Farthest North: The Life and Explorations of Lieutenant James Booth Lockwood, of the Greely Arctic ExpeditionLanman, Charles
History
Farthest North: The Life and Explorations of Lieutenant James Booth Lockwood, of the Greely Arctic Expedition
Lanman, Charles
Arctic regions; Lady Franklin Bay Expedition (1881-1884); Lockwood, James Booth, 1852-1884
Bay, where observations of the strait showed it to be full of
floating ice; and in this vicinity they were brought to a halt by
the ice-pack near the shore at Cape John Barrow. Here the boats were
pulled up on the floe, and, as the thick sludge-ice was all around,
no open water in sight, and the supply of coal getting very low, the
prospect was gloomy in the extreme. When able to continue on their
course, the travelers were still greatly troubled by heavy fogs, and
while passing over a space of open water, abounding in floe-bergs
which could not be seen, they were in constant danger of being lost.
Notwithstanding all these obstacles, they pushed their way onward,
and in due time reached Cape Louis Napoleon, Cape Hawks, and
Princess Marie Bay, when they were again stopped by the floating
ice, and detained by the newly formed ice.
In his desire to comply with the order as to weight of baggage,
Lockwood had left his seal-skin coat at Fort Conger, but this step
he afterward regretted, as the weather continued stormy, and he was
greatly exposed to the cold. To this was added the misfortune of
having a badly fitting seal-skin boot which gave him great pain, so
that he had to resort to a pair of moccasins. When the boats were
caught in floes and detained for days, the only exercise available
was that of walking over the level floes. Some of the men were wont
to march around, under the light of the moon, singing aloud their
wild and uncouth songs. When tired of walking, Lockwood would creep
into a cozy corner of the launch, and pore over a pocket copy of
Shakespeare which he had fortunately brought along; and then, after
getting into his sleeping-bag, his thoughts would wander far away
and find expression in such words as these: “What are they doing at
home? How often I think of the dear ones there! The dangers and
uncertainties ahead of us are only aggravated by the thoughts of the
concern felt by them on my account. Most of us have given up the
idea of getting home this fall.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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