The Impossible Rescue Read online

  Shortly before finding Jarvis, Kettleson and Mikkel had passed an old hut. Retracing their steps, they led Jarvis back to the abandoned dwelling, and after shoveling out the snow that had drifted inside it, they, as Jarvis put it, “made the best of this hole in the ground for the night.” When they awoke, they found the blizzard was still raging and, if anything, growing stronger.

  Despite the blizzard, Jarvis, Kettleson, and Mikkel, now separated from the rest of the party, pushed on. Finally, with the temperature at thirty below zero and the snow blowing so hard they could hardly stand, the three men stumbled into the native village of Opiktillik. “In an hour,” wrote Jarvis, “the others came along. They had been compelled to pick their way on foot, one of the natives going ahead on his hands and knees.” All of them had no doubt that, completely blinded by the snow as they had been, if it had not been for the natural instincts of the deer leading the way to the safety of the village, they all would have perished on the trail.

  They were now agonizingly close to Cape Rodney and Charlie Artisarlook’s house and reindeer station. But for the next three days, the blizzard raged on, keeping them imprisoned in the village. “The gale still continued,” Jarvis wrote, “and by this time our patience was nearly worn out. This was the first time we were compelled to stop on account of the weather, and it was hard to think of the time we were losing with any degree of composure, but [my companions] agreed that it was too dangerous to venture out, and I reluctantly fell into line, though I resolved no amount of wind would keep us there another day.” For Jarvis, it was the most frustrating period of his journey thus far. Aside from working on his journal and checking on the condition of the dogs, there was little else for him to do.

  On the fourth day, with the blizzard still raging and the villagers warning him that it was too dangerous to venture out, Jarvis ordered the party back out on the trail. If anything, the blizzard had actually increased in intensity, and Jarvis and the others had to don snowshoes and tramp down the snow in front of the dogs and the sleds. In some places the snow was so deep that they were forced to dig a path for the animals. By nine o’clock that night, they were again so terribly cold and exhausted that even Jarvis admitted they needed to rest. “We hoped to reach Artisarlook’s house before the night,” he would write, “but by 9 p.m. we were glad to pitch our tents on the mountain side and let Artisarlook go until to-morrow. During the night I awoke to find one foot feeling like a block of ice, and found that I had worked into a cramped position which stopped the circulation and the rest of the night I spent kicking that foot to keep it from freezing.”

  But David Jarvis refused to feel sorry for himself. For no matter what he had already experienced, he was certain that the whalers at Point Barrow were going through even harder times.

  Charlie Artisarlook’s reindeer herd. Jarvis’s first glimpse of the animals was a forceful reminder that his orders clearly stated that “From whatever point the overland expedition is landed from the Bear its first aim will be to get the reindeer herd in motion for Point Barrow.”

  Now at Cape Rodney, David Jarvis could not help but remember that Captain Tuttle had brought the Bear less than one hundred miles from this spot before the ice had forced him to take the ship so many miles farther south. Had Tuttle been able to land the expedition here, five weeks and more than five hundred miles of treacherous terrain would have been eliminated from their desperate journey.

  As Jarvis stood at Charlie Artisarlook’s door, he could not remember ever being quite so nervous. “I had looked forward to this day so long that now it had come,” he would later write, “I almost shrank from the task it brought.” He was about to make a request of Artisarlook that most would regard as nothing short of outrageous: to give up his herd, the lifeblood of his family and the entire village, and to drive the reindeer almost a thousand miles across extremely dangerous terrain at the worst time of the year. No one outside of Siberia had ever moved reindeer over such a great distance, even in the middle of summer. But he had been ordered by the president of the United States to do so. The success of the entire rescue plan depended on his getting both Artisarlook’s and Lopp’s herds.

