Imperial Valley press., 1937-03-21
TOLD At THE EXPLOREKS' CLUB"

they wanted, either with their friends or at
some village that they chose. Some of them were
homesck They hadn't seen their families for
over a year. so they brought to the place
where their relatives lived. We had lots or good
reasons for not doing this We were short of
coal and food and in crippled condition. with
winter upon us and long stormy route to fol-
low Peary knew this better than anyone on ,
board. But "Pearyokshwa' had given his word
and he never broke it, so the thing must be done.
1t is no wonder these people loved and respected
Peary. No other man in the past or future can
or will get these people to do what he did. He
Though dead, yet liveth" in the hearts and
minds of the Cape York Eskimo.
At Kookan, an Eskimo village, the ice drove
us on shore. The night was dark and the anchor
wouldn't hold SO ashore we went did not feel
any too good this, but it was blessing in
disguise The water was deep right up to the
shore. Her stern caught on narrow shelf and
with the deep water from the main rigging for
ward she tipped SO that the boss of the propeller
came out of water. The chief engineer made
some pine wedges and jammed the nuts so Sc
curely that we had no trouble with the blades
right into New York. Had not obtained this
chance, there is no doubt but we would have
lost the blades This gave us good opportunity
to do further work on the battered stern and we
had a better chance of driving in some more
oakum.
FINALLY we reached cape YORK ana our last
Eskimo family went shore. A strong
southeast gale was on, with heavy swell and
snow squalls. Whilst waiting for the wind to
moderate and the weather to clear, we made the
ship ready for her trip south. The wind mod
Grating with long southeast swell prevailing,
we cast off from the land ice and proceeded
south
Night soon came upon us and with it snow.
We reduced speed but, as far as seeing anything,
one might as we'll be below The next afternoon
we ran into gale of southeast wind. The ship
was light and rolled terribly. To make matters
worse, the pumps got choked and this put out
the fires. With the pumps working in the engine
room and the two deck pumps driven by chain
messenger to the steam winch we could manage
to keep the water out of her But now, with the
fires out, we could get no help from the engine
room.
The bulkhead between the fire-room and the
hold was of double hard-pine planks one layer
vertical and the other horizontal, the whole
fastened together with nuts and bolts headed up
on one side There nothing in the hold but
about fifty tons of ballast; fortunately this was
away forward, but at one time couple of
hundred dogs and many families of Eskimo lived
in this hold We didn't have time to clean up
things So when the water got in there and she
rolling, it was a dirty place. The bulkhead was
almost water-tight, but at the skin were two
timber holes which soon got choked up. A sailor
and myself with chisels, hammer and saw after
a time had the water running out of the stoke
hold into the main hold, by rigging up Spanish
Burton and attaching pork barrels to it, In this
manner we managed to get the water under con-