Part 17

MacFarlane told him that the country was so wild that Fort Eskimo was palisaded, flanked with bastions, and loop-holed for rifle-fire, owing to the desperate character of the surrounding and hostile tribes. Meanwhile four Eskimos had come to the fort from Liverpool Bay, including In-no-ra-na-na, called Powder Horn by the traders. The priest had hoped to meet this native, whom the factor said was known to be the greatest scapegrace on the arctic coast. Learning that Petitot was unfamiliar with the Inuit language, and was travelling unarmed, his anxiety increased and he told him that a journey into this unknown country with this savage brute would prove fatal. It was pointed out in vain that the Eskimos were bandits and outcasts--true pirates who, glorying in theft, violence, and fraud, viewed their unbridled passions as so many human virtues that showed the true man (Inuit).[21]

The pen portrait of In-no-ra-na-na, whom the missionary had chosen as his guide, is worth reproduction as a type of Eskimo dandy no longer seen. "He was a handsome man, well made, of large size, good presence, fine face, and had a nearly white complexion. He wore an elegant suit of reindeer-skin, its hair outside, stylishly cut and made. It can be compared only to the costume of our ancestors in the time of Henry IV. The close coat, old French breeches, and tightly fitting boots were of a beautiful brown skin of the summer coat of the deer bordered with a triple trimming of sea-otter, white wolf, and of the caribou, whose long reddish hairs surrounded his figure like a flaming aureole. Similar fringes around his arms and his legs set them off as by so many phylacteries. A head-dress hollowed out of the scowling head of a wolf surrounded his naked and closely shaven skull, which the Inuit could, if needful, partly cover with a small hood made of the head of a reindeer on which still remained the ears and budding horns of the animal." The usual labrets (ornaments inserted through slits made in the cheeks) of walrus ivory protruded from the great gashes in his face and hideously completed his dress.

As nothing could shake the priest's resolution, Factor MacFarlane decided to send as a companion a baptized Loucheux Indian, Sida-Jan, usually known as General Bottom, who spoke a little Inuit. He would save the situation and maintain the missionary's dignity by acting as his cook, dog driver, and camp servant. Moreover, as the brutal, powerful In-no-ra-na-na was actually going north the factor bribed him by giving goods to the amount of twenty beaver-skins[22] to guard the priest from insult or injury at the hands of his fellow-savages. Thus having done his best MacFarlane cried out, as the whip cracked and the dogs jumped to their traces, "May God protect your days among the bad people."

Eskimo fashion, they ran over the crisp, crackling snow in single file, the leader I-you-ma-tou-nak (the itchy) breaking the trail, followed by the great chief In-no-ra-na-na (Powder Horn), Sida-Jan (Bottom), and Petitot. When asked why they always thus marched in single file the Inuits answered: "The best-fitted leads and the others form the tail. It is the order of the ducks and cranes who plough the air, of the reindeer in migration, and of the buffalo or musk-oxen changing their pasture-grounds."

The calm cold was not felt, though the mercury was frozen, until the leader stopped short on the middle ice of the frozen Anderson, over which their route lay, and began to unload his sledge while the others were busy cutting through the snow for water. Petitot had a Hudson Bay sledge with steel-clad, smooth bottom, while the native sledges ran on two rough, solid side runners of wood. These runners drag fearfully when not shod with ice, which coating usually wears off in a few hours of land travel. So throughout the day, from time to time the Eskimo sledge was turned upside down, and its ice runners renewed by frequent wettings of the injured surfaces, the water freezing as it was applied.

As they were about camping the first night they met two young Inuits who had a stone lamp and fresh whale blubber--essentials for a warm meal--so the two parties joined forces to build a snow hut. Warned by the factor not to endanger his life or impair his dignity by working with his hands, the poor priest nearly froze as the house was reared, his undergarments, damp with the perspiration of travel, chilling his body bitterly. He tells us how deftly two of the natives carved from the snow-drifts on the river wedge-shaped slabs. The builder skilfully laid the blocks in spiral fashion, slicing them to fit and matching them quite closely with his snow-knife. The master-workman sprinkled with water the rising walls, which when finished formed a dome-like structure of dazzling whiteness, though hermetically sealed. Then with a few strokes of the snow-knife a door-way was carved out and to the windward of it was built a circular snow wall. Meanwhile an Eskimo built of snow inside the hut the customary divan--a raised shelf where the natives sleep--whereon were arranged the bear and reindeer skins for bedding. Close by the door was suspended the black pot-stone lamp, and directly opposite was placed the proverbial chamber-pot--always present in the Inuit huts.

