IN 1913, ONLY WEEKS INTO A HIGHLY TOUTED ARCTIC EXPEDITION, THE KARLUK BECAME CEMENTED IN THE UNYIELDING GRIP OF A MASSIVE ICE FLOE. FOR MONTHS, THE KARLUK AND HER CREW FLOATED HELPLESSLY THROUGH FRIGID WATERS, WAITING FOR THE INEVITABLE FORCE OF THE ICE TO CRUSH THE OVERMATCHED VESSEL AND SET THEM ADRIFT IN ONE OF THE MOST INHOSPITABLE PLACES ON EARTH. ONLY FOURTEEN WOULD LIVE TO TELL THE HORRIFIC TALE OF WHAT HAPPENED IN THE MONTHS TO COME.
Vilhjalmur Stefansson, a Canadian born of Icelandic parents, is often considered one of the towering figures in the annals of arctic exploration. By 1913, he had already made two wildly successful ventures to the north. He lived off the land with Inuit people during the winter of 1906–07, and in 1910 discovered a group of Inuit—then called the “blond Eskimos”—who had never before encountered a white man. His latest venture, the Canadian Arctic Expedition, which was charged with exploring the area west of the Parry Archipelago on behalf of the Canadian government, was supposed to be his crowning achievement. It was anything but.
The trip seemed doomed from the start. As Magnus Magnusson so brilliantly states in the foreword to William Laird McKinlay’s book, Karluk: The Great Untold Story of Arctic Exploration and Survival, the expedition was “ill-conceived, carelessly planned, badly organized, haphazardly manned, and almost totally lacking in leadership.” Of all the survival stories I’ve come to know, from the smallest solo journey to grand expeditions, this one is the king of the hill when it comes to unorganized, poorly planned, misguided adventures.
McKinlay’s first hint of impending doom should have come when he was asked to be part of the Karluk’s scientific team without ever having met the leader of the expedition, Stefansson. In the world of polar exploration, this would be a huge red flag. Invariably, crew members would have had to endure a series of interviews to determine their suitability for the hardships ahead. McKinlay, a twenty-four-year-old Scottish math teacher who had never been to sea, received his appointment via telegram.
But McKinlay was young and adventurous, and despite the fact that he was given a mere seventeen hours to outfit himself for a journey to the top of the world—a monumental task by today’s standards, let alone in 1913—he soon found himself on a ship bound for Canada.
McKinlay’s rushed journey across the Atlantic was indicative of the entire expedition. From the minute he arrived in Victoria, British Columbia, the departure point of the expedition, McKinlay noted the uneasy, frenzied air that seemed to envelop the preparations for the voyage. Even the captain of the Karluk, a Newfoundlander named Bob Bartlett, was uncomfortable with the ship he was meant to command.
The Karluk was an old and largely underpowered ship that had started its life as an Aleutian fishing ship and been converted into a whaler in the 1890s. Although the Karluk had been reinforced prior to the journey north, Bartlett only accepted the mission under the assumption that he would not spend the winter in arctic waters. Stefansson did not seem as concerned: he did not arrive in Victoria until a mere three days before the Karluk and the expedition’s other two ships—the Mary Sachs and the Alaska—were scheduled to sail.
Perhaps Stefansson was comfortable enough in his choice of crew that he knew he could rely on them. Perhaps he was just so confident in his own famous skill level that he had grown complacent, or at least too casual about the organizational process. I’ve done this when putting together various adventures: life becomes too stressful, and the time to properly examine your team seems to run out. And besides, when you’ve done something so many times, it’s easy to believe you can fix problems as you go along. Such thinking can lead to fatal consequences when dealing with high adventures.
Equally critical to an expedition of such enthusiastic proportions is a strong, competent, and available leader. This was even more important as Stefansson’s crew prepared for what might have been several years in the Arctic, where life and death hang in delicate balance at the best of times. Yet Stefansson was hardly there.
Most of the people he had chosen for the expedition—crew members and scientific staff alike—had no ice experience whatsoever. Yet there was one characteristic that Stefansson could not seem to resist: they were available on short notice and would work cheaply for the chance at adventure.
Stefansson was the product of his own fame and had grown dangerously overconfident. In the years to come, he would go on to publish a book called The Friendly Arctic, where he essentially espoused the notion that survival north of the Arctic Circle was relatively easy. Yet, as the crew of the Karluk would learn, surviving the arctic winter—no matter how many supplies you may have with you—is never easy, and far from friendly.
Stefansson had a rather unique view of the importance of his expedition. He seemed to consider its scientific achievements—and perhaps the fame they would heap upon his shoulders—more important than the well-being of his men. Indeed, McKinlay and the others were well on their way north when Stefansson began sending telegrams proclaiming messages such as this one to the outside world:
. . . the attainment of the purposes of the expedition is more important than the bringing-back safe of the ship in which it sails. This means that while every reasonable precaution will be taken to safeguard the lives of the party, it is realised both by the backers of the expedition and the members of it, that even the lives of the party are secondary to the accomplishment of the work!
I wonder how many would have signed on had they read that before they left. But they never got the chance. The Karluk departed Victoria on June 17, 1913. Three weeks later, the ships arrived in Nome, Alaska, where tons of supplies needed to be sorted and redistributed between the three ships before the journey north and east into Canadian waters.
The crew’s activity level in Nome reached a fevered pitch. But there was little rhyme or reason to their method of packing. No one seemed to be in charge. Crew members ended up on the wrong ships, separated from their scientific gear, unable to perform the tasks that had brought them there in the first place. Some ships carried excessive amounts of one vital supply, only to have none of another. With little organizational leadership from Stefansson, the crew began to sing a familiar tune: they would sort things out on Herschel Island. But Herschel Island was more than a thousand miles away, around the northern coast of North America. The Karluk would never make it.
