CAPE SHERIDAN AT LAST
To put it mildly, the position in which we now found ourselves was
dangerous--even with the assistance of so experienced and steady an ice
fighter as Bartlett. As day followed day and still we hung there at
Lincoln Bay, we should doubtless have been extremely anxious had the
_Roosevelt_ not had a similar experience on the preceding voyage. But we
believed that sooner or later the movement of the ice would enable us to
steam the few remaining miles to Cape Sheridan, and possibly beyond
there; for our objective point was some twenty-five miles to the
northwest of our former winter quarters in 1905-06. We tried to possess
our souls in patience, and if sometimes the delay got on our nerves,
there was nothing to be gained by talking about it.
On the first of September the ice did not seem to be moving quite so
rapidly. The evening before MacMillan had been sent ashore to the bluffs
beyond Shelter River, and he had reported that there was considerable
open water along the shore. Bartlett then went forward to reconnoiter.
On his return he also reported open water, but with corners of big floes
barring it in every direction.
That the fall hunting might get under way, Ootah, Aletah, Ooblooyah, and
Ooqueah started off for the Lake Hazen region, with a sledge and eight
dogs, after musk-oxen and reindeer. It had been planned that they should
hunt there until joined by other Eskimos from the ship, after she
reached Cape Sheridan or Porter Bay. But in the absence of snow, the
going was too rough for even a light sledge, and the Eskimos returned.
At last, a little before midnight on the 2d, we got out of the _impasse_
at Lincoln Bay, where we had been held up for ten days. The cables were
taken in, and the _Roosevelt_, steaming first forward and then astern,
extricated herself from the shore pack. We felt as men must feel who are
released from prison. There was a narrow lane of open water following
the shore, and along that course we steamed, rounding Cape Union about
half an hour before midnight.
But we were soon held up again by the ice, a little below Black Cape, a
dark cone-shaped mountain standing alone, on the eastern side washed by
the waters of the sea, on the west separated by deep valleys from the
adjacent mountains. It was a scene of indescribable grandeur, for the
coast was lined for miles with bergs, forced shoreward, broken and
tilted at right angles. At Black Cape we had made half the distance
between our former position at Lincoln Bay and the longed-for shelter at
Cape Sheridan.
As we made fast against the land ice, a sixty-foot thick fragment of a
floe was driven with frightful force up on the shore a little to the
north of us. Had we been in the way of it--but a navigator of these
channels must not dwell too much on such contingencies.
As an extra precaution, I had the Eskimos with axes bevel off the edge
of the ice-foot abreast of the ship, to facilitate her rising if she
should be squeezed by the heavy floes outside. It was snowing lightly
all day long; but I went ashore, walking along the ice-foot to the next
river, and up to the summit of Black Cape. An occasional walk on land
was a relief from the stench and disorder of the ship, for the dogs kept
the _Roosevelt_ in a very unclean condition. Many persons have asked how
we could endure the presence of nearly two hundred and fifty dogs on the
deck of a small ship; but every achievement has its drawbacks, and it
must not be forgotten that without the dogs we could not have reached
the Pole.
At this point we landed another cache, similar to the one at Lincoln
Bay, to be ready for anything that might happen.
On the 4th, the wind came strong from the south, and as there seemed to
be a little open water ahead, at eight in the morning we started to get
out of our berth. It took an hour to break up the "slob" ice which had
cemented about the ship. We were happy to be under way again; but at the
delta just ahead of us the ice refused to open, the drift ice from the
south was coming up rapidly before the wind, and we were compelled to
hurry back to our former berth below Black Cape. We did not get in again
without some trouble as the strong wind made the _Roosevelt_ hard to
manage. The starboard quarter boat was badly smashed against the corner
of a big berg piece, and the starboard corner of the forward deck house
was almost ripped from the decking.
