By afternoon, with the temperature far below zero, ice began to move out from the waterline of the Parker, and Klope stood with California as its fingers groped for those reaching out from shore, but night fell before they could witness completion of the jointure.
By next morning, 3 October, most of the Flats were frozen shut and even the mighty river was sending out preliminary fingers. By nightfall this section of the Yukon would be closed to navigation.
'That's why I ran in here,' Grimm explained. 'I didn't tell you at the time, because you wouldn't have believed the river could freeze so swiftly. If we'd tried to finish the run to Fort Yukon, we'd have been locked in the big ice and most likely been crushed when it moved.'
'How long will we be trapped here?' California asked, and Grimm said: 'Till June.'
'Oh my God!' Montana cried, and Grimm said: 'We're only one of many. Take heart.
I've chosen one of the safest spots on this river. Less wind. No fear of creeping ice.'
In a good winter the Parker might have provided a comfortable eight-month refuge for perhaps thirty men; any hope of keeping sixty-three content was impossible, and before that day was out some men were demanding refunds of their money. With his beard jutting out, his feet firmly placed, his eyes atwinkle, Olaf Grimm lined out the simple truth: 'I undertook to get you to Dawson. I didn't promise when. Now, all men will scour the area to find what trees there are and bring us some wood, because if you don't we'll freeze to death, and I'll do my share of the chopping.'
He explained where the privies would be built, 'and any man not using them will be shot.' He asked for volunteers to hunt for moose and caribou, 'and you must go out right now to catch what you can before the heavy snows.'
As this resolute man spoke he conveyed the impression that he had faced such situations before and intended to see that his passengers survived this one. He was conciliatory; he sympathized with men who were sorely disappointed; but he allowed no excuses, gave no exemptions from the work that he knew had to be done. When California complained, with reason: 'If you knew we were going to freeze in, why did you leave St. Michael?' he said truthfully: 'Because you people wanted to come. And we'd have made it on schedule if we'd been able to buy our wood on the way.'
THAT WINTER ELEVEN RIVER CRAFT WERE IMPRISONED IN ice. None handled the situation better than the Jos. Parker, and when one of the passengers returned to the boat with news that he had killed a moose, he accepted the praise due him, then asked: 'Ever since I've been aboard this damned ship I've wondered why it was called the Jos Parker.
Comin' back just now, I understood. The name-board ain't big enough for a full first name.'
'That's right,' Grimm said, thankful for any diversion. 'Named after the father of the man who built it. Josiah Parker. Nice trim name, I always thought.'
On 4 October, John Klope, still burning to get to the gold fields, spoke with Captain Grimm: 'Living like this has got to get worse and worse,' and Grimm said: 'Yes.'
'Could I walk to Fort Yukon?'
'Fifty miles. Rough sledding. Take you maybe three, four days.'
'But it is just ahead, on the river?'
'Sure is.' The veteran hesitated, for he would not want it said later that he had encouraged men who had started up the river under his care to leave their boat at the beginning of an arctic winter. At other ships other captains were facing the same moral problem; from one ship a lone man with dogs would set out for a journey of twelve hundred and fifty miles and make it. From another, a man who liked to paint watercolors would go three hundred yards and freeze to death.
Captain Grimm said, very carefully: 'You and I, Klope, could make it. I've watched you. You're disciplined. But I wouldn't want to try it with some of those others.
And don't you. Stay here and live.' It was a masterful statement, a warning not to leave the safety of the Parker but at the same time a challenge, and Klope, ignoring the former, embraced the latter.
When it was learned that he was going to trek overland to Fort Yukon, eleven other men volunteered, and in some cases demanded, to go along, and suddenly he found himself the leader of an expedition. The idea terrified him, because although he had no fear about succeeding on his own, he doubted that he could hold a disparate group of men together if they ran into trouble, nor did he want to. Cleverly, he handed the management of the expedition over to loud spoken California, who enjoyed giving directions, and justifying Klope's decision, California proved to be resourceful and a good leader, although to Klope's taste, a trifle domineering.
