Canadian Coast Guard
<% else %>A History of the Canadian Coast Guard and Marine Services
by Thomas E. Appleton
Bernier
The story of Bernier and the Arctic, for the two are inseparable, runs from this voyage of 1904 until the Arctic was replaced by the steamer Beothic in 1926. In the operation of the Department of Marine and Fisheries, it represents a chapter in the old ways of Arctic navigation, using wooden ships with low powered steam machinery, sledging expeditions to extend the range of patrol, and experiencing the monotonous diet and daily living which was inevitable in such vessels. Outside the Department, there would be one final exposition of the heroic school of personal leadership and small wooden ships, when Larsen made the transit of the Northwest Passage and return, between 1940 and 1944, in the RCMP Schooner St. Roch.
CGS Arctic
Bound for the north, the Arctic makes the most of a fair wind in the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
July 1910.
Bernier was a worthy graduate of this classic school. Like most Canadian seamen of the period, he was well experienced in the art of handling wooden sailing ships, of which he had been in command since the age of seventeen. We had long nursed an ambition to serve his country in Arctic navigation and, at the age of fifty-two when he took over the Arctic, he was about to open a long chapter in his career which would make him a legendary figure in the Canadian Arctic at a time when our national identity was anything but well established in this sphere. He was a big man in every way, and his men signed on year after year to serve under his command.
The Arctic was purchased, after survey by Bernier, from the German government in 1904. She had been specially designed and built in 1901 at Kiel for service in the Antarctic, and was immensely strong, rather like a larger edition of Nansens Fram. She was built of oak and pitch-pine, was fully square rigged on the foremast, and had an economical triple expansion engine which could push her study double-ended hull at seven knots. She even had a steam driven generator which was something of an innovation in such a ship. But the main virtue of the Arctic, in addition to the ruggedness and habitability of the type in days before cheerful accommodation and the marvels of modern logistics, lay in her endurance. She could carry 400 tons of coal in the bunkers, hold and tween-decks and, when piled up in the waist, which it always was on leaving Quebec, she could take over 500 tons, a lot for a ship only 165 feet long. With this, and by shutting down except for stoves, she could hold out for two years or more if necessary.
Captain Bernier proclaiming the possession of Baffin Land in right of Canada, Ponds Inlet, November 9, 1906.
A male bear shot by the crew of the Arctic at Admiralty Inlet, September 1906.
In 1906-7 the Arctic made an extensive cruise to the remoter areas of the Archipelago, reaching as far west as Arctic Point on Melville Island, named after another Arctic, a whale ship, many years previously. Captain Bernier's purpose was to proclaim Canadian sovereignty and he landed parties several times to carry out this brief formality which became almost a routine occupation. One such entry in the log of the Arctic, typical of Bernier's simple and direct approach, reads as follows:
". . . . sent the chief officer with instructions to build a cairn, leave a proclamation of possession and hoist the flag of the Dominion of Canada on the Island. At 8 a.m. the chief officer returned on board, bringing some documents that had been left in that Island by Captain Sverdrup."
Otto Sverdrup, who had been captain of the Fram during Nansens attempt to reach the North Pole, had discovered and explored the islands which now bear his name, claiming much of the territory in this area on behalf of his own country, Norway. Norway never pressed any territorial claims she may have had but, to place the ownership beyond doubt, the Canadian Government made a grant of $67,000 to Sverdrup in 1903, thus recognizing his great exertions and placing his discoveries at Canadian disposal.
Bernier settled the ship in Pond Inlet for the winter, a favourite anchorage for the Arctic, and carried on northwards in 1907, exploring Jones Sound in August of that year. These Arctic hibernations were bleak indeed, and Bernier's standing orders reflected his disciplined wisdom in keeping everyone active and exercised, and in preserving a spirit of amity and mutual help.
"The commander would remind both officers and men that there is a long winter before us and we shall be from necessity in close community, that this state of things may continue for one year or more. Under such circumstances little frictions are liable to occur, but by all hands making the best of things and working together in harmony such little frictions can easily be smoothed over, and the long winter months will them slip past quickly and pleasantly."
But all things come to an end, and in October, with only fifty tons of coal remaining in the bunkers, the Arctic sighted the first lights of home, off the Labrador coast.
"At daylight, it is blowing a strong gale with snow from the northward. We are running under topsails and foresails. Set our gallant and main storm sail to keep the ship steady. At 7 p.m. we see a light flashing every minute, in the direction of Indian Tickle. It is the first light we have seen, and the members of the expedition are much rejoiced at this change in the monotony of the voyage."
