After the failure of the relief expeditions of 1882 and 1883 to reach Lieutenant Greeley and his party of observers at Camp Conger, a board consisting of Army and Navy officers was ordered by the President of the United States to meet in December, 1883, to consider ways and means to provide for another relief expedition, and to determine whether the Army (Signal Corps) should be in charge, as had been the case in the two previous expeditions, whether the Navy should have entire control, or whether there should be joint control.
After due consideration of the many plans submitted and after much investigation, the board recommended that the Navy should have entire control, and upon the President’s recommendation a resolution was introduced in Congress to provide for the necessary funds late in January, 1884.
Prompt action was necessary so that proper vessels could be obtained before the departure of the sealing and whaling fleets from Scotland and Newfoundland in the early spring on the annual cruise.
It was also necessary to begin preparing the ships for the trip so that advantage could be taken of an early break-up in the spring, should this occur, as seemed likely from weather indications during the winter.
Naval officers were detailed to inspect all vessels that might be available so that the best could be obtained as soon as the resolution passed Congress.
Commander Schley states that it was determined to use Scotch-built whalers as they were built to go into the ice, while the American-built whalers, operating in Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean, were built to keep out of the ice.
While these investigations were being made the two houses of Congress were having trouble as to the wording of the resolution, which, as finally passed February 26, 1884, provided that the expedition should be manned by volunteers from the Navy, and appropriated such money as was needed to finance it. This is one of the few acts, authorizing the expenditure of money, ever passed by the Congress, in which no definite amount is named.
All available information favored the Bear, then at St. John’s, Newfoundland, fitting out for her whaling cruise, as the best of the fleet. While the above-named resolution was in conference, the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy directed the purchase of the Bear from Grieve and Company, her owners, for $100,000 on January 28, 1884. When the Secretary of War was asked what would happen if the resolution authorizing the purchase failed to pass Congress, he said he supposed he would own one half of a good vessel.
The Bear arrived at Brooklyn Navy Yard February 15, 1884, under command of Captain Ash, who was later employed as ice pilot of the ship. The act authorizing the purchase had finally passed Congress and had been approved two days before the arrival of the vessel at New York.
Later the Thetis was purchased, and the Alert was presented by the British government, to complete the expedition.
The Bear was built in 1874 at Greenock, Scotland, and was ten years old when purchased by the United States. She was built of oak with frames very close together, and strongly braced forward to withstand the shocks when working in the ice. After purchase the Bear and the Thetis were further strengthened to withstand ice pressure by placing additional beams between those already supporting the lower decks, and truss frames were put in extending from the bilge to the middle of the lower deck beams. A deck was also laid on these beams, as the whalers had no berth deck. Water-tight bulkheads were put up forward and aft. Iron straps were put over the stem and secured with through bolts, and filling pieces were used to close up the space in the angle between the keel and ship’s bottom so that the thrust of the ice forced laterally against the lower part of the hull would be borne without resistance and all danger of forcing open the bottom planking avoided. The vessel was also sheathed with Australian iron bark along the water line to prevent injury to the planking while working in the ice. Just prior to the purchase of the Bear, the vessel had been thoroughly overhauled and fitted with a new Scotch boiler.
The bunker capacity was about 500 tons, but this has now been reduced to 360 tons. The bunker space has been used to furnish a machine shop and afford space for the dynamos to provide electricity for the radio and for lighting the ship.
That the Bear was well and strongly built, and that she was built for any service, has been amply demonstrated by her long and faithful service on both sides of the continent.
Commanded by Lieutenant W. H. Emory, U.S.N., with a crew of thirty-four officers and men, all of whom were volunteers from the Navy, the Bear left Brooklyn April 24, 1884, one day ahead of schedule, and reached St. John’s, Newfoundland, May 4. After a few days spent in coaling, she sailed for the North in accordance with previous instructions from the commander of the expedition.
The United States government had offered a reward of $25,000 to any vessel which might first reach the Greeley party. All the whalers were informed by Commander Schley, who commanded the relief expedition, with the Thetis as his flagship, that should any vessel of the whaling fleet reach Greeley first he would recommend that the reward be paid, but that the vessels of his command would use every endeavor to be on the ground first.
It may be noticed in reading various accounts of the cruise, published contemporaneously, that the Bear was considered the best vessel in the North, and was usually in the lead; in the few instances where, because of position and movements of ice, others led for a short time, the Bear was able to work around and, resuming her normal position, was the vessel first to reach the Greeley party.
