Last voyage of the Karluk

Karluk, caught in the Arctic ice, August 1913

The voyage of HMCS Karluk, which resulted in its sinking and the subsequent loss of nearly half its complement, occurred in the early stages of the Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913–18. Karluk, the expedition's flagship, became trapped in the Arctic ice on the way to a rendezvous point at Herschel Island, off the northern Canadian coast. After a long drift across the Beaufort Sea the ship was crushed and sunk by the ice. In the ensuing months the crew and expedition staff struggled to survive, first on the ice and later on the inhospitable Wrangel Island; before help could reach them, eleven men had died.

The Canadian Arctic Expedition, under the leadership of Vilhjalmur Stefansson, had both scientific and geographic objectives; most of the scientific staff were on board Karluk. Shortly after the ship was beset, Stefansson and a small party controversially left the ship, purportedly to hunt for caribou. They did not return; after reaching land and being unable to determine Karluk's position, Stefansson devoted himself to the expedition's other objectives, leaving the Karluk party of 25 under the charge of the ship's captain, Robert Bartlett. After the sinking, Bartlett organised an ice camp and later, in hostile conditions, led a march to Wrangel Island. Eight died on this journey.

On arrival at the island Bartlett, accompanied by a single Inuit guide, immediately set out across the ice to the Siberian coast, 200 nautical miles (370 km; 230 mi) distant. After months of arduous travel the pair reached the Bering Strait, but had to wait for ice conditions to improve sufficiently to allow a ship to travel to Wrangel Island. Meanwhile the men on the island struggled to survive; three died, two of illness and one in violent circumstances, before a rescue vessel could reach them.

The survivors were widely critical of Stefansson, both for what they saw as his abandonment of the ship and for the poor quality of equipment and clothing which he had provided, which had imperilled their survival chances. Stefansson in his turn blamed Bartlett, both for his handling of the ship and for his management of the party on the ice. Stefansson escaped official censure and was formally honored for his work on the expedition, but Bartlett's conduct was criticised by an Admiralty commission. Nevertheless he continued to work in Arctic waters, and was hailed as a hero by his former comrades from the Karluk.

Canadian Arctic Expedition

Background

Vilhjalmur Stefansson, leader of the Canadian Arctic Expedition

The Canadian Arctic Expedition was the brainchild of Vilhjalmur Stefansson, a US-based, Canadian-born anthropologist of Icelandic origin who had spent most of the years between 1906 and 1912 studying Inuit life in the remote regions of Northern Canada. His fieldwork had resulted in the first detailed information on the life and culture of the Copper Inuit, the so-called "blond Eskimo". Stefansson believed that the Arctic was a "friendly" place in which common sense would ensure survival. He had returned to civilisation in 1912 with plans for another expedition to continue his Arctic studies. To obtain financial backing he approached the National Geographic Society (NGS) in Washington and the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who together pledged $45,000 (around $750,000 in 2010). However, Stefansson was developing broader plans, which included geographical exploration in the Beaufort Sea, then a blank area on the world's maps. For these expanded aims he needed more money, and approached the Canadian government for assistance.

The area known as the "High Arctic" was at that time the subject of longstanding claims of sovereignty from Norway, and more recently from the United States following Robert Peary's assumed conquest of the North Pole in 1909. The Canadian government was concerned that an American-financed expedition would give the United States a legal claim to any lands discovered in the Beaufort Sea. Prime Minister Robert Borden, anxious to protect the national interest, agreed to meet Stefansson in Ottawa in February 1913, where he offered to finance the entire enlarged expedition, if the American sponsors were willing to withdraw. This they were prepared to do, although the NGS imposed a condition that if Stefansson had failed to depart by June 1913, the Society could reclaim its rights to the expedition. This meant that the preparations for the journey north were of necessity hurried. Furthermore, the emphasis of the expedition had clearly shifted, away from its original purpose of ethnological studies of Inuit societies and towards geographical exploration.