Stefansson seemed to consider Herschel Island the beginning of the expedition, when in reality it was the halfway point. I have found myself in similar situations at the start of an expedition (while still at home, where supplies are easily found and organized), saying things like “We can pick it up at the little store by the put-in” or “We can get it on the way” or “We can lay things out by the lake and pack there.” What usually happens, though, is that you run out of time and never manage to stop to pick up whatever “it” is, and your packing by the lake becomes a mishmash of throwing things together. This is exactly what the members of the Stefansson expedition were experiencing, though on a much larger scale.
McKinlay wasn’t the only one to doubt Stefansson’s leadership. Several crew members sought a private meeting with their leader, during which they questioned his plans. Stefansson was not happy with their audacity, yet another indication that his ego had grown too large for comfort. It seems to me that Stefansson considered himself a turn-of-the-century rock star, and they had no right to question his methods.
Yet this type of arrogant attitude, combined with Stefansson’s haphazard approach to organizing, is a common refrain when it comes to disaster stories. The problem is that all too often you can’t find the time or the things you need once the adventure gets underway. Sorting things out and getting the proper supplies and equipment needs to be handled before you leave home. If not, there must be absolute certainty that you can get what you need later. It may not be a big deal when you are only missing a few spoons and forks; it’s a different story altogether when it’s gear that your life may depend upon.
Not surprisingly, the expedition was in complete disarray after Nome. Cargo was strewn everywhere and nothing could be found. Everything was hinging on Stefansson’s firm belief that it would all be sorted out on Herschel Island. The voyage was a disaster waiting to happen.
Early August saw the Karluk pass Point Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost point of the United States, and steam steadily toward Herschel Island. Yet travel in arctic waters is a fickle proposition at the best of times, and the ice pack the wooden-hulled ship had been weaving through for the past ten days began to close in. Captain Bartlett tried valiantly to steer her into open water—he was successful on a few brief occasions—but the power of the ice was too much. By August 12, the Karluk was stuck for good, about two hundred miles from her destination. The Mary Sachs and the Alaska suffered similar fates, becoming permanently locked in ice near the Alaska–Yukon boundary. Unlike the Karluk, however, these ships were built to make it through the winter unscathed.
The Karluk spent weeks stuck in the unmoving ice pack, which stretched from the ship to the mainland. The crew members were hobbled by boredom, but did their best to pass the time. They often ventured out onto the jumbled mass of ice to hunt birds and seals, fish through cracks in the ice, or simply admire the strange shapes and hues of the eerie landscape.
By mid-September, Stefansson announced that there was no way the expedition would be able to proceed any farther that year, and should prepare for winter on the ship. Apparently feigning concern about the amount of fresh meat on board, Stefansson also said that he had decided to walk across the ice to the mainland, where he could hunt caribou. Stefansson, along with a team of five, set out. They never returned to the ship.
Two days later, a vicious gale whipped up, breaking apart the massive floe that imprisoned the Karluk. The ship was still trapped, but in a smaller floe no longer attached to land, and was being swept away at a rate of thirty miles per day. McKinlay watched in horror as an ever-widening expanse of black arctic water separated the ship from its so-called leader. There were now twenty-five people on the Karluk: thirteen crew members, six scientists, John Hadley (an employee of the Cape Smythe Trading Company, whom Stefansson had recruited shortly after leaving Nome), and five Inuit guides (including two children).
For decades, people have questioned Stefansson’s decision to go ashore. Some say he knew the ship would eventually break away and he figured that to be stuck on the Karluk was to be stuck in a coffin. I’m not sure. He might simply have been trying to alleviate the intense boredom that characterized his life at the time. Either way, his excuse that the ship was running out of meat was transparently false: the Karluk’s Inuit guides had killed plenty of seals and there was a substantial store of fresh meat on board.
With the Karluk gone, Stefansson modified his plans, though they were no less ambitious. After meeting up with the Mary Sachs and Alaska, he designated a southern party to spend the next three years in an arduous program of scientific discovery. For his own part, Stefansson led a northern party that would roam the Arctic for five years.
Before setting out, though, Stefansson did the right thing and informed Canadian government officials about the loss of the Karluk. Word soon spread around the globe, and newspapers near and far had a field day with Stefansson’s decision to continue with his own agenda after what they saw as a monumental tragedy. How could he carry on when twenty-five lives had seemingly been lost?
Well, we know Stefansson’s feelings on the topic: in the grand scheme of things, the acquisition of new scientific knowledge was worth the sacrifice of a couple dozen lives. Stefansson was even quoted as saying, “I could never see how any one can extol the sacrifice of a million lives for political progress, who condemns the sacrifice of a few dozen lives for scientific progress.” This was certainly Stefansson’s dark side, and one he had the responsibility to share with his crew before he signed them up. But he didn’t. As far as he was concerned, the Karluk was a part of history.
Consider the difference between Stefansson and a true leader of men, Ernest Shackleton, who is said to have placed the following newspaper advertisement before his legendary travels at the bottom of the world:
Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success. Ernest Shackleton
Shackleton certainly wasn’t holding anything back from his men!
