The Return Home
The expedition attempted to return, but the weather turned against them and they were stranded in the region for the next four years.
In December 1914, MacMillan and Tanquary set off for Etah with the intention of sending a message to the outside world that a rescue was needed the following summer. They quickly ran into trouble with the weather and MacMillan turned back. Tanquary pressed on and eventually reached Etah in mid-March 1915.
Word reached the American Museum of Natural History and the George H. Cluett, a three-masted schooner completely unsuitable for Arctic waters, was sent that summer, captained by George Comer. The vessel never reached them. It ended up trapped in ice and did not return for two years.
In 1916, a second relief ship was sent and ran into similar problems. By this time Tanquary, Green and Allen had already made their own way back to the US by dog-sled.
The rest of the expedition was eventually rescued in 1917 by the ship Neptune, commanded by Captain Robert Bartlett.
Read more about this topic: Crocker Land
Famous quotes containing the words return and/or home:
“It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die, but only retire from sight and afterwards return again.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“As I came home through the woods with my string of fish, trailing my pole, it being now quite dark, I caught a glimpse of a woodchuck stealing across my path, and felt a strange thrill of savage delight, and was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw; not that I was hungry then, except for that wildness which he represented.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)