, and we pulled hard for several minutes before the boat-steerer whispered: "Avast pulling." At this time the boats were scattered along the ice edge a hundred yards apart. A whale had been seen coming up the Sound. We knew that it would continue up under the ice, and failing to find a hole through which it could breathe, it would turn and come to the surface near the edge of the ice and close to some of the boats, and that unless we had very bad luck, it was doomed. In a few minutes we saw it a quarter of a mile down the Sound; it looked like two black islands, one the head and the other the back. It lay there for several minutes and we could distinctly hear it breathe. We saw the spout, then it sank slowly and disappeared. The excitement was now' intense. The next time it would be beside a boat—which boat? Would it come up under us or beside us? Perfect silence was observed and the suspense of waiting for the first whale, I shall never forget. Probably ten minutes passed, when up came the fish almost beside the boat in which George Matheson was har-pooner. As he was already standing by his gun, no order was given, and one sweep of the boat-steerer's oar gave him his shot. The gun went off, the foregoer sprang into the air and every man shouted: "A fall! a fall!" The whale hesitated a few seconds before going down, and Matheson put in a hand-harpoon also. He was not ten feet from the whale when he fired, and almost touching when he put in the hand-harpoon. The fast boat now hoisted its jack and the fish went down and started towards the south side of the Sound, past the ship's stern. We pulled in this direction for all we were worth, the boat nearest the fast boat standing by it so as to supply more lines if necessary. When we had pulled hard for ten minutes, we slowed down, the boats keeping some distance apart, and shortly after, fifty yards from us, the whale came up. Immediately a second boat, the mate's, got fast, the huge creature going down at once, and away we went again. When our quarry next appeared, about fifteen or twenty minutes later, the nearest boat immediately began lancing, and presently we were at it. Unfortunately we all had our backs to the scene of action, except the boat-steerer and harpooner. The heavy blast, every time it breathed, sounded uncomfortably close. In a few minutes the boat-steerer called, "Back, all!" and we immediately backed water, the whale hitting the water once or twice with his tail and going down; again we were off, but not so far this time. When he next appeared he rolled about a good deal and we were afraid to go close, so the second mate fired a Welsh's rocket under one of his flukes and then we all backed off. The rocket was fired from a harpoon gun. It had a charge of powder in its trocar-shaped head, and a fuse running down the shaft. When this exploded the whale plunged fearfully and lashed the water with his huge horizontal tail. After this he was quiet and the water shot from his blow-hole was blood-stained. We now closed in again, and lances were plunged into his neck and churned up and down. Breathing became labored, and after a final flurry, his spirit passed and his blubber and bone were ours. What a cheer we gave! What a feeling of exultation! How near I felt to happy, unconventional, primitive man at that moment! As the whale was lying on its back with the flukes hanging out, a round hole was cut in each of these, through which a piece of rope was run and the flukes reverently folded across his breast; with a knife all lines attached to harpoons were cut free so that the fast boats might haul them in. The tail was fastened to the bow of a boat, and, getting in line, we all proceeded to tow the fish back to the ship, which, by the way, made no effort to help us, as the weather was fine and there was nothing in sight. Arriving alongside, the tail was fastened forward and the head aft along the port side. We went on board, and after dinner, as I sat smoking with the Captain on the cabin skylight, I could not help feeling that the life of a whaler was the only one for me.