Greenland Icefields and Life in the North Atlantic

Front matter

Scene on the shore of Greenland. Native carrying his kayak.

Copyright, 1896, By D. Appleton and Company.

Preface

PREFACE.

The immediate impulse to the preparation of this volume arose in connection with a trip to Greenland taken on the steamer Miranda with an excursion party organized by Dr. F. A. Cook in the summer of 1894. While preparing to make the most of this excursion, much difficulty was encountered in collecting the facts which one would most like to know concerning this mysterious land. The varied and exciting fortunes of the Miranda, while not sufficient to form the frame-work of a volume, were still of no small value in giving vividness to one's conceptions of the unique conditions of the country, enabling one who shared them to enter with better understanding into the descriptions given by others, and to combine them into a more satisfactory general view. Upon some points, also, our observations furnished a positive enlargement to our knowledge of the country. Since, therefore, numerous references will be made to incidents in our voyage, it will be profitable here to give a brief sketch of the fortunes of the expedition.

On the 7th of July, 1894, the party, consisting of fifty-one, besides the officers and crew, set sail from New York in the Miranda, an iron steamship two hundred and twenty feet long and of eleven hundred tons burden. After stopping at Sydney, Nova Scotia, and St. John's, Newfoundland, we steamed out of the latter place on the evening of July 10th, aiming to touch upon the coast of Labrador, to leave a portion of our party, and a few native Eskimos who had been at the Columbian Exposition.

Everything went well up to the morning of the 17th, when, during a dense fog, the steamer ran directly into an iceberg; but the injury proving to he entirely above the water line, we made our way to Cape Charles Harbour, on the coast of Labrador, about fifteen miles distant, where our engineer and carpenter were able to make such temporary repairs that we could return to St. John's and readjust our plans. Here new iron plates were substituted for those which had been injured, and everything was put in good condition, so that on the 28th of July we decided to sail directly for southern Greenland. On the 3d of August the mountains in the vicinity of Frederikshaab came in view, but ice prevented our reaching land. Steaming slowly west and north as the fog permitted us until the morning of August 7th, we found a clear passage open to a broad bay, which proved to be the harbour of Sukkertoppen, the largest, and in many respects the most interesting, of the Eskimo settlements upon the coast.

The captain decided to remain here two days, which afforded me, with a small party, opportunity to make an excursion in small boats a considerable distance up one of the fiords which set back from this point toward the inland ice. On the morning of the 9th we started for the north, hoping to reach Disco and to visit the Jakobshavn glacier; but it was now too late in the season to think of carrying out our original plan of going still farther north, and reaching Peary's headquarters in Inglefield Gulf. And, now, even these more modest hopes were rudely dashed, by our steamer's running upon a reef about seven miles out, compelling us to return to Sukkertoppen in a disabled condition. In certain conditions of the water we should have passed safely over, but heavy swells caused the steamer to strike the rocks several times, and injured the bottom under the ballast tank near the middle of the vessel.

Hearing that some fishing schooners had been soon somewhere in the vicinity of Holsteinborg, small boats were despatched in that direction for assistance. As ten days must elapse before their return would be possible, opportunity was given me for a longer and more satisfactory expedition into the interior. The time was improved by an excursion to Ikamiut, a miserable Eskimo settlement a few miles from the head of a fiord into which there enters a great glacier projecting from the inland ice.

Upon returning to Sukkertoppen, the schooner Rigel, under command of Captain George W. Dixon, of Glou- cester, Massachusetts, came to our relief. As the exact amount of damage to the Miranda was difficult to determine, the captain entertained the hope that she might be able to steam back to Labrador, but the hazard was too great to venture without a convoy. The members of the party were therefore all transferred to the Rigel, which was only a hundred feet long and of a hundred tons burden. Everything but the bare necessities was left upon the Miranda. We were, of course, very much crowded upon the schooner, but the captain and crew were so cordial in their services, and the relief was so grateful, that every one was contented and happy. The prospect of having to winter in Greenland was the less endurable from the fact that our provisions would be sufficient for only about two months; and the stock of civilized food in the place was so small, that before the middle of winter we should all be reduced to the native diet of uncooked fish, raw meat, and blubber.

