Greenland by the Polar Sea

Front matter

BY THE POLAR SEA THE STORY OF THE THULE EXPEDITION FROM MELVILLE BAY TO CAPE MORRIS JESUP BY KNUD RASMUSSEN

TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH BY ASTA AND ROWLAND KENNEY

WITH PREFACE BY ADMIRAL SIR LEWIS BEAUMONT, G.C.B

Preface

"GREENLAND by the Polar Sea" is the story, now introduced to English readers, of Mr. Knud Rasmussen's last expedition to the Polar shores of North Greenland. He counts it as his Fourth Thule Expedition, which shows how active and persevering has been his exploration of North Greenland since 1910, when he first formed his base of operations, and a trading station, at North Star Bay, and gave it the name of Thule. Two of these remarkable expeditions were sledge journeys across the inland-ice to the north-eastern and northern coasts of Greenland which yielded valuable results, clearing up some geographical doubts, and practically linking up the eastern and western discoveries of former explorers. Knud Rasmussen may confidently be said to be a very special and exceptionally favoured explorer of these regions, for not only was he born in Greenland and lived there as a boy, but his life among the Greenlanders and Eskimos, his perfect knowledge of their language, his admiration of their character, courage, and loyalty, and his intense desire to be the historian of their origin, traditions, and future development have, in a large measure, inspired him with the explorer's enthusiasm and have made him feel it to be possible, with slender means and limited resources, to complete the work begun by the far more costly expeditions which have gone before. These advantages, however, would have availed nothing without Knud Rasmussen's own personal qualities as an explorer—every page of the narrative shows his high capacity and thoughtfulness as a commander, his resourcefulness and daring as a leader, and the splendid courage and power of endurance which carried him through a time of extreme trial and responsibility. It was his firm support and example which saved the party from death on the return journey.

To those readers who are not familiar with the physical conditions of the immense mass of land known as Greenland it may be of use to explain that the inhabitants of the larger south half are spoken of as Greenlanders and those to the north of Melville Bay as Polar Eskimos or Arctic Highlanders. The inland-ice forms a barrier between the two, so that communication between them can only be made by ship.

Never before has the Arctic Highlander been made known to us in such intimate detail and with such true and affectionate understanding of his life and character as Rasmussen here gives us; he speaks as one of them, who has lived their life and shared their experiences, and to whom, as a people, he has become deeply attached. No wonder then that never before has an explorer been rewarded with such unstinted and devoted service as he receives from them. It is well to make this point clear, which Rasmussen in his narrative so modestly accepts as natural and does not emphasize. Early expeditions in those regions used one or two Eskimos as hunters and dog-drivers, and gained their experience of Arctic life at great cost and with but small results. Peary, in his twenty-four years of patient and determined effort to discover the hidden secrets of the Polar Basin, advanced step by step to the knowledge of the Eskimo's character and the value of his hunting craft and wonderful travelling instinct, but Rasmussen alone has led an important and successful expedition equipped and conducted entirely in Eskimo fashion and maintained, in its long and adventurous journey, by Eskimo hunting. It is only such a combination of European leadership and skill, adapted to native craft and conditions, that could have made such an extended exploration possible to him. The interest of the narrative is great, and sustained at a high level by the literary charm of the descriptions and the unaffected light and shade which runs through the whole story. It is the mark of a leader to keep his party in good spirits; it is the duty of the historian to show upon whom fell the responsibility and the decisions in emergencies. It was right to call it a great adventure, but Rasmussen, in the spirit of the true explorer, says: "The risk one runs on such expeditions (when their lives depended upon the game found by hunting) was quite clear to me; but the mind never occupies itself with the dangers when one is setting out. Every Polar traveller is aware of his risks when he leaves his home to set foot on unknown shores; and thus it was also with us. All my comrades greeted my plans with enthusiasm, and every man was inspired with one thought only: the certainty of success." It was in this spirit that they set out.

