Part 16

"The deer is harnessed with a well-fitting collar of two flat pieces of wood from which short traces go back to a breastplate or single-tree under the body. From this a single trace, protected by soft fur to prevent chafing, runs back to the sledge. A single line made fast to the halter is used for guiding, and, kept slack, is only pulled to guide or stop the deer. A hard pull brings the weight of the sledge on the head of the deer and generally brings him to a stop. No whip is used, for the timid deer becomes easily frightened and then is hard to control and quiet down. The low, wide sledges with broad runners are hard to pack so as to secure and protect the load." As the dogs naturally attack the deer, it was henceforth necessary to stop outside the Eskimo villages, unharness the animals, and send them to pasture on the nearest beds of reindeer moss.

Jarvis thus relates his straying during a violent blizzard: "Soon after dark my deer wandered from the trail, became entangled in drift-wood on the beach, and finally wound up by running the sledge full speed against a stump, breaking the harness, dragging the line from my hand, and disappearing in the darkness and flying snow. It was impossible to see ten yards ahead, and it would be reckless to start off alone, for the others were in advance, and I might wander about all night, become exhausted, and perhaps freeze. I had nothing to eat, but righting the sledge I got out my sleeping-bag in its lee and made myself as comfortable as possible." His comrades were greatly alarmed as a reindeer dashed by them, and fearing disaster hastened back on the trail, which, although followed with difficulty on account of the blinding snow, brought them to the lieutenant still unharmed.

If the relief expedition was to be of use to the shipwrecked men it was important that food should be carried north. As this was impossible by sledge, it was evident that the sole method was to carry meat on the hoof. The sole sources of supply consisted of two herds of reindeer, at Teller and at Cape Prince of Wales. If these herds could be purchased, and if the services of skilled herders could be obtained and the herd could be driven such a long distance then the whalers could be saved. To these three problems Jarvis now bent his powers of persuasion and of administrative ability, feeling that lives depended on the outcome and that he must not fail.

The reindeer belonged in part to an Eskimo, Artisarlook, and in part to the American Missionary Society, under the control and management of Mr. H. W. Lopp. Without the assent and active aid of these two men the proposed action would be impossible. Would he be able to persuade these men to give him their entire plant and leave themselves destitute for men whom they had never seen and knew of only to hold them in fear? Would they consider the plan practicable, and would they leave their families and go on the arctic trail in the midst of an Alaskan winter? If they thought it a bounden duty, what was to happen to their families during their absence? Day after day these questions rose in the lieutenant's mind to his great disquietude.

With Jarvis and Bertholf there was the stimulus of the _esprit de corps_, the honor of the service, always acting as a spur to their heroic labors, while in the case of Dr. McCall there was also that sense of personal devotion to the relief of suffering that inspires the medical profession as a whole.

On January 19 Jarvis reached the house of Artisarlook, when he "almost shrank from the task." From this untaught, semi-civilized native, wrestling for a bare subsistence with harsh, forbidding nature, what favor could be expected? The starving men were of an alien race, and of that class from which too often his own people had reaped degradation, suffered outrage, and endured wrongs too grievous to be ignored or forgotten. To relieve these men Artisarlook must voluntarily loan his entire herd of reindeer without certainty of replacement. He must leave behind him his wife, unprotected and subject to the vicissitudes of an arctic environment. He must also endure the hardships and sufferings incident to a midwinter drive, in the coldest month of the year, of reindeer across a country unknown to him--a desperate venture that might cost him his life. Altruistic souls of the civilized world might make such sacrifices, but would this Alaskan Eskimo?

Of the crisis Jarvis writes: "I almost shrank from the task. He and his wife were old friends, but how to induce them to give up their deer--their absolute property--and how to convince them that the government would return an equal number at some future time was quite another matter. Besides, he and the natives gathered about him were dependent on the herd for food and clothing. If I took the deer and Artisarlook away these people were likely to starve unless some other arrangements were made for their living.

"I explained carefully what the deer were wanted for; that he must let me have the deer of his own free will, and trust to the government for an ample reward and the return of an equal number of deer.

"Artisarlook and his wife Mary held a long and solemn consultation and finally explained their situation. They were sorry for the white men at Point Barrow and they were glad to be able to help them. They would let me have their deer, one hundred and thirty-three in number, which represented their all, if I would be directly responsible for them.

"I had dreaded this interview for fear that Artisarlook might refuse, but his nobility of character could have no better exposition than the fact that he was willing to give up his property, leave his family, and go eight hundred miles to help white men in distress, under a simple promise that his property should be returned to him."

Has there ever been a finer instance of the full faith of man in brother man than is shown in this simple pact, by word of mouth, under the dark, gloomy sky of an Alaskan midwinter? Far from the business marts of crowded cities, in the free open of broad expanses of country, there are often similar instances of man's trusting generosity and of personal self-sacrifice, but more often between those of kindred race than between the civilized man and the aborigine.

