A. W. Greely

“ With wolf-like ferocity and swiftness the excited dogs rushed madly forward, the empty sledge swinging from side to side on the rough ice-floes or splashing through the pools or tide cracks that lay in the road. When within a mile or so of the bear he saw his coming [320] enemies, and with his lumbering, rocking gait rushes off at a speed that astonishes a novice who notes his awkward motions. Ook-joo-lik leaning forward cuts the traces with his sharp hunting-knife, freeing in a bunch the yelping dogs who run swiftly after the fleeing animal. ”

“ Through a rift in the clouds glares a red flash of light, like an angry, blood-shot eye. He turns and meets the sinister sunbeams with a steady eye, in which a fiery gleam is reflected, as though bidding defiance. As they glare at each other, this man and this spectre, the curtain is drawn and all is dark."
This we know, that with loyalty and solidarity these heroic men kept fast in their path of daily duty, facing unflinchingly cold and disease, exhaustion and starvation, and, as has been truly said, they thus "forged the last link of the northwest passage with their lives." ”

“ Looking with eager eyes for all things new, as must those who sailed with Franklin, they saw strange sights—unknown forms of nature to non-arctic sailors. In the days of melting snow, during the quick-coming, swift-flying polar spring, among all things white and colorless, they must have been struck by the high colors of the many little fresh-water pools whose vivid greens and brilliant reds catch and please an eye wearied and dulled by the sombre arctic landscape. ”

“ Leaving Domville to patch up the sledge and to return and await him at the last depot, Pim started ahead with his six dogs and two men toward Mercy Bay. Sleepless nights of fearful cold, days of weary toil with sun-dazzled eyes, biting blasts of sharp blizzards, exhausting struggles through rubble ice—these one and all could neither quench the spirit nor bend the will of this forceful man. ”

“ Graves and skeletons, boats and tents, clothing and camp-gear silently tell the tragic tale of that awful march, which has been traced from Point Victory to Montreal Island through the heroic researches of Hobson and McClintock, of Hall, Schwatka, and Gilder.
No weaklings were they, but as true men they strove with courage and energy to the very end. At least one brave man died on the march, and his skeleton lying on its face verified the truth of the terse tribute of the Eskimo woman who said to McClintock: "They fell down and died as they walked." ”

“ Great as may be the respect and high as can be the admiration of the world for efficient performance of public duties by officials of high station, yet the hearts of sympathetic, tender-hearted men and women are more deeply moved whenever and where-ever they hear a tale of self-sacrifice and of heroic comradeship. Such is the story of this great naval lord, enacted by him as a sub-lieutenant far from the civilized world, on the ice-bound coast of a desolate arctic land, for the safety of an humble dog driver. ”

“ Ross and his officers fully realized that this was their sole and final chance of life, and that failure to reach the whalers of Barrow Strait or Baffin Bay meant ultimate death by starvation.
Amid the alternations during their voyage, of open water, of the dangerous navigation of various ice streams, and of the tantalizing land delays, when the violent insetting pack drove them to the cliff-bounded beaches of North Somerset, even the feeblest worked with desperate energy, for all knew that their lives depended on concerted, persistent, intelligent action. ”

“ Mylius-Erichsen and his comrade had a similar experience just as they turned homeward. Almost in a day the snow-covering of the sea-floe vanished, as if by miracle. Here and there water-holes appeared—the dreadful fact was clear, the ice-floes were breaking up. Forced now to the coast-land, it was plain that return to their ship was no longer possible. They must summer in a barren, ice-capped land, and wait, if they could live so long, until the frosts of early [358] autumn should re-form the great white highway of arctic travel. ”

“ The dogs ran freely with their very light load of fifty-one pounds per animal, for a full load would be about one hundred pounds for each dog. An hour's travel in a cross wind—filled with the fine drift of sand-like snow so common in the arctic—made them all put on their blinkers (face-protectors against the cold, made of carpeting material) to keep their faces from freezing solid. Every care was taken by the watchful Egerton to guard against frost-bites. Each quarter of an hour he stopped the sledge for a moment, when each sledgeman examined the faces of his comrades. ”

“ The hurricane wind made movement most difficult, snow filled the air, their floe was quivering from awful pressures, while the howling gale and groaning ice-pack made a deafening tumult. Nothing could be done but to stand and wait!
Suddenly the captain cried out, "Water is making on the next floe!" An adjoining floe-berg of great size and thickness had split into countless pieces, and where a moment before had been a solid ice surface was a high sea tossing broken ice-masses. Huge pieces of their own berg now broke off, due to the action of the sea and to collision with the crowding pack. ”

