page_title: Jeannette expedition
section_title: Drifting
hierarchical_section_title: Jeannette expedition / Voyage / Drifting
caption_attribution_description: English: Engraving of USS Jeannette, trapped in the ice off Herald Island in the Arctic, September 1879
context_page_description: The Jeannette expedition of 1879–1881, officially called the U.S. Arctic Expedition, was an attempt led by George W. De Long to reach the North Pole by pioneering a route from the Pacific Ocean through the Bering Strait. The premise was that a temperate current, the Kuro Siwo, flowed northwards into the strait, providing a gateway to the Open Polar Sea and thus to the pole.
  This theory proved illusory; the expedition's ship, USS Jeannette and its crew of 33, was trapped by ice and drifted for nearly two years before she was crushed and sunk, north of the Siberian coast. De Long then led his 32 men on a perilous journey by sled, dragging the Jeannette's whaleboat and two cutters, eventually switching to these small boats to sail for the Lena Delta in Siberia. During this journey, and in the subsequent weeks of wandering in Siberia before rescue, 20 of the ship's complement died, including De Long.
  The chief exponent of the theory of a warm-water gateway to the North Pole was the German cartographer August Petermann. He encouraged James Gordon Bennett Jr., the proprietor of the New York Herald, to finance a polar expedition based on the untried Pacific route.
context_section_description: The initial direction of the ship's drift was haphazard, back and forth—on October 13, nearly a month after Jeannette was first trapped, Herald Island was still in sight. As October developed, the direction of drift shifted to the northwest, and it became apparent to De Long that "Wrangel's Land" was not after all a land mass, but was a relatively small island. At the same time, analyses of sea currents, salinity and temperature provided data confirming the Geodetic Survey's findings, by then known in Washington, that the Kuro Siwo had no effect north of the Bering Strait. The vista of endless ice surrounding the ship raised profound doubts about the entire concept of the Open Polar Sea. Amid the boredom of the largely eventless drift, the crew ate well; ship's stores were boosted by regular hunting parties which brought a harvest of seal and polar bear meat.
  In late October, as winter approached, De Long ordered the Edison arc lighting system erected, but the generating mechanism failed to produce even the dimmest of lights, and the apparatus was swiftly abandoned, along with the equally ineffective telephone system. Christmas 1879, and the start of the new year, were celebrated without great joy; De Long wrote of Christmas as "the dreariest day of my life, and it is certainly the dreariest part of the world".
  On January 19, 1880, Jeannette's hull was breached by the ice, and she began to take in water rapidly. De Long prepared to abandon ship, but she was saved by the actions of Nindemann and Sweetman, who waded into the freezing water in the hold and staunched the inflow by stuffing whatever materials were available into the breaches. Melville used elements of the discarded Edison apparatus to build a mechanical pumping system, and the problem was largely resolved by the construction of a new watertight bulkhead. De Long noted in his journal that the efforts of Nindemann and Sweetman were at least worthy of recommendation for the Medal of Honor.
  For months on end Jeannette hardly moved at all; De Long recorded on March 2 that their position was almost precisely what it had been three months earlier. On May 5, the ship passed to the west of the 180° meridian, but two months later had retreated back to the other side of the line. The summer brought no relief; although it briefly seemed possible in August that Jeannette might break free and find open water, this proved a false hope. The condition of Danenhower was a further source of anxiety. His syphilis began to take toll of his body, particularly his left eye which, despite Ambler's repeated operations—stoically endured, given the lack of anesthetic—left the navigator largely incapacitated and unable to perform his duties. On the last day of 1880 De Long wrote in his journal: "I begin the new year by turning over a new leaf, and I hope to God we are turning over a new leaf in our book of luck".
caption: Jeannette trapped in the ice, off Herald Island
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