Icy Grave

The excerpts below are from a journal discovered among a few abandoned personal effects on a cape near what was called Repulse Bay during the Golden Age of Exploration. The author is unknown but he seems to have been part of an expedition to find gold in the Northwest Territories, which at the time included the region above Quebec and Ontario. His crew mates were most likely fortune seekers, and not in the same circle of explorers we hear about in the history books, hence little is known about them. “Sully” might have been Paul Sullivan, a smuggler who wanted to make a name for himself, but was apparently met with a horrifying end. 

September 7
It is not at all what I imagined. That fate makes this decision, nature forcing me to stop, putting me in shackles and making me take a hard look at my life. I am an inmate of the ice. The others are here too, equally marooned and fighting with their demons in different ways. What will happen as the dark winter sets in? Will we last to the spring and then be released, a brotherhood like no other? Or will we be reduced to a shattered crew of starving survivors? Whatever the outcome, I am confident it will make a new man of me. It must.

September 12
I believe we are somewhere in the realm of Repulse Bay in the Arctic, an unmarked dead-end on the route west. Our goal was to find the golden shores of the Northwest Territories. We scraped our way through thickening ice until we got to this godforsaken trap. Captain Sully is maddened by the untrustworthy maps and has shut himself away for the last few days in his cabin. There have been frightful shouts and banging. He’s shrieking with night terrors. Drinking more rum than usual. Something is not right. We are well locked into a shelf. The ice seems to be crawling up the sides of the ship.

When Sully finally came out of this cabin today it was only to tell us what we knew. I will never forget his appearance. He looked crazy and unkempt, with a strange wolverine’s paw hanging around his neck. He has transformed into a dark alternative of himself and has suspicion in his eyes.

“Make no mistake, we are iced in,” he shouted. “Your inner devils will challenge you this winter.” He then disappeared into his cabin again.

September 25
Madness takes a different path in each person, but this is a grim foreboding. For your captain to fall into the abyss is not good for the rest of the crew. He is supposed to be the strong one who would guide us back to safety. Without a captain, what will become of us?

October 14

I remember hearing about other expeditions getting iced in. They would do things to keep themselves occupied. Foot ball on the ice. Teachings about nature. Theatre divised by the crew. I could even give a class on making stew. We are having none of that. No spirit here.

October 29

Quartermaster Brighton sees it. He was early to see Sully’s spiraling. He has quietly been preparing us for the bleak nights to come. No longer able to sail, we have each been given other jobs to keep us busy. I am the cook, that does not change. But I am now to help the hunters as well. I will accompany them on excursions across the ice in search for seal and penguin. The Scion has some food but, as time passes, fresh meat will be in short supply. How will we find those seal and penguin in the darkness?

November 15
Winter is setting in. The nights are eternal. We have a brief glow of sunlight at mid-day, but that disappears and the moon is then our lantern. Full moons are brilliant! Such a great feature of our new home. The ice reflects the light with spectacular intensity that you can see across the shelf, almost as if it were day. The new moon is a different story. Nights dimly lit by the stars. If there is cloud cover, nobody steps off the ship. Nothing but a pitch-black darkness hovers over us on those nights.

December 8
The ice is unsettling and some of the crew are losing their way. It did not quietly wrap its hands around us and freeze us in place. It is alive, cracking and popping constantly. Frequent earthquakes shudder the hull as the sheets press against it. I am told the hull is not roundly built to slip upward and rise on top of the ice like some ships. She has more of a V, steadier on the rough seas, but anchored to the ice. She is vulnerable to the inward pressure. Seismic shifts in the plates raise a terrifying racket out in the fields. The hull is getting mauled. It bends and weeps under the pressure. It seems only a matter of time when the smaller ticks and snaps become larger cracks. We will be consumed by the sea as if never here.

December 22
The ship is racked with discord. Sully is really not well. He constantly berates the crew for slight misunderstandings about tasks and imposes unreasonable regulations in the guise of austerity. He requires absolute silence when he sleeps, even though it is impossible to keep things operating without some degree of noise. There is noise all around us anyway with the ice and hull. He devises plans almost daily, then scraps them saying there is a better way. Brighton sees it. I can see the wheels turning in his head as he watches Sully. The two of them often have words behind closed doors. One night I saw Brighton walk out of Sully’s cabin with his hand on his temple, he had been knocked over the head.

“The deck!” shouted Sully.

Brighton went to the deck and made some noise for a while.

January 1
We heard a commotion last night and a brief yelling from Sully’s quarters, followed by a muffled squeal, as if one of them was being forcefully gagged and gutted. I peered out into the hallway along with a few other crew members. Brighton stepped out of Sully’s cabin and walked past. Blood was on his hands. Each of us gave him a pat and nodded, knowing he had done what was necessary.

Later in the night, Brighton came to me to help him get rid of Sully. Don’t know why he picked me. We dragged him out of his quarters and on to the deck. He said we should just throw him over the port side. It wasn’t Brighton’s plan, but the consummation of Sully by a polar bear became the theatre today. Unceremonial end for that man.

January 13
Awful journey. The hull burst open last week and water gushed in. We couldn’t plug it. Shite scramble to get our things and get out in the dark. We’ve been crawling hardly anywhere in the deep snow. Trying to find civilization. Anybody.