Upon the return of the relief expedition in August, 1884, Greeley and the members of the expedition were tendered a reception at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, by the North Atlantic Fleet and the practice squadron consisting of the Constitution and Dale. Secretary Chandler, of the Navy, and a number of other prominent citizens, were present.
The vessels of the relief squadron then proceeded to Brooklyn Navy Yard where the Bear was turned over to the Revenue Cutter Service (now the Coast Guard) for duty in Alaskan waters and the Arctic Ocean.
The Bear is a barkentine with auxiliary steam power, 200 feet long, depth 18 feet 2 inches, beam 32 feet, and of 703 tons net register. Originally and until 1912 she was fitted with a two-blade propeller. In a smooth sea nine knots could be made under steam alone; eight knots could be maintained under sail alone with a fair wind blowing strong.
After some alterations, enlarging the crew’s quarters and building a wardroom forward of the cabin, the Bear, under command of Captain A. B. Davis, U.S.R.C.S., sailed from New York in November, 1885, by way of the Straits of Magellan, and arrived in San Francisco in February, 1886.
The ship was at once made ready for a cruise to the Arctic, leaving, as was then the custom, early in April, under the command of Captain M. A. Healy, U.S.R.C.S.
Since that time, with one or two exceptions, until she was laid up after the return from the North in 1926, the Bear has gone north and into the Arctic each spring and returned late in the fall.
On a few occasions the Thetis made the cruise to Point Barrow, but the Bear was fully occupied cruising in Bering Sea to prevent seal poaching and such other law violations as might be found.
One of the early rescues was that of some of the crew of the whaling bark Napoleon, which had been wrecked in the ice near Cape Navarin, Siberia. Information of the location of the shipwreck was conveyed to Captain Healy on a piece of board which had been passed along from one native village to another.
Hardly a season passed that one or more vessels of the whaling fleet was not wrecked and the crew picked up, cared for, and returned to civilization. After the whaling fleet passed out of the picture there were prospectors bound to Dawson, and later to Nome, who had to be helped and sometimes controlled.
In 1894, when a strike threatened to prevent the launching of a river steamer at St. Michael, the crew of the Bear was sent ashore to finish and to launch the vessel so that she could pass up the Yukon River before the freeze-up.
In 1895, when the Reverend Mr. Thornton, a missionary at Cape Prince of Wales, was killed by several native boys, the Bear was the first vessel to arrive at the village, and found that the natives had meted out justice by killing the boys. Mrs. Thornton was brought out by the Bear.
In 1897, when the whaler Navarck was caught in the ice off Icy Cape, the Bear followed on the edge of the ice-pack until the Navarck was hull down in the ice. The Bear finally picked up the master, his wife, and such of the crew as accompanied him, the remainder of the crew being picked up by the whaler Thrasher.
The Bear was at St. Michael when the miners came out with the first gold from the Dawson country in 1896. When the rush to the Yukon country came in the summer and fall of 1897, and unprincipled promoters carried passengers to St. Michael, with promises for further transportation up the river and no means of providing it, the Bear’s crew maintained order among the hundreds landed at St. Michael. Late in October, 1897, two companies of the Eighth United States Infantry arrived and the Bear proceeded south, arriving in Seattle early in November.
About the time the Bear arrived in Seattle, the whaling fleet reached San Francisco bringing reports that eight vessels had been caught in the ice off Point Barrow. Plans were immediately formed for a relief expedition, and three weeks from the time of arrival in Seattle the Bear was returning north, once more with a volunteer crew and again without a definite appropriation to hamper the efforts of the expedition. In each case it was the plan to do one’s best and keep down the expense to necessities, which was done, of course, and the more easily because dealers did not know how much money was available and hence did not charge excessive prices.
On December 14, 1897, the Bear reached latitude 63° 13' N., longitude 167°28' W., a little north and east of St. Lawrence Island, and about eighty-five miles from Cape Nome, when the ice became so heavy that it was decided to land the overland expedition on Cape Vancouver and return to Unalaska for the winter. No vessel of the Bear’s size had ever been in these waters, and none at this season of the year. The charts for that part of the country and the Arctic are more or less unreliable, and are made from old surveys with such corrections as are sent in from time to time. The chart used on this trip showed a village on the south side of the cape, which was later found to be on the north side. This was the village of Tununak where the overland expedition in charge of Lieutenant Jarvis was landed. The days are very short in that latitude in December, and much valuable time was lost in looking for the village on the south side of the cape. The expedition, consisting of Lieutenants Jarvis and Bertholf and Surgeon Call, made its way overland to St. Michael, then across Norton Sound to Sinrock, to the westward of what is now Nome, to Port Clarence and Cape Prince of Wales, where reindeer were collected from the natives and driven to Point Barrow to be used for food by the shipwrecked whalers, should it be needed.
