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Authors: Jennifer Niven
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the way out. Somewhere along the way, Beuchat took a tumble into the water and had to be carried back in the umiak.
B Y LATE A UGUST it was clear that the men of the Karluk were trapped. The seventeen-degree-Fahrenheit temperature seemed even more bitterly cold. The imprisoned ship was drowning in snow. The wind blasted them from all directions, forever shifting and changing course. Inside the Karluk, they were warm, but the air was close and stale. The world around them was vast and wideâopen sky, ice as far as the eye could see in all directions, nothing to obstruct their view of that boundless, frozen wonderland. But they began to feel claustrophobic. They felt smothered by the ice, as if it were not only compressing the sides of their ship, but constricting their throats, and the breath in their lungs.
âHow long will 57 this continue?â wrote McKinlay. âThis . . . inactivity is becoming unbearable. The ice even reflects the general state of affairs; there is not the slightest sign of movement in it. The small patches of open water have frozen up & all is as still & quiet as death. In the minds of all is the unuttered question, âWhen will things change?â Will the change come soon? If not, ours will be a tame start; hard luck to be stuck thus early. But hope springsâ.â
T HE WEATHER AND THE ICE conditions were growing worse every day. It was too late in the season, too late in the year to hope for a clear passage. Even Stefansson had to acknowledge this. There was no doubt in anyoneâs mind now that they would be imprisoned by the ice for the winter.
Everyone was aware of the hopelessness of the situation, but no one knew exactly what it meant for them or for the expedition, nor did they know what they could expect. They were not afraid, but the wait and the uncertainty were unsettling. On August 31, Bartlett and Mamen had a quiet talk on the ice about it all, just the two of them. Everyone else remained confined to the ship. The sky lit up briefly that night with the first auroral display they had seen. But it was very faint, just an ephemeral glimpse of color in all of that whiteness.
T HE ESKIMOS UNDERSTOOD the gravity of their situation in a way that the scientists and crew did not. Borrowing a piece of writing paper from McKinlay, Kataktovik wrote a letter to a friend in Point Barrow, even though he had no idea if it would ever be mailed. He missed his home, and more than that, he was frightened. He asked his friend to pray for him, that he might get out of this safely.
âWhen will you 58 prayerâs to God & Jesus help to me,â he said. âPlease you tell my daughterâs good her, & like to my daughter very much. Sometime I sorry & sometime happy to God & Jesus if you like to believe to God & Jesus. I like to believe to God & Jesus very much.â
September 1913
Goodbye, Stefansson. 1 We did not then know that those of us who were left on your luckless ship were not to see you again.
âF RED M AURER, FIREMAN
S tefansson was growing more and more restless. Here and there, a lead would open in the ice around them, but the Karluk was held fast by the mile-and-a-half-wide floe that now entrapped her; the crew was helpless, unable to do anything but watch the open water and sit there. The ice was thickening, deepening, the whiteness stretching far across and extending far beneath the oceanâs encrusted surface.
Stefansson hated being held prisoner by the ice. He could never sit still and he seldom slept. He worried that someone would beat him to his mysterious, undiscovered continent.
Meanwhile, Bartlett began rationing their coal oil and kerosene, which were already running low, because their full supply was stowed aboard the Mary Sachs . He called âlights outâ now at midnight, to conserve fuel. The days were growing shorter and darker, and the lamp in the saloon was lit for the first time, signifying the advent of winter.
The captain
B Y LATE A UGUST it was clear that the men of the Karluk were trapped. The seventeen-degree-Fahrenheit temperature seemed even more bitterly cold. The imprisoned ship was drowning in snow. The wind blasted them from all directions, forever shifting and changing course. Inside the Karluk, they were warm, but the air was close and stale. The world around them was vast and wideâopen sky, ice as far as the eye could see in all directions, nothing to obstruct their view of that boundless, frozen wonderland. But they began to feel claustrophobic. They felt smothered by the ice, as if it were not only compressing the sides of their ship, but constricting their throats, and the breath in their lungs.
âHow long will 57 this continue?â wrote McKinlay. âThis . . . inactivity is becoming unbearable. The ice even reflects the general state of affairs; there is not the slightest sign of movement in it. The small patches of open water have frozen up & all is as still & quiet as death. In the minds of all is the unuttered question, âWhen will things change?â Will the change come soon? If not, ours will be a tame start; hard luck to be stuck thus early. But hope springsâ.â
T HE WEATHER AND THE ICE conditions were growing worse every day. It was too late in the season, too late in the year to hope for a clear passage. Even Stefansson had to acknowledge this. There was no doubt in anyoneâs mind now that they would be imprisoned by the ice for the winter.
Everyone was aware of the hopelessness of the situation, but no one knew exactly what it meant for them or for the expedition, nor did they know what they could expect. They were not afraid, but the wait and the uncertainty were unsettling. On August 31, Bartlett and Mamen had a quiet talk on the ice about it all, just the two of them. Everyone else remained confined to the ship. The sky lit up briefly that night with the first auroral display they had seen. But it was very faint, just an ephemeral glimpse of color in all of that whiteness.
T HE ESKIMOS UNDERSTOOD the gravity of their situation in a way that the scientists and crew did not. Borrowing a piece of writing paper from McKinlay, Kataktovik wrote a letter to a friend in Point Barrow, even though he had no idea if it would ever be mailed. He missed his home, and more than that, he was frightened. He asked his friend to pray for him, that he might get out of this safely.
âWhen will you 58 prayerâs to God & Jesus help to me,â he said. âPlease you tell my daughterâs good her, & like to my daughter very much. Sometime I sorry & sometime happy to God & Jesus if you like to believe to God & Jesus. I like to believe to God & Jesus very much.â
September 1913
Goodbye, Stefansson. 1 We did not then know that those of us who were left on your luckless ship were not to see you again.
âF RED M AURER, FIREMAN
S tefansson was growing more and more restless. Here and there, a lead would open in the ice around them, but the Karluk was held fast by the mile-and-a-half-wide floe that now entrapped her; the crew was helpless, unable to do anything but watch the open water and sit there. The ice was thickening, deepening, the whiteness stretching far across and extending far beneath the oceanâs encrusted surface.
Stefansson hated being held prisoner by the ice. He could never sit still and he seldom slept. He worried that someone would beat him to his mysterious, undiscovered continent.
Meanwhile, Bartlett began rationing their coal oil and kerosene, which were already running low, because their full supply was stowed aboard the Mary Sachs . He called âlights outâ now at midnight, to conserve fuel. The days were growing shorter and darker, and the lamp in the saloon was lit for the first time, signifying the advent of winter.
The captain
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