Part 19

The _umiak_ (called the woman's boat, as it is always rowed by women) is a flat-bottomed, wooden-framed, skin-covered boat about twenty-five feet long and five feet wide. Only the framework, thwarts, and rowing benches are wooden, the covering being well-dried, blubber-saturated, hair-free skins of the _atarsoak_ (Greenland seal). Resembling in appearance the parchment of a drum-head, the seal-skin becomes quite transparent when wet so that the motion of the water is seen through it. Sometimes a light mast carries a spread seal-skin for sail, but as a rule the boat is propelled by short, bone-tipped paddles which, in the hands of several strong women, carry the _umiak_ thirty miles a day through smooth, ice-free water. When going near the ice a heavy seal-skin is hung before the bow to prevent the delicate boat skin from being cut. When a little hole is worn through, the women deftly thrust a bit of blubber through it until the boat is hauled up on the shore, which must be done daily to dry the sea-saturated covering. These boats can transport from three to four tons of cargo, and are so light that they can be readily carried on the women's backs overland.

Holm knew that his journey must entail at least one winter among such natives as he might meet, so that his equipment was very carefully selected, with a view to the gifts and trading which are so dear to the native heart. The northward journey was full of incident and of interest. Not crowding his women rowers, Holm tarried here and there for the hunt; besides, he wished both to gather information from an occasional encampment and also to cultivate loyalty in his reluctant crew by permitting his women to show their west coast riches to the east-coast heathen.

Here seal were killed and there the polar bear was chased, while the sea-fowl, the narwhal, and the white whale were the objects of pursuit to the eager native hunters, who accompanied the _umiaks_ in their light, swift-flying kayaks.

In voyaging there was the usual danger from sharp ice cutting the _umiaks_ and necessitating repairs, and from lofty bergs and ancient hummocks as they crossed the ocean mouths of the ice-filled fiords, and alas! too often there were tedious, nerve-racking delays when on desolate islands or rocky beaches the _umiak_ fleet was ice-bound for days at a time.

Wintering near Cape Farewell, Holm, with Garde and Knutsen, put to sea May 5, 1884, his _umiaks_ being rowed by nineteen women and five men, while seven hunters followed in kayaks. Garde devoted himself to the precipitous, ice-capped coast, and between 60° and 63° N. found nearly two hundred living glaciers that entered the sea, seventy being a mile or more broad. In Lindenows Fiord, 62° 15´ N., were found almost impenetrable willow groves near old Scandinavian ruins. Fine new ice-fiords were discovered which put forth innumerable numbers of icebergs, the highest rising two hundred feet above the sea.

The western Eskimos were alarmed either at the ice difficulties which lengthened the voyage, or feared the _angekoks_, or magicians of the east coast, and nineteen of them insisted on turning back. Holm was obliged to send them back under Garde, but with determined courage to fulfil his duty as an officer of the Danish navy, he went on with twelve faithful women and men, although he was not half-way to Cape Dan.

As before told, Graah turned back in sight of Cape Dan, believing that he had reached the limit of human habitations. Great then was Holm's surprise to here find the last of the three missing polar tribes, who to the number of five hundred and forty-eight individuals were occupying the fertile hunting-grounds of the archipelago of Angmagsalik, which consists of about twenty ice-free islands to the west of Cape Dan, about 65° 31´ N., adjacent to the beautiful Sermilik ice-fiord. In this district the tides and currents keep open the inland water-ways, so that seals are plentiful and easily taken, thus making it an Inuit paradise. Holm and Knutsen here wintered, 1884-5, and in their ten months' residence with these people gathered a vast amount of ethnographic and historic material pertaining to the lives of these extraordinary Inuits, who had never before seen a white man.[25]

This missing polar tribe pertains to the stone age of the world, its weapons being almost entirely of bone, while its methods of hunting follow lines long since abandoned by Inuits who have had contact with whites. Their high sense of fidelity was shown by Navfalik, who was placed in charge of stores left for the winter at Kasingortok. That winter his family suffered from lack of food, but all through these days of terrible distress and prolonged hunger the stores of the white man were untouched by this faithful Eskimo.

