probably in motion at all times of the year. In this readjustment of
fields following motion and expansion, open spaces of water appear.
These, during most months, are quickly sheeted with new ice.
In these troubled areas I had frequent opportunities to measure
ice-thickness. From my observation I had come to the conclusion that ice
does not freeze to a depth of more than twelve or fifteen feet during a
single year. Occasionally we crossed fields fifty feet thick. These
invariably showed signs of many years of surface upbuilding.
It is very difficult to estimate the amount of submerged freezing after
the first year's ice, but the very uniform thickness of Antarctic sea
ice suggests that a limit is reached the second year, when the ice, with
its cover of snow, is so thick that very little is added afterward from
below.
Increase in size after that is probably the result mostly of addition to
the superstructure. Frequent falls of snow, combined with alternate
melting and freezing in summer, and a process similar to the upbuilding
of glacial ice, are mainly responsible for the growth in thickness of
the ice on the Polar sea.
The very heavy, undulating fields, which give character to the mid-Polar
ice and escape along the east and west coasts of Greenland, are,
therefore, mostly augmented from the surface.
Continuing north, at no time was the horizon perfectly clear. But the
weather was good enough to permit frequent nautical observations. Our
course was lined on uninteresting blank sheets. There were elusive signs
of land frequent enough to maintain an exploring enthusiasm, which
helped me also in satisfying my companions. For thus they were
encouraged to believe in a nearness to terrestrial solidity. At every
breathing spell, when we got together for a little chat, Ah-we-lah's
hand, with pointed finger, was directed to some spot on the horizon or
some low-lying cloud, with the shout of "_Noona?_" (land), to which I
always replied in the affirmative; but, for me, the field-glasses and
later positions dispelled the illusion.
Man, under pressure of circumstances, will adapt himself to most
conditions of life. To me the other-world environment of the Polar-pack,
far from continental fastness, was beginning to seem quite natural.
We forced marches day after day. We traveled until dogs languished or
legs failed. Ice hills rose and fell before us. Mirages grimaced at our
dashing teams with wondering faces. Daily the incidents and our position
were recorded, but our adventures were promptly forgotten in the mental
bleach of the next day's effort.
Night was now as bright as day. By habit, we emerged from our igloos
later and later. On the 5th and 6th we waited until noon before
starting, to get observations; but, as was so often the case, when the
sun was watched, it slipped under clouds. This late start brought our
stopping time close to midnight, and infused an interest in the midnight
sun; but the persistent haze which clouded the horizon at night when the
sun was low denied us a glimpse of the midnight luminary.
The night of April 7 was made notable by the swing of the sun at
midnight, above the usual obscuring mist, behind which it had, during
previous days, sunk with its night dip of splendor. For a number of
nights it made grim faces at us in its setting. A tantalizing mist,
drawn as a curtain over the northern sea at midnight, had afforded
curious advantages for celestial staging. We were unable to determine
sharply the advent of the midnight sun, but the colored cloud and haze
into which it nightly sank produced a spectacular play which interested
us immensely.
Sometimes the great luminary was drawn out into an egg-shaped elongation
with horizontal lines of color drawn through it. I pictured it as some
splendid fire-colored lantern flung from the window of Heaven. Again, it
was pressed into a basin flaming with magical fires, burning behind a
mystic curtain of opalescent frosts. Blue at other times, it appeared
like a huge vase of luminous crystal, such as might be evoked by the
weird genii of the Orient, from which it required very little
imagination to see purple, violet, crimson and multi-colored flowers
springing beauteously into the sky.
These changes took place quickly, as by magic. Usually the last display
was of distorted faces, some animal, some semi-human--huge, grotesque,
and curiously twitching countenances of clouds and fire. At times they
appallingly resembled the hideous teeth-gnashing deities of China, that,
with gnarled arms upraised, holding daggers of flame and surrounded by
smoke, were rising toward us from beyond the horizon.
Sometimes in our northward progress these faces laughed, again they
scowled ominously. What the actual configurations were I do not know; I
suppose two men see nothing exactly alike in this topsy-turvy world.
