John Muir Writings the Cruise of the Corwin
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
John Muir Writings The Cruise of the Corwin Journal of the Arctic Expedition of 1881 in search of De Long and the Jeannette By John Muir Edited by William Frederic Badè 1917 Contents Introduction I. Unalaska and the Aleuts II. Among the Islands of Bering Sea III. Siberian Adventures IV. In Peril from the Pack V. A Chukchi Orator VI. Eskimos and Walrus VII. At Plover Bay and St. Michael VIII. Return of the Search Party IX. Villages of the Dead X. Glimpses of Alaskan Tundra XI. Caribou and a Native Fair XII. Zigzags among the Polar Pack XIII. First Ascent of Herald Island XIV. Approaching a Mysterious Land XV. The Land of the White Bear XVI. Tragedies of the Whaling Fleet XVII. Meeting the Point Barrow Expedition XVIII. A Siberian Reindeer Herd XIX. Turned Back by Storms and Ice XX. Homeward Bound Appendix I. The Glaciation of the Arctic and Subarctic Regions Visited during the Cruise II. Botanical Notes Index Illustrations Cape Serdzekamen, Siberia Frontispiece From a photograph Map (not in the originally-published edition of this book) Iliuliuk, Unalaska From a photograph by E. S. Curtis Aleut Barábara at Iliuliuk, Unalaska From a photograph by E. S. Curtis Cliffs at St. Matthew Island From a photograph Chukchi Village at Plover Bay, Siberia From a photograph by E. S. Curtis West Diomede Village Siberian Village on a Sand-Spit From a photograph Chukchis and a Summer House at Plover Bay From a photograph by E. W. Nelson Chukchis At Indian Point, Siberia (Cape Chaplin) From a photograph by E. W. Nelson Arctic Tundra From a photograph by E. S. Curtis Herald Island First Landing on Wrangell Land The American Flag on Wrangell Land, near East Cape Map of Wrangell Land, as surveyed by the Officers of the U.S.S. Rogers, Lieut. R. M. Berry Commanding, September 1881 From the Report of the Secretary of the Navy for 1881 Eskimo Village of Kokmulit, Point Barrow A Chukchi Summer House at Plover Bay From a photograph by E. S. Curtis One of the Mouths of the Fairweather Ice-Sheet in Glacier Bay King Island Granite Rocks on the South Side of St. Lawrence Island, showing Effects of Oversweeping Action of Ice-Sheet Volcanic Cones on St. Lawrence Island Bed of Small Residual Glacier on St. Lawrence Island Herald Island West Diomede Island (from the North) East Cape (from the South) Overswept Glacial Valleys and Ridges on St. Lawrence Island Bed of Local Glacier, St. Lawrence Island Near the Southwest Extremity of St. Lawrence Island, illustrating Effects of Ice-Sheet Overswept Mountains, with Parallel Valleys and Ridges, from Twenty Miles northwest of East Cape Except as otherwise indicated the illustrations are from sketches by Mr. Muir, the last twelve being reproduced from the cuts in Captain Hooper’s official Report of the expedition. The title-page cut is from Mr. Muir’s drawing of Erigeron Muirii, a plant discovered by him near Cape Thompson in northwestern Alaska and named for him by the botanist Asa Gray. This cut appeared in Captain Hooper’s Report. The half-tone of the Corwin which appears on the cover is from a painting by Denny. Cape Serdzekamen, Siberia Travels in Alaska by John Muir with illustrations Boston and New York Houghton Mifflin Company The Riverside Press Cambridge 1915 The Cruise of the Corwin Journal of the Arctic Expedition of 1881 in search of De Long and the Jeannette by John Muir Edited by William Frederic Badè Boston and New York Houghton Mifflin Company The Riverside Press Cambridge 1917 Copyright, 1917, by Houghton Mifflin Company All Rights Reserved Published November 1917 Bibliographical Information Muir, John (1838-1914). The Cruise of the Corwin; Journal of the Arctic Expedition of 1881 in Search of De Long and the Jeanette (Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin co., 1917). Edited by William Frederic Badè, ed. (1871-1936). xxxi, 278 p. front., plates, map. 21 cm. Library of Congress Call Number G720.M8. LCCN 17031765. Scanned and converted to HTML by Dan E. Anderson, 1999, from a copy in the Scripps Institute of Oceanography Library, University of California San Diego. [ Forward to Introduction ] Introduction One of the poignant tragedies of north polar exploration, that of the Jeannette, still lingers in the memory of persons now living, though a generation has since passed away. John Muir, who joined the first search expedition dispatched from San Francisco, had already achieved distinction by his glacial studies in the Sierra Nevada and in Alaska. The Corwin expedition afforded him a coveted opportunity to cruise among the islands of Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean, and to visit the frost-bitten shores of