At that time money was of no use to the natives, and it was impossible to transport supplies to pay the natives for work and reindeer. It had always been the practice on the Bear to make no promises to the natives that were not fulfilled, so that when Lieutenant Jarvis and his party came along and gave I.O.U.’s, to be redeemed by the Bear the following spring, he had no trouble in having his party supplied with all their needs. All these were cashed by the Bear the following spring when, as the ice permitted, we proceeded north.
During the winter of 1897 and 1898 several companies were building stern-wheel steamers at Unalaska and Dutch Harbor for the Yukon River trade. Over a thousand men were employed at the work. The Bear was the only representative of the government present, and maintained law and order throughout the long winter.
Throughout the winter and spring, steamers were arriving at Unalaska every week or ten days with supplies for the various companies. It seemed as though they all sailed on Saturday and would bring newspapers with large headlines stating positively that war with Spain would be declared on the following Monday. The war was practically ended when we finally heard definite news about it in July at St. Michael.
As soon as ice conditions permitted, the Bear proceeded north, arriving at Point Barrow July 28, 1898, and moored to shore ice. While awaiting the arrival of the crews of the wrecked vessels from shore, the wind shifted to westward, bringing in the icepack. But for the fortunate circumstance that the Bear was in a pocket along the shore ice which permitted the pack to form an arch on the outside, or Arctic Ocean side of the ship, I think the story of the Bear would have ended there. The pressure was such that the stern was lifted eighteen inches, and her sides pressed in so that the engine room floor plates were raised four inches. The ship was not released until almost three weeks later, when the wind shifted to the eastward, and with the survivors of the ill-fated whalers on board she proceeded south and arrived at Seattle September 13, 1898.
Year after year the Bear has gone into the North, preserving law and order along the Arctic shore and rescuing people in trouble on both sides of Bering Straits. From the first cruise the natives were impressed with the fact that the Bear was the representative of the government, and that infractions of the law would be severely punished. They were made to understand that they would be treated with justice, and that if any white man tried to impose upon them such white offender would be punished accordingly. The Bear has meant justice to the native, and has been recognized as such by the people in the Far North for the last forty years. All complaints in the North have been adjusted in these years, and all were satisfied.
During the years of the gold rush to Nome in 1899 and 1900, order was maintained by the Bear until the arrival of the Army and civil authorities.
In 1899 many people were taken to Kotzebue Sound to search for gold. They were transported in sailing ships, and as soon as the passengers were landed the vessels sailed for Seattle and San Francisco. There being little gold in this country, these people were left stranded and were brought to Nome and St. Michael by the Bear in 1899 and 1900.
The Bear was usually the first vessel to arrive at Nome and St. Michael and land the mail (as much as 25,000 or 30,000 pounds) that had accumulated at Seattle during the winter. The day after the Bear’s arrival most of Nome’s residents appeared in their new spring clothes.
In the fall the Bear was the last vessel to leave Nome, and brought out the United States prisoners and such undesirables as were likely to cause trouble during the winter months. All these events occurred before the days of the radio and the cable so when the Bear left Seattle, her commander was “on his own” until the return in the fall.
In 1914 when the Canadian steamer Karlak (Steffanson’s vessel) was crushed in the ice, the Bear carried on board Captain Robert A. Bartlett throughout the rescue attempt. After several attempts to land on Wrangell Island, which were prevented by ice and fog, the Bear was forced to return to Nome for coal. Since this is an open roadstead, coal can only be delivered in a smooth sea. After the Bear had finally coaled we returned to the Arctic to find that the day prior to our arrival the small trading schooner King and Winge had landed at Rogers Harbor and picked up the survivors of the Karluk. It was later learned from the rescued men that the day the King and Winge arrived was the first day the weather was clear and the island clear of ice. The Bear received the men on board and after proceeding to the vicinity of Herald Island, which could not be approached nearer than ten miles on account of the ice, the men were transported to Victoria, B.C.
