Jacob Bursey
| Jacob Bursey | |
|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Born |
September 20, 1903 St. Lunaire, Newfoundland, Canada |
| Died | March 1, 1980 (aged 76) Montague, Michigan |
| Spouse(s) | Ada DeGraff |
| Military service | |
| Service/branch | United States Coast Guard |
| Rank | Commander |
Cmdr Jack (Jacob) Bursey (1903-1980) was a polar explorer, a US Coast Guard officer, and a lecturer. He was born in Newfoundland prior to its becoming a Canadian province.
Born in 1903 in a small village called St. Lunaire in Newfoundland, Bursey was 5’7” tall, a husky vibrant man who seemed bigger than life. He grew up fishing on the Grand Banks from his father’s schooner, driving dog teams across the frozen land and bay, skinning seals for food and clothing. The seafaring family from which he came worked hard six days a week, gardening in the rocky soil and fishing in the summer and mending nets, dogsledding, and catching seals in the winter. Bursey’s family was a little better off than many of his cousins, aunts, and uncles because of their schooner and their family-owned store where the fisher folk traded. They also bought and sold all the fish in the village. With two brothers and three sisters, everyone had to work to survive. Men did not dare to fear, for then they would fear life itself.
Bursey wanted an education and asked the doctor in St. Anthony, a neighboring community, if he could help. He did, and when 21, Bursey left home and enrolled at a Boston institute in the United States.
In 1927 he read in a newspaper that Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd was planning an expedition to the Antarctic and needed dog drivers and skiers. He made up his mind to go and applied. So did 50,000 other adventurous American males.
Bursey took a job in New York to be more available. But when the selections were made the next spring, his name was not among them. With a letter of recommendation from his employer and even plans to become a stowaway if necessary, he went to the expedition office and appealed to one of Byrd’s men who promised to do his best. The departure was scheduled in less than two weeks.
In two days Bursey was granted an interview with Byrd. “I was disappointed when I first saw Commander Byrd,” he recalled in an interview in 1979 in the Grand Rapids Press. “I had pictured him as a 7-foot giant with fire in his eyes. Instead, he was a slight man. Looking at me from across the desk, he seemed humble and friendly. It was probably the shortest interview on record.”
Byrd then told him that all his men were hired, but that he would see what he could do.
Luck and experienced were with Bursey. He was signed on as a seaman on the barque, the SS City of New York, one of two ships Byrd was taking on the expedition to the Bay of Whales, Antarctica. The City of New York, a sailing vessel, was probably one of the last of her kind in the world. Built of wood in Norway in 1882 for the Greenland sealing trade, with sides 34 inches thick, she was made to withstand much of the pressure of shifting ice. Roald Amundsen, as a young man, had sailed on her during one of her first voyages.
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