On the 21st of August we set out for home, with the Miranda taking the Rigel in tow, but at the end of thirty-six hours, at midnight, when we were 300 miles from land and the sea was rolling heavily, the leak in the Miranda started anew, and she sounded the signal of distress, informing us that it was necessary to abandon her, and that we should lie to with the cable with which we were towed still attached until the officers and the crew could be transferred to the schooner.

The scenes of the next few hours were the experience of a lifetime. With a man standing ready to cut the cable in case the Miranda should suddenly go down, we tossed about upon the waves for three hours, awaiting the approach of the first boat load from the steamer. At length it arrived, and, after the exercise of an infinite amount of labor and skill, was safely brought alongside, and the men upon it transferred to the deck of our stanch schooner. Others followed, until after another hour and a half we heaved a sigh of relief when the last man was on board and not a life had been lost. On leaving the Miranda, Captain Farrell bad shipped the cable, so that she could drift away from us, and we took our last look at the unfortunate vessel. The lights were still burning, the smoke was issuing from her chimneys, the pumps were still vigorously at work, and the wheel was still turning. Thus, with nearly all our personal effects and treasures on board, she steamed off to her lonely fate in the mist and darkness of that boisterous sea, while we directed our course for the southern coast of Labrador.

There were now ninety-one of us on board the little schooner, which was calculated for the accommodation of only twenty. After twelve days of various vicissitudes wo reached Sydney in safety, and the perils and discomforts of our journey were over. So far as our experiences enabled us to add to the knowledge of the regions visited, and seemed to be of general interest, they have in their appropriate place been worked into the various chapters of the book.

In the preparation of the volume I have been happy in having the aid of Mr. Warren Upham, with whom I have been closely associated in glacial investigations ever since we worked together on the New Hampshire Geological Survey in 1876. His continuous labours in investigating the glacial phenomena of New England and the Northwest, his minute knowledge of natural history, and his wide study of the literature of the subject, give great weight to the conclusions to which he has arrived upon the theoretical questions connected with the Glacial period and its relation to existing ice-fields. Mr. Upham has drafted the series of maps here used and has prepared chapters viii to xiv, but in every part of the volume we have co-operated with each other, and availed ourselves of each other's knowledge.

In conclusion, I must express my obligations to Professor William H. Brewer, and Messrs. George W. Gardner, Walter S. Root, A. R. Thompson, James D. Dewell, R. Kersting, J. R. Fordyee, and Drs. R. O. Stebbins, F. A. Cook, and J. F. Vallé, for the use of photographs taken by them during our excursion. The illustrations obtained from Professor T. C. Chamberlin were first published in the Bulletin of the Geological Society of America for February, 1895, and are used by permission of that society.

Grateful acknowledgements are dne, also, to Judge Henry C. White, of Cleveland, Ohio, for the use of his large collection of books upon Arctic and Antarctic explorations.

G. Frederick Wright.

Oberlin, Ohio, November, 1895.

Contents

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Inset Maps.

The Ice of the Labrador Current

Greenland Icefields.

CHAPTER I.

The Ice of the Labrador Current.

The ice of Greenland is incessantly travelling both by land and sea, and is ever ready to meet the tourist and the explorer far down toward the middle of the Atlantic. In the early summer, Greenland icebergs in gorgeous array display themselves along the track of the great steamers plying between New York and all the northern European ports, and sometimes float even as far south as the latitude of Washington and Lisbon before being dissolved by the genial temperature of the tropical winds and the Gulf Stream. On June 18, 1842, a straggling iceberg, one hundred feet in height and one hundred and seventy in breadth, was found in latitude 38° 40′, which is not far from that of southern Spain. As one advances north, these majestic objects increase both in number and size with every day's progress. Stranded icebergs in the vicinity of St. John's, Newfoundland, are a frequent object of interest to the tourists who enter that port, while sometimes the harbour is for a considerable time obstructed by such unwelcome visitors.