My good friend Gord Laco, a naval history expert, had this to say about the difference between Stefansson and Shackleton: “Stefansson was most certainly a different sort of leader. Shackleton made a practice of keeping the weakest, and sometimes the most troublesome, member of his crew as a tent-mate while on his incredible ice and sea journey. He also made a practice of bringing morning cocoa to his men personally and chatting a moment with each and every one of them. He wasn’t just being nice. . . . With the choice of tent-mates he was keeping personal touch with his people’s condition and getting negative gossip first hand. With the morning cocoa routine he was doing the same thing but also making each and every man in the company feel he had a personal connection with their leader. And Shackleton knew very well how important his men’s perception of his own morale was to the strength and will to live of the whole crew.”
Conducting a Reconnaissance Mission
A reconnaissance mission is the safest way to properly assess the surrounding landscape. Choose a destination and take note of the time you left, as well as the general speed and direction of travel. If you don’t have a watch, you can count your steps.
Whenever you come to a major landmark (such as a stream, rock, or cliff ), note the landmark itself, how long it took you to get there, the speed you were traveling, what side the landmark is on, and which way you turned (or didn’t turn) at this spot.
You can cover many miles of exploration this way, repeating the process as often as necessary. Of course, you need some way to write the information down, preferably as neatly as possible. On the return journey, simply reverse the information. Now you can come back out this way again any time you want, using the reconnaissance map to keep you from getting lost.
The Karluk wasn’t part of history, though. Not yet. The ship floated along as part of the ice floe for weeks, with no end in sight. In early October, McKinlay and his mates could see open water stretching tantalizingly around the floe to the south, but were powerless to do anything about it. And so they sat, waiting for something—anything—to happen.
They did their best to keep busy. McKinlay took to handicrafts, at one point making a medicine chest for the ship’s doctor. The Karluk’s mechanics overhauled virtually every moving part in the engine room, preparing for a quick getaway should the possibility of escape ever present itself. This not only kept them busy and staved off boredom and depression, but also allowed them to hold on to the only thread of hope they had, a sound survival strategy.
Despite the otherwise dire circumstances, the crew never stopped appreciating the awe-inspiring beauty of the landscape. Stark though it may have been, here was a world few of these young men could ever have imagined, including the teacher McKinlay. The sun reflected off a landscape that stretched seemingly to the end of the world. The ice floes around them rose and fell as if with minds of their own, sometimes crashing together with such force that they would form huge ridges rising dozens of feet into the sky. Polar bears and seals were their constant companions. When darkness fell, the northern lights danced eerily across the night sky.
The Long, Dark Winter of the Arctic
The regions north of the Arctic Circle are characterized by bright summers when the sun never sets and dark winters when the sky never brightens. The farther north you get from the Arctic Circle, the longer the respective periods of light and dark. And for all the increased energy that around-the-clock sunlight brings, twenty-four hours of murky darkness for months on end can be a maddening proposition.
Most seasoned arctic explorers planned for the psychological challenges brought about by the darkness of arctic winters and filled their men’s time with enough activities and chores to keep them occupied when the land around them faded into the inky night. Whether the crew was taking apart and rebuilding parts of the ship, listening to readings by the captain, or preparing for the day’s slate of physical contests, there was always something to do among the most organized expeditions.
With good reason. Light deprivation has been linked to depression and seasonal affective disorder and can also throw a person’s sleep-wake cycle completely out of whack. Add to that the hopelessness and lack of purpose that often accompany a survival situation, and you can see why keeping busy is so critical. Too bad Captain Bartlett never clued in.
As strange as it may seem, it is a good strategy to appreciate the beauty of nature around you, even if you are in peril. Most survivors report doing this at one time or another during their ordeals. It is the same as maintaining a sense of humor in your darkest hours. It takes your focus away from the misery of your current situation.
In the meantime, Captain Bartlett was now in charge of the ship. And while he would go on to make some very wise decisions in the months to come, he fell flat in those early days aboard the Karluk. In early October, the ship’s doctor presented Bartlett with a letter requesting that he hold a meeting with the entire crew, where he would lay out his plans for their future. Bartlett confidently replied that no such meeting was necessary, and let the matter end there. So when the doctor presented Bartlett with another letter ten days later, the skipper refused to accept it altogether.
I think Captain Bartlett made a big mistake in avoiding the meetings. It seems like he was living in a world of hope and disbelief, and was essentially denying the grave nature of their situation. To the contrary, he should have done what all good leaders do in survival situations: realistically assess the situation, share that knowledge with the others, and prepare for the worst.
Yet he didn’t. The days passed into weeks, and an oppressive feeling of hopelessness began to take hold of the crew. This sense of overwhelming and contagious apathy can sometimes be worse in a large group than a small group. Among a large group, people can sometimes become distractions for one another, forget the gravity of their survival ordeal and focus on the boredom. Small groups usually don’t have the luxury of distraction, however, and tend to focus on—and tackle—the survival situation almost immediately.
So Bartlett missed another opportunity to lead. It was his responsibility to assess the morale of the crew. He should have sensed their despondency and organized games, contests, and activities that have kept other arctic exploration parties eager and vital under similar circumstances. This is especially important when the fundamentals of life—food, water, shelter, clothing—are accounted for and there’s little else to do.
As October turned into November, Bartlett finally seemed to kick into gear when he realized that there was little hope the Karluk would make it through the winter. He chose an area of what he thought to be the oldest and most stable ice on the floe, and ordered the crew to begin moving the ship’s supplies there. Bartlett now recognized that their only hope of survival was to move as much of their cargo as possible off the Karluk, because she was in danger of being crushed and sinking.
It was a good decision, but I believe the captain waited far too long. In the end, they moved all the necessary supplies off the ship, but Bartlett never seemed to consider the mental well-being of his men. He should have started the work effort much earlier, when the men were at risk of sinking into depression. This would have given them something to do to pass their time, a reason for being.
