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September 10th, 2009 – At Sea, Labrador Sea 49 05N, 052 55W
by Harry Stern and Mark Schrader
(Sept. 10): She smells the barn. As the sun set into the Labrador Sea late this afternoon, Ocean Watch had closed to under a hundred miles of St. John’s, Newfoundland, and a well-deserved rest. As the old saying goes, she was closing in on home, and she smelled the barn. One more night at sea, and the passage south from the Northwest Passage would be complete.
In honor of the occasion, we have two stories on tap today, the second a tale of this latest trip from skipper Mark Schrader. But we’ll begin the proceedings with a piece by scientist Harry Stern, who is nearing the end of his time aboard. We’re not entirely sure what Harry was expecting from his experiences on Ocean Watch, though we’re fairly certain the last few days, especially, weren’t in the brochure. Harry has been a steady and pleasant presence aboard, and he’s become an invaluable hand on the sheets and lines on the countless sail changes we’ve made on this trip.
Not only that, but Harry is a natural writer and storyteller, and as we near St. John’s, he’s crafted a very relevant and interesting piece about a local legend of the sea. Read closely, for not only is the history fascinating, but there’s a surprise or two as well!
The Ice Pilot by Harry Stern
As Ocean Watch sails south through the Labrador Sea, in transit from the high Arctic to the Canadian port of St
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| There are some surprising connections between Canadian mariner Captain Robert Abram Bartlett and the crew of Ocean Watch. |
John’s, Newfoundland, we look briefly at the life and times of Canada’s greatest Arctic mariner, a native of Newfoundland, Captain Robert Abram Bartlett. We also discover some surprising connections between Bartlett’s later voyages and the mission and crew of Ocean Watch.
Born in 1875 in the village of Brigus, 30 miles northwest of St John’s, Bob Bartlett came from a family that had earned its living from the sea for 150 years. His father (“Black” Bartlett) and uncles were captains of fishing and sealing vessels, and the extended family spent summers at their fishing station on Turnavik Island, on the coast of Labrador, catching and salting cod. But Black Bartlett felt that his son wasn’t cut out to be a sailor, so at the age of 15 he was sent to study for the priesthood. In Bob’s words, “I held that tack as long as I could, but then I came about, eased off and ran before the wind of what I was meant to do.” The sea was in his blood. In the fall of 1893, instead of returning to the Methodist College, he signed on with the Corisande as an able-bodied seaman.
A sluggish old square-rigger, the Corisande hauled a load of salted cod to Brazil and headed back north with a hold full of bananas. Off Nova Scotia she sailed into a gale, with seas crashing over the bow. As she approached Cape Race at the southern tip of Newfoundland, the mast snapped, and the captain ordered all hands into the lifeboats. The crew made it to shore where they watched their ship smash against the rocks and sink. Thus ended young Bartlett’s inaugural voyage as a seaman. It would not be the last time he would see his ship go down.
Apparently impressed with his son’s education at sea, Black Bartlett gave Bob command of the family’s 120-ft sealer The Panther for the run up to Turnavik Island that summer. For the next four years, Bob shipped out of St John’s, studied navigation, and moved up in rank from seaman to second mate. In 1898 he took the demanding three-day master’s examination, describing it as “easy as a run from Halifax to St John’s with the sea calm and the weather clear.” At age 23 he had earned his captain’s license.
His first commission was destined to shape the rest of his career. Attracted to the three-masted Windward as she prepared for an Arctic voyage, he went aboard to say hello to its captain, his Uncle John Bartlett. There he met not only Uncle John but a forty-two year old lieutenant in the U.S. Navy named Robert Peary. The Windward was to be Peary’s supply ship for his assault on the North Pole. Although John Bartlett already captained the Windward, Peary persuaded Bob to take the position of first mate. Thus began an association between Bob Bartlett and Robert Peary that was to take Bob to within 133 miles of the North Pole a decade later.
That winter, with the Windward locked in ice 800 miles from the Pole, Bob enthusiastically took to the ways of the local Inuit. He learned how to stalk polar bears, musk oxen, and seals, build igloos, drive dogsleds, and survive the harsh Arctic winter. He became indispensable to Peary, and he helped him to lay out plans for a new and better ship with which to attack the Pole.
