A Diary and Journal from the Second Grinnell Expedition

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Tuesday Jany 9

I don't know what is the matter with me I can no longer give by the pen a picture of the foreground, so hard worked and care beset am I that I cease to be impressed by the present in thinking of the future. Those little every day touches which make the sketch pass by me. The same to a greater or lesser extent pervades our company. Ohlsen has lost his memory "Cant keep his tools" Petersen cannot catch the words of our Smith's Sound dialect. Wilson Brooks and Morton complain of enfeebled eyesight, and a scant vocabulary.

Yesterday in recording the execessive cold I gave no idea of the impression which it ought to make on us, or would make upon others. In spite of the choking darkness you absolutely see the cold Nature wears – shrouded as she is – a different aspect – and the sounds of contracting solids, ice and wood work, and hummock ridge and terraced shore, fill the ear with rustling, cracking ticking, and groaning. The great ice foot sends out explosive wreaths of condensed vapour. Evaporated by the sudden rupture of some large ice admitting a momentary contact of air and water. These resemble [peals?] of musketry.

Yet I walk in this disguised region with almost as little inconvenience as I would once have encountered at -30°. The sole appreciable distinction which I am able to discover between continued exposure to -30° and -63° (the mean of our lowest recorded minima) is that the air passages become, in the latter, oppressively

258

Satur. Jan. 13

I am carefully feeding my few remaining dogs, but I have no meat for them except the carcases of their late companions [and these] which have to be boiled as in their frozen state they act as caustics. To famished dogs they often prove fatal abrading the stomach and aesophagus. One of these poor dogs [creatures] had been a childs pet among the Esquimaux. Last night I found her in a nearly dying state at the mouth of our [Tossut?], whistfully eying the crevices of the door as they emitted their forbidden treasures of light and heat. She could move no further, but completely subdued licked my hand, the first time I had ever seen the act from an Esquimaux. I carried her in among the glories of the moderate Paradise she aspired to and cooked her a dead [dog] puppy soup. She is now slowly gaining strength but can [still] barely stand.

My object in sustaining these few dogs is to make another attempt to communicate with the [?] Bay settlement I am confident we will find Esquimaux there alive, and they shall help us. I am not satisfied with Petersen the companion of my late journey he is too cautious for the emergency. I despise undue venturesomeness, but this is an occasion which calls for every risk, short of the final one, that man can encounter. I have made up my mind. Should wind and ice at all point to its successful accomplishment to try the thing with Hans. Hans is completely subject to my will, careful and attached to me. By temperament he is daring and adventurous.

Counting my greatest possible number of dogs, I have but five at all dependable and these far from being in condition for the journey Toodlie, Jenny, now with pups, and Rhina are my only relics of the South Greenland teams. "Little Whitey" is the solitary Newfoundlander. A big yellow and a feeble little black, all that I have left of the powerful beasts of the country. It is a fearful thing to attempt

317

[*omit*] of the seceders. He got his pay, signed his receipt in full, "for services rendered as astronomer" and went his way. Now he is back again with his draughts in his pocket dependant upon me for every thing. He gets every thing that I can give, except his deserted post — that he will never get. The man is very jesuistical and smooth I trusted him once, and have been well cured of it.

Obliged to work with Bonsall as also to aid in the cooking. — The sick are about the same, Brooks better but Ohlsen worse. The Ptarmagan was served out raw among Messrs. Goodfellow, McGeary, Brooks & Ohlsen – this delicious bird thawed or frozen is a great delicacy. [end omit]

Wed. Feb. [29?]

[Petersen caught another, his sixth fox. I serve out a part of him in frozen slices.]

To day a hard day. Hans was off with his gun. Petersen moping. John down worse [with tooth ache]. Sonntag with scurvy asthma. [*omit*] Bill in his usual condition of demi worthlessness, so that Bonsall and self have been literally at work all day, the outside air gives -45° 49° and the cold is very penetrating. Cloth is a poor protection.

The Cabin is now much improved. We receive a partial light from the skylights and have an extra stove forward for drying the berths. My large stove draws well and we keep very comfortable without burning a pound of wood - hemp cable and manila hawser at about 80 lbs a day form our exclusive fuel. Morton is better. Ohlsen worse. Goodfellow on the verge of his grave refuses to speak to any one. Poor boy. I do my best for him. How sad a pity to bring him to cope with these coarse men in

320

320 Feb. 28

"February ends. Thank God for the lapse of its twenty eight days! By the tenth of April I expect to find seal and when they come we are saved! [Cannot call ourselves safe]

A fair review of our prospects tells me that I must look the Lion in the face. The scurvy is steadily gaining on us in vain I sustain my desperate cases just as I partially build up one - another is stricken down. The disease is perhaps less malignant [apparent] in a few cases than it was but it is more diffused throughout our party. Except William Morton, who is disabled by a [frostbite] frozen heel not one of our eighteen are exempt. Of the six quoted one month ago as the remaining workers of our party two are unable to do outdoor work and the remaining four divide between them the duties of taking care of the sick and providing material by the hunt. Of these four Providentially guarded men, one is the Esquimaux Hans, another our Greenland Dane Petersen, a third Bonsall the fourth myself.

Hans now hunts aided by Petersen with what energy he has left. These two last named chop five large sacks of ice, cut into junks of one foot each six fathoms of eight inch hawser, serve out provisions, hacking at molasses and hewing with crowbar and axe at pork and dried apples, pass up the [confined] foul slop & cleansings of our dormitory, and for the past two days cook [scullionize?] and attend the sick. Added to this I myself was strong enouth to keep an eight hours vigil from 8 {.M. to 4. in the morning - [taking] noting thermometers ever hour.

Now with this state of things before us, we must look forward to 41 days of nearly the same character as the past thirty and in being guided by the

323

March.

p.361 4 pp of Review for March

March 1. Thurs.

A grander scene than our bay by moonlight can hardly be conceived. It is in fact more dreamlike and supernatural than any combination of earthly features. To approach it on canvass would be an impossible task. When the moon is nearly full and so opposed [encroached on] by the encroaching dawn [lingering twilight]as to mingle their double lights, the resulting tint is a peculiar leaden ash - dull and cold. Throw now such an atmosphere upon the gnarled craggy hills of our bay, let it crawl step by step up the terrace let it smear the big fiord with daubed shadows of [lead?] colour, and then go over the great sea of ice with the same miserable neutral tint - let it be - a palpable something, a coloured gas. Imagine a world bathed not in yellow chlorine or sulphuretted hydrogen, but in a saturated yet transparent fluid of ashen lead. Over such a ground work as I have often described for Rensselaer Harbour, throw such a mantle, and then place in the midst of it a bright intense moon. Let it light every crag edge or ice spire and spread out though every valley and fiord, and finally let it print upon the snow the fantastic profiles of our hilly back ground. The result will be a chaotic inconceivable landscape, utterly inorganic to the senses and to the eye without form and void. I come down from deck with the feelings of a man who has looked upon an [unfinished] world. unfinished by the hand of the Creator.

March Friday 2.

Petersen begins to be uneasy at the absence of game immediately [mis?]