After being brushed for the twentieth time with the reindeer wisp, to remove every particle of snow from his fur garments, Petitot seated himself in a corner of the divan, a place of honor. When all the Inuits were within the hut they carefully drew up the circular snow wall to the very door-way and poured water over the crevices. When it froze the six travellers were in a hermetically sealed snow house, there being no window or other opening through which a breath of wind could come.

The missionary's sufferings were intense that first night of arctic travel. Smoky soot from the dirty lamp and the nauseous effluvia from his unkempt bed-fellows were bad enough, but the excessive heat and impure air became quite unendurable. The outside cold was about eighty degrees below freezing, while the inside temperature was about eighty degrees above, so that the inner snow-blocks sweat freely, the globules of water forming on the surface ready to shower down on them at the slightest shock.

The Inuits stripped as usual to the skin, but the shame-faced priest felt obliged to keep on his clothes, removing his outer fur garments only. He says: "I slept feverishly in cat-naps, with constant nightmare. Tormented by my garments, perspiring terribly from the heat, crowded between my companions like a packed herring, sickened by unhealthy odors, and suffocated by unbreathable air, what fearful agony I suffered that night! [He adds:] Save their odor and their nudity, the company of the inmates was not disagreeable. Nor did the food prove less repulsive, especially the opaline, greenish-white whale blubber, which, cut into long, thin strips, forms a choice delicacy known to the Inuits as _ortchok_. The native with his left hand holds the dainty morsel above the greedily upturned open mouth which it at once fills. Gripping the _ortchok_ fast with his teeth, with a knife in his right hand he cuts it off as near the lips as he can, swallowing it with a gurgle of joy."

When Petitot asked for cooked blubber his host promptly pulled out the melting piece from the smoking, dirty lamp, and was surprised that such a delicacy was refused. When later tasted the raw blubber was found to be insipid, though the fresh oil therefrom was not unlike olive oil in its flavor.

As a kind of dessert they drew on their small supply of congealed seal-oil, so rancid as to be offensive. To this food neither time nor circumstance reconciles the white man.

The meal over the natives took to the soothing evening pipe, and gradually began the talk of the day and of the morrow. Mindful of the precious store goods in his pack and of his promise to the factor, Powder Horn chanted the glory of Fort Anderson, and then sang to the young stranger Inuits the praises of the missionary, whom he proclaimed to be the Son of the Sun; despite his protestations, transforming the priest into a demi-god.

The long day's march had seen the scattering groves dwindle and fail--first the bankerian pine, followed in order by the balsam poplar and the aspen. Now as they broke their morning camp the canoe birch was a stunted, wretched shrub scarcely attaining the dignity of a tree, and even this was gone when they made their next camp near the Anderson delta, leaving here and there unsightly and rare specimens of the hardy larch and the arctic spruces.

Next day they parted company with the young natives, who carried with them the pot-stone lamp, much to the priest's annoyance, as he was nearly frozen when they entered the igloo on the river ice. Powder Horn under pressure showed his ingenuity in providing a substitute. Picking up a piece of drift-wood, he hollowed it out lamp-shaped, and covered its bottom and sides with pebbles and flat stones. As moss was lacking for the wicking, he plucked a pinch of hair from his deerskin sleeping-robe, twisted it into a mesh, and the lamp was ready. During the night a violent gale buried the igloo in a snow-drift. The river ice was under such storm-pressures and it oscillated so strongly and continuously to and fro that they all feared that the river would open and swallow them up. Throughout the whole night the roaring of the wind, the groaning of the ice, and the quivering of the igloo made sleep impossible.

As they passed the river's mouth the third day the landscape was one of frightful sterility. Snow became thin and scanty, the ice was rougher, and the bare spots of ground seemed to have no signs of vegetation, trees and shrubs failing utterly. Nature was worse than dead with its apparent desolation. Here both man and beast was doomed alike to a constant and eternal struggle for bare existence in this adverse environment.

The lack of material and the ingenuity of the Inuits in wresting a bare subsistence from this forlorn country was indicated by a most efficient fox-trap made entirely of ice.

Long after dark the wearied sledge dogs with loud howlings broke into a rapid run, and were welcomed with fierce yells from the rival teams of the Eskimo village, a dozen large snow houses on the shores of Liverpool Bay. So dim was the light and so strange the garments and the attitudes of the native women, fur-clad and crawling on all-fours from the huts, that the missionary could scarcely distinguish them from the dogs.

Introduced to the people of the village by his Inuit protector as the Son of the Sun, he was made welcome after the manner of the country. His efforts at conversions did not bear visible fruit, though the natives listened gravely to his sermons on kindness and goodness, on chastity and honesty, on wifely fidelity and motherly love.

Doubtless he was best remembered in after days, as he himself suggests, "As the man who ate when a little pocket-sun [chronometer] told him; who guided himself on the trail by a live turning-iron [compass]; who made fire by rubbing a bit of wood on his sleeve [matches]; and who by looking hard at something white [prayer-book] made it possible for the Inuit to catch black foxes--the most valuable of all their furs."