Rushing northward with forced haste, unreal beauties took form as if to
lure us to pause. Clouds of steam rising from frozen seas like geysers
assumed the aspects of huge fountains of iridescent fire. As the sun
rose, lines of light like quicksilver quivered and writhed about the
horizon, and in swirling, swimming circles closed and narrowed about us
on the increasingly color-burned but death-chilled areas of ice over
which we worked. Setting amid a dance of purple radiance, the sun,
however, instead of inspiring us, filled us with a sick feeling of
giddiness. What beauty there was in these spectacles was often lost upon
our benumbed senses.
Nowhere in the world, perhaps, are seen such spectacles of celestial
glory. The play of light on clouds and ice produces the illusion of some
supernatural realm.
We had now followed the sun's northward advance--from its first peep, at
midday, above the southern ice of the Polar gateway, to its sweep over
the northern ice at midnight. From the end of the Polar night, late in
February, to the first of the double days and the midnight suns, we had
forced a trail through darkness and blood-hardening temperature, and
over leg-breaking irregularities of an unknown world of ice, to a spot
almost exactly two hundred miles from the Pole! To this point our
destiny had been auspiciously protected. Ultimate success seemed within
grasp. But we were not blind to the long line of desperate effort still
required to push over the last distance.
Now that we had the sun unmistakably at midnight, its new glory before
us was an incentive to onward efforts. Previous to this the sun had been
undoubtedly above the horizon, but, as is well known, when the sun is
low and the atmospheric humidity is high, as it always is over the pack,
a dense cloud of frost crystals rests on the ice and obscures the
horizon. During the previous days the sun sank into this frosty haze and
was lost for several hours.
Observations on April 8[15] placed camp at latitude 86 deg. 36', longitude
94 deg. 2'. Although we had made long marches and really great speed, we
had advanced only ninety-six miles in the nine days. Much of our hard
work had been lost in circuitous twists around troublesome pressure
lines and high, irregular fields of very old ice. The drift ice was
throwing us to the east with sufficient force to give us some anxiety,
but with eyes closed to danger and hardships, double days of fatigue and
double days of glitter quickly followed one another.
Everything was now in our favor, but here we felt most of the
accumulating effect of long torture, in a world where every element of
Nature is hostile. Human endurance has distinct limits. Bodily abuse
will long be counterbalanced by man's superb recuperative power, but
sooner or later there comes a time when out-worn cells call a halt.
We had lived for weeks on a steady diet of withered beef and tallow.
There was no change, we had no hot meat, and never more to eat than was
absolutely necessary to keep life within the body. We became indifferent
to the aching vacant pain of the stomach. Every organ had been whipped
to serve energy to the all important movement of our legs. The depletion
of energy, the lassitude of overstrained limbs, manifested themselves.
The Eskimos were lax in the swing of the whip and indifferent in urging
on the dogs. The dogs displayed the same spirit by lowered tails, limp
ears, and drooping noses, as their shoulders dragged the sleds farther,
ever farther from the land of life.
A light life-sapping wind came from the west. We battled against it. We
swung our arms to fight it and maintain circulation, as a swimmer in
water. Veering a little at times, it always struck the face at a
piercing angle. It froze the tip of my nose so often that that feature
felt like a foreign bump on my face. Our cheeks had in like manner been
so often bleached in spots that the skin was covered with ugly scars.
Our eyes were often sealed by frozen eyelashes. The tear sack made
icicles. Every particle of breath froze as it left the nostrils, and
coated the face in a mask of ice.
The sun at times flamed the clouds, while the snow glowed in burning
tones. In the presence of all this we suffered the chill of death. All
Nature exulted in a wave of hysteria. Delusions took form about us--in
mirages, in the clouds. We moved in a world of delusions. The heat of
the sun was a sham, its light a torment. A very curious world this, I
thought dumbly, as we pushed our sleds and lashed our lagging dogs. Our
footing was solid; there was no motion. Our horizon was lined with all
the topographic features of a solid land scene, with mountains, valleys
and plains, rivers of open water; but under it all there was the heaving
of a restless sea. Although nothing visibly moved, it was all in motion.
