that there would be no food until to-morrow. My wild companions covered
their faces with their long hair and sank quietly into slumber. For me
sleep was impossible. The whole problem of our campaign had again to be
carefully studied, and final plans made, not only to reach our ultimate
destination, but for the two returning Eskimos and for the security of
the things left at Annoatok, and also to re-examine the caches left en
route for our return. These must be protected as well as possible
against the bears and wolves.
Already I had begun to think of our return to land. It was difficult at
this time even to approximate any probable course. Much would depend
upon conditions to be encountered in the northward route. Although we
had left caches of supplies with the object of returning along Nansen
Sound, into Cannon Fiord and over Arthur Land, I entertained grave
doubts of our ability to return this way. I knew that if the ice should
drift strongly to the east we might not be given the choice of working
out our own return. For, in such an event, we should perhaps be carried
helplessly to Greenland, and should have to seek a return either along
the east or the west coast.
This drift, in my opinion, would not necessarily mean dangerous
hardships, for the musk oxen would keep us alive to the west, and to the
east it seemed possible to reach Shannon Island, where the
Baldwin-Zeigler expeditions had abandoned a large cache of supplies. It
appeared not improbable, also, that a large land extension might offer a
safe return much further west. I fell asleep while pondering over these
things. By morning the air was clear of frost crystals. It was intensely
cold, not only because of a temperature of 56 deg. below zero, Fahrenheit,
but a humid chill which pierced to the very bones. A light breeze came
from the west. The sun glowed in a freezing field of blue.
Hitching our dogs, we started. For several hours we seemed to soar over
the white spaces. Then the ice changed in character, the expansive,
thick fields of glacier-like ice giving way to floes of moderate size
and thickness. These were separated by zones of troublesome crushed ice
thrown into high-pressure lines, which offered serious barriers.
Chopping the pathway with an ice axe, we managed to make fair progress.
We covered twenty-one miles of our second run on the Polar sea. I
expected, at the beginning of this final effort, to send back by this
time the two extra men, Koo-loo-ting-wah and In-u-gi-to, who had
remained to help us over the rough pack-ice. But progress had not been
as good as I had expected; so, although we could hardly spare any food
to feed their dogs, the two volunteered to push along for another day
without dog food.
Taking advantage of big, strong teams and the fire of early enthusiasm,
we aimed to force long distances through the extremely difficult ice
jammed here against the distant land. The great weight of the supplies
intended for the final two sleds were now distributed over four sleds.
With axe and compass in hand, I led the way. With prodigious effort I
chopped openings through barriers after barriers of ice. Sled after sled
was passed over the tumbling series of obstacles by my companions while
I advanced to open a way through the next. With increasing difficulties
in some troublesome ice, we camped after making only sixteen miles.
Although weary, we built a small snowhouse. I prepared over my stove a
pot of steaming musk ox loins and broth and a double brew of tea. After
partaking of this our two helpers prepared to return. To have taken them
farther would have necessitated a serious drain on our supplies and an
increased danger for their lives in a longer return to land.
By these men I sent back instructions to Rudolph Francke to remain in
charge of my supplies at Annoatok until June 5th, 1908, and then, if we
should not have returned by that date, to place Koo-loo-ting-wah in
charge and go home either by a whaler or some Danish ship. I knew that,
should we get in trouble, he could offer no relief to help us, and that
his waiting an indefinite time alone would be a needless hardship.
[Illustration: DASHING FORWARD EN ROUTE TO THE POLE]
[Illustration: DEPARTURE OF SUPPORTING PARTY
A BREATHING SPELL
POLEWARD!]
The way before Koo-loo-ting-wah and In-u-gi-to, who had so cheerfully
remained to the last possible moment that they could be of help, was not
an entirely pleasant one. Their friends were by now well on their
journey toward Annoatok, and they had to start after them with sleds
empty of provisions and dogs hungry for food.
They hoped to get back to land and off the ice of the Polar sea in one
long day's travel of twenty-four hours. Even this would leave their
fourth day without food for their dogs. In case of storms or moving of
the ice, other days of famine might easily fall to their lot. However,
they faced possible dangers cheerfully rather than ask me to give them
anything from the stores that were to support their two companions,
myself and our dogs on our way onward to the Pole and back. I was deeply
touched by this superlative devotion. They assured me too (in which they
were right) that they had an abundance of possible food in the eighteen
dogs they took with them. If necessary, they could sacrifice a few at
any time for the benefit of the others, as must often be done in the
Northland.