northeastern Siberia and northwestern Alaska. So enticing was the lure of this new adventure, so eager was he to study the evidence of glaciation in the Far North, that he said a reluctant good-bye to his young wife and fared forth upon the deep. “You remember,” he wrote to her from the Siberian coast, “that I told you long ago how eager I was to get upon those islands in the middle of the Bering Sea and Strait to read the ice record there.” The events which led up to this memorable cruise of the Corwin in 1881 had their origin in the widespread interest which north polar exploration was exciting at this time all over the world. In 1877 Lieutenant George W. De Long, an American naval officer, was searching among the northern ports of England for a whaling vessel adapted to the requirements of Arctic exploration. De Long had commanded the Juniata which was sent out for the relief of the Polaris, and through this experience had grown enthusiastic over his own plans for reaching the North Pole. The whaling industry was at that time a very profitable one, and few owners of whalers and scalers were willing to part with their vessels. Though Sir Allen Young’s steam yacht Pandora, which De Long finally selected, had already made two Arctic voyages, she appears to have been chosen more because she was available than because of her superior fitness for ice navigation. In any case she was purchased by James Gordon Bennett, patron of the proposed expedition, was fitted out at Deptford, England, and renamed the Jeannette. Though the new name evaded the suggestion of a box of evils, she proved to be one for those who sailed in her. Commander De Long himself brought her around Cape Horn to San Francisco. In the month of July, 1879, she sailed from that port for Bering Strait and the Arctic Ocean—never to return. Crushed in the ice, she sank, June 12, 1881, in the Arctic Ocean, one hundred and fifty miles north of the New Siberian Islands. The retreat southward across the ice-floes was one of great peril. Only thirteen out of thirty-four men ultimately reached civilization and safety. De Long himself, and ten of the men with him, died of starvation and exposure on the delta of the Lena River, where two of the Jeannette’s storm-beaten cutters landed in the middle of September, 1881. One of them, commanded by Chief Engineer Melville, reached a Russian village on one of the eastern mouths of the Lena River. He promptly organized a search party, recovering the ship’s records in November, 1881, and the bodies of his unfortunate shipmates the following spring. When the North Pacific whaling fleet returned from Arctic waters in the autumn of 1879, two ships, the Mount Wollaston and the Vigilant, were reported missing. They had been last seen in October in the same general region, near Herald Island, where the Jeannette had entered the polar ice. The Mount Wollaston was commanded by Captain Nye, of New Bedford, Massachusetts, one of the keenest and bravest men that ever sailed the frigid seas. He it was who at a conference of whaling captains, called by De Long in San Francisco before the departure of his expedition, hesitated to give an opinion on the practicability of De Long’s plans. But when urged for an expression of his views, he said, “Put her [the Jeannette] into the ice and let her drift, and you may get through, or you may go to the devil, and the chances are about equal.” In the service of the United States Treasury Department there was at this time a staunch little steamer called the Corwin. Built at Abina, Oregon, she was constructed throughout of the finest Oregon fir, fastened with copper, galvanized iron, and locust-tree nails. She had a draught of nearly eleven feet, twenty-four feet beam, and was one hundred and thirty-seven feet long between perpendiculars. The ordinary duties of the captain of such a revenue steamer involved primarily the enforcement of federal laws for the protection of governmental interests on the Fur Seal Islands and the sea-otter hunting grounds of Alaska. But the supposed plight of the Jeannette and the unknown fate of two whalers caught in the ice were soon to increase the Corwin’s duties, and call her into regions where her sturdy sailing qualities were to prove of the utmost importance. In the spring of 1880 the Corwin, in command of Captain Calvin L. Hooper, was ordered into North Alaskan waters in pursuance of her regular duties. But Captain Hooper had also been directed to make all possible inquiries for the missing whalers and the Jeannette. He returned with no tidings of the lost, but with reports of starvation and death among the Eskimos of St. Lawrence Island on account of an uncommonly severe and stormy winter in the Arctic regions.