Father Petitot made his plans the following summer to renew his efforts to improve the method of life of these wretched and remote natives, and to instil in them moral lessons which his later acquired knowledge of the Eskimo dialect would facilitate. An epidemic, however, destroyed many of the Inuits as well as of the Indian tribes in the Mackenzie region, thus preventing a renewal of the missionary's crusade against immorality and misery.

Nevertheless the adventurous midwinter mission of Father Petitot, in facing fearlessly the danger of death, in enduring uncomplainingly its physical tortures, and in taking up a daily life, Inuit fashion, under such almost revolting conditions, displayed the heroism of the true missionary. While Petitot's self-sacrifice, in the way of physical comforts and of personal sufferings, is not the most remarkable in the annals of the church in arctic history, yet it may well serve as an example for the aspiring and altruistic souls who are willing to do and to dare for the welfare of their fellow-man.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] M. Petitot tells us that the yearly outfit for the chief factor was, in pounds, 600 flour, 800 sugar, 200 each of rice, raisins, and salt, 100 tea, 20 chocolate, 10 black pepper, and liberal amounts of twisted or nigger-head tobacco.

[21] The Eskimos call themselves Inuits, that is, _the men_ of the whole world.

[22] The beaver-skin was the standard coin of the Hudson Bay territory, its value in our money being fifty cents.

SCHWATKA'S SUMMER SEARCH

"On Fame's eternal camping ground Their silent tents are spread, And glory guards with solemn round The bivouac of the dead." --O'HARA.

Among the startling and too-often believed stories of the polar regions are many which have their origin as whalers' "yarns." Spun for the purpose of killing time and of amusing hearers, by repetition and circulation they attain the dignity of "reliable personal accounts." Among such credited "yarns" in the early seventies was one to the effect that the missing records of the proceedings and discoveries of the lost squadron of Sir John Franklin were to be found in a cairn which was located near and easily accessible from Repulse Bay. Told and retold with an air of truth, it became the foundation on which was based the Schwatka-Gilder search of King William Land. This expedition sailed under the favoring auspices of the American Geographical Society of New York on the whaler _Eothen_, from which landed at Repulse Bay the party of five--Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka, United States Army, W. H. Gilder, H. W. Klutschak, F. E. Melms, and Eskimo Ebierbing, known as Joe (see p. 196).

In establishing their winter camp near Chesterfield Inlet they adopted as closely as possible native methods of life as to food, clothing, and shelter. In the intervals of hunting trips they ran down the several "yarns" on which their search had been planned, and were dismayed to find that they were entirely unfounded.

Schwatka was not the man to turn back without results, and so he determined to visit the regions in which the Franklin party had perished, hoping that he might be able to throw new light on the disaster. If he had been deceived as to the Franklin records being cached at a particular point, he possibly might find them elsewhere, as records must have been somewhere deposited for safety. It was a daring venture, but there might be a possibility of more thoroughly examining King William Land when snow-free.

The more striking phases of Schwatka's unique and successful experience in the search are told here.[23]

* * * * *

During the winter there was much visiting to and fro with the Eskimos camped near them. They soon found that there was a bright side to life among the Inuits, and that the natives indulged in games of skill much as we do. Gilder tells of the men playing the game of _nu-glew-tar_, which demands a quick eye and alert, accurate movements: "A small piece of bone is suspended from the roof by a line made of walrus hide, and a heavy weight dangles below it to keep it from swinging. The bone is pierced with four small holes, and the players stand around, armed with small sticks with which they jab at the bone, endeavoring to pierce one of the holes. Some one starts the game by offering a prize, which is won by him who pierces the bone and holds it fast with his stick. The winner in turn offers a prize for the others to try for." It is not a gambling game, but by prizes it encourages the acquirement of keen eyesight and accurate aim, so needful to success in hunting.

With the opening of April, 1879, Schwatka's party took the field, crossing the land in as straight a line as they could to Montreal Island, near the mouth of Back River. Twelve Eskimos--men, women, and children--were added to the party, and with their forty-two dogs they hauled about two and one-half tons, of which less than one-fourth consisted of provisions of a civilized character--bread, pork, beef, coffee, tea, etc.--being food for one month only. Travel overland was very difficult owing to the rocky region traversed, which stripped the runners of their ice-shoes. He says: "The ice is put upon the runners the first thing in the morning when coming out of the igloo, which was built every night. The sledge is turned upside down, and the water, after being held in the mouth a little while to warm it, is squirted over the runners and freezes almost immediately. Successive layers are applied until a clean, smooth surface is acquired, upon which the sledge slips over the snow with comparative ease."

