WE BREAK ALL RECORDS
By an odd coincidence, soon after Marvin left us on his fatal journey
from 86° 38´ back to land, the sun was obscured and a dull, lead-colored
haze spread over all the sky. This grayness, in contrast to the dead
white surface of the ice and snow and the strangely diffused quality of
the light, gave an indescribable effect. It was a shadowless light and
one in which it was impossible to see for any considerable distance.
That shadowless light is not unusual on the ice-fields of the polar sea;
but this was the first occasion on which we had encountered it since
leaving the land. One looking for the most perfect illustration of the
arctic inferno would find it in that gray light. A more ghastly
atmosphere could not have been imagined even by Dante himself--sky and
ice seeming utterly wan and unreal.
Notwithstanding the fact that I had now passed the "farthest north" of
all my predecessors and was approaching my own best record, with my
eight companions, sixty dogs, and seven fully loaded sledges in far
better condition than I had even dared to hope, the strange and
melancholy light in which we traveled on this day of parting from Marvin
gave me an indescribably uneasy feeling. Man in his egotism, from the
most primitive ages to our own, has always imagined a sympathetic
relationship between nature and the events and feelings of human life.
So--in the light of later events--admitting that I felt a peculiar awe
in contemplating the ghastly grayness of that day, I am expressing only
an ineradicable instinct of the race to which I belong.
The first three-quarters of the march after Marvin turned back, on March
26, the trail was fortunately in a straight line, over large level
snow-covered floes of varying height, surrounded by medium-rough old
rafters of ice; and the last quarter was almost entirely over young ice
averaging about one foot thick, broken and raftered, presenting a rugged
and trying surface to travel over in the uncertain light. Without
Bartlett's trail to follow, the march would have been even more
difficult.
Near the end of the day we were again deflected to the west some
distance by an open lead. Whenever the temperature rose as high as minus
15°, where it had stood at the beginning of the day, we were sure of
encountering open water. But just before we reached the camp of
Bartlett's pioneer division, the gray haze in which we had traveled all
day lifted, and the sun came out clear and brilliant. The temperature
had also dropped to minus 20°. Bartlett was just starting out again when
I arrived, and we agreed that we had made a good fifteen miles in the
last march.
The next day, March 27, was a brilliant dazzling day of arctic sunshine,
the sky a glittering blue, and the ice a glittering white, which, but
for the smoked goggles worn by every member of the party, would
certainly have given some of us an attack of snow blindness. From the
time when the reappearing sun of the arctic spring got well above the
horizon, these goggles had been worn continuously.
The temperature during this march dropped from minus 30° to minus 40°,
there was a biting northeasterly breeze, and the dogs traveled forward
in their own white cloud of steam. On the polar ice we gladly hail the
extreme cold, as higher temperatures and light snow always mean open
water, danger, and delay. Of course, such minor incidents as frosted and
bleeding cheeks and noses we reckon as part of the great game. Frosted
heels and toes are far more serious, because they lessen a man's ability
to travel, and traveling is what we are there for. Mere pain and
inconvenience are inevitable, but, on the whole, inconsiderable.
This march was by far the hardest for some days. At first there was a
continuation of the broken and raftered ice, sharp and jagged, that at
times seemed almost to cut through our sealskin kamiks and hareskin
stockings, to pierce our feet. Then we struck heavy rubble ice covered
with deep snow, through which we had literally to plow our way, lifting
and steadying the sledges until our muscles ached.
During the day we saw the tracks of two foxes in this remote and icy
wilderness, nearly two hundred and forty nautical miles beyond the
northern coast of Grant Land.
Finally we came upon Bartlett's camp in a maze of small pieces of very
heavy old floes raftered in every direction. He had been in his igloo
but a short time, and his men and dogs were tired out and temporarily
discouraged by the heart-racking work of making a road.
I told him to take a good long sleep before getting under way again; and
while my men were building the igloos, I lightened the loads of
Bartlett's sledges about one hundred pounds, to put them in better trim
for pioneering in this rough going. The added weight would be less
burdensome on our own sledges than on his. Notwithstanding the crazy
road over which we had traveled, this march netted us twelve good miles
toward the goal.
We were now across the 87th parallel and into the region of perpetual
daylight, as the sun had not set during the last march. The knowledge
that we had crossed the 87th parallel with men and dogs in good
condition, and plenty of supplies upon the sledges, sent me to sleep
that night with a light heart. Only about six miles beyond this point,
at 87° 6´, I had been obliged to turn back nearly three years before,
with exhausted dogs, depleted supplies, and a heavy and discouraged
heart. It seemed to me then that the story of my life was told and that
the word failure was stamped across it.
Now, three years older, with three more years of the inevitable wear and
tear of this inexorable game behind me, I stood again beyond the 87th
parallel still reaching forward to that goal which had beckoned to me
for so many years. Even now, on reaching my highest record with every
prospect good, I dared not build too much on the chances of the white
and treacherous ice which stretched one hundred and eighty nautical
miles northward between me and the end. I had believed for years that
this thing could be done and that it was my destiny to do it, but I
always reminded myself that many a man had felt thus about some dearly
wished achievement, only to fail in the end.
When I awoke the following day, March 28, the sky was brilliantly clear;
but ahead of us there was a thick, smoky, ominous haze drifting low over
the ice, and a bitter northeast wind, which, in the orthography of the
Arctic, plainly spelled open water. Did this mean failure again? No man
could say. Bartlett had, of course, left camp and taken to the trail
again long before I and the men of my division were awake. This was in
accordance with my general plan, previously outlined, that the pioneer
division should be traveling while the main division slept, and _vice
versa_, so that the two divisions might be in communication every day.