There were no formalities in our parting on the desolate ice. Yet, as
the three of us who were left alone gazed after our departing
companions, we felt a poignant pang in our hearts. About us was a
cheerless waste of crushed wind-and-water-driven ice. A sharp wind
stung our faces. The sun was obscured by clouds which piled heavily and
darkly about the horizon. The cold and brilliant jeweled effects of the
frozen sea were lost in a dismal hue of dull white and sombre gray. On
the horizon, Svartevoeg, toward which the returning Eskimos were bound,
was but a black speck. To the north, where our goal lay, our way was
untrodden, unknown. The thought came to me that perhaps we should never
see our departing friends. With it came a pang of tenderness for the
loved ones I had left behind me. Although our progress so far had been
successful, and half the distance was made, dangers unknown and
undreamed of existed in the way before us. My Eskimos already showed
anxiety--an anxiety which every aboriginal involuntarily feels when land
disappears on the horizon. Never venturing themselves far onto the Polar
sea, when they lose sight of land a panic overcomes them. Before leaving
us one of the departing Eskimos had pointed out a low-lying cloud to the
north of us. "Noona" (land), he said, nodding to the others. The thought
occurred to me that, on our trip, I could take advantage of the mirages
and low clouds on the horizon and encourage a belief in a constant
nearness to land, thus maintaining their courage and cheer.[11]
Regrets and fears were not long-lasting, however, for the exigencies of
our problem were sufficiently imperative and absorbing. To the
overcoming of these we had now to devote our entire attention and strain
every fibre.
We had now advanced, by persistent high-pressure efforts, over the worst
possible ice conditions, somewhat more than sixty miles. Of the 9 deg.
between land's end and the Pole, we had covered one; and we had done
this without using the pound of food per day allotted each of us out of
the eighty days' supply transported.
[Illustration: POLAR BEAR]
OVER THE POLAR SEA TO THE BIG LEAD
WITH TWO ESKIMO COMPANIONS, THE RACE POLEWARD CONTINUES OVER ROUGH AND
DIFFICULT ICE--THE LAST LAND FADES BEHIND--MIRAGES LEAP INTO BEING AND
WEAVE A MYSTIC SPELL--A SWIRLING SCENE OF MOVING ICE AND FANTASTIC
EFFECTS--STANDING ON A HILL OF ICE, A BLACK, WRITHING, SNAKY CUT APPEARS
IN THE ICE BEYOND--THE BIG LEAD--A NIGHT OF ANXIETY--FIVE HUNDRED MILES
ALREADY COVERED--FOUR HUNDRED TO THE POLE
XIV
TO EIGHTY-THIRD PARALLEL
Our party, thus reduced to three, went onward. Although the isolation
was more oppressive, there were the advantages of the greater comfort,
safety, speed and convenience that came from having only a small band.
The large number of men in a big expedition always increases
responsibilities and difficulties. In the early part of a Polar venture
this disadvantage is eliminated by the facilities to augment supplies by
the game en route and by ultimate advantages of the law of the survival
of the fittest. But after the last supporting sleds return, the men are
bound to each other for protection and can no longer separate. A
disabled or unfitted dog can be fed to his companions, but an injured
or weak man cannot be eaten nor left alone to die. An exploring venture
is only as strong as its weakest member, and increased numbers, like
increased links in a chain, reduce efficiency.
Moreover, personal idiosyncrasies and inconveniences always shorten a
day's march. And, above all, a numerous party quickly divides into
cliques, which are always opposed to each other, to the leader, and
invariably to the best interests of the problem in hand. With but two
savage companions, to whom this arduous task was but a part of an
accustomed life of frost, I did not face many of the natural personal
barriers which contributed to the failure of former Arctic expeditions.
In my judgment, when you double a Polar party its chances for success
are reduced one-half; when you divide it, strength and security are
multiplied.
