The Impossible Rescue Read online

  Food was a much bigger concern. Once Brower realized the full scope of the disaster, he had dispatched parties of the local folks he employed to hunt for geese, ducks, small whales, seals, caribou, and whatever other game they could find. He then began storing these provisions in the ice cellars beneath his whaling station. Brower was hopeful that for perhaps the next three months the hunting would continue. But it would, he knew, come to a halt when the dead of winter set in. Provisions were bound to run very short the longer the men were stranded at Point Barrow.

  From the moment Charlie Brower had the stranded whalers brought ashore, he began to send some of the most skilled whalemen in his employ across the ice down to the shoreline in the hope of their capturing small whales traveling in the shallow waters. The whales they brought back provided badly needed food for the newly arrived men.

  Charlie Brower employed some two hundred indigenous people at his whaling station. Here, two of these men pose with game they hunted to help keep the stranded whalers alive.

  Despite Brower’s and McIlhenny’s efforts, conditions at Point Barrow steadily deteriorated. The bunkhouse had no ventilation, and the heat from the bodies of so many men crammed together, combined with the constant steam given off by cooking on the room’s stove, created what to most would be an unlivable situation. “The house would sweat,” James Allen wrote. “This steam would freeze, so that around the walls, inside the house near the floor, there would be a foot of ice, which in no way helped keep the place warm. . . .

  “Much of the men’s clothing was in bad shape. It seemed to me that they did not care how they looked, with their hair unkempt, faces and hands unwashed. . . . Just one visit to the bunkhouse would make you wonder how men could live in such filth without sickness and death.”

  Worst of all, within a short time of the whalers’ arrival, all discipline had broken down, even the smallest modicum of morale had disappeared, and most of the men had given up hope. “As soon as their ships were wrecked, the Captains gave up all control of their men,” Brower would write. “I thought it funny [that they] would [not] try to help manage their crews. All they seemed to want was to get shut of all responsibility, which they shifted to me.”

  Although Brower was successful in running his whaling station with the help of the community around him, he had little authority over the whalemen. This lack of authority, combined with ships’ captains’ relinquished command of their men, created a serious situation. On October 21, McIlhenny wrote in his diary, “This morning I tried to get a gang of twelve of the wrecked men to go into camp twelve miles south of here for the purpose of hauling wood. . . . The men refused to go, saying it was too cold. . . . Every evening I go over with my book and call out twelve names in order and tell them where to get wood the next day. Generally about half of those called complain of being sick or lame or something to prevent their going. They take it as if it was a special favor I was asking. They little realize what is coming. If they don’t get fuel now while the thermometer shows only a few degrees below zero, what will they do when we have fifty and sixty below?”

  By November, both Brower and McIlhenny had become accustomed to the whalers’ refusal to work, even for their own benefit. But they were totally unprepared for what happened next. “Last night,” McIlhenny complained to his diary, “the back of my ice house was broken and a number of ducks stolen. It is rather early for the men to begin this sort of thing. They have been warned that the first one to be caught stealing food would be shot and we mean to stand by this decision.”

  In the book he would later write, Brower told about one of the women who lived in Point Barrow who had reported that some of the whalemen had broken into her dead husband’s grave and had stolen mittens from it. “I told her,” Brower would write, “I did not think they would do that. . . . To have her satisfied I had her go look at the corpse. Sure enough, the coffin had been opened. Not only were the mittens gone but all the clothes had been stripped from the body. . . . Of course the men denied everything, and while I knew they were lying, I had no proof.”

  As if to put an exclamation point on what was increasingly becoming a desperate situation at Point Barrow, the Arctic itself stepped in. On November 19, 1897, the sun totally disappeared beyond the horizon, not to be seen again until almost February. One of McIlhenny’s assistants could not help but openly wonder if this natural phenomenon of the frozen North was a dire omen. Even the ever-optimistic Charlie Brower was having serious doubts. Somehow, he thought, he might be able to keep supplying the whalemen with at least a minimum amount of food to fend off starvation. But the whalers’ refusal to help themselves, along with their dishonest behavior, was a huge concern, especially with the end of winter so far away.

