IN WINTER QUARTERS
When the removal of supplies had lightened the _Roosevelt_ so much that
Bartlett got her considerably farther in shore, she lay with her nose
pointing almost true north. It cheered us, for this was her constant
habit. It seemed almost like the purpose of a living creature. Whenever
on the upward voyage--either this time or on her first trip in 1905--the
ship was beset in the ice so that we lost control of her, she always
swung around of her own accord and pointed north. When twisting through
the ice, if we got caught when the ship was headed east or west, it was
only a little while before the pressure would swing her round till once
more she looked northward. Even on the return journey, in 1906, it was
the same--as if the ship realized she had not accomplished her purpose
and wanted to go back. The sailors noticed it, and used to talk about
it. They said the _Roosevelt_ was not satisfied, that she knew she had
not done her work.
When we got the vessel as near the shore as possible, the ship's people
began to make her ready for the winter. The engine-room force was busy
blowing down the boilers, putting the machinery out of commission,
removing every drop of water from the pipes and elbows so the cold of
winter should not burst them; and the crew was busy taking down the
sails, slacking off the rigging, so the contraction from the intense
cold of winter should not cause damage, with a thousand and one details
of like character.
Before the sails were taken down, they were all set, that they might be
thoroughly dried out by sun and wind. The ship was a beautiful sight,
held fast in the embrace of the ice and with her cables out, but with
every sail filled with wind like a yacht in a race.
While this work was going on small hunting parties of Eskimos were sent
to the Lake Hazen region, but they met with little success. A few hares
were secured, but musk-oxen seemed to have vanished. This troubled me,
for it raised a fear that the hunting of the former expedition had
killed off the game, or driven it away. The Eskimo women set their fox
traps all along the shore for five miles or so each way, and they were
more successful than the men, obtaining some thirty or forty foxes in
the course of the fall and winter. The women also went on fishing trips
to the ponds of the neighborhood, and brought in many mottled beauties.
The Eskimo method of fishing is interesting. The fish in that region
will not rise to bait but are captured by cutting a hole in the ice and
dropping in a piece of ivory carved in the shape of a small fish. When
the fish rises to examine this visitor, it is secured with a spear. The
Eskimo fish spear has a central shaft with a sharp piece of steel,
usually an old nail, set in the end. On each side is a piece of deer
antler pointing downward, lashed onto the shaft with a fine line, and
sharp nails, pointing inward, are set in the two fragments of antler.
When this spear is thrust down on the fish, the antlers spread as they
strike the fish's back; he is impaled by the sharp point above him, and
the sharp barbs on either side keep him from getting away.
The char (?) of North Grant Land is a beautiful mottled fish, weighing
sometimes as much as eleven or twelve pounds. I believe that the pink
fiber of these fish--taken from water never warmer than 35° or 40° above
zero--is the firmest and sweetest fish fiber in the world. During my
early expeditions in this region, I would spear one of these beauties
and throw him on the ice to freeze, then pick him up and fling him down
so as to shatter the flesh under the skin, lay him on the sledge, and as
I walked away pick out morsels of the pink flesh and eat them as one
would eat strawberries.
In September of 1900 with these fish a party of six men and twenty-three
dogs were supported for some ten days, until we found musk-oxen. We
speared the fish in the way the Eskimos taught us, using the regular
native spear.
The new members of the expedition were naturally anxious to go
sight-seeing. MacMillan had an attack of the grip, but Borup and Dr.
Goodsell scoured the surrounding country. Hubbardville could not boast
its Westminster Abbey nor its Arc de Triomphe, but there were Petersen's
grave and the _Alert_ and _Roosevelt_ cairns, both in the neighborhood,
and visible from the ship.
About a mile and a half southwest from our winter quarters was the
memorial headboard of Petersen, the Danish interpreter of the English
expedition of 1875-76. He died as the result of exposure on a sledge
trip, and was buried there abreast of the _Alert's_ winter quarters. The
grave is covered with a large flat slab, and at the head is a board
covered with a copper sheet from the boiler room of the _Alert_, with
the inscription punched in it. There may be a lonelier grave somewhere
on earth, but if so I have no knowledge of it. No explorer, not even the
youngest and most thoughtless, could stand before that "mute reminder of
heroic bones" without a feeling of reverence and awe. There is something
menacing in that dark silhouette against the white snow, as if the
mysterious Arctic were reminding the intruder that he might be chosen
next to remain with her forever.
Not far away is the _Alert's_ cairn, from which I took the British
record in 1905, a copy of it being replaced by Ross Marvin, according to
the custom of explorers. In view of his tragic end, in the spring of
1909, the farthest north of all deaths known to man, this visit of
Marvin's to the neighborhood of Petersen's grave has a peculiar pathos.
The _Roosevelt_ cairn, erected by Marvin in 1906, is directly abreast of
the ship's location at Cape Sheridan in 1905-06 and about one mile
inland. It is on a high point of land, about four hundred feet above the
water. The record is in a prune can, at the bottom of the pile of
stones, and was written by Marvin himself in lead-pencil. The cairn is
surmounted by a cross, made of the oak plank from our sledge runners. It
faces north, and at the intersection of the upright and the crosspiece
there is a large "R" cut in the wood. When I went up to see it, soon
after our arrival this last time, the cross was leaning toward the
north, as if from the intentness of its three years' northward gazing.
On the 12th of September we had a holiday, it being the fifteenth
birthday of my daughter, Marie Ahnighito, who was born at Anniversary
Lodge, Greenland--the most northerly born of all white children. Ten
years before, we had celebrated her fifth birthday on the Windward. Many
icebergs had drifted down the channels since then, and I was still
following the same ideal which had given my daughter so cold and strange
a birthplace.
There was a driving snowstorm that day, but Bartlett dressed the ship in
all the flags, the full international code, and the bright colors of the
bunting made a striking contrast to the gray-white sky. Percy, the
steward, had baked a special birthday cake, and we had it, surmounted
with fifteen blazing candles, on our supper table. Just after breakfast
the Eskimos came in with a polar bear, a female yearling six feet long,
and I determined to have it mounted for Marie's birthday bear. It should
be standing and advancing, one paw extended as if to shake, the head on
one side and a bearish smile on the face. The bear provided us with
juicy steaks, and we had a special tablecloth, our best cups and
saucers, new spoons, et cetera.
A day or two later we began to get the dogs made fast, in preparation
for the first sledge parties. There was now sufficient snow to begin the
transportation of supplies toward Cape Columbia, and Black Cliffs Bay
was frozen over. The Eskimos tied the dogs, in teams of five or six, to
stakes driven into the shore or holes cut in the ice. They made a fine
picture, looking shoreward from the ship--nearly two hundred and fifty
of them--and their barking could be heard at all hours.
It must be remembered that day and night were still determined only by
the clock, as the ever-circling sun had not yet set. By reason of the
industry of all hands on the upward voyage, everything was now ready for
the fall work. The Eskimos had built the sledges and made the dog
harnesses, and Matt Henson had finished the "kitchen boxes," which
enclosed our oil stoves in the field, while the busy needles of the
Eskimo women had provided every man with a fur outfit.
In the North we wear the regular Eskimo garments, with certain
modifications. First of all, there is the _kooletah_, a fur jacket with
no buttons, which goes on over the head. For summer wear the Eskimos
make it of sealskin, but for winter it is made of fox or deerskin.
For our own use, we had jackets made of Michigan sheepskin. We took the
skins up with us, and the women made the garments, but when it was very
cold we wore the deerskin or foxskin jacket of the Eskimos. Attached to
this jacket is a hood, and around the face is a thick roll made of
fox-tails.
The _ahteah_ is a shirt, usually of fawn skin, with the hair inside, and
the Eskimos wear it even in summer. In some of the photographs of
natives, the skilful piecing together of the skins in the shirt can be
traced. The Eskimo women are more adept at this work than are any of
the furriers of civilization. They sew the skins with the sinew taken
from the back of the deer--the jumping muscle. It is absolutely
unbreakable, and moisture does not rot it. For the coarser work of
sewing boots, canoes, and tents, they use the sinew from the tail of the
narwhal. The sewing is now done with the steel needles I have given
them; but in former years they used a punch made of bone, passing the
sinew through the hole, as a shoemaker uses a "waxed end." They do not
cut the skins with shears, as that would injure the fur; but with a
"woman's knife," similar to an old-fashioned mincemeat chopper.
The shaggy fur trousers are invariably made from the skins of the polar
bear. Then there are stockings of hareskin, and the _kamiks_, or boots,
of sealskin, soled with the heavier skin of the square-flipper seal. On
the ship, on sledge journeys, and in all the field work of the winter,
the regular footgear of the Eskimos was worn. Add the warm fur mittens,
and the winter wardrobe is complete.
It may reasonably be inquired whether the close housing for so long a
time of such a considerable number of human beings did not result in
personal friction, due to the inevitable accumulation of a thousand and
one petty irritations. To some extent it did. But the principal members
of the expedition were men of such character that they were able to
exercise an admirable self-restraint that prevented any unpleasant
results of consequence. Practically the only trouble of a personal sort
that was of any importance occurred between one of the sailors and an
Eskimo whom we called Harrigan.
Harrigan acquired this sobriquet on account of his ear for music. The
crew used to be fond of singing that energetic Irish air which was
popular for some years along Broadway and which concludes
ungrammatically with the words "Harrigan--that's me." The Eskimo in
question seemed fascinated by this song and in time learned those three
words and practised them with so much assiduity that he was ultimately
able to sing them in a manner not wholly uncouth.
In addition to his musical leanings, Harrigan was a practical joker, and
on one occasion he was exercising his humorous talents in the forecastle
to the considerable discomfort of one of the crew. Ultimately the
sailor, unable to rid himself of his persecutor in any other way,
resorted to the use of his fists. The Eskimos, while good wrestlers, are
far from adepts at the "manly art of self-defense," and the result was
that Harrigan emerged from the forecastle with a well-blackened eye and
a keen sense of having been ill used. He complained bitterly of his
treatment, but I gave him a new shirt and told him to keep away from the
forecastle where the sailors were, and in a few hours he had forgotten
it like a school boy, so that the affair passed off without leaving any
permanent ill feeling, and soon Harrigan was again cheerfully croaking
his "Harrigan--that's me."