EARLY on the morning of August 1st, we broke through the last of the pack of Cape York and laid our course around the shore ice as yet unbroken from the Cape. In a short time we had rounded it and were finally out of Melville Bay, a departure which caused no sorrow on the part of any of us. The body of water which we had now entered was known as Smith Sound, a name given it by William Baffin in honor of one of his supporters. It stretches from Cape York to beyond Etah where it opens out into Kane Basin. Usually the Sound is free from pack ice except on the western side where a heavy stream of it flows to the southward.
For several hours we sailed without seeing a sign of any living thing save a few birds. Suddenly two kayaks darted out from the shore. With a few deft strokes of the paddle their occupants brought them alongside, and we heard the musical hail “Ochshinai!” followed by a demand for “bacca.” In response to their hail Robbie tossed them two plugs which they aptly caught, waved their arms with delight and yelled, “Quoin-amik!” (Thank you!). As we sailed away, we could see them lovingly caressing their prizes.
The wind freshened as we bent our course to the north and we were soon bowling along with a bone in our teeth. The coast flashed by. Soon Cape Alexander, “the Cape Horn of the North,” which lies half-way between the Pole and the Arctic Circle, hove in sight. As we rounded this wicked old promontory, the customary vicious squall snapped at us. We were soon past the cape, however, and once again entered smooth waters. Here we could see the walrus breaking water all about us, and every now and then a savage, white-tusked face would leer at us as we scudded along. Now and then almost beneath our bows an entire herd would blow and disappear in a mass of white water. At nine o’clock that night, we worked our way into Foulke Fiord, and there dead ahead lay the haven of our hopes, the goal of our endeavors—Etah!
Commander MacMillan: with an eskimo child; in flying costume;
in the ice barrel.
Brother John’s glacier and Alida Lake, Etah, North Greenland.
There in the bright light of the Arctic night glistened the tranquil waters of the fiord, and the crumbling cliffs reflected a ruddy welcome. Far away up the fiord sparkled a great glacier, an arm of the huge inland Mer de Glace. Close at hand bubbled and splashed a tiny stream which tumbled down among the rugged boulders from the melting snow above and trickled across the coastal intervale which was rich with lush grass. We stood there staring and straining our eyes for some sign of the expected village. All we saw on the slope above the fringe of grass was the hillside in which there were two holes in the ground, the remains of igloos of a former age, only these and nothing more!
In a few moments we had rounded Provision Point, so named from its use as a supply depot on the Commander’s previous expeditions. Thinking this location favorable for an anchorage, he immediately ordered the anchor dropped. A quick heave with the anchor chain announced the successful completion of the outward voyage. We of the ship personnel had consummated our mission; now it was for the aviators to accomplish theirs.
The clatter of the anchor chain acquainted Melkon with the fact that we had arrived.
“What kind of postage stamps do they use here?” he called up the companionway.
Receiving no enlightenment on this subject, he started up on deck. Poking his head above the hatch he inquired with a puzzled expression on his face:
“Why, where is the post office?”
The Commander extended his arm shorewards with a dramatic gesture and said simply and significantly:
“Look!”
Melkon took one long look at those two holes in the ground and scanned that stern and rock-bound coast. Then it dawned upon him that we were now in the real Arctic, far beyond the last pale of civilization and its appurtenances. With a subdued air he replied:
“Ah, now I understand.”
We had rather expected to find a considerable encampment of Eskimos and were somewhat disappointed to see that the country was apparently depopulated. But in a short time from the upper end of the fiord by the glacier we saw two kayaks approaching. Soon the Commander recognized their occupants as Noo-ka-ping-wa and In-you-gee-to, both old friends and companions of the Commander’s on former sleighing expeditions. They were delighted to see the Commander, and informed us that they represented the entire male population of the town with the exception of old Ak-kom-mo-ding-wa, who was coming as rapidly as his advanced years would allow. He soon appeared in a dilapidated canvas canoe, a gift of some explorer. He had abandoned the kayak in favor of the canoe, as the smaller craft’s cramped quarters no longer felt as comfortable as of yore. He was a comical old loafer, and his behavior caused us much amusement. His lazy habits and good-natured disposition soon gained for him the sobriquet of, “The Beloved Vagabond.”
