The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 13, 1898, Page 1

Call "VOLUME LX {(XIV.—NO 105. SAN FRANCISCO, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1898. PRICE FIVE CEN C UTTER BEAR BACK FROM THE ARCTIC WITH RESCUED WHALERS When, late in October of last year, the startling and appalling news was brought to this city that the whalers Belvedere, Jessie H. Freeman, Rosario and Orca were imprisoned in the impenetrable ice of the Arctic, near Point Barrow, and that the scores of men aboard them were in danger of perish- ing from lack of food and supplies necessary to enable them to withstand the rigors of an Arctic win- immediately made application to the authorities at Washington to send an expedition to ter, The Qall the relief of the endangered vessels of the whaling fleet and their crews. .The reply came back that such an expedition could not be fitted out without an appropriation by Congress for the purchase of the food, clothing and other supplies that were considered absolutely necessary under the circumstances. Without wasting further time either in argument or appéal The Call notified the authorities that if the vessel were furnished by the Government The Call would supply all the necessary provisions, Congress. requisites for this humanitarian enterprise. clothing, food and everything else the Government was not in a position to supply without action by Word came afterward that another department than that originally applied to could supply the But when the expedition was being prepared it was learned that the Government cfficers were unable to provide the proper kind of food and clothing. Again The Call stepped into the breach and made good every deficiency, in order that the rescu- ers might go adequately equipped in every particular. At an expense of something like $800o to The Call the Bear’s equipment for the purpose of her voyage was rendered as nearly perfect as human foresight and energy could make it. Call supplied a surgeon in the person of Dr. Woodruff to care for the sick, and also contributed medi- cines and surgical instruments. With the return of the Bear to safety with nearly 100 of the rescued whalers, the full fruition of the glorious expedition which originated with The Call has been recorded. Besides this The & \THE BEAR AND UEANETTE FAST 11y T STRIKING INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS N THE'ROSARIO BEING CRUSHED IN THEACE HE ICE, P B ls, CONNECTED WITH THE CUTTER BEAR'S RELIEF EXPEDITION. RELIEF SHIP CASTS ANCHOR IN NEAH BAY BY LIEUTENANT E. P. BERTHOLF, U, 8. R. M. 8. ABOARD THE ARCTIC RELIEF STEAMSHIP BEAR, NEAH BAY, Wash., Sept. 12, via Port Angeles.—The Bear has just arrived here on her re- turn from the expedition for the relief of the whaline vessels that were caught in the ice last fall in the Arctic Ocean. She has on board Lieutenants Jarvis and Bertholf and Dr. Call, composing the relief party, and ninety-one mem- bers of the crews of the vessels that were wrecked, including the crew of the schooner Louise J. Kenney, nine in all. The Kenney was driven ashore at Point Hope last spring. We are bound for Seattle instead of Ban Francisco, as was the department’s intention last fall, when the Bear left on her trip north, and the shipwrecked men will be landed there. Most of them are in a destitute condition, hav- ing little or no wages coming to them, and being badly off for clothing. Some of them are still wearing skin clothes, having nothing else, and nearly all are wearing skin boots. The Bear took up a supply of underclothes, but she had no outer clotlics on board, and although the officers of the vessel gave all theirs they could spare, that supply was inconsiderable, and did not begin to go round. When the men came aboard the Bear after she reached Cape Smyth there were 119 in all. Twelve of these ex- changed places with a like number from the Fearless and eighteen shipped on other vessels of the whaling fleet. Two shipped on the Morning Light at Kotzebue Sound, six shipped on some of the Yukon, River steamers when they reached St. Michael and two oth- ers shinped on the English ship Illala at Dutch Harbor, thus leaving ninety- one now aboard. There have been no casualties on the trip down, although several of the men are sick, having developed different diseases on the vessels they came from. The Kenney referred to as having been ashore at Point Hope was a trad- ing schooner and had anchored off Point Hope on the 13th of August. On the 18th a southwest gale sprang up and the following day she dragged her anchor until the cables parted and she finally went ashore on the 19th. When we reached there she had been dragged a wreck and sold and we took the offi- cers and crew aboard. Besides the loss of the Orca and Free- man last fall, an account of which the readers of The Call have already had, the schooner Rosario was the only other vessel that was crushed in the ice. The other vessels—the Newport, Jeanette, Fearless and Belvedere—are all out and either on their way down or have continued on their whaling cruise. The Wanderer, which went into Herschel Island last fall when she found she could not get out, was known to be safe but had not put in an ap- pearance when we left Cape Smyth on the 16th of August. . We have aboard Captain Newth of the Jeanette, who was taken sick at Cape Smyth and decided to come down, turning his vessel over to Thomas Ellis, who had been first mate of the Orca, and Charles Brower, manager of Liebes & Co.’s whaling station at Point Smyth. We left St. Michael on August 26, but we have been delayed by an almost continuous succession of storms and head winds and we have had a rough and rather a long passage down. We will probably reach Seattle in about eighteen hours from now. THE BEAR ALMOST LOST IN THE ICE Imprisoned for Days With All of the Rescued Whalers Aboard. Was Caught .In the Jam and Damaged, and Preparations Were Made to Desert : the Ship. By Lteutenant John G. Berry, U. 8. R. C. 8. CAMP SMITH, Point Barrow, Aug. 12, via Victoria, B. C., Sept. 12.