hoping for a sign of life. Before the little parka fire went out, it caught the eye of the ship’s chief gunner’s mate, who’d been watching through binoculars.
“I just saw a light,” he told Ensign Charles Dorian, who rushed to the bridge to tell the captain. Pollard spun the Northland back toward shore. He ordered his men to turn on the ship’s big searchlight and shoot a half-dozen “star shells” that turned night into day as they fell to earth.
At the edge of the ice cliff, the three men yelled with joy and relief. Giddy and renewed, they pounded on each other’s backs. Weaver read a Morse code message from the ship’s blinking signal lamp: “Move back from edge of glacier and bear south to meet landing party.”
On the Northland , Pollard faced two decisions: who would carry out the rescue and how it would be accomplished. He settled on a plan that called for a small team to pilot a motorboat through the ice-filled waters, reach the shoreline, climb a glacier, avoid crevasses, guide or carry the three men back down the glacier, and get them to the ship in one piece. The dangers were too many to count, but no better ideas emerged.
Frustrated that he hadn’t been able to find the Canadians in his Duck, John Pritchard volunteered to lead the mission. Equipped with skis and snowshoes, the lieutenant and a ten-man team reached the shore by boat, roped themselves together, and found a back way to scale the icy cliff. Pritchard led his men across a heavily crevassed section of the unstable glacier. By shouting and flashing searchlights, they located Goodlet, Nash, and Weaver. A photograph of the meeting commemorated the happy occasion.
With darkness upon them and the glacier pouring chunks of itself into the water, the rescuers and the Canadians rushed back in the direction of the motorboat. Pritchard led the group down the face of the cliff, which seemed intent on tossing them into the sea. When everyone was safely aboard, Pritchard and his crew steered the motorboat through the dark to the Northland ’s side.
When the Canadians stepped aboard the cutter, they were feted, fed, and coddled so thoroughly that Weaver said they felt like newborns. Pollard, the Northland ’s captain, told the men he’d written them off as dead before the lookout spotted their burning parkas. The ship’s doctor treated their frostbite and windburns. He diagnosed the mental effects of hypothermia, a confusion that Weaver described as “twilight between sanity and insanity.” The doctor told them they were within a day of cracking altogether. On the bright side, Weaver said, their blurred judgment had allowed them to persevere when logic, hunger, thirst, and exhaustion might otherwise have made them curl up on the ice and die.
JOHN PRITCHARD, FAR RIGHT WITH ROPE AND POLE, AFTER LEADING THE RESCUE OF THREE CANADIAN AIRMEN WHOSE PLANE WENT DOWN ON THE ICE CAP. CANADIAN PILOT DAVID GOODLET IS FRONT LEFT, IN A FLIGHT SUIT; TO HIS LEFT, IN A BORROWED COAT, IS FLIGHT SERGEANT ARTHUR WEAVER. NAVIGATOR AL NASH IS IN THE ROW BEHIND THEM, IN A PARKA. IN THE BACK ROW, SECOND FROM LEFT WITH A CIGARETTE, IS ENSIGN RICHARD FULLER, WHO WOULD SPEND FIVE MONTHS LEADING ANOTHER RESCUE TEAM ON THE ICE CAP. (U.S. COAST GUARD PHOTOGRAPH.)
All three were thin and hollow-eyed. Sleep would be a problem for the foreseeable future; they’d startle awake from shivering nightmares in which they were back on the glacier. But they were safe.
The Canadian trio spent the next six weeks aboard the Northland , celebrating their unlikely survival and regaining their health. Later they told their story to reporters, posed for photos, and saw their tale recounted in magazine stories and a comic book called Lost in the Arctic .
Asked what kept them going, Weaver said, “Dave had his wife and baby daughter. Al was worried about his mother, alone out in Winnipeg. And I had my wife. Do you see what I mean? We had something to live for.”
John Pritchard’s
“I just saw a light,” he told Ensign Charles Dorian, who rushed to the bridge to tell the captain. Pollard spun the Northland back toward shore. He ordered his men to turn on the ship’s big searchlight and shoot a half-dozen “star shells” that turned night into day as they fell to earth.
At the edge of the ice cliff, the three men yelled with joy and relief. Giddy and renewed, they pounded on each other’s backs. Weaver read a Morse code message from the ship’s blinking signal lamp: “Move back from edge of glacier and bear south to meet landing party.”
On the Northland , Pollard faced two decisions: who would carry out the rescue and how it would be accomplished. He settled on a plan that called for a small team to pilot a motorboat through the ice-filled waters, reach the shoreline, climb a glacier, avoid crevasses, guide or carry the three men back down the glacier, and get them to the ship in one piece. The dangers were too many to count, but no better ideas emerged.
Frustrated that he hadn’t been able to find the Canadians in his Duck, John Pritchard volunteered to lead the mission. Equipped with skis and snowshoes, the lieutenant and a ten-man team reached the shore by boat, roped themselves together, and found a back way to scale the icy cliff. Pritchard led his men across a heavily crevassed section of the unstable glacier. By shouting and flashing searchlights, they located Goodlet, Nash, and Weaver. A photograph of the meeting commemorated the happy occasion.
With darkness upon them and the glacier pouring chunks of itself into the water, the rescuers and the Canadians rushed back in the direction of the motorboat. Pritchard led the group down the face of the cliff, which seemed intent on tossing them into the sea. When everyone was safely aboard, Pritchard and his crew steered the motorboat through the dark to the Northland ’s side.
When the Canadians stepped aboard the cutter, they were feted, fed, and coddled so thoroughly that Weaver said they felt like newborns. Pollard, the Northland ’s captain, told the men he’d written them off as dead before the lookout spotted their burning parkas. The ship’s doctor treated their frostbite and windburns. He diagnosed the mental effects of hypothermia, a confusion that Weaver described as “twilight between sanity and insanity.” The doctor told them they were within a day of cracking altogether. On the bright side, Weaver said, their blurred judgment had allowed them to persevere when logic, hunger, thirst, and exhaustion might otherwise have made them curl up on the ice and die.
JOHN PRITCHARD, FAR RIGHT WITH ROPE AND POLE, AFTER LEADING THE RESCUE OF THREE CANADIAN AIRMEN WHOSE PLANE WENT DOWN ON THE ICE CAP. CANADIAN PILOT DAVID GOODLET IS FRONT LEFT, IN A FLIGHT SUIT; TO HIS LEFT, IN A BORROWED COAT, IS FLIGHT SERGEANT ARTHUR WEAVER. NAVIGATOR AL NASH IS IN THE ROW BEHIND THEM, IN A PARKA. IN THE BACK ROW, SECOND FROM LEFT WITH A CIGARETTE, IS ENSIGN RICHARD FULLER, WHO WOULD SPEND FIVE MONTHS LEADING ANOTHER RESCUE TEAM ON THE ICE CAP. (U.S. COAST GUARD PHOTOGRAPH.)
All three were thin and hollow-eyed. Sleep would be a problem for the foreseeable future; they’d startle awake from shivering nightmares in which they were back on the glacier. But they were safe.
The Canadian trio spent the next six weeks aboard the Northland , celebrating their unlikely survival and regaining their health. Later they told their story to reporters, posed for photos, and saw their tale recounted in magazine stories and a comic book called Lost in the Arctic .
Asked what kept them going, Weaver said, “Dave had his wife and baby daughter. Al was worried about his mother, alone out in Winnipeg. And I had my wife. Do you see what I mean? We had something to live for.”
John Pritchard’s
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