As young adults, three of the Kilian boys (Hermann, Bernhard ‘Ben’, and Martin) experienced exciting but dangerous adventures in northern Alaska and Canada. At that time (100 years ago), much of the Arctic was not yet known to the inhabitants of the “developed” parts of the world, so the Kilians were some of the first explorers, photographers, and documenters of these arctic lands.
Hermann
Martin
Alaska Trip 1.
Hermann and Ben worked on the schooner Polar Bear in northern Alaska from April 1913 to October 1914.
Trip 2. Hermann and Martin explored "unknown" lands as members of the
Canadian Arctic Expedition in far northern Canada from
June 1915 to November 1919.
Trip 3. Ben was shipwrecked in the Bering Sea on 10 August 1916 when
the Great Bear yacht crashed into a rock and sank. He survived,
but only after spending 15 days on a tiny island hoping and
praying that a search party would find him and his fellow shipmates.
Trip 4. Martin was shipwrecked on 14 April 1921 when his ship the Kamchatka
caught fire and had to be abandoned near the Shumagin Islands in the
Gulf of Alaska. He survived after spending 86 hours on the ocean in a small boat.
Trip 5. Hermann was washed overboard from a fishing vessel the Agnes and
drowned in the Pacific Ocean by Neah Bay (the most western point of
Washington State) on 22 September 1930.
Trip 2. Hermann and Martin explored "unknown" lands as members of the
Canadian Arctic Expedition in far northern Canada from
June 1915 to November 1919.
Trip 3. Ben was shipwrecked in the Bering Sea on 10 August 1916 when
the Great Bear yacht crashed into a rock and sank. He survived,
but only after spending 15 days on a tiny island hoping and
praying that a search party would find him and his fellow shipmates.
Trip 4. Martin was shipwrecked on 14 April 1921 when his ship the Kamchatka
caught fire and had to be abandoned near the Shumagin Islands in the
Gulf of Alaska. He survived after spending 86 hours on the ocean in a small boat.
Trip 5. Hermann was washed overboard from a fishing vessel the Agnes and
drowned in the Pacific Ocean by Neah Bay (the most western point of
Washington State) on 22 September 1930.
Alaska Trip 1.
Hermann [1891-1930] and Bernhard ‘Ben’ [1893-1984] Kilian worked on the schooner Polar Bear in northern Alaska from April 1913 to October 1914.
Here is the Polar Bear docked at Pier 7 in Seattle, Washington.
photo owned by Don Kurtz
All you readers under age 25: could you personally have landed either of these jobs or any job with similar responsibilities? How has the world changed to make this happen?
Ben at about age 20:
Hermann at about age 22:
photo owned by Phil and Judy Kilian
The trip was supposed to be a sport hunting expedition with upper-class Eastern gentlemen along for the adventure. The plan was to hunt for walrus, snow sheep (Ovis nivicola), arctic fox, polar bear, and seal for 6 months. As engineers, Hermann and Ben were not expected to participate in the sport hunting, but they did hunt for food: fish, ptarmigan, geese and ducks, caribou, and seal for meat. In his memoir of this trip, Ben wrote about one such hunt: “We went fishing today and caught 40 salmon and 11 ducks.”
Here is Hermann on the deck of the Polar Bear holding something he caught.
Photo is copied from page 92 of The Voyage of the Schooner Polar Bear by Bernhard Kilian
Instead of 6 months, the crew spent 18 months in the arctic.
The year-long delay was caused by a hard, early freeze in the first week of September
that trapped the Polar Bear into an ice sheet that stretched miles out into the Beaufort Sea along the northern coast of Alaska.
This photo shows the schooner locked into the ice sheet approximately 7 miles out at sea and about 5 miles west of the Canada/USA border, near a location known as Demarcation Point. It remained here for 10 months, from 7 September 1913 until 27 July 1914.