Of these natives Rasmussen says: "There is no people with a history which, as regards the bitterness of its struggle for existence and the eeriness of its memories, can be compared with that of the Eskimo.... His mind can be calm and sunny like the water on a summer day in the deep, warm fiords. But it can likewise be savage and remorseless as the sea itself, the sea that is eating its way into his country."

Of their endurance of cold Poulsen records: "Inside the house both grown-up people and children wear, so to speak, nothing, and it does not inconvenience them to walk out into the cold in the same light dress, only increased by a pair of skin boots. I remember seeing two quite young girls walking almost naked on the beach, fifteen minutes' walk from the house, gathering sea-weed, though the temperature was about twenty-four degrees below the freezing-point."

As a dumb witness of their method of life in their permanent homes may be mentioned the house at Nualik, more than a hundred miles to the north of Angmagsalik (discovered by Amdrup), where an entire settlement of twenty or more perished, probably of ptomaine poisoning from semi-putrid meat (a delicacy among the Eskimos as is semi-putrid game with us).

"On the platform along the back wall, as shown by the skeletons, the inhabitants had once lain comfortably between the two bear-skins, the upper one with the hair down. On the five lamp-platforms stood the lamps and the stone pots. The drying-hatches above them had fallen down, but remains of bear-skin clothes still lay on them. Under the platform there were chip-boxes and square wooden[26] cases, and on the stone-paved floor large urine and water tubs. In front of one of the small side platforms there was a blubber-board and a large, well-carved meat-trough, and scattered about the floor lay wooden dishes, blood-scoops, water-scoops, besides specimens of all the bone utensils which belong to an Eskimo house.

"Near the house stood four long, heavy stones, placed edgewise, on the top of which the _umiak_ rested (protected thus from the dogs). Scattered around were kayak frames and their bone mountings, hunting and other implements. Amongst the big heap of bones outside the house were the skulls of narwhals, dogs, and bears. Among the utensils was a blood-stopper ornamented with a neatly cut man's head, which, recognized by old Inuits at Angmagsalik, identified this party as a northerly migrating band from the main settlement."

Of the after life a glimpse is given by the talk of an east-coast Inuit to Rasmussen: "On a lovely evening a broad belt of northern lights shot out over the hills in the background and cast a flickering light over the booming sea. Puarajik said: '_Those are the dead playing ball. See how they fly about! They say that they run about up there without clothing on._'"

Of the seamy side of life he adds: "But in the winter, when people were gathered together, the larders were full, and desires centred on the shortening of the long, idle winter nights, things would be quite different [from the happy, industrious life of summer]. Much food and sitting still, the desire to be doing, the craving for change made people pick quarrels. Old grievances were resuscitated; scorn and mocking, venomous words egged on to outbursts of anger; and in winter feasts regrettable incidents occurred. Men and women, excited and goaded on by others, forgot all friendly feeling, and on most extraordinary pretexts often challenged each other to insult-songs, fought duels, and committed most appalling murders."

It is evident that among the people of the stone age there exists the same inclination to exploit and perpetuate deeds of individual and warlike prowess, that appears not only in modern history as a whole but also in news of current publication.

Acts of kindness, deeds of heroism, and displays of the fair and humble virtues that sweeten daily life are entirely absent from the old Inuit traditions. Yet these "True Tales" depict the honesty of Navfalik, the humanity of Kalutunah, the fidelity of Brönlund, and the devotion of Mertuk.

The total omission of similar tales of admirable and humane conduct from the legends and the folksongs of the Inuits of the stone age doubtless depends in part on the savage superstitions, wherein magical powers and forces of evil are greatly exalted, and in part on the disposition to dwell on the unusual and the terrifying.

