In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

by Hampton Sides

WHAT, PRECISELY, HAD happened on St. Lawrence Island? Many whalers suspected an epidemic of some kind, but others believed the mass death was caused by the complete failure of the Yupiks’ hunt in the summer and fall of 1878—which, in turn, was caused by an abundance of rum and whiskey illegally sold to the St. Lawrence Islanders by American traffickers. With alcohol around, Yupik life had ground to a halt—“as long as the rum lasts,” wrote Hooper, “they do nothing but drink and fight.” Drunkenness, said Muir, had “rendered them careless about the laying up of ordinary supplies of food for the winter.” Indeed, near one of the huts, Hooper counted eight empty whiskey casks. Then an extremely severe winter followed, with far more ice than usual, which made it harder to find seals and whales. By early 1879, the Yupiks all over St. Lawrence Island had begun to starve.