Seemingly a solid crust of earth, it imperceptibly drifts in response to
every wind. We moved with it, but ever took our landscape with us.
Of the danger of this movement, of the possibility of its hopelessly
carrying us away from our goal, and the possibility of ultimate
starvation, I never lost consciousness. Although the distance may seem
slight, now that we had gone so far, the last two hundred miles seemed
hopelessly impossible. With aching, stiffened legs we started our
continuing marches without enthusiasm, with little ambition. But marches
we made--distance leaped at times under our swift running feet.
It sometimes now seems that unknown and subtle forces of which we are
not cognizant supported me. I could almost believe that there were
unseen beings there, whose voices urged me in the wailing wind; who, in
my success, themselves sought soul peace, and who, that I might obtain
it, in some strange, mysterious way succored and buoyed me.
OVER POLAR SEAS OF MYSTERY
THE MADDENING TORTURES OF A WORLD WHERE ICE WATER SEEMS HOT, AND COLD
KNIVES BURN ONE'S HANDS--ANGUISHED PROGRESS ON THE LAST STRETCH OF TWO
HUNDRED MILES OVER ANCHORED LAND ICE--DAYS OF SUFFERING AND GLOOM--THE
TIME OF DESPAIR--"IT IS WELL TO DIE," SAYS AH-WE-LAH; "BEYOND IS
IMPOSSIBLE."
XVIII
ONE HUNDRED MILES FROM THE POLE
We pushed onward. We cracked our whips to urge the tiring dogs. We
forced to quick steps weary leg after weary leg. Mile after mile of ice
rolled under our feet. The maddening influence of the shifting desert of
frost became almost unendurable in the daily routine. Under the lash of
duty interest was forced, while the merciless drive of extreme cold
urged physical action. Our despair was mental and physical--the result
of chronic overwork.
Externally there was reason for rejoicing. The sky had cleared, the
weather improved, a liquid charm of color poured over the strange
other-world into which we advanced. Progress was good, but the soul
refused to open its eyes to beauty or color. All was a lifeless waste.
The mind, heretofore busy in directing arm and foot, to force a way
through miniature mountains of uplifted floes, was now, because of
better ice, relieved of that strain, but it refused to seek diversion.
The normal run of hardship, although eased, now piled up the accumulated
poison of overwork, and when I now think of the terrible strain I fail
to see how a workable balance was maintained.
As we passed the eighty-sixth parallel, the ice increased in breadth and
thickness. Great hummocks and pressure lines became less frequent. A
steady progress was gained with the most economical human drain
possible. The temperature ranged between 36 deg. and 40 deg. below zero,
Fahrenheit, with higher and lower midday and midnight extremes. Only
spirit thermometers were useful, for the mercury was at this degree of
frost either frozen or sluggish.
Although the perpetual sun gave light and color to the cheerless waste
we were not impressed with any appreciable sense of warmth. Indeed, the
sunbeams by their contrast seemed to cause the frost of the air to
pierce with a more painful sting. In marching over the golden glitter,
snow scalded our faces, while our noses were bleached with frost. The
sun rose into zones of fire and set in burning fields of ice, but, in
pain, we breathed the chill of death.
In camp a grip of the knife left painful burns from cold metal. To the
frozen fingers ice cold water was hot. With wine-spirits the fire was
lighted, while oil delighted the stomach. In our dreams Heaven was hot,
the other place was cold. All Nature was false; we seemed to be nearing
the chilled flame of a new Hades.
We now changed our working hours from day to night, beginning usually at
ten o'clock and ending at seven. The big marches and prolonged hours of
travel with which fortune favored us earlier were no longer possible.
Weather conditions were more important in determining a day's run than
the hands of the chronometers.
That I must steadily keep up my notes and the records of observations
was a serious addition to my daily task. I never permitted myself to be
careless in regard to this, for I never let myself forget the importance
of such data in plotting an accurate course.