So there are reasons to believe that the survivors of the stone age in East Greenland exhibit in their daily life human qualities of goodness and of justice that were characteristic of their rude and virile ancestors.

Such, though inadequately described, are the newly found Inuits of the Angmagsalik district of East Greenland, the sole surviving remnant of the untutored aborigines of the north polar lands. Their human evolution is of intense interest, as it has been worked out under adverse conditions of appalling desolation as regards their food and their travel, their dress and their shelter, their child-rearing and their social relations.

That the world knows the last of the missing polar tribes, and that this remote, primitive people is now being uplifted in the scale of humanity, must be credited to the resolute courage, the professional zeal, and, above all, to the sympathetic human qualities of Captain Holm and his faithful officers and assistants.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] See map on page 235.

[25] The data relative to this expedition is not available in English, but has been published in full in vol. IX, "Meddelelser om Gronland (Communications on Greenland)," in Danish text. With its generous policy the Danish Government has taken these natives under its fatherly protection, so that their future welfare is assured against exploitation, degradation, and early extinction.

[26] The wood was obtained from the drift-wood along the east coast, supposed to come from Asia, along the line of drift shown by the voyage of the _Fram_.

THE FIDELITY OF ESKIMO BRÖNLUND

"And truly he who here Hath run his bright career, And served men nobly, and acceptance found, And borne to light and right his witness high, What better could he wish than then to die?" --ARNOLD.

The Mylius-Erichsen arctic expedition of 1905 sailed for the east coast of Greenland in the ship _Danmark_, commanded by Captain Trolle, Danish Royal Navy. Its purpose was to continue the remarkable surveys of the Danish government by completing the coast-line of northeast Greenland. From its winter quarters at Cape Bismarck, 76° 14´ N., autumnal sledge parties established advance depots of supplies in order to facilitate the travel of its surveying party the following spring.

The field work was under charge of Mylius-Erichsen personally, a Danish explorer of ability and experience, already distinguished for successful work in northwestern Greenland. It was planned that near the eighty-second parallel of north latitude the main party should be divided, so as to complete the work that season. Lieutenant Koch was to outline the southeastern shore-lines of the land to the north of Greenland, while Mylius-Erichsen was to carry his surveys inland until they joined those of Peary, thus filling in the totally unknown regions of extreme northeastern Greenland.

This plan was carried out in the spring of 1906, the two parties separating at Northeast Cape, whence Koch struck courageously north on May 1, with food for fourteen days only. Game fortunately came to him and he was enabled to advance his country's colors to an unprecedentedly northern latitude for Denmark, 83.5° N., and by his explorations to complete the survey of the most northerly land of the globe--originally named Hazen Land, which is now known as Peary Land. The brilliant discoveries, tragic experiences, and heroic struggles of Mylius-Erichsen and his topographer Hagen, and the fidelity unto death of his Eskimo dog driver, Jörgen Brönlund, are briefly outlined in this narrative.

* * * * *

After the long winter of sunless days and bitter cold, it was with high hopes and cheery hearts that the long line of dog-drawn sledges followed Mylius-Erichsen as they wended their way northward at the end of March, 1907. With ten sledges and nearly a hundred dogs much was to be done by the resolute men who feared neither cold nor famine, the dangers of the sea-ice, or the hardships of the trail.

Their courage and strength were soon tested by difficulties and perils of unexpected character, for they thought to find the ordinary ice-foot along the shore, which could be followed inward or outward as the character of the ice dictated. But there was no ice-foot. Along Glacier Gulf for the distance of one hundred and forty miles the glacial ice-cap of Greenland, known usually as the _inland ice_, moves summer and winter--with unbroken vertical front, hundreds of feet in height--slowly but unceasingly into the Greenland Sea. Between the steady southward drift of the vast ice-fields from the Arctic Ocean and the seaward march of the glacier the shore ice was found to be of almost incredible roughness. Magnificent, and unequalled elsewhere in the world, was the sight of this towering sea-face, but scores upon scores of miles of ever-dominating ice-cliffs through their weeks of struggle grew to be unwelcome, so that their end at Lambert Land was hailed with joy.

