The Open Polar Sea: A narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States"Hayes, I. I. (Isaac Israel)
History
The Open Polar Sea: A narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States"
Hayes, I. I. (Isaac Israel)
Arctic regions; United States (Schooner)
Our stay at the glacier was brought suddenly to an end by a violent
storm of wind and snow, and both ourselves and our Esquimau companions
were forced to seek other shelter. The storm came from the northeast,
and the first mischief done was to pick Hans's tent up and carry it off
down the valley like a balloon, and finally to drop it in the lake.
Without waiting long to lament over the unhappy circumstance, the whole
Esquimau party set out for Etah. As they passed our tent, Kalutunah
stopped a moment at the door, and despite the fierce wind and the
snow which covered him all over, he still bore the same imperturbable
grin. "You should have seen Hans's tent!" said he; and the old fellow
fairly shook with laughter, as he recalled the ridiculous scene of the
suddenly unhoused party and their vanishing tent tearing away toward
the lake. But his satisfaction reached its climax when he informed
us that it was going to blow harder, and that our turn would come
directly. Sure enough it was as the savage had predicted; for, soon
afterward, we heard a great noise,--the photographic tent had given
way, the instruments and plates were scattering over the stones, the
glasses were being all crushed up into little bits; and, while we were
springing up to go out and save the wreck, our windward guys gave way,
and our canvas protection following the example of Hans's seal-skins,
left us standing in the very jaws of the storm. As may be supposed, we
did not delay long in finding our way back on board.
I found the schooner in a somewhat critical situation. The spars had
been sent aloft and caught the wind, and the vessel being still firmly
locked in the ice, the masts were subjected to a dangerous strain. I
thought, at one time, that they would be carried bodily out of the
schooner, and had guys fastened to the mast-heads and secured to stakes
driven in the ice to windward. The loose ice was all blown out of the
bay, the icebergs were driven out of sight, and the open water was not
more than a quarter of a mile distant from us.
[Sidenote: MID-SUMMER.]
The sun reaching its greatest northern declination on the 21st, we were
now in the full blaze of summer. Six eventful months had passed over
since the Arctic midnight shrouded us in gloom, and now we had reached
the Arctic mid-day. And this mid-day was a day of wonderful brightness.
The temperature had gone up higher than at any previous time, marking,
at meridian, 49°, while in the sun the thermometer showed 57°. The
barometer was away up to 30.076, and a more calm and lovely air never
softened an Arctic landscape.
[Sidenote: LITTLE JULIA'S GLEN AND FALL.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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