The 16th of July, 1894, was a beautiful day. The sea was calm, the sky was clear, the graceful shores of

Fig. 1—Iceberg stranded at the entrance of St. John's Harbour, July 15, 1894.

Newfoundland stood out sharply upon the horizon from morning till night; but most inspiring of all was the constant procession of icebergs which the steamship Miranda and her passengers were meeting the entire day. The size of many of these bergs was enormous, and their shapes were often fantastic and beautiful in the extreme. One, which we attempted to measure, was estimated by the best judges to have pinnacles which rose more than seven hundred feet above the water. The area of its base must have been as much as ten or twelve acres, or as large as that of the largest of the pyramids of Egypt. For more than thirty miles this huge object continued to tower upon our vision in lonely solitude far up above the watery horizon. If the shape of it had been regular, this would have implied an enormous depth below the water, since the specific gravity of glacial ice is such that about seven cubic feet are below water to one above; but in this case the visible part of the berg was much wasted by the joint action of rain, sun, wind, and waves, while the submerged base was greatly extended as compared with the portion which was above the water. What at first seemed to be one gigantic pyramid, proved, as we shifted our position, to be two or three towers, separated by long spaces, yet rising from a common broad base of blue ice below the water. Over this submerged portion the waves were dashing as on a sunken reef of rocks. The general appearance reminded one of the ruined cathedral at Utrecht, whose tower stands on one side of the street and the choir upon the other, the vast nave having disappeared, as the result of some accident, centuries ago. In the course of the day bergs of every imaginable form passed by us, or rather we passed by them, for their motion was inconsiderable. Their beauty of color was also indescribably diversified. The surface was the pure white of newly fallen snow; the perpendicular face, where fresh, was the deepest azure, and whore not fresh was intersected by numerous scams of blue; while the base, whore partly obscured by water, shaded into a delicate green.

Fig. 2—The most majestic iceberg seen off the coast of Labrador.

Sixty bergs of large size were sometimes in view from the deck of our steamer at once. They were specially numerous near the Strait of Belle Isle, toward which the Labrador current is attracted by the opening into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In this vicinity they are always a serious obstacle to navigation; while the danger is increased during the early part of the summer by the presence of extensive masses of floe ice, which, though less conspicuous, are more dangerous than their gigantic companions. On the island of Belle Isle the Canadian Government has built a lighthouse—the most northern on the eastern coast of America—and has established life-saving stations and stored supplies of food, both to encourage commerce to take the most direct route from the St. Lawrence to Liverpool, and to afford relief to the many hapless navigators that are sure to meet with disaster in those treacherous waters.

Fig. 3—A more distant view of the same.

A friend who was sailing from Quebec to Liverpool in the early part of July, 1884, informs me that his steamer was detained in the ice for two or three days near the entrance to the strait; while another, who had taken passage from Glasgow to St. John's, Newfoundland, on one of the Allan line of steamers, was caught amid the icebergs in a fog about one hundred miles east of the latter place, and detained in that hazardous condition from Monday until Thursday before the weather cleared sufficiently to render it safe to complete the passage. These experiences were by no means extraordinary.