In 1921 an officer of the Coast and Geodetic Survey was transported to various ports on the Siberian coast, and along the Arctic coast as far east as Demarcation Point, the boundary line between Alaska and Canada. He was making observations to determine the change in variation and also the magnetic force at these points. At each point a Coast and Geodetic Survey tablet was laid in cement for future reference. Several years later when the Bolsheviks obtained control of this part of Siberia, according to the newspapers, the tablets were dug up and destroyed.
In 1920, and again in 1923, the Bear visited Anadyr, Siberia, and in September of the latter year proceeded along the Siberian coast to pick up American traders who had been forbidden by the Bolsheviks to operate in that territory.
In 1912 Steffanson was brought out on the Bear, and in 1923 Amundsen was brought from Wainwright to Nome. At some time or other most of the Arctic explorers and investigators have traveled on the Bear. I recall General Funston telling me in Honolulu that he, as a botanist, had made a trip to Point Barrow and had been brought out on the Bear (in 1893 I believe).
While Major General Greeley was in command of the Western Division of the Army he made several trips to Alaska, and never failed to visit the Bear when she was in port.
In June, 1924, when about sixty miles from Nome, with clear water and good weather, there was every indication that the mail would be landed early in the morning. Towards evening the wind shifted to the eastward and fog set in. The Bear was immediately headed to southward and eastward to get into shoal water, but by morning the vessel was surrounded by heavy ice, and that situation maintained for over a month. After the Bear was jammed in the ice the weather cleared, and when we hoped for a gale from almost any direction, but particularly from eastward to loosen the ice, we had a dead calm and bright sunlight twenty-four hours a day. Occasionally there would be a lead, which was always taken advantage of, and we finally got into clear water off Cape Blossom, Kotzebue Sound, on July 5. There were ten days more of delay, when we finally were enabled to clear the ice by working up the sound and out along the west shore. While working in the ice two adjacent blades of the propeller were broken off at the hub. There are no good harbors in that part of Alaska, and a very small rise and fall of the tide makes it impossible to beach a vessel and do any work on the bottom. A supply of coal had been shipped to St. Michael; it was therefore decided to tip the Bear so that the broken blades could be replaced. Two hundred and fifty tons of coal were piled high on the forecastle, but after the stern had come up to thirteen feet draft, about three feet less than required, she rose no more. The Bear therefore proceeded south under her own power, and though I have seen smoother running propellers, an exceptionally speedy trip was made from Unalaska to San Francisco, a distance of twenty-two hundred miles, in ten days.
Since the Bear’s arrival on the Pacific Coast in 1886 she has represented the United States government in all of its departments; her commander has been a United States commissioner in recent years, and has tried such cases as came before him according to the Alaska Code. Prior to that time he administered justice to whites and natives alike.
It was a commander of the Bear, Captain Healy, who first suggested that reindeer be introduced into Alaska to furnish food and clothing for the natives, and, while the project has been controlled and administered by the Alaska Division of the Bureau of Education, it was the Bear, assisted by the Thetis, that transported most of the reindeer from Siberia to Alaska. From these small beginnings the vast reindeer herds have sprung.
In times of epidemic among the Eskimos it was the Bear that was called upon to carry food and medical aid to the suffering.
Missionaries and school teachers with their supplies have been carried to their stations along the Arctic coast and outlying islands, and later when their tours of duty had expired they were returned to Seattle or San Francisco.
During the cruises in the North the commanders of the Bear have issued marriage licenses, and when occasion demanded performed the marriage ceremony. Sick and dying seamen have been received on board, and if the patient unfortunately died he was buried with suitable ceremony.
The whaling fleet has now disappeared and only a few trading vessels go into the Arctic, but rarely a season passes that someone does not need assistance.
On the first trip of the season the heavy mail that has accumulated at Seattle is carried to Nome, and later in the season distributed to the Arctic villages between Nome and Point Barrow. Until recent years mail was delivered only once yearly, and that by the Bear. Now there are four trips by land in the winter, in addition to the trip made by the cutter.
Each year before the Bear came south the natives from King Island, numbering about one hundred and fifty, were taken on board and transported from Nome to their island home. Each spring these natives proceed to the mainland where they fish and labor to obtain their winter supplies. In the early summer the weather is usually good and the entire village sets off in large umiaks with about everything movable, including their dogs, so that usually seven or eight umiaks are required to carry all the village.
In the fall bad weather may be expected, and the boats being heavily laden, it would be a rather hazardous trip. It has always been a decided pleasure to render this service because everyone seems to appreciate it.
Having served on the Bear in all grades from junior watch officer to command, and having commanded her for eight cruises, it is with a very real regret that I see her retired from active service.