In a highly coloured biography of famed Arctic maritime explorer Joseph Elzéar Bernier, he is credited with confronting an American exploration party about their infringement upon Canadian sovereign territory the summer of 1925. Among the party was Lieutenant Commander (later Rear Admiral) Richard E. Byrd commanding a complement of eight men and three amphibious airplanes.
In diplomatic dispatches from Washington D.C., the Canadian Charge D’Affaires had communicated with the governor general, expressing fear that the expedition planned by the United States was an attempt to lay claim to two Arctic Islands: Axel Heiberg and Ellesmere. It was their plan to fly across “certain Canadian northern territories” and to establish an advance base on Axel Heiberg Island.
Byrd bluffed Canadian officials on a Canadian government supply ship captained by Bernier by intimating he had the appropriate permits to fly over and land on Canadian territory. This was a blatant lie that could not be challenged by Canadian officials who confronted him at Etah, a Danish settlement high up on the western coast of Greenland. Unfortunately, their wireless equipment was not functioning, and they could not confirm Byrd’s claim.
According to the aforementioned biography, because of Bernier’s diplomacy, the leader of the American expedition “came to respect Canada’s ownership of the arctic islands concerned and was careful to obtain a licence for each of his subsequent trips northward.” There was only a passing reference in the biography to an unnamed administrative officer. But it was this unnamed administrative officer whose diplomacy won the day, not Bernier’s.
That anonymous bureaucrat was in reality in charge of the Canadian expedition and he was a former Yukoner named George Patton Mackenzie. Mackenzie had come into the Yukon via the Teslin Trail in 1898, and had slowly risen through the government ranks until he was appointed, in 1918, to the top position in the Yukon administration: gold commissioner.
Mackenzie served in that capacity for the next six years until he was transferred to Ottawa and placed in charge of the Northwest Territories and Yukon Branch of the Department of the Interior. By all accounts, Mackenzie was an able administrator, and performed his duties in the Yukon with efficiency and without controversy.
Mackenzie had not long arrived in Ottawa, when he was on his way north in charge of an expedition by boat into the eastern Arctic. The supply ship Arctic left Quebec City on July 1, 1925 under Captain Bernier. The Arctic was launched in Germany in 1901 for a two-year expedition to the Antarctic. Originally christened the Gauss, she was renamed when purchased by the Canadian government in 1904 for $75,000. Captain Bernier took her north on exploration trips in 1906/07, 1908/09 and 1910/11.
By 1923, she was obsolete and worn out, but an overhaul of the engine prepared her for the 1923 expedition. It is of note that the refit of the vessel did not improve the cramped bug-infested living quarters. This was the ship that Mackenzie commanded when it departed on its mission in 1925. Her mission: to deliver coal, and supplies to camps already established in the high arctic. She also carried building supplies to establish a new Mounted Police station on the Bache Peninsula on Ellesmere Island. They also asserted Canada’s claim of sovereignty over the Arctic Archipelago.
Among those aboard the Arctic were Bernier, the 73-year-old captain, George P. Mackenzie, the commander of the expedition, and Inspector Wilcox of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, accompanied by four other officers. Captain Morin was the ice pilot, Dr. L.D. Livingstone was the physician, and Harwood Steele was the secretary to the commander. If that name sounds familiar, there is a Yukon connection. His father was the legendary Sam Steele of gold rush fame.
Two members of the geological Survey of Canada were on board, as well as radio operator and photographer George Valiquette and young assistant Richard Finnie. Finnie spent his childhood in the Klondike; his father O.S. Finnie was Mackenzie’s boss. The Arctic also had a crew of 26.
Finally, Nuqallaq, an Innuit prisoner, was being returned to the Arctic on parole, afflicted with tuberculosis. So as not to spread the disease to others on board, he slept in one of the covered lifeboats.
The expedition did not get off to an auspicious beginning. When leaving King’s Wharf at Quebec City, the heavily laden vessel grazed another vessel and one of the Arctic’s lifeboats was crushed. Not long after that, she was halted for repairs; it took a week to reach Anticosti Island in the Gulf of St Lawrence. A few days later, off the coast of Labrador, the engines failed again. Then the little vessel was tossed about in a vicious storm.
“Rolling reached a point of no return,” reported Richard Finnie decades later. “The ship would tremble with agonizing uncertainty at the end of a roll before sluggishly righting herself. Whether they were seasick or not, all hands became nerve-wracked and fatigued from the effort of clinging to whatever supports they could find to avoid injury.”
When the sea calmed, the battered Arctic began to leak and then the bilge pump failed. Before the backup pump was made functional, the water had risen so high in the hold that the boilers were submerged. Once the emergency pumps were operating, the boat was saved, the seawater removed, and the ship again came under power.
Then the little ship encountered heavy ice through which it struggled for six days before they turned back, but it was another two weeks before escaping the ice pack. Then it encountered another storm before arriving at Disco Island in Northern Greenland.
Mackenzie was described as “a man of imposing stature and bearing, twenty years younger than the captain [Bernier]. George Mackenzie was tolerant and good humoured, but conscientious and fearless. He wanted straight answers to his questions, and he made his own decisions.”
The relationship between the seasoned maritime captain and the veteran bureaucrat was strained when it became apparent that Bernier had inaccurately plotted their location. He was too proud to seek assistance from his fellow officers and was unwilling to admit that he was wrong.
Plagued by mechanical problems, adverse weather and ice conditions, and running low on coal, the party turned south before reaching their ultimate destination at Bache Peninsula, making stops at Craig Harbour, Dundas (Devon Island), Pond Inlet and Pangnirtung. The engine was shut down, and the Arctic sailed under wind power to the Strait of Belle Isle to save fuel. She weathered a storm in the Gulf of St. Lawrence without incident and arrived back in Quebec City on Oct. 10.
The Arctic was retired after the 1925 voyage and was scrapped shortly thereafter. Captain Bernier, now in his mid-70s, never sailed again. The government awarded him a pension of $2,400 a year in recognition of his service to Canada. He died of a heart attack in 1934. He was 82 years old.
Richard Finnie, the young Yukoner who served as radio operator on this expedition, sailed into the Arctic three more times and led a distinguished career as a journalist and film maker.
George Patton Mackenzie continued to lead expeditions into the eastern Arctic for another 5 summers, until he retired in 1931 at the age of 58, having served the government for 34 years. By that time, Canada’s claim over the Arctic islands was secure. His combined service in the Yukon and eastern Arctic have not been fully recognized, but an illustrated biography by Kathy Drew-Smith, titled “The Man from Malagash,” available in local bookstores, makes a good place to start.
Michael Gates was the Yukon’s first Story Laureate from 2020 to 2023. His latest book, “Hollywood in the Klondike,” is now available in Whitehorse stores. You can contact him at msgates@northwestel.net
