ESSENTIALS THAT BROUGHT SUCCESS
Something has already been said regarding the fact that our journey to
the North Pole was no haphazard, hit or miss "dash." It was not really a
"dash" at all. Perhaps it may properly be described as a "drive"--in the
sense that when the sledge journey got under way we pressed forward with
a speed at times almost breathless. But nothing was done impulsively.
Everything was done in accordance with a scheme long contemplated and
plotted out in advance with every possible care.
The source of our success was a carefully planned system, mathematically
demonstrated. Everything that could be controlled was controlled, and
the indeterminate factors of storms, open leads and accidents to men,
dogs and sledges, were taken into consideration in the percentage of
probabilities and provided for as far as possible. Sledges would break
and dogs would fall by the way, of course; but we could generally make
one sledge out of two broken ones, and the gradual depletion of the dogs
was involved in my calculations.
The so-called "Peary system" is too complex to be covered in a
paragraph, and involves too many technical details to be outlined fully
in any popular narrative. But the main points of it are about as
follows:
To drive a ship through the ice to the farthest possible northern land
base from which she can be driven back again the following year.
To do enough hunting during the fall and winter to keep the party
healthily supplied with fresh meat.
To have dogs enough to allow for the loss of sixty per cent. of them by
death or otherwise.
To have the confidence of a large number of Eskimos, earned by square
dealing and generous gifts in the past, so that they will follow the
leader to any point he may specify.
To have an intelligent and willing body of civilized assistants to lead
the various divisions of Eskimos--men whose authority the Eskimos will
accept when delegated by the leader.
To transport beforehand to the point where the expedition leaves the
land for the sledge journey, sufficient food, fuel, clothing, stoves
(oil or alcohol) and other mechanical equipment to get the main party to
the Pole and back and the various divisions to their farthest north and
back.
To have an ample supply of the best kind of sledges.
To have a sufficient number of divisions, or relay parties, each under
the leadership of a competent assistant, to send back at appropriate and
carefully calculated stages along the upward journey.
To have every item of equipment of the quality best suited to the
purpose, thoroughly tested, and of the lightest possible weight.
To know, by long experience, the best way to cross wide leads of open
water.
_To return by the same route followed on the upward march, using the
beaten trail and the already constructed igloos to save the time and
strength that would have been expended in constructing new igloos and in
trail-breaking._
To know exactly to what extent each man and dog may be worked without
injury.
To know the physical and mental capabilities of every assistant and
Eskimo.
Last, but not least, to have the absolute confidence of every member of
the party, white, black, or brown, so that every order of the leader
will be implicitly obeyed.
Bartlett's division was to pioneer the road, and keep one day ahead of
the main party. It was my plan at this time to keep the pioneer party
close to the main party, and thus prevent the possibility of its being
cut off from the main party by a rapidly forming lead, with insufficient
supplies either for a further advance or for regaining the main
division. Bartlett's pioneer division comprised himself and three
Eskimos, Poodloonah, "Harrigan," and Ooqueah, with one sledge and team
of dogs, carrying their own gear and five days' supplies for the
division.
Borup's division comprised himself and three Eskimos, Keshungwah,
Seegloo, and Karko, with four sledges and dog teams carrying nearly the
standard loads. His division was to act as an advance supporting party,
and was to accompany Bartlett for three marches and then return to Cape
Columbia in one march with empty sledges. He was to deposit his loads
and one sledge at the place where he left Bartlett, making a cache on
the line of march; then hurry back to Columbia, re-load, and overtake
the main party, which would leave the land one day after himself and
Bartlett.
By this arrangement, if there were no delays, the main party would begin
its third march at the same time when Borup started back; the evening of
the third day would find the main party at Borup's cache, and Borup at
Cape Columbia; the next morning, when the main party began its fourth
march, Borup would be leaving Cape Columbia three marches behind, which
difference, with a well-traveled trail to follow, he could probably
eliminate in three marches.
It chanced that this sending back of Borup for additional loads to
overtake the main party, with the later complications which grew out of
it, through the opening of leads between him and the main party, was a
link in the chain of delays which might have caused serious trouble, as
will be hereafter explained.
In order that the reader may understand this journey over the ice of the
polar sea, it is necessary that the theory and practise of both pioneer
and supporting parties should be fully understood. Without this system,
as has been amply demonstrated by the experience of previous
expeditions, it would be a physical impossibility for any man to reach
the North Pole, and return. The use of relay parties in arctic work is,
of course, not new, though the idea was carried further in the last
expedition of the Peary Arctic Club than ever before; but the pioneer
party is original with my expeditions and for that reason it is perhaps
worth while to describe it in detail.
The pioneer party was one unit division, made up of four of the most
active and experienced men of the expedition, with sledges lightly
loaded with five or six days' provisions, drawn by the best dog teams of
the entire pack. When we started from Cape Columbia, this pioneer party,
headed by Bartlett, went out twenty-four hours in advance of the main
party. Later on, when we reached the time of continuous daylight and
sunlight through the twenty-four hours, the pioneer party was but twelve
hours in advance of the main party.