Here came unexpected food, which did much to make the completion of the survey possible. As they were crossing the smooth fiord ice, Brönlund's keen and practised eye saw far shoreward tiny specks of moving animals, and he shouted loudly "_Nanetok!_" (A bear!). They proved to be two mother bears with cubs. In a trice the teams were stopped, the trace-toggles slipped from the few dogs that were used to bear-hunting, who started excitedly on the jump for the already fleeing game. Soon catching up with the lumbering animals, slow-moving on account of the cubs, the dogs, followed their usual tactics of nipping sharply the hind legs of the bear, who stops to drive off the dog or stumbles forward with the dog fast at his legs. Meantime Brönlund and Tobias, the two Eskimo dog drivers, quickly threw off the sledge loads on the floe and drove on with such speed that the hunters were soon within shot. The bears skinned and the dogs fed, the northward march was renewed in high spirits, for the slow travel had sadly reduced their food.

They were nearly in despair on reaching the south shore of Mount Mallemuk, as the open sea made it impossible to pass around it. With exhausting labor they finally were able to clamber up a projecting point of the seaward-flowing glacier, but their first supporting sledge here turned homeward.

Difficult as had been the ice and the glacier-scaling, they came to a real danger when around Mallemuk they were driven far out on the ocean in order to proceed northward, for the inland ice was impossible of passage and great areas of open water gave way slowly seaward to new ice. This was so thin that it bent and crackled as sledge after sledge tried in separate and fearsome order a passage that threatened to engulf them at any moment. Yet they came safely to Amdrup Land, 80° 43´ N., whence the last supporting party returned, charged to explore on their homeward journey the unknown fiords to the north of Lambert Land, where their spring discoveries of new lands had begun.

Pressing on after the return of the supporting sledges, Mylius-Erichsen was surprised and disappointed to find that the coast continued to trend to the northeast, and not to the northwest, as indicated by all charts since Peary crossed the inland ice to Navy Cliff. This northeasterly trend greatly increased the length of the journey needful to complete the survey of the entire east coast. Their equipment had been planned for the shorter distance, and it was evident that this forced détour would soon leave them without food for themselves or for their dogs unless more game should be found.

They thought that this extension would never end, but it was finally reached at Cape Northeast, 82° 30´ N., 12° W., no less than 22° of longitude to the eastward of Peary's location of the Greenland Sea in his discoveries of 1892 and 1895. The new cape was half-way between Navy Cliff and Spitzbergen, thus narrowing by one-half the largest connecting waterway of the Arctic and the Atlantic Oceans. It was a magnificent discovery, for which some of these explorers were to pay with their lives.

Mylius-Erichsen and Koch counselled seriously together, and well they might. They had been on the march more than a month; coming summer, with a disintegrating ice-pack, and the dreaded Mallemuk mountain precipices, sea-washed at their base, were to be faced on their homeward journey; and to crown all they had provisions for only fourteen days.

Imbued with the high Danish spirit, they duly weighed, with national calmness, the pros and the cons, only asking each other how and what, with their pitiful means, they could further do for the glory of Denmark. The heroic loyalty of both men found full expression in the decision that it was their bounden duty to go forward, and to finish the survey with which they were charged, regardless of possible dangers and personal privations. So Koch marched northward, while Mylius-Erichsen turned westward toward Navy Cliff, nearly two hundred miles distant. The westward explorations had been made much more important by the unexpected easterly extension of Greenland, which left a great gap in its northern shore-line that must at all hazards be surveyed. Starting with Topographer Hagen and the Greenlander dog driver, Brönlund, Erichsen reached a great inland fiord (Denmark), which he naturally took for the one charted by Peary as bordering the Greenland Sea. Though this détour carried him a hundred miles out of the direct route to Cape Riksdag, it was not wholly without results. Twenty-one musk-oxen were killed, which restored the strength of the dogs, whose gaunt frames already alarmed the party.

