The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1924-05-16
THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE
A. D. 1905
Copyright by Re

wanted ueatn trap tnat would picb
out all the bravest men and destroy
them, so he invented the Northwest
Passage.
So when Europe needed short
route to China round the north end
of the Americas British seamen set
out to find channel.
The seamen died of scurvy, and Ii
was two hundred years before they
found out how to stay alive on salted
food, by drinking lime juice. Safe
from scurvy, they reached the gate
of the passage at Lancaster sound,
but there the winter caught them, so
that their ships were Squashed in driv-
ing ice, and the men died of cold and
hunger. Then the explorers got ships
too strong to be crushed; they copied
the dress of the Eskimo to keep them
warm; and they carried food enough
to last for years. Deeper and deeper
they forced their way into the Arctic,
but now they neared the magnetic pole
where the compass is useless, in belts
of drifting fog darker than midnight.
Still they dared to go on, but the inner
channels of the Arctic were found to
be frozen until the autumn gales broke
up the ice fields, leaving barely six
weeks for navigation before the win
ter frosts. At that rate the three
thousand-mile passage would take
three years. Besides, the ship must
carry deck load of sledge dogs with
their food, so that the men might es-
cape overland in case they were cast
away. Only big ship could carry the
supplies, but once again the seamen
dared to try. And now came the last
test to break mems hearts-the sea
lane proved to be so foul with shoals
and rocks that no large vessel could
possibly squeeze through. AT last,
after three hundred years, the British
plorers had mapped the entire route,
but no ship could make the passage
because it was impossible to raise
money for the venture.
And where the English failed
Norseman, Nordenskjold, made the
Northwest passage round the coast of
Asia. Still nobody dared to breach
the Northwest passage round America,
until young Morse seaman solved the
riddle. Where no ship could cross the
shoals it might be possible with
fishing boat drawing only six feet of
water But she could not carry five
years supplies for men and dogs.
Science came to the rescue with foods
that would pack into tenth part of
their proper bulk, and as to the dog
food, one might risk a deck load big
as a haystack, to be thrown off if the
weather got too heavy. Still, how
could fishing boat carry twenty men
for the different expert jobs? Seven
men might be discovered each an ex-
pert in three or four different trades
the captain serving as the astronomer
and doctor, the cook as a naturalist
and seaman. So Raold Amundsen got
Doctor Nansen's help, and that great
explorer was backed by the king.
The Joy was a forty-seven ton her
ring boat with a thirteen horsepower
motor for ships pet, loaded with five
years stores for crew of seven men,
who off duty were comrades as in
yachting cruise. In 1903 she sailed
from Christiania and spent July climb
ing the north current in full view of
the Greenland coast, the Arctic won
derland. At Godhaven she picked up
stores, bidding farewell to civilization,
passed Upernivik, the last village, and
Tassinssak, the last house on earth,
then entered Melville bay with it's
three hundred-mile frontage of glacier,
the most dangerous place in the Arc
tic. Beyond, near Cape York, she
found a deck load of stores left for
her by one of the Dundee whalers.
There the people met the last white
men, three Danish explorers whose
leader, Myths Erickson, was making
his way to death on the north coast
of Greenland. So, like a barge with
a hayrick. the overloaded Joy crossed
from the Greenland coast to Lancaster
sound, the gate of the Northwest pas
sage, whose gatepOst is Beechey island,
sacred to the memory of Sir John
Franklin, and the dead of the Franklin
search. The Joy found some sole
leather better than her own, heap of
useful coal and an anvil, among the
litter of old expeditions; made the
graves tidy; left message at Frank
Inns monument, and went on. For
three hundred years the channels
ahead were known to have been
blocked; only by miracle of good
fortune could they be free from ice;
and this miracle happened, for the
way was clear.
81 was sitting" writes Amundsen on
August thirty-frst, "entering the days
events in my journal, when | heard a
shriek-a terrific shrek, which thrilled
me TO the very marrow. 1t takes some
thing to make Norseman shrek, but
a mighty flame with thick suffocating
smoke was leaping up from the engine
room skylight There the tanks held
two thousand two hundred gallons of
petroleum, and close beside them a
pile of soaked cotton waste had burst
with a loud explosion. If the tanks
got heated the ship would be blown
into chips, but after hard fight the
fire was got under. All hands owed