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THE TIMELY SLEDGE JOURNEY OF BEDFORD PIM

 
"Huddled on deck, one-half that hardy crew
Lie shrunk and withered in the biting sky,
With filmy stare and lips of livid hue,
And sapless limbs that stiffen as they lie;
While the dire pest-scourge of the frozen zone
Rots through the vein and gnaws the knotted bone."
 

– Bulwer.

For more than three centuries England made frequent and fruitless attempts by sea and by land to discover the northwest passage, and in 1818 the British Parliament offered a reward of twenty thousand pounds sterling for its passage by explorers. Although it is now known that the ill-fated expedition under Sir John Franklin first discovered the passage in 1846-7, the first persons to make the journey over a new and more northerly route, between 1849 and 1853, were the crew of her Majesty's ship Investigator, commanded by Captain Robert Le Mesurier M'Clure, R.N.

It is a curious and notable fact that the making of the passage was, as one may say, a matter of luck or of accident. There occurred in connection with this journey a series of adventures that had marvellous results, not only in the saving of the lives of the crew of the Investigator, but also in raising them to the pinnacle of fame and some of them to a state of fortune. M'Clure's ship was not sent forth on a voyage of geographic exploration, but on a mission of mercy for the discovery and relief of the Franklin arctic squadron which had been missing since 1845. The Pacific searching squadron for this purpose, commanded by Captain Robert Collinson, R.N., consisted of the two ships Enterprise and Investigator, which parted company in Magellan Strait under orders to meet at Cape Lisburne, Bering Strait. Captain M'Clure arrived first, and after a very brief delay pushed on without waiting for his commander. The two ships never met again.

Discovering Banks Land, which the Eskimo called "The Land of the White Bear," M'Clure followed Prince of Wales Strait to its northern entrance, where he anchored his ship to a floe and wintered in the open pack in default of a harbor. Retracing his course to the south the following summer, he circumnavigated Banks Land under marvellous ice conditions of great danger, escaping as by miracle, the Investigator being so near the sheer, precipitous crags of the west coast that her yards could touch the cliffs, while to the seaward she was cradled in crashing, uprearing floes which close to her bows were higher than the foreyard. After reaching Banks Strait the ship grounded one night and M'Clure unfortunately decided to winter there, in Mercy Bay, where she was frozen in and abandoned two years later.

This sketch sets forth the desperate extremities to which M'Clure and his crew were reduced, and describes the timely heroism of Lieutenant Bedford Pim R.N., in making the sledge journey which wrought such marvellous changes in the fate and fortunes of the ice-imprisoned men.

On September 23, 1851, the Investigator was frozen in for the winter in the ice of Mercy Bay, on the north coast of Banks Land. It was her second arctic winter, and the hardships inseparable from prolonged polar service were soon felt. The crew were at once placed on two-thirds allowance, a restricted diet that kept them always hungry. Soon they felt the shadowy presence of the twin arctic evils, famine and cold, which came with the forming ice and the advancing winter. Through the open hatchways the down-flowing polar cold turned into hoar-frost the moisture of the relatively warm air of the cabins and of the bunks. Water froze in the glasses and frost particles welded into stiffness the blankets, bedding, and hammocks of the seamen. Later even the ink froze in the wells, while the exposed head of every metal bolt or nail was covered with a glistening coat of ice.

Shoreward the outlook was as desolate as conditions were gloomy on shipboard. For at first the ice-bound shores of Mercy Bay seemed utterly barren of life in any form. But one day came with joy and thankfulness the report that a sharp-eyed boatswain had seen several deer skirting the snowy hill-tops to the southwestward.

Now all was activity and bustle, since this phase of useful effort had come to increase their chance of life. Should they fail to release the ship the coming summer, death by famine sorely threatened. So they pursued the chase daily with the utmost energy and for a time with marked success. Not only did the hunters meet with the timid deer and the stolid musk-ox – their main reliance for meat – but here and there they found the snowy polar hare, the cunning arctic fox, and too often, alas! the ravenous wolf – the dreaded pirate of the north.

