Last voyage of the Karluk

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Karluk caught in ice, August 1913

The last voyage of the Karluk, flagship of the Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913–16,

ended with the loss of the ship in the Arctic seas, and the subsequent deaths of nearly
half her complement of 25. In August 1913, Karluk, a brigantine formerly used as
a whaler, became trapped in the ice while sailing to a rendezvous point at Herschel
Island. After a long drift across the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, in January 1914 the ship
was crushed and sunk. In the ensuing months, the crew and expedition staff struggled
to survive, first on the ice and later on the shores of Wrangel Island. In all, eleven men
died before rescue. The Canadian Arctic Expedition was organised under the leadership
of Canadian anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson, and had both scientific and
geographic purposes. Shortly after Karluk was trapped, Stefansson and a small party
left the ship, stating that they intended to hunt for caribou. However, the ice
carried Karluk westwards, far from the hunting party who found it impossible to return to
the ship. Stefansson reached land and then devoted himself to the expedition's scientific
objectives, leaving the crew and staff on board the ship under the charge of its
captain, Robert Bartlett. After the sinking, Bartlett organised a march across the ice
to Wrangel Island, 80 miles (130 km) away.[n 1] Conditions were difficult and dangerous;
two four-man parties were lost before the island was reached.
From the island, Bartlett and an Inuk companion set out across the frozen sea for
the Siberian coast, in search of help. Assisted by local populations, the pair eventually
reached Alaska, but sea ice conditions prevented any immediate rescue mission. On
Wrangel Island, the stranded party survived by hunting game, but were short of food
and troubled by internal dissent. Before their eventual rescue in September 1914, three
more of the party had died, two of illness and one in violent circumstances; 14 were
rescued.
Historians have divided views on Stefansson's decision to leave the ship. Some of the
voyage's survivors were critical of his seeming indifference to their ordeal and the loss
of their comrades. He escaped official censure, and was publicly honoured for his later
work on the expedition despite the Canadian government's reservations about its overall
management. Although Bartlett was criticised by an admiralty commission for
 taking Karluk into the ice, he was hailed as a hero by the public and by his
former Karluk shipmates.

Contents

 1Canadian Arctic Expedition

o 1.1Background
o 1.2Objectives and strategy
o 1.3Organisation and personnel
o 1.4Ships
o 1.5Towards Herschel Island
 2In the ice
o 2.1Drifting west
o 2.2Sinking
o 2.3Shipwreck Camp
o 2.4March to Wrangel Island
 3Bartlett's journey
 4On Wrangel Island
 5Rescue
 6Aftermath
 7Published voyage accounts
 8Notes and references
o 8.1Notes
o 8.2References
 9Sources
 10Further reading
 11External links

Canadian Arctic Expedition[edit]

Background[edit]

Vilhjalmur Stefansson, leader of the Canadian Arctic Expedition

The Canadian Arctic Expedition was the brainchild of Vilhjalmur Stefansson, a US-
based, Canadian-born anthropologist of Icelandic extraction who had spent most of the
years between 1906 and 1912 studying Inuit life in the remote Arctic Canada. His
fieldwork had resulted in the first detailed information on the life and culture of
the Copper Inuit, the so-called "blond Eskimos".[1] Stefansson had returned home with
plans for another expedition to continue his Arctic studies, and obtained promises of
financial backing totalling US$45,000 (around US$750,000 in 2010) [n 2] from the National
Geographic Society (NGS) in Washington and the American Museum of Natural
History in New York. However, he wanted to extend his plans to include geographical
exploration in the Beaufort Sea, then a blank space on the world's maps. [3] For these
expanded aims he needed more money, and approached the Canadian government for
assistance.[4]
The area known as the "High Arctic" was subject to claims of sovereignty not only from
Canada, but also from Norway and the United States. The Canadian government was
concerned that an American-financed expedition would give the United States a legal
claim to any new land discovered in the Beaufort Sea, so when the Canadian prime
minister Robert Borden met Stefansson in Ottawa in February 1913 he offered to
assume financial responsibility for the entire expedition. [3] Borden's government was
hopeful that the expedition would strengthen Canada's claim to sovereignty over
the Arctic islands.[5] The American sponsors agreed to withdraw, subject to an NGS
condition that the Society could reclaim its rights to the expedition if Stefansson failed to
depart by June 1913. This created a narrow deadline and hurried preparations for the
journey north,[4] although Stefansson maintained in his 1921 account that "forethought
appeared to have anticipated every eventuality". [6]
Objectives and strategy[edit]
The Canadian government's financial involvement represented a shift in the expedition's
emphasis, towards geographical exploration rather than the original purpose of
ethnological and scientific studies.[7] In a letter to the Canadian Victoria Daily Times,
Stefansson set out these separate aims. The main object was to explore the "area of a
million or so square miles that is represented by white patches on our map, lying
between Alaska and the North Pole". The expedition also aimed to be the most
comprehensive scientific study of the Arctic ever attempted. [8] While a Northern Party
searched for new lands, a mainly land-based Southern Party under zoologist Rudolph
Anderson would carry out surveys and anthropological studies in the islands off the
northern Canadian coast.[9]
The Northern Party's ship, Karluk, would proceed north from the Canadian coast until it
either found land or was stopped by ice. It would explore any land it encountered;
otherwise it would follow the ice edge eastward and attempt to winter at either Banks
Island or Prince Patrick Island. If the ship was trapped in the ice and forced to drift, the
party would study the direction of Arctic currents and carry out oceanographic research.
Meanwhile, Rudolph Anderson's party was expected to continue with the
anthropological studies of the "blond Eskimo", to collect varieties of Arctic flora and
fauna, to carry out geological research, and to seek open-water channels in the hope of
establishing new trade routes.[9]
Organisation and personnel[edit]