  Captain Francis Tuttle (front row, center) of the Revenue Cutter Service ship Bear poses with the officers under his command, men destined to take part in one of the greatest of all Arctic adventures.

  On October 26, 1897, after one of the most breakneck voyages Captain Benjamin Tilton had ever made, the Alexander steamed safely into San Francisco Harbor. The news the captain brought of the stranded ships in the northernmost part of Alaska spread alarm throughout the city, one of the nation’s busiest whaling centers. Reports of the icebound whaleships quickly spread up and down the West Coast, particularly to Seattle, which was also a bustling seafaring community.

  Almost immediately, newspapers in both San Francisco and Seattle began reporting on the situation at Point Barrow. Several of them pleaded for a rescue effort to be launched, no matter how slim the chances for its success. The San Francisco whaling companies that owned most of the stricken ships, along with the city’s Chamber of Commerce, began sending a barrage of telegrams to President William McKinley, asking for assistance. So, too, did the family members of the stranded whalemen. Sending a ship into the Arctic at this time of the year was unheard of, most of the messages read, but with so many lives in peril, surely something had to be done.

  William McKinley, the twenty-fifth president of the United States, is best known for leading the nation to victory in the brief Spanish-American War, a conflict that took place at approximately the same time as the attempted rescue of the whalers that he ordered.

  Less than three weeks after Captain Tilton had spread the alarm, the sail- and steam-powered vessel the Bear arrived in Seattle. A ship of the United States Revenue Cutter Service, the forerunner to the United States Coast Guard, the Bear had spent six months in the Arctic providing aid to the local tribes and whatever ships it spotted that were in need of help. Now the Bear’s captain, Francis Tuttle, stood on the deck reading the most extraordinary orders he had ever received, orders written by Secretary of the Treasury Lyman Gage, acting on behalf of no less a person than the president of the United States.

  “The best information obtainable,” the orders stated, “gives the assurance of truth to the reports that a fleet of eight whaling vessels are icebound in the Arctic Ocean, somewhere in the vicinity of Point Barrow, and that the 265 persons who were, at last accounts, on board these vessels are in all probability in dire distress. These conditions call for prompt and energetic action, looking to the relief of the imprisoned whalemen. It therefore has been determined to send an expedition to the rescue.”

  Secretary of the Treasury Lyman Gage was responsible for issuing the order for the rescue attempt.

  A section from Gage’s official orders to Captain Tuttle.

  Gage’s orders then went on to describe the rescue plan that was to be followed. Tuttle was to take the Bear as far north as the icy conditions would allow. When he got as far as possible, he was to put three of his officers ashore. It would be their task to proceed overland to where the whalemen were trapped. Tuttle could only shake his head. He had no idea of how far north he could get with winter already setting in, but he was almost certain that he would not be able to put the three men ashore closer to Point Barrow than 1,500 miles. How could they possibly complete the journey on foot?

  Th
e order went on to say, “The first and great need of the whalemen will . . . be food. It is believed that the only practicable method of getting it to them is to drive it on the hoof.” The orders then explained that what was meant by “on the hoof” was reindeer. Specifically, it meant that as the overland rescue party made its trek to the whalemen, it was to stop at two reindeer stations located on the Seward Peninsula. The first of these stations, at Cape Rodney, was owned by a native of the peninsula named Charlie Artisarlook. The second, farther north, at Cape Prince of Wales, was owned by a man named Tom Lopp. Once at these stations, the Cutter Service officers were to try to convince each of the two men to give up their herds to carry provisions and provide food for the whalers. Once this was accomplished, they were then to attempt to get Artisarlook and Lopp to accompany them and the herd of reindeer all the way to Point Barrow.

