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Frederick Schwatka
Schwatka in 1873
Birth nameFrederick Gustavus Schwatka
Born(1849-09-29)September 29, 1849
Galena, Illinois, U.S.
DiedNovember 2, 1892(1892-11-02) (aged 43)
Portland, Oregon, U.S.
Branch United States Army
Years of service1867–1885
RankLieutenant
ConflictGreat Sioux War of 1876

Frederick Gustavus Schwatka (September 29, 1849 – November 2, 1892) was an American officer, physician, and explorer known for leading a total of four Arctic expeditions and three privately funded expeditions into northwestern Mexico.[1]

Early life

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Schwatka was born in Galena, Illinois, on September 29, 1849, the son of Frederick Gustavus Sr., a first generation German-American, and Amelia Hukill, of English and Scots descent. He spent his first ten years in Illinois before the family moved to Salem, Oregon, in 1859, where Schwatka later worked as a printer's apprentice and attended Willamette University.[2]

Army career

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He was appointed to West Point in 1867, graduated in 1871, and was subsequently appointed as a second lieutenant in the Third Cavalry in the Dakota Territory. Studying law and medicine simultaneously, he was admitted to the bar association of Nebraska in 1875, and received his medical degree from New York's Bellevue Hospital Medical College that same year.[3] As a lieutenant, Schwatka took part in the Great Sioux War of 1876 and led the initial cavalry charge at the battle of Slim Buttes.

Arctic expedition

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Schwatka's expedition in 1879

In 1878, at the behest of the American Geographical Society, he led an expedition to the Canadian Arctic to look for written records thought to have been left on or near King William Island by members of Franklin's lost expedition. He traveled to Hudson Bay on the schooner Eothen and initial personnel included William Henry Gilder, second in command; naturalist Heinrich Klutschak, Frank Melms, and Ipirvik—an Inuit interpreter and guide who had assisted explorer Charles Francis Hall in his search for Franklin between 1860 and 1869.[4]

The group, assisted by other Inuit, went north from Hudson Bay "with three sledges drawn by over forty dogs, relatively few provisions, but a large quantity of arms and ammunition."[5] They interviewed Inuit, visited known or likely sites of Franklin Expedition remains, and found a skeleton of one of the lost Franklin crewmen.

Though the expedition failed to find the hoped-for papers, in 1880, during a speech at a dinner given in his honor by the American Geographical Society, Schwatka noted his expedition set a record for "the longest sledge journey ever made both in regard to time and distance",[6] for a total of eleven months and four days, and 2,709 miles (4,360 km) traveled. It had been the first Arctic expedition in which whites explorers relied entirely on the same diet as the Inuit.[7]

Subsequent expeditions

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In 1883, he was sent to reconnoiter the Yukon River by the Army. Going over the Chilkoot Pass, his party built rafts and floated down the Yukon River to its mouth in the Bering Sea, naming many geographic features along the way. The traveled more than 1,300 miles (2,100 km), the longest raft journey that had ever been made.[8] Schwatka's expedition alarmed the Canadian government, which sent an expedition under George Mercer Dawson to explore the Yukon in 1887.

After his resignation from the army in 1885, Schwatka led two private expeditions to Alaska financed by William D. Boyce,[9] and three to northeastern Mexico and published descriptions of the social customs and the flora and fauna of these regions.[10]

Schwatka received the Roquette Arctic Medal from the Société de Géographie, and a medal from the Imperial Geographical Society of Russia. He was an honorary member of the Geographical Societies of Bremen, Geneva, and Società Geografica Italiana.[11]

Death

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Schwatka died in early morning hours of November 2, 1892, in Portland, Oregon, in circumstances that remain unclear. Sources report a police officer found him at 3 a.m. on First Street, unconscious and with a half-empty bottle of laudanum beside him. The Baltimore Sun states he had been troubled by a chronic stomach complaint for a couple of years, and that he was known to frequently take fifteen to twenty drops of laudanum to relieve pain.[12] Two years prior, in January 1891, he sustained an injury to his spinal cord when he fell down a flight of stairs at a hotel in Mason City, Iowa – possibly a contributing factor to his dependence on laudanum.

Initially thought to be intoxicated, he was brought to a nearby hotel where futile attempts were made to bring him to his senses. An hour later, amidst growing concerns, he was transported to the city jail. His symptoms were quickly recognized by the attending physician, whereupon he was immediately rushed to the Good Samaritan Hospital. However, Schwatka died within a couple of minutes of his arrival, never regaining consciousness.

Though there is little speculation that Schwatka died of a laudanum overdose, contemporary sources were divided on whether it had been a deliberate or accidental overdose. The Washington Evening Star left little room for speculation: "It was undoubtedly a case of suicide." Wheeler, the physician who had first diagnosed Schwatka's symptoms, and who would subsequently perform his autopsy, was of the opinion that "death was caused by an overdose of laudanum taken to allay pain in the stomach, not with suicidal intent." Schwatka was buried in Salem, Oregon.

Legacy

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Mount Schwatka in northern Alaska's Brooks Range was named after Schwatka, and since 1960 the cruise boat MV Schwatka has ferried passengers along the Yukon River and through the Miles Canyon Basalts to Schwatka Lake in Whitehorse.

Publications

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  • Along Alaska's Great River (1885). New York: Cassell & Company.
  • Nimrod in the North (1885). New York: Cassell & Company.
  • Children of the Cold (1886). New York: Cassell & Company.
  • "Among the Apaches" (May 1887). The Century Magazine, Vol. XXXIV.
  • In the Land of Cave and Cliff Dwellers (1893). New York: Cassell & Company.
  • A Summer in Alaska (1894). St Louis: J. W. Henry.
  • The Search for Franklin (1899). London: T. Nelson and Sons.

References

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Footnotes

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  1. ^ Davis 1984, p. 303.
  2. ^ Davis 1984, p. 302.
  3. ^ Schwatka 1965, p. 14.
  4. ^ Schwatka 1965, pp. 13–15.
  5. ^ Savours 1999, p. 301.
  6. ^ Schwatka 1965, pp. 115–116.
  7. ^ Schwatka 1965, p. 116.
  8. ^ Sandler 2006, pp. 247–248.
  9. ^ Petterchak 2003, pp. 9–10.
  10. ^ Sandler 2006, p. 248.
  11. ^ Wilson & Fiske 1900.
  12. ^ Baltimore Sun 1892, Nov. 3.

Bibliography

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Books

  • Coleman, E. C. (2006). The Royal Navy in Polar Exploration from Franklin to Scott. Stroud: Tempus. ISBN 9780752436609.
  • Davis, R. C. (1984). "Frederick Schwatka (1849–1892)". Arctic. 37 (3): 302–303. doi:10.14430/arctic2209.
  • Petterchak, J. A. (2003). Lone Scout: W. D. Boyce and American Boy Scouting. Rochester: Legacy. ISBN 9780965319874.
  • Sandler, M. W. (2006). Resolute: The Epic Search for the Northwest Passage and John Franklin. New York: Sterling. ISBN 9781402740855.
  • Savours, A. (1999). The Search for the North West Passage. New York: St. Martin's. ISBN 9780312223724.
  • Schwatka, F. G. (1965). Stackpole, E. A. (ed.). The Long Arctic Search. New Bedford: Stackpole. ISBN 9780871060839.
  • Wilson, J. S.; Fiske, J. (1900). "Schwatka, Frederick". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.

Newspapers

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