Rasmussen's tribute to the work done by his predecessors in Arctic exploration is most generous and discriminating; he shows that he understood their difficulties, though they were not his in the same way, and what they accomplished he is eager to recognize and admire. They, or such of them as remain, in their turn are glad and ready to say that what he and his companions have added to the sum of Polar knowledge by their detailed mapping of the coast-lands—the fauna, flora, and geological formation of the north-western section of Greenland and its connection with the discoveries of the eastern coasts—has set the crown on the labours of those who have toiled before him in the same field, and that his fine achievement has for ever put him in the front rank of Polar explorers.

LEWIS BEAUMONT.

Introduction

IN the year 1910, at North Star Bay, in North Greenland, I founded an Arctic Station wherefrom I could explore the regions which as yet had not been closely examined. The first result from this station was the first Thule Expedition. The various expeditions which subsequently went out with this station as their base I have therefore named after the station, Thule.

On the first Thule Expedition in 1912, when the route was laid across the inland-ice of Greenland from Clements Markham Glacier in the mouth of Inglefield Gulf on the west coast to Denmark Fjord on the east coast, we forced our way through Independence Fjord into the land connecting Greenland and Peary Land, and by charting we established that the channel which Robert E. Peary thought he had discovered between Independence Fjord on the north-east side and Nordenskjöld Inlet on the north-west side was non-existent.

Because of the long journey, more than 1,000 kilometres across the inland-ice, and the conditions which made progress difficult in the neighbourhood of Denmark Fjord, we did not succeed in pushing quite through from the recently discovered Adam Biering Land to the vicinity of Nordenskjöld Inlet and Sherard Osborne Fjord. At the time when the decision to commence the return journey was made we had spent more than four months of incessant and very strenuous journeying through unknown regions, and out of consideration both for. ourselves and our dogs we found it necessary to attempt the homeward journey across the inland-ice to my station Thule by North Star Bay, and postpone the exploration of the unknown districts of Greenland until the time when the work could be recommenced with renewed strength.

In the winter of 1914 the first attempt to realize our plans was made, with Peter Freuchen, my cartographer of the first Thule Expedition, as chief; but a fall through a glacier crevasse during the ascent on to the inland-ice forced him to turn back, and later on, owing to his theodolite having been destroyed by the fall, it had been impossible for him to get away.

Meanwhile this expedition stood like an unredeemed pledge from my Arctic Station, and as, for various practical reasons, it must be finished with before I commenced my ethnographical voyage to the American Eskimos (the fifth Thule Expedition—the Danish Expedition to the Arctic North America), which would last several years, I decided to make an attempt to realize it in the year 1916.

It will be the main object of this expedition to survey and chart the last unknown reach of Greenland's north coast on the stretch between St. George Fjord and de Long Fjord. We shall, of course, with special keenness penetrate into the connecting land between Nordenskjöld Inlet and Independence Fjord.

The survey of the districts to which we are going will, in addition to the geographical result, present very interesting ethnographical problems, as it will be of importance to the theory of the Eskimos' wanderings to establish whether or not in the above-mentioned big fjords Eskimo winter-houses are to be found. As is known, tent-rings have been found in Peary Land, but never winter-houses. The northern border of the winter-houses is, on the east coast of North Greenland, Sophus Müller Point and Eskimo Point, respectively in Amdrup and Holm Land, whilst the northern border on the west coast is the vicinity of Humboldt's Glacier and Lake Hazen in Grant Land. Thus, for a complete knowledge of the Eskimos' wanderings, an examination of the great fjords on Greenland's north coast is wanting.

Of the geological tasks which the expedition may be faced with, I will merely mention the following: Whilst the whole of Western and Eastern Greenland during the last century has been geologically surveyed by various expeditions, the stretch from Sherard Osborne Fjord to Peary Land, with the latter's unknown fjords, still stands as the missing link between the east and the west coast; until these regions have been examined no complete picture of Greenland can be formed. And just as the coasts and fjords up here at the northern extremity are still waiting to be charted, so the keystone of the journeys of geological exploration can only be laid through an examination of these regions.