Giving written orders on the traders to tide over the winter for the natives, Jarvis pushed on, leaving Artisarlook and his herders to follow with the deer. Meantime the lieutenant had adopted the native garb, saying: "I had determined to do as the people who lived in the country did--to dress, travel, and live as they did, and if necessary to eat the same food. I found the only way to get along was to conform to the customs of those who had solved many of the problems of existence in the arctic climate." His clothing consisted of close-fitting deerskin trousers and socks, with hair next to the skin; deerskin boots, hair out, with heavy seal-skin soles; two deerskin shirts, one with hair out and the other with hair toward the skin; close hoods, with fringing wolfskin, and mittens, the whole weighing only about ten pounds. In stormy weather he wore an outer shirt and overalls of drilling, which kept the drifting snow from filling up and freezing in a mass the hair of the deerskins.

The five days' travel to the Teller reindeer station, near Cape Prince of Wales, were filled with most bitter experiences. The temperature fell to seventy-two degrees below freezing; the sea ice over which they travelled became of almost incredible roughness; while fearful blizzards sprang up. With increasing northing the days became shorter and the exhausted reindeer had to be replaced by dogs. Much of the travel was in darkness, with resultant capsizings of sledges, frequent falls, and many bodily bruises. Of one critical situation he reports: "The heavy sledge was continually capsizing in the rough ice. About eight o'clock at night I was completely played out and quite willing to camp. But Artisarlook said _No!_ that it was too cold to camp without wood (they depended on drift-wood for their fires), and that the ice-foot along the land was in danger of breaking off the shore at any minute. In the darkness I stepped through an ice-crack, and my leg to the knee was immediately one mass of ice. Urging the dogs, we dragged along till midnight to a hut that Artisarlook had before mentioned. A horrible place, no palace could have been more welcome. Fifteen people were already sleeping in the hut, the most filthy I saw in Alaska, only ten by twelve feet in size and five feet high. Too tired to care for the filth, too tired even to eat, I was satisfied to take off my wet clothing, crawl into my bag, and to sleep." Failure to find the house and to have his frozen clothing dried would have cost the lieutenant his life.

On arriving at Teller station he had a new problem to solve--to win over the agent. He had high hopes, for although this representative of a missionary society was living on the outer edge of the world, yet he had become familiar with the vicissitudes of the frontier, and from vocation and through his associations was readily moved to acts of humanity.

Jarvis set forth the situation to Mr. W. T. Lopp, the superintendent, adding that he considered Lopp's personal services to be indispensable, as he knew the country, was familiar with the customs and characteristics of the natives, and was expert in handling deer. Lopp replied that "the reindeer had been builded on by his people as their wealth and support, and to lose them would make a break in the work that could not be repaired. Still, in the interests of humanity he would give them all, explain the case to the Eskimos, and induce them to give their deer also [aggregating about three hundred]." Lopp also gave his own knowledge, influence, and personal service, his wife, with a noble disregard for her own comfort and safety at being left alone with the natives, "urging him to go, believing it to be his duty."

It is needless to recite in detail the trials and troubles that daily arose in driving across trackless tundras (the swampy, moss-covered plains), in the darkness of midwinter, this great herd of more than four hundred timid, intractable reindeer. Throughout the eight hundred miles of travel the reindeer drivers had to carefully avoid the immediate neighborhood of Eskimo villages for fear of the ravenous, attacking dogs, who, however, on one occasion succeeded in stampeding the whole herd. For days at a time the herders were at their wits' ends to guard the deer against gaunt packs of ravenous wolves, who kept on their trail and, despite their utmost vigilance, succeeded in killing and maiming several deer. A triumphal but venturesome feat of Lopp's was the driving of the herd across the sea-floes of the broad expanse of Kotzebue Sound, thus saving one hundred and fifty miles of land travel and two weeks of valuable time.

While there were eight skilled herders, Lapps and Eskimos, the most effective work was that done by a little Lapp deer-dog, who circled around the herd when on the march to prevent the deer from straying. If a deer started from the main herd the dog was at once on his trail, snapping at his heels and turning him toward the others. Very few deer strayed or were lost, and three hundred and sixty-two were brought to Barrow in good condition.

Travelling in advance, following the shore line by dog-sledge, Jarvis and McCall were welcomed with warm generosity even by the most forlorn and wretched Eskimos, who asked them into their huts, cared for their dogs, dried their clothes, and did all possible for their safety and comfort. The relief party, however, suffered much from the begging demands of almost starving natives, from the loss of straying dogs, and the desertion of several unreliable native employees. They were quite at the end of their food when they reached, at Cape Krusenstern, their depot. This had been brought up across country from Unalaklik through the great energy and indomitable courage of Bertholf, whose journey and sufferings were no less striking than those of his comrades.