  Jarvis had known Charlie Artisarlook and his wife, Mary, for years and regarded them as friends. He had great respect for the way in which Charlie, after completing a government-sponsored apprenticeship program in reindeer raising under Tom Lopp, had gone on to become the first native Alaskan to own his own herd. He particularly admired how Artisarlook and his wife had built the herd up to 135 deer and how they were able to employ and train a group of young men to be expert herders.

  Charlie and Mary Artislarlook. Theirs was a true partnership in which Mary played a key role in raising and managing the reindeer herd. Later, she would become known as one of the most expert raisers of reindeer in all of Alaska.

  When, after taking a deep breath, Jarvis finally knocked on Artisarlook’s door, it was Mary Artisarlook who answered. Startled as she was to see the Cutter Service men, she greeted them warmly, invited them to come in, and told them that Charlie was out on the ice with his brother, hunting seals. Mary was, of course, curious as to why they were there, but Jarvis was determined to wait until her husband arrived before disclosing the purpose of their visit. Finally, Charlie appeared, dragging a seal behind him. He was even more shocked to see Jarvis and Dr. Call than Mary had been and insisted that the visitors be fed before Jarvis could make his request.

  Under any other circumstances, Jarvis would have relished the hearty meal of seal’s heart and liver. But he could not keep from fidgeting throughout the entire dinner. Finally, it was time to explain why he and Dr. Call were there. Jarvis knew that Charlie and Mary Artisarlook were a couple who cared much about the welfare of others. So he began his plea by describing the plight of the whalers at Point Barrow as passionately as he could. As Dr. Call would later write, “Jarvis knew well the disposition and character of those he had to deal with. He had for years met the [Artisarlooks] in the country, had never deceived or lied to them, had always been kind and never failed to bring them anything which he had promised. So he first began by appealing to their sympathy and related minutely the condition of the unfortunate [whalemen].” Then Jarvis told Artisarlook what he needed him to do, making sure that he understood that the government was not ordering him to give up his deer. “I explained to him . . . ” Jarvis would write, “that I had not come with power or force to take his property from him, and that he must let me have [the reindeer] of his own free will.”

  Charlie and Mary were taken aback by his request, but they promised that they would consider what he had asked of them and would give him an answer as quickly as possible. For Jarvis, these were the most anxious moments of all. What would he do if the Artisarlooks turned him down? Before their decision was made, Mary pulled the doctor aside and asked him to “tell Mr. Jarvis we are sorry for the [whalemen], and we want to help them, but we hate to see our deer go, because we are poor and the people in our village are poor, and in the winter when we can not get seals we kill a deer, and this helps us through the hard times. If we let the deer go what will we do?”

  But just as Jarvis was preparing himself for the worst possible news, Artisarlook came to him and stated that if certain conditions were met, he would do what had been asked of him. First, he explained, he had to have Jarvis’s promise that, once the rescue mission was completed, the government would replace whatever deer were killed to feed the whalers or were lost on the way. Second, he wanted to be paid the going rate of thirty dollars per month for his services in herding the deer to Point Barrow. The young herders who worked for him, Artisarlook said, had also agreed to take the deer on the long journey, but they needed to be paid as well. Finally, Jarvis had to agree to make arrangements with a nearby trading post for Mary and her fellow villagers to purchase, at government expense, whatever food and other provisions they needed until the deer could be replaced. Never had Jarvis agreed to terms as quickly as he did to the conditions that C
harlie had set.

  By leaving their homes and families to embark on what promised to be a perilous journey, the reindeer herders employed by the Artisarlooks were about to make a tremendous sacrifice on behalf of the imperiled whalers.

  The Artisarlooks’ herd spends one last day on familiar ground before being rounded up for the trek to Point Barrow.

  In addition to Artisarlook’s humane desire to help rescue the whalers, there was another reason the herder would agree to risk his livelihood and perhaps his life to join the expedition. Jarvis would later learn that Artisarlook was influenced by Jarvis’s intention to ask Tom Lopp to give up his herd and join the mission. Since his days of apprenticing under Lopp, Artisarlook had developed great respect and admiration for the reindeer expert. “If you will pardon the immodesty,” Lopp would later state, “I doubt if there was another man [other than me] that Charlie . . . would have gone with on that doubtful drive.”

