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Volume CXXXIII, Number 14 |
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Explorers launch from Rockland
KATHRYN OSTROFSKY
COLUMNIST
Rupert Baxter, a rising junior in the summer of 1891, acted as a "special correspondent" for the Portland Advertiser (today the Press Herald), reporting on the progress of the Bowdoin College Scientific Expedition to Labrador and its efforts to rediscover Grand Falls 300 miles up the Grand River in Labrador. The first of his articles written from on board the schooner Julia A. Decker describes the party's final preparations for departure. The hold of the ship was filled with shelves and racks containing an "endless profusion [of] hermetically sealed provisions." Also on board, an apparatus for dredging and a phonograph, presented to Professor Leslie Lee by Edison for the purpose of recording the Eskimo language.
After the night John Parker called in his diary their "last night on earth," the group launched from Rockland at 2:00 p.m. on June 27, 1891 amid the cheers of a large group of well-wishers. Thus, under the auspices of Professor Lee, the men began their journey to the upper reaches of Canada. They moored Sunday evening in Southwest Harbor, Mount Desert Island. The boys thought it prudent to take advantage of their last opportunity for months to attend church. Jonathan Cilley remarked, "to one who knew the chapel-cutting proclivities of many of our party while at Bowdoin, it would have been amusing to see them solemnly tramp into church, rubber boots and all."
Professor Lee, captain and overseer of all operations, divvied up the scientific work among the crew. Dr. Parker was the physician and was also in charge of botany. Ralph Hunt oversaw deep sea dredging; Rich supervised surface dredging. Hastings was the taxidermist, Cilley the treasurer. Cary looked after geological measurements, and Spear oversaw archaeological digs. Smith facilitated soundings and thermometric and barometric measurements. And according to Cilley, Lincoln was "the merry-maker and star on deck and below-except when the weather is too rough...." And right away, the weather was too rough. The crew lost sight of land but had not yet gotten their sea legs, making the Bay of Fundy crossing quite miserable. Cilley wrote of the "motions, jumps rolls and pitches" of the small schooner, saying, "it seemed at times that our bow and our stern were where the mastheads usually are, and our rails were frequently rolled under." The young doctor wrote to his parents, "I have had considerable practice already. They are keeping me quite busy." Baxter reported sarcastically that "the sea was very high, and one by one our party on deck diminished; but they were not seasick, 'Oh! no, only going below for a moment.'"
At 2:30 p.m. on July 2, the schooner anchored at Halifax, Nova Scotia. According to Parker, the boys were particularly excited that they could sing college songs and class yells in the streets without being molested by the Brunswick P.D.! Parker noticed a particularly large number of Her Majesty's Ships in the harbor, remarking that the "whole city is in absolute control of the Queen's Soldiers - they have their own way." That night, the men attended a theater performance at Halifax's Academy of Music, and they "saw nothing but roudyism [from] the soldiers & marines of H.M.S."
The next day, they were back on the open ocean, headed towards Labrador. Spending the Fourth of July about 30 miles off the coast, they made their own merriment to celebrate their country's 115th birthday. Although the boys planned on an "elaborate celebration," they ended up with only an ovation, a toast, and a poem, "due probably to increased sea, which the brisk breeze raises, incapacitating several of the actors for their assigned parts." The witty poem by Lincoln tells of the expedition's aims and lists every man on board. One verse reads: "Cap Rich of the Monhegan / And the cap's name sake-Spear, / Who among his many callings / Is a connoisseur of beer."
As the boys continued northward, they saw along the Canadian coast "numerous factories for canning lobsters, the larger part of them managed by Portland firms." And the farther north they got, the more "bitterly cold" the sea and air became, until the boys finally spotted 80 icebergs described as "glorious, and the scene was truly arctic."
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