THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 67 



It was especially unfortunate for us that to the Karluk, believed 

 safest of all our ships, we had entrusted the most valued part of our 

 cargo. One of the main things I wanted to do that next spring on 

 the sledge journey over the Beaufort Sea was to take soundings, 

 and most of our sounding equipment was on the Karluk. The 

 Sachs and Alaska had chronometers for their own use, but the 

 ones intended for sledge exploration were on the Karluk. The men 

 of adventurous disposition and special qualifications whom I had 

 meant for my companions on exploratory journeys were also there, 

 along with the good dogs purchased in Nome, and the sledges and 

 sledge material which could not be duplicated even at Cape Smythe 

 and even in Mr. Brower's extensive stock. 



And of the Karluk with all these invaluable things on board we 

 got no certain news. On coming to an Eskimo encampment at 

 Cooper's Island about twenty miles east of Cape Smythe we learned 

 that a ship had been there in the ice, three or four miles offshore, 

 for several days.* She had been so near that the Eskimos could 

 see the ropes in her rigging, and had theirs been an ordinary party 

 they would have gone out to her. But they were some decrepit 

 old people who had been left behind by their relatives traveling 

 eastward who were coming back later to pick them up. These 

 Eskimos had been expecting somebody to come ashore from the 

 ship. When nobody came and they never saw any smoke, they 

 concluded she was deserted. It had been a strong temptation to 

 them to go aboard for plunder, and it was a matter of great regret 

 to them that no young men had been on hand for the purpose. One 

 of these old Eskimos had seen every whaling ship in these waters, 

 and the Karluk had been a familiar sight to him for fifteen years. 

 He was prompt and clear on the point that this was she. After 

 she had been within observation for two or three days a fog and 

 wind came up. When the fog lifted she was gone. 



A day or two later a ship had been seen in the ice off Point 

 Barrow. She was said to have been about ten miles from shore 

 and the natives did not agree as to her characteristics. One Eskimo 

 said she was a schooner; in that case certainly not the Karluk. 

 By the light of later events I now know that it must have been the 

 Karluk, though at that time I was inclined to think it was the Elvira. 

 Report at this stage was that the Elvira had been abandoned before 

 she sank, so that it seemed she might have drifted westward, jammed 

 in the ice and held up by it, a thing which occurs in shipwrecks 

 of a certain type. 



*See "Last Voyage of the Karluk," p. 48. 