Next morning at five o’clock sharp, we were roused out for an early start at constructing a landing place for the planes. After a hasty breakfast we piled into the boats and rowed over to the beach which had been chosen for the assembling of the planes. It was strewn with boulders and small rocks, and the only way of ridding the beach of them was to pry them out and roll them away. At this task everybody was soon engaged from the Commander down. All morning we labored, and by noon the sand was well cleared of them.
Our next task was to construct the runway for hauling the planes up to the beach, since the wheels would otherwise sink in the soft sand. For this purpose we requisitioned the sides of the cases in which the wings had been packed. To get them ashore was somewhat of a problem, and we tried several methods before we hit upon the ultimate one of lashing two boats together, thus forming a raft of sufficient stability upon which to load them.
After landing the planes, crosspieces were nailed under them, and these were weighed down with heavy rocks to keep the whole apparatus from floating away with the tide. When the runway was completed, the Navy men began bringing in the wings. In a short time the first fuselage was slung over the side of the Peary, into the water, and then brought ashore lashed between two boats in order that it might not tip over.
When the plane had grounded on the runway, all hands tailed on her tackle and walked her up the beach. Then the wings were set up, and the aviators secured them to the fuselage while we supported them on our backs. Having been assembled, the plane was then rolled back into the water and taken off to its anchorage.
The Peary.
Expedition plane at the stern of the Bowdoin.
In three days all of the planes were assembled and ready to go. It indeed gave us a thrill to see them soaring up from the waters of Etah Fiord and flying over a land and sea which never before had seen the shadow of a bird larger than a glaucous gull. The Eskimos also looked on with wide-eyed wonder, and many were the “Ahs” and “Naveos” as the great birds left the water amidst clouds of spray and went skimming over berg and glacier.
Launching first plane at Etah.
We had got away to a propitious start for our flying, and the prospects for success in the fullest measure seemed bright. Our hopes rose all too soon, however, for at this point old Torngak, the evil spirit of the North, angered at this invasion of his realm, took a hand in the proceedings. With driving snow and squalls he came sweeping down on us before we had been in Etah three days. Then his tactics changed, and he blanketed us in fog. For but three days of the entire summer did he sulk in his tent; during the remainder of the time he was either hovering in the offing or engaged in active offense through driving storms or insidious fog. But in spite of these handicaps, on every occasion at all suitable for flying the Commander and the aviators were away in their endeavor to penetrate the unknown area. To do this it was necessary to lay down a base between Etah and the Polar Sea. The planes were of the type known as amphibian, equipped to land either in the water or on the land. Equipped with skids they might possibly utilize the ice. An examination of the drift ice of Smith Sound precluded all possibility of its being used as an aviation field, covered as it was with pools of water, cracks, and pressure ridges. The ice covered the mountains of Ellesmere Land, threatening disaster to any plane which had to make a forced landing.
It was therefore necessary to rely on the water of the fiords, which should afford a safe, ice-free landing place. Time after time the aviators searched for open water, but fate was against them, and at nearly every visit the waters were choked with cakes of ice large enough to puncture a plane. Several times they found an apparently ice-free spot, but in a few hours the ice would return, rendering it impossible to again utilize that point for a base. The Commander had confidently believed from his sledging experience, and from the testimony of the Eskimos, that these fiords would be free of ice. The unforeseen presence of the ice can probably be explained, however, by the unprecedentedly short and cold summer we were experiencing. Not even in the memory of the oldest Eskimo had such unfortunate meteorological conditions prevailed.
In addition to the remarkable summer, or rather lack of summer, with which we were embarrassed, the usual run of engine trouble and other mishaps fell to our lot. One morning I was sitting down in the forecastle when the alarming news became known that a plane was sinking. Robbie and John Jaynes immediately took energetic measures to save the plane, and all hands came tumbling on deck. At the moment I arrived, the plane had sunk until the water was level with the propeller shaft of the inverted motor. She lay poised for a final plunge to the depths, and John and Robbie were desperately striving to get a line on the shaft. Rocheville, a Navy mechanic, lay aft on the tail gallantly trying to counter-balance the weight of the water forward and bring the plane on a level keel. The line was soon made fast, and just in time, as in another second she would have taken the last plunge. All hands then tailed on the line, and gradually the plane emerged. In a short time the deck was above water, and the aircraft was in a position to be bailed out. It was a fortunate rescue, but the plane never flew again in spite of our efforts.
