The Romance of Polar Exploration. G. Firth Scott
As the Investigator continued her voyage along the coast, heavy volumes of smoke were seen rising from a bluff, and the man on the look-out in the crow's-nest at the top of the foremast cried out that he could see white tents and men with white shirts on near them. At once everybody was on the alert. Boats were lowered and rowed quickly to the shore, but on close inspection the white tents were found to be conical mounds of volcanic formation, and the smoke, which was also volcanic, was rising from fissures in the ground.
Winter was now setting in, and as there was no suitable harbour at hand, Captain McClure determined to pass the season amongst the ice-floes. His decision was largely due to the fact that as the ice was forming around them, a great mass of old ice, over six miles in length and drifting at the rate of two miles an hour, came upon them. Its enormous weight crushed everything out of its way, and the ship could only manœuvre sufficiently to graze it with her starboard bow. Fortunately on the other side of her there was only freshly formed and comparatively thin ice, otherwise she would have been hopelessly crushed at once. As it was, the gradual drifting past of the mass was disconcerting, and it was decided to make fast to it. A great mass which they ascertained extended downwards for forty-eight feet below the surface of the sea was selected, and with heavy cables the Investigator was made secure to it. Throughout the winter she remained moored to it, though not without more than one experience of danger.
Soon after making fast to the ice, the first bear of the season was shot. He was a magnificent specimen, measuring over seven feet, but upon being cut up considerable speculation was roused as to the contents of his stomach. In it was found raisins, tobacco, pork, and some adhesive plasters. For some time the combined intellect of the ship's company was exercised to explain where the bear could have obtained such a varied diet and many suggestions were advanced in explanation. Franklin's ships might be near, some said, or the crews might be encamped on the neighbouring land, and Bruin might have looted their stores. No one struck the correct solution of the mystery until some days later a hunting party came upon a preserved meat tin partly filled with the same sort of articles as were found in the bear's stomach. He had evidently found the tin and sampled its contents, not entirely to his enjoyment, as he had left the larger portion behind. But whence the tin had come they never learned.
The winter having passed without mishap they began to watch for the breaking of the ice. When it began, they had a very narrow escape from destruction. A light breeze springing up the day after open water appeared among the floes, the pack to which the Investigator was attached began to drift. It was carried towards a shoal upon which a huge mass of ice was stranded. A corner of the pack came in contact with the great stationary mass with a grinding shock that sent pieces of twelve and fourteen feet square flying completely out of the water, and, as the immense weight of the moving pack pressed forward, there was a sound as of distant thunder as it crushed onwards. The weight at the back caused an enormous mass to upheave in the middle of the pack, as though under the influence of a volcanic eruption. The great field was rent asunder, the block to which the Investigator was attached taking the ground and remaining fixed, while the lighter portion swung round and, with accelerated speed, came directly towards the vessel's stern.
To let go every cable and hawser which held her to the block was the work of a moment, for every one was on deck keenly on the look-out. The moving mass caught her stem and forced her ahead and from between the moving floe and the stationary mass. The two came into grinding collision and the men on the deck of the vessel saw the great bulk to which the ship had been attached slowly rise. It went up and up until it had risen thirty feet above the surface and hung perpendicularly above the ship. It towered higher than the foreyard, presenting a spectacle that was at once grandly impressive but terribly dangerous, for if it fell over upon the Investigator she would be crushed to atoms. For a few moments the suspense was awful, till the weight of the floe broke away a mass from the great bulk, which rolled back with a tremendous roar and rending, and, with some fearful heaves, resumed its former position. But no longer could it withstand the pressure, and it was hurried forward with the rest of the floe, grinding along the surface of the shoal.
The pack having set in towards the shore, the only hopes of safety lay in keeping with the ice, for, if the Investigator were pushed ashore by it, there would be little chance of her ever floating again. She was consequently made fast again and carried along, though with a tremendous strain on her stern and rudder. It was discovered that the latter was damaged, but there was no possibility of unshipping it for repairs while the ice was moving. Towards the afternoon the wind dropped, the drift became less, and for five hours the rudder received attention.
Scarcely had it been replaced when once more the ice began to move, and the crew saw that they were being forced directly upon a large piece of the broken floe which had grounded. Feeling certain that if the ship were caught between the grounded mass and the moving floe nothing could save her from being crushed to pieces, a desperate effort was made to remove the great mass. The chief gunner, provided with a big canister of powder, went on to the ice and struggled over the rugged surface until he reached the stationary mass. He intended to lower the canister under the mass before exploding it, but the ice was too closely packed around it to permit of this being done. There was no time to consider any other plan, so he fixed the blast in a cavity and, firing the fuse, scrambled back to the ship.
The charge exploded just as the pressure of the floe was beginning to tell, but the result was apparently valueless. The Investigator by this time was within a few yards of the great mass, and there seemed to be no hope of escaping from the crush. Every one on deck was in a state of anxious suspense, waiting for what was evidently the crisis of their fate.
Most fortunately the ship went stem-on, as sailors term it, and the pressure was directed along her whole length instead of along her sides. Every plank seemed to feel the shock, and the beams groaned as the pressure increased. The masts trembled, and crackling sounds came from the bulwarks as she strained under the tension. Momentarily the men expected that she would collapse under them, when the result of the gunner's blast was made manifest. It had cracked the mass in three places, and the pressure of the ship's stern forced the cracks open. The liberation from the obstacle was at once evident as the mass slowly divided and, falling over, floated off the shoal. The cable holding the vessel to the floe parted as she surged forward and the ice-anchors drew out, while the blocks of ice, as they turned over, lifted her bows out of the water and heeled her over; but the cheer which broke from the assembled crew drowned all other noise, for it was as though they had been snatched from the very jaws of death.
Subsequent examination of the vessel showed that she had escaped practically without serious injury. Several sheets of her copper were stripped off and rolled up like scraps of paper; but as no leaks were discovered, the loss of the copper was not greatly deplored.
After escaping from these dangers it was hoped that open water would be found, so that the voyage might be continued to other areas which had to be searched, and, as the Investigator drifted along amongst the partly broken up floes, she encountered some rolling swells, which increased the hopes that open water was not far ahead. But in this the crew were disappointed, for although the water near the land was sufficiently free from ice to enable sail to be made, out toward the Polar Sea the pack was heavy and close.
They rounded Cape Lambton on Banks' Land, a promontory which they found rose a thousand feet precipitously. The land beyond gradually lost the bold character of the rugged cape, the island presenting a view of hills in the interior which gradually sloped to the shore, having fine valleys and extensive plains, over and through which several small and one considerable sized stream flowed. A great deal of drift-wood lay along the beach, and the land was covered with verdure upon which large flocks of geese were feeding, while ducks were flying in great numbers. Two small islands were passed off the coast, one of which afforded an example of the force exerted by a drifting Polar Sea ice-floe. The island rose about forty feet above the surface of the sea, and broken masses of ice, which had formed a floe, had been driven entirely over it.
The pack still presented an impassable barrier to their course away from the land, and as the season was getting late they decided that they would make winter quarters. A suitable bay was found on the north of the island, and there they spent, not one, but two winters, for the ice remained so thick during