Photo is copied from page 50 of The Voyage of the Schooner Polar Bear by Bernhard Kilian
Because ice sheets crack and shift constantly and can crush any ship in their grip, the crew unloaded the schooner and dragged ten tons (20,000 pounds!) of their provisions over the 7 miles of treacherous, buckling ice to firm ground at the shoreline. The crew did all this hauling themselves: no engine or animal helped them.
There they built a winter camp. This photo shows one of the camp’s buildings under construction. This is not an igloo. Note how roughly the ice blocks fit together. Underneath these insulating ice blocks there is a wooden structure covered with sails from the schooner.
Photo is copied from page 232 of Icy Hell by Will E. Hudson
Here are Hermann and Ben (along with other crew members) inside their winter quarters.
Look how crowded it is! Can you imagine living here for 10 months?
Hermann is the second man from the right (seated) and Ben is standing behind him.
Captain and owner of the schooner, Louis Lane, is the man on the far left.
Most of the stuff you see hanging from the ceiling is clothing drying out.
Photo is copied from page 57 of The Voyage of the Schooner Polar Bear by Bernhard Kilian
Ben sewed winter clothes for both himself and Hermann from caribou skin and wolverine fur.
He used their own clothes from home as the pattern. Here he is at work.
People were so versatile in those days! I can't imagine his mother had taught him how to sew.
These clothes saved their lives since the temperature fell to minus 60 degrees F that winter.
Photo is copied from page 53 of The Voyage of the Schooner Polar Bear by Bernhard Kilian
Ben and Hermann returned home to Seattle with the Polar Bear on 25 October 1914.
They brought with them those two famous kayaks for which Kayak Point was named.
They also probably brought home the Arctic Fox skins that they had hunted, skinned, and cured in June 1914.
The fur stole that their sister Dorothy is wearing in this photo might be one of these.
Ben had made a life-long friend of the captain, Louis Lane; he worked for Captain Lane again in 1916 (Trip 3), and later followed Louis Lane to the San Francisco Bay Area where Ben founded the propeller business that employed 3 generations of Kilian's.
Hermann returned to work on the Polar Bear the next year (Trip 2).
Ben wrote and published a memoir of this adventure. It can still be purchased on Amazon.com. The title is The Voyage of the Schooner Polar Bear: Whaling and Trading in the North Pacific and Arctic, 1913-14 written by Bernhard Kilian and published by the New Bedford Whaling Museum, 1983.
The newspaper “cameraman” who participated in this adventure also wrote a book:
Icy Hell by Will E. Hudson and published by Stokes Publishing, 1937. Both are fascinating.
Here is a link to the story of this adventure: Icy Hell
NOTE: Thanks to Phil and Judy Kilian (Phil is one of Art’s sons) and Don Kurtz (one of Dorothy’s sons) for the photos. And a much delayed thanks to Ben for taking these photographs100 years ago and writing his story for us to enjoy.
THREE MEMORABLE STORIES FROM TRIP 1
On 9 August 1914, Ben took the very first photographs (in the world) of the island that is currently named Banks Island.
One of the highlights of the trip for Ben occurred in March 1914. He went to live with the family of Itloon, a Native-American who worked for Captain Lane from time to time. Ben lived in their house (a rough frame covered with canvas and old boat sails) and ate with them (picking his meal out of a large, shared pot of boiling water with caribou and seal meat) for 7 days.
When a Russian judge and his wife were invited to eat dinner on the Polar Bear (7 June 1913), only the Kilian boys, of the entire crew, knew how to set a civilized dinner table with napkins.
Hermann [1891-1930] and Martin [1897-1977] Kilian explored “unknown” lands as members of the Canadian Arctic Expedition in northern Canada from August 1915 to October 1919.
INTRODUCTION
On 24 March 1915, the schooner Polar Bear again left Seattle bound for Alaska for a summer of hunting and trading. This time Hermann (now 23) was onboard as Chief Engineer and a different brother, Martin (age 17 on the right) was a crew member.
