In a Far Country by John Taliaferro

Author:John Taliaferro
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2011-04-06T16:00:00+00:00

The Bear had spent most of September and the beginning of October policing the tumult of gold miners and supplies at St. Michael, now nicknamed Fort Get There. The revenue cutter had waited until Army troops arrived on October 8 to reinforce the military post, and then it continued on its homeward patrol, stopping at Unalaska in the Aleutians and at the Pribilof Islands. At Dutch Harbor, Lieutenant Jarvis, the ship’s executive officer, had transferred to a faster vessel and hurried to the States to be with his wife and newborn child in New Bedford. The Bear did not arrive in Seattle until November 7. Tuttle and his men looked forward to a tranquil winter in port. It was not to be.

While still at Dutch Harbor, Tuttle had heard from several whaling captains that other whaling ships might be trapped in the ice up north. Even so, he was unprepared for the high pitch of public concern that greeted him when the Bear docked in Seattle—a hysteria he did not share. From what he had gleaned from the captains at Unalaska, he doubted that the whalers were in grave danger of starvation. “While it probably will be necessary to abandon the vessels, I do not apprehend the crews will meet with anything worse than privations and hardships,” he stated calmly. His opinion had little sway, however; the critical cabinet meeting to address the plight of the whalers took place in Washington one day after Tuttle’s arrival in Seattle, too soon and too far away for him to have any influence.

But that did not stop Tuttle from sharing his views with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “When ... it was learned that the heads of departments in Washington were seriously considering [an overland relief expedition],” the paper reported, “Capt. Tuttle, of the Bear, was open in his expression of disapproval, declaring that he could do nothing, and that even if he could he believed the whalers amply able to take care of themselves without relief. He substantiated his reasoning with facts he had learned during the cruise of 1897 in regard to the supplies of provisions known to be in the vicinity of the imprisoned whalers. Since the issuance of the order on which the Bear will return to Alaskan waters Capt. Tuttle has maintained an attitude discreetly neutral. It is as though he said: ‘Well, if I must go, I must, and I will not dampen the ardor of my men by doubts as to the expediency of the going. But I think—well, no matter what I think—I am going, and that ends it.’”

Francis Tuttle was in all ways a capable cutter captain. He had enlisted in the Navy at nineteen, serving in the Civil War, and had spent the rest of his life at sea, including ten seasons cruising in the North Pacific and Bering Sea. At fifty-four, he stood trim and erect, his generous moustaches draped across his weathered face like the bow wave on a close-hauled schooner. The Call spoke of his “indomitable courage,” determination, modesty, and rapport with subordinates.

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