We had been traveling about two and one-half miles per hour. By making
due allowances for detours and halts at pressure lines, the number of
hours traveled gave us a fair estimate of the day's distance. Against
this the pedometer offered a check, and the compass gave the course.
Thus, over blank charts, our course was marked.
By this kind of dead reckoning our position on March 20 was: Latitude,
82 deg. 23'; Longitude, 95 deg. 14'. A study of our location seemed to
indicate that we had passed beyond the zone of ice crushed by the
influence of land pressure. Behind were great hummocks and small ice;
ahead was a cheerful expanse of larger, clearer fields, offering a
promising highway.
Our destination was now about four hundred and sixty miles beyond. Our
life, with its pack environment, assumed another aspect. Previously we
permitted ourselves some luxuries. A pound of coal oil and a good deal
of musk ox tallow were burned each day to heat the igloo and to cook
abundant food. Extra meals were served when occasion called for them,
and for each man there had been all the food and drink he desired. If
the stockings or the mittens were wet there was fire enough to dry them
out. All of this had now to be changed.
Hereafter there was to be a short daily allowance of food and fuel--one
pound of pemmican a day for the dogs, about the same for the men, with
just a taste of other things. Fortunately, we were well provided with
fresh meat for the early part of the race by the lucky run through game
lands. Because of the need of fuel economy we now cut our pemmican with
an axe. Later it split the axe.
At first no great hardship followed our changed routine. We filled up
sufficiently on two cold meals daily and also depended on superfluous
bodily tissue. It was no longer possible to jump on the sled for an
occasional breathing spell, as we had done along the land.
Such a journey as now confronted us is a long-continued, hard,
difficult, sordid, body-exhausting thing. Each day some problem presents
some peculiar condition of the ice or state of the weather. The effort,
for instance, to form some shield from intense cold gives added interest
to the game. That one thing after another is being met, with always the
anticipation of next day's struggle, adds a thrill to the conquest,
spurs one to greater and ever greater feats, and really constitutes the
actual victory of such a quest. With overloaded sleds the drivers must
now push and pull at them to aid the dogs. My task was to search the
troubled ice for easy routes, cutting away here and there with the
ice-axe to permit the passing of the sleds.
Finally stripping for the race, man and dog must walk along together
through storms and frost for the elusive goal. Success or failure must
depend mostly upon our ability to transport nourishment and to keep up
the muscular strength for a prolonged period.
As we awoke on the morning of March 21 and peered out of the eye-port of
the igloo, the sun edged along the northeast. A warm orange glow
suffused the ice and gladdened our hearts. The temperature was 63 deg. below
zero, Fahrenheit; the barometer was steady and high. There was almost no
wind. Not a cloud lined the dome of pale purple blue, but a smoky streak
along the west shortened our horizon in that direction and marked a lead
of open water.
Our breakfast consisted of two cups of tea, a watch-sized biscuit, a
chip of frozen meat and a boulder of pemmican. Creeping out of our bags,
our shivering legs were pushed through bearskin cylinders which served
as trousers. We worked our feet into frozen boots and then climbed into
fur coats. Next we kicked the front out of the snowhouse and danced
about to stimulate heart action.
Quickly the camp furnishings were tossed on the sleds and securely
lashed. We gathered the dog traces into the drag lines, vigorously
snapped the long whips, and the willing creatures bent to the shoulder
straps. The sleds groaned. The unyielding snows gave a metallic ring.
The train moved with a cheerful pace.
"_Am-my noona terronga dosangwah_" (Perhaps land will be out of sight
today), we said to one another.[12] But the words did not come with
serious intent. In truth, each in his own way felt keenly that we were
leaving a world of life and possible comfort for one of torment and
suffering. Axel Heiberg Land, to the south, was already only a dull blue
haze, while Grant Land, on the eastward, was making fantastic figures of
its peaks and ice walls. The ice ran in waves of undulating blue,
shimmering with streams of gold, before us. Behind, the last vestiges of
jagged land rose and fell like marionettes dancing a wild farewell. Our
heart-pulls were backward, our mental kicks were forward.
