superhuman adaptability was a frequent topic of conversation. With a
pelt that was a guarantee against all weather condition, they threw
themselves down to the sweep of winds, in open defiance of death-dealing
storms. Eating but a pound of pemmican a day, and demanding neither
water nor shelter, they willingly did a prodigious amount of work and
then, as bed-fellows, daily offered their fur as shelter and their bones
as head-rests to their two-footed companions. We had learned to
appreciate the advantage of their beating breasts. The bond of animal
fellowship had drawn tighter and tighter in a long run of successive
adventures. And now there was a stronger reason than ever to appreciate
power, for together we were seeking an escape from a world which was
never intended for creatures with pulsating hearts.
Much very heavy ice was crossed near the eighty-eighth parallel, but the
endless unbroken fields of the northward trails were not again seen. Now
the weather changed considerably. The light, cutting winds from the west
increased in force, and the spasmodic squalls came at shorter intervals.
The clear purples and blues of the skies gradually gave place to an ugly
hue of gray. A rush of frosty needles came over the pack for several
hours each day.
The inducement to seek shelter in cemented walls of snow and to wait for
better weather was very great. But such delay would mean certain
starvation. Under fair conditions, there was barely food enough to reach
land, and even short delays might seriously jeopardize our return. We
could not, therefore, do otherwise than force ourselves against the wind
and drift with all possible speed, paying no heed to unavoidable
suffering. As there was no alternative, we tried to persuade ourselves
that existing conditions might be worse than they were.
The hard work of igloo building was now a thing of the past--only one
had been built since leaving the Pole, and in this a precious day was
lost, while the atmospheric fury changed the face of the endless expanse
of desolation. The little silk tent protected us sufficiently from the
icy airs. There were still 50 deg. of frost, but, with hardened skins and
insensible nerve filaments, the torture was not so keenly felt. Our
steady diet of pemmican, tea and biscuits was not entirely satisfactory.
We longed for enough to give a real filling sense, but the daily ration
had to be slightly reduced rather than increased. The change in life
from winter to summer, which should take place at about this time of the
year, was, in our case, marked only by a change in shelter, from the
snow house to the tent, and our beds were moved from the soft snow shelf
of the igloo to the hard, wind-swept crust.
In my watches to get a peep of the sun at just the right moment, I was
kept awake during much of the resting period. For pastime, my eyes
wandered from snorting dogs to snoring men. During one of these idle
moments there came a solution of the utility of the dog's tail, a topic
with which I had been at play for several days. It is quoted here at the
risk of censure, because it is a typical phase of our lives which cannot
be illustrated otherwise. Seeming trivialities were seized upon as food
for thought. Why, I asked, has the dog a tail at all? The bear, the musk
ox, the caribou and the hare, each in its own way, succeeds very well
with but a dwarfed stub. Why does nature, in the dog, expend its best
effort in growing the finest fur over a seemingly useless line of tail
bones? The thing is distinctive, and one could hardly conceive of the
creature without the accessory, but nature in the Arctic does not often
waste energy to display beauties and temperament. This tail must have an
important use; otherwise it would soon fall under the knife of frost and
time. Yes! It was imported into the Arctic by the wolf progenitor of the
dog from warmer lands, where its swing served a useful purpose in fly
time. A nose made to breathe warm air requires some protection in the
far north and the dog supplied the need with his tail. At the time when
I made this discovery a cold wind, charged with cutting crystal, was
brushing the pack. Each dog had his back arched to the wind and his face
veiled with an effective curl of his tail. Thus each was comfortably
shielded from icy torment by an appendage adapted to that very purpose.
In the long tread over snowy wastes new lessons in human mechanism
aroused attention. At first the effort to find a workable way over the
troublesome pack surface had kept mind and body keyed to an exciting
pitch, but slowly this had changed. By a kind of unconscious intuition,
the eye now found easy routes, the lower leg mechanically traveled over
yards and miles and degrees without even consulting the brain, while the
leg trunk, in the effort to conserve energy, was left in repose at
periods during miles of travel, thus saving much of the exertion of
walking.
The muscles, thus schooled to work automatically, left the mind free to
work and play. The maddening monotone of our routine, together with the
expenditure of every available strain of force, had left the head dizzy
with emptiness. Something must be done to lift the soul out of the
boreal bleach.