Here with astonishment they saw signs not alone of the beasts of the earth and the birds of the air, but everywhere were indications of their master--man himself. As they skirted such scanty bits of land as the inland ice had spared, they found along every bay or inlet proofs of former human life. There were huts and household utensils,--left as though suddenly,--circles of summer tents, fragments of kayaks and sledges, stone meat-caches, fox-traps, and implements of land hunt and sea chase, in which both reindeer and whales were in question. They were mighty hunters, these children of the ice, men of iron who inhabited the most northern lands of the earth, and had there lived where these white voyagers of heroic mould were destined to perish.

The signs of human life continued beyond Denmark Fiord to the very shores of Hagen Fiord, thus clearly establishing the route of migration over which the Eskimo of Arctic America or of the Bering Strait region had reached the east coast, and possibly West Greenland, coming from the north.[27]

The turning-point of Erichsen's fortunes came at Cape Riksdag, where he met Koch's party returning from the north. His discoveries and surveys of southeastern Hazen Land (Peary), where he reached 83° 30´ N., and his tales of game, encouraged Mylius-Erichsen to go on, though he had food for eight days only for the men, eleven for the dogs, and a few quarts of oil for cooking.

Another fiord (Hagen) was discovered, which proved fatal to the party, as Mylius-Erichsen felt that Navy Cliff, reported as overlooking the Greenland Sea, must surely be therein. He turned north on learning his error, only to eat his last food on June 4. He felt obliged to cover his mistake by going still to the west to Cape Glacier (Navy Cliff) yet 9° of longitude inland. Peary had there escaped starvation by large game, and Erichsen went forward knowing that without game death awaited him. Now and then they shot a polar hare, a bare mouthful for three starving men and twenty-three ravenous dogs. June 14, 1907, Mylius-Erichsen connected his surveys with Navy Cliff.[28] He had a right to a feeling of pride and of exultation, for his magnificent series of discoveries, covering 5° of latitude and 22° of longitude, completed the survey of northeastern Greenland. Thus had these adventurous men given tangible form to the hopes and aspirations that for so many years had stirred the imagination of Danish explorers. These discoveries had involved outward sledge journeys of more than seven hundred miles, although the party was only outfitted for a distance of three hundred and thirty miles.

Lieutenant Trolle tells us how startlingly sudden was the change from winter to summer at the _Danmark_, Cape Bismarck. "The temperature of the snow had risen to zero (32° Fahrenheit), and then in one day it all melted. The rivers were rushing along, flowers budding forth, and butterflies fluttering in the air. One day only the ptarmigan and raven, the next the sanderling, the ringed plover, geese, ducks, and others."

Mylius-Erichsen and his comrade had a similar experience just as they turned homeward. Almost in a day the snow-covering of the sea-floe vanished, as if by miracle. Here and there water-holes appeared--the dreadful fact was clear, the ice-floes were breaking up. Forced now to the coast-land, it was plain that return to their ship was no longer possible. They must summer in a barren, ice-capped land, and wait, if they could live so long, until the frosts of early autumn should re-form the great white highway of arctic travel.

Mylius-Erichsen hoped that the outlying valleys of his newly discovered Denmark Fiord would afford enough game to enable them to live, at least long enough to permit them to reach some one of their depots where they could deposit the records of their surveys. They reached the fiord about the end of July, but alas! the big game of the past spring was gone! Now and then they killed a stray musk-ox and, like famishing creatures, men and dogs ate for once their fill. Again and again food failed utterly, but when death came too near they killed, with sad hearts, one of their faithful dogs, until nine of them had been eaten.