What German and American heard was very divergent.
To Joseph Mauch, the young German assigned to be Hall's stenographer, the lecture dissolved into a diatribe directed against the ranking Teuton, Emil Bessel. “Capt. Hall made some remarks insulting Dr. Bessel most severely,” Mauch wrote in his journal.
To the American Noah Hayes, his captain's speech reflected his steadfast resolve and noble principles. Hayes remembered Captain Hall asserting “his determination to maintain order and obedience to all lawful commands.” Prophetically Hayes recalled Hall's vowing “if necessary to die in the performance of his duty as commander rather than yield a letter.”
Hall had cast his gauntlet down and backed his oath with his life.
Another day's steam found the ship anchored at Tasiussaq, a collection of huts more than anything else. Hall purchased more dogs, bringing the total up to sixty. He had hoped to convince a man named Jansen to join the group, but Jansen refused.
All around them signs of autumn showed. Yellow laced the curling willow and alder leaves, and the white caribou moss rose in stark contrast against the red-and-orange-tinged lichen. The aircarried a sharper bite. Each evening the land breeze wafted the pungent tang of high bush cranberries among the tarred rigging lines. Hall grew more anxious with each sign. His window through the sea ice was closing. Any day now the mountains of floating ice would slide down from the north to crash and collide while they sealed Smith Sound until the next summer.
Two days of solid fog blocked their departure. Cold, white, and impenetrable, the fog descended on the harbor without notice. Hall chafed at the bit, finally deciding to trust the ship to the local knowledge of a pilot. Hastily he amended his last report to Navy Secretary Robeson. Gov. Lowertz Elberg had promised to see the report safely aboard the next ship to the United States. On August 22 he had written optimistically, “The prospects of the expedition are fine; the weather beautiful, clear, and exceptionally warm.” A landsman, he failed to realize the warm air was a mixed blessing and might bring fog. Now he penned a more somber note: “The
Polaris
bids adieu to civilization. God be with us.”
Through the fog and into the open sea of Baffin Bay,
Polaris
headed north for the neck of the bottle called Smith Sound. With Von Otto's report that the ice pack had receded still fresh in his mind, Hall made way through the open water, following the most direct path to his goal. Like a silent hunter lying in wait to spring the trap, Smith Sound remained open, luring the ship ever northward. Fading astern, the faint oil lamps of Tasiussaq shimmered over the rolling waves until they became no more than a memory. With those lights faded all contact with their modern world. Behind lay hospitals, electric lights, telegraph, civilized comforts, and safety. Ahead waited the cold and darkness and danger.
Inside Smith Sound the first icebergs appeared.
Saint Brendan, the seafaring Irish monk, first mentioned encountering “floating crystal castles” during his far-flung voyages in a cowhide coracle. Saint Brendan often exaggerated and was given to flights of fancy as he rocked along in his fragile craft. Unfortunately for mariners to this day, what he saw was real, and nothing he wrote about icebergs conveyed their majesty or the utter terror they invoke in a sailor's heart as they slide silently through the water with the help of current and wind. The nip in the air that precedes an iceberg can chill a mariner to his marrow. Before radarand the Global Positioning System (GPS), only a keen eye and a quick hand on the helm prevented a collision with these floating monsters. In thick fog the faint echo of the foghorn might be the only thing to give adequate warning.
But Greenland is infamous for producing very large tabular icebergs. Flat and expansive, these ice islands, often miles across, drift along barely showing
To Joseph Mauch, the young German assigned to be Hall's stenographer, the lecture dissolved into a diatribe directed against the ranking Teuton, Emil Bessel. “Capt. Hall made some remarks insulting Dr. Bessel most severely,” Mauch wrote in his journal.
To the American Noah Hayes, his captain's speech reflected his steadfast resolve and noble principles. Hayes remembered Captain Hall asserting “his determination to maintain order and obedience to all lawful commands.” Prophetically Hayes recalled Hall's vowing “if necessary to die in the performance of his duty as commander rather than yield a letter.”
Hall had cast his gauntlet down and backed his oath with his life.
Another day's steam found the ship anchored at Tasiussaq, a collection of huts more than anything else. Hall purchased more dogs, bringing the total up to sixty. He had hoped to convince a man named Jansen to join the group, but Jansen refused.
All around them signs of autumn showed. Yellow laced the curling willow and alder leaves, and the white caribou moss rose in stark contrast against the red-and-orange-tinged lichen. The aircarried a sharper bite. Each evening the land breeze wafted the pungent tang of high bush cranberries among the tarred rigging lines. Hall grew more anxious with each sign. His window through the sea ice was closing. Any day now the mountains of floating ice would slide down from the north to crash and collide while they sealed Smith Sound until the next summer.
Two days of solid fog blocked their departure. Cold, white, and impenetrable, the fog descended on the harbor without notice. Hall chafed at the bit, finally deciding to trust the ship to the local knowledge of a pilot. Hastily he amended his last report to Navy Secretary Robeson. Gov. Lowertz Elberg had promised to see the report safely aboard the next ship to the United States. On August 22 he had written optimistically, “The prospects of the expedition are fine; the weather beautiful, clear, and exceptionally warm.” A landsman, he failed to realize the warm air was a mixed blessing and might bring fog. Now he penned a more somber note: “The
Polaris
bids adieu to civilization. God be with us.”
Through the fog and into the open sea of Baffin Bay,
Polaris
headed north for the neck of the bottle called Smith Sound. With Von Otto's report that the ice pack had receded still fresh in his mind, Hall made way through the open water, following the most direct path to his goal. Like a silent hunter lying in wait to spring the trap, Smith Sound remained open, luring the ship ever northward. Fading astern, the faint oil lamps of Tasiussaq shimmered over the rolling waves until they became no more than a memory. With those lights faded all contact with their modern world. Behind lay hospitals, electric lights, telegraph, civilized comforts, and safety. Ahead waited the cold and darkness and danger.
Inside Smith Sound the first icebergs appeared.
Saint Brendan, the seafaring Irish monk, first mentioned encountering “floating crystal castles” during his far-flung voyages in a cowhide coracle. Saint Brendan often exaggerated and was given to flights of fancy as he rocked along in his fragile craft. Unfortunately for mariners to this day, what he saw was real, and nothing he wrote about icebergs conveyed their majesty or the utter terror they invoke in a sailor's heart as they slide silently through the water with the help of current and wind. The nip in the air that precedes an iceberg can chill a mariner to his marrow. Before radarand the Global Positioning System (GPS), only a keen eye and a quick hand on the helm prevented a collision with these floating monsters. In thick fog the faint echo of the foghorn might be the only thing to give adequate warning.
But Greenland is infamous for producing very large tabular icebergs. Flat and expansive, these ice islands, often miles across, drift along barely showing
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