Objectives

• Main map, derived from File:Karlukmap.jpg

In a letter to the Victoria Daily Times, Stefansson explained that the main object of his expedition was to explore the "area of a million or so square miles that is represented by white patches on our map, lying between Alaska and the North Pole." This was "the only place on the whole earth where there can possibly be land of conceivable extent whose existence is unknown to us." He was planning "the grandest and most elaborate Arctic expedition in history " which, Stefansson insisted, would also be the most thorough and comprehensive scientific study of the Arctic ever attempted. The party was to be divided into two parts, and would use two ships, Karluk and Alaska. A Northern Party under Stefansson would search for the hidden continent which Stefanson believed lay somewhere in the ice of the Beaufort Sea, while a mainly land-based Southern Party under zoologist Rudolph Anderson—who had accompanied Stefansson on his earlier expedition—would carry out surveys and anthropological studies in the islands off the northern Canadian coast. The Canadian government was hopeful that the expedition would strengthen Canada's claim to sovereignty over the Arctic islands.

Stefansson summarised details of each party's objectives. Karluk would take the Northern Party north from the Canadian coast, roughly following the 141°W meridian. The ship would proceed until it either encountered land or was stopped by ice. If the former, the party would establish a base and prepare to investigate the land; if stopped by ice the ship would follow the ice edge eastward and attempt to reach either Banks Island or Prince Patrick Island to winter there. If the ship was trapped in the ice and forced to drift, the party would study the direction of Arctic currents and carry out oceanographic research. Meanwhile, Dr Anderson's party was expected to continue with the anthropolgical srudies of the "blond Eskimo", to collect varieties of Arctic flora and fauna, to carry out geological research—looking in particular for further sources of copper—and to seek open-water channels in the hope of establishing new trade routes. Robert Bartlett, who was to captain the expedition's main ship, believed that this would be the first Arctic expedition which added practical and commercial goals to the normal geographical and scientific objectives.

Organisation and personnel

Stefansson and Bartlett with the expedition's scientific staff, before the departure

The general plan outlined by Stefansson was that the expedition's two ships would sail round the coast of Alaska to the old whaling station at Herschel Island, close to the Alaska-Canada border, where the composition of the two parties would be finally decided and where equipment and supplies would be sorted out. The haste imposed on the expedition's organisation by the NGS deadline meant that every aspect of preparation was hurried, and there were concerns among the expedition's members about the adequacy of the provision of food, clothing and equipment. Stefansson, who was largely absent in the hectic weeks immediately before sailing and who made few of his detailed plans public, dismissed such concerns as "impertinent and disloyal", and demanded that his staff have confidence in him. There were disputes with the scientists over the chain of command; the Canadian Geological Survey, which had provided four scientists to the expedition, wanted these men to report to them rather than to Stefansson. Rudolph Anderson, whose wife described Stefansson as "a slick opportunist", threatened to quit over the leader's claim to the publication rights of all private expedition journals.

In May 1913 Stefansson had announced his intention of only taking British subjects on the expedition. However, the scientific team, made up of some of the most distinguished men in their fields, was international, with representatives from the United States, Denmark, Norway and France as well as from Britain and the Commonwealth. Only two, however, had previous polar experience. Alistair Forbes Mackay, the expedition's medical officer, had visited Antarctica with Sir Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod expedition in 1907–09, and had been one of the party of three to discover the location of the South Magnetic Pole. Another Nimrod veteran, the 46-year-old James Murray, was Stefansson's oceanographer; on account of his experiences with Shackleton Murray was, a colleague noted, "exceedingly overconfident". Among the younger scientists were William Laird McKinlay, a 24-year-old science teacher from Glasgow who was recommended by the Scottish explorer William Speirs Bruce, and Bjarn Mamen, a 20-year-old skiing champion from Christiania, Norway, who was taken on as a "forester", despite lacking scientific experience.

Stefansson had wanted American whaling skipper Theodore Pedersen to captain Karluk, the ship designated for the Northern party. Pedersen refused; he was afraid that command of a Canadian expedition ship could compromise his US citizenship. The captaincy was therefore offered to 36-year-old Newfoundland-born Robert Bartlett, an experienced polar navigator who had captained Peary's ship SS Roosevelt on the latter's 1909 polar expedition, and had trekked to 88°N before turning south. Bartlett did not have time, however, to select Karluk's crew, which had been hurriedly assembled from around the Navy Yard at Esquimault in British Columbia and consisted of those prepared to work for the meagre pay on offer. Mckinlay later wrote that "one was a confirmed drug addict ... another suffered from venereal disease; and in spite of orders that no liquor was to be carried, at least two smuggled supplies on board." McKinlay worried that this crew might lack the qualities and character necessary in the arduous months ahead, concerns shared by Bartlett, whose first act on arrival in Esquimault was to fire the first officer for incompetence. In the event it proved impossible to develop a common spirit between the crew and the scientific team that travelled aboard Karluk. The two groups were divided from the start of the expedition.