The duty of this pioneer party was to make a march in every twenty-four
hours in spite of every obstacle--excepting, of course, some impassable
lead. Whether there was a snowstorm or violent winds to be faced, or
mountainous pressure ridges were to be climbed over, the march of the
pioneer party must be made; for past experience had proved that whatever
distance was covered by the advance party with its light sledges could
be covered in less time by the main party even with heavily loaded
sledges, because the main party, having the trail to follow, was not
obliged to waste time in reconnoitering. In other words, the pioneer
party, was the pace-maker of the expedition, and whatever distance it
made was the measure of accomplishment for the main party. The leader of
the pioneer party, in the first instance Bartlett, would start out ahead
of his division, usually on snowshoes; then the light sledges of the
party would follow him. Thus the leader of the pioneer division was
pioneering ahead of his own party, and that whole division was
pioneering ahead of the main party.
It is necessary that the arduous work of trail-breaking for the first
two-thirds of the distance over the rougher ice nearer the land should
be done by one division after another, in succession, in order to save
the strength of the main party for their final drive. One great
advantage which I had on this expedition was that, owing to the size of
my party, whenever the men in this pioneer division became exhausted
with their arduous labor and lack of sleep, I could withdraw them into
the main party, and send out another division to take their place.
Supporting parties are essential to success because, a single party,
comprising either a small or a large number of men and dogs, could not
possibly drag (in gradually lessening quantities) all the way to the
Pole and back (some nine hundred odd miles) as much food and liquid fuel
as the men and dogs of that party would consume during the journey. It
will be readily understood that when a large party of men and dogs
starts out over the trackless ice to the polar sea, where there is no
possibility of obtaining a single ounce of food on the way, after
several days' marching, the provisions of one or more sledges will have
been consumed by the men and dogs. When this occurs, the drivers and
dogs with those sledges should be sent back to the land at once. _They
are superfluous mouths which cannot be fed from the precious supply of
provisions which are being dragged forward on the sledges._
Still further on, the food on one or two more sledges will have been
consumed. These sledges also, with their dogs and drivers, must be sent
back, in order to ensure the furthest possible advance by the main
party. Later on, still other divisions must be sent back for the same
reason.
But my supporting parties had another duty to perform, only a little
less important than the one already noted; that was to keep the trail
open for the rapid return of the main party.
The magnitude of this duty is clear. The ice of the polar sea is not an
immovable surface. Twenty-four hours--or even twelve hours--of strong
wind, even in the depth of the coldest winter, will set the big floes
grinding and twisting among themselves, crushing up into pressure ridges
in one place, breaking into leads in another place.
Under normal conditions, however, this movement of the ice is not very
great in a period of eight or ten days, so that a party starting back
over an outward trail at the end of several days is able to knit
together all faults and breaks in the trail that have occurred during
that period by reason of the movement of the ice.
The second supporting party, starting back several days later from a
point still farther on, knits together the broken ends of the trail of
its own division; and when it comes upon the trail of the first
supporting party, reunites such other breaks as have occurred since the
first supporting party went over it on its way back to land. So with the
third and fourth supporting parties.
When I speak of knitting together breaks in the trail, I mean simply
that the passage of the supporting party from that point where the trail
was broken by the movement of the ice to the point where the trail went
on again, some distance either to the east or west, would itself renew
the broken trail, the passage of the men and dog teams packing down the
ice and snow. So that when the main party came back it would simply
follow the track of the supporting party, and not have to scout for the
trail.
As a result of this method of keeping the return trail continuously
open, when the main party starts to return it has a continuous trail
back to the land, which it can follow with from fifty to one hundred per
cent. greater speed than it was possible to make on the outward journey.
The reasons for this are obvious: no time is wasted in selecting and
breaking a trail; the dogs are more energetic when following a beaten
track and when on the road home; no time is wasted in making camp, the
snow igloos built on the outward journey being reoccupied on the return
journey.
[Illustration: TYPICAL TRAIL IN SOFT SNOW (LOOKING BACKWARD)]
It must be understood that when each supporting party reached the land
again, its work in regard to the polar dash was over. It did not come
back onto the ice with any further supplies for the main party.
At the very end, when the supporting parties have performed their
important work of trail-breaking and transportation of supplies, the
main party for the final journey _must_ be small and carefully selected,
as the small party resulting from the successive selection of the
fittest, can travel much faster than a large one.
Each division of four men was absolutely independent and had its
complete traveling outfit; in fact, except for the alcohol stove and
cooking utensils, each sledge was complete in itself. On each sledge
were the provisions for men and dogs, and clothing for the driver. The
standard sledge load would support the driver and the dog team for about
fifty days, and by sacrificing a few dogs and using them as food for the
other dogs and the men, this time could have been extended to sixty
days. Had any sledge and its provisions been cut off from the rest of
the division, the man with it would have had everything he needed,
except the cooking outfit. Had the sledge which carried the alcohol
stove been lost, either in a lead or otherwise, the party to which it
belonged would have had to double up with one of the other divisions.