Regular hunting-parties were told off, consisting of the best shots and most active men. To save long journeys to and from the ice-beset ship, tents were erected at convenient places and stored with food and needful conveniences. Owing to the usual darkness, the safe, sane rule was laid down that no hunter should venture alone out of sight of either tent or ship, of some member of a field party, or of a prominent landmark.

One day an eager seaman, rushing forward to get within gun-shot of a fleeting musk-ox, when outdistanced by the animal found that he was out of sight of his comrades and could find no familiar landmark by which to guide him back to ship or tent. Night coming on, he was in sad plight in the darkness, illy clad for long exposure, lost and alone. Now and then he fired a shot, but his straining ears heard no responsive signal from his shipmates. After tramping to and fro for several hours, he was so worn out that he sat down to regain his strength, but he soon found that his clothing, wet with the sweat of travel, had frozen stiff. To save himself from death by freezing, he began walking slowly about, keeping to a restricted circle so that he should not wander farther from his anxious comrades.

While tramping to and fro his listening ear, eager for any sound of life, detected a slight rustling noise. Turning quickly he saw close behind him the form of a beast, which loomed large in the faint light of the rising moon. He had neither need to reason nor time to draw on his fancy as to the character of his unwelcome pursuer, for a weird resounding howl called forth at once an answering chorus. A ravenous wolf had marked the hunter as his prey and was calling his gaunt and cruel comrades to the bloody, looked-for feast.

The tales of the forecastle had been filled with grewsome details of the ravages of wolves, so that the seaman was doubly horrified to find a band of polar pirates on his trail. Though knowing his frightful plight, he faced expectant death with courage and composure, putting on a bold front. Shortly the wolves followed their customary tactics, so successful in killing reindeer or musk-oxen. Forming a circle around the hunter, a wolf would jump quickly toward the man's back, the animal alertly withdrawing as he was faced. Again several would make a sudden and united plunge toward their intended victim – coming from separate directions. Greatly alarmed at this concerted attack, the seaman fired at the nearest wolf. When the band, alarmed at the bright flame and loud noise from the musket – unknown to the arctic wolf – fled a short distance the seaman at once ascended a small knoll where he would be better placed for defence. From this point of vantage he waged successful warfare by timely shots at individual attacking wolves.

But the time came when he had fired every shot in his locker, and then the band fell back a little way and seemed to be deliberating as to what should be done next. Expecting another concerted attack, the seaman took his hunting-knife in one hand so that he could stab any single wolf, and grasped his musket firmly in the free hand so as to use it as a club.

While in this fearful state he was intensely relieved by seeing the whole pack rush madly away. Though the hunter never knew for a certainty, his relief was doubtless due either to the coming of a polar bear, feared by the wolves, or to the scenting of an attractive musk-ox. With anxious heart he awaited the coming daylight, when he was able to locate himself and rejoin the comrades who were in wild search for him.

This was not an isolated case of the boldness and tenacity of the wolves, who were a constant menace not only to the hunters personally – who kept well together after this experience – but to the game resources of the country. On another occasion three men started out to bring to the ship the carcass of a deer which had been killed the day before. The boatswain walking in advance reached the deep ravine in which he had cached the deer, only to find a pack of five large, gaunt wolves rapidly devouring the carcass. As he went forward he expected that the animals would leave, but none stirred at his approach, their famished condition seeming to banish fear of man. Though he shouted at the top of his voice and brandished his musket, three of the wolves fell back only a few yards, when they squatted on their haunches and kept their sharp eyes fixed on him. The two other wolves paid no attention to the hunter, but continued to devour ravenously the dismembered animal. The boatswain seized a hind leg of the deer, but Master Wolf, not at all disconcerted, held fast to the other end in which his sharp teeth were deeply fixed. The other wolves now set up a snarling chorus of encouragement to their fellow and of defiance to the intruder at their feast. However, the undismayed sailor, holding fast with one hand to the deer's hind leg, brandished his musket vigorously with the other and yelled at the top of his voice to his comrades coming over the hill. He did not wish to use his precious ammunition on the wolves, as the supply was now so small as to forbid its waste. The daring animal at last dropped his end of the deer, but stood fast within a yard or two, ready to renew his attack at a favorable opportunity. The hunter cautiously gathered up, piece by piece, the remnants of his fat game, the pack all the time howling and snarling and even making dashes at the brave seaman who was robbing them of their dinner.