In fact, why not dismantle the ship completely and rebuild it somewhere safe? Of course, it’s easy for me to ask that as I write this, in warmth and comfort. And what if the opposite had happened and a lead opened up and set them free? Either way, if radical action such as dismantling the ship were to be taken, it should have been much earlier. Six days later, McKinlay and the others had moved a massive store of supplies out onto the ice:
alcohol (5 drums)
beef (5 casks)
biscuits (114 cases)
coal (250 sacks)
coal stoves with piping (3)
codfish (6 cases)
codsteaks (3 cases)
dried eggs (4 cases)
gasoline (33 cases)
molasses (19 barrels)
sleds (9)
timber (2,000 feet)
wood stoves (2)
Bartlett then very wisely had the men use the supplies—particularly the wooden cases that held various items—to construct the walls of the two houses that would soon become their homes. The tops of the crates all faced the interiors of the houses, for easy access to their contents. The extra timber they carried was used to make floors and the roof rafters, over which was spread sailcloth.
Building the houses seems to be Bartlett’s first real bit of survival thinking, much more so than having the supplies removed from the ship, which was more reactive than proactive (the Karluk was about to be crushed). It shows that Bartlett was beginning to think about their long-term survival.
Bartlett also had the men insulate the outsides of the houses with blocks of snow, another smart move. As counterintuitive as this may seem, snow is an excellent insulator. It is dense, keeps the warm air in and the cold air out, and is especially useful at keeping out the wind, which is the greatest killer of all in the cold.
Bartlett’s inspiration for using snow as insulation may have come from Kuraluk and Kataktovik, the two Inuit men on board (the other Inuit on the Karluk were Kuraluk’s wife and two children). Quiet and reserved, the Inuit were tireless hunters who provided a constant supply of seal and polar bear meat to the captain.
Although the crew did not need to move into their makeshift houses right away (the ship was still intact), they proved useful almost immediately for housing injured dogs. When Stefansson left, he had taken the twelve best sled dogs with him, which meant that extra care had to be lavished upon those remaining on the Karluk. It wasn’t easy, since they often seemed hell-bent on killing each other.
The aggression of true Inuit sled dogs is not particularly well known, but a frightening sight to behold. They can be utterly vicious to one another, and they often fight to the death. For three years, I ran Inuit sled dog teams, taking clients on wilderness trips and adventures. I have lost count of how many times I needed to jump into the middle of a five-dog fight with my fists and boots flailing. The dogs barely noticed me—so intent were they on fighting one another. I had to be as tough and strong with them as many ranchers are with horses, or they would have maimed—or killed—each other, a fate far worse than being kicked in the head by a musher.
As time passed, it became apparent that as seaworthy as the Karluk might have been as a fishing and whaling ship, she was ill equipped for a winter in the Arctic, both inside and out. The tables were too small, there were too few plates and mugs, and there weren’t enough stools and chairs on which to pass the monotonous days. Even the few lamps they had soon stopped working properly, so McKinlay took it upon himself to restore them to perfect working condition.
He meticulously took apart the lamps, boiled down every part, then put them all back together again. This is a classic example of how obsessing on a small detail can make survival more bearable. For many survivors, it’s okay to spend what may otherwise seem like an inordinate amount of time focusing on a small task. It occupies your mind and your hands, and may help you live to see another day.
McKinlay certainly did; his survival instincts were top-notch, even if they were tempered by his meek personality. Rather than become bogged down in misery and boredom, he used his time productively. To keep his body fit and sound, he spent hours running around the deck of the Karluk. I’m not sure if this exercise regimen was copied by the other members of the crew, but they would have been wise to do so. They still had plenty of food, so the activity would only have served to help. The alternative would have been to eat very little during times of inactivity and more when working hard.
I know I’ve used exercise as a way to keep warm and sane during many of my survival ordeals. During my first-ever Survivorman shoot in the boreal forest of northern Canada, I had to do jumping jacks and push-ups to keep my core temperature from falling dangerously low. My primary motivation was to create warmth, but the beneficial physical and psychological effects of such exercise should never be overlooked.
McKinlay’s survival instincts certainly did not stop with exercise, as he tried to make himself as ready as possible for the ordeal he knew would come. He even went so far as to study books from the ship’s library (he read an entire book about the arctic exploration ship the Jeannette) to learn lessons from explorers who had passed that way before. If anything, McKinlay was proactive.
But the schoolteacher was not beyond making mistakes. During one of his excursions off the ship, he was stricken with a case of frostbite on his hands. As a sign of the times, the ship’s doctor advised that the best way to treat the malady was to rub the affected area with snow, which we now know can cause permanent damage.
The months passed. November became December, and soon the crew was thinking about Christmas on the ship. Yet the Yuletide spirit did not extend to all members of the crew, as three of them began to make plans to leave the Karluk and strike out on their own. This news did not sit well with Captain Bartlett at all.
One morning shortly after Christmas, the crew was shaken from its torpor by the sound of a shot outside, which proved to be a huge crack that had opened up alongside the entire starboard length of the ship. It was the last thing any of them wanted to see, for they knew that pressure ridges formed around cracks in the ice. And if a pressure ridge—those places where massive ice floes smash and grind together like tectonic plates—formed anywhere near the ship, the Karluk was doomed.
Preparations for abandoning ship took on a new sense of urgency, a development that helps illustrate just how complacent they had been. Even though they were helpless in one of the most unforgiving climates on earth, they still weren’t thinking like people in a perilous survival situation. They knew the sinking of the Karluk was likely, yet they didn’t prepare themselves to the point of being a finely oiled machine. That was a serious mistake.
