Alaska (95 page)

AND

ADVISE IMMEDIATELY STOP

Since Loeffler had recently been in Point Barrow, he was assigned as second-in-command of the study group, and he spent his first three days along the Seattle waterfront trying to piece together the possible avenues whereby a covey of whalers stuck off Point Barrow could have alerted Washington, D.C., of their plight, and he learned that the owners of some of the stricken vessels had deduced from the nonarrival of their ships that they must be trapped in ice. Canadian officials at Prince Rupert had reached similar conclusions, but most important were appeals for help delivered over the northern snows by dog-team messengers heading south from Barrow.

Loeffler reported to the group: 'There is a crisis. The whalers are probably icebound already, and there's no way of breaking them loose till early next summer.' Then he added the ominous judgment: 'Since they cannot possibly have enough food to last them nine months, a rescue operation is imperative.'

The Army officials, with assistance from the Navy and private shippers like Ross & Raglan, began analyzing possible maneuvers, and none was too bizarre to be discarded out of hand. One Army officer said: 'I've always heard that Si-575

beria and Alaska are only a few miles apart. Could we telegraph Russia and request them . . . ?'

A Navy man broke in: 'Southeast of Barrow that's true. How far apart do you think they are at Barrow?' and a former whaler who knew the northern oceans well broke in: 'About five hundred miles.' Rescue from Canada was equally impossible about six hundred miles to the first tiny outpost, which would have no chance of providing enough food or medicine.

The group fell silent, then turned to Loeffler, who said tentatively: 'I've looked at every possibility. It's about five hundred miles from any of the nearest mining camps. To cover that distance you'd have to use dogsleds, and where would you get enough food to feed your dogs en route? And what mining camp would have a cache of food big enough for twenty ships?'

'What alternative have you in mind?' the chairman asked, and Loeffler coughed several times before daring to reveal the plan which had been slowly germinating. Then, with the aid of a big map, he said: 'Up here at Port Clarence Bay, at the far end of Seward Peninsula, there's a remarkable Norwegian, Lars Skjellerup, supported by a tough, capable team of three. One Siberian, one Laplander, one Eskimo.'

The chairman broke in: 'What do they have to offer? A superior dog team?' And a longtime sailor pointed out: 'By the time we loaded a ship here in Seattle, that place would be iced in,' but Loeffler said quietly: 'You ask what they have up there?' Pausing dramatically, he said: 'Reindeer.'

The word brought an explosion from the study group: 'We've heard about that fiasco.'

'How many are still alive? Six or seven?' and 'That missionary stopped by Seattle one year and gave us a lecture about how the reindeer was going to solve all Alaska's problems. Whatever happened to the little fraud?' Before Loeffler could explain himself, it was unanimously agreed by the others that the few scattered reindeer at Port Clarence represented no solution whatever.

But then with a patience that won the respect of his superiors, the young lieutenant developed his plan: 'Port Clarence has a huge herd of reindeer, actually. Under Skjellerup's professional guidance, the local Eskimos have acquired or bred well over six hundred fine beasts. Some are so domesticated, they serve in harness in place of dogs. And do you appreciate what that means? If we used reindeer, we wouldn't have to carry any food for the animals.'

'Why not?'

'Dogs eat meat. Lots of it. Reindeer feed on the moss and lichens as they go along.'

Allowing time for this important 576

fact to sink in, he added: 'And we wouldn't have to carry any food. Because when our reindeer team reached Barrow they'd be slaughtered, and the starving men would be fed.' His arguments were greeted with silence, but now a secretary broke into the meeting with the latest telegram from Washington: REPORT IMMEDIATELY PLANS TO RESCUE ICEBOUND WHALERS STOP NATION'S NEWSPAPERS DEMANDING

ACTION

Now all the members of the group turned to face Loeffler, who said: 'I think the only practical thing to tell them is that I will sail immediately to Alaska with medicines, organize a dog team, and hurry overland to Teller Station, where Skjellerup and his men will start at once for Point Barrow with a herd of four hundred or more reindeer.'