Meanwhile the Eskimo interpreter, Mr. Miertsching, a Moravian missionary of German birth, came up in a state of excitement which turned to fear at the scene. His long service in Labrador had made him familiar with the audacity and prowess of the wolf, and he viewed uneasily the menacing attitude of the five wolves, who plainly intended to attempt the recovery of the deer meat. It was not until two other armed men came up that the wolves took to the hills, howling defiantly.

It was the rule of the ship that a hunter should have the head and the heart of any animal he killed, thus to encourage the activity and success of the hunters. Though there were less than twenty pounds saved from the deer, a generous portion went to the gallant seaman who had fought off so successfully the predatory gang.

With the opening summer of 1852 affairs were most critical, as the ship remained fast in the ice, with no signs of relief. In July Surgeon Alexander Armstrong urged that the allowance of food be increased, as the year of short rations had caused scurvy among one-third of the crew. As all fresh meat was then gone, M'Clure refused to make larger food issues.

At this critical juncture, Woon, a sergeant of marines, shot two musk-oxen under rather thrilling and unusual circumstances. While hunting, the sergeant discovered two musk-oxen lying down, one of them evidently asleep. Creeping quietly toward them, taking advantage of such cover as the nature of the ground afforded, he was within nearly a hundred yards when the alarmed oxen scrambled to their feet. Firing at the larger ox, he wounded him, but not fatally. The musk-ox charged him, stopping within about forty yards. A second shot only caused the animal to shake his black mane and toss his horns in a threatening manner. Meanwhile the second ox ran forward, as though to help his comrade, and was in turn wounded by a shot from the now alarmed hunter. The second animal then rushed toward the sergeant in a thoroughly enraged attitude, and though much smaller than his companion advanced with much more courage than had the first. With his last ball the hunter fired at the larger animal, as being more important to the larder, who, shot through the brain, fell dead in his tracks.

Hastily loading his musket with a part of his remaining powder, the sergeant was forced to use the screw of his ramrod as a missile, with which he pierced the neck of the steadily advancing musk-ox. As this still failed to check the advance the hunter withdrew slowly, reloading his gun with his single remaining missile, the ramrod of the musket. By this time the thoroughly enraged animal was within a few feet of the sergeant when the last shot was fired. The ramrod passed diagonally through the body of the ox, making a raking wound from which the animal fell dead at the very feet of the anxious hunter. The larger musk-ox, with its shaggy mane, curly horns, menacing air, and formidable appearance, was quite a monster. Its huge head and massive horns made up one hundred and thirty pounds of its full weight of seven hundred and sixty-seven pounds.

During the brief arctic summer, under the surgeon's orders, the valleys were searched for sorrel and scurvy grass, which contributed to the improved physical health of the men. It was not possible, however, to dispel the mental dejection that affected all of the crew as the summer passed without such changes in the ice as would permit the Investigator to be moved. All knew that the ship's provisions were inadequate for another year, which must now be faced. If game was not killed in much larger quantities, it would be necessary to face death by starvation, unless some unforeseen and providential relief should come to them.

After long deliberation M'Clure made known his plans to the assembled crew on September 9, 1852. In April twenty-eight men and officers would be sent eastward with sledges to Beechey Island, five hundred and fifty miles distant. At that point they would take a boat and stores there cached and endeavor to reach the Danish settlements on the west coast of Greenland. Nine other men would endeavor to reach the Hudson Bay posts via the Mackenzie River, taking up en route the cache of provisions deposited by the Investigator on Prince Royal Islands in 1850. Thirty of the healthiest of the crew would remain with the ship for the fourth arctic winter, awaiting relief from the British Admiralty in 1854.

Of necessity the daily allowances were again reduced, so that the amount of food issued was six ounces of meat, ten of flour, and two and one-half of canned vegetables. Surgeon Armstrong records that "the feeling was now one of absolute hunger, the cravings of which were ever present."

The ration was generally eaten by the officers at a single meal, and to insure exact fairness, and to remove any ground for complaint, the mess adopted the rule that turn about should be taken in the disagreeable duty of making the daily issue. The officer of the day arranged the food in as many portions as there were persons. Then, in an order fixed by lot, each officer inspected the various piles of food and chose that which most pleased him. The officer making the division for the day took the lot left.

