Tragedy and Loss

Funeral of J. Jones at Armstrong Point, Northwest Territories. Jones was chief engineer of the schooner Polar Bear. He died of an apparent heart attack in late November 1915 at Armstrong Point, Victoria Island.
Photo: John Hadley
April 1916
CMC 51156

Karluk trapped in ice
Photo: Fred W. Maurer
November 1913
Library and Archives Canada
C-071058

Part of the group who reached Wrangel Island and survived the Karluk disaster: William McKinlay, Robert Williamson, George Breddy, Ernest Chafe and H. Williams.
Photo: William L. McKinlay
May 1914
Library and Archives Canada
C-071045

Arctic exploration is difficult and dangerous at the best of times. The climate and terrain can be unforgiving, and food and fuel are often hard to come by. Men on the Northern Party were sometimes reduced to eating rotting meat from long-dead muskoxen.

Conditions were especially unfavourable in the summer of 1913 when the Expedition got underway. Ice conditions off the north coast of Alaska were unusually severe, and the Expedition's flagship, Karluk, was trapped and crushed by the ice, sinking off the coast of Siberia.  

By the time a rescue ship found the Karluk survivors, 11 men had died. Four perished en route to the nearest land, likely due to exposure. Four of those who made it to solid ground were soon dead, possibly asphyxiated by fumes from a faulty stove. Two more died in later months from an ailment likely linked to their starvation diet. The final death was from a gunshot wound—probably self-inflicted, but perhaps the result of foul play (the deceased had been accused of stealing food).

The survivors were finally rescued from Wrangel Island in the fall of 1914, after Karluk's captain, Robert Bartlett, and Inupiaq hunter Kataktovik had made a heroic journey across treacherous ice to the Russian mainland.

The loss of the Karluk and some of her men was a great human tragedy and a major setback for the Expedition, forcing Stefansson to purchase additional ships and supplies, and to hire replacement crews.

Six others died in the course of the Expedition. One succumbed to pneumonia, one suffered an apparent heart attack, one drowned, one committed suicide, and two likely perished from a deadly combination of exposure, hunger and exhaustion.