That next attack came in 1905-1906 with Bartlett in command of the Roosevelt, a 181-ft steam-sailer. Plagued by engine problems, Bartlett nevertheless skillfully maneuvered the Roosevelt through Kane Basin to northern Ellesmere Island, 425 miles from the North Pole. Peary launched his polar trek from there in the spring, reaching a farthest north of 87o06′, accompanied nearly the whole way north by Bartlett. Returning to the ship, they awaited its release from the ice at the end of summer. But the Roosevelt would have remained a prisoner of the ice had not Bartlett dynamited a path to freedom. The badly damaged Roosevelt then limped back southward, suffering a broken rudder three times, and a shortage of coal for the boiler that prompted Bartlett to order the crew to chop up wooden railings, furniture, and pieces of the deck to fuel their final miles.
For Peary’s third attempt on the Pole in 1908-1909, Bartlett again navigated the re-fitted Roosevelt to northern Ellesmere Island, where they spent the winter preparing for the spring expedition to the Pole. When they set out at the end of February in -30oF temperatures, Bartlett led the pioneer party to break trail for the other three parties of the expedition. Reaching a new farthest north at 87o47′, Bartlett’s party stopped to wait for Peary to catch up. There Bartlett received the bitterly disappointing order from Peary to return to the ship, for the North Pole would be Peary’s alone. Bartlett faithfully obeyed. Peary continued north with his assistant Matthew Henson and four Inuit, claiming to reach the Pole on April 6. However, Peary’s sloppy navigation has cast doubt on this claim ever since – doubt which could have been dispelled had Bartlett been allowed to navigate the full distance.
Bartlett’s leadership during the Karluk disaster further cemented his status as an Arctic hero. The Karluk sailed from British Columbia in June 1913, with Bartlett as captain and Vilhjalmur Stefansson as leader of an expedition to explore the Beaufort Sea and northern Canadian Archipelago. Shortly after passing north through Bering Strait, the ship encountered pack ice, and by August she was trapped. In the fall, Stefansson and a small party left the ship, ostensibly on a two-week hunting trip, although he never returned to the Karluk. He may have abandoned ship on purpose, for he spent the next five years exploring the Canadian Arctic.
In the meantime, the Karluk drifted northwest, further into the pack ice and the Arctic winter. Knowing full well that the ice could crush the ship, Bartlett made preparations by building a storehouse on the ice and loading it with supplies. When the fateful day finally came in January, they were ready. With everyone safely on the ice as the Karluk’s timbers splintered under the pressure, Bartlett put Chopin’s Funeral March on the ship’s Victrola, stepped from the rail, and turned to watch the ship go down.
The party at Shipwreck Camp consisted of 20 white men, two Inuit hunters, and one Inuit seamstress with her two daughters, Helen (age 
and Mugpi (age 3). Four men insisted on striking out for Alaska, against Bartlett’s better judgment. He insisted that they sign a waiver absolving him of responsibility for their fate. They signed, left, and were never seen again. The rest of the party eventually made for Wrangel Island. Weakened by hunger and cold, they could not continue as a group. Bartlett and one Inuit, Kataktovik, set out on foot for Siberia, traveling 700 miles to Bering Strait where help could finally be summoned. By the time a rescue ship arrived at Wrangel Island in September 1914, there were only a dozen survivors, but they owed their lives to Bartlett and Kataktovik’s heroic trek. The youngest, Mugpi, lived to the age of 97 (she died in 2008).
In 1925, following a low period in Bartlett’s life of depression and drinking, his friend and admirer Commodore James B. Ford handed him a new life: financial backing to purchase a ship of his own. Ford stipulated that upkeep of the new ship would be Bartlett’s responsibility – he would have to make a business of it. Bartlett jumped at the chance, acquiring the Effie M. Morrissey, a 112-foot two-masted schooner built in 1894. For the next 16 years, Bartlett chartered his services to various institutions, scientists, filmmakers, and sportsmen, mainly with voyages to Greenland. The American Museum of Natural History sent scientists with Bartlett to collect specimens of Arctic birds and flowers. The Navy Hydrographic Office had him drop bottles into the sea for the purpose of tracking ocean currents (a message in each bottle directed the finder to report its location back to the Navy). Bartlett also took 20 or so college boys along each summer, educating them in seamanship.