In the expedition of 1908-9 Bernier in the Arctic was able to get as far west as Cape Hay on Melville Island, and he laid up in Winter Harbour until the season of 1909. Here it was, July 1, 1909, that Bernier erected a tablet proclaiming the annexation by Canada of the entire Arctic Archipelago. During the winter, parties from the Arctic crossed the McClure Strait, as McClure himself had done in the opposite direction some sixty years previously. That remarkable expedition, in dauntless search for Franklin, had crossed the Pacific Ocean and entered the Arctic regions by way of Bering Strait. On Banks Island, in the place which McClure had named the Bay of Gods Mercy, their ship had been forever frozen in the ice and, at the last moment, the people had been rescued by a relief ship. Bernier found relics of McClure's stay but nothing of the Investigator which time, and the remorseless grinding of the Arctic ice, had swallowed without trace.
This probing of the western channels, to which Bernier brought the anticipations of many years of Arctic study, appeared so favourable that he became convinced of the feasibility of forcing the Arctic through this route to conquer the Northwest Passage, if not for the first time, at least for the first Canadian transit. In 1910-11, he again took the Arctic northwards, to:
"patrol Davis Strait, Baffin Bay, Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, Melville Sound, McClure Strait and Beaufort Sea to Herschell Island, thence through Bering Strait to Vancouver or Victoria, B.C."
The Department of Marine and Fisheries added a rider to these sailing orders which stated that:
"the advisability of attempting to make the North West Passage is, however, left to your judgement after ascertaining the ice conditions on the spot."
As it turned out, the Arctic was unable to proceed farther west than Melville Island, owing to extremely heavy ice which filled the western entrance to McClure Strait; Bernier therefore returned eastwards to winter quarters in Admiralty Inlet. Although ice conditions had been too much for the hoped for transit of the ship to the Pacific, several notable shore parties left the Arctic during the winter and an extended overland trip was made to Fury and Hecla Strait and to the shores of the eastern part of the Gulf of Boothia. These expeditions of Bernier in the Arctic, operating by ship when it was possible, by sledge at other times, and always using every effort to conduct a scientific survey, are in the best tradition of the great Arctic voyagers, of whom his report noted that:
" . . . . cairns, caches and old stations stand today as silent proofs of the heroism and hardships of the enthusiastic discoverers."
Hauling boats over the ice, Arctic expedition, 1906.
In Bernier's time, the proof still lay in getting there.
Regular northern patrols were continued by Bernier in his beloved Arctic in the years 1922 to 1925, which formed the first series of what later became known as the Eastern Arctic Patrol. By that time the old Arctic was beginning to be past her prime but, with cut down rig and stump masts she was game to the end of her career, albeit her hull began to leak in heavy weather and pumping, that dreaded exercise in old wooden ships, became almost continuous at times. Joseph Bernier died in 1934 without having accomplished his ambition to mount an expedition to the North Pole, and without success in his attempted Northwest Passage. But his achievements are great and insufficiently recognized; in exploring the vast regions which had been ceded to Canada, he demonstrated the sovereignty of his country in the North. It is a lasting pity that the Arctic, a ship with a unique record in national development, was allowed to sink into decay and oblivion alongside a wharf in Levis.
We have already seen how the early probings of the Alert and the completion of the Hudson's Bay Railway were followed by a continuing government commitment to support the shipping trade, and how this was followed by the building of the N.B. McLean. The development of Arctic operations followed a somewhat similar pattern some twenty years later. The pioneering of the Neptune and the Arctic had virtually completed the exploration stage and had demonstrated that it was possible to exercise a specialized version of normal Canadian administration in the Arctic; from now on the task became one of consolidation and supply.
The old wooden ships with their cramped quarters and small holds, cluttered as they were by bunker coal and the impedimenta necessary for their survival, were unfitted for the next phase and they were, in any case, worn out by hard driving against the ice. In those circumstances it was decided to charter tonnage, and the Beothic was engaged from Job Bros. of Newfoundland in 1926, followed by the Ungava in 1932. These ships, both ice strengthened, were merchant vessels of wartime design which had been built in the United States. In 1933 the Department arranged for use of the Hudson Bay Company ship Nascopie, a rugged steam freighter which was well known in the Eastern Arctic. When, in 1947, the Nascopie was lost by stranding on a reef at Dorset Harbour, it was clear that more permanent arrangements would be necessary, and a special Arctic vessel was designed for operation by the Department of Transport. This was the C. D. Howe, built by Davie Shipbuilding and completed in 1950; designed purely as a service and supply ship, the C. D. Howe was really the ultimate development of the chartered ships, and she was not designed for use as an icebreaker although she was strengthened for service in ice. By 1953 the task had become too much for a single ship and it was decided to build a full icebreaker which would be able to handle the Arctic work in summer and also the St. Lawrence operations in winter. This was the d'Iberville, also from Davie Shipbuilding, which was at the time one of the largest icebreakers in the world.
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