But all hands were stimulated by the thought that we were now only a few
miles from Cape Sheridan--so near our goal that we were restless to be
off again. That evening, with the ebb tide, the ice slackened, and the
order was given to steam ahead. After one or two narrow escapes between
the rapidly running floes, we reached the delta of Black Cape River, a
few miles beyond our former place. But when the tide turned we were
obliged to hurry back about a quarter of a mile to the shelter of a
grounded berg.
When the hawsers were made fast I went ashore and up to the delta to
look at the ice beyond. Not a crack or hole was visible to the north,
and the path by which we had retreated to our present position was now a
sea of solid ice. Should we _ever_ be able to make the few remaining
miles?
The wind continued to blow violently from the south, the ice began to
slack off a little behind us, and at three o'clock in the morning of the
5th of September there was a gradually widening lead to the north. I
felt that it was now or never, and the order went down for every pound
of steam and full speed. Thus we rounded Cape Rawson, and Cape Sheridan
was in view. At last! That sloping headland looked more beautiful than
the gates of paradise to our vigil-wearied eyes.
We rounded the cape at a quarter past seven, fifteen minutes later than
the time of our arrival in 1905. Since the 23d of August, thirteen days
before, neither Bartlett nor I had had our clothes off.
Should we stop here? There was still open water beyond. I gave orders to
steam ahead, hoping that we might reach Porter Bay. But after two miles
we came to another impassable barrier of ice, and it was decided that it
was Cape Sheridan again for this year's winter quarters. Back we went,
and the work of getting the _Roosevelt_ inside the tide crack was begun.
My heart was light. Those two miles beyond Cape Sheridan had given us
the record of "farthest north" which any vessel had ever reached under
her own steam, 82° 30´. One vessel only, Nansen's _Fram_, had been
farther north, but she had drifted there stern foremost, a plaything of
the ice. Again the little black, strenuous _Roosevelt_ had proven
herself the champion.
There are some feelings which a man cannot express in words. Such were
mine as the mooring lines went out onto the ice foot at Cape Sheridan.
We had kept the scheduled time of our program and had negotiated the
first part of the difficult proposition--that of driving a ship from New
York to a point within striking distance of the Pole. All the
uncertainties of ice navigation--the possible loss of the _Roosevelt_
and a large quantity of our supplies--were at an end. Another source of
gratification was the realization that this last voyage had further
accentuated the value of detailed experience in this arduous work.
Notwithstanding the delays which had sometimes seemed endless, we had
made the voyage with only a small percentage of the anxieties and injury
to the ship which we had experienced on the former upward journey in
1905.
Lying there, with the northern bounds of all known lands--except those
close to us--lying far to the south, we were in a position properly to
attack the second part of our problem, the projection of a sledge party
from the ship to the Pole itself. This rounding of Cape Sheridan was not
the ultimate achievement probable.
So great was our relief at having driven the _Roosevelt_ through the ice
of Robeson Channel, that as soon as the mooring lines were out at Cape
Sheridan we set to work unloading the ship with light-hearted eagerness.
The _Roosevelt_ was grounded inside the tide crack, and the first things
we got ashore were the two hundred and forty-six dogs, which had made
the ship a noisy and ill-smelling inferno for the last eighteen days.
They were simply dropped over the rail onto the ice, and in a few
minutes the shore in all directions was dotted with them, as they ran,
leaped and barked in the snow. The decks were washed down with hose, and
the work of unloading began. First the sledges came down from the bridge
deck, where they had been built during the upward voyage, a fine fleet
of twenty-three.
[Illustration: THE ROOSEVELT DRYING OUT HER SAILS AT CAPE SHERIDAN,
SEPTEMBER, 1908
(The Dark Spots on the Shore are the Supplies and Equipment of the
Expedition)]
We wanted to get the ship well inside the ice barrier where she would be
really safe, so we lightened her that she might float with the high
tide. We made chutes from planks, and down these we slid the oil cases
from the main deck and the hold. It was necessary to work carefully, as
the ice was thin at that season. Later two or three sledge loads of
supplies broke through, and the Eskimos with them; but as the water was
only five or six feet deep, and the supplies were packed in tins, no
serious damage was done.