—With all the shipwrecked sallors on board the Bear is lying jammed in the ice off Point Barrow as solidly as any of the vessels here have been jammed during the winter. We arrived here on the 26th of July, got nipped between the the pack, on August 2, and are now walting as patiently as may be, ready to steam out should occasion offer; ready to go ashore and wait for the customary Arctic relief expedition for the relief of tre first Arctic relief expe- dition if it should turn out that way. ‘We have a large supply of provisions on deck, ready to dump them on the ice if we are crushed. Our propeller is Jammed so that it cannot be moved and the ship herself i{s immovably fixed in the ice. We cannot budge her an inch with all the lines we have. ‘We left St. Michael on Julv 7. Father Barnum, a Jesult missionary from the Yukon River, came with us as a guest of Captaln Tuttle. He is on his way to the States, but before going down he wished to see something of the sorth- ern part of Alaska. I never knew a better shipmate than Father Barnum. On the night of July 3 the icepack swung in toward the point. The Rosa- rio was fast in the ice and apparently with a good chance of getting out. She lay about a mile and a half to the southward and about two miles to the westward of the Hook off Point Bar- row. Nothing had disturbed her dur- ing the whole winter and spring. But ‘when the pack ice came in the light ice outside of her began to pile up and slide one piece over another. Nearer and nearer it came, silently but irre- sistibly. Then the stern was slowly raised, the ice gemerally sliding under shore ice and the drift, backed up by Continied”cn Second Page. ATPT BA RS OwWws RAMMED HER WAaY THROUGH THE ICE FLOES Hov(l the Plucky Bear Escaped From Her Prison in the Arctic. Days’ Spent inp an Attempt to Pierce the Crystal Wall That Encircled the Vessel. BY JOHN G. BERRY, U. 8. R. C. S. ABOARD THE ARCTIC RELIEF STEAMSHIP BEAR, off Cape Blossom, Kotzebue Sound, Aug. 21, via Victoria, B. C., Sept. 12. — When I wrote from Cape Smith the Bear was imprisoned in the Arctic ice with little or no prospect of getting out. On August 14, two days after I wrcte, there were indications that the ice might clear out. The current off shore acted on by a moderate southwest wind, began to run to the northward at the rate of one or two knots an hour. That means that between twenty-four and forty-eight —'es of ice v'ould move by in a day. By the night of the 14th the southern horizon looked as if there were water instead of ice under it, and on the morning of the 15th the open water reached as far as we could see from the south to the north, even past Point Barrow; yet the Bear and the Jeannette were packed in asimmovably as ever. Clear water lay within two hundred yards of us, but the drift ice in the little harbor where we lay would not budge. The wind hauled to the northegst and we thought it might carry the ide out into the current, but it did not. We could see, however, that the ice might be cleaned out if we could start the outside pieces and then gradually work in toward the ships, so the Fearless, at Captain McKenna's own volition, and the Newport, at Captain Tuttle’s re- quest, found a passage around the south: of the shore floe and tried to haul out some of the key pieces that were wedging the ice in upon us. Heavy ice soon began to break off from the floe and they got out of the way, hav- ing been able to do nothing. The next morning the Newport came up to help us. |-—-Meanwhile the ice had cleared away so that we had open water within fifty yards outside of us. The ice had stack- ed up so that we were able to haul the ship forward about four feet. Then we moved the propeller slowly and finally got it clear with ice chisels. Then we moved back and forth in the little hole that we had made for ourselves, enlarg- ing it little by little. -3 At 7 a. m. the Jeanette got clear and steamed out. She anchored with the Fearless about five miles to the south- ward, inside the protection of the ground ice. Meanwhile we had a party out on the ice blasting some of the outer pleces. The Newport made fast to one of the cakes, tried to pull it out but parted the line. Then we blew it out with gunpowder, but it floated back again. The Newport was just heading in to ram it when the Bear made one final effort and pushed her way out into the open water, narrowly escaping be- ing rammed by the Newport, which sheered off ju't in time. Picking up the men on the ice, we steamed down and anchored near the Fearless and Jeanette. We got clear of the ice just at noon. That night we gave fifteen tons of coal to the Fearless, which hauled alongside of us. The Jeanette, in com- mand of Cap‘rin Thomas Ellis, steamed off to go to Herschell Island, whaling and trading. Captain Newth, who had commanded her thus far, hav- ing become {ll, came aboard the Bear to go home, He has since recovered under the care of Dr. Call. The Newport started southward, but anchored about seven miles away. On the morning of the 17th the Fearless went down inside the shore ice to join the Newport. Soon the Bear started down outside the floe. There was clear water inside, but the ice began to get thicker where we were so we tried to get down inside ourselves. We soon got aground, L ——ever, and had to back out. We went out into fairly thick ice which soon opened, leaving the way practically clear for us as far as the Sea Horse Islands. Reaching there at night we found the whalers Newport, Fearless, Karluk, Alexander, Bowhead, Willlam Baylies and the Belvedere, which had been down to Port Clarence after coal. The schooner Bonanza, with supplies for Point Barrow, was lying there, and the bark Alice Knowles came in during the night. We had left the Jeanette at Cape Smith. On the 18th we left the Sea Horse Islands and have seen no ice since. Ar- riving at Point Hope on the morning off the 20th we found that the Louise J. Kenney had come up with supplies for the misslonaries at Cape Blossom and other places. It had also brought up some Laplanders with orders from Dr. Shelton Jackson, agent of educa- tlon for Alaska, to take the deer at Point Barrow and those at Point Hope, join the two herds and keep them through the winter at the Pitmagea River. That does not look like re- turning the deer to the people who