The "Search for Crowell’s Island" is presented as chapter 9 in a book called "Quest for a Northern Air Route" written by Alexander Forces, and published by Harvard University Press – Cambridge – 1953. Crowell’s Island had been named after Major Crowell and had initially been established as the advance base of Crystal Two. The final location for Crystal Two was subsequently changed to Frobisher Bay.
The Search for Crowell’s Island
Our first task in Frobisher Bay was to find Major Crowell’s
camp (Photo of original Crystal Two camp taken in 1942), the advance base of Crystal Two. Hiatt had told us that Crowell was on the lookout for us, but the radio message we tried to relay to him received no acknowledgement.From the reports of Greening and Crowell we knew that Crystal Two was on an
island (Photo of the Island Barrier map of 1943 showing the location of Crowell's Island) near the southwest shore of the bay, about 20 miles northwest of Cape Vanderbuilt, and about 8 miles southeast of the headland Captain Roosevelt had recommended for an airport site and had photographed from the air. These were out only clues.The morning of July 22 dawned as bright and clear as one could wish. So calm it was that even in the icy waters of
Frobisher Bay (Photo of Morrissey bucking Frobisher Bay ice flows) we were warm in the sunshine. Soon after six o’clock we passed a prominent cape that we rightly judged to be Cape Vanderbuilt, for just beyond it began the complex island barrier that intervenes between the lower and upper bays. Captain Bob Bartlett (Photo of Captain Bob Bartlett and passengers on the Morrissey, 10 July 1942) steered for a cove by the nearest point of Fletcher Island, where the barrier group begins. There, close to shore, we dropped anchor just before 7:00 am and for a brief time feasted our eyes on the panorama of mountains and islands over the placid water, where fragments of winter ice gleamed white in the morning sunshine.I offered to go through the islands in the whaleboat in search of Crowell’s camp. Supposing it to be about 18 miles away, the 6-knot speed of the port whaleboat should get us there and back with many hours to spare before sunset. The Captain approved, and assigned Pomeroy, Fowler, and Sam Bartlett to be crew. Kadjan and Drahos decided to go too, for their first duty was to examine the field by the camp and see if it would do for an airport. Taking with us a light lunch and a pistol for signaling or other emergencies, the six of us piled into the whale boat and blithely set forth at 8:30 on our expedition.
In mystery stories we generally find one of two techniques. Sherlock Holmes, with his rare gift of penetration, surmised the answer long before he offered an intelligible clue to the reader, whose perplexity remained till the denouncement burst on him in all its glory. Bulldog Drummond battled blindly with a hidden foe, sustained only by his spirit of adventure, while the reader, knowing the secret from the start, wished he could give the valiant hero a helpful hint. The second technique will serve better for the story of our hunt, and to that end the reader is referred to the two maps 6 and 7 printed side by side. The first is a copy of the part of Hall’s map covering the area between Capes Vanderbuilt and Rammelsberg. It was our basic chart, and though nothing on it corresponded at all to the description of Crowell’s Island, we surmised (and rightly, as we later learned) that Cape Rammelsberg was the headland that Captain Roosevelt had picked for the base and photographed. The other shows the same area correctly charted by the survey of 1943; and on it are shown the Morrissey’s anchorage, whence we started, and the course that led in time to finding the long-sought camp. Thus the reader has before him a key to the situation - one that we should have given much to possess.
Steering northwest, with Fletcher Island to starboard, we had gone about two miles, when looking back, we saw a ship approaching that turned out to be the
Polaris (Photo of the trawler Polaris in Crowell Harbour - 1942). With nearly twice the Morrissey’s speed she had been overtaking us all the way from Port Burrell. Mr. Balkin was aboard with some lumber and carpenters to start work as soon as the airport site should be settled. We asked them to make contact with the Morrissey while we resumed our hunt for Crowell.Proceeding up the bay, we soon came to a parting of the ways. To the left of a point of land a passage followed the Baffin Island shore and lost itself behind a more distant point. This appeared to be Hall’s "Cincinnati Press Channel", leading right up to the west shore past all the islands; but it might by a blind alley. To the right a long, straight, and narrow passage led far into the distance where it evidently opened directly into the upper bay, but this way seemed wholly blocked by pack ice. Either way was a gamble, but we decided to try the right-hand route and trust that we would find open lanes through the ice. The pack proved to be not clearly as dense as it looked. The tide was with us and we wondered of the turn of the tide might close the lanes and trap us in a solid pack on our return. But we ate our sandwiches and hoped for the best!