Clothing was a big concern for the crew. In Stefansson’s hurry to leave Nome, winter clothes were not evenly distributed between the three ships, so there was little of use on the Karluk. Luckily, Kuraluk’s wife—affectionately known as Auntie by the crew—was an excellent seamstress who worked tirelessly at making sealskin clothing from the supply of skins the hunters had provided. Unfortunately, the process was extremely labor intensive, and there was no way she would be able to outfit the entire crew before the Karluk was lost.
McKinlay and his mates did little to help her, as they thought the process too exacting to be properly undertaken by their untrained hands. That was a pathetic excuse. Here they were, staring squarely at spending a winter north of the Arctic Circle with inappropriate clothing, and they spent their time doing nothing in terms of long-term survival. The men were likely too old-fashioned in their thinking, and convinced themselves they shouldn’t do it. So they didn’t. All they needed to do was take the time to learn, and they had ample time on their hands. The captain should have assigned a group of men each week to the task. In fact, the only time they finally got their act together and started sewing was when the crack appeared at the side of the ship and they realized their days aboard the Karluk were numbered.
On January 10, a harsh, grating sound woke the crew and a shudder shook the ship. The cracks in the ice had widened and begun to move. Later that evening, the movement of the ice tore a hole in the side of the Karluk that nobody could repair.
With sinking inevitable, the crew mobilized quickly, removing every last useful item off the ship. By the afternoon of January 11, the Karluk was at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. The additional supplies taken off the ship were as follows:
bearded seal skins (2)
Burberry gabardine (3 rolls)
Burberry hunting suits (4)
butter (2 boxes)
chocolate (2 boxes)
coal oil (3 drums)
coal oil candles (15 cases)
cocoa (1 box)
deer legs (2 large sacks)
deer skins (20)
fawn skins (100)
fleece suits (6)
heavy winter skins (6)
Jaeger blanketing (hunter or military style, 2 rolls)
Jaeger blankets (50)
Jaeger caps (30)
Jaeger mitts (100 pairs)
Jaeger socks (200 pairs)
Jaeger sweaters (6)
mattresses (20)
milk (200 tins)
pemmican (5,222 pounds, Hudson’s Bay; 4,056 pounds, Underwood)
seal skins (12)
skin boots (100 pairs)
sugar (250 pounds)
tea (2 boxes)
underwear (70 suits)
woolen shirts (36)
Life at the so-called Shipwreck Camp proceeded much as it had on the ship, until January 25, when Captain Bartlett sent seven men with three sleds, eighteen dogs, and 1,200 pounds of supplies in search of Alaska’s Wrangel Island, which lay somewhere to the southeast. In the meantime, Bartlett also called for smaller parties of two and three men to travel behind the advance group, establishing a chain of supply caches toward Wrangel Island.
I think the captain’s decision to split the group up was a serious mistake. It’s one thing to leave people behind who are too sick or injured to travel, as in the case of Nando Parrado and his teammates in the Andes, but I think history has shown that, when you split up a large, healthy group, you are almost always asking for trouble. Why? You divide your reserves (even though they were convinced they had plenty), your strengths, and your expertise. Sure, you might cover more ground, but I believe that keeping a group together—whether it be in travel or in staying put—is the best thing to do unless you have no choice.
On February 3, three of the seven-man Wrangel Island party returned. The group had not yet reached its destination, but the trio believed the others were not too far off when they decided to return to Shipwreck Camp. The four others were never seen again. It was not until 1929 that a passing ship found the skeletons of the four men on a barren island known as Herald Island. What deprivations they suffered there can only be imagined.
The Arctic had begun to take its toll on the members of the Karluk. Shortly after the trio from the Wrangel Island party returned, four others decided to set out on their own. None from this group would survive.
Bartlett was very worried about the four Wrangel Island party members who had been left behind and sent a three-man team back in search of them. At the same time, he sent two other crew members on another caching trip. His various attempts at sending out small parties was unwise, and ultimately resulted in the needless loss of four men.
Yet it took a variety of failures for the captain to finally decide to move the whole group, which he did once the three-man team returned without having found the advance party. It helps illustrate that, as good a sea captain as Bartlett might have been, he had very little experience when it came to arctic survival. Was he the right man for the job? It’s something Stefansson should have considered.
The remaining seventeen survivors departed Shipwreck Camp on February 18, 1914, with four sleds, twenty-two dogs, and as many supplies as they could carry. They believed Wrangel Island to be some forty miles away, a distance they underestimated by at least half. I believe they would have been better off trying to determine exactly how far away the island was, then doubling that estimate and using that revised figure to be the true distance they would need to travel.
It wasn’t long before they realized that traveling over arctic sea ice is a hellish undertaking for inadequately outfitted people unaccustomed to the terrain. Yet through a combination of determination, luck, and the knowledge of their Inuit guides, the various parties made it to Icy Spit on Wrangel Island on March 12, two months after the Karluk originally sank. Their party of twenty-five had been reduced to seventeen and was showing the ill effects of the arduous journey they had undertaken from Shipwreck Camp.
To his credit, Bartlett immediately began making plans to go to the Siberian mainland, which he knew to be populated, to seek help. Although his original strategy had been for everyone to make the journey, the crossing from Shipwreck Camp to Wrangel Island had taken such a toll on them that he knew it was no longer viable. Bartlett decided to go alone, with one Inuit guide, Kataktovik. This was the first splitting of the group that actually made sense. It was necessary, and it had to be a small, capable group that went.