In addition to the work which I have now outlined, careful meteorological diaries will be kept during the whole of the expedition, and botanical and zoological collections will be made.

This expedition, as the first Thule Expedition, will throughout be equipped in Eskimo fashion, so that we can live by hunting whilst at the same time we attend to our scientific interests.

The expense is met by my station Thule, which is controlled by a committee consisting of—

Ingeniör M. Ib. Nyeboe, Chairman.

Grosserer Chr. Erichsen.

Lektor Chr. Rasmussen.

The scientific work which is being done, and which also in the future will be done, from this station has made it desirable that we should be in more direct communication with scientists, wherefore a scientific committee has been formed, consisting of—

Professor Dr. phil. H. Jungersen.

Kaptajn I. P. Koch.

Professor O. B. Böggild.

Professor H. P. Steensby.

Museumsinspektör, Dr. phil. C. H. Ostenfeld.

Originally I had intended to undertake this expedition with only one companion, the Danish geologist Lauge Koch, M.A. We left Copenhagen on the 1st of April, 1916, and reached Thule by the middle of June, but continual storms and uncommonly difficult travelling conditions forced us to postpone the journey until the following spring. Meanwhile, in the course of the summer the old expedition ship the Danmark called at my station on its way to Etah to fetch the American Crockerland Expedition, which for several years had wintered there. On board this ship was a Swedish scientist, Dr. Thorild Wulff, whose original field of labour comprised only the districts round Smith Sound and Melville Bay; but when Dr. Wulff heard that we had postponed our expedition until the following year, he announced himself with great enthusiasm as a fellow-member for the sledge journey in the spring.

His name as a botanist, and his expert knowledge of the Arctic flora, made it a matter of course that he should be accepted as a member of the proposed expedition to regions which had never been visited by experts.

The expedition then wintered at my station Thule, being constantly in training by sledge journeys, which reached to Etah in the north and right down to Upernivik in the south. It will merely lead to a repetition of the experience of other expeditions if I describe our excursions during the period whilst we were waiting for the light—that is, from October to February. And as it cannot be presumed that all who may read this book know anything about the Polar Eskimos, I will instead attempt to give a sketch of the people whose ways of finding a subsistence and whose travelling technique was the base on which we built our great journey.

With occasional breaks I have lived with this people—the Arctic Highlanders—since 1903, and I have learned to love them as highly as I admire their remarkable ability to live the life of these harsh regions. But first it will be appropriate to give an account of my expedition and its plan.

The scientific equipment of the expedition was very simple—as is necessary for a long sledge journey. It consisted of one theodolite, three aneroid barometers, one cooking barometer, one maximal and two minimal thermometers, various spirit and mercury thermometers, one anemometer, and one hygrometer. Finally, Dr. Wulff brought everything necessary for pressing and preserving plants.

During the preparations for this journey, the seriousness of which none of us under-estimated, I made out on the 14th of February a written agreement which was signed by all. Only the following extract will be of interest, the remainder relating to routes and dispositions which will be self-evident later on:

"Although it is quite clear to me that it is very difficult previous to a start to specify an Expedition in sections, I have found it necessary to do this so that you, my comrades, may have some fixed point for the planning of the various parts of the work to be carried out.

"The Expedition will consist of—

Dr. Thorild Wulff, Botanist and Biologist.

Lauge Koch, Geologist and Cartographer.

Hendrik Olsen, previously a member of the Danmark Expedition.

Ajako.

Nasaitsordluarsuk, called Bosun.

Inukitsoq, called Harrigan.

And myself, as Chief and Ethnographer to the Expedition.

"In a previously presented plan all the tasks have already been worked out.

"As regards dispositions of journeys and routes I am absolute Chief. But I will, of course, within the domain of your respective professions, grant you all the freedom which circumstances may permit, and you will also, as often as your work may demand, be exempted from hunting.

"I wish beforehand to emphasize that during the Expedition there must be no difference in standing between the Eskimos and ourselves, the Eskimos being members of the Expedition with equal rights and duties to the scientists, and no man but the leader must have command over them."

