Co-host or Narrator (23:27)
The following day, the Inuit hunters came back to that exact spot, that icy hill that looked down to the ocean below. Except this time they had brought along several pounds of seal meat. So the previous day, when these hunters had gone back to their village to tell the others about what they had just seen, oddly enough, the consensus became that, you know, of course the Kalunat are sort of dangerous to us and we should keep our distance. But from what you're describing, it sounds an awful lot like these men. These white Men must just be starving. Like the way they're moving, the fact that men are falling down and dying and they have this sled full of dead bodies, they're out here in the Arctic wild. I mean, this is a very unforgiving place. And so the consensus was they're starving to death. That's what you're seeing. That's why they're acting the way they are. And so maybe the move here is you hunters go back to that same spot, try to find these Kalunat and give them some food. Not only to help them, you know, to be good people, good stewards of humanity, but also as sort of like a peace offering, because there was tension between the Inuit people and the Kolunat. And so these hunters had agreed, they had showed up with the intention of, you know, finding these 40 some odd white men, giving them some food and maybe even offering some help, you know, if they needed it. And so that day, the Inuit hunters, they make it back to their spot, they climb up that icy hill and they look down towards the ocean below, and there's nobody there. It's just complete isolation. And so the hunters, they go down to the coastline and they see footprints from the day before. They find, you know, the tracks from the sled that have been being dragged, and they just start tracking the footprints of these white men. And for hours, these hunters are just following the footprints along this coastline, you know, in the snow and the ice. And they're looking up ahead, they don't see anybody. And it's like, wow, like, these guys, they covered a huge amount of ground. Like, where did they go? And eventually, after hours of this, the hunters come upon this campsite, but it's totally abandoned. It's right on the edge of the water. And based on where the campsite was and sort of how fresh it looked, it seemed pretty obvious that at some point, clearly the Kalunat had been camped out here, but they clearly are not here now. But interestingly, the people that had been here, presumably the white men, they had left behind quite a few of their supplies, like the remains of a fire. And sitting over the fire was this big pot, like a metal pot. And you would think if you're struggling to survive out here, that you would definitely want to keep some of your cooking supplies. But no, that was left behind along with several other tools. And so the Inuit hunters, they're looking around thinking, okay, well, maybe they just stepped away and they're going to come back. But they searched the vicinity of the campsite, but nobody was there. The footprints just kind of picked up and continued off into the distance. And so, feeling pretty puzzled by this, the Inuit hunters decided to just search the campsite and try to get some clue as to what's going on with these white men. And eventually, after searching through all the different things that had been left behind, they came back to that fire and that pot that had a lid over it that was sitting right there. And one of the hunters walks up to the pot, he grabs the lid, he lifts it off, and when he saw what was inside, he reeled back in horror. Several months later, that same group of Inuit hunters had hiked miles and miles down that same coastline of King William island until they saw, off in the distance, right off the coast, this big wooden ship. And these hunters knew this ship belonged to the Kolenaut. And today, their plan was to break into the ship and raid it. Because just recently, these hunters had finally kind of solved the mystery of what happened to those, you know, 40 some odd white men they had seen, because they came across this mass grave site, you know, of like 30 plus white men all dead in the snow. And clearly they had starved to death and died from. From exposure. And so it just sort of seemed like this unfortunate thing that these guys had hiked and hiked and hiked and just kind of fell down and died. But now that the Inuit hunters knew that all these white men were dead, they're like, well, there's a ship sitting right out there that no one's gonna claim, so why don't we take whatever's inside of it? And so the Inuit hunters walked out onto the ocean, which was completely frozen. So the ship, you know, it's off the coast, but it's basically a pathway of ice right up to the ship. And so the hunters, they walked on this ice all the way out to the ship, and when they got there, unsurprisingly, it was totally vacant. It's silent, it's still. Clearly, there's nobody in this ship. Now, as the Inuit hunters climbed the side of the ship and got ready to go inside, they all had set their expectations to be like, okay, clearly the men who had inhabited this ship at one point, the white men, the Kalunat, they obviously abandoned the ship and tried their luck on land, unsuccessfully. So clearly something must have happened out here, like they ran out of food or there was a leak in the ship or some sort of chaos ensued here that caused them to abandon their shelter and, you know, head towards the Arctic wilds, right? But once they got on board the ship, and looked around, they quickly realized the ship was in pristine condition. I mean, there was no damage to the ship. It was practically brand new, preserved out in the ice here. When they went down below, they discovered there were all these bedrooms with these incredibly comfortable looking beds, and there was bunk beds and hammocks with linens and pillows. There was a library with hundreds of books. There were games, there was all this cutlery in fine china. And just off the kitchen, in their pantry was this massive food storage room full of food, canned goods, all still good, that apparently had just been left behind. And so the Inuit hunters, they're thinking, like, how is this possible? What caused these white men to abandon their ship, which presumably was perfect, pristine, provided much better shelter, and also they abandoned all their food like they clearly weren't starving. So what happened? What caused them to go on land and die horrible deaths? Well, the reason for this would not fully make sense for another 130 years because it was in the 1980s when researchers actually began to analyze the remains of these white men, those 30, 40 white men who were found dead on King William Island. It would turn out those men were explorers who had been sent out to the Arctic by the British government. And they had been well outfitted when they were sent out on their journey. I mean, they were given that incredible ship and they were given all these supplies, including a whole bunch of canned food items. However, what these explorers didn't know is that their canned food had become tainted with lead. And so as they slowly were eating all these canned food items, they were slowly poisoning themselves. And one of the side effects of lead poisoning, in addition to feeling nauseous and horribly sick, is it drives you crazy. It basically gives you these wild mood swings. And so, like the whole ship, all these men are undergoing these totally insane mood swings and basically falling into actual mental hysteria out on this ship. And so, in their hysterics, all these men decide to abandon their ship and head into the Arctic wild to forage for food. And who knows what? I mean, they literally were out of their minds. And when they got to land into the wilderness, they didn't find food, they didn't find shelter. They found death and misery. And as they devolved into insanity and men began falling down and dying because they were starving to death, they began eating their brothers. They began eating the dead men. That sled they were dragging along was not to preserve the bodies, to give them a proper burial down the road. It was like their mobile refrigeration unit. They were dragging those bodies along and then eating them. And so the reason those Inuit hunters were so horrified when they discovered that campsite and they looked inside of that pot, well, it's because inside of the pot was clearly a human skull. And that skull had been cracked open as if whoever was tending this pot had literally been scooping in and basically eating this person's brain. To this day, bones of the crew members of that failed expedition are still being found on King William Island.