Inexpressible was the joy of the party when, fifty miles south of Point Barrow, the masts of the _Belvedere_, a whale-ship fast in the ice, were sighted. Four days later they were at the point, their marvellous journey of eighteen hundred miles ended and their coming welcomed as a providential relief.

They found conditions frightful as regards the shelter, health, and sanitation of the shipwrecked whalers. Three ships had been lost and another was ice-beset beyond power of saving. The captains of the wrecked ships had abandoned the care and control of their men as to quarters, clothing, food, and general welfare. Provisions were very short, and the seamen were depending on their safety through successful hunting among the caribou herds in the neighborhood of Point Barrow, which were rapidly disappearing.

Jarvis at once took charge of the situation. Dr. McCall found the seamen's quarters in a most horrible condition, its single window giving but a feeble glimmer of light at midday, and its ventilation confined to the few air draughts through cracks in the walls. Eighty seamen occupied for sleeping, shelter, and cooking a single room twenty by fifty feet in size, wherein they were so badly crowded that there was scarcely room for all to stand when out of their bunks together. Moisture was continually dropping from the inner ceiling and walls, which were covered with frost. Their bedding was never dry, sooty grease was coated over all things, and no place was free from great accumulations of filth and its accompaniments. The whalers were "scarcely recognizable as white men," and large numbers of them would without doubt have perished of disease but for the opportune arrival of the relief party.

Order, cleanliness, decency, and discipline were instituted, the men were distributed in light, airy rooms, their clothing was washed and renovated, and intercourse with the natives prohibited. By inspection, precept, and command the general health greatly improved. At every opportunity individual men were sent south by occasional sledge parties. Hunting was systematized, but it failed to produce enough food for the suffering whalers. Recourse was then had to the herds driven north by Lopp and Artisarlook, and with the slaughter of nearly two hundred reindeer suitable quantities of fresh meat were issued. Out of two hundred and seventy-five whalers only one died of disease. Captain Tuttle by daring seamanship reached Icy Cape July 22, 1898, and took on board the _Bear_ about a hundred men whose ships were lost.

With generous feeling Jarvis gives credit in his report to the whaling agent, A. C. Brower, and to "the goodness and help of the natives [Eskimos], who denied themselves to save the white people," subordinating with true heroic modesty his work to all others.

Gold and commerce have peopled the barren Alaskan wastes which were the scenes of this adventurous journey with its unique equipment and its cosmopolitan personnel of Eskimo, Lapp, and American.

While these men worked not for fame but for the lives of brother men, yet in Alaskan annals should stand forever recorded the heroic deeds and unselfish acts of Jarvis and McCall, of Bertholf and Lopp, and of that man among men--Eskimo Artisarlook.

THE MISSIONARY'S ARCTIC TRAIL

"Blest river of salvation! Pursue thy onward way; Flow thou to every nation, Nor in thy richness stay; Stay not till all the lowly Triumphant reach their home; Stay not till all the holy Proclaim--_The Lord is come!_" --S. F. SMITH.

Among the heroic figures in the history of the human race there should be none to command greater admiration than the typical missionaries who, in foreign lands and among uncivilized tribes, have devoted their lives to the good of man and to the glory of God. Of the countless many through the ages may be named a few whose labors, actuated by a spirit of lofty endeavor, particularly appeal to the imagination and love of the people. Such men were Schwarz and Carey, in India; Livingstone, in Africa; Egede, in Greenland; Eliot and Whitney, in America. Of earnest missionaries in North America there are many worthy of special notice, and among these are not a few of French birth whose memories remain fragrant through heroic deeds and unselfish labors. Their work has entered into the life of the people, though Père Marquette is perhaps the only one whose deeds have affected the growth of a nation. Of French missionaries in late years whose activities have been exerted within the arctic circle may be mentioned M. Emile Petitot, who served fifteen years in the arctic regions of Canada, principally in the water-sheds of the Anderson, the Mackenzie, and the Yukon. Apart from his labors of piety and of love among the Indian tribes of northwestern Canada, M. Petitot, in a dozen or more volumes, has contributed largely to our knowledge of the customs, of the beliefs, of the methods of life, and of the human qualities of the aborigines among whom he has labored. Stationed on the shores of Great Slave Lake in 1863, in the autumn of the following year he descended the Mackenzie and proceeded via Fort Simpson for missionary labors at Fort Good Hope. With his experiences in such voyages, and especially with his visit to the shores of the polar sea, this tale is principally concerned.