Hermann at about age 23 Martin at 17
So, the Polar Bear was on a short hunting and trading trip, how did it come to join
the 6-year-long Canadian Arctic Expedition [CAE]? When the Polar Bear
arrived at Baillie Island (on the north shore of mainland Canada) in August 1915,
Captain Lane sold all its provisions to the CAE and leased the schooner for delivery
of these provisions. And then, once the ship delivered the provisions, the CAE’s leader,
Vilhjalmur Stefansson, purchased the schooner for $20,000 and offered jobs to most
of its crew at $10 a day (which was a very good wage in those days).
In this manner, Hermann and Martin became part of the CAE.
The CAE was one of the very last great arctic expeditions. From 1913-1919 its members “discovered” five large, previously “unknown” islands that were added to Canada's territory (the islands Brock, Mackenzie King, Borden, Meighen, and Lougheed), mapped hundreds of miles of previously unmapped territory, discovered and re-mapped significant errors in the maps available at that time, and collected thousands of specimens of flora and fauna. In addition, the expedition proved that humans could live in this icy region by hunting and building igloos instead of dragging tons of equipment with them… as if the Native-Americans didn't already know that? But believe it or not, even seasoned explorers like Roald Amundsen ridiculed this idea at the time.
CLOTHING
Below, we see Martin (center) with some other members of the Canadian Arctic Expedition [CAE] team. Notice Martin’s caribou skin and wolverine fur clothing. Also notice the mittens drying from the ceiling (on the left of the photo) and the fur walls of the structure. Apparently, smoking a pipe was the “in” thing to do in those days.
Photo copied from www.civilization.ca/cmc/
And below is Martin in his fur-outside parka. Compare Martin’s clothing above with that below.
In the clothing above, the fur is on the inside for insulation and the animal skin is on the outside to repel water and wind; this outfit would be his everyday clothes. The fur parka below is worn for extra warmth on the outside, over the everyday clothing shown in the image above.
This image below is one of the most beautiful photographs in the Kilian Digital Photograph Archive:
Photo belongs to Don Kurtz
HUNTING
The Kilians spent a good deal of their time hunting which supplied the team with food,
heating/cooking oil, and clothing materials, so they had to learn how to both hunt and skin the animals. This photo captures Martin (far right) observing two natives skin a couple of walrus.
Photo belongs to Carl W. Otto
Martin learned how to imitate a seal in order to capture it. This skill literally kept him alive during an 8-month period that he spent on an ice floe. Here is what Joseph Larin (newspaper reporter for the Tacoma News Tribune) quoted Martin as saying about imitating a seal:
“The hunter had to approach very closely to the seal before shooting as the seal stayed near
the edge of the ice floe and when shot would slide into the water, where it usually sank.
Martin learned how to imitate seal actions so closely that the near-sighted animals would mistake him for another seal and let him approach closely. Among the seal-like actions Martin learned was: to raise his head and torso while lying flat on ice; to bend his legs at the knees to imitate the raising of back seal flippers; and to scratch vigorously as the lice-infested seals did constantly.”
This is Martin in 1977 at age 80 during the above-mentioned interview:
Photo belongs to Carl W. Otto
NOTE: Thanks to Don Kurtz (one of Dorothy’s sons)
and Carl W. Otto (one of Gudrun’s sons) for these photos.
DANGER
Death was ever possible in this era before the availability in the arctic of radio, telegraph, telephone, GPS, antibiotics, sonar, air travel/rescue, freeze-dried foods, petroleum powered snow vehicles, solar energy, or icebreaker ships. 17 members of the CAE lost their lives: starvation, gunshot, drowning, frozen to death. Once a man walked out of sight of his camp or companions, he was completely on his own. Members of the expedition sometimes did not hear from other members for over a year. This section will tell some of the close-calls that the Kilian brothers experienced.