'How far would they be traveling?'

'About six hundred miles.'

'My God! Siberia's as close as that. Canada too.'

'But we have the reindeer, gentlemen, and the men to move them.'

With a caution born of long experience in the arctic, one of the ship owners asked: 'Is such an operation practical?' and Loeffler replied: 'I can't promise that, but what I can promise is this: there's more than three hundred American sailors up there who will die if we don't do something. And this offers our best chance. Let's do it.'

So a telegram was dispatched to the White House, with a reply arriving in Seattle that afternoon:

PROCEED WITH REINDEER AND MAY GOD SPEED YOUR EFFORTS STOP NATION IS WATCHING

It took Lieutenant Loeffler till the middle of January to reach the southern shore of Norton Sound, and when his dogs pulled into the primitive settlement of Stebbins he faced an open crossing of some ninety miles to the north shore, from which Teller Reindeer Station could be approached by land. The prospect of venturing to the other side on ice which might or might not be solidly frozen frightened him so much that he considered making a complete circuit of the eastern end of the sound so as to remain on land. But an old-time Eskimo who ran dogs assured him: 'All frozen. No trouble,' and when Loeffler still held back, the man said: 'I go with you,' and in days when the sun barely shone at noon, the two set .out, traveling indifferently day or night.

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When they reached the northern shore, the old man accepted the payment Loeffler offered him and started his long hike back across the ice, while the young officer speeded his dogs the remaining hundred and twenty miles west to Teller. As he approached where he judged the reindeer station ought to be, for he had previously come to it only from the sea, a sharp-eyed Eskimo outlook spotted him coming and sounded the alarm, so that when his dogs raced joyously into the station, four resolute men, whom he already knew, were waiting to greet him.

The Laplander Mikkel Sana was first to greet him with a vigorous handshake, then the dour Siberian Arkikov, then the dark young Eskimo Ootenai, and finally the tall, thin unbelieving Norwegian, Lars Skjellerup. 'How did you come with that dog team?'

the latter asked, and Loeffler felt that he ought to deliver the news, as he said, 'plain and prompt': 'Washington wants you to drive a herd of three to four hundred reindeer to Point Barrow. A score of whalers stranded there. Three hundred sailors starving.'

The news was so dramatic that none among the four Teller men knew how to respond, so after a moment of silence, Loeffler said: 'Orders. From the President himself.

How soon can we leave?'

Once the reality of the situation struck them, the four herders were eager to accept the challenge, for they knew well the scandals that had been circulated throughout Alaska and the United States regarding their deportment and that of other Laplanders and Siberians associated with the reindeer. Skjellerup, as the man in local command, was especially eager in order to demonstrate the capabilities of his reindeer: 'How many miles do you guess?'

'Six hundred, maybe,' Loeffler said. 'Can you do it in sixty days?'

'I think maybe fifty. If we go, we go fast.' He consulted with his men, and Arkikov said: 'Faster. Lead reindeer Siberian, not your kind.' He was referring to the softer Lapland reindeer that Skjellerup had imported by ship from Norway. The Norwegian ignored this implied slur, for he had become accustomed to Arkikov's conviction that only reindeer or herders from his Siberia were of much account.

Loeffler was delighted with Arkikov's estimate that the food and medicine could be delivered in less than fifty days, but his enthusiasm was dashed when Skjellerup said: 'We'll depart three days from now.'

'Wait a minute! I packed my gear in half an hour for my trip up here. Surely you men . . .'

Quietly Skjellerup reasoned: 'You ever try to round up 578

over four hundred reindeer from their comfortable winter quarters... which they don't want to leave?' And in the next two days Loeffler learned how much shouting and shoving this entailed, but on Wednesday morning, 19 January 1898, the herd was gathered, the two sleighs were loaded with medicines and food for the trip, and the team was ready for its awesome dash north. Loeffler, watching them depart, called out the message from Washington: 'The President says: ”God speed your efforts. The nation is watching.”' And within the half-hour the reindeer, the four leading men, three Eskimo helpers and the sleds were indistinct on the eastern horizon. They would travel almost two hundred miles in that direction before they could turn north for the real drive into Barrow where the starving sailors waited.