On the morning of the 17th we were destined to witness a different phase of arctic navigation from that previously enjoyed. We were in the mouth of the Strait of Belle Isle, and had just passed its lighthouse. Icebergs as vast and beautiful and numerous as ever were around us; but their beauty, and in most cases their presence, was obscured by a fitful but dense fog. Still the chances of encountering one seemed so slight, that we continued on our course, though at slackened speed. Suddenly a large spot in the mist ahead of the ship lighted up as if we were coming to a clear space. But to the experienced eyes of the mate and of the icepilot it was an ominous spectre, for it was the "ice blink" of a huge berg, which almost at that very instant emerged from the mist, toworing hundreds of feet above us, and stretching out many hundred feet on either side. It being too late to avoid it, safety, if it could be secured at all, lay in taking the collision straight ahead, and the rudder was turned accordingly at the same instant that the wheel was reversed. The collision came all too soon. Great masses of ice fell upon the deck. The steamer reeled like a drunken man. But the passengers scarcely had time to secure an upright position again before all was quiet as death, while we anxiously watched the carpenter as he sounded the wells to see if there was a leak. Meantime the huge berg gleamed down upon us from its serene height in the mist, and revealed clearly the painted sides of the great gash which had been made in it by the bow of our iron ship.

After a few minutes of breathless anxiety it was ascertained that, beyond the breaking of three or four iron plates of the ship high above the water line and the disabling of one anchor, there was no damage done. Fortunately, we had hit this particular iceberg where there was no projecting foot below the water; otherwise it would most surely have been a fatal collision to us. It was certainly thrilling for us to reflect that we had sailed, or steamed, by a most circuitous route for more than one thousand miles to encounter in the mist this particular berg, and had hit it at almost the only safe point which it presented for attack.

After the collision, the comparative safety of iron and wooden vessels in encountering icebergs was a subject of much animated discussion on board. Our own actual immunity from absolute disaster was an argument in favor of iron, while the pilot assured us that a wooden vessel in such a collision would have had her bowsprit driven in so as completely to disable the ship and send her to the bottom. The worst disaster of the season along this coast had occurred a few weeks before to a wooden ship which encountered the ice not far from the locality of our own accident, but with the most serious consequences. The ship sank almost immediately, and the crew and passengers, consisting of men, women, and children on their way from Newfoundland to the summer fishing stations in Labrador, were many of them drowned, while the others wore rescued with great difficulty from cakes of ice on which they had taken refuge.

One pretty constant feature in the appearance of the largest icebergs could not fail to attract our attention. The most of them seemed to be partly turned over, so that the strata of ice which were originally horizontal were dipping at a considerable angle with the horizon. The natural explanation seems to be, that in the long journey which these icebergs have taken they have presented, through almost the entire course, the same side to the sun, so that the southern exposure has constantly melted more rapidly than the northern side, thus disturbing the equilibrium and allowing the centre of gravity to migrate toward the northern edge, which constantly settles deeper into the water at the same time that the southern is elevated. Eventually the berg turns upon end; thus producing a sudden transformation in appearance.

Fig. 4—An iceberg which has shifted its plane of equilibrium.

The history of those objects, the distance through which they have drifted, and the rate of their motion, are questions of much speculative interest. From all accounts it appears that the large bergs are formed by the breaking off of masses of ice from glaciers whose ends project into the deep water of the sea, and so are composed of innumerable strata of consolidated snow which has accumulated upon some continental area. So far as we know, also, few icebergs of large size arc derived from glaciers upon the American side of Davis Strait. Those of the Labrador current represent for the most part, therefore, the wastage from the Greenland glaciers, and are thus impressive witnesses to the extent of the glacial accumulations upon that desolate land.