Ships

[[File:Karkuk whaler.jpg|thumb|250px|Karluk in her days as a whaling vess, the expedition's shamin ona uninmain vessel, had been chosen by Pedersen and bought by Stefansson for the bargain price of $10,000. Stefansson, who had sailed on her briefly during his earlier expeditions, described Karluk as well fitted and sturdy, but Bartlett had deep reservations about her fitness for prolonged Arctic service. The ship, a 29-year-old brigantine, was 129 feet (39 m) in length with a beam of 23 feet (7.0 m). She had been built in Oregon for the Aleutian fishing industry (karluk is the Aleut word for "fish") and later converted for whaling, when her bows and sides had been sheathed with 2-inch Australian ironwood. She had not, however, been built to withstand sustained ice pressure, and lacked the engine power to force a passage through the ice. Jennifer Niven, in her account of the expedition, describes Karluk as "far from the powerful Arctic ice vessel many of the men had expected." According to Niven she was "an old ship whose days had passed", condemned by naval experts as unseaworthy.

The ship spent most of April and May 1913 undergoing repairs and refitting at the dockyard in Esquimault. When Bartlett arrived in early June he immediately ordered a further $4,000-worth of repairs. In addition to Karluk, Stefansson had purchased sight unseen a small petrol-engined schooner, Alaska, to act as a supply ship for the largely land-based Southern party. He later added a second schooner, Mary Sachs, when the hold space in Alaska proved inadequate. In the confusion surrounding the expedition's departure, McKinlay notes, no attempt was made to align men or equipment to their appropriate ships. Thus anthropologists Henri Beuchat and Diamond Jenness, both designated for the Southern party, found themselves sailing with Karluk, while their equipment was on board Alaska. McKinlay himself, aboard Karluk as magnetic observer, discovered that most of his equipment was with Alaska. Stefansson insisted that all would be clarified when the ships reached their Herschel Island rendezvous. "Heaven help us all if we failed to reach Herschel Island", McKinlay wrote.

Towards Herschel Island

[[File:Bird's-eye View of Nome Alaska - 1907.jpg|thumb|220px|left|The Alaskan port of Nome, photographed early in the 20th century]] Karluk left Esquimault on 17 June 1913, sailing north towards the Alaskan coast. The immediate destination was Nome, in the Bering Sea. There was trouble from the beginning with the steering gear and with the engines, both of which needed frequent attention. While the crew worked, the scientists led a leisurely life with, one said, "all the comforts of home". On 2 July Karluk reached the Bering Sea in mist, fog and rapidly falling temperatures; six days later she arrived at Nome to be united with Alaska and Mary Sachs. Large quantities of provisions and equipment were loaded on board the three ships, seemingly without regard to the separate needs of the Northern and Southern parties. Notwithstanding Stefansson's assurances that all would be sorted out at Herschel Island, some of the scientists pressed for a meeting with the leader to clarify plans particularly with regard to the Northern party, whose schedule was vague. The meeting was unsatisfactory. Stefansson was evasive and dismissive; his attitude offended several of the men, some of whom threatened to leave the expedition. They had read press reports in which Stefansson had apparently said that he expected Karluk to be crushed, and that the lives of the scientific staff were secondary to the scientifiic work. Stefansson would not explain these matters, nor give further details of his plans for the Northern party. Despite their alarm and dissatisfaction, none of the scientists resigned.

At Port Clarence, just north of Nome, 28 dogs were taken on board. After a lengthy wait for the weather to clear, Karluk sailed on 27 July. The next day she crossed the Arctic Circle, and almost immediately encountered rough weather which resulted in flooded cabins and much seasickness. However, McKinlay noted that "whatever defects she had, Karluk was proving herself a fine seaboat." On 31 July they reached Point Hope, where two Inuit hunters, known as "Jerry" and "Jimmy", joined the ship. On 1 August the permanent Arctic ice pack was seen; Bartlett made several attempts to breach he ice, but each time was forced back. The party saw its first polar bears, one of which was shot and killed. On 3 August, about 25 miles from Point Barrow, Karluk entered the ice and drifted slowly eastward for three days before reaching open water and heading for Cape Smythe. Meanwhile Stefansson had left the ship to travel over the ice to Point Barrow. He rejoined his party at Cape Smythe on 6 August, bringing with him Jack Hadley, a veteran trapper who required passage east. Hadley's role, if any, in the expedition was left unexplained.