IT WAS A HEROIC RUN, FOR THE NIGHTS WERE BITTER

cold, the winds blew more than usual, and on several frightening occasions the deer could find no lichen or moss when they scratched or pawed the snow with their sharp hoofs. Sana warned: 'We must find moss. Maybe over there . . . maybe over here? Stop one day,' and when this was done the animals did find lichen and the trip could resume.

When long downhill vistas opened, the men urged the reindeer to run free, but always Sana and Arkikov, two of the best herders in the world, watched for shallow crevasses, and when the gallop ended, men and animals started the breath strangling climb to the crest of the next hill. When they finally made the big turn from their east heading to north-by northeast, they felt they were at last on the main part of their journey, the long run to Barrow, perched on the edge of the world. Men alone could not have made this punishing run, nor could dogs have traveled as relentlessly as the reindeer, and certainly the dogs could not have fed themselves. Only reindeer could have carried this burden of food over such terrain and across such distances.

When they were approaching the seventieth latitude, far above the Arctic Circle, they were confronted by a spell of weather so cold and blustery that the thermometer dropped to minus-sixty-two. Now came a real test of what the reindeer could do, for when they were turned loose at the end of a twenty-nine-mile run they pawed the frozen snow until food was uncovered, grazed for half an hour, their backs into the wind, then burrowed in the snow until protecting drifts piled up around them.

'We'd better dig in too!' Skjellerup cried as the gale raged, and both Sana and Arkikov drew their sleds into a bulwark 579

position. With the wind howling over them, but deflected by the sleds, the seven men hunkered down, allowing the snow to build drifts over them.

They stayed there for two long days, their bodies warm and dry in the almost perfect gear they wore; even their feet remained comfortable inside their heavy caribou boots, while the porcupine fur around their heads and the mysterious wolverine tips about their faces kept out the cold and ice. Not many could have withstood that assault, but these men had been drilled since childhood in arctic survival, and it was a curious fact, which both the Lapp and the Siberian noticed, that the white man Skjellerup was as gifted in arctic lore as they who had been bred to it. He was an impressive man, and the others treated him not with reverence, for they were his equal, but with respect for his mastery.

When the storm abated they became lighthearted as children, for now Barrow lay only a hundred miles ahead, and with clear weather and adequate food for the deer, it seemed almost as if they could cover that easy distance in a day. It required several, of course, but on 7 March at about ten in the morning they participated in a moment of such beauty that no one who shared it would ever forget. From the north, out of Barrow, came three dog teams drawing empty sleds and traveling at high speed. From the south came hundreds of reindeer, moving at their own steady speed, and for more than half an hour each party could see the other and calculate its mode of travel and its speed.

Skjellerup cried to his men: 'They must have become desperate. They were going to try to break through!' and the men in the dog teams cried to one another: 'Thank God! Look at those reindeer.'

Closer and closer the two running teams moved, until the bearded men could discern each other's faces. Soon there was cheering and embracing and men weeping, and all the while the wonderful, powerful dogs lay panting in the snow and the reindeer pawed through the drifts for lichen.

THIS TWELVE-HUNDRED-MILE ROUND TRIP OF RESCUE BE-came significant in Alaska history not because of heroism or reindeer or the fact that the leaders came from four such divergent backgrounds, but rather because of a chance conversation which occurred on the return trip. Skjellerup and the Eskimo boy Ootenai were driving one of the empty sleds while Arkikov and Sana rode in the other, the one drawn by the Siberian deer, and it was Arkikov, of this we can be 580

certain because years later each man would so testify who first broached the subject.

'Remember last spring? Me make trip east . . . take deer to miners' Council City . . . meet many men.'

'What were they doing?'

'Looking gold.'

'Where?'

'To east.'

'Did they find any?'

'Not yet. Soon maybe.'

'How would they find gold?'