But Bartlett made a huge mistake before he left: he failed to recognize the importance of strong leadership among the remaining survivors. To the contrary, he actually allowed them to split into four groups, each with an equal amount of provisions, to seek their own destiny. Although Bartlett appointed Chief Engineer John Munro to be in command after he left, he essentially left the group adrift and leaderless, which can be very dangerous in a survival situation. You can’t just arbitrarily make someone a leader and hope everyone else listens to him or her. Personality, strength of character, and actions in times of need must dictate the choice.
In retrospect, Bartlett was hot and cold as a leader. He made some good decisions and his fair share of bad ones as well. Prior to leaving, he had a long discussion with McKinlay, who, he hoped, would help ease the rising tensions among the survivors. It was a good choice, as McKinlay would prove to have the temperament for the job, but it vividly illustrates Bartlett’s lack of leadership acumen when it came to dealing with personalities, egos, and difficult circumstances.
Tensions began to rise almost immediately after Bartlett left. The camp was in disarray, many of the crew were sick and weak, and the survivors were beginning to realize that their stores of food were not as limitless as they had once imagined. Quarrels began to break out about the rationing of food; not surprisingly, Munro did little to help the situation.
In late March, assistant topographer Bjarne Mamen decided to move his group to a place called Rodger’s Harbor, on the south coast of the island, where Captain Bartlett had promised to meet the crew in mid-July. At around the same time, Munro took some men in search of the original advance party that had vanished after leaving Shipwreck Camp. The search proved fruitless.
The arctic days grew longer and longer, and the weather improved steadily. That didn’t stop a surprising number of the survivors from getting frostbite, which they continued to treat by rubbing snow on the affected area. It shouldn’t have happened as often as it did, especially given the large number of furs and other materials on hand. Again, this speaks to their lack of experience with the climate, as well as a general lack of care. I realize you can’t prevent all episodes of frostbite in this type of survival situation, and they would even have been prone to it in their state of poor nutrition, but they had both the materials (animal skins) and the expertise (their Inuit guides) at their disposal. They were simply not protecting themselves enough. At one point, a crew member’s big toe had to be amputated with a pair of tin shears—and no anesthetic!
McKinlay enjoyed the sunshine immensely, and was overjoyed on those days when he could leave his dark and squalid quarters and enjoy the fresh air. His sense of survival was reaching new heights, and while he may not have been the vocal leader of the survivors, he did his best to lead by action. He went to great pains to stave off monotony. Even when he was sick, he implemented a daily exercise routine. He also did his best to mend the rifts that sometimes grew between himself, an educated scientist and teacher, and the largely uncultivated crew. As he so aptly stated in his book, “When you’re sick, hungry, and freezing in the middle of the Arctic, it’s no time to put on airs.”
One thing that helped maintain the morale—and well-being—of the survivors were the fires they kept roaring on the shore of their camp. This helps illustrate one of the great misconceptions about the Arctic: that there is no wood. Quite to the contrary, I don’t know that I’ve ever set foot on an arctic shore where I haven’t found either driftwood—often from thousands of miles away—or old lumber from wrecked boats and Inuit hunting camps. You can actually get a great fire going in the middle of a treeless landscape.
Yet, as in many survival situations, the primary focus at Icy Spit was now food. The supplies they had brought from Shipwreck Camp had been almost continuously supplemented by the Inuit hunters, but game had grown scarce. In late April, Hadley had set out with Kuraluk in search of food.
Kuraluk returned in early May with one seal, and notified the others that Hadley was on a nearby ridge with three more in tow. When Hadley did not return, Munro did not immediately send anyone out to retrieve the remaining seals (which would likely have been eaten by polar bears anyway had they been left alone). Even when Hadley returned days later with only two-thirds of a seal remaining, Munro did nothing to address the fact that they all thought Hadley had simply gorged himself on seal. If lack of leadership is one of the greatest causes of poor group dynamics, then Icy Spit should be a case study. Consider Yossi Ghinsberg, who was smart enough to try to talk to his friends when tensions ran high during their Amazon trek. Munro, it seems, was afraid of confrontation.
What the group really needed was a Nando Parrado, someone willing to step up and take charge of the situation. Munro was not the one to do so, and nobody else filled the void. McKinlay was intelligent and motivated, but was viewed as an outsider by most of the rest of the seamen and was hampered by his meek disposition. Perhaps Stefansson’s decision to leave the group so many months before had taught them that it’s better to fend for yourself than worry about others.
Though the weather continued to improve, the condition of many of the survivors at Icy Spit worsened. Many were afflicted by an inexplicable swelling of their legs and arms, a condition we now know to be protein poisoning.
Rabbit Starvation
Protein poisoning is also known as “rabbit starvation,” and it’s actually a form of malnutrition caused by the combination of excessive consumption of lean meat (such as rabbit) with a lack of other nutritional sources. The addition of other stressors—such as being stranded on a tiny island in the middle of arctic nowhere—adds to the severity of the illness.
Protein poisoning is characterized by a variety of symptoms, the most common being general discomfort, swollen extremities, diarrhea, headache, fatigue, low blood pressure, and low heart rate.
Interestingly, Stefansson would later point to the expedition’s vast stores of pemmican as the cause of the protein poisoning that afflicted so many of its members. Yet he never accepted any responsibility for the pemmican’s deficiencies. Clearly, he held a different view than did Admiral Robert Peary, who, in Secrets of Polar Travel, had this to say about pemmican: “Next to insistent, minute, personal attention to the building of his ship, the Polar explorer should give his personal, constant, and insistent attention to the making of his pemmican and should know that every batch of it packed for him is made of the proper material in the proper proportion and in accordance with his specification.”