While the oil was being unloaded, a party of men went out with ice
chisels, poles, saws, and so forth, chopping away the ice so that we
could warp the _Roosevelt_ in, broadside to the shore. Bartlett and I
were determined to get the ship beyond the floe-berg barrier and into
the shallow water of the ice-foot. We were not looking forward to
another winter of such torment as we had lived through on the last
previous expedition, with the ship just on the edge of the ice-foot and
subject to every movement of the hostile pack outside.
[Illustration: THE ROOSEVELT ON SEPTEMBER 12, 1908
Marie Ahnighito Peary's Birthday]
After the oil cases came the tons of whale meat from the quarter-deck,
some of it in chunks as large as a Saratoga trunk. It was thrown over
the side onto the ice, sledged ashore by the Eskimos, some hundred yards
over the ice-foot, and heaped in great piles, protected by the bags of
coal which had also been taken from the quarter-deck. Then came the
whale-boats, which were lowered from the davits and run ashore like
sledges. They were later turned bottom side up for the winter and
weighted down, so that the wind could not move them.
[Illustration: "PEARY" SLEDGES ON BOARD THE ROOSEVELT]
The work of landing the supplies and equipment consumed several days.
This is the very first work of every well-managed arctic expedition on
reaching winter quarters. With the supplies ashore, the loss of the ship
by fire or by crushing in the ice, would mean simply that the party
might have to walk home. It would not interfere with the sledge work,
nor seriously cripple the expedition. Had we lost the _Roosevelt_ at
Cape Sheridan, we should have spent the winter in the box houses which
we constructed and in the spring should have made the dash for the Pole
just the same. We should then have walked the three hundred and fifty
miles to Cape Sabine, crossed the Smith Sound ice to Etah, and waited
for a ship.
The adjacent shore for a quarter of a mile was lined with boxes, each
item of provisions having a pile to itself. This packing-box village was
christened Hubbardville, in honor of General Thomas H. Hubbard,
president of the Peary Arctic Club. When the boxes which had served as a
bed platform in the Eskimo quarters of the _Roosevelt's_ forward deck
were removed, the place was swept and scrubbed; then a bed platform was
built of boards, divided into sections for the various families and
screened in front by curtains. Under the bed platform was an open space,
where the Eskimos could keep their cooking utensils and other personal
belongings. The fastidious reader who is shocked at the idea of keeping
frying-pans under the bed should see an Eskimo family in one of their
native houses of stone and earth, eight feet across, where meat and
drink, men, women, and children are crowded indiscriminately for month
upon month in winter.
We next landed about eighty tons of coal, so that, in case we should
have to live in the box houses, there would be plenty of fuel. At that
time of the year it was not very cold. On the 8th of September the
thermometer stood at 12 above zero, the next day at 4.
The heavier cases, containing the tins of bacon, pemmican (the condensed
meat food used in the Arctic), flour, et cetera, were utilized ashore
like so many blocks of granite in constructing three houses, about
fifteen feet by thirty. All the supplies were especially packed for this
purpose, in boxes of specified dimensions--one of the innumerable
details which made for the success of the expedition. In building the
houses the tops of the boxes were placed inside, the covers removed, and
the contents taken out as needed, as from a shelf, the whole house being
one large grocery.
The roofs were made of sails thrown over boat booms or spars, and later
the walls and roof were banked in solidly with snow. Stoves were set up,
so that, if everything went well, the houses could be used as workshops
during the winter.
So here we were, safely bestowed at Cape Sheridan, and the prize seemed
already in our grasp. The contingencies which had blocked our way in
1906 were all provided for on this last expedition. We knew just what we
had to do, and just how to do it. Only a few months of waiting, the fall
hunting, and the long, dark winter were all that lay between me and the
final start. I had the dogs, the men, the experience, a fixed
determination (the same impulse which drove the ships of Columbus across
the trackless western sea)--and the end lay with that Destiny which
favors the man who follows his faith and his dream to the last breath.