  Whatever Artisarlook’s reasons were, Jarvis could not help but be overwhelmed by the sacrifices that the man was about to make. “I had,” he would later write, “dreaded this interview with Charlie for fear he might refuse my proposition, but his good character can have no better exposition than that he was willing to give up his property, leave his family, and go 800 miles from home to help white men in distress.”

  Jarvis’s trip from Port Clarence to Tom Lopp’s reindeer station confirmed the fact that even the shortest distances on the rescue expedition’s journey were filled with their own particular challenges.

  Obtaining Artisarlook’s herd and his services was a huge accomplishment. But it in no way guaranteed that Jarvis would have the same success with Tom Lopp. And as anxious as he was to move on to Cape Prince of Wales, he realized that he was once again running out of food and needed to make a hasty trip back to Port Clarence, where he could purchase supplies. Jarvis decided that, after obtaining these provisions, he would leave for Lopp’s directly, taking Artisarlook with him to help navigate over the particularly treacherous route between Port Clarence and Cape Prince of Wales. Dr. Call was to stay behind at Cape Rodney to help Artisarlook’s herders round up their reindeer and move them immediately to Lopp’s station.

  Despite the numbing cold and the often blinding snow that refused to let up, Jarvis and his companions, including Kettleson and Mikkel, made it to Port Clarence in just two days. After purchasing the needed food, Jarvis then bid good-bye to Kettleson and Mikkel, thanking them profusely for all they had voluntarily contributed to the expedition. On January 23, he and Artisarlook set out for Cape Prince of Wales.

  In distance, the trip to Lopp’s reindeer station was much shorter than most of the legs of the rescue mission’s journey. But as Jarvis later stated, “I think the 50 miles from Port Clarence to Cape Prince of Wales, the most trying and fearful of all I experienced on the expedition.”

  When Jarvis and Artisarlook left Port Clarence, they were accompanied by two helpers who were familiar with the bluff-lined route along the coast leading to the cape. But less than halfway out, with, as Jarvis wrote, “the thermometer –30° and the blizzard still blowing,” one of the men suddenly stated that his gun had fallen off the sled and he was going back to retrieve it. He never returned. Jarvis and Artisarlook were forced to continue on with just one remaining guide over ice so jagged and piled so high that their heavy sled kept capsizing. With the snow pounding down upon them, Jarvis and his companions were continually forced to lie down on either side of the capsized sled and use their legs and feet as fulcrums to raise it high enough to be righted.

  It was exhausting work, and, more than at any time in the journey, Jarvis found himself totally drained. “About 8 o’clock I was completely played out and willing to camp,” he wrote. “But Artisarlook said ‘no,’ it was too cold to camp without wood, and, as the ice we were on was in danger of breaking off from the shore any minute, it was necessary that we get beyond the line of bluffs before stopping. In the darkness I stepped through a crack in the ice, and my leg to the knee was immediately one mass of ice. I was now compelled to go on to some place where my foot gear could be dried, and, though almost ready to drop where I was, I had to keep on, for to stop, meant to freeze.”

  The expedition found that traveling along the Arctic shoreline was particularly difficult. The terrain was a combination of bare, rough gravel where the snow had worn away, thick chunks of ice, and snow that had slid down from the mountains.

  Jarvis was now even more concerned than when he had crashed into the fish rack or when his deer had bolted, stranding him on the trail. The Arctic was filled with stories of travelers who, in similar circumstances, had lost a leg or had even perished. He had to find a place, any place, where he could dry out. Fortunately, luck was with him.