Well bundled, the twelve who wanted to get to Fort Yukon bade farewell to the ice-locked Jos. Parker early on the morning of 5 October, expecting to cover no less than thirteen miles a day, which would put them safely in Fort Yukon on the late afternoon of the eighth, and since darkness did not come till about five-thirty, they assumed they would have ample light. What they did not anticipate was the extreme roughness of the route they had chosen.
The Yukon did not freeze flat and smooth like the lakes some of them had known in the States; because it froze in arbitrary ways at sharply varying times, its surface was uneven, crumbled at times, and broken by irregular upthrust blocks. California, distraught by the impediments thrown up by the Yukon, shouted: 'What in hell happened to this river?' and Montana explained what was obvious to an outdoorsman: 'It freezes here but not there. Free water floods in, covers the frozen ice and freezes. Then more free water comes in below, everything buckles.' He assured California that a level route could be found through the ice chunks, but the latter had had enough.
Kicking at the blocks, he growled: 'Let's get away from this damned river.'
But when he led his team away, he soon faced the myriad lakes and the frozen swamps between. This tundra was dotted with large, round tufts of matted grass called by everyone in Alaska niggerheads. To cross such country, one had to lift one's legs high to step from low ground to high, and then take longer strides than usual to reach the next niggerhead. It was painful going.
By alternating between the jagged ice of the river and the uneven surface of the frozen swamp, the informal expedition moved at a painful pace that would cover not thirteen miles a day as planned, but no more than eight. The trip would thus require not four days but six, and since the men had geared themselves to an easy four-day dash over the kind of snowy roads they had known in states like the Dakotas and Montana, they were disheartened.
Fortunately, the cold was not yet excessive, and no wind blew, so that even the weakest of the men did not suffer, and when night came they were not so exhausted that they were unable to care for themselves, but they were thoroughly tired.
It had been planned that they would sleep with snow piled about them like a blanket, for this would deflect the wind and allow each man to hoard his body heat. They ate sparingly, for they had brought along only enough food for the projected four days, but as California said: 'Short rations won't hurt anyone. And we'll soon be there.'
The first night's rest was brief, for the men found it difficult to sleep in their snow beds, and while no one suffered from a lack of clothing, no one was properly clothed, either, for such exposure. As soon as dawn began to show, about six thirty, the men were eager to resume their march, and with a day's practice behind them, they handled the difficult terrains more adeptly. But if California led them onto the river, they wanted to wander among the lakes, and if he acceded to that suggestion, they rather quickly asked for the river. At dawn some had predicted: 'Yesterday was learning.
Today we'll do fifteen miles,' but they covered barely half that distance.
Klope slept soundly that second night. He had seen that when neither he nor Montana set the pace, the file would lag, so he stayed in front most of the time, yielding only when Montana saw that he was tiring. The two men never spoke of what they were doing or of their growing suspicion that some of them were not going to make it to Fort Yukon.
On the night of the fourth frustrating day, when three of the men b
ecame almost too weak to lift their legs high enough to negotiate the niggerheads, it was apparent to Klope that emergency measures must be taken, and he consulted with both California and Montana. The latter said: 'We got to put someone at the rear. Else we're gonna lose somebody back there.'
'They can see our trail,' California said, but Montana would not accept this easy answer: 'Trouble is, in this weather the man at the end says: "I'll lie down for just a minute," and you never see him again. Frozen solid.'
Klope volunteered to walk last, and it was fortunate that he did, because the men detected as being weakest began to lag dangerously, and he spent a trying day urging them to keep moving forward. Twice the major file forged so far ahead that he had to shout at the top of his voice to make them slow down until his three flagging charges could catch up. By nightfall two others had fallen behind, and when California, whose courage and determination helped keep the men together, consulted with his two assistants, Klope reported: 'I'm not sure I can make them keep up for another day,' and to make things worse, that night the temperature fell precipitously.
