Search Journeys – If Dogs Could Talk (continued)
The day after we got in to base at Stonington we heard that Yana, a bitch pup, had come into Horseshoe from Lystad Bay direction. The coastal ice was in part secure but open water was west of Millerand Island. Two days later we were asked to sledge up to Horseshoe to assist in searches. It blew a gale on the 10th and Base Y reported open water from Cape Bongrain south to Contact Peak and Lagotellerie Island. On the 11th the gale brought the ice edge further in.
We got away on the 12th. Nigel and Keith with the Churchmen and Henry and I with the Admirals. We left Pete, Bryn and Keith at Base to do local searches with the Spartans and send ice reports.
At the Debenham islands two dogs were seen which ran off not to be caught. We searched the coast of the islands in which direction they disappeared. These two dogs came in a few days later, on the 17th, to Stonington and were recognised by Bryn as Ruth and Angus. On the 13th we found CIoe at the Argentine refuge hut on the north coast of Millerand. The Argentines reported that she had arrived six days previously, very iced up and hungry – this would have been the same day that Yana came into Horseshoe, the 7th June, ten days after the party had left and four days after the storm ended. The Argentinians had a party who were lucky to have returned safely from the Terra Firma islands as the ice was breaking up behind them. They told us that Red Rock Ridge was open water and we were searching the Pod and Stipple rocks which then held the coastal strip of fast ice, the edge running about one mile west of Neny island to Red Rock Ridge. It is the return route of these first dogs from the south and west, either up coastal fast ice or floe-hopping that pointed to the direction of at least one of the sledges of the party.
We reached Horseshoe Island on the 16th visiting landings at Cape Calmette but bypassing Calmette Bay. I returned into Calmette Bay to search those landings with Mac MacGowan from Horseshoe. We camped on the 20th on some small islets in Square Bay and just after picketing saw two dogs back on our trail. They recognised Mac’s voice and came in. They were Cocoa and Umiak. It was a delight for them and us. They were thin. Umiak with no harness. Cocoa with trace chewed 6″ from his collar and harness still on but chewed over the back. Wagging tails and whines communicated joy but no details. Cocoa’s strong instincts prevailed over obedience as I recorded the next night. He gave us a sleepless time pulling out his ‘dead-man’ picket to get at Zeta who was on heat, celebrating perhaps his return and Midwinters Night. We completed the searches of all landings south of Horseshoe and returned to that base on the 25th to make plans with John Paisley for a visit to the Dions and Faure islands as soon as the new ice permitted.
Meantime a northern party under Nigel had gone up to Blaiklock Island refuge on old ice and were to search all the landings down Bourgeois fjord and between Adelaide Island and Porquois Pas from the north.
We had three days on the base preparing new sledges and equipment and communicating a number of confidential signals with SecFids in Stanley who vetoed the idea of a Faure Islands journey but was persuaded by our view that we would try it in any case as it was one month since the ice broke out and pretty cold weather since, significantly diminishing any chance of their survival should they be stranded there without tent or provisions. We argued that these islands lie in the path of the break-up and was consistent with the direction of return of the dogs since. Dogs were still coming in. On the night of the 28th, Bessie and Cockie, both from Dave Statham’s team came in, neither with a harness on but both in good condition and Cockie with some blood on his coat. Where from, and had they been finding penguins on the pack ice in Midwinter? Frank and I went out to look for their trail but the surfaces were too hard to see anything. I think these were the last to come in. It was ten in all of the original fourteen dogs.
On the 30th June, John and I did a day trip to within 2 miles of Cape Bongrain, covering 20 miles in the 4 hours of twilight, retracing the original track of the party and looking for any evidence along the southern cliffs of Pourquois Pas. We tested the new ice which was now one foot thick.
FAURE ISLANDS TRIP
We prepared busily and got away on the 4th July with two sledges, 600 Ibs provisions on each, John Paisley and I with the Admirals and Henry Wyatt driving Frank Oliver’s team. We camped on Cape Bongrain first night and heard that the Northern party were now on Jenny Island proceeding to Roca Island where we planned to rendezvous. They had visited Guebriant Island and reported leads and poor ice to the South. The temperatures noted in the recent days were between -10 and -25F with little strong wind, good for new ice conditions. I had sent off a signal to the DOS to get an estimate of the accuracy of the astro fix on the Faures, done I think by Colin Brown some ten years previously. They were reported to be low ice-covered islands and with short daylight hours and fifteen kms of navigation from the Dions. I was keen for the original observations to be checked.