The power of the mind over the horse-power of the body was here shown at
its best. The flesh proved loyal to the gray matter only while mental
entertainment was encouraged. Thus aching muscles were persuaded to do
double duty without sending up a cry of tired feeling. The play of the
mind with topics of its own choosing is an advantage worth seeking at
all times. But, to us, it multiplied vital force and increased greatly
the daily advance. Science, art and poetry were the heights to which the
wings of thought soared. Beginning with the diversion of making curious
speculations on subjects such as that of the use of the dog's tail and
the Arctic law of animal coloring, the first period of this mental
exercise closed with my staging a drama of the comedies and tragedies of
the Eskimos.
In the effort to frame sentiment in measured lines, a weird list of
topics occupied my strained fancy. In more agreeable moods I always
found pleasure in imagining a picture of the Polar sunrise, that budding
period of life when all Nature awakens after its winter sleep. It was
not difficult to start E-tuk-i-shook and Ah-we-lah on similar flights of
fancy. A mere suggestion would keep up a flow of agreeable thought for
several days.
By such forced mental stimuli the centers of fatigue were deluded into
insensibility. The eighty-seventh parallel was crossed, the eighty-sixth
was neared, but there came a time when both mind and body wearied of the
whole problem of forced resolution.
On May 6 we were stopped at six in the morning by the approach of an
unusual gale. The wind had been steady and strong all night, but we did
not heed its threatening increase of force until too late. It came from
the west, as usual, driving coarse snow with needle points. The ice
about was old and hummocky, offering a difficult line of march, but some
shelter. In the strongest blasts we threw ourselves over the sled behind
hummocks and gathered new breath to force a few miles more.
Finally, when no longer able to force the dogs through the blinding
drift we sought the lee of an unlifted block of ice. Here suitable snow
was found for a snow house. A few blocks were cut and set, but the wind
swept them away as if they were chips. The tent was tried, but it could
not be made to stand in the rush of the roaring tumult. In sheer despair
we crept into the tent without erecting the pole. Creeping into bags, we
then allowed the flapping silk to be buried by the drifting snow. Soon
the noise and discomfort of the storm were lost and we enjoyed the
comfort of an icy grave. An efficient breathing hole was kept open, and
the wind was strong enough to sweep off the weight of a dangerous drift.
A new lesson was thus learned in fighting the battle of life, and it was
afterwards useful.
Several days of icy despair now followed one another in rapid
succession. The wind did not rise to the full force of a storm, but it
was too strong and too cold to travel. The food supply was noticeably
decreasing. The daily advance was less. With such weather, starvation
seemed inevitable. Camp was moved nearly every day, but ambition sank to
the lowest ebb. To the atmospheric unrest was added the instability of
broken ice and the depressing mystery of an unknown position. For many
days no observations had been possible. Our location could only be
guessed at.
Through driving storms, with the wind wailing in our ears and deafening
us to the dismal howling of the hungry dogs, we pushed forward in a
daily maddening struggle. The route before us was unknown. We were in
the fateful clutch of a drifting sea of ice. I could not guess whither
we were bound. At times I even lost hope of reaching land. Our bodies
were tired. Our legs were numb. We were almost insensible to the mad
craving hunger of our stomachs. We were living on a half ration of food,
and daily becoming weaker.[17]
Sometimes I paused, overcome by an almost overwhelming impulse to lie
down and drift through sleep into death. At these times, fortunately,
thoughts of home came thronging, with memories as tender as are the
memories of singing spring-time birds in winter time. And, although the
stimulating incentive of reaching the Pole on going north was gone, now,
having accomplished the feat, there was always the thought that unless I
got home no one should ever learn of that superhuman struggle, that
final victory.
Empty though it was, I had, as I had hoped, proved myself to myself; I
had justified the three centuries of human effort: I had proven that
finite human brain and palpitating muscle can be victorious over a cruel
and death-dealing Nature. It was a testimony that it was my duty to give
the world of struggling, striving men, and which, as a father, I hoped
with pride to give to my little children.
[Illustration: PTARMIGAN]
BACK TO LIFE AND BACK TO LAND
THE RETURN--DELUDED BY DRIFT AND FOG--CARRIED ASTRAY OVER AN UNSEEN
DEEP--TRAVEL FOR TWENTY DAYS IN A WORLD OF MISTS, WITH THE TERROR OF
DEATH--AWAKENED FROM SLEEP BY A HEAVENLY SONG--THE FIRST BIRD--FOLLOWING
THE WINGED HARBINGER--WE REACH LAND--A BLEAK, BARREN ISLAND POSSESSING
THE CHARM OF PARADISE--AFTER DAYS VERGING ON STARVATION, WE ENJOY A
FEAST OF UNCOOKED GAME
XXII
SOUTHWARD INTO THE AMERICAN ARCHIPELAGO
On May 24 the sky cleared long enough to permit me to take a set of
observations. I found we were on the eighty-fourth parallel, near the
ninety-seventh meridian. The new land I had noted on my northward
journey was hidden by a low mist. The ice was much crevassed, and
drifted eastward. Many open spaces of water were denoted in the west by
patches of water sky. The pack was sufficiently active to give us
considerable anxiety, although pressure lines and open water did not at
the time seriously impede our progress.