Several large expeditions richly equipped had already been to the regions we were to visit; but none of them had succeeded in acquiring a thorough knowledge of the country—this despite the fact that due to its position it must contain the key to many problems decisive for the exploration and history of Greenland.

The explanation is this: The distances between the fields of labour are immense; the conditions of the ground are bad; and in the fjords there is bottomless snow. For these reasons those who have visited this district with what is called good equipment could not get ahead. Their heavy baggage did not permit them to get about, and they always preferred to follow the route along the Polar-ice proper, some distance from land, where the going was firm.

In other words, that which under all other circumstances was to be looked upon as a decided advantage, rich and good equipment, is here a weight which does not permit the explorer to move as quickly as the travelling season demands.

Those who were to attempt the completion of the charting of Greenland must therefore break entirely with the general practice of expeditions, and completely rely upon the hunt. Only this will make light sledges capable of forcing their way through the snow into the deep fjords.

Thus for us there was no alternative. All the tasks we had set ourselves were weighty and important, and as long as they remained undone the exploration of Greenland could not be considered accomplished.

This work fell within the International North Pole route, which hitherto only the big nations had dared to attempt.

The outlines of our work, however, were drawn by our predecessors, and we therefore knew beforehand that we could not expect any great geographical surprises; it was only the crumbs from the table of the rich expeditions we were to gather, and the rôle we were to play would be comparable to that of the little Polar fox, which everywhere on the Arctic coast follows the footsteps of the big ice-bear, hoping that something good may be left for it.

But our task was not an ungrateful one, for we came to lift the stones which the others had let lie.

From our base at Thule the distance we had to cover to Sherard Osborne Fjord was 1,000 kilometres, whilst our predecessors, with their ships in winter harbour in Lady Franklin Bay and Cape Sheridan, had merely had to go 300 kilometres. For the above-mentioned distance we would have sufficient provisions, but after that our hunt for food must begin.

The experiences I had gained in 1912 during the first Thule Expedition gave me the right to assume that such a plan could be justified. The game I particularly reckoned on musk-ox, to be found in the extensive tracts of land which the American maps show round the fjords and their heads. Further, there were seals. The Polar Eskimos who, during Peary's expeditions, had traversed the mouths of the fjords, had told me that the ice here was of such a quality that one could with certainty reckon on seals in June and July; breathing-holes were not infrequently observed. This information, added to my own experiences from Independence Fjord, where in a similar geographical position we found many seals, finally decided me.

The risk one runs on such hunting expeditions was quite clear to me; but the mind never occupies itself with the dangers when one is setting out. Every Polar traveller is aware of his risks when he leaves his home to set foot on unknown shores; and thus it was also with us. All my comrades greeted my plans with enthusiasm, and every man was inspired with one thought only the certainty of success.

KNUD RASMUSSEN.

Chapter 1

NORTH of everyone on our earth live the Polar Eskimos, whose simple and ingenious ways of hunting have made of their harsh and barren country one of those oases in the world where live genuinely happy people.

The first historical information we possess about their country dates from the year 1616, when Baffin discovered it. He, however, did not see any people, and it was only in 1818. that John Ross came into touch with Eskimo people of whom one had never heard before.

A memory still remains amongst the tribe of a woman named Maage (Gull), who prophesied that a big boat with tall poles would come into view from the ocean. And sure enough, one summer's day, just as the winter-ice broke and steep Cape York lay separated from the sea merely by a narrow strip of ice, the ship arrived and lay to by the edge of the ice. It was a marvel of ingenuity—a whole island of wood which moved along the sea on wings, and in its depths had many houses and rooms full of noisy people. Little boats hung along the rail, and these, filled with men, were lowered on the water, and as they surrounded the ship it looked as if the monster gave birth to living young.

This visit at first caused great anxiety and fear among the Eskimos, but later much joy. They did not believe that the white men were real human beings, but looked upon them as spirits of the air who had come down to the Inuits. The ship remained only for a short time, then turned towards the sea with the sun shining on its white wings and disappeared into the horizon.