Just 4 months into his service for the expedition, in December 1915, Hermann lost his Assistant Engineer on the Polar Bear. The body could not be buried until the next April when the ground softened enough to dig the grave. In this photo, Hermann is standing next to the cross that was placed on the grave; his left hand is on the cross. Hermann has not yet learned that the native animal-based clothing works better; in this photo he is still wearing "modern" clothes.
Photo copied from http://www.civilization.ca/
While drifting on an ice floe for 8 months, one of Martin’s hands was jabbed by a large hook which is used for grabbing seals once they are shot. See the photo below that shows this piece of hunting equipment, for which the technical term is ‘gaff’. The wound infected and the infection spread up his arm into his shoulder and side. There were no medical services available and antibiotics had not yet been discovered. He could easily have died. But he was young, strong, healthy, and apparently had an excellent immune system, so he healed.
Photo copied from frontispiece of The Friendly Arctic by Vilhjalmur Stefansson
In May 1916, Martin was seriously food poisoned from eating polar bear liver. He felt deathly ill for 2 days. Members of the CAE sometimes had to eat meat that was pretty rotten from having been stored too long or from having been thawed and re-frozen multiple times; this was due to the irregular availability of animals to hunt. However, in this case, the liver was fresh. Native Americans firmly would not eat polar bear liver; the reason for their belief was not clearly known: they considered it either poisonous or taboo. In any case, following the local eating customs would have been wise.
Martin became one of the few non-Native-Americans who knew how to build an igloo. However, his first attempt at sleeping in one that he built almost cost him his life. In November 1915 on the western coastline of Banks Island, Martin and others built an igloo, but failed to cut the blocks from snow that was hard enough. During the night, the dome of the igloo gradually sank down into the center of the igloo. Much of their bedding got wet, which can result in freezing to death, but luckily in this instance did not. The two next photos show a CAE team building an igloo.
Photos copied from page 174 of The Friendly Arctic by Vilhjalmur Stefansson
CAE ACCOMPLISHMENTS in WHICH the KILIANS PLAYED MAJOR ROLES:
1. 10 Oct to 4 Dec 1915: Hermann and Martin participated in Storker Storkerson’s first attempt to explore and map the “unknown” northern region of Victoria Island. [Storkerson was second in command, reporting directly to the CAE’s leader, Vilhjalmur Stefansson.]
2. In the year 1916, Martin traveled 2350 miles by foot and dogsled. Expedition records and many people’s comments in their memoirs show that he was one of the exceptionally brave members of the CAE. He volunteered for duties when many other members point-blank refused to go. Both Kilian “boys” were praised as dependable, resilient, dedicated, and skilled members of the expedition.
3. 7 Jun to 31 July 1917: Martin and Storkerson successfully mapped the “unknown” northern region of Victoria Island and “discovered” islands further north and east.
4. 15 Mar to 8 Nov 1918: Martin, along with Storkerson, 3 other men and 16 dogs, spent 238 days (about 8 months) floating around the Arctic Ocean for 440 miles on a drifting ice floe with only raw fish and the seals they caught for food and heat. No fruit, no vegetables, no grains, no wood or petroleum. No sugar! In this manner they proved that humans could live healthily in the arctic without dragging modern conveniences and provisions with them. They hunted 96 seals and 6 polar bears during this time. Of these experiences Martin later said to the Polar Times: “I wouldn't do it again for a million dollars, and I wouldn't take a million dollars for the experience.”
GEOGRAPHIC PLACES NAMED AFTER THE KILIANS
Four geographic features were named after the Kilian family.
One of these (Cape Kilian) was never officially adopted
by the Canadian Government. However, the other 3 were officially adopted
on 28 Dec 1961, and are described in this issue.
The map below shows many of the geographic features named by
the Canadian Artic Expedition [CAE]. See if you can find the two named
after your Kilian relatives. There is an island and a lake.
Kilian Island was named on 13 July 1917 in memory of the Kilian family.