  Reindeer? Food on the hoof? What an extraordinary notion! Yet the more Tuttle thought about it, the more convinced he became that it was actually an ingenious idea. But, as Tuttle had witnessed on his most recent Arctic assignments, those who owned reindeer had come to rely upon them not only for food but also for clothing, bedding, household implements, and other items that were made from their hides and horns. How would the rescue party ever be able to talk the reindeer owners into giving up their precious animals? Gage’s orders made no mention of what the rescuers were to do if they were denied the deer.

  The orders also said nothing about what the conditions were like in that vast, almost totally barren region known as the Arctic, in which the eight whaleships were trapped. Captain Tuttle was well aware of the dangers all whalemen faced in hunting the largest creatures on earth in Arctic waters. He knew that in 1871 thirty-three whaling vessels had been trapped in the ice near Point Barrow. Miraculously, all of the more than 1,200 people aboard these ships had been able to escape with their lives. Five years later, fifty-three whalemen and thirteen whaleships were lost in the same area.

  The Arctic was simply the most difficult place to hunt whales or, for that matter, to engage in any other undertaking. More than any other place in the world, it was a land of bitter uncertainties. Its weather could change from sunshine to violent storm, from deep freeze to thaw, and its temperatures could range from fourteen degrees above zero to thirty-five degrees below in a single day or even in an hour or two.

  Equally dramatic was the Arctic’s change of seasons. In May, June, and July, a colorful array of wild crocuses, Arctic poppies, buttercups, dandelions, and other short-stemmed flowers carpeted the land. Various types of grasses made their appearance. But this flowering was all too brief.

  Beginning in September, the constant storms began and lagoons began to freeze over. Fall also brought with it the long periods of Arctic fog, treacherous to both mariners and those who would attempt to travel across the land. “Fogs are frequent and dense,” whaling historian Alexander Starbuck wrote. “It frequently happens that the crew of [a whaleboat] will fail to find their own ship and will meet with some other; in which case they have no hesitation in [climbing] aboard the stranger, there to remain until the fog lifts and they can find their own vessel.”

  Then came winter. In November, ice in the freshwater ponds became a foot thick, and ice began to form in the ocean. Almost nothing moved in what had become a foreboding, frozen, desperately cold place, a place where, for more than two months, the sun was never seen. No wonder that, in his first Arctic expedition, polar explorer Elisha Kent Kane exclaimed, “I long for the sunlight. Dear sun, no wonder you are worshipped.”

  The seemingly endless Arctic was different from any other place on earth.

  It was frigid, it was unpredictable, but above all else, the Arctic in the winter was a region of ice that dominated both ocean and landscape. At the very least, it made life for those who dared challenge it extremely uncomfortable. “When the cabin door was opened,” wrote one Arctic adventurer who, with his shipmates, was forced to spend a winter on board his ship locked in the ice, “a blast of cold air rushed in, causing condensation which made the walls damp. At nighttime the condensation froze, and we slept in a miniature ice palace, crystals sparkling in the light, gleaming icicles hanging from the deck above, some several inches long. All along the outer side of my bunk was a sheet of ice which melted when I got into bed, so that during the night the upper part of my blanket was sodden while the bottom half was like a small ice floe.”

  Mostly, however, the Arctic was extremely dangerous, not only to ships that failed to leave its waters before the heavy ice set in but also to those who attempted to travel across its treacherous terrain in the dead of winter. As one whaler explained, “Any Arctic whaleman will tell you that when a man goes into the Arctic he is a total stranger to conditions every year. . . . It is difficult travelling here in the summer when there is no snow, but when snow covers the uneven land the imagination of one who has not spent a winter in the Arctic can scarcely conceive the terrible conditions which exist. . . . The snow falls dry and flakey, and even after it has lain for many months it does not pack sufficiently hard to support a man’s weight much of the time. . . . Upon the steep slopes and in the mountains the same conditions exist, but even worse, for here large, jagged rocks and deep crevices make most of the country impassable.”