The days not occupied in overhauling the planes or not rendered worthless by storms were devoted to flights over Ellesmere Land in search of a base. The presence of drifting ice, however, had dealt our planes a deathblow. By the 20th of August the Commander realized that the planes could not add to the results he had obtained with dog sledges in 1914. At best they might put him at the edge of the Polar Sea, but they would never carry him out over the unexplored district on which he had previously traveled off shore one hundred and fifty miles.
In the realm of science, however, the expedition produced notable results. Lieutenant Benjamin Rigg of the Coast and Geodetic Survey obtained valuable sets of magnetic and tidal observations at nearly every point at which we tarried. The first automatic tidal recorder to be used in the far north was also put in operation by him. Dr. Koelz, the expedition’s naturalist, also did some very valuable work. His collection of fish and bird specimens was large and contained many rare species. The National Geographic photographers obtained excellent photographs of Arctic scenes and people. For the first time far northern scenes were recorded by the new natural color process of photography. All-together the scientific results more than justified the expedition and made up for the unfortunate termination of the flying.
On this strip of coast upon which Etah is located dwells a group of people—the northernmost race in the world. These people are known to the white race as Eskimos, which means “meat eaters,” but among themselves the appellation Innuit, “the people,” is applied.
They are a very strange group and little is known about them. It is thought that they are of Mongolian origin. Whence they came and by what path, however, has always remained a mystery and is apparently little closer to solution now than formerly. At the present time they are distributed along the Arctic coasts of America, Greenland and Eastern Asia.
The particular branch of the race which lives on the North Greenland shore was unknown until 1818, when Sir John Ross worked his little vessel through the ice of Melville Bay to Cape York. As he lay off the Cape he observed several black dots moving towards him over the ice. These soon resolved into Eskimos, and dog sleds. On their nearer approach he entered into a conversation with them through an interpreter from South Greenland. He then told them he came from far to the south. Upon the receipt of this information they assumed an incredulous air and informed him that surely no one could live in the south as all their ice drifted off in that direction and by this time that region must be absolutely choked with it.
For many years these “Arctic Highlanders,” to use the rather poetical name Ross gave them, remained unvisited. In 1850-51, however, Saunders wintered among them in the ship North Star. He was the first man ever really to live with them. To-day on the bay named after his ship, Knud Rasmussen, the explorer, maintains a trading station.
Two years after the departure of Saunders, the little brig Advance with Elisha Kent Kane, “America’s first Arctic explorer,” in command, rounded Cape York, and gallantly beat up Smith Sound to Renssaeler Harbor. While Kane was there the Eskimos sledged up to see him. With a gun on his shoulder he went forth to meet them, with so great suspicion did he regard them. But they appeared peaceable and he had no occasion to employ the firearm. Kane brought back the first reliable reports on the Eskimos. However, he did not make much use of their knowledge and skill, nor of their dog teams, in his explorations. Seven years after Kane, in 1860, Dr. Isaac Israel Hayes, one of Kane’s men, revisited Etah and entered into extensive relations with the natives. For the first time did the Eskimos aid in the work of exploration in which they were later to take so conspicuous a part with Peary and MacMillan. But Hayes never fully trusted them, and for awhile he considered himself and his men the objects of a conspiracy on the part of the Eskimos to murder them all.
After Hayes, with the exception of a winter which the crew of the Polaris spent just north of Etah, the Eskimos remained unvisited until the arrival of Peary. Peary quickly realized the great value of the Eskimo and his sturdy team of dogs. He gained their confidence and esteem. Without experiencing any of the evils which the earlier expeditions had expected from the Eskimos, he worked with them for eighteen years. It was largely due to the skill and energy of the Eskimos and the power in their sturdy dogs that Peary eventually conquered the Pole. In 1876 Markham, of the English North Pole Expedition, reported to his government that he considered it impossible to attain the Pole. He relied on the unaided labors of his men to pull the sledges, a terrific task which well demonstrated the bravery and stamina of the British. In a little over a month, Markham and his men traveled seventy-three miles from the ship, advancing their sledges by man power alone, and nearly dying with exhaustion. Peary in three days by the aid of Eskimos and dog sledges exceeded this distance with ease. This clearly shows the superiority of the Eskimo method of travel. Peary never had cause to regret his employment of the Eskimo, and they did not play him false in spite of the beliefs of the older explorers.
