The USS Bear and the Greely party

(The USS Bear)

The USS Bear was a United States Coast Guard ship built in 1874 in Greenock, Scotland. The ship was one of a kind and had 6-inch thick walls built to withstand arctic waters, which is what brought it to the attention of the United States government who bought the vessel to be used along the 20,000-mile Alaskan coastline.

The Bear was responsible for many rescues in its day, as the thick hull and powerful steam engine allowed it to push through thicker ice than any other vessel, with the Bear widely being recognized as the finest ship in the service of the entire US Coast Guard during the 19th century.

There are 2 major rescue operations conducted by the Bear that stand out above the rest, with the first being the rescue of a fleet of whaling ships in 1897. There were 8 ships and a total crew count of 265 men which were on a long-term whaling operation in the seas north of Alaska.

All 8 of the whaling ships were caught in the same giant ice flow which crushed the ships and froze them firmly in place within the ice. Since walking wasn’t an option and the ships were taken in whichever direction the ice sheets went, the situation soon became critical. In the same region 20 years earlier, another fleet of 13 whaling ships was trapped in the area and every single one of their crew members died.

The trapped ships managed to send a message to the Coast Guard asking for help and President McKinley ordered the USS Bear to be dispatched to rescue them. Under the command of Captain Francis Tuttle, the ship sailed as far north as possible but even its thick sides and mighty steam engine were no match for how thick the ice was.

Knowing it would be months before they were able to get the ship through, Tuttle sent a 3 man team with sleds along the Alaskan coast and north across the ice sheets to deliver food to the trapped crew. This 3 man team walked almost 1500 miles around the coastline of Alaska and north to the trapped whalers facing temperatures as low as –51 °C.

The journey took just over 3 months, and despite the odds they managed to make it to the stranded ships and deliver the much-needed supplies. Some of the whaling crew members had already died from starvation or the cold, and many of the survivors were suffering from scurvy.

It wasn’t until several months later that the ice broke up enough for the Bear to make it through, and Captain Tuttle had no idea if the rescue team he sent had made it, half expecting to find a couple hundred dead bodies. Fortunately, they did and the remaining whaling crew members were all loaded on board and returned to civilization.

The Greely Party

Adolphus Greely was an explorer who launched his own expedition to map areas along the northern coast of Greenland in 1882. Greely himself had never done any arctic exploring before and was unfamiliar with the risks associated with the region, but for the most part, he managed to do quite well and even discovered the Conger Range and Innuitian Mountains on Ellesmere island.

(Ellesmere island)

After exploring the island the group returned to their ship to find it had been crushed in between 2 ice sheets and broken wide open. The Greely party took all the supplies they could and headed for Fort Conger, a small wooden cabin used as a science research post.

They managed to call for help from the station but due to its incredibly remote nature and the thickness of the ice leading to the island, a rescue party failed to reach them, and then again the next year in 1883 a second rescue party had to turn back due to the cold.

In August of 1883, Greely decided that no one was going to reach them, so they abandoned Fort Conger and headed south towards Cape Sabine, hoping that one of the rescue parties had left some supplies there.

With no supplies left for them and winter quickly approaching, Greely and his men were forced to spend winter there, but fortunately, a rescue party led by Captain Winfield Scott Schley was dispatched with the USS Bear to finally bring them to safety.

(Fort Conger)

The Bear and the 2 other rescue ships that went with it, the “Thetis” and the “Alert” didn’t manage to get through until June 22, 1884, when they found that out of the original 25 members of the Greely party, only 6 remained. The others had died from either starvation, hypothermia, and in the case of a certain Private Henry, a gunshot to the head after being sentenced to death by Greely.

Upon returning to civilization the party’s story quickly became famous across the country and the survivors were classed as heroes. This positive reception was short-lived though as accusations of cannibalism started to pop up concerning the crew’s survival, as it would have been near impossible to hunt, fish, or gather enough food for even the 6 of them to survive.