  Making matters even more challenging for those who would attempt to journey for any distance overland was the fact that even as the 1800s were coming to an end, much of the Arctic territory remained unmapped and mysterious. The maps that existed were often inaccurate.

  The orders that Captain Tuttle received made it clear that no one was to be ordered to take part in the treacherous mission. Anyone who participated had to choose freely to go. That included the three men who would be asked to trek more than 1,500 miles overland in winter Arctic conditions on a journey that was bound to take at least seven or eight months and probably longer.

  It was an extraordinary request to make, even of the men of the Bear, who, in voyage after voyage, had continually put themselves in harm’s way to help people in distress. Yet to Tuttle’s great satisfaction, every member of the ship, officers and crew alike, volunteered to go. This was despite the fact that as soon as the rescue expedition’s intentions were made public, many people, including Arctic veterans and observers, warned against it. It would be an impossible mission, they declared. To attempt such a rescue in the dead of winter while herding hundreds of reindeer much of the way would be nothing short of suicide. Others, while applauding the courage of those willing to risk their lives to try to save those in peril, asked, Why send an expedition now when its chances of success were so slim? Why not wait for a change of seasons, or at least a change in the conditions that now enveloped the Arctic?

  But neither Tuttle nor any of the men of the Bear would even consider such questions. There could be no delay in going, no waiting hopefully for conditions to improve. Each day brought the stricken whalers closer to running out of food. Each day brought with it the possibility of ice crushing the vessels that might not already have been sunk. The lives of almost three hundred men were at stake. Beyond that, the president of the United States himself had requested that what was to be officially called the Overland Relief Expedition be carried out.

  With absolutely no time to waste, Tuttle chose First Lieutenant David Jarvis to command the rescue mission. Jarvis had begun his naval career as a member of the United States Life-Saving Service, in which he had spent considerable time in Alaska. In 1881 he had been appointed to the Revenue Cutter Service and two years later had graduated from its officers’ training school at the top of his class. Assigned to Arctic duty aboard the Bear, Jarvis had taken part in the rescue of several ships and a great number of individuals.

  David Jarvis, commander of the Overland Relief Expedition. The excellent judgment he had displayed in previous Arctic missions convinced his superiors that he was the best qualified to lead such an improbable undertaking.

  During his combined eight years of experiences in the
Arctic, Jarvis had learned to speak some of the languages spoken by the tribes living in Alaska, an ability Tuttle knew would be particularly important in acquiring from their owners the sleds and dogs needed to pull them all the way to Point Barrow. From his years in the Arctic, Jarvis was also personally acquainted with many of the indigenous folks he would encounter on his expedition, including Charlie Artisarlook and Tom Lopp. These relationships were vital if Jarvis had any chance at all of persuading these men to give up their precious reindeer for the sake of the stranded whalers. Jarvis also had knowledge of reindeer, having taken part in expeditions that had brought some of the first deer from Siberia to Alaska. And he was familiar with Point Barrow, where, during one of his trips, he had supervised the construction of the whalemen’s refuge station.

  What perhaps impressed Tuttle most about Jarvis was the reputation he had earned for being a man totally devoted to duty. Throughout his career, he had continually demonstrated that he was not reluctant to make tough decisions; that, soft-spoken as he was, he was a most effective leader; and that no matter how dangerous the task, he never asked his men to carry it out without his joining them in facing the dangers.

  For Jarvis himself, accepting the command of the expedition was an agonizing decision. His wife was far away on the East Coast, in the famous whaling port of New Bedford, and about to give birth. How could he leave her and go off on such a dangerous mission, perhaps never to return? But the lives of 265 men were at stake. For their sake, he would lead the expedition. And he knew exactly what, above all else, was required. “If you are subjected to miserable discomforts,” he would write, “or even if you suffer, it must be regarded as all right and simply a part of the life, and like sailors, you must never dwell too much on the dangers or suffering, lest others question your courage.”