On the Fringe of the Arctic Circle

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17569, 20 June 1925, Page 17 (Supplement)

On the Fringe of the Arctic Circle

Exciting Days with the Behring Sea Patrol.

Grim Game of Diamond-cut-Diamond.

Explorers like Amundsen, Nansen, and Peary are not the only men to seek adventure in the Arctic Circle. At certain periods every year desperate law-breakers sail into that lonely stretch of sail water as the Behring Sea in quest of the seal and the otter, the skins of which fetch fabulous prices in the world's fashion centres. Checking the raids of these smugglers is the Behring Sea Patrol. Running the patrol sounds attractive perhaps; the spice of adventure and possible clash with a sea-rover make irresistible appeal. But a few months of buffeting, drenching, and freezing in these lonely, silent, indifferently charted Waters dispels the atmosphere of romance. Ash the sailors who manned the Bear and the Unalaga.

THKSE sturdy little craft which run ihe patrol can relate stories of adventure without end adventure strange, tragic and grave, relieved with splashes of grim humour here and there. Many and varied arc their duties. To-day they are hot on the trail of a reported seal raider, to-morrow they are labouring frenzied.lv to snatch a vessel from the pitiless rocks. A week hence they arc hurrying mail to a lonely outpost-of civilisation, or, acting in the capacity of the “Black Maria,” are bringing malefactors to justice. They are called upon to hunt for crazy men who, in the search for gold, have strayed ironi tho beaten track; ot perchance are striving to catcli a whisky-runner who has stirred up trouble by landing his illicit cargo upon the Russian mainland in defiance oi all law, Siberian and international. It is chevy and chase; fetch and carry; hold-up and be held up from sunrise to sunset, from twilight to dawn. The poacher roughs it. takes long chances, is steeped in cunning and. strategy, but he finds himself matched against men of similar calibre. Possibly many raids are attempted, but few succeed, and the cost of the enterprise nowadays, coupled with the slender possibilities of success, acts a. a powerful deterrent. One of the most determined raidwas that attempted a few years ago or St Paul’s Island, brought to nought through the superior strategy of the captain of the patrol-boat Unalaga. The latter was making for Attn, when the wireless from bt Paul reported heavy firing off the island and frantically requested assistance. The cutter had an eighty miles’ run to make the station, but steam was crowded on. the risk of the fog being taken. The Unalaga reached the island, wrapped in fog, and lay off-shore hidden in the white pall. An officer was sent ashore to deliver a ruse-message for wirelessing. Then the captain of the Unalaga, after steaming round the island, made full steam to the rim of the sixty miles territorial zone, to lie in wait near the point where he surmised the two reported raiders would attempt their escape. A game of diamond-cut-diamond commenced in grim earnest. The fog persisted. and the patrol captain was run ning short of fuel. He realised that the raiders were staking their plunge on this knowledge, and so were lyinjj “ doggo ” until the patrol boat wa; compelled to return to port, because they could calculate how long the fuel would last. The captain of the Unalaga essayed a daring stroke. Before his fuel was exhausted he hurried back to port, rebunkared, and was [back again, watching and waiting along the circle. The vigil was irk from- 3 , and, b\ instruction, the air grew strangely silent. No radio flashed hither and thither. The captain of the Unalaga now set out upon his master-stroke. IU; com mencsd to circle the Pribiioffs m a do creasing spiral, every man on tne alert and the quick-firing guns fully manned ready to let drive the moment tho cut line of a vessel loomed up through the fog. But no sign of the poachers \va« ever found. Evidently they toolalarm at the uncanny silence auc scuttled to safety The rookeries were found to have been disturbed, but there had been no slaughter. Those financing the luckless venture rnusi have been heavily hit; they did noi obtain a single skin.

