The rescue ship could not reach them.
By the fall of 1897, eight American whaling vessels were locked in Arctic ice near Point Barrow, Alaska. Their crews had come ashore, but winter had closed the sea behind them. Food was running short, scurvy and sickness were growing threats, and no ordinary relief voyage could break through the pack.
So the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service—the forerunner of today’s Coast Guard—chose an answer that sounded almost impossible. A small party would go ashore far to the south, travel roughly 1,500 miles through the Alaskan winter, gather a herd of reindeer, and drive fresh meat to the stranded whalers.
The sea had shut the door. The rescuers would walk around it.
Eight Ships Caught at the Top of the World
Arctic whaling was a hard trade even in a good year. Ships worked close to moving ice, far beyond established ports and reliable communications. In 1897, pack ice trapped eight vessels near Point Barrow. NOAA’s Coast Guard–authored history places 265 crewmembers in danger of starvation.
The whaling companies appealed to President William McKinley. The government turned to USRC Bear, a tough wooden steam-and-sail cutter already famous for Arctic service. In 1884, before joining the Revenue Cutter Service, Bear had helped rescue survivors of the Greely polar expedition. During decades of Bering Sea patrols, the cutter carried mail, medicine, law enforcement, and help to isolated communities.
But this mission asked something new of her. In November, Captain Francis Tuttle sailed Bear north from Port Townsend, Washington, with a volunteer crew. Even that ice-tested ship could not force a passage all the way to Point Barrow in winter. Tuttle would have to send help overland.
A Rescue Party Steps Ashore
Tuttle selected First Lieutenant David H. Jarvis, Bear’s executive officer, to lead the party. Second Lieutenant Ellsworth P. Bertholf and U.S. Public Health Service surgeon Samuel J. Call joined him, along with enlisted men during the opening stage of the journey.
On December 16, 1897, the expedition set out from Cape Vancouver. They moved by snowshoe with sleds pulled by dogs and reindeer. Their task was not simply to reach Point Barrow. They had to acquire, organize, and move hundreds of living animals across snow, tundra, river ice, and coastal pack ice—keeping enough of the herd alive to feed the whalers at the end.
The mission also depended on knowledge the cuttermen did not possess. Alaska Native drivers and local reindeer experts supplied essential animals, route knowledge, shelter, and practical help. This was not a lone march by three officers through an empty wilderness. It was a chain of cooperation across Arctic communities, with the Revenue Cutter party carrying federal orders and responsibility northward.
Ninety-Nine Days Through Arctic Winter
The numbers barely capture the work: approximately 1,500 miles and 99 days in the heart of winter. Every mile meant decisions about ice, weather, food, animals, and the condition of the men. Sleds broke. Dogs tired. Reindeer scattered or weakened. Blowing snow could erase the trail and the horizon together.
Jarvis later wrote that sailors should not dwell too heavily on hardship, but his journal recorded what the final push demanded. Near Point Barrow, the temperature stood around 30 degrees below zero. The party’s sleds were battered, its dogs exhausted, and the rescuers themselves nearly spent.
Still, they kept the herd moving. A rescue crew does not get credit for the miles behind it. What matters is reaching the people waiting at the other end.
382 Reindeer Reach Point Barrow
On March 29, 1898, the expedition arrived at Point Barrow with 382 reindeer. No member of the relief party had been lost. The whalers, cut off from the outside world for months, reportedly struggled at first to understand how Jarvis and Call had appeared from the south without a ship.
Fresh meat changed the situation immediately. Jarvis assumed charge of the camp under his orders, while Call treated the men and improved sanitary conditions. They remained with the whalers for four more months, keeping order and protecting their health until Bear finally reached Point Barrow on July 28 after the ice opened.
The rescue was therefore more than a dramatic arrival. It was sustained duty: stabilize the camp, ration the herd, treat illness, and hold on until evacuation and resupply became possible. The same lesson runs through the best sea-rescue stories. Courage gets a crew to the scene; disciplined follow-through brings people home.
A “Victory of Peace”
President McKinley later called the expedition a “victory of peace” and asked Congress to honor Jarvis, Bertholf, and Call. On June 28, 1902, Congress awarded each man a specially authorized gold medal for the mission.
Bertholf went on to become the first commandant of the modern Coast Guard when the Revenue Cutter Service and Life-Saving Service merged in 1915. Jarvis’s name remains attached to the Coast Guard’s annual inspirational leadership award. The Service describes their 99-day journey as the longest rescue mission in its history.
Yet the expedition’s deepest legacy is simpler than medals or titles. A wooden cutter reached the edge of navigable water. Its crew recognized that the ship itself could go no farther. Then a handful of people changed tools, changed terrain, and kept the mission moving.
That is the old lifesaving service at its best: no perfect conditions, no easy route, and no surrender just because the sea said no.
Read more stories of rescue and endurance in Richard Etheridge’s Pea Island rescue and the rescue of USS Squalus. Explore the full Emerald Coast & Nautical Life archive or visit the Best of Fair Winds collection.