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| Bob Bartlett with Lt. Robert Gross, the great uncle of Ocean Watch’s scientist Harry Stern. |
These activities remind us of those undertaken by Ocean Watch: jellyfish sampling for university scientists, measuring seawater properties for the International Seakeepers Society, sending meteorological observations to NOAA, and deploying buoys for the International Arctic Buoy Program. (Incidentally, the message-in-a-bottle method is still used to track ocean currents, as we learned during our tour of the Sir Wilfrid Laurier in Gjoa Haven). Ocean Watch also has an educational mission, supported by Pacific Science Center and Sailors for the Sea – not teaching seamanship, but teaching awareness of the increasing threats to the fragile ocean environment. Finally, our own filmmaker is documenting our experiences for the enjoyment and inspiration of a wider audience. Bartlett would have been pleased.
The last episode of our Bartlett biography takes place during World War II, when the U.S. maintained weather stations on the east coast of Greenland for the purpose of improving weather forecasts in the European theater. These stations needed occasional servicing, and who better to do it than ice pilot Bob Bartlett. Thus the U.S. military hired a 67-year-old sea captain and his wooden schooner to carry out a vital war mission.
One such voyage included twenty-six year old Lieutenant Robert Gross, the great uncle of Ocean Watch’s scientist
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| “It was so rough, an exaggeration would be an understatement.” |
Harry Stern. Bob Gross’s copy of Ice Pilot Bob Bartlett by Paul Sarnoff contains this inscription: “Sailed with Captain Bob Bartlett Summer 1944 from BW1 to BE2 Narssarssuak around Cape Farvel to Angmagssalik – Visits to Weather Communication Units – 45 DAYS.” My Uncle Bobby once told me about that voyage. When he tried to describe how rough the seas were, he couldn’t find the words, finally blurting out, “It was so rough, an exaggeration would be an understatement!” And so it is with me and the Labrador Sea, on our approach to Bartlett’s homeland.
Robert Abram Bartlett died in 1946. His beloved Effie M. Morrissey is still afloat as Ernestina in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Earlier this summer, St John’s hosted a series of events called “Celebrating Bartlett 2009.” Although we’ve missed the official festivities, we’re still celebrating Bartlett on Ocean Watch, and we look forward to our stay in Newfoundland.
Closing in on St. John’s by Skipper Mark Schrader
The gale lasted until early this morning, the associated seas a little longer. Sometime just after first light we added a small amount of mainsail (3rd reef), traded the storm staysail for our working staysail and trimmed a course for St. John’s. Without the main sail the rolling motion of Ocean Watch made working above or below decks almost impossible. I say almost because even in extreme conditions things like food, navigation, battery charging, water making and sleeping need to happen. And they do, slowly and deliberately.
With the added sail, life aboard began to take on its familiar routine. Breakfast, observation and log recordings, correspondence, sleeping are once again happening. I’m sure it’s no surprise to anyone that at the extremes crew tension seems to increase or ease in direct proportion to wind and sea conditions. We’ve now shaken out the third reef and are making good use of the northerly Force 6 (24-knots) breeze. The Labrador coast is now 25nm off of our starboard bow. St. John’s is under 100 nautical miles – ETA between 0700 and 0800 tomorrow (11th) morning. Environment Canada suggests we’ll have favorable conditions for the rest of today, tonight and tomorrow morning. Tensions have eased.
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| The waves in the Labrador Sea are every bit as imposing and treacherous as the giant icebergs encountered earlier. |
Whenever sailors get together, talk usually turns to stories about extreme situations. Biggest waves, how much wind, boat problems, crew problems are but a few of the subjects I’ve spent more than a few hours listening and contributing to over the years. I’ve said before and I’ll repeat again, this Ocean Watch crew is the best I’ve ever had the pleasure of sailing with and Ocean Watch herself proved her ability and worth many times over during the past 72 hours. The impressive and potentially dangerous waves will be the subject of any of my Labrador Sea conversations for a long time. On balance they were every bit as imposing and treacherous as the giant icebergs we avoided on the first half of this leg. From what we’ve just seen, Labrador Sea sailors and Cape Horners have more than few experiences in common. A tip of our collective hats to both.
On a boat amidst short period waves with nearly vertical faces – some approaching 30 feet or more, curling and breaking with regularity, isn’t my idea of a fun place to be. A lesser boat with a less experienced and attentive crew could have found themselves in dire straits indeed. Surfing a 44-ton boat down these faces isn’t for the faint of heart. I’m impressed we kept OW’s mast out of the water and suffered no significant damage to sails, gear, crew and pride. We’ve come over 7,000 miles and we have a long way to go: Cape Horn is now in our sights. I think we’re ready.
More from St. John’s tomorrow. You know I’m happy to report all are okay aboard Ocean Watch.
- Harry Stern and Mark Schrader with photographs by David Thoreson
This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
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