Until now this strange white world had been one of grim reality. As
though some unseen magician had waved his wand, it was suddenly
transformed into a land of magic. Leaping into existence, as though from
realms beyond the horizon, huge mirages wove a web of marvelous
delusional pictures about the horizon. Peaks of snow were transformed
into volcanoes, belching smoke; out of the pearly mist rose marvelous
cities with fairy-like castles; in the color-shot clouds waved golden
and rose and crimson pennants from pinnacles and domes of mosaic-colored
splendor. Huge creatures, misshapen and grotesque, writhed along the
horizon and performed amusing antics.
Beginning now, and rarely absent, these spectral denizens of the North
accompanied us during the entire journey; and later, when, fagged of
brain and sapped of bodily strength, I felt my mind swimming in a sea of
half-consciousness, they filled me almost with horror, impressing me as
the monsters one sees in a nightmare.
At every breathing spell in the mad pace our heads now turned to land.
Every look was rewarded by a new prospect. From belching volcanoes to
smoking cities of modern bustle, the mirages gave a succession of
striking scenes which filled me with awed and marveling delight. A more
desolate line of coast could not be imagined. Along its edge ran low
wind-swept and wind-polished mountains. These were separated by valleys
filled with great depths of snow and glacial ice.
Looking northward, the sky line was clear of the familiar pinnacles of
icebergs. In the immediate vicinity many small bergs were seen; some of
these were grounded, and the pack thus anchored was thrown in huge
uplifts of pressure lines and hummocks. The sea, as is thereby
determined, is very shallow for a long distance from land.
This interior accumulation of snow moves slowly to the sea, where it
forms a low ice wall, a glacier of the Malaspina type. Its appearance is
more like that of heavy sea ice; hence the name of the paleocrystic ice,
fragments from this glacier, floebergs, which, seen in Lincoln Sea and
resembling old floes, were supposed to be the product of the ancient
upbuilding of the ice of the North Polar Sea.
Snapping our whips and urging the dogs, we traveled until late in the
afternoon, mirages constantly appearing and melting about us. Now the
land suddenly settled downward as if by an earthquake. The pearly
glitter, which had raised and magnified it, darkened. A purple fabric
fell over the horizon and merged imperceptibly into the lighter purple
blue of the upper skies. We saw the land, however, at successive periods
for several days. This happened whenever the atmosphere was in the right
condition to elevate the terrestrial contour lines by refracting sun
rays.
Every condition favored us on this march. The wind was not strong and
struck us at an angle, permitting us to guard our noses by pushing a
mitten under our hoods or by raising a fur-clad hand.
We had not been long in the field, however, when the wind, that
ever-present dragon guardian of the unseen northern monarch's demesne,
began to suck strength from our bodies. Shortly before Grant Land
entirely faded the monster fawned on us with gentle breathing.
The snow was hard, and the ice, in fairly large fields separated by
pressure lines, offered little resistance. On March 21, at the end of a
forced effort of fourteen hours, the register indicated a progress of
twenty-nine miles.
Too weary to build an igloo, we threw ourselves thoughtlessly upon the
sleds for a short rest, and fell asleep. I was awakened from my fitful
slumber by a feeling of compression, as if stifling arms hideously
gripped me. It was the wind. I breathed with difficulty. I struggled to
my feet, and about me hissed and wailed the dismal sound. It was a sharp
warning to us that to sleep without the shelter of an igloo would
probably mean death.
On the heavy floe upon which we rested were several large hummocks. To
the lee of one of these we found suitable snow for a shelter.
Lines of snowy vapor were rushing over the pack. The wind came with
rapidly increasing force. We erected the house, however, before we
suffered severely from the blast. We crept into it out of the storm and
nested in warm furs.
The wind blew fiercely throughout the night. By the next morning, March
22, the storm had eased to a steady, light breeze. The temperature was
59 deg. below zero. We emerged from our igloo at noon. Although the
cheerless gray veil had been swept from the frigid dome of the sky, to
the north appeared a low black line over a pearly cloud which gave us
much uneasiness. This was a narrow belt of "water-sky," which indicated
open water or very thin ice at no great distance.
The upper surface of Grant Land was now a mere thin pen line on the edge
of the horizon. But a play of land clouds above it attracted the eyes to
the last known rocks of solid earth. We now felt keenly the piercing
cold of the Polar sea. The temperature gradually rose to 46 deg. F. below
zero, in the afternoon, but there was a deadly chill in the long shadows
which increased with the swing of the lowering sun.