Jt is the weather up north which the • men running the Behring Sea Patrol zegard with the greatest dread (says a writer in “Chambers’ Journal”'*. One of the cruises of the Unalaga will never bo forgotten by thoso who were ou board, because the little boat encountered such a burst of weather as even the notorious Behring Sea has seldom equalled. Wind and wave were absolute masters of the sea for days; every ship was driven to shelter, and the wonder is that the patrol-boat, which went out to lend assistance to any vzs- | set in distress, lived through it. The Unalaga was coaling up as fast as she could at Sitka, in the closing days of the first month of the year, to cruise the fishing-grounds. A northerly gale sprang up, sending the mercury in the thermometer helter-skelter into its bulb. ' The cold became so intense as • compel the captain to issue the order “ cease coaling.” Then came a whole string of calamities, due to the terrifying wind and the low temperature—seven degrees above zero. Pipes froze and burst in all directions, and the wind nearly blew the vessel, riding in the crazy harbour, bodily over, several hawsers having t*j be run out to keep her in position. For fortyeight hours the hurricane held sway, when it eased up sufficiently to permit the resumption of bunkering. The little harbour was packed with thirtynine fishing vessels, huddled together

like lambs exposed to the blast. One and all were badly battered by the j storm, while their skippers were so terrified as to abandon every idea of putting out to the grounds until settled weather returned. But the Unalaga had to make the patrol. Some unfortunate vessel might ! be wallowing and floundering among the angry rollers, her crew stricken down by frost-bite and injury'. So, weigh- . mg anchor, the captain put out to sea : in the teeth of the gale. The cutter is • only a puny 190-footer of steel, of 11S0 ! tons and 12i knots, and she was bounc- . ed about like a cork. Towards even- • ing the wind got up again, bringing j with it a disconcerting low temperature. The scud came flying aboard, wreathing the rigging and upper works, and freezing as it fell. Life-lines had to be run round the decks and everything made fast. The sea, still rising, soon commenced to sweep the little craft from stem to stern, and brought with it a blinding snowstorm accompanied by low temperatures, the result being that during the night icing-up commenced in grim earnest. With the gale increasing in fury, the speed of the boat i had to be persistently reduced, until she was only just maintaining steeringway, the commander, realising his perilous situation, having swung round to the wind. When the blizzard had expended itself, a curious atmospheric condition, peculiar to the Behring Sea, ; set in. The. thermometer dropped to one degree above zero, and the vapour ri ing from the water partly congealed, ?

rendering it impossible to see more tliari 400 feet ahead, this caprice lasting for twenty-four hours. This phenomenon complete!:/ iced up the cutter; and when once more the wind rose, and to the fury of a hurricane, the boat was in parlous plight. The weight of the ice caused her to roll and pitch heavily. The frozen* spindrift brought down first one and then the other aerial of the wireless, cutting off communication. Then tho sea got a trip-hammer blow home, smashing the whale-boat and carrying away the gripes—though the actual damage inflicted could not be determined at the time, because the boats and falls, from the rail to the davits, were a solid mass of ice. The blow so shook up the cutter as to cause her to assume a starboard list of twentydegrees. The commander sought to mitigate this dangerous position by shifting all the coal over to the opposite side, the crew spending twenty-four hours on this task; but it had little effect, while the low temperature also began to wreak havoc among the crew, striking them down one after the other with frost-bite, though, happily, owing to the victims being turned over immediately to the surgeon, no permanent physical disabilities arose The captain deliberated. He had two courses open to him. The one was to cut all boats and the motor-launch adrift from the starboard side, and

make a dash southwards to run into warmer weather to melt the ice and rid the cutter of this encumbrance. The other was to let the boat drift to leeward, with engines shut down, until the hurricane had blown itself out, keeping her on the starboard tack, and allowing the combined forces of wind and wave to hold the cutter i i the upright position when she rode easier. As, however, in this attempt to make Y r akutat t;ie vessel would be exposed to bitterly cold weather, it was imperative to keep the crew between-decks, no one being allowed above except when necessary for the The second choice proved fortunate. With characteristic Arctic suddenness the wind dropped, and tho temperature rose from three to nine degrees above zero in five hours. Ocean Cape was picked up, and the Unalaga staggered into Vakutat Bay’ and dropped anchor, carrying on her deck about one hundred and seventy-five ton 3 i f ice. This was cleared away with such tools as could be discovered—axes, mauls, hammers and shovels, while streams of hot water were played upon the glittering mass. As the ice was dislodged the cutter returned to her even keel, but her after-deck was found to be severely strained. That run was probably the most nerve-racking made by any vessel in the patrol: it was a desperate grim struggle, waged continuously for nearly seventy hours, between the navigator and the blind iorcc3 of Nature.