672 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



ing very well, however, that nothing was going to happen, for it 

 was beyond our power to straighten the ship up and get her nose 

 into the wind. The serious feature was that a southwest gale of 

 the sort that was now blowing is always accompanied by a rise 

 in sea level of four feet or more. We could not heave the ship's 

 nose into the wind until it slackened materially and the current as 

 well, but the slackening of wind and current would mean a drop in 

 water level of four or five feet, leaving the ship flat on her side 

 on a mud bank.* 



That is exactly what happened. At the end of the gale there 

 was so little water around us that we could not have floated the 

 ship off, even if we had removed her entire cargo. For one thing, 

 she had more depth aft than anywhere else and much of it was due to 

 the fuel oil in her tanks. Her stern could not be lightened without 

 emptying the oil out and we had no containers. Had we pumped 

 it into the ocean we should have been compelled to rely later en- 

 tirely on sails for motive power, and the Bear, with all her many 

 good qualities, is not a good sailing vessel. It was doubtful whether 

 we could get off even with such heroic measures as throwing away 

 gasoline. Consultation with Storkerson, Hadley and Castel ended 

 in the conclusion that the only thing we could do was to lighten the 

 ship, keep her anchors off to windward and wait for the next south- 

 west gale, which might be any number of weeks away. The rise 

 of tide with a sou'wester often comes several hours ahead of the 

 gale. It was this we would watch for — high water unaccompanied 

 as yet by wind that would interfere with us. 



The season was now so late that the chances were against our 

 getting the ship afloat in time to reach the Pacific. We were in 

 the best harbor on the coast and if we had to stay at all we might 

 as well stay in this one. And if we had to stay we had better try 

 to do something useful. Plans were soon made, for our situation 

 was convenient for a thing I had long wanted to do. 



* See post, p 740, for account of how a similar misfortune befell the 

 Alaska at Cape Bathurst the fall of 1914. 