* * * * *

Coming from the highly civilized and elaborately circumscribed life of France, M. Petitot was vividly impressed with the enormous and underlying difference in the methods of life in the two countries, the more so on account of his youth. He says of this: "It is well to know the advantages of an isolated life. There is an entire exemption from taxes, tithes, levies in kind, quit-rents, poll-taxes, tariffs, customs duties, town duties (octroi), inheritance-taxes, land rents, forced labor, etc., etc."

On the other hand he finds in the northern wilds "Perfect security, unchanging peacefulness, liberty to plant, to cut, to clear land, to mow, to reap, to fish, to hunt, to take and to give, to build and to tear down"--in short, unrestricted personal liberty of action as of thought.

In changing his station to the far north he made his first voyage down the magnificent Mackenzie, which in the area of its drainage basin, its outflow, its length, and its wondrous scenery is scarcely surpassed by any other river of the world. His first stage of travel brought him to Fort Simpson, where he came in contact with the chief factors or agents of the Hudson Bay posts to the north, who gathered there in early autumn to bring the winter furs and to obtain the annual supply of food and of trading goods known as their outfit. For these men it was the holiday season of the year, the only break in the fearful monotony of their isolated lives, when they see their kind and speak their native tongue.

The final glass had been drunk, the precious outfit[20] had been stowed safely under cover, the final word said, and then the Indian steersman dexterously turned his paddle. The voyage to the real north thus began, and the missionary's happiness was complete, though he travelled with six Indians, the factor staying behind. Drifting throughout the night, he could scarce believe his eyes when the sharp air of the cold morning awoke him. He had left a land of green trees and now the foliage of the elms that bordered the Mackenzie were as yellow as straw. The single night of polar cold had checked the life-giving sap with the same startling rapidity with which it had been caused to flow by a spring day of warm, invigorating sunshine.

Then the priest, with the mountains in view, realized the justness of the poetic Indian name, the Giant of the Highlands, given to the "noble Mackenzie, with its vast outflow, its great length, its immense width, and its majestic mountainous banks."

The river could be as terrible as it was majestic; and then came the first touch of terror from the north, a tornado storm known as the "white wind." Whirling downward from a cloudless sky, its furious force lashed the water into waves, filled the air with sand and gravel, and barely missed sinking the boats as they were rushed to the bank. There, standing in water to their waists, the voyageurs held fast to the ends of the boats until a brief lull made possible their discharging. For a night and a day the storm-bound travellers were thus imprisoned on a narrow ledge in wretched plight--without fire, drenched to the skin, unable to sleep, shivering under the biting northerly gale.

Near their destination they had to run the fearful rapids of the Ramparts, the most dangerous of the many swift currents of the Mackenzie. Their skiffs flew with frightful velocity, plunging down descents that were falls in low stages of water and being helplessly whirled around and around. Three danger spots were passed under conditions that made the missionary hold his breath, while admiring the dexterity and composure of the Indian steersman. It seemed an interminable eight miles, this series of rapids walled in by the towering, precipitous Ramparts, with only two points of refuge in its inhospitable cliffs even for a canoe.

Petitot soon made himself at home at the mission of Fort Good Hope, situated on the arctic circle. He found the Hare Indians alert, loquacious, companionable, warm-hearted, and childlike in their sympathies and feelings. Speaking of the free, happy Indian life he says: "How can such misery be combined with such contentment with their lot? How does the sweet pride of a free man inspire their abject nomadic life? Ask its secret from the bird which flies warbling from shrub to shrub, waving its swift wings, drying its rain-wet plumage in the sun, tranquilly sleeping on a twig, its head under its wing."

Learning the Hare language, baptizing the babes and teaching the adults, he also put up buildings, cared for the sick, and in his garden raised potatoes and turnips under the arctic circle. But ever keeping alive that wandering spirit which had its influence in his choice for a missionary life, Petitot was not content.

With his work well in hand he learned with sadness from some of his Indian flock of the wretched conditions under which the Eskimos of Liverpool Bay were living. Fired with his usual zeal for the wretched, untaught savages, and perchance impelled somewhat by a desire to explore the country to the north, Petitot decided to make a midwinter journey to the polar sea. The agent, Gaudet, pointed out the dangers of travel in winter when the cold was excessive, sometimes ninety degrees or more below freezing, but when the priest insisted he accompanied him to Fort Anderson (or Eskimo) both men following on snow-shoes the dog-team that hauled their camp outfit over the two hundred and fifty miles of snow-covered country.

Fort Eskimo, in 68° 30´ N., on Anderson River, was the most northerly of the Hudson Bay posts, and its factor, MacFarlane, saw with surprise the arrival of this young French priest with the alert bearing and splendid confidence of his twenty-five years. It must be a matter of life or death that brought him. What was his mission? The factor could scarcely trust his ears when he heard that the object was a missionary visit to Liverpool Bay.