Shortly after midnight California shook those still sleeping in the protection of the snow: 'Better start moving, men,' and in the shadowy light of a waning moon they started what they would later remember as the worst night and day of their lives.
That sixth day they elected to stay with the river, picking their way slowly past protruding blocks, and at times John Klope, bringing up the rear, thought that the silent figures ahead of him looked like ants moving across a white blanket, but such poetic comparisons were banished when one of the laggards simply fell in a heap, unable to respond to Klope's commands that he rise.
When helpers hurried back, they found to their horror that the man had not fainted; he had died. Yes, on the Yukon River some miles below the safety of the Fort, a bank clerk from Arkansas had died of exhaustion, and after his body had been placed under a blanket of snow, a subdued and sometimes terrified group of eleven resumed its slow march forward.
Klope was not unduly distressed by the death. He was aware that men died in arbitrary ways; on a neighboring farm a man he knew well had been strangled when the reins of a rearing horse caught around his neck, and once during a visit to Bonners Ferry he had heard men shouting at the railroad station, where a workman had been crushed between two boxcars. So he could absorb the shock of death. But when the party halted at noon for rations, he heard something that did frighten him tremendously. California, seeking to dispel the gloom attendant upon the death, was giving encouragement: 'It was fifty miles in all, and I calculate we've covered forty-two,' when a man from Ohio said: 'I heard Captain Grimm say: "It's only fifty or sixty miles to Fort Yukon."'
The possible addition of ten miles to what was already a hellish journey terrified Klope, for as rear man he had witnessed better than anyone else the utter exhaustion of the weakest members. When California and three other strong men moved apart to discuss the situation, Klope was impressed by the forthright manner in which the leader conducted himself: 'I want the four of us to pledge that we will not forge on ahead and forget the others. We'll stay with these men and get them to Fort Yukon.'
'But what if the time comes when one of us has to rush ahead,' Montana asked, 'to bring help?'
'You three can draw straws. I'll stay.'
'Could it have been sixty miles?' Klope asked, and California snapped: 'No.'
That afternoon the temperature dropped to ten degrees below, but mercifully no wind accompanied the fall; however, another man walking not far ahead of Klope collapsed and died, not instantly like the first, but in terrible, rasping pain over a period of forty minutes.
Klope buried him, and then the real horror of this forlorn journey began, because the Yukon became excessively humpy while the swamps were barricaded by niggerheads that were barely negotiable. At half past four what arctic daylight there was would begin to fade, and the men would face the punishment of a long, bitterly cold night without adequate protection.
Klope did not lose courage; he could never do that so long as the lure of gold pulled him forward, but as he estimated the waning strength of the laggards, he realized with deepening concern that as many as three could perish during the coming hours, and he called for the other strong marchers to join him. 'What shall we do?' he asked, and California replied: 'Keep moving ahead. All night. Otherwise we could all die.'
'And if those over there ...?' California studied Klope's forlorn group sitting numbly in the snow, either unaware of or indifferent to the fact that their lives were under discussion, then said: 'Keep them going as long as possible. If they die, don't stop to bury them.' And he returned to the lead, where he spurred the marchers on.
It was almost dusk on that terrible day when one of the weakest men espied an amazing sight, which he called to Klope's attention: 'Dog team!' And there to the north, picking his way carefully through the frozen swamps of the Yukon Flats and obviously headed toward Fort Yukon, came a man running behind a sled drawn by seven large, powerful dogs. He was dressed in Eskimo garb, his exposed face surrounded by the fur-lined hood of a parka, his body so swathed in heavy garments that he looked almost round. He had not yet seen the struggling men, and there was a chance that he might speed by without stopping, so with a wild shout Klope started running northeast in hopes of intercepting him.
The other men, hearing the shouts, turned and saw the speeding dogsled, and without a moment's hesitation California began running, too, and because he started from a better angle, it was he whom the sled-driver finally saw. Commanding his huskies to halt, he came forward to meet these strangers, and a moment's glance at the weary file whose men had taken rest in the snow satisfied the man that he had come upon a party of cheechakos in peril.