Scarcely enough food remained on the sledges to reach our caches unless
we should average fifteen miles a day. On the return from the Pole to
this point we had been able to make only twelve miles daily. Now our
strength, even under fair conditions, did not seem to be equal to more
than ten miles. The outlook was threatening, and even dangerous, but the
sight of the cleared sky gave new courage to E-tuk-i-shook and
Ah-we-lah.
Our best course was to get to Fridtjof Nansen Sound as soon as possible.
The new land westward was invisible, and offered no food prospects. An
attempted exploration might cause a fatal delay.
Still depending upon a steady easterly drift of the pack, a course was
set somewhat west of Svartevoeg, the northern point of Axel Heiberg
Land. In pressing onward, light variable winds and thick fogs prevailed.
The ice changed rapidly to smaller fields as we advanced. The
temperature rose to zero, and the air really began to be warm. Our
chronic shivering disappeared. With light sledges and endurable weather,
we made fair progress over the increasing pack irregularities.
As we crossed the eighty-third parallel we found ourselves to the west
of a large lead, extending slightly west of south. Immense quantities of
broken and pulverized ice lined the shores to a width of several miles.
The irregularities of this surface and the uncemented break offered
difficulties over which no force of man or beast could move a sledge or
boat. Compelled to follow the line of least resistance, a southerly
course was set along the ice division. The wind now changed and came
from the east, but there was no relief from the heavy banks of fog that
surrounded us.
The following days were days of desperation. The food for man and dog
was reduced, and the difficulties of ice travel increased
dishearteningly. We traveled twenty days, not knowing our position. A
gray mystery enshrouded us. Terror followed in our wake. Beneath us the
sea moved--whither it was carrying us I did not know. That we were
ourselves journeying toward an illimitable, hopeless sea, where we
should die of slow, lingering starvation, I knew was a dreadful
probability. Every minute drew its pangs of despair and fear.
The gray world of mist was silent. My companions gazed at me with faces
shriveled, thinned and hardened as those of mummies. Their anguish was
unspeakable. My own vocal powers seemed to have left me. Our dogs were
still; with bowed heads, tails drooping, they pulled the sledges
dispiritedly. We seemed like souls in torment, traveling in a world of
the dead, condemned to some Dantesque torture that should never cease.
After the mental torment of threatened starvation, which prevented,
despite the awful languor of my tortured limbs, any sleep; after
heart-breaking marches and bitter hunger and unquenched thirst, the
baffling mist that had shut us from all knowledge at last cleared away
one morning. Our hearts bounded. I felt such relief as a man buried
alive must feel when, after struggling in the stifling darkness, his
grave is suddenly opened. Land loomed to the west and south of us.
Yet we found we had been hardly dealt with by fate. Since leaving the
eighty-fourth parallel, without noticeable movement, we had been carried
astray by the ocean drift. We had moved with the entire mass that
covered the Polar waters. I took observations. They gave latitude 79 deg.
32', and longitude 101 deg. 22'. At last I had discovered our
whereabouts, and found that we were far from where we ought to be. But
our situation was indeed nearly hopeless. The mere gaining a knowledge
of where we actually were, however, fanned again the inextinguishable
embers of hope.
We were in Crown Prince Gustav Sea. To the east were the low mountains
and high valleys of Axel Heiberg Land, along the farther side of which
was our prearranged line of retreat, with liberal caches of good things
and with big game everywhere. But we were effectually barred from all
this.
Between us and the land lay fifty miles of small crushed ice and
impassable lines of open water. In hard-fought efforts to cross these we
were repulsed many times. I knew that if by chance we should succeed in
crossing, there would still remain an unknown course of eighty miles to
the nearest cache, on the eastern coast of Axel Heiberg Land.
We had no good reason to expect any kind of subsistence along the west
coast of Axel Heiberg Land. We had been on three-fourths rations for
three weeks, and there remained only half rations for another ten days.