Captain Robert Bartlett, who commanded Karluk's last voyage

Stefansson's plan was to take the expedition to the old whaling station at Herschel
Island off the Canadian Arctic coast, where the final composition of the Northern and
Southern Parties would be decided and where equipment and supplies would be
divided among the different strands of the venture. [4] The haste to meet the NGS
deadline led to concerns among the expedition's members about the adequacy of the
provision of food, clothing and equipment. [10] Stefansson, who was largely absent in the
hectic weeks immediately before sailing and who revealed few of his plans to his team,
dismissed such concerns as "impertinent and disloyal". There were disputes between
Stefansson and the scientists over the chain of command; the Canadian Geological
Survey, which had provided four scientists to the expedition, wanted these men to
report to them rather than to Stefansson. Southern Party leader Rudolph Anderson
threatened to resign over Stefansson's claim to the publication rights of all private
expedition journals.[11][12]
The expedition's scientific staff, with Stefansson and Bartlett. Malloch, Beuchat, McKinlay, Mamen, Mackay and
Murray remained with Karluk; the others formed the Southern Party.

The scientific team, made up of some of the most distinguished men in their fields,
included representatives from the United States, Denmark, Norway and France, as well
as from Britain and its Empire.[13] Only two, however, had previous polar
experience: Alistair Forbes Mackay, the expedition's medical officer, had visited
Antarctica with Sir Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod expedition in 1907–09, and had been
one of the party of three to discover the location of the South Magnetic Pole.
[14]
 Another Nimrod veteran, the 46-year-old James Murray, was Stefansson's
oceanographer. Among the younger scientists were William Laird McKinlay (1889–
1983), a 24-year-old science teacher from Glasgow who was recommended by the
Scottish explorer William Speirs Bruce, and Bjarne Mamen (1893–1914), a 20-year-old
skiing champion from Christiania, Norway, who was taken on as a forester, despite
lacking scientific experience.[4]
Stefansson had wanted American whaling skipper Christian Theodore Pedersen to
captain Karluk, the ship designated for the Northern Party. When Pedersen withdrew,
the captaincy was offered to 36-year-old Newfoundland-born Robert Bartlett, an
experienced polar navigator who had commanded Robert Peary's ship, SS  Roosevelt,
on the Peary's 1906 and 1909 polar expeditions. [15][16] Bartlett did not have time, however,
to select Karluk's crew, which was hurriedly assembled from around the Royal Navy
Dockyard at Esquimalt in British Columbia.[17] McKinlay later wrote of the crew that "one
was a confirmed drug addict ... another suffered from venereal disease; and in spite of
orders that no liquor was to be carried, at least two smuggled supplies on
board."[13] McKinlay worried that this crew might lack the qualities and character
necessary in the arduous months ahead, concerns shared by Bartlett, whose first act on
arrival in Esquimalt was to fire the first officer for incompetence. In his place he
appointed the 22-year-old Alexander "Sandy" Anderson. [17]
Ships[edit]
Further information: HMCS Karluk

Karluk in her days as a whaling vessel

Karluk had been chosen by Pedersen and bought by Stefansson for the bargain price of
US$10,000.[8][n 3] Stefansson was advised by Pedersen that, of four ships that were
available, Karluk was "the soundest and best adapted for our purpose", [25] but Bartlett
had deep reservations about her fitness for prolonged Arctic service. The ship, a 29-
year-old brigantine, was 129 feet (39 m) in length with a beam of 23 feet (7.0 m). She
had been built for the Aleutian fishing industry (karluk is the Aleut word for "fish") and
later converted for whaling, when her bows and sides had been sheathed with 2-inch
(51 mm) Australian ironwood. Despite 14 arctic whaling voyages, including six
overwinterings,[26] she had not been built to withstand sustained ice pressure, and lacked
the engine power to force a passage through the ice. [18] She did not match the
expectations of Bartlett, or of many of the more experienced crew. [8]
The ship spent most of April and May 1913 undergoing repairs and refitting at the
dockyard in Esquimalt. When Bartlett arrived in early June he immediately ordered
further repair work.[8] In addition to Karluk, Stefansson had purchased sight unseen a
small gasoline-driven schooner, Alaska, to act as a supply ship for the Southern Party.
He later added a second schooner, Mary Sachs, when the hold space in Alaska proved
inadequate.[27] In the confusion surrounding the expedition's departure, McKinlay notes,
no attempt was made to align men or equipment to their appropriate ships. Thus
anthropologists Henri Beuchat and Diamond Jenness, both designated for the Southern
Party, found themselves sailing with Karluk, while their equipment was on board Alaska.
McKinlay himself, aboard Karluk as magnetic observer, discovered that most of his
equipment was with Alaska. Stefansson insisted that all would be sorted out when the
ships reached their Herschel Island rendezvous. "Heaven help us all if we failed to
reach Herschel Island", McKinlay wrote.[28]