Ross's visit to the simple and unprepared Eskimos certainly caused a stir, and I will therefore supplement the above phantastic narrative with something of that which is related in the Record of the Expedition.

It is told that the ship was lying alongside the edge of the ice when suddenly, to the surprise of everybody on board, on the ice were discovered beings in human likeness, dressed in pelts and with long, black hair flowing from their heads. With strange gestures they ran by the side of their dog-sledges. They were quite close to the ship when the big white sails were manoeuvred; and the result of this was a sudden about-turn and a scampering towards land in apparent fright.

A couple of days elapsed, during which every possible effort was made from the ship for getting into communication with the Eskimos, but without success. In his despair Ross at last had a huge standard erected by an ice-mountain between the coast and the ship; from this he hung a flag, whereon the sun and moon were painted above a hand which held out a heather plant. Furthermore, a bag of gifts hung from the staff.

This clever trick was, unfortunately, not well received. If the Eskimos had been frightened before, they were now terror-stricken with this mystic staff and its fluttering flag, which they obviously considered to be some dangerous ruse of war. Out of curiosity they circled round it for awhile, but having scanned for a sufficiently long period the strange signs and the friendly outstretched hand, they disappeared hurriedly towards land.

When this attempt miscarried a white flag was hoisted on the mainmast of the ship, and at the same time Sachæus was sent out on the ice with a small white flag in his hand. But the Eskimos did not appear to have any understanding of the peaceful purport of these manoeuvres, and the probability is that these sagacious experiments, which would merely have frightened and confounded the Eskimos still more, would have continued if Sachæus had not shown himself a master of the situation and asked Ross for permission to go to the kinsmen of his tribe, alone and unarmed. By this means communication was at last established.

The great meeting between the Polar Eskimos and the South-Greenlander took place by a broad fissure in the ice, so that they stood right opposite each other, with a natural obstacle between them for safety's sake.

Sachæus explained, not without trouble, that a peaceful people had come to them, and the Eskimos were just on the point of consenting to follow him on board, when Ross, who of course was eager to meet these strange men, suddenly appeared on the ice in his officer's full dress uniform, as given in the illustration of this scene in the Record of the Expedition. This phantastic apparition of a man nearly frightened the Eskimos away again; but as the friendship with Sachæus had already begun, and as he explained to the marvelling natives that this peculiar dress was merely an outward sign of the fact that the big man was lord of all white peoples, they let themselves be calmed down and followed him on board.

It is highly praiseworthy of the Eskimos that they, in spite of all the inexplicable things they saw, allowed themselves to be coaxed on board and, in the Chief's cabin with Sachæus as interpreter, to give wise and dignified answers to the many questions that were put to them. Imagine the impression they must have received when, presumably to amuse them, a grunting Scotch pig was let loose on deck—these men who were only used to wild animals! Or when they were treated to a conjurer's performance, and allowed to look at themselves in a concave mirror!

It is interesting to note that Ross sums up his impressions of them by stating that they all speak lovingly of each other and their families, and on the whole seem to live happily, without knowledge of disease and war.

Already as a child I had in Greenland heard much about the Polar Eskimos, but it was mostly vague tales of savage cannibals, terrible hunters who lived with the North Wind himself, right at the "end of the world," where it was always night and where no summer melted the ice of the seas.

"I must go to those people," I decided as a twelve-year-old boy, and this decision, which later on I never succeeded in slinking away from, has, through repeatedly staying among them, led, so to say, to my reception into the tribe as one of their own, as a friend and fellow-hunter.

No hunter exists up there with whom I have not hunted, and there is hardly a child whose name I do not know; but then, the tribe consists of no more than about 250 individuals.

These men, who have no fixed abode but live, as does their prey, ever on the move, are born Arctic explorers. From childhood they are hardened by an unmerciful cold, and their means of livelihood exposes them almost daily to severe physical strain and sudden dangers which sharpen their presence of mind and make their contempt of death a matter of course, the consequence being that they are unsurpassed as companions on Arctic Expeditions.