I kept my records in small notebooks, writing very fine with a hard
pencil on both sides of the paper. At the beginning of the journey I had
usually set down the day's record by candle light, but later, when the
sun was shining both day and night, I needed no light even inside the
walls of the igloo, for the sunlight shone strongly enough through the
walls of snow. Shining brilliantly at times, I utilized the opportunity
it afforded, every few marches, to measure our shadows. The daily change
marked our advance Poleward.
When storms threatened, our start was delayed. In strong gales the march
was shortened. But in one way or another we usually found a few hours in
each turn of the dial during which a march could be forced between
winds. It mattered little whether we traveled night or day--all hours
and all days were alike to us--for we had no accustomed time to rest, no
Sundays, no holidays, no landmarks, or mile-posts to pass.
To advance and expend the energy accumulated during one sleep at the
cost of one pound of pemmican was our sole aim in life. Day after day
our legs were driven onward. Constantly new but similar panoramas rolled
by us.
Our observations on April 11, gave latitude 87 deg. 20', longitude 95 deg.
19'. The pack disturbance of the new land was less and less noted as
we progressed in the northward movement. The fields became heavier,
larger and less crevassed. Fewer troublesome old floes and less crushed
new ice were encountered. With the improved conditions, the fire of a
racing spirit surged up for a brief spell.
We had now passed the highest reaches of all our predecessors. The
inspiration of the Farthest North for a brief time thrilled me. The time
was at hand, however, to consider seriously the possible necessity of an
early return.
Nearly half of the food allowance had been used. In the long marches
supplies had been more liberally consumed than anticipated. Now our dog
teams were much reduced in numbers. Because of the cruel law of the
survival of the fittest, the less useful dogs had gone into the stomachs
of their stronger companions. With the lessening of the number of dogs
had come at the same time a reduction of the weight of the sledge loads,
through the eating of the food. Now, owing to food limitations and the
advancing season, we could not prudently continue the onward march a
fortnight longer.
We had dragged ourselves three hundred miles over the Polar sea in
twenty-four days. Including delays and detours, this gave an average of
nearly thirteen miles daily on an airline in our course. There remained
an unknown line of one hundred and sixty miles to the Pole. The same
average advance would take us to the Pole in thirteen days. There were
food and fuel enough to risk this adventure. With good luck the prize
seemed within our grasp. But a prolonged storm, a deep snowfall, or an
active ice-pack would mean failure.
In new cracks I measured the thickness of the ice. I examined the water
for life. The technical details for the making and breaking of ice were
studied, and some attention was given to the altitude of uplifted and
submerged irregularities. Atmospheric, surface water and ice
temperatures were taken, the barometer was noted, the cloud formations,
weather conditions and ice drifts were tabulated. There was a continuous
routine of work, but like the effort of the foot in the daily drive, it
became more or less automatic.
Running along over seemingly endless fields of ice, the physical
appearances now came under more careful scrutiny. I watched daily for
possible signs of failing in the strength of any of us, because a
serious disability would now mean a fatal termination. A disabled man
could neither continue nor return. Each new examination gave me renewed
confidence and was another reason to push human endurance to the limit
of straining every fibre and cell.
As a matter of long experience I find life in this extreme North is
healthful so long as there is sufficient good food, so long as exertion
is not overdone. A weakling would easily be killed, but a strong man is
splendidly hardened and kept in perfect physical trim by sledging and
tramping in this germless air. But, as I have said, sufficient food and
not too much exertion are requisites to full safety, and in our case we
were working to the limit, with rations running low. Still, the men
responded superbly.
Our tremendous exertion in forcing daily rushing marches, under
occasional bursts of burning sunbeams, provoked intense thirst.
Following the habit of the camel, we managed to take enough water before
starting to keep sufficient liquid in the stomach and veins for the
ensuing day's march. Yet it was painful to await the melting of ice at
camping time.