A life-sapping draught, which sealed the eyes and bleached the nose,
still hissed over the frozen sea. We had hoped that this would soften
with the midday sun. Instead, it came with a more cutting sharpness. In
the teeth of the wind we persistently pursued a course slightly west of
north. The wind was slightly north of west. It struck us at a painful
angle and brought tears. Our moistened lashes quickly froze together as
we winked, and when we rubbed them and drew apart the lids the icicles
broke the tender skin. Our breath froze on our faces. Often we had to
pause, uncover our hands and apply the warm palms to the face before it
was possible to see.
Every minute thus lost filled me with impatience and dismay. Minutes of
traveling were as precious as bits of gold to a hoarding miser.
In the course of a brief time our noses became tipped with a white skin
and also required nursing. My entire face was now surrounded with ice,
but there was no help for it. If we were to succeed the face must be
bared to the cut of the elements. So we must suffer. We continued,
urging the dogs and struggling with the wind just as a drowning man
fights for life in a storm at sea.
About six o'clock, as the sun crossed the west, we reached a line of
high-pressure ridges. Beyond these the ice was cut into smaller floes
and thrown together into ugly irregularities. According to my surmises,
an active pack and troubled seas could not be far away. The water-sky
widened, but became less sharply defined.
We laboriously picked a way among hummocks and pressure lines which
seemed impossible from a distance. Our dogs panted with the strain; my
limbs ached. In a few hours we arrived at the summit of an unusual
uplift of ice blocks. Looking ahead, my heart pained as if in the grip
of an iron hand. My hopes sank within me. Twisting snake-like between
the white field, and separating the packs, was a tremendous cut several
miles wide, which seemed at the time to bar all further progress. It was
the Big Lead, that great river separating the land-adhering ice from the
vast grinding fields of the central pack beyond, at which many heroic
men before me had stopped. I felt the dismay and heartsickness of all of
them within me now. The wind, blowing with a vengeful wickedness,
laughed sardonically in my ears.
Of course we had our folding canvas boat on the sleds. But in this
temperature of 48 deg. below zero I knew no craft could be lowered into
water without fatal results. All of the ice about was firmly cemented
together, and over it we made our way toward the edge of the water line.
Passing through pressure lines, over smaller and more troublesome
fields, we reached the shores of the Big Lead. We had, by two
encouraging marches, covered fifty miles. The first hundred miles of our
journey on the Polar pack had been covered. The Pole was four hundred
miles beyond!
Camp was pitched on a secure old ice field. Cutting through huge ice
cliffs, the dark crack seemed like a long river winding between
palisades of blue crystal. A thin sheet of ice had already spread over
the mysterious deep. On its ebony mirrored surface a profusion of
fantastic frost crystals arranged themselves in bunches resembling white
and saffron-colored flowers.
Through the apertures of this young ice dark vapors rose like steam
through a screen of porous fabrics and fell in feathers of snow along
the sparkling shores. After partaking of a boulder of pemmican,
E-tuk-i-shook went east and I west to examine the lead of water for a
safe crossing. There were several narrow places, while here and there
floes which had been adrift in the lead were now fixed by young ice.
Ah-we-lah remained behind to make our snowhouse comfortable.
For a long time this huge separation in the pack had been a mystery to
me. At first sight there seemed to be no good reason for its existence.
Peary had found a similar break north of Robeson Channel. It was likely
that what we saw was an extension of the same, following at a distance
the general trend of the northernmost land extension.
This is precisely what one finds on a smaller scale when two ice packs
come together. Here the pack of the central polar sea meets the
land-adhering ice. The movement of the land pack is intermittent and
usually along the coast. The shallows, grounded ice and projecting
points interfere with a steady drift. The movement of the central pack
is quite constant, in almost every direction, the tides, currents and
winds each giving momentum to the floating mass. The lead is thus the
breaking line between the two bodies of ice. It widens as the pack
separates, and narrows or widens with an easterly or westerly drift,
according to the pressure of the central pack. Early in the season, when
the pack is crevassed and not elastic, it is probably wide; later, as
the entire sea of ice becomes active, it may disappear or shift to a
line nearer the land.