It is to be presumed that the men suffered even more than the officers on these starvation rations. Certainly they were unable to restrain their feelings as well as did the officers, and on October 4, 1853, occurred an act doubtless unprecedented in the royal navy. Suffering from prolonged cravings of hunger, made more acute by the late reduction of food and by the severe winter cold, the ship's crew assembled on the quarterdeck in a body and asked Captain M'Clure for more food, which he refused to grant.

By hunting, which duty now fell almost entirely on the officers, a few ounces of fresh meat – deer, field-mice, or even wolf – were now and then added to their meagre meals. The fortunate hunter, besides his game perquisites of head and heart, also enjoyed other privileges that almost always brought him back to the ship in a condition that made him a frightful spectacle from blood and dirt. When he killed a deer or other animal, the first act of the hunter was to put his lips to the mortal wound and take therefrom a draught of fresh, warm blood that ebbed from the dying animal. In taste and in effect this blood was found to be very like a warm uncooked egg. As water for washing was precious and rarely to be had, owing to lack of fuel, and then in small amounts, the ghastly spectacle that a man presented when the blood of an animal was glued over his face, and was frozen into the accumulated grime of weeks without washing, may be better imagined than described.

The awful cold in which lived and hunted these half-starved men taxed to the utmost their impaired powers of endurance. For two days in January the temperature was ninety-one degrees below the freezing-point, and the average for that month was four degrees below that of frozen mercury.

The pall of gloom and despair that had come with the winter darkness, from the frightful cold, and from increasing sickness was somewhat broken on March 15, 1853, when the weakest half of the crew was told off in parties to make the spring retreat with sledges. To put them in condition for the field M'Clure gave them full rations. It was strange to note how closely they, eating once more heartily, were watched and to what extent the few ounces of extra food made them objects of envy to their healthier and stronger comrades, who were to stay by the ship another awful winter.

The doctors, however, were under no delusion as to the ultimate outcome of the situation. The weaker members of the crew were to take the field and die like men, falling in the traces as they dragged along the fatal sledge, as the surgeons Armstrong and Piers had reported in writing "the absolute unfitness of the men for the performance of this journey."

Though Captain M'Clure, with the spirit of optimism that belongs to a commander, endeavored to persuade himself to the contrary, it was evident to Dr. Armstrong that critical conditions had developed that threatened the extermination of the expeditionary force.

The able and clear-sighted doctor realized that the sick were not simply suffering from physical exhaustion induced by the short rations of many months. He recognized with horror that far the greater number of the crew were slowly perishing from the dreaded and fatal arctic scourge – scurvy. The progress and prevalence of the disease were such that it was to be feared there would not remain after a few months enough well men to properly care for their sick comrades. It was a living death that was being faced from day to day.

But fate, inexorable and inexplicable, was doubly placing its veto on the feeble plans of man. Three of the men who were told off for the forlorn hope died within a fortnight, while thirty-three of the remaining thirty-six men were suffering from materially impaired health. Then came the relief from outside sources, which saved the expedition as a whole.

Meanwhile, unknown to M'Clure, a searching squadron of five British ships, commanded by Captain Sir Edward Belcher, R.N., was wintering about two hundred miles to the eastward of the Investigator. Sledging from one of these ships, the Resolute, at Bridgeport Inlet, Melville Island, Lieutenant Mecham, in October, 1852, had visited Winter Harbor, and on top of the famous sandstone rock had found the record there deposited by M'Clure in his visit to that point in April, 1852, six months earlier, which stated that the Investigator was wintering in Mercy Bay. The fast-approaching darkness made the trip to Mercy Bay impossible, even if the ship was yet there – most doubtful from the record. For M'Clure had added: "If we should not be again heard of … any attempt to succor would be to increase the evil."

Nevertheless, Captain Kellet, commanding the Resolute, thought it wise to send a party to Mercy Bay the coming spring, not for M'Clure alone, but to seek at that place and far beyond such news as was attainable about Collinson's squadron. For this duty was selected Lieutenant Bedford C. T. Pim, R.N., a young officer of spirit and determination, who had volunteered for the journey. Kellet's advisers urged that he delay the departure until the end of March, with its longer days and warmer weather. Pim insisted on an early start, for it was a long journey. Collinson's squadron was provisioned only for that year and so would break out through the ice early from their more southerly ports. Providentially, Kellet listened to Pim's importunate pleas, as otherwise at least half of the crew of the Investigator would have perished.