At Cape Smythe the expedition was also joined by an Inuit family of four—Keraluk, his wife Keruk and their two young children Helen and Mugpi—and another Eskimo, 19-year-old Kataktovik. Bartlett was increasingly anxious about conditions: ""The early presence of ice on this coast convinced me that all was not to be plain sailing on our voyage to Herschel Island", he wrote. On 11 August Bartlett noted that the iron stemplates on the ship's bow had been damaged through repeated contact with the ice. Over the next few days Karluk struggled to make headway, often having to follow open leads leading north, away from the coast. Nevertheless Bartlett calculated their position on 13 August as 235 nautical miles (435 km; 270 mi) east of Point Barrow and a similar distance west of Herschel Island. However, this proved to be the ship's farhest east, as she became firmly beset in the ice and began a slow movement westward. Over the next few weeks the direction of drift became irregular, sometimes east, sometimes west, but by 10 September Karluk had retreated nearly 100 miles towards Point Barrow. Shortly afterwards, Stefansson informed Bartlett that all hopes for further progress that year had ended, and that Karluk would have to winter in the ice.

In the ice

Drifting west

Stefansson (foreground) and his party on their departure from Karluk, 20 September 1913

With Karluk ice-bound and largely stationary, Stefansonn sent McKay and Jenness out to look for signs of the nearest land, but they were unable to find any. However, on 19 September Stefansson announced that, in view of the shortage on board of fresh meat and the likelihood of a long sojourn in the ice, he would lead a small hunting party that would search for caribou and other game in the area of the Colville River. He would take with him the two Inuit "Jimmy" and "Jerry", the expedition secretary Burt McConnell, the photographer George Wilkins, and Jenness. Stefansson intended to leave as soon as possible, and preparations began immediately to assemble equipment and provisions. He expected to be gone about ten days; in a letter to Bartlett the captain was instructed that, if the ship should move from its present position, he should "send a party ashore, to erect one or more beacons giving information of the ship's whereabouts." Next day the six men departed, with two loaded sledges drawn by a dozen of the best of the dogs. Most of the crew and staff saw them off, and Stefansson shook each of them by the hand. On 23 September, following a blizzard, the ice floe in which Karluk was trapped began to move, and soon the ship was travelling at between thirty and sixty miles a day—but to the west, steadily further from Herschel Island and the rest of the expedition. It became evident that Stefansson's party would never find their way back to the ship.

Sketch map showing Karluk's drift, August 1913 to January 1914

In the weeks that followed, the constant snow and thick mist made it impossible for Bartlett to calculate the ship's position accurately, although during a brief break in the weather on 30 September they glimpsed land which they took to be Cooper Island, in the vicinity of Point Barrow where they had been at the start of August.. The men were bored and anxious, a mood not helped when, after Point Barrow itself was sighted on 3 October just five miles distant, the drift turned northwards, away from the land. There were fears among some that Karluk would repeat the experience of the Jeannette, an American vessel that 30 years previously had drifted in the Arctic ice for months before sinking, with the subsequent loss of most of her crew. Murray and McKay, the two veterans of Shackleton's Nimrod expedition, were openly contemptuous of Bartlett's leadership, and were making plans to leave the ship at an appropriate time, and head for land on their own.