“ In countless and too-often unrecorded cases not only the officers, but especially also the rank and file, have practically and gloriously illustrated by personal heroism those splendid qualities of uplifted humanity—fortitude, loyalty, patience, best of all, solidarity and the spirit of self-sacrifice. These unheralded and humble heroes have at the call of duty, as circumstances required, done their part each in his own way. Among these the name of Color-Sergeant Woon stands high, simply because his rising to a noble occasion is a matter of written record. ”

“ Rolling up their fur sleeping-bags and clothing, they filled their knapsacks with food. Forming a human chain they ran safety lines from the house to the several boats, well knowing that in the blinding blizzard one could not otherwise find his way to the boat to which each one had been told off for the final emergency. They then set a watch of two men to note events, and, intrusting their souls to God, the rest of the party crawled into their sleeping-bags for such needed rest and for such possible sleep as might come to the most stolid. ”

“ Certainly Commander Markham pushed to the extreme limit compliance with his assertive sledge motto: "I dare do all that becomes a man. Who dares do more is none."
Amidst the glory and happiness of this notable day, there could not fail to arise in the minds of all, especially of Markham and his efficient aid, Lieutenant Parr, unbidden forebodings as to the homeward march. Was it not possible that their distressing conditions were a prelude to disaster? Would they all reach the ship? At all events they would do all that was in their power. ”

“ In such haste Franklin put to sea that the customary rule was not observed of building a cairn in a prominent [63] place and of placing therein a record of operations to date. Doubtless the sea opened suddenly by one of those offshore winds which bring ice-free water as by magic. But they must have left the land for the open sea with the free joy of the sailor, not knowing that fate had been kinder to the three comrades who rested under the arctic sky in the quiet island graves than to those who with brave hearts and high hopes sailed ever onward and onward. ”

“ Though exceedingly feeble, Petersen thought that he could make the journey, Egerton promptly abandoned everything except tent, sleeping-gear, and food for a single day. Over the first part of the trail—most dangerous for a sledge and very rough—Petersen managed to walk under the stimulation of rum and ammonia. When he fell, prostrate and unconscious, on the icy road and could go no farther, he was put into a sleeping-bag, wrapped in warm robes, and lashed securely to the sledge.
The terrible conditions of the homeward journey must be imagined for they cannot well be described. ”

“ Living under conditions of ease and luxury far surpassing anything of which Mertuk's mind had before been capable of imagining, this tiny, uncivilized woman resolved to quit her abode of warmth and light for piercing cold and utter darkness, to abandon her abundant food and comfortable berth for a chance bit of frozen seal meat and a snow igloo. And for what reason? To find a missing husband, in search of whom a party was [380] to take the field. To non-polar people no words can convey an adequate idea of the dangers to be met, of the privations to be endured. ”

“ Among the forceful and friendly natives of Etah sixty years since, in the days of Kane, was Shung-hu, famed equally for his qualities as a man and for his daring as a mighty hunter. He especially displayed his skill in the successful pursuit of the polar bear, whether on land along the coast, on the fast ice under the frowning snow-cliffs of Humboldt Glacier, or on the moving ice-floes of Smith Sound. ”

“ It was barely possible that they might reach the coast, six miles distant, but that was to face starvation, as everything must be abandoned for a cross-floe march. If the shore was reached it was well known to be ice-clad and desolate, as there were to be found neither natives nor land game along the narrow strips of rocky, ice-free beach which stretches from sea-glacier to sea-glacier on this seemingly accursed coast. ”

“ No one could look forward to the possibility of passing a fifth year in the arctic regions without most dismal forebodings as to the sufferings and fatalities that must result therefrom. The highest cliffs that commanded a view of the inlet to the north were occupied by eager watchers of the ice horizon. Day after day and week after week passed without the faintest signs of water spots, which mark the disintegrating pack and give hopes of its coming disruption. Would the pack ever break? Could that vast, unbroken extent of ice ever waste away so that boats could pass? ”

“ 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. ”

“ How does the sweet pride of a free man inspire their abject nomadic life? Ask its [300] 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. ”

“ They travelled leisurely, seeking fruitful hunting grounds and living on the game of the land or of the adjacent sea. They thus netted the salmon of the glacial lakes, searched the valleys for deer, snared the ptarmigan, lanced the lumbering musk-ox, speared the sea-fowl, caught the seal, slaughtered the walrus, and they are believed to have even pursued in kayaks and lanced the narwhal and the white whale. ”