Kane, Hayes, Hall, Nares, Peary, the Crockerlands Expedition, and, last, but not least, I myself recognized this, and through these expeditions, comprising all those which during the last seventy-five years have explored and charted the northernmost parts of our earth, the Eskimos have in different ways done their share, which must not be undervalued.

In this record, however, I will dwell especially on Peary, because his Arctic travels represent a chapter of the history of the Polar Eskimos.

The Eskimos owe not a little to Peary, but, on the other hand, without their help Peary's name might have been less famous than it is now; for they followed him on all his expeditions, left home and country and kind and put their whole existence at stake in realizing the phantastic travelling schemes of a foreign man.

The way in which the Eskimos risk their lives, when once they have promised a man their assistance, for the solution of problems, wherein they themselves often see merely manifesta- tions of the many queer ideas of the strange white men, shows plainly their absolute contempt of death, and what an abundance of courage they possess.

They are not of the type which, like dogs, put their tails between their legs and run off when they meet dangers and the eternal hopelessness of pressure-ice.

The Eskimos are a roaming people, always longing for a change and a surprise-a people which likes moving about in search of fresh hunting-grounds, fresh possibilities, and "hidden things."

They are born with the explorer's inclinations and thirst for knowledge; and they possess all those qualities which go to make an explorer in those latitudes.

When an Eskimo family moves on to new ground, in a surprisingly short time it knows the surroundings for miles around—paths, short-cuts, plains, mountains, all the natural features which a hunter must know so that he may track down his prey. They study the inland-ice and find places of easy ascent and sledge routes to other coasts and new chances. Soon the sea has no secrets regarding the movements and favourite haunts of its animals.

On the whole, the hunter likes to leave the old ways for the stimulating excitement which accompanies seeking and hunting under strange conditions. And he also knows how to value this quality and this inclination in others.

I shall never forget the happy sensation created among the hunters of the tribe when, in the spring of 1907, I drove up to them with Osarqaq and declared that I was on my way to Ellesmere Land. I had never seen a musk-ox, and now I had a longing to taste musk-ox meat. You see, according to their opinion there must always be a sensible reality behind one's actions. Oh, how well they understood me! They knew that it was "two suns" since I left my country and my family, and that I was still on the road with the same goal constantly in view. They respected that. I felt happy and touched when an old necromancer, Masaitsiaq, greeted me with a call to the effect that it was good that in my own country I had not for- gotten the hunting circle of my old comrades; and then he declared that all the young hunters of the tribe would vie with each other in showing me the country which I had never seen before and the animals which I had never slain before. And everything happened according to his promise. Two of the best men in the tribe immediately declared that they would come. No considerations here, and no preparations; an Eskimo is always equipped for a long voyage. On the following morning we set out on the 1,250 miles long sledge journey, and hunted together for several months and shared the strangest experiences. And we travelled together as comrades, as equals; they would take no payment for the long time they were with me, away from their families; no, this was merely an episode in their lives, and they would certainly not be my paid servants.

In the same way they took part in Peary's voyages, so long as he travelled on land. It is therefore interesting to note the position they took up when the Polar voyage itself commenced. During the first expeditions they agreed with pleasure to go north, because they thought that the voyage might result in meeting with new people, in the discovery of new hunting-grounds, or, at any rate, of land fit for habitation. But later on, when they were told that they risked their lives for a geographical point only, a point somewhere in the desert of pressure-ice where neither men, nor game, nor land existed, then the toil seemed to them so utterly aimless that their participation now required entirely fresh motives. Partly there was the respect for Peary—I have often been told that "he asked with so strong a will to gain his wish, that it was impossible to say no"; partly, also, there was the wish to possess guns, wood, and knives which were the payment for participation. But their personal interest to reach the goal, their private ambition to arrive there, no longer existed. For twenty years Peary had seen among the Polar Eskimos the base of his expedition, and during this short period these people had jumped from the stone age to the present time in their technical civilization.