On March 10, 1853, Pim started on this journey of nearly two hundred miles, the first long sledge trip ever attempted in an arctic expedition at such an early date – twenty-five days in advance of any other sledge journey from the Resolute that year. Pim with eight men hauled the man-sledge, while Dr. Domville with one man supported him with a dog-sledge of six animals. Eleven other men were to assist them for five days.

Things went badly from the very beginning, and Kellet was half inclined to recall Pim. Under frightful conditions of weather and of ice travel one man fell sick and two sledges broke down. Fearing that he would be kept back, Pim wisely stayed in the field, sending back for other men and sledges. The first night out was quite unendurable, the temperature falling to seventy-six degrees below the freezing-point. Then followed violent blizzards which storm-stayed the party for four days, during which the temperature inside their double tent fell to fifty-six degrees below freezing. One comfort to the young lieutenant was the presence of a veteran polar seaman, Hoile, who had learned all the tricks and secrets of handling gear and stores in the field during his campaigns under the famous arctic sledgeman Sir Leopold McClintock. But no skill could make men comfortable under such awful cold. For instance, the fur sleeping bags at the start had been dry, pliant, and cold-proof. Now the vapor from the men's bodies had dampened the bags which, frozen solid, would stand on end without falling, as though made of light sheet-iron.

Marching onward, Pim's next trouble was with a food-cache, laid down by himself the previous autumn, which wild animals – probably bears and wolves – had plundered in large part, though some of the thick metal coverings of the solidly frozen meats had escaped with rough marks of the teeth and claws.

Pim took everything with jovial humor, and was entirely happy when he left the firm land of Melville Island to cross frozen Banks Strait to Mercy Bay, Banks Land. Bad as was travel along the ice-foot bordering the land, it was far worse in the strait. Domville officially reported that their course "was beset with every difficulty, every variety of hummocks and deep snow barring our progress in all directions. Some of the ridges, too irregular for a loaded sledge, required portages to be made, a mode of proceeding almost equally difficult and dangerous to the limbs, from the men sinking to the middle through the soft snow amongst the masses of forced-up hummocks."

Later there came some level stretches, and then Pim hoisted a sail on the man-sledge to help it along. It nearly proved their ruin, for the sledge took charge on a steep, glassy hummock, knocked over the men, plunged into a deep crevasse, and broke a runner. Pim did not hesitate an hour over the best thing to do. 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. Ever faithful to the motto of his sledge flag, "Hope on: hope ever," he ceased not until the land was reached and success insured.

Skirting the ice-foot of the northeastern coast of Banks Land, his heart came into his mouth as, rounding a cape, he saw the dark spars of an ice-beset ship loom up against the sullen southern sky. Blistered and brazened, half snow-blinded, with face covered with accumulations of greasy soot, what wonder that this fur-clad figure was thought by the amazed M'Clure to be an Eskimo, a mistake aided by the wild gesticulations and loud, unintelligible shouts of a man whose face was as black as ebony.

Of Pim's coming Dr. Armstrong of the Investigator says: "No words could express the feelings of heart-felt gladness which all experienced at this unlooked-for, this most providential arrival."

Over the rough, winding trails of the arctic highway, Pim had travelled four hundred and twenty-seven miles from ship to ship, and made a journey that will ever live in polar annals as fraught with vital interests beyond those of any other single sledge trip.

Of Pim's work a fellow-officer, McDougal, wrote: "Each member of our little community must have felt his heart glow to reflect that he formed one of the little band whose undertakings in the cause of humanity had been crowned with such success."

Thus it happened that through the heroic energy and persistent efforts of Bedford Pim, the outcome of the voyage of the Investigator⁷ was changed from that of certain disaster to one of astounding success. Save for this timely sledge journey, many of his sailor comrades must have found unknown graves among the ice-crowned isles of the northern seas, and an awful tragedy would have marked the splendid annals of the Franklin search.