PATHETIC LAST MESSAGE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 191, 10 February 1912, Page 10 (Supplement)

PATHETIC LAST MESSAGE

A little notebook whose pages were covered with the trembling scrawl of a man nearly dead from hunger and cold has come into the hands of Colonel White, of the North-West Mounted Police of Canada. It is the journal of Inspector Fitzgerald, who with three comrades of the mounted police perished in the w'ilds of North-West Canada in the bitter cold of last winter. The four bodies were found on March 20 last about fifty miles from Fort McPherson, above the Arctic Circle, and a little south of the delta of the Mackenzie river. The notebook was in Fitzgerald's pocket, and the story of suffering was told in the few lines that the inspector wrote from day to day. The record was written in pencil, with the exception of the last entry, which was deciphered with difficulty. It was written on a crumpled piece of paper which was put into the notebook, and the letters were traced with a charred splinter of wood from the remaining sledge. The men were on their way north to Fort McPherson with dog sledges. The snow was deep, and they lost the trail. The snow kept sifting down almost incessantly, and travelling became more and more difficult. The party were about 250 miles from the fort when their trouble began and the daily marches grew shorter as they became more and more enfeebled. On January 17 their food supply was reduced to ten pounds of flour and eight pounds of laid. They had, besides, a little stock of dried fish for the dogs. On January 20 the last of the flour and lard had been consumed and the men began to kill their dogs, of which they had twelve. These facts were jotted down by Fitzgerald, but he did not begin his regular record till a week later, on January 27, when he told the story in a few words nearly every day:— January 27.—Eighteen degrees below zero.

We [eft camp at 7.20 a.m. Powdery snow falling all the time. There is a cache of provisions somewhere near, but we could not rind it. It is very difficult to advance. We killed another dog, and have now only nine. Jan. 29.—Twenty degrees below zero. All the men are exhausted. We killed another dog. Buried seven dog harnesses, which were useless to u». Jan. 30. —Fifty-two degrees below zero. Our marches grow shorter and shorter. We are all sick. I believe the reason for this is that we ate dog liver. Jan. 31. —Sixty-two degrees below zero in the afternoon. It is becoming very hard to go on. The skin is peeling in strips from our bodies. We all feel the need of substantial food.

Feb. I.—Fifty-one degrees below zero. We killed another dog this evening. It is the eighth we have killed for food. We think we have another hundred miles to make. I believe we will reach the fort but the men and remaining dogs are very feeble. We have a very little fish left for the four dogs yet.alive. The last entry in his journal was dated February 5. Fitzgerald wrote that the thermometer registered 48 degrees. He found at midday that he had a frozen foot; they had travelled about eight miles that day, and all were in the direst extremity from hunger and cold. It is . not known how far they advanced beyond the place where these words were written. Perhaps they died there. On the slip of paper in the notebook were written twenty words by means of a charred splinter. In this note the dying inspector bade his mother good-bye and gave her everything tfiat was his. The last words he wrote were "God be praised." Not a word of compla\nt, not a murmur for the suffering that was ending their lives. The four men lay down in the snow close together and breathed their last. Beside them were the bodies of two dogs which their masters had not the to kill.