Kilian Island was named on 13 July 1917 in memory of the Kilian family.
One story says it was named after Bernhard ‘Ben’ Kilian’s attempt to rescue the burning ship Elvira (on 23 Sept 1913 during Trip 1). Another story says it was named after Martin himself who was so instrumental in the CAE’s exploration efforts of that region. The man who named Kilian Island, Storker T. Storkerson, wrote thusly:
“As this island appeared to be the Northernmost and so the most prominent of the land we had discovered that trip, I named it after my companion, Martin Kilian’s family, as a token of appreciation of what he had done for me and the CAE ….”
The island turned out to not be very large, but Storkeson’s intend was a great compliment to Martin.
Kilian Lake (just south of Glenelg Bay on northern Victoria Island)
was named (also by Storker T. Storkerson) on 13-14 July 1917, after Hermann Kilian who had participated in the first (but unsuccessful) attempt in 1915 to create a detailed map of the entire northern region of Victoria Island.
In addition, Elsa Hill (located on the large peninsula that juts out northward from north-eastern Victoria Island and which lies just south of Kilian Island) was named on 7 July 1917 after one of Martin’s cousins, a daughter of Karl Kilian (1869-1945); H.F.W. Kilian’s brother.
RETURN HOME
Hermann in 1918:
As Chief Engineer of the Polar Bear, Hermann returned the ship to Nome
in August 1918 where the ship was prepared for sale. This was the official
end of the Canadian Arctic Expedition [CAE]. Hermann left Alaska
not knowing where his brother Martin was, not even whether he was
dead or alive; he had not heard of him in 5 months; he only knew that
Martin had gone north to drift on an ice floe for a year.
Think of your own communication patterns with your siblings:
daily texting? weekly emails? monthly phone conversations?
How would you feel in Hermann’s situation?
In Nome, Hermann was immediately placed in jail as a draft dodger
because World War I was in full swing and (in August 1918) all men
between 21 and 31 were supposed to be serving. Many members of
the CAE did not know about the war until many months after it had started.
(For example, Martin did not learn about U.S. involvement in the war
until 11 days AFTER the truce was signed!) Of course, Hermann was
released quickly once his story was verified.
Hermann and the other members of the crew, traveled by passenger
steamer ship to Victoria, Canada (on Vancouver Island) where they were paid
their accumulated wages. (It would be interesting to know if this money
was used to purchase his lots 6 and 8 at Kayak Point.) Hermann then returned
home to Seattle simply by crossing the 90 miles on a ferry boat.
This photo (below) of Hermann was taken about a year after his return
from this adventure. Compare this image with his earlier photos.
What differences do you see? For example, notice how the tension
has changed in the way he holds mouth.
Martin in 1919:
Martin was one of the two last members of the CAE to leave the expedition.
He returned home to Seattle on 20 October 1919, more than a year
after his brother. From Alaska, he “hitchhiked” rides on southbound ships
down the coast to Seattle. This photo was taken not long after he returned.
Martin 1919
Photo belongs to Carl W. Otto
KILIAN CAE LEGACIES
Both Hermann and Martin kept diaries. These are kept by the
Library and Archives of Canada in Ottawa. They can be viewed at that location,
but cannot be borrowed. Someday I hope they will be digitized so that we can read them.
They also wrote letters home; Hermann’s are in German while Martin’s are in English
which captures the Kilian family’s gradual transition into becoming “American”.
Martin also wrote two memoirs and took over 100 photos. All of these items are kept by
the Washington State Historical Society Research Center in Tacoma, WA.
The collection is entitled Kilian, Martin Papers MsSC-121:
Alaska Trip 3.
Ben was shipwrecked in the Bering Sea on 10 August 1916 when the schooner the Great Bear crashed into a rock and sank.
While his brothers were working for the Canadian Arctic Expedition [CAE],
Bernhard ‘Ben’ (1893-1984) joined a different arctic expedition:
the Borden-Lane Expedition headed by his previous boss Louis Lane.