Of the Ook-joo-liks they met with Gilder says: "Instead of reindeer gloves and shoes they wore articles made of musk-ox skin, which had a most extraordinary effect. The hair of the musk-ox is several inches long, and it looked as if the natives had an old-fashioned muff on each hand. They explained that it was almost impossible to get near enough to kill reindeer with arrows, their only weapons."

An old Ook-joo-lik said that he had seen a white man dead in a ship which sank about five miles west of Grant Point, Adelaide Peninsula. Before the ship sank the Inuits obtained spoons, knives, etc., from her, and the story seemed true from the number of relics of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ in their possession.

The explorers visited Richardson Inlet, where they were told that a boat had been found by the natives with five skeletons under it. The most important information was gained from a Netchillik woman who said that on the southeast coast of King William Land "she with her husband, and two other men with their wives, had many years ago seen ten men dragging a sledge with a boat on it. Five whites put up a tent on shore and five remained with the boat. The Inuits and the whites stayed together five days, the former killing several seals and giving them to the white men." The whites attempted to cross to the main-land, and the Eskimos remained all summer on King William Land and never saw the whites again. She also said that "the following spring she saw a tent standing at the head of Terror Bay. There were dead bodies in the tent and outside--nothing but bones and clothing. Near by were knives, spoons, forks, books, etc."

While elated at his success in learning from the Ook-joo-liks these incidents, which added much to the reports of Rae and McClintock as to the fate of Crozier and his comrades, Schwatka was not content. With a courage bordering on rashness he decided to cross Simpson Strait to King William Land and thoroughly search for records while the ground was free from snow. This meant passing the summer on this desolate island, for he could not hope to recross the strait, save by chance, until the autumnal colds should form new ice.

He had just learned that the island was so barren of game in 1848 that one hundred and five men had there perished of starvation. Some of the natives told him that the same fate awaited the white men of to-day. Yet such was the dominating power of this fearless soldier that not only did his white comrades go forward zealously but several Eskimos followed, including his hunter, Too-loo-ah, of whom it was said: "There is a legend in his tribe that he was never known to be tired."

Among the hunting feats of the natives was the spring duck-hunting, when the birds are moulting and unable to fly. Fitted with his spear the Eskimo carries his kayak to the remote lake where the birds feed. Cautiously advancing until the flock is alarmed, he makes a furious dash toward the largest bunch. When within some twenty feet of the struggling birds he seizes his queer-looking spear, with its three barbs of unequal length, and with an expertness gained from long practice hurls it at a bird, which is nearly always killed, impaled by the sharp central barb. The wooden shaft of the spear floats the game until the hunter reaches it.

Scarcely had the party marched a single day on the ice-pack of Simpson Strait when some would have turned back, the crossing being doubtful. Gilder records: "We would sink to our waists and our legs would be dangling in slush without finding bottom. The sledge often sank so that the dogs, floundering in the slush or scrambling over the broken ice, could not pull. Then we gathered around to help them, getting an occasional footing by kneeling on a hummock or holding on with one hand while we pushed with the other. Yet through the skill and experience of our Inuit dog driver we made a march of ten miles." In this journey even the athlete, Too-loo-ah, was so exhausted that the party had to rest the following day.

Schwatka with Gilder and his other white companions then made a most exhaustive search of the island, the Eskimos aiding in the intervals of the hunt or while going to and fro. The search revealed four despoiled graves, three skeletons, Crozier's original camp and his daily bivouacs during his fatal southward march, the Erebus Bay boat, and the record deposited by McClintock in 1859. Especially interesting was the grave of Lieutenant John Irving, one of Franklin's officers. Evidently the body had been wrapped in his uniform and then encased in canvas as if for burial at sea. A personal medal of Irving's and other articles identified the remains. Unfortunately none of the Franklin records or traces thereof were anywhere found.

It is not to be thought that these marches and discoveries were made otherwise than with great suffering, with danger even of starvation. More than once they were entirely without food, and as a rule they lived from hand to mouth.

Gilder relates this semi-humorous experience: "While Klutschak was cooking the last of our meat he left the fire a few minutes. The dogs breaking from their fastenings poured down on the culinary department like an army of devouring fiends. Too-loo-ah, knowing the state of our larder, slipped out under the end of the tent, stark naked from his sleeping-bag, and by a shower of stones sent the dogs away howling."

Their greatest discomfort arose from the lack of shoes and stockings, their outer foot-gear being soon worn-out beyond repair, while hard travel had rubbed all the hair from their stockings. Under these conditions walking was often physical torture, which frequent moccasin patching only slightly relieved. Finally they had to send to the base camp at the south end of the island, where the two native women were, to obtain foot-gear for their return journey from Cape Felix, the northernmost point of King William Land.