Four years after the Pole had been conquered, the American flag again entered Smith Sound. This time it snapped in the breeze over the head of one who would bring it new renown. Upon the scene had appeared the fit successor of the great Peary—MacMillan. With the aid of Eskimos and dog teams in the spring of 1914 he turned his steps westward over Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg Land. One hundred and fifty miles he penetrated the Polar Sea towards the land which Peary had seen. But he found this land had been nothing but a mirage, and regretfully he and his Eskimos turned their steps homeward. For four years he lived among them, and studied their way of living, and his researches greatly extended our knowledge concerning them. Thus at last the Eskimo came into his own as the helpmate and companion of the white man on his trips in the Arctic regions.
On the 1925 MacMillan expedition I had the opportunity of observing them and their interesting customs. At the time of year in which I was among them they were living in sealskin tents or tupiks. The rock igloos had been abandoned for their summer airing. The Eskimos removed the dome of their arched rock igloos on the arrival of warm weather. This airing of the igloos is about the only sanitary act the natives perform. They rarely if ever wash themselves or their clothes.
Their methods of food preservation also are rather distasteful to a civilized person. After walrus or other meat has been secured, it is cut up and then stacked in a pile. Then over all is placed a large number of rocks. In this way it is stored until there is need of it. In a few days these caches can be located by the smell alone.
But at all things requiring a good eye, a cool head and a steady hand, they excel. A good example of this is the way in which they make their rope. It is made by taking the skin of a seal which has been so skinned that the hide comes off in concentric bands. Then one of the natives pulls the band along while another holds a knife. Even a small tremble in the hand of the one holding the knife would cut through the thin line, ruining it, but so accurate is their handiwork that the lines vary in width hardly at all and the rope seems so uniform that one would think it had been made in a machine. They also skin small seals in such a way that the skin pulls off absolutely whole with but one perforation. This skin is so carefully removed from the flesh that it will hold air without leaking!
They display the greatest ingenuity in the manufacture of all their instruments and utensils. The point in their harpoons, and the way they employ the sealskin bag to float the walrus which sinks when it is killed, all show the innate skill and ingenuity in the race. They are never at a loss and never “stumped.” Once someone was repairing a sledge, and he could not find a drill. An Eskimo stepped forward and coolly shot a hole through the runner. They are like that in everything, always alert, always on the job.
Eskimo kiddie with his mother’s coat on.
Even Eskimo boys of Ig-loo-da-houny have a sweet tooth.
Their philosophy of life is also interesting. The hard struggle they wage against the inhospitable environment in which they live has not made them an ill-tempered, sullen race. On the contrary, they are always laughing and smiling. A good joke is much enjoyed. On one occasion several of our photographers wanted pictures of live ducks on the nest. The Eskimos learning of this wish took a dead duck and propped it up on a nest with walrus whiskers so that it looked quite lifelike. Then they motioned to the photographers who cautiously crept forward, making every effort to keep from making a noise. The Eskimos meanwhile nearly died laughing. They are little inclined to worry. Old Panikpa admirably summarized their outlook on life when asked if he was not worried on a very dangerous strip of ice. “No,” he replied, “I let Peary do all the worrying.”
In-you-gee-to makes a coil of rawhide line out of skin
of which he is justly proud.
The only Eskimo family in Etah.
One may think them unintelligent and mentally deficient, but they have keen intellects and they use some very clever devices, in one instance utilizing advanced engineering principles. In the building of their circular rock igloos they employ the cantilever principle—an engineering method used in some of our greatest bridges. One would not expect an Eskimo to know a principle which our greatest engineers employ.
Altogether these children of the ice are a group of people from whom we may learn much. Though they are one of the world’s most primitive peoples, they are in some respects the peers of those who are generally considered to be the most highly civilized.