He was Sarqaq, half Eskimo, half Athapascan Indian, and he ran a dogsled out of Fort Yukon. He spoke little English but understood many words, and when he asked California:
'Fort Yukon?' he comprehended the answer.
'How far?' California asked, and he said, holding up one finger: 'Tomorrow.' But then California asked: 'Your tomorrow or our tomorrow?' and Sarqaq did not understand.
Klope solved the problem by putting his hand on one of the dogs, a handsome white-faced animal fifth in line from the lead, and with his fingers imitated the four swiftly moving legs of a dog. Then, using his own feet, he plodded slowly forward: 'Dog one day? Man how many?'
Sarqaq, whose brown face was as round as if it had been drawn with a compass, laughed, showing white teeth: 'I now. You tomorrow.'
Klope was in no way a religious man, but he sighed: 'Thank God.' He and California and the others in strong condition could certainly survive till tomorrow night; the weakest could perhaps be taken to warm beds by the dogsled. Taking the driver by the arm, he pointed to the resting men: 'Two, three. Maybe die,' and with sign language he indicated men dying from lack of will.
Sarqaq understood immediately, and without even a minute's hesitation knew what he must do. Furiously he started throwing off his sled the piles of fur and caribou meat he was delivering to Fort Yukon, and when it became apparent that he was unloading cargo to provide space to transport the threatened men, Klope said: 'I go get,' but Sarqaq stopped him: 'I go,' and with curt commands he swung his dogs about, sped to the line of men, who uttered feeble cheers, and asked: 'Who go?' holding up three fingers taken from the mitten which protected them from freezing. The men waited for Klope to identify the three worst cases, and when he had done so, these men, barely aware of what was happening, were loaded aboard the sled.
Then came a moment of the most painful indecision, for the seven men left behind could not anticipate what might happen. Were these three alone to be saved? Was Fort Yukon really only one day away? Could they survive any more nights in this dreadful cold?
Sarqaq, anticipating their fears, smiled like a rising moon and said to Klope: 'Watch meat. Wolves.' And to the men from the Parker he said: 'Cut meat. Chew it. Wrap in furs. I come back. Many sleds.'
And off through the darkening night he sped.
It was about four in the morning when one of the travelers, who was moving about to keep himself alive, heard from the east the sound of dogs. Listening for confirmation lest he deceive his companions, he heard the unmistakable sound of men cheering on their teams, and he began shouting: 'They're here! They've come back!'
From wherever they had been sleeping and in whatever postures, the survivors leaped to their feet and peered into the moonlit night. Slowly, like the vision in a narcotic dream, dogsleds began to appear upon the Yukon, with the figures of men running behind, and as they became reality the freezing men began to scream and shout 'Hurrah!' and weep.
IN 1897, FORT YUKON WAS NO LONGER A FORT, BUT WHEN erected half a century earlier, it had been a rather formidable place, and a drawing made by the intrepid English explorer Frederick Whymper, in 1867, still showed the imposing four blockhouses, inside whose square nestled several homes, and two enormous barns for the storage of furs being bought and merchandise being sold by the Hudson's Bay Company, whose daring traders had established this most remote of their outposts.
In 1869, Fort Yukon provided an outstanding example of why Canada and the United States were such good and sensible neighbors: that was the year when young Otis Peacock and his army team proved that the Canadian Hudson's Bay Store was far inside American territory. Instead of raising a ruckus, Americans and Canadians had diplomatically moved the store twice, because after the first move, it was still trespassing on American soil.
For some years Fort Yukon had been a thriving little settlement of about a hundred and ninety people who earned a modest living by collecting furs from Indians and by servicing the occasional riverboat like the Jos. Parker when one stopped by, but with the discovery of Klondike gold, the town had flourished and was now crowded.
When the Eskimo Sarqaq, as he was called despite his part-Athapascan blood, and the other sled drivers delivered the ten white men to the Fort, a curious situation developed.