Arctic team to retrace landmark 1913 expedition
Near centuryold tragedy still a mystery
Members of a scientific expedition heading to a remote corner of the Canadian Arctic will attempt to unravel a century-old mystery about a lost sailor and — if their luck and the weather hold out — recover his bones.
The vanished sea captain, P.E.I.-born Peter Bernard, had been a key figure in the Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913-18, a landmark quest to then-unknown parts of the North that put new islands on the world map, produced a major national research collection of plant and animal specimens and strengthened the country’s hold on its far-flung Arctic possessions.
But the 1913 expedition, strongly backed by then-prime minister Robert Borden and led by the controversial, Manitobaborn explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, also suffered the tragic loss of 11 men and its flagship, the Karluk, as well as six other deaths over five years — including that of Capt. Bernard in 1917, somewhere around the northwest corner of Banks Island.
Now, at a time when the current Canadian government and two national museums are heavily promoting recognition of the CAE’s 100th anniversary, Ottawa-based Arctic scientist and historian David Gray has organized a centennial tribute expedition that will retrace part of Stefansson’s original trek and search for Capt. Bernard’s remains.
Gray, a research associate with both the Canadian Museum of Nature and Canadian Museum of Civilization, has curated exhibits on the Stefansson-led expedition and is now partnering with Capt. Bernard’s greatgreat-nephew — Alaskan sailor Bob Bernard — to comb the coast of Banks Island in search of traces from a landmark moment in Canadian history.
Gray, Bernard and their crew members plan to revisit campsites used during the 1913-18 expedition, collect artifacts and scientific samples, document their journey on film and — despite the long odds — search for answers about Capt. Bernard’s disappearance.
“There’s all of these sites up along the coast of Banks Island that nobody has been to,” Gray said in an interview. “They’ve been sitting there for 100 years and the only people who have been there are the local hunters from Sachs Harbour, and they’re not so interested in white man’s garbage.”
Sachs Harbour, the only permanent settlement on Banks Island and the northernmost community in the Northwest Territories, was named for the Mary Sachs — the ship Capt. Bernard sold to the Canadian Arctic Expedition and then agreed to pilot as one of Stefansson’s support vessels.
By December 1916, Stefansson had established a camp on Melville Island and discovered a series of islands that constituted the world’s last major land masses to be charted: Borden (named for his key political backer), Mackenzie King (only determined decades later to be separate from Borden), Lougheed, Brock and Meighen (honouring a third prime minister, Arthur Meighen).
Capt. Bernard and another expedition member, Charlie Thomsen, were attempting a sledge journey north from Banks Island to Stefansson’s camp at Melville Island to deliver mail and other supplies when they perished.
“They turned back part way across M’Clure Strait, probably because of moving ice, dogs dying and just realizing they weren’t going to make it,” said Gray. “They retreated back to Banks Island and back along the north coast. Charlie Thomsen died and his body was found the next spring on the north coast; and all they saw of Peter Bernard were tracks of his sled. Then on the northwest tip of Banks Island, his tracks disappear — and no sign of him was ever found.”
Gray believes Capt. Bernard may have mistakenly trekked past the northwest corner of Banks Island and onto the sea ice, eventually dying and being swallowed by the ocean along with some 230 kilograms of mail never delivered to the Stefansson camp.