For the most part, also, the icebergs of the North Atlantic enter Baffin Bay north of Disco Island. A due quota comes from the glaciers at the head of Umanak Fiord and from the comparatively unknown region about Melville Bay, while others move in from Smith Sound, and from points still farther north. The journey, therefore, which most of those seen off the coast of southern Labrador have made covers a distance of eighteen hundred miles, while those which reach the latitude of Washington are no less than twenty-five hundred miles from their starting-place. The length of this journey is a witness at once to the vast mass of ice in the bergs and to the initial low temperature of the water which floats them southward. The ice, however, does its part in perpetuating the coolness of the Labrador current, the modifying influence of whose temperature is felt upon the coast as far south as Cape Cod. The continuance of such a procession of icebergs as floats southward with the Labrador current is due to a combination of causes. The snowfall over the vast continent of Greenland is not excessive, representing probably no more than from ten to fifteen inches annually when reduced to the standard of water, but even this small amount exceeds the melting capacity of the sun's rays in that latitude; so that there is an annual addition to the thickness of the ice-sheet. This excess of frozen water is enabled, through the plastic character of ice, to work off slowly toward the sea level in lines of least resistance, which are determined largely by the character of the Greenland coast. Nearly everywhere this is mountainous, with occasional openings to the sea constituting the natural lines of drainage which have doubtless been occupied by water courses from time immemorial. In general, these openings are narrow and deep, corresponding to the fiords of Norway. The movement of the inland ice is toward the head of these fiords, where the frozen current becomes concentrated, and pushes out into the deep water, presenting everywhere a perpendicular face of from one hundred to two or three hundred feet in height, and extending from cliff to cliff across the fiord.

The masses of ice from the front of these glaciers are broken off in two ways. Much falls off directly into the water from the upper edge of the precipitous face; for the movement of the ice at the top is faster than that at the bottom, and so tends constantly to project it forward until it overhangs the lower portion and falls by the mere weight of gravity. But such fragments are comparatively small. The larger bergs are formed when the glacier has been pushed so far out into the water as to be lifted by its floating power, and so separated from the parent mass. It is thought by Rink that the end of a glacier may sometimes be pushed forward for several miles after its bottom has become separated from the bottom of the fiord, and before the buoyant power of the water is sufficient to east it off as an iceberg.

One of the glaciers coming into Disco Bay, observed by Helland, was estimated to have a thickness of 920 feet and a breadth of 18,400 feet, and was found to be moving forty-seven feet per day. At this rate, 300,000,000,000 cubic feet of ice would be sent off by this glacier in a single year. Another glacier surveyed by the same authority sends off 79,000,000,000 cubic feet annually. Rink estimates that on the Danish part of the west coast of Greenland up to 74° N. latitude there are twenty ice-fiords from which bergs issue, and that 120,000 square miles of territory contribute to furnish the supply. To provide the amount of ice carried away by these floating bergs, an excess of only two inches and a half of snow over the contributing area would be requisite, so vast is the cumulative effect of apparently insignificant causes when sufficient time is at command.

Fig. 5.—A symmetrical Iceberg, probably two hundred and fifty feet high.

As already remarked, the Labrador current bears also an immense amount of floe ice. This, too, has been formed along the shores of Baffin Bay, and is from time to time separated from them to accompany the procession of icebergs southward. Floe ice rises but a few feet above the surface of the water, except in some places where the cakes have been piled one upon another in the collisions which occasionally occur during storms.

The westerly movement of this ice deserves attention. According to a well-known law, currents which flow from the north to the south are thrown to the west by the revolution of the earth upon its axis, since the easterly motion of the earth's surface increases with each parellel of lower latitude. As a consequence, this floe ice, together with many icebergs, is so crowded against the coast of Labrador as greatly to interfere with navigation to its ports. Oftentimes a whole summer passes during which it is almost impossible to enter any of the northern ports on account of this ice, and sometimes it is difficult to get into any of the ports even as far south as Hamilton Inlet until past the middle of summer.

In the main, the course of the icebergs and the floe ice is the same. But the great depth to which the icebergs sink places them under the control of the under currents, and makes them independent of wind and tide. It is not unusual, therefore, especially in the far north, to see a towering berg moving directly against the wind and tide, and crashing through the thinner masses of floe ice which encumber the surface of the water. Dr. Kane records that at times he availed himself of this mode of locomotion, anchoring his ship to an iceberg which was moving northward when all the surface elements conspired to drive him southward.