[Illustration: TYPICAL VIEW OF THE ICE OF THE ARCTIC OCEAN, NORTH OF
GRANT LAND]
The new alcohol stove, the design of which I had perfected during the
winter, was used altogether on this northern sledge trip. We did not
carry oil-stoves at all, except some very small ones with two-inch
wicks, which we used for drying mittens.
The standard method for loading each sledge was as follows: On the
bottom was a layer of dog pemmican in red tins, covering the entire
length and width of the sledge; on this were two tins of biscuit, and
crew pemmican in blue tins; then the tins of alcohol and condensed milk,
a small skin rug for the man to sleep on at night in the igloo,
snowshoes and spare footgear, a pickax and a saw knife for cutting snow
blocks. Practically the only extra items of wearing apparel which were
carried were a few pairs of Eskimo sealskin _kamiks_ (boots), for it can
readily be imagined that several hundred miles of such walking and
stumbling over snow and ice would be rather hard on any kind of footgear
which could be made.
Compactness was the main idea in packing one of these sledges, the
center of gravity of the load being brought as low as possible in order
that the sledges might not easily overturn.
The standard daily ration for work on the final sledge journey toward
the Pole on all expeditions has been as follows:
1 lb. pemmican, 1 lb. ship's biscuit, 4 oz. condensed milk, 1/2 oz.
compressed tea, 6 oz. liquid fuel, alcohol or petroleum. A total of 2
lbs. 4-1/2 oz. of solids per man, per day.
On this ration a man can work hard and keep in good condition in the
lowest temperatures for a very long time. I believe that no other item
of food, either for heat or muscle building, is needed.
The daily ration for the dogs is one pound of pemmican per day; but so
hardy are these descendants of the arctic wolves that when there is a
scarcity of food they can work for a long time on very little to eat. I
have, however, always endeavored so to proportion provisions to the
length of time in the field, that the dogs should be at least as well
fed as myself.
A part of the scientific work of the expedition was a series of deep-sea
soundings from Cape Columbia to the Pole. The sounding apparatus of the
expedition on leaving Cape Columbia comprised two wooden reels of a
length equal to the width of the sledge, a detachable wooden crank to go
on each end of the reel, to each reel a thousand fathoms (six thousand
feet) of specially made steel piano wire of a diameter .028 inches, and
one fourteen-pound lead having at its lower end a small bronze
clam-shell device, self-tripping when it reached the bottom, for the
purpose of bringing up samples of the ocean bed. The weights of this
outfit were as follows: each thousand fathoms of wire 12.42 pounds, each
wooden reel 18 pounds, each lead 14 pounds. A complete thousand-fathom
outfit weighed 44.42 pounds. The two outfits, therefore, weighed 89
pounds, and a third extra lead brought this total up to 103 pounds.
Both the sounding leads and the wire were made especially for the
expedition, and so far as I know they were the lightest, for their
capacity, that have ever been used.
[Illustration: TYPICAL CAMP ON THE ICE]
One sounding apparatus was carried by the main division and the other by
the pioneer party, in the early stages of our progress. When there was a
lead we sounded from the edge of it; when there was no open water we
made a hole in the ice if we could find any that was thin enough for the
purpose.
Two men could readily make these deep-sea soundings by reason of the
lightness of the equipment.
The distance which we traveled day by day was at first determined by
dead reckoning, to be verified later by observations for latitude. Dead
reckoning was simply the compass course for direction, and for distance
the mean estimate of Bartlett, Marvin, and myself as to the length of
the day's march. On board ship dead reckoning is the compass course for
direction and the reading of the log for distance. On the inland ice of
Greenland my dead reckoning was the compass course, and the reading of
my odometer, a wheel with a cyclometer registering apparatus. This could
not possibly be used on the ice of the polar sea, as it would be smashed
to pieces in the rough going. One might say in general that dead
reckoning on the polar ice is the personal estimate of approximate
distance, always checked and corrected from time to time by astronomical
observations.
Three members of the expedition had had sufficient experience in
traveling over arctic ice to enable them to estimate a day's journey
very closely. These three were Bartlett, Marvin, and myself. When we
checked up our dead reckoning by astronomical observations, the mean of
our three estimates was found to be a satisfactory approximation to the
results of the observations.
It goes without saying that mere dead reckoning, entirely unchecked by
astronomical observations, would be insufficient for scientific
purposes. During the earlier stages of our journey there was no sun by
which to take observations. Later, when we had sunlight, we took what
observations were necessary to check our dead reckonings--but no more,
since I did not wish to waste the energies or strain the eyes of Marvin,
Bartlett, or myself.
As a matter of fact observations were taken every five marches, as soon
as it was possible to take them at all.