In my experience, the proper formula seems to be half fat and half ground or powdered dried meat, along with (if possible) some dried berries for flavor. When prepared correctly, fifty-year-old pemmican has been found to still be edible.
On May 17, McKinlay decided to leave Icy Spit and join Mamen and the rest of his group at Rodger’s Harbor. Yet he was only about halfway to his destination when he came across Mamen in a ramshackle camp near a place called Skeleton Island. It was there that Mamen broke the devastating news to McKinlay: one of the members of his group, a man named Bob Malloch, had died the night before.
I find it almost inconceivable that in mid-May—when the sun was shining long and bright in the sky, the weather was tolerable, and supplies of food and water were adequate (others in the party had been denying themselves to give Malloch extra) —that this man had to die. It seems that the will to live was quite low, and that there was more apathy than will. I find it surprising, with so many in the party, but it shows just how leaderless they were, and illustrates the beneficial effect a strong leader can have on a group—or, in this case, the detrimental effect of the absence of one.
They were not helped by the fact that they had split up into various factions that kept moving from camp to camp according to their own whims. Nobody was courageous enough to take command and develop a cohesive, comprehensive plan of attack. Everything they did was reactive instead of proactive. So people started dying.
McKinlay realized that both Mamen and his sole surviving camp mate were in very bad shape, so he decided to head back for more provisions. He arrived at Icy Spit a few days later to find that the mystery disease had spread. Many more survivors were now suffering with swollen extremities.
By early June, a few more of the group decided to make their way toward Rodger’s Harbor; McKinlay accompanied them. While on the way, they encountered two other crew members who had ventured out some time earlier to check on the state of Mamen and his camp mate. Their news was predictably bad: Mamen had died on May 26. Although they were all upset at the loss of yet another in their party, McKinlay was the most stricken. Mamen had been the last of his scientist colleagues on the island.
McKinlay dropped his plans to move to Rodger’s Harbor and instead worked like a dog at Munro’s command, helping the remaining crew at Icy Spit move to a location called Cape Waring, about halfway to Rodger’s Harbor. It was a monumental task. Many people were now suffering such pronounced effects of the mystery disease that they could barely walk, and the dogs were exhausted. Yet somehow, McKinlay helped get everyone moved.
Once everyone was settled in at Cape Waring, the issue of food began to assume monumental importance. Their pemmican stores were getting extremely low, large game such as seals and polar bears were becoming scarcer as summer set in, and they were running out of ammunition. Perhaps not surprisingly, each of the various factions in the group had its own method of rationing food. The Inuit with which McKinlay shared his tent were expert rationers. They could turn one small bird into a meal for four people, while just a tent away, men would be gorging themselves on a bird each, only to be complaining of hunger a few hours later.
By this time, the entire operation was breaking down. There were petty arguments over just about everything; it seemed that luck was the only thing keeping some of them alive. It got so bad that people started cheating on food, stealing from one another, and withholding information when a hunt had been successful. Now the lack of leadership had become a dangerous issue.
And although everyone was certainly hoping that Bartlett would return in July or August with a rescue ship, I am amazed that nobody ever seemed to consider what they would do if he didn’t return. June, when the sun was high and the weather getting warmer, was the time for them to be thinking about winter. They should have been finding a place to spend the winter, building shelters, fortifying their camp, and collecting food. Instead, they were entrenched in trivial disputes and self-serving motives. It was like a historical episode of Survivor! Even Kuraluk, who became snowblind at one point and was not particularly happy when asked to work, seems like the old man in the neighbourhood who never grew up.
The fact that Bartlett had put Munro in charge was the worst thing for the company. Not only was he incompetent, but he seemed to be corrupt, and used the power bestowed upon him to suit his own agenda. At one point, McKinlay learned that Munro and another crew member had killed ten birds and eaten them all without sharing with anyone else. Munro even went as far as to order Hadley, who proved to be a dogged hunter during their time on the island, to hand over some of his ammunition. There was a huge uproar, but eventually Hadley acquiesced, since Munro was in charge. When all was said and done, Munro had 170 rounds left for himself and two other men camped at Rodger’s Harbor, while there were 146 rounds for the ten people at Cape Waring.
I also fault McKinlay and the others for not standing up to Munro. I realize there is a strict line of authority in the naval world, but there comes a point when someone has to stand up for what’s right. Munro’s authority should have been challenged. When it’s a life-and-death struggle, I don’t care who the captain put in charge. Munro was not fit for the job. The problem was that nobody else seemed up to the task, either.
Yet they somehow managed to keep themselves alive. There were thousands of cliff-dwelling birds at Cape Waring, which provided enough meat and eggs to keep the crew alive, though just barely. There were still terribly disparities between the amount of food being eaten in the various tents. By late June, McKinlay and the Inuit, who continued to ration stingily, had enough food to last them five more days. The others had consumed their last bits of pemmican, seal, and birds, and were either hoping for a miracle or had more insidious plans.
The next few hunting forays saw the residents of one tent keep all the spoils for themselves, while McKinlay and his mates relied on the stores they had been so carefully rationing. Yet the apparently short-lived bounty did not help bolster spirits much. On the morning of June 25, the camp was awakened by the sound of a shot, followed by shouts. Apparently, Breddy, a member of the other Cape Waring tent, had shot himself dead.
It wasn’t long after Breddy’s death that the primary thought around camp again turned to food. Each tent had now completely exhausted its supplies, and hunting was the only available option. Fortunately, Kuraluk continued to have sporadic luck hunting seals, but even three seals seemed meager when divided among the seven men, one woman, two children, and three dogs still calling Cape Waring home.