  “Pushing and lifting our sled, and urging the dogs [on],” Jarvis later recounted, “we dragged along until midnight, when we came to a house, high up on the shore. . . . Though it turned out to be a horrible place, no palace could have been more welcome. It was a small hut, about 10 by 12, and 5 feet high, and 15 people were already sleeping there. It was most filthy and the worst house I have seen in all my Alaskan experience; but I was too tired then to care for that, too tired even to eat; and though I had had nothing but a couple of crackers since morning, I was quite satisfied to take off my wet clothing, crawl into my bag, and sleep.”

  In the morning, after hastily thanking the inhabitants of the hut, they moved on and soon found a village where they were able to get the first decent meal they had had since leaving Port Clarence. Upon leaving the village, they encountered conditions that Jarvis would vividly describe. “I thought the ice we recently passed over had made a rough road,” he would write, “but this was even worse, for here were all the crushings of the [sea] shoved up against the mountains . . . and over this kind of ice we had to make our way. Darkness set in long before we had come to the worst of it, and a faint moon gave too little light for such a road. It was a continuous jumble of dogs, sleds, men, and ice — particularly ice — and it would be hard to tell which suffered most, men or dogs. Once, in helping the sled over a particularly bad place, I was thrown 8 or 9 feet down a slide, landing on the back of my head with the sled on top of me. Though the mercury was –30°, I was wet through with perspiration from the violence of the work.” With the temperature standing so low, remaining outdoors covered in sweat was extremely dangerous. Fortunately, they were now only a few miles from the reindeer station, and with their sleds racked and broken, their dogs played out and scarcely able to move, they reached Tom Lopp’s house.

  For the second time in less than a week, David Jarvis found himself about to make an audacious request of someone without whose help the rescue mission might well be doomed. Now he was even more nervous than when he had stood before Charlie Artisarlook’s door. Jarvis fully agreed with those who had planned the rescue effort that Lopp’s participation was paramount to any chance of success the expedition might have. Secretary Gage’s orders had, in fact, specifically stated the necessity of convincing Lopp to take part in the mission. “Mr. Lopp,” Gage had stated, “is to take charge of [the entire] herd and make all necessary arrangements. . . . Mr. Lopp must be fully impressed with the importance of the work at hand, and with the necessity of bending every energy to its speedy accomplishment.”

  Jarvis concurred. Lopp, he would write, “was indispensable. His capability of handling natives, his knowledge of them and the reindeer, was far above that of any one in the country.” Lopp had been among the very first to realize how important reindeer could be to the well-being of the native population when the first deer were brought from Siberia. And from the beginning of this government-sponsored program, it was Lopp who had trained the reindeer to draw sleds and to carry supplies on their backs. In the process, he had also trained more than thirty-five young herders and drivers. As one organization devoted to the promotion of reindeer would state, “The early successes of Eskimo involvement with reindeer are more attributable to the effor
ts of [Tom] Lopp than to any other single individual. . . . The future of reindeer as a native resource clearly rested upon Lopp’s capacities to interpret and clarify in the Native tongue the meaning of this new form of wealth.”

  Even more than promoting the use of the deer, Lopp was concerned with the welfare of the people. Both he and his wife, Ellen, were missionaries and teachers. Both had devoted themselves to learning the local language as well as the beliefs, customs, and ways of doing things. And, unlike most non-natives, they both realized that they had as much to learn from the indigenous people as they had to teach them. For the natives at Cape Prince of Wales and to many who lived well beyond, the man who was a reindeer expert, teacher, and missionary was not known as Tom Lopp; they called him “Tom Gorrah,” or “Tom, the good man.”

  When the Lopps answered the unexpected knock on their door and saw the man dressed from head to toe in skins, they were certain that someone they did not know from a nearby village had come calling. Only when Jarvis removed the wide scarf that covered his face did Tom Lopp recognize him as one of the officers of the Bear, which had made many routine stops at Cape Prince of Wales. Then, before he could invite Jarvis into the house, Lopp noticed Artisarlook standing behind him. Immediately, Lopp knew that something serious was afoot. Why else would Artisarlook have traveled so far from home, especially at this treacherous time of year?