'Along rivers . . . little streams. You dip. You wash. You find.'

That was the opening conversation, and on succeeding days as they drifted always southerly south-by-southwest, then due west, these two managed it so they rode together, and repeatedly Arkikov wanted to talk about the gold seekers, those ghost-driven men who prowled creeks, until Sana began to suspect that maybe ordinary men like Arkikov and himself had a chance of finding gold, but suspicious Lapp that he was, he dismissed the idea.

And yet: 'What creek do they dig sand from?'

'Any creek. Me hear men say Klondike ... all creek.'

'Do you mean river? Like Yukon, big river?'

'No! Little river . . . maybe jump across.' From his conversations with prospectors the Siberian had acquired an accurate sense of what gold seeking consisted of, and he was obviously mesmerized by the possibility of finding gold in some creek along the way home: 'When sun higher ... no snow . . . little streams run water . . . you, me find gold.'

'How could we ... no papers . . . just Lapp, Siberian?'

These were practical matters, and to a methodical Lapp like Sana they were powerful enough to disqualify the whole endeavor, but to a Siberian they were meaningless, a temporary irritation to be sidestepped.

'You, me . . . money . . . we go ... we find gold . . . sure.'

Arkikov gestured so wildly as he talked that in time Skjellerup, riding in the other sled, could not escape noticing it, so when they stopped to eat he asked: 'What's going on? You fighting?' Arkikov looked at Sana as if to ask: 'Shall I tell him?'

and when the Lapp nodded the fateful words were spoken.

'Council City ... all men look gold . . . little streams . . . maybe we look too?'

When the big Norwegian stared at his companions as if they were mad, Arkikov added seductively: 'We three ... find gold . . . buy many reindeer.'

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He said this so confidently, his round face smiling in sunlight as if the gold were already in his hands, that Skjellerup had to be impressed with the possibility of what was being proposed, and found himself saying: 'Well, we do have money enough for a year, even two years. We need no immigration papers.' Then his shrewd practicality asserted itself: 'We were all invited here by the U.S. government. And we have contracts which allow us to stay.'

Before the hasty meal was over he was planning how he and the other two could leave the station and strike out on a prospecting tour, and he became so excited by the prospect of huge riches that he told the others: 'Ootenai, you ride with Arkikov.

I want to talk with Sana,' and when the switch was made, he asked: 'Mikkel, you have no wife, nor me. Would you be willing to leave the station, the reindeer . . . and go exploring?'

'Yes!' delivered emphatically.

'You're not worried about leaving Lapland?'

'You worried about Norway?'

'Not at all.' He considered this for a moment, then added firmly: 'I like Alaska.

I liked this run. Maybe you . . . me . . . him . . .' As he said this he looked toward the other sled, and what he saw outraged him.

'Stop! Stop!' and when the sleigh was halted he rushed over, bellowing: 'What have you done with those traces?' and Arkikov pointed to his harness, now geared Siberian-style with the traces coming straight down between the front legs.

'I told you the other way!' His voice rose: 'The right way!'

'But these Siberian deer . . . like my way. Stronger now than when we start.' And since there was truth to what he said, Skjellerup relaxed: 'All right. For the rest of the run.' But his mind was still on gold, and once he placed himself in the Siberian's hands, all was lost.

'Mr. Skjellerup! You . . . me . . . him . . . powerful team. We look all streams.

We dig all sand.' It was obvious that Arkikov had queried prospectors when he delivered the reindeer to Council City, and most desperately he wanted to be with them searching for something more rewarding than the few dollars he earned tending reindeer.

So on the impulse of the moment, the Norwegian called a halt for the day, to the amazement of Ootenai, who had just that morning been urged to forge ahead so that the journey could be completed within two days. Now Skjellerup was eager only to talk, so while Ootenai tended the deer, he conducted a serious discussion with Sana and Arkikov.

'You say men were looking for gold?'

'Plenty men . . . seven maybe eighteen.'

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'But were they finding any gold?'

'Not there. But Koyukuk River, yes. Yukon, yes.'