An answer came while camped on the Avian islets with the northern party confirming position to probably a half km. A ramp led up from these islets to the Fuchs Ice Piedmont.*** This was later chosen as the site of Rothera Station where there is now a large runway. How different would have been these searches and perhaps the outcome if aircraft could have been available for the short daylight hours.
There was dissent as to the decision to visit the Faures by the Northern Party who had now visited the Dions on a day trip from here. I wanted to take two sledges to spread the load but had no option but to increase the weight to 800 Ibs on the Admirals sledge only giving John Paisley and I 30 days for men and dogs and 50 days paraffin. I reckoned there would be some seals to supplement rations and the paraffin could keep us comfortable for two months on this short trip if need be.
I look on this short trip as one of the most worthwhile with the Admirals as it was an anxious dash on ice not more than weeks old when twilight lasted for at most 5 hours. Without the confidence that Caesar and the team gave me with good navigating and fast pulling we may have dissuaded. That night at the Dions we saw the hundred or so Emperors huddled over their midwinter incubation. We saved rations as there was a seal on the ice. Next day we could not see the Faures from the highest Dions so did a 4 mile day trip to an iceberg in their direction to test the ice, leaving Wol tethered to rest an injured leg. The temperature -24F and calm weather was good and the ice was 12″ thick. The next day, the 10th July was just the weather we wanted, calm and cold, -20F with good visibility ahead. There was a sea mist between us and the mainland which we were clear of. We left at 10.20am in early dawn, saw the island group from 5 miles off from a berg vantage point, ran into heavy pressure ice built up on the windward side of the islands which we had to circumvent onto very new ice to the west side to approach the islands from the northwest. The last 5 miles took nearly three hours finding a way around rafted pressure floes. We landed at 15.40 in the increasing dark. I noted in my diary “Has been a beautiful day indeed marked especially by the return of the sun as half its diameter peeped over the Fuchs Ice Piedmont and shed low golden light across the frozen sea; its warmth felt through the eyes rather than the body”.
We could not search the group next day as a wind of up to 30 knots was blowing raising thick drift and the temperature went up to +9F but it was fine and cold again the day after dropping down to -31F by the time we had completed a 9-mile search of the group. We had much digging to get the sledge to the surface first. We left a depot of supplies and again tethered Wol to rest his leg. The others took us and the light sledge at such speed it was difficult running but to sit on the sledge was soon too cold. I noted that there were four main islands each about a half a mile square and other small ones going down to an acre or in size. Ice cliffs fringed the southern end of some. We thought the ice within the group was old ice but when but when we dug a hole it was only 12″ thick and not very hard. There was a belt of thick fog 8 miles to the southwest probably denoting the ice edge. As we sledged around the group we called out and looked but saw no sign of anything foreign or any seals. This was the end of our search.
Our return to the Dions next day was achieved with luck as the 11th had opened up two leads over which we found crossable gaps. Caesar and the dogs sensed a note of urgency in my voice and pulled well across a salty surface so that we reached the Dions at 1400 hr after only three and half hours travel to do the 15 miles and some light still for camping. The ice was also complete across to the Avians to rejoin the others next day and for our return to Horseshoe and Stonington over the next few days.
(The official reports of these search journeys can be read under E/5/58 (mine) and Y/4/58 (Paisley’s). The ten dogs that returned knew what happened but we can only surmise from the evidence. In my personal view they never reached Cape Bongrain on the night of the 27th May which was their objective. The storm caught them before they could make a beach landing. Alternatively they made good time to Cape Bongrain (12 miles) and decided (rashly) that first day to go on across to Jenny Island with at most two hours of daylight left, and the storm caught them before they landed. We think they did cut the traces of most dogs to release them from a tangled situation in the breakup. This was an unselfish act that saved most of their lives.
Should any relatives of these men who lost their lives read this account John Paisley shares with me in saying that we all took our chances in working in this pristine but unforgiving landscape and did all we could to find them as far as sea ice conditions allowed; but their final story lived on with the dogs and it would have been an ultimate tragic experience. However, as with all worthy causes those that died young in this God-created landscape may be the ones that He chose for his own.
Peter Gibbs – Surveyor – Horseshoe 1957; Surveyor/BC – Stonington – 1958
Editor’s Footnote: It is thought that Peter actually made camp on what would have appeared to be one of the Avian islets, but was in fact a part of Adelaide Island, and future location of Adelaide Base. Peter’s Report was possibly influential in the choice of this site by SecFids John Green in 1961.
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