In what was likely one of the few strokes of brilliance the survivors had, someone realized they could make a kayak to help get them closer to the seals. Of course, they relied on Kuraluk to design and build the craft. He used an ax head to fashion the sides and ribs of the frame from two large driftwood logs. Two weeks later, Auntie sewed a series of seal skins together over the completed frame. On July 19, the kayak was launched for the first time.
In the meantime, Hadley and Kuraluk continued to hunt. They were occasionally successful, but not nearly as successful as you might think. In July, Kuraluk fired at eleven seals, killing six and missing five. That same month, Hadley fired at ten seals, killing four and missing six. And as McKinlay so rightly points out, those figures don’t account for seals that were stalked but escaped before the hunters could squeeze off a shot.
Hunting is certainly a viable way to get food in a survival situation, but its success rates tend to be vastly overrated. People are always amazed at how unlucky I am when it comes to hunting during my survival experiences. The reality of the situation, though, is that even in the best circumstances, hunters often come up empty-handed. And if someone is trying to do it while exhausted, on the brink of starvation, perhaps injured, lacking a gun (or having one unsuited to the prey) —and, in my case, running my own cameras—it is easy to see how difficult it is and how lucky one needs to be.
But Kuraluk was an expert hunter, had a good gun on hand, and was a member of a race that had been hunting those waters for millennia. At the end of July, he killed three huge bearded seals on consecutive days, providing a feast the likes of which the survivors had not seen since their days on the Karluk. McKinlay also added to the camp’s food supply by discovering a small edible plant that was plentiful near running water.
Perhaps bolstered by this newfound bounty, the survivors finally began to consider the possibility of wintering on the island. They selected a site for a hut and began drying meat for the long, cold, dark days that lay ahead. Finally!
But, while McKinlay and the Inuit continued to ration wisely, the men in the other tent did not. So, by the third week in August, the others were asking for a handout. Grudgingly, McKinlay’s tent agreed, but only in fixed and limited amounts, and only in exchange for some precious tea.
The rations had to last a long while, as hunting would prove unsuccessful for the next four weeks. Again, however, when all hope seemed lost, it was Kuraluk who provided for the group. He realized that, although their waning ammunition was too precious to waste on the sea birds that swam in the waters off the cape, it might be possible to catch them with a net that had lain long ignored under a snowbank. The technique proved to be wildly successful, and I am utterly flabbergasted that it took them so long to remember they had this very valuable tool on hand. It’s a wonder anyone other than the Inuit survived.
On September 6, the Inuit woman helped the food situation immensely by catching fish through a crack in the nearby sea ice. The pile of fish was beginning to build on the seventh, when the camp was shocked by a scream from Kuraluk: “Umiakpik kunno!”—Maybe a ship! Some three miles offshore, a small schooner was steaming to the northwest. Nobody could tell if it was a relief ship or a walrus hunter on the prowl for prey, but their hopes were dashed when the ship hoisted its sails. It was sailing off!
The survivors didn’t wait for another signal. They knew this might be their only chance at rescue. Those on shore started screaming and waving for all they were worth. Hadley used up most of his ammunition firing his revolver into the sky, and Kuraluk went racing over the ice in hopes of heading the ship off. Then McKinlay and the others saw what they thought must be an illusion. The ship lowered its sails, and a party of men disembarked and began walking across the ice toward camp.
Though salvation had come at last, the survivors could still only think of one thing: food. They immediately turned to their store of fish. When the rescuers arrived in camp, the survivors were just putting on pots for a meal of fish and tea, their last on Wrangel Island.
Like many of those who suffer through a survival ordeal, McKinlay found it surprisingly difficult to bid farewell to the camp and the precious items that had kept them alive those many months. Dr. Francis Bourbeau, a survival expert and good friend of mine, once spent thirty days surviving in the boreal forest of Quebec. Once he was safe and sound in the plane at the end of the ordeal, even though he knew he was on his way home, he insisted that the pilot give him matches—just in case. I too always find myself reluctant to give up my survival supplies until I am actually back in civilization—again, just in case.
As McKinlay had suspected, the ship—the King and Winge—was a walrus hunter whose captain had promised to look for the lost party if it ventured near Wrangel Island. It had first arrived at Rodger’s Harbor and picked up Munro and two others, who directed it to Cape Waring.
At 11:30 a.m. on September 8, 1914, the survivors stood on the deck of the King and Winge and spotted a steamship, the Bear, approaching from the distance. As the two ships pulled alongside one another, Captain Bartlett could be seen standing on deck. After a seven-hundred-mile sledge journey through Alaska and into Siberia, Bartlett had gotten through after all.
As for Stefansson, he continued his explorations over the Arctic Ocean and Beaufort Sea, living largely by shooting game. He continued exploring until 1918.
The Karluk
ELEMENTS OF SURVIVAL
Knowledge 10%
Luck 30%
Kit 30%
Will to Live 30%
A little bit of everything, partly the result of the diverse parties involved. Their collective knowledge was surprisingly poor, as most crew members and scientific staff were there for one specific purpose. Add the Inuit, and the knowledge rating goes through the roof! Luck did not play too heavily into their survival, although bad luck certainly got in the way of Stefansson’s return to the ship after his fateful hunting expedition. Although their kit was relatively poor (the product of Stefansson’s disorganization), they still had a fair bit of food and supplies. Will to live was neither inspirational nor pathetic, and seemed largely reactive to circumstances as opposed to being focused and driven
