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George E. Tyson
Born	George Emory Tyson (1829-12-15)December 15, 1829 Red Bank, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	October 18, 1906(1906-10-18) (aged 76) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Occupation(s)	Whaler, navigator, Arctic explorer
Years active	1851–1877 (whaling)
Known for	Polaris expedition

George Emory Tyson (December 15, 1829 – October 18, 1906) was an American whaler, navigator, and Arctic explorer, known for his role as assistant navigator of the Polaris on the controversial Polaris expedition of 1871–1873. The expedition was commanded by the enigmatic and self-taught Arctic explorer Charles Francis Hall, whose lack of academic credentials and inexperience at leading men was the cause of early consternation and erosion of discipline among its personnel, and is believed to have led to his early death by arsenic poisoning at the hands of the expedition's head of science, Emil Bessels.

After spending the winter at Thank God Harbor, during which time the expedition experienced a total breakdown of discipline, Tyson distinguished himself as a dependable tower of strength. In the spring of 1872, with temperatures rising, Tyson and 18 others found themselves seperated from the Polaris and left stranded on an ice floe after the ship broke free of the ice. Drifting steadily south on ever-shrinking ice floes, they covered a distance of more than 1,800 miles (3,000 km) in six months' time, toward more hospitable and more-frequently traveled waters, before their rescue by the Tigress off the coast of Newfoundland, on April 30, 1873.

Tyson was highly resourceful and knowledgeable about life in the Arctic. Because of his status as a reliable and level-headed Arctic hand, Tyson was held in high esteem by his contemporaries. As described by a fellow Groton whaling captain in 1873: "After having ten years' experience in the Arctic regions with Captain Tyson, I will say that I have always found him the best man to consult with that I have ever met [...] I have also made several sledge-journeys with him, and have always found his power of endurance ahead of any one I ever traveled with."

Life

Tyson was born in 1829 and grew up mostly in New York City, where he heard stories of Arctic explorers and dreamed of going to sea. When he was 22 years old, he quit his job in an iron foundry and signed on with the Arctic whaling ship McLellan.

Whaling

During this voyage, he volunteered along with 11 other crew members to spend the winter in Cumberland Sound. It was the first time Qallunaat whalers had deliberately overwintered there. When Tyson got back to New York, his friends urged him to stay, and he resumed his old factory job. But, as he wrote, he very soon grew tired of it, and again longed for the sea.

He was back on an Arctic whaling ship again in 1855. This time, he and his fellow crew members discovered an abandoned British ship, HMS Resolute, drifting in the pack ice. Tyson was among the first to walk over to it, and he and the other whalers enjoyed consuming the provisions on board, fake-duelling with British swords and dressing up in the uniforms of British officers.

Exploration

Tyson (left) with fellow ice-floe survivors. Left stranded, the castaways drifted over 1,800 miles (2,900 km) south before being rescued.

Soon Tyson would become an officer himself. Like most hard-working, white, English-speaking American men who were willing to go on more than one whaling voyage, Tyson rose quickly through the ranks. By 1860, he was a whaling captain. He spent most of that decade in Cumberland Sound and Hudson Bay. In 1871, the United States government paid him to go on Charles Francis Hall's disastrous expedition to the North Pole.

Nineteen expedition members, including Tyson, Ipirvik and Taqulittuq, were marooned on an ice floe for six and a half months. They were finally rescued by a sealing ship off the coast of Labrador nearly 3,000 kilometres (1,900 mi) from their starting point off the coast of Greenland. Thanks to the skills and generosity of the two Inuit families on the floe, everyone survived.

Polar colonization

Tyson returned to Cumberland Sound on the Florence in 1877. He was searching for Inuit to relocate to northern Ellesmere Island as part of an American scheme to establish a colony there. He was also supposed to offset costs by hunting whales. Tyson refused to let his Qallunaat crew leave the ship for long periods unless they had Inuit clothing, and he supplied over 20 Inuit with American food in exchange for fresh country food. He recognized his reliance on Inuit, writing, "We have to depend on the Esquimaux for aid, if it was not for them I could accomplish but very little here".

When the ice broke up, Tyson somehow convinced 15 Inuit men, women and children to sail with him to Greenland and then to Ellesmere Island. He did not list all their names, but he referred to five of them as Ete-tun, Nep-e-ken, O-cas-e-ak-ju, Chummy and A-lo-kee. When the Florence arrived in Greenland, Tyson learned that his American employers had abandoned the colony project. He returned to Cumberland Sound and dropped the Inuit off at Naujaqtalik, offering them a whaleboat, four guns, ammunition, clothing, bread, molasses, a tent and two pairs of binoculars for their trouble.

Later life

Tyson never went to sea again. He published two books about his experiences, but neither of them sold well. His family fell on hard times, and he took a job with the Navy Department in Washington, D.C. He developed heart disease and died at home in 1906.

References

Sources

Books

• Blake, E. V. (1874). Arctic Experiences: A History of the Polaris Expedition. New York: Harper & Brothers. OCLC 809514487.
• Hannan, C., ed. (2008). Tyson, George Emory. Hamburg: State History Publications. pp. 704–705. ISBN 9781878592453. {{cite encyclopedia}}: |work= ignored (help)
• Howgate, H. W. (1877). Polar Colonization: The Preliminary Arctic Expedition. Washington: Beresford, printer. OCLC 769246575.
• Tyson, G. (1879). Howgate, H. W. (ed.). The Cruise of the Florence. Washington: Chapman, printer. OCLC 576895789.
• Westcott, A. (1943). "Tyson, George Emory". Dictionary of American Biography. Vol. 19. New York: Scribner's. pp. 102–103. OCLC 802242267.

Web pages

• "George E. Tyson". The Forgotten Story of Inuit Whalers. Qikiqtani Inuit Association. December 2010. Archived from the original on December 13, 2010. Retrieved May 24, 2019 – via the Wayback Machine. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; August 2, 2011 suggested (help)

External links

• George E. Tyson at the Whaling History Database
• Works by George E. Tyson at Open Library
• Works by or about George E. Tyson in libraries (WorldCat catalog)