After three hours of steady steering and an estimated run of 20 miles we were approaching the end of the archipelago beyond which the upper bay opened wide. On the starboard hand it was clear that no island existed with the 4,500 feet of level ground alleged to adjoin Crowell’s camp. To port the islands were larger, but high, rugged, and forbidding. One of my shipmates turned to me and said, "Where is this base we’re looking for"? I replied, "I don’t know where the base is, nor where we are, and the maps aren’t any good. But I think the place must be somewhere in here". And I swept my arm over a wide and noncommittal arc to port. An opening appeared in that direction and through it we steered for the only island that looked large enough to offer a landing strip. Dense pack ice blocked our way and inspection from a height of land seemed our best bet, so we landed on the nearest island and started to climb the hill that would command a view. Half way up the hill I was astonished to see in a nook among the rocks neat rows of slender shafts of different colored stone about 3 inches long, standing upright against the face of the cliff. "Children have been playing here," I exclaimed. It was an Eskimo dollhouse. Coming over the crest of the ridge we saw on the other side a large number of Eskimo dogs and other signs of a recently abandoned camp, but the Eskimos had gone away in their boats; only their dogs were left on the island.
To the northwest I recognized Cape Rammelsberg from my study of the photographs of it brought back by Captain Roosevelt. Nothing in sight offered a better hope of being Crowell’s island than that which lay across the small, ice-choked bay to the west. But from this height it looked steep, rocky, and impossible for an airport. Examining its skyline with binoculars, my eyes at last lit on a small flag or rag on a staff protruding from the top of the highest ridge.
"There’s a sign of life," I said; and at once we decided to force a way through the ice and investigate that island. After much pushing with the boat hook we gained the shore at about the time of the ebb tide. Sam Bartlett and Pomeroy stayed with the boat while the rest of us started for the ridge.
"Make it quick, or we shan’t get out of here" they called after us, for the outgoing tide might well bring enough ice down the bay to jam the passage in a hopeless block.
We were soon rewarded by looking down from the summit on a broad stretch of level tundra, on the far side of which stood two houses and the radio tower of Crowell’s
camp (Photo of original Crystal Two camp - July 1942). As we approached, Crowell and a soldier came out to meet us with high-powered rifles loaded and ready to repel an invading force. Happily, Crowell recognized me. He had received no word of our coming, nor had his radio operator heard our message We took them wholly by surprise.With the ebb tide gathering force every minute there was not a moment to lose. It was quickly agreed that Kadjan should stay at the camp and begin at once to examine the field, and that Crowell would return with us to the Morrissey to pilot her into the proper harbor when the ice would permit. We hastened back to the boat and shoved off. Pushing out again through the ice we regained the long passage by which we had come. The ebb tide had, as we feared, caused a great deal of congestion of ice pans in the narrowest part. Four lanes we tried before finding one by which we could penetrate the pack. Crowell looked about the small, open whaleboat. "Are you fellows fond of eating shoelaces?" he asked. "No, why?". "It looks as if you may have to," he replied.
We had rashly eaten everything that we had brought from the Morrissey, and we were getting hungry again. But we found an opening at last and reached the schooner after a two hour’s absence. After a welcome supper the Morrissey weight anchor and with Crowell’s expert pilotage, threaded her way into Cincinnati Press Channel through scattered
flows (Photo of ice flows in Cincinnati Press Channel - July 1942) till the twilight grew dim. We came to anchor near the Polaris, just a midnight, in a sheltered harbor, Hall’s Eggleston Bay.The next day, which was clear, calm, and warm we entered the narrowest part of the Cincinnati Press Channel. Here, through the clear water, we could see the bottom 4 fathoms deep. Proceeding cautiously, we soon gained the deep water beyond, and in another 3 or 4 miles came to the edge of a solid barrier of ice.
On the
map (Photo of Island Barrier map of 1943) it may be seen that north of Pugh Island there is a good-sized harbor between Crowell's Island and the mainland of Baffin Island to the west. This was the harbor where the trawlers anchored when unloading all that went into the making of Crystal Two in October. When Captain Bartlett saw the solid ice in the harbor in the west shore of Crowell’s Island, he sought anchorage in a cove (Photo of Morrissey and Polaris at anchor in Cincinnati Press Channel - 27 July 1942) on the shore from Pugh Island where a projecting point offered protection from the onslaughts of the ice floe, in case it should break loose and charge down the passage on a strong ebb tide. That afternoon Dr. Rigby and I went ashore on the northern headland of Pugh Island and climbed to its highest point whence we could look over the many islands, large and small, that make the northwest fringe of the barrier labyrinth, and north of that the wide expanse of the upper bay, now a solid sheet of snow ice. The harbor by the base lay spread before us, and the ice that covered its surface looked like a lattice of snow ice with regular patches of open water. While on the hilltop we built cairns for markers, took photographs, and did a bit of amateur surveying from this excellent observation post before we returned to the ship.I reported what we had seen from the hill and the appearance of ice about to break up in the harbor, but Captain Bob could judge ice better from the deck of his boat than we could looking down from a hilltop. There was no open water and he knew it, and in trenchant language he sounded a warning against venturing forth. "I’ve known a vessel to go into ice like that and get crushed" he said in a marked manner. I offered no more comments on ice that afternoon. What had looked to us like patches of open water was really firm gray ice. We could only wait till the forces of Nature should break up the ice and sweep it out to sea.