Lane was the ex-owner of the Polar Bear which had by now been sold to the
Canadian Arctic Expedition [CAE] as related in Trip 2.
The 23-member Borden-Lane expedition left Seattle on 26 July 1916.
Ben was 23.
The brand new schooner for this expedition was the Great Bear (in the photo above)
captained by Louis Lane. The Great Bear was carrying supplies for delivery to the
CAE team on Banks Island. You can imagine that Ben was looking forward to seeing
his brothers whom he had not seen for 16 months.
Near midnight (12:53am) on 10 August , during a ferocious storm in the Bering Sea,
the Great Bear struck a large rock (called Pinnacle Rock). Everyone on board
successfully escaped to a nearby, but uninhabited, island called St. Matthew.
They managed to bring some provisions along.
When the Great Bear became a week overdue for its planned arrival at
Nome, Alaska, a Coast Guard search party was sent out to look for it.
The cutter McCulloch found the men, but only after they had spent
15 days on the tiny island hoping and praying to be found since they would have died
if not found. In August, there is no ice sheet in this part of the world,
so hunting for their food would have been impossible.
Photo is owned by Don Kurtz
Soon after returning to Seattle, Ben enlisted in the U.S. navy to serve in World War I.
The photo above is Ben in his navy uniform.
The URLs below are links to this adventure:
Alaska Trip 4.
Martin was shipwrecked on 14 April 1921 when his ship the Kamchatka caught fire and had to be abandoned 365 miles from the nearest land.
Newspaper clipping is owned by Carl W. Otto
On 3 April 1921, Martin (1897-1977) left Seattle as second mate of the wooden motorship Kamchatka. In the newspaper photo above, Martin is in the back row, second person from right (in necktie and high-collared shirt). Martin was 24 years old.
There were 27 people on board: the crew and a few passengers.
The ship was bound for Siberia Russia, loaded with trading goods.
Ominously, among the goods were 4500 pounds of gun powder and
numerous 50-gallon drums of gasoline and distillate fuels.
Minutes before midnight on 14 April 1921, 365 miles from the nearest land
and during a storm, the ship caught fire. The crew and its few passengers
were awakened by a huge explosion that threw things 400 feet up into the air.
Scantily clothed in haste, everyone escaped to two boats:
a 28-foot engine-powered one and a 29-foot oar boat.
Once out onto the heavily rolling seas, they realized that they had no water,
no food, no fuel for the engine, and no battery to start the engine.
Only 2 people volunteered to return to the exploding and burning ship.
Martin was one of them. Of his own willingness to return to the ship,
he later said: “They [everyone else] were too afraid of the explosions.
They refused to believe we might not survive otherwise.”
It is very likely that Martin’s experiences in the Canadian Arctic Expedition
were what made him so aware of how vital these items were for survival
and how easy it would be to die without them. Other people,
not having personally faced death could not imagine it so readily.
However, we know from his history with the Canadian Arctic Expedition,
that Martin’s character was brave and heroic even when just a teenager.
The seas were so rough and the night so dark that the two volunteers
had to just throw the jugs of water, crates of food, and barrels of fuel overboard
because the boats could not maintain position safely next to the burning ship.
The floating items were picked up later by the boats. Retrieving the battery
was the most difficult, but most vital, task. It took Martin 30 minutes
just to hack it out of its wooden casing below deck by which time
the raging fire was terrifyingly close. This item, obviously, was not thrown overboard.
Everyone in the 2 boats survived 98 hours (4 days) battling wind, snow, and
heavy swells for 365 miles on the northern Pacific Ocean. The men attached
the oar boat to the engine-powered boat and thus were able to navigate
both boats together to the inhabited island of Chernabura ,
one of the Shumagin Islands along the tail of the Aleutians.
The URL below is a link to the story of this adventure:
