THE ROOSEVELT'S NARROW ESCAPE
It is perfectly true that the building business is not extensive in the
arctic regions, but it is also a fact that if you expect to travel
extensively there you must know how to build your own dwellings. If you
neglect to instruct yourself in this direction the chances are that some
time or other you will regret it.
Toward the end of the autumn field work, the use of the canvas tents had
been discontinued, and snow igloos had been constructed along the line
of march. These were permanent, and were used by the various parties,
one after the other. The new members of the expedition were instructed
in the art of igloo building by Marvin, Henson, and the Eskimos. No man
should go into the field in the North in winter unless he knows how to
build a shelter for himself against the cold and the storm.
The size of the igloo depends usually upon the number of men in the
party. If built for three men, it will be about five by eight feet on
the inside; if for five men, it will be about eight by ten, in order to
give greater width to the sleeping platform.
Four good men can build one of these snow houses in an hour. Each takes
a saw knife from the up-standers of the sledge and sets to work cutting
snow blocks. The saw knives are about eighteen inches long and are
strong and stiff, with a cutting edge on one side and saw-teeth on the
other. The blocks of snow are of different sizes, those for the bottom
row being larger and heavier than those for the upper rows, and all are
curved on the inner side, so that when set together they will form a
circle. The thickness of the walls depends upon the hardness of the
snow. If it is closely packed, the walls may be only a few inches thick;
if the snow is soft, the blocks are thicker, that they may hold their
shape. The blocks for the bottom layer are sometimes two or three feet
long and two feet high; but sometimes they are much smaller, as there is
no ironclad rule about it.
When sufficient blocks have been cut to make an igloo, an Eskimo takes
his position on the spot (usually a sloping bank of snow) which is to be
the center of the structure. Then the others bring the snow blocks and
place them end to end, on edge, to form an egg-shaped ring about the man
in the center, who deftly joints and fits them with his snow knife. The
second row is placed on top of the first, but sloping slightly inward;
and the following rows are carried up in a gradually ascending spiral,
each successive layer leaning inward a little more, and each block held
in place by the blocks on either side, until finally an aperture is left
in the top to be filled with one block.
This block is then properly shaped by the man inside the igloo; he
pushes it up endwise through the aperture, turns it over by reaching
through the top, lowers it into place, and chips off with his knife
until it fits the hole like the keystone of an arch, firmly keying the
structure, whose general proportions are not unlike those of a beehive.
A hole just large enough for a man to crawl through is cut close to the
bottom on one side, and any superfluous snow inside the igloo is thrown
out through this hole. In the rear or larger end, the sloping floor is
leveled off to form a bed platform, and in front of this the floor is
dug down a foot or more for a standing space and a place for the
cookers.
Then the sleeping gear and cooking outfit are passed into the igloo,
and, after the dogs have been fed and tethered for the night, the
members of the party enter, the opening at the bottom is closed by a
large block of snow, the edges of which have been shaped and chipped by
a saw knife to make a tight joint, and everything is ready for the
night.
After the cookers are lighted, the igloo is soon comparatively warm, and
in the arctic regions, when men are tired out from a long march, they
generally fall asleep easily. Insomnia is not one of the arctic
annoyances.
We never carry alarm clocks in the field to arouse us in the morning.
The first man who has had his sleep out looks at his watch, and if it is
time to be on the march again, he wakes the others. After breakfast we
break camp and are out again.
I did not join the field parties during the winter moons this time, but
remained on the ship, going over and perfecting the plans for the spring
campaign--the sledge journey toward the Pole--and giving considerable
study to the new type of Peary sledge, to the improvement of details of
clothing, and to experimenting with the new alcohol stove which I had
designed for the spring work--determining the most effective charge of
alcohol, the most effective size of broken ice for melting, and so on.
The question of weights is a most important factor in all sledge
equipment, and it was necessary constantly to study to obtain the
maximum effectiveness with the minimum weight and bulk. For relaxation,
I devoted many hours to a new form of taxidermy.
About the middle of November I had a large snow igloo built on the top
of the hatch on the main deck of the _Roosevelt_, which we called "the
studio," and Borup and I began to experiment with flashlight pictures of
the Eskimos. They had become accustomed to seeing counterfeit
presentments of themselves on paper, and were very patient models. We
also got some good moonlight pictures--time exposures varying from ten
minutes to two or three hours.
On this last expedition I did not permit myself to dream about the
future, to hope, or to fear. On the 1905-06 expedition I had done too
much dreaming; this time I knew better. Too often in the past had I
found myself face to face with impassable barriers. Whenever I caught
myself building air castles, I would either attack some work requiring
intense application of the mind, or would go to sleep--it was hard
sometimes to fight back the dreams, especially in my solitary walks on
the ice-foot under the arctic moon.
On the evening of November 11, there was a brilliant paraselene, two
distinct halos and eight false moons being visible in the southern sky.
This phenomenon is not unusual in the Arctic, and is caused by the frost
crystals in the air. On this particular occasion the inner halo had a
false moon at its zenith, another at its nadir, and one each at the
right and left. Outside was another halo, with four other moons.
Sometimes during the summer we see the parhelion, a similar phenomenon
of the sun. I have seen the appearance of the false suns--or sun-dogs as
the sailors call them--so near that the lowest one would seem to fall
between me and a snow-bank twenty feet away, so near that by moving my
head backward and forward I could shut it out or bring it into view.
This was the nearest I ever came to finding the pot of gold at the foot
of the rainbow.
On the night of November 12, the ice of the channel pack, which for more
than two months had seemed unmindful of our intrusive presence, arose in
wrath and tried to hurl us upon the equally inhospitable shore.
All that evening the wind had been gradually increasing in violence, and
about half-past eleven the ship began to complain, creaking, groaning
and muttering to herself. I lay in my bunk and listened to the wind in
the humming rigging, while the moonlight, shining through the porthole,
filled the cabin with dim shadows. Toward midnight, mingled with the
noises of the ship, another and more ominous sound became audible--the
grinding of the ice in the channel outside.
I threw on my clothes and went on deck. The tide was running flood, and
the ice was moving resistlessly past the point of the cape. The nearer
ice, between us and the outer pack, was humming and groaning with the
steadily increasing pressure. By the light of the moon we could see the
pack as it began to break and pile up just beyond the edge of the
ice-foot outside us. A few minutes later the whole mass broke with a
rabid roar into a tumbling chaos of ice blocks, some upheaving, some
going under, and a big rafter, thirty feet high, formed at the edge of
the ice-foot within twenty feet of the ship. The invading mass grew
larger and larger and steadily advanced toward us. The grounded piece
off our starboard beam was forced in and driven against the big ice
block under our starboard quarter. The ship shook a little, but the ice
block did not move.
With every pulse of the tide the pressure and the motion continued, and
in less than an hour from the time I had come on deck, a great floe-berg
was jammed against the side of the _Roosevelt_ from amidships to the
stern. It looked for a minute as if the ship were going to be pushed
bodily aground.
All hands were called, and every fire on board was extinguished. I had
no fear of the ship being crushed by the ice, but she might be thrown on
her side, when the coals, spilled from a stove, might start that horror
of an arctic winter night, the "ship on fire." The Eskimos were
thoroughly frightened and set up their weird howling. Several families
began to gather their belongings, and in a few minutes women and
children were going over the port rail onto the ice, and making for the
box houses on the shore.
The list of the _Roosevelt_ toward the port or shore side grew steadily
greater with the increasing pressure from outside. With the turn of the
tide about half-past one in the morning, the motion ceased, but the
_Roosevelt_ never regained an even keel until the following spring. The
temperature that night was 25° below zero, but it did not seem so very
cold.
Marvin's tidal igloo was split in two, but he continued his
observations, which were of peculiar interest that night; and as soon as
the ice had quieted down Eskimos were sent out to repair the igloo.
Strange to say, none of the Eskimos was attacked with _piblokto_ because
of their fright, and I learned that one of the women, Ahtetah, had
remained quietly sewing in the Eskimo quarters during the whole
disturbance. After this experience, however, some of the Eskimo families
took up their winter residence in the box houses and in snow igloos
ashore.
The winter winds of the Far North are almost unimaginable by any one who
has never experienced them. Our winter at Cape Sheridan this last time
was less severe than the winter of 1905-06, but we had several storms
that reminded us of old times. The north and northwest winds sweeping
down along the coast are the coldest; but for absolutely insane fury the
winds from the south and the southwest, falling off the highland of the
coast with almost the impact of a wall of water, are unsurpassed
anywhere else in the arctic regions.
Sometimes these storms come on gradually, the wind from the northwest
steadily increasing in force and swinging through the west to the
southwest, gathering fury with every hour, until the snow is picked up
bodily from the land and the ice-foot and carried in blinding,
horizontal sheets across the ship. On deck it is impossible to stand or
move, except in the shelter of the rail, and so blinding is the cataract
of snow that the lamps, powerful as are their reflectors, are absolutely
indistinguishable ten feet away.
When a party in the field is overtaken by a storm, they have to stay in
the snow igloo until the fury is over. If there is no igloo near them,
they build one just as quickly as they can when they see the storm
approaching, or, if there is not time for that, they have to make a
dugout in a snow bank.
Thursday, the 26th of November, was proclaimed to be Thanksgiving Day in
Grant Land. For dinner we had soup, macaroni and cheese, and mince pie
made of musk-ox meat. During the December moon Captain Bartlett, with
two Eskimos, two sledges, and twelve dogs, went out to scour the region
between the ship and Lake Hazen for game. Henson, with similar
equipment, went to Clements Markham Inlet. Borup, with seven Eskimos,
seven sledges, and forty-two dogs, set out for Cape Colan and Cape
Columbia. Dr. Goodsell started at the same time with three Eskimos, two
sledges, and twelve dogs, to hunt in the region from Black Cliffs Bay to
James Ross Bay. The parties were to use the regular arctic ration of
tea, pemmican, and biscuit, unless they found game, in which case they
were to use fresh meat for both men and dogs. In addition to the
hunting, supplies for the spring sledge work were to be moved from one
cache to another along the coast.
To give variety to the work, the men who remained with the ship during
one moon went into the field the next. The ship's men, engineers and
sailors, seldom went on hunting trips but remained with the ship,
attending to their regular duties and sometimes helping with the work of
equipment.
I had in my cabin a good arctic library--absolutely complete as regards
the work of later years. This included Abruzzi's "On the _Polar Star_
in the Arctic Sea," Nansen's "Farthest North," Nares' "Voyage to the
Polar Sea," Markham's two volumes on arctic explorations, the narratives
of Greely, Hall, Hayes, Kane, Inglefield--in fact, all the stories of
the navigators of the Smith Sound region, as well as those who have
attempted the Pole from other directions, such as the Austrian
expedition under Payer and Weyprecht, Koldewey's East Greenland
expedition, and so forth.
Then, in antarctic literature I had Captain Scott's two magnificent
volumes, "The Voyage of the _Discovery_," Borchgrevink's "The _Southern
Cross_ Expedition to the Antarctic," Nordenskjöld's "Antarctica," the
"Antarctica" of Balch, and Carl Fricker's "The Antarctic Regions," as
well as Hugh Robert Mills' "Siege of the South Pole."
The members of the expedition used to borrow these books, one at a time,
and I think that before the winter was over they all knew pretty well
what had been done by other men in this field.
Every week or ten days throughout the winter we had to remove from our
cabins the ice caused by the condensation of the moist air where it came
in contact with the cold outer walls. Behind every article of furniture
near the outer wall the ice would form, and we used to chop it out from
under our bunks by the pailful.
The books were always placed far forward on the shelves, because if a
book were pushed back it would freeze solid to the wall. Then, if a
warmer day came, or a fire was built in the cabin, the ice would melt,
the water would run down and the leaves of the book would mold.
The sailors amused themselves after the manner of sailors everywhere,
playing dominoes, cards and checkers, boxing and telling stories. They
used to play at feats of strength, such as finger-pulling, with the
Eskimos. One of the men had an accordion, another a banjo, and as I sat
working in my cabin I used often to hear them singing "Annie Rooney,"
"McGinty," "The Spanish Cavalier," and sometimes "Home, Sweet Home."
Nobody seemed to be bored. Percy, who had special charge of the
phonograph, often treated the men to a concert, and all through the
winter I heard nobody complain of monotony or homesickness.