But to make up for the inconveniences which the ice of the Labrador current occasions to the meagre commerce of the region, it brings along almost the only booty which secures the country any commerce at all. In the early spring the saddleback seals (Phoca Grœnlandica) of the far north move southward in vast numbers with this ice to propagate their young in the latitude of southern Labrador. Naturally, also, the polar bear avails himself of the same means of locomotion to keep company with the seals, which constitute his favourite food. During April and the early part of May numerous steamers, fitted for the purpose, set out from St. John's, Newfoundland, and venture boldly into this ice of the Labrador coast to secure the game thus brought within their roach.

One of the first objects which attracted our attention upon entering Cape Charles Harbour for repairs was the magnificent skin of a polar bear which had been killed the previous season on the land near by. Thinking he had moved far enough south, the brute had deserted the floe, and, having reached the land, immediately turned his steps northward. The spring was already well advanced and the snow was soft, so that at every step Bruin went in the full length of his legs. It was an easy matter, therefore, for the hunters, inexperienced though they were in dealing with such large game, to follow him upon snowshoes and secure his capture.

Three remarkable experiences in the floe ice of Baffin Bay give us much definite information concerning the motion of the current which bears it southward.

On the 8th of May, 1854, Sir Edward Belcher, when in search of Sir John Franklin, abandoned one of his ships, the Resolute, on Beechy Island, in Barrow's Straits, about latitude 75° N. and longitude 95° W. from Greenwich. Upon leaving the ship everything was put in order, the rudder was taken on board, and "every movable packed away below or securely lashed on deck." A year and four months later, on the 10th of September, 1855, the Resolute was sighted by Captain Buddington in the ice pack off Cape Mercy, near the mouth of Cumberland Sound, in latitude 67° N., having drifted through Lancaster Sound and down Baffin Bay, a distance of eleven hundred miles, in the sixteen months which had elapsed since its abandonment. The ship was still in seaworthy condition, so that a crew was put upon it which brought it safely to New London, Conn. Appropriately, Congress rewarded the captain and his crew with a grant of forty thousand dollars, and had the ship repaired and sent to the English Government as a token of national good feeling.

The second experience in the Labrador ice current upon which we pause is a chapter from McClintock's narrative of the discovery of the fate of Sir John Franklin. McClintock and his party had sailed on July 1, 1857, from Aberdeen, Scotland, in the Fox, a screw yacht of one hundred and seventy-seven tons burden. On the 17th of August the vessel became encumbered in the ice pack of Melville Bay, and, being unable to extricate themselves, the party was obliged to await the rigours of an arctic winter amid such unpropitious surroundings. At first the drift was westward, and they were so near the land that they could see it all around Melville Bay from Cape Walker to Cape York. In fourteen days they had drifted forty miles. On the 16th of September they were within twenty-five miles of Cape York, and within twelve or fifteen miles of open water in that direction; but it was too late to move. New ice was forming about them, and they were com- pelled to prepare to winter in the ice pack. On the 26th of September, "Snowy Peak, to the north of Melville Bay and ninety miles distant, was still in view." The winter passed with little to break the dull monotony except an occasional storm or the appearance, now and then, of a polar bear on the floe. During December they drifted sixty-seven miles directly down Baffin Bay and were in latitude 74°. On January 17th they were within one hundred and fifteen miles of Uperuivik, having drifted sixty miles during the first half of the month.

On the 7th of March they were so far south and east that the highlands of Disco were visible ninety miles away. On the 26th and 27th of March they drifted thirty-nine miles. On the 26th of April the ice of the pack had become so much loosened that the Fox was able to free herself from her long imprisonment. The log reads: "During our two hundred and forty-two days in the pack ice of Baffin Bay and Davis Strait we were drifted 1,194 miles geographical, or 1,385 statute miles. It is the longest drift I know of, and our winter, as a whole, may be considered as having been mild but very windy" (p. 99).