Bartlett Bob - Sails over ice: northern adventures aboard the SS Morrissey

Flanker Press Ltd.

St. Johns

2008

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Bartlett, Robert A. (Robert Abram), 1875-1946

Sails over ice / by Captain Bob Bartlett ; with a foreword by Paul ONeill.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-897317-36-5

1. Bartlett, Robert A. (Robert Abram), 1875-1946. 2. Effie M. Morrissey (Schooner). 3. Arctic regions--Discovery and exploration. 4. Scientific expeditions--Arctic regions. 5. Ship captains--Newfoundland and Labrador--Biography.

6. Explorers--Canada--Biography. 7. Seafaring life. I. Title.

G635.B3A35 2008 910.91632 C2008-904214-X

2008 by Flanker Press

Foreword 2008 by Paul ONeill

All rights reserved. No part of the work covered by the copyright hereon maybe reproduced or used in any form or by any meansgraphic, electronic or mechanicalwithout the written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed to Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, One Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5. This applies to classroom use as well.

Printed in Canada

Flanker Press

P.O. Box 2522, Station C

St. Johns, NL A1C 6K1 Canada

Toll-free: 1-866-739-4420

www.flankerpress.com

Cover Design: Adam Freake

Originally published by Charles Scribners Sons, 1934

We acknowledge the financial support of: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities; the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada; the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation.

With gratitude for the generosity that brought me my schooner Morrissey , I dedicate this book to the late Commodore James B. Ford, a true friend, a real sailor-man, and one of the kindest men I have ever known.

Robert A. Bartlett

Contents

Illustrations

Foreword

to the 2008 Edition of

Sails Over Ice

By Paul ONeill

Sails Over Ice is the third and final book in a trilogy by and about Captain Bob Bartlett to be republished in recent years by Flanker Press. Out of print for years these new editions of The Last Voyage of the Karluk (1916), The Log of Bob Bartlett (1928), and Sails Over Ice (1934) make a valuable resource for anyone wanting to know about the great Newfoundland sea rover of whom much could be said in a life filled with shipwreck and adventure. Sails Over Ice has the added fascination of being Bartletts autobiography told in his own down to earth way.

One of the shameful chapters of Newfoundland and Labradors history is how we have, for many years, ignored our famous people. These include one of Broadways greatest showman, John Murray Anderson, the inventor of the gas mask in World War One, Dr. Cluny MacPherson, and the man who lead Admiral Robert Peary to the North Pole, Captain Bob Bartlett. These and other great Newfoundlanders are almost forgotten, except for the odd plaque here or there. In Brigus, hometown of Bartlett, there are several plaques to his memory and some miniature metal sails on a waterfront memorial, but no statue of the man. However, we are indeed fortunate the house in which he lived with his parents and siblings has escaped demolition and been painstakingly restored by the Historic Sites Association of Newfoundland and Labrador in collaboration with Parks Canada. The HSA has opened the residence to the general public and its rooms are filled with fascinating and important Bartlett memorabilia.

The year 2009 will celebrate the 100 th anniversary of Bartletts triumph as an ice navigator which began through his association with Robert Peary. He was offered a position by Peary as first mate of his ship the Windward on a voyage to discover the North Pole. Although the attempt was a failure, Bartletts association with the admiral led him to international fame. The Historic Sites Association has established a year-long program of events to commemorate the many achievements of this remarkable Newfoundland seafarer. It is most fitting at this time that Flanker Press should also mark this occasion by the republication of the final book in its trilogy Sails Over the Ice , 74 years after it was first published in New York by Charles Scribners Sons.

It is fascinating to read in these pages how the young and inexperienced Bob Bartlett was given command of one of his fathers fishing vessels at the age of seventeen in waters near Turnavik, Labrador. That autumn he began a six year study leading to his masters papers. When asked by Peary to take command of his ship the Roosevelt , on another polar attempt in the Arctic, Bartlett readily agreed. It was the beginning of years of preparation for the final successful expedition of 190809 in which Captain Bob led the famed explorer to within a short walk of the North Pole. Bartlett had enabled Peary to reach his goal. The admiral did so accompanied by another American, not the Newfoundlander who got him there. However, the achievement made both men internationally famous.

In this highly readable autobiography Bartlett tells of his awesome adventures and many other intriguing tales. He also writes of controversies that remain unresolved to this day. Sails Over Ice is a work which reveals spellbinding stories of incredible risks taken in regions of the Arctic and elsewhere by Bartlett in overcoming severe obstacles. To read this book is to learn from his own thoughts and words why Captain Bob Bartlett is indeed Newfoundlands most authentic hero.

Chapter I

Cod fishing off Labrador, 1925

Forty years ago a workman in the yard of J. F. James and Sons, on the banks of the Essex River, drove a last swift blow with a sledgehammer under the keel, and a schooner slid gracefully into the water. No more graceful, trim, staunch nor able craft than the Effie M. Morrissey , which was her name, was ever launched from this famous shipyard, and the men who built her knew it. In that day shipwrights built sailing vessels with a real pride in their work, and with more than a touch of genius. I believe that any modern schooner would have broken to pieces in a twentieth of the pounding the Morrissey has taken. No one anywhere builds vessels like the Morrissey now.

No gasoline or diesel engines for her; no fancy wire rigging; no turnbuckles. She was just a good, honest, beautiful craft. Her masts were 74 and 76 foot sticks from the pine forests of Maine, and her booms, gaffs, and bowsprit came from the same place. Locust treenails and Swedish iron fastening the white oak knees and stanchions and the white pine deck made the whole one common bond of security.

No one knows the merits of the Morrissey better than I, for I have taken her all over the North Atlantic and Pacific in summer, autumn, spring, and winter gales, and I have found her living up to the fullest and finest traditions of her master builder. He did his work well, and when the northwesters came howling out of the Arctic, and down across the Canadian shores with the power of unlimited momentum behind them, the Morrissey never failed to justify my faith in her. I loved that schooner the first minute I clapped eyes on her, and that feeling has grown ever since.