32 EXPEDITION TO POINT BARKOW, ALASKA. 



with the current and piled high on the beach. We worked all day trying to kedge the schooner 

 in, but the wind blowing a gale off-shore, rendered all our efforts futile. I placed Interpreter 

 Herendeen on board that night, so that Captain Jacobson could have, the benefit of his experience 

 and advice .should she again be, driven away from her anchorage, as Captain Jacobson was totally 

 inexperienced in Arctic navigation. 



Just before dark five whaling barks came around the Point and anchored one and a half miles 

 ,ibo\ e the station. We all .spent an anxious night for, the wind increased to a gale and hauled to 

 the southwest and we could hear in the darkness the grinding of the pack as it came in, and were 

 not surprised in getting up the next morning to find that the Leo was gone again, and that the sea 

 was closed as far as the eye could reach. The Leo had escaped again around the. Point, but 

 three of the whaling barks had not been so fortunate; they were all fast in the pack, the crews 

 were passing and repassing from the ship to the land over the ice. Two of the vessels had gotten 

 foul of each other, and one, the Abraham Barker, had lost her rudder. With a glass from the lookout 

 we could make out the Leo to the eastward of the Point, looking like a speck among the great ice 

 fields. During the day the gale abated, the pressure slackened up, and toward night several small 

 leads were visible. The wind came out from the southeast during the night, and early the next 

 morning the Leo was seen to be under way slowly working her way back to the station through a nar- 

 row shore lead that opened during the night ; she came to anchor off the station two hundred yards 

 from the beach. Upon going on board I found her considerably damaged; she had been nipped, 

 her stem partly knocked off, her rudder post split, and she was leaking badly. 



In view of these facts, and orders having been received for the return of the party to the United 

 States, I determined to abandon the station at once. Duriug the past two days I had caused all the 

 subsistence and quartermaster stores worth saving to be carried down from the house to the beach ; 

 a whale-line was run from the shore to the vessel, so one man could haul the boats to and fro, and 

 the embarking was commenced at once, the first boat-load going on board at S a. m. Mr. Marr 

 discontinued work on the pendulum, and took down the parts he, had placed ; the work went on 

 rapidly with the two whale-boats belonging to the station. It was still impossible to use the native 

 boats with safety, as there were great masses of loose pack-ice running with the current, and the 

 beach was piled high with broken ice ; at '2 a. in. the instruments were taken down and packed, 

 and observations on shore ceased; the last boat-load was sent off at 10 p. m., and at 12 midnight 

 the party went on board, leaving one man on shore, to see that the natives did not carry off anything 

 that might have been accidentally left. 



The ice was too heavy and compact the next morning to enable us to get under way, so the 

 captain improved the time in grappling for the anchor and cable he had slipped the night of the 

 25th ; he succeeded in recovering it, which was extremely fortunate for it was his best, the 

 remaining one being very light. I took a party on shore and brought olF the few remaining 

 articles of any value that I did not, intend to give to the natives. 1 left them the house and 

 furniture intact with the stoves, and about 12 tons of coal, a grindstone, some old canvas, and a 

 lew worn-out tools, were about all that was left; but these were of great value to the natives, and 

 after giving them a least of hard bread and molasses we bade them good bye, amid many expres- 

 sions of regret at our departure. I placed the buildings in charge of some of the most influential 

 men, who promised they would not allow them to be torn to pieces, but be kept as a place, of 

 refuge for any shipwrecked people who may chance to be cast ashore on this barren coast. A 

 whale boat passed up during the day with Captain McKenua, of the bark Cyanne. Me reported 

 that his vessel was driven ashore off Point Belcher, in the gale, of the 25th, and would prove a 

 total loss. He came up to get assistance from vessels at the Point in saving her valuable cargo 

 of whalebone. 



On the morning of the 20th, the, lead to the southwest being open and the wiud being favor- 

 able, the captain took his anchor and got under way at ( a. in., and we commenced our homeward 

 voyage. The familiar shore and village and the house that had been so good and comfortable a 

 home to us for two long years soon laded in the distance. After sailing two miles we got clear off 

 the loose ice that was running with the- current and into clear water, with the old j a;-k close 

 in to the northwest, arriving off Point Franklin at !>..'50 p. in., when the wind fell, and we came to 

 anchor in company with eleven ships of the whaling Heel that had worked out and had comedown 



