Report of the Cruise of The U. S. Revenue Cutter Bear

Government Printing Office, Washington, 1899, First Edition.Tall 8vo. Very Good/No Jacket as issued. (iv) 144pp., 68 b/w photographs and engraving, large fold-out color map at rear. Publisher’s blue ruled pebbled cloth with gilt title on spine. Scarce

— Arctic Bibliography 18402

Report of the Cruise of The U. S. Revenue Cutter Bear and the Overland Expedition for the Relief of the Whalers in the Arctic Ocean, from November 27, 1897, to September 13, 1898. "Following the direct intervention of President McKinley, The Bear was equipped, and in November 1897 set out to rescue eight whaling ships which had become trapped in the ice near Point Barrow. Despite the difficulties involved in a winter mission to Arctic waters The Bear and her crew managed to reach Seattle ten months later with four of the whaling crews, with no loss to its own complement of men."

This book documents the account of the cruise of the "Bear" in 1898 to Cape Vancouver, West Alaska, landing a party under Lt. D. H. Jarvis to go overland to Barrow; the Jarvis party’s sledge trip to Seward Peninsula, purchase of reindeer; driving of the reindeer across Kotzebue Sound, by the Kivalina and Meade Rivers to Point Barrow to feed the whalers. Includes texts of orders and letters, descriptions of traveling conditions and regions traversed, the Eskimos, the purchase, care and dispensing of relief, including the reindeer.