In two sittings, evening and morning, each of us took an average of
three quarts of water daily. This included tea and also the luxury of
occasional soup. Water was about us everywhere in heaps, but before the
thirst could be quenched, several ounces of precious fuel, which had
been sledged for hundreds of miles, must be used. And yet, this water,
so expensive and so necessary to us, became the cause of our greatest
discomfort. It escaped through pores of the skin, saturated the boots,
formed a band of ice under the knee and a belt of frost about the waist,
while the face was nearly always encased in a mask of icicles from the
moist breath. We learned to take this torture philosophically.
With our dogs bounding and tearing onward, from the eighty-seventh to
the eighty-eighth parallel we passed for two days over old ice without
pressure lines or hummocks. There was no discernible line of demarcation
to indicate separate fields, and it was quite impossible to determine
whether we were on land or sea ice. The barometer indicated no
perceptible elevation, but the ice had the hard, wavering surface of
glacial ice, with only superficial crevasses. The water obtained from
this was not salty. All of the upper surface of old hummock and high ice
of the Polar sea resolves into unsalted water. My nautical observations
did not seem to indicate a drift, but nevertheless my combined
tabulations do not warrant a positive assertion of either land or sea; I
am inclined, however, to put this down as ice on low or submerged land.
The ice presented an increasingly cheering prospect. A plain of purple
and blue ran in easy undulations to the limits of vision without the
usual barriers of uplifted blocks. Over it a direct air-line course was
possible. Progress, however, was quite as difficult as over the
irregular pack. The snow was crusted with large crystals. An increased
friction reduced the sled speed, while the snow surface, too hard for
snowshoes, was also too weak to give a secure footing to the unprotected
boot. The loneliness, the monotony, the hardship of steady, unrelieved
travel were keenly felt.
Day after day we pushed along at a steady pace over plains of frost and
through a mental desert. As the eye opened at the end of a period of
shivering slumber, the fire was lighted little by little, the stomach
was filled with liquids and solids, mostly cold--enough to last for the
day, for there could be no halt or waste of fuel for midday feeding. We
next got into harness, and, under the lash of duty, paced off the day's
pull; we worked until standing became impossible.
As a man in a dream I marched, set camp, ate and tried to rest. I took
observations now without interest; under those conditions no man could
take an interest in mathematics. Eating became a hardship, for the
pemmican, tasteless and hard as metal, was cold. Our feet were numb--it
seemed fortunate they no longer even ached.
The arduous task of building a snowhouse meant physical hardship. In
this the eyes, no longer able to wink, quickly closed. Soon the empty
stomach complained. Then the gastric wants were half served. With teeth
dropping to the spasm of cold and skins in an electric wave of shivers
to force animal heat, the boys fell to unconscious slumbers, but my lids
did not easily close. The anxiety to succeed, the eagerness to draw out
our food supply and the task of infusing courage into my savage helpers
kept the mind active while the underfed blood filled the legs with new
power.
There was no pleasurable mental recreation to relieve us; there was
nothing to arouse the soul from its icy inclosure. To eat, to sleep,
endlessly to press one foot ahead of the other--that was all we could
do. We were like horses driven wearily in carts, but we had not their
advantages of an agreeable climate and a comfortable stable at night.
Daily our marches were much the same. Finishing our frigid meal, we
hitched the dogs and lashed the sleds.
In the daily routine of our onward struggle, there was an inhuman strain
which neither words nor pictures could adequately describe. The
maddening influence of the sameness of Polar glitter, combined as it was
with bitter winds and extreme cold and overworked bodies, burned our
eyes and set our teeth to a chronic chattering. To me there was always
the inspiration of ultimate success. But for my young savage companions,
it was a torment almost beyond endurance. They were, however, brave and
faithful to the bitter end, seldom allowing hunger or weariness or
selfish ambition or fierce passions seriously to interfere with the
effort of the expedition. We suffered, but we covered distance.
On the morning of April 13, the strain of agitating torment reached the
breaking point. For days there had been a steady cutting wind from the
west, which drove despair to its lowest reaches. The west again
blackened, to renew its soul-despairing blast. The frost-burn of sky
color changed to a depressing gray, streaked with black. The snow was
screened with ugly vapors. The path was absolutely cheerless. All this
was a dire premonition of storm and greater torture.