After traveling at a good rate for six hours along Bartlett's trail, we
came upon his camp beside a wide lead, with a dense, black, watery sky
to the northwest, north, and northeast, and beneath it the smoky fog
which we had been facing all day long. In order not to disturb Bartlett,
we camped a hundred yards distant, put up our igloos as quietly as
possible, and turned in, after our usual supper of pemmican, biscuit,
and tea. We had made some twelve miles over much better going than that
of the last few marches and on a nearly direct line over large floes and
young ice.
I was just dropping off to sleep when I heard the ice creaking and
groaning close by the igloo, but as the commotion was not excessive, nor
of long duration, I attributed it to the pressure from the closing of
the lead which was just ahead of us; and after satisfying myself that my
mittens were where I could get them instantly, in an emergency, I rolled
over on my bed of deerskins and settled myself to sleep. I was just
drowsing again when I heard some one yelling excitedly outside.
Leaping to my feet and looking through the peep-hole of our igloo, I was
startled to see a broad lead of black water between our two igloos and
Bartlett's, the nearer edge of water being close to our entrance; and on
the opposite side of the lead stood one of Bartlett's men yelling and
gesticulating with all the abandon of an excited and thoroughly
frightened Eskimo.
Awakening my men, I kicked our snow door into fragments and was outside
in a moment. The break in the ice had occurred within a foot of the
fastening of one of my dog teams, the team escaping by just those few
inches from being dragged into the water. Another team had just escaped
being buried under a pressure ridge, the movement of the ice having
providentially stopped after burying the bight which held their traces
to the ice. Bartlett's igloo was moving east on the ice raft which had
broken off, and beyond it, as far as the belching fog from the lead
would let us see, there was nothing but black water. It looked as if the
ice raft which carried Bartlett's division would impinge against our
side a little farther on, and I shouted to his men to break camp and
hitch up their dogs in a hurry, in readiness to rush across to us should
the opportunity present itself.
Then I turned to consider our own position. Our two igloos, Henson's and
mine, were on a small piece of old floe, separated by a crack and a low
pressure ridge, a few yards away, from a large floe lying to the west of
us. It was clear that it would take very little strain or pressure to
detach us and set us afloat also like Bartlett's division.
I routed Henson and his men out of their igloo, gave orders to everybody
to pack and hitch up immediately, and, while this was being done,
leveled a path across the crack to the big floe at the west of us. This
was done with a pickax, leveling the ice down into the crack, so as to
make a continuous surface over which the sledges could pass. As soon as
the loads were across and we were safe on the floe, we all went to the
edge of the lead and stood ready to assist Bartlett's men in rushing
their sledges across the moment their ice raft should touch our side.
Slowly the raft drifted nearer and nearer, until the side of it crunched
against the floe. The two edges being fairly even, the raft lay
alongside us as a boat lies against a wharf, and we had no trouble in
getting Bartlett's men and sledges across and onto the floe with us.
Though there is always a possibility that a lead may open directly
across a floe as large as this one, we could not waste our sleeping
hours in sitting up to watch for it. Our former igloos being lost to us,
there was nothing to do but to build another set and turn in
immediately. It goes without saying that this extra work was not
particularly agreeable. That night we slept with our mittens on, ready
at a moment's notice for anything that might happen. Had a new lead
formed directly across the sleeping platform of our igloo, precipitating
us into the icy water, we should not have been surprised after the first
shock of the cold bath, but should have clambered out, scraping the
water off our fur garments, and made ready for the next move on the part
of our treacherous antagonist--the ice.
Notwithstanding the extra fatigue and the precarious position of our
camp, this last march had put us well beyond my record of three years
before, probably 87° 12´, so that I went to sleep with the satisfaction
of having at last beaten my own record, no matter what the morrow might
bring forth.
The following day, March 29, was not a happy one for us. Though we were
all tired enough to rest, we did not enjoy picnicking beside this arctic
Phlegethon, which, hour after hour, to the north, northeast, and
northwest, seemed to belch black smoke like a prairie fire. So dense was
this cloud caused by the condensation of the vapor and the reflection in
it of the black water below that we could not see the other shore of the
lead--if, indeed, it had a northern shore. As far as the evidence of our
senses went, we might be encamped on the edge of that open polar sea
which myth-makers have imagined as forever barring the way of man to the
northern end of the earth's axis. It was heart-breaking, but there was
nothing to do but wait. After breakfast we overhauled the sledges and
made a few repairs, dried out some of our garments over the little oil
lamps which we carried for that purpose, and Bartlett made a sounding of
1,260 fathoms, but found no bottom. He did not let all the line go out,
fearing there might be a defect in the wire which would lose us more of
it, as we were desirous of keeping all that we had for a sounding at our
"farthest north," which we hoped would be at the Pole itself. I had only
one sounding lead now left, and I would not let Bartlett risk it at this
point, but had him use a pair of sledge shoes (brought along for this
very purpose from the last broken up sledge) to carry the line down.
When our watches told us that it was bedtime--for we were now in the
period of perpetual sunlight--we again turned into the igloos which had
been hurriedly built after our exciting experience the night before. A
low murmur as of distant surf was issuing from the blackness ahead of
us, and steadily growing in volume. To the inexperienced it might have
seemed an ominous sound, but to us it was a cheering thing because we
knew it meant the narrowing, and perhaps the closing, of the stretch of
open water that barred our way. So we slept happily in our frosty huts
that "night."