By the end of October it was dark by 12.30 pm and the sun would soon disappear altogether. Bartlett's plan was to wait for the return of the sun in February and then attempt to reach land using dogs and sledges. As the weather grew worse the captain ordered supplies and equipment to be transferred on to the ice, both to lighten the ship and as a precaution should it be necessary to abandon the vessel in a hurry. Food supplies were augmented by seal hunts—two or three seal a day was the average bag, according to McKinlay—and by a single polar bear that had wandered near the ship in mid-November. . On 15 November Karluk reached 73°N, the most northerly point of its drift, and then began moving south-west, in the general direction of the Siberian coast. By mid-December the estimated position was 140 nautical miles (260 km; 160 mi) from Wrangel Island. Despite the bleak outlook—Bartlett was privately convinced that Karluk would not survive the winter—a determined effort was made to celebrate Christmas, with decorations, presents, a programme of sports on the ice, and a banquet. By now they were just 50 nautical miles (93 km; 58 mi) north of Herald Island, a rocky outpost west of Wrangel Island; on 29 December land was visible in the far distance, though whether this was Herald Island or Wrangel Island was not clear. The sighting of land briefly raised morale, but the New Year brought strange sounds, "like the strumming of a banjo", according to McKinlay. It was the sound of the ice, breaking up and forming pressure ridges. Over the next few days, wrote McKinlay, "the twanging, drumming, ominous ice sounds got louder and nearer."

Sinking

Early in the morning of 10 January 1914, McKinlay records, "a severe shudder shook the whole ship" as the ice attacked the hull. Bartlett, still hoping to save his ship, gave orders to lighten her by removing all accumulated snow from the decks. He also ordered all hands to prepare warm clothing. At 6.45 in the evening a loud bang indicated that the hull had been punctured; Bartlett went immediately to the engine room and observed water pouring in through a gash ten feet long. There was no possibility that pumps could deal with the inflow, and the captain gave the order to abandon. Weather conditions, says McKinlay, could hardly have been worse, but the crew and staff worked throughout the night, in pitch darkness and driving snow, to carry additional rations and equipment on to the ice to add to the quantity previously stashed there. Bartlett remained on board until the last moments, playing loud music on the ship's Victrola. At 3.15 pm in the afternoon of 11 January Bartlett put on Chopin's Funeral March as a final salute to the ship, and stepped off. Karluk sank within minutes, her yardarms snapping off as she disappeared through the narrow hole in the ice. McKinlay took stock of the stranded party: twenty-two men, one woman, two children, sixteen dogs and a cat.

Notes and references

Notes

References

Sources

• Bartlett, Robert (1916). The Last Voyage of the Karluk. Toronto: McLelland, Goodchild and Stewart. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• "Bartlett's Story of the Karluk". The New York Times. New York. June 1, 1914. Retrieved 13 January 2010. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |dateformat= ignored (help)
• Fleming, Fergus (2002). Ninety Degrees North. London: Granta Books. ISBN 1-86207-535-2.
• "Got Karluk's Men As Hope Was Dim". The New York Times. New York. 15 September 1914. Retrieved 13 January 2010. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |dateformat= ignored (help)
• Harper, Kenn. "Ruth Makpii Ipalook, 97, youngest survivor of ill-fated Karluk expedition, dies (an interesting bit o' history)" Toronto Globe and Mail. September 27, 2008.
• Henighan, Tom (2009). Vilhjalmur Stefansson: Arctic Traveller. Toronto: Dundurn Press. ISBN 978-1-55002-874-4.
• Higgins, Jenny (2008). "The Karluk Disaster". Memorial University of Newfoundland. Retrieved 9 January 2010. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dateformat= ignored (help)
• Jenness, Stuart Edward (2004). The Making of an Explorer: George Hubert Wilkins and the Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-1916. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |isnb= ignored (|isbn= suggested) (help)
• Leslie, Edward E. (1988). Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls. New York: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-91150-8.
• McKinlay, William Laird (1976). Karluk: The great untold story of Arctic exploration. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-77164-7.
• Niven, Jennifer (2001). The Ice Master. London: Pan Books. ISBN 0-330-39123-2.
• Pálsson, Gísli (2005). Travelling passions: the hidden life of Vilhjalmur Stefansson. Lebanon, NH: Dartmouth College Press. ISBN 978-1-58465-510-7. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Riffenburgh, Beau (2005). London. ISBN 0-7475-7253-4. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |publiher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• "Stefansson Lives Well in the Arctic". The New York Times. New York. 24 October 1914. Retrieved 13 January 2010. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |dateformat= ignored (help)
• Vanstone, James W (July 1994). "The Noice Collection of Copper Inuit Material Culture". New York: Field Museum of Natural History (Fieldiana Series, publication no. 1455): 4–5. ISSN 0071-4739. Retrieved 8 January 2010. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Unknown parameter |dateformat= ignored (help)