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The book is introduced in August 1968 when forensic doctors take samples of the frozen body of the buried Charles Francis Hall at Thank God harbour ,Greenland. A tablet was erected on Captain Halls grave in 1871 by the British Polar expedition. In 1881Augustus Greely led another failed expedition.1898 and 1909 Robert Peary led expedition. 1845 John Franklin expedition to find the north passage 2 ships and crews disappeared.
Members of the expedition were supposed to be away for 30 months. Dr. Bessler as the
ships physician. He was from he Prussian volunteer army and a scientific researcher.
The Polaris was the first icebreaker and Polaris is a conspicuous bright star in the northern hemisphere. The US Navy and Merchant marine relied heavily on recruiting immigrants to work on their ships . American adventurers were going west rather than the sea. In Europe you had the 1848 revolution ad the Bismarck Wars of German unification, so you had a lot of German sailors leaving Europe.
1871They sailed from New York of Walt Whitman and the tallest building was the Trinity Church. At St John's Newfoundland the bought furs to be sewn into clothes as woolen clothing was far from adequate in the climate. Disco Greenland would be the last stop before heading for the North Pole. Every man on the ship could read and write and was asked to keep a journal of the trip. The crew by this time was very divided and it was hard to keep discipline. At Upernavik Greenland, the northern most of Greenland's Danish settlements. more dogs were bought so they had 60. These were divided between Newfoundlanders and Huskies. At first the were fed on dried fish bough at the settlements but otherwise fed pemmican or dried meat only once in 3 days.
They could see the aurora borealis or "northern lights" named after Aurora the Roman goddess of dawn. Now at 81degrees 35 minutes was the furthest north any ship had travelled and charts were no longer of any use. Now the were totally blocked by ice.
Captain Hall died and his body was wrapped in the 37 star US flag (between 1867 -1877) and buried at Thank God Harbor (now Polaris Bay) in North Greenland on November 11, 1871. The went Musk Ox hunting this is an animal related to sheep or goats is 5ft tall and covered with thick woolen coats. and live in herds of between 10 and 100.
The ship was leaking and they were wantonly wasting coal and provisions.
Merkut the Eskimo women delivered a healthy baby, tradition was that she delivered it alone and bit through the ambilocal chord with her teeth. The clothes worn in delivery were never worn again and so burned.
The ship was in a bad way and the Captain told them to abandon the ship onto an ice flow then suddenly the ship heaved loose. They were 19 people stranded on the ice flow including the 4 adult Eskimos and 5 children. When they saw the Polaris it was not searching for them, they had been abandoned. The Eskimos helped build 3 igloos for them all.
Seals are the winter food of Eskimos. The would find a seal breathing hole stab a seal with a harpoon the widen the hole to bring the seal out. Seal blubber kept the oil lamps going. With longer days bear and fox hunting became possible. Where ever sailors ventured the first thing that the natives learned was card games. In Eskimo society the man's role is defined he builds a shelter and hunted and fished. Women cooked, prepared animal skins and made clothing, dried and repaired them. Men and women always travelled together.
When they were hungry the ate the seal entrails and hair. The blubber was warmed over a lamp and eaten.
Bears only came where seals are to be caught and foxes followed. A thin fox arrived and they
killed it to eat.
The starving others in the party would have killed the Eskimos but no white man could
catch seals like the Eskimos. The seals blood was caught and the liver and heart were
delicacies. the eyes wee given to the youngest child. Stretched and dried membranous
tissue used to make hut windows.
They now could see Baffin Island this is the largest Island in Canada. The dogs had been eaten and one of the 2 boats had been burned for firewood. Only 2 dogs were left and to catch a bear you needed a dog to keep the bear at bay for the hunter to get off a shot.
They were worried the the ice flow while moving fast could split in 2. The iceberg only shows a seventh or eight of itself above the water depending on the saltiness of the sea. They were now in the Cumberland gulf which was Tyson old whaling ground. While their flow shattered into a small piece in the storm, they were now in seal area and could shoot seals and use the kayak to retrieve them. They managed to get a big bear that was like eating pork. But the ice was not to be trusted at this time of year. The boat separated from the ice but luckily an Eskimos managed to go in floating blocks to retrieve it.
They all got into the boat which was low on the water so held onto the ice . The sealer Tigress a 3 massed barkentine from Conception Bay, Newfoundland took them on. 1873 April 30 at 53d 33m they had been drifting 1,500 miles for 197 days For the first time ate cod fish , potatoes bread butter adn hot coffee.
When the first news came of the Polaris the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge just got underway
George Tyson returned to the artic to search for the Polaris and 14 missing crewman. The Tigress had a Flared Hulls are Used in Icebreaking. The Eskimo Hans and his family disembarked at Disco. They discovered at Littleton Island Eskimos and the brought Joe to act as interpreter.
The discovered that 2 months earlier the whole party had build 2 sailboats from the wood and canvas salvaged from the ship and with ample provisions. They must have been picked up by whaler in the Davis strait. Tyson picked up Halls log book but the reference to Hall death had been torn out, also a loose page that noted the date that Halls papers were thrown overboard. They had been picked up by the Ravenscraig a Scottish whaler and at the end of 3 months whaling had landed in Dundee, Scotland. They returned to the US on fares paid by the US government. This was all in 1873 the year of a NY stock exchange panic, plus the African explorer David Livingston died.
1968 the results of the autopsy of Halls body showed that he had died of arsenic poisoning with more poison added towards the end so Dr. Bessels was busy killing him and not saving him. Also the fact that he refused to give him an emetic.
1869 to 1877. Ulysses Grant's 2 terms as President was considered the most corrupt President in US history, he picked friends for high positions and provided an incompetent's public service and died in 1985. He had hoped to see the US flag planted on the North Pole.
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