Entirely aside from the natural barriers in the way of returning
eastward and northward, we were now utterly unequal to the task, for we
had not the food to support us.
The land to the south was nearer. Due south there was a wide gap which
we took to be Hassel Sound. On each side there was a low ice-sheeted
island, beyond the larger islands which Sverdrup had named Ellef Ringnes
Land and Amund Ringnes Land. The ice southward was tolerably good and
the drift was south-south-east.
In the hope that some young seals might be seen we moved into Hassel
Sound toward the eastern island. To satisfy our immediate pangs of
hunger was our most important mission.
The march on June 14 was easy, with a bright warm sun and a temperature
but little under the freezing point. In a known position, on good ice,
and with land rising before us, we were for a brief period happy and
strong, even with empty stomachs. The horizon was eagerly sought for
some color or form or movement to indicate life. We were far enough
south to expect bears and seals, and expecting the usual luck of the
hungry savage, we sought diligently. Our souls reached forth through our
far-searching eyes. Our eyes pained with the intense fixity of gazing,
yet no animate thing appeared. The world was vacant and dead. Our
beating hearts, indeed, seemed to be the only palpitating things there.
In the piercing rays of a high sun the tent was erected, and in it,
after eating only four ounces of pemmican and drinking two cups of icy
water, we sought rest. The dogs, after a similar ration, but without
water, fell into an easy sleep. I regarded the poor creatures with
tenderness and pity. For more than a fortnight they had not uttered a
sound to disturb the frigid silence. When a sled dog is silent and
refuses to fight with his neighbor, his spirit is very low. Finally I
fell asleep.
At about six o'clock we were awakened by a strange sound. Our surprised
eyes turned from side to side. Not a word was uttered. Another sound
came--a series of soft, silvery notes--the song of a creature that
might have come from heaven. I listened with rapture. I believed I was
dreaming. The enchanting song continued--I lay entranced. I could not
believe this divine thing was of our real world until the pole of our
tent gently quivered. Then, above us, I heard the flutter of wings. It
was a bird--a snow bunting trilling its ethereal song--the first sound
of life heard for many months.
We were back to life! Tears of joy rolled down our emaciated faces. If I
could tell you of the resurrection of the soul which came with that
first bird note, and the new interest which it gave in our subsequent
life, I should feel myself capable of something superhuman in powers of
expression.
With the song of that marvelous bird a choking sense of homesickness
came to all of us. We spoke no word. The longing for home gripped our
hearts.
We were hungry, but no thought of killing this little feathered creature
came to us. It seemed as divine as the bird that came of old to Noah in
the ark. Taking a few of our last bread crumbs, we went out to give it
food. The little chirping thing danced joyously on the crisp snows,
evidently as glad to see us as we were to behold it. I watched it with
fascination. At last we were back to life! We felt renewed vigor. And
when the little bird finally rose into the air and flew homeward, our
spirits rose, our eyes followed it, and, as though it were a token sent
to us, we followed its winged course landward with eager, bounding
hearts.
We were now on immovable ice attached to the land. We directed our
course uninterruptedly landward, for there was no thought of further
rest or sleep after the visit of the bird had so uplifted our hearts.
Our chances of getting meat would have been bettered by following close
to the open water, but the ice there was such that no progress could be
made. Furthermore, the temptation quickly to set foot on land was too
great to resist. At the end of a hard march--the last few hours of which
were through deep snows--we mounted the ice edge, and finally reached a
little island--a bare spot of real land. When my foot touched it, my
heart sank. We sat down, and the joy of the child in digging the sand of
the seashore was ours.
I wonder if ever such a bleak spot, in a desert of death, had so
impressed men before as a perfect paradise. In this barren heap of sand
and clay, we were at last free of the danger, the desolation, the
sterility of that soul-withering environment of a monotonously moving
world of ice and eternal frost.
We fastened the dogs to a rock, and pitched the tent on earth-soiled
snows. In my joy I did not forget that the Pole was ours, but, at that
time, I was ready to offer freely to others the future pleasures of its
crystal environment and all its glory. Our cup had been filled too often
with its bitters and too seldom with its sweets for us to entertain
further thirst for boreal conquest.
And we also resolved to keep henceforth from the wastes of the terrible
Polar sea. In the future the position of lands must govern our
movements. For, along a line of rocks, although we might suffer from
hunger, we should no longer be helpless chips on the ocean drift, and if
no other life should be seen, at least occasional shrimps would gladden
the heart.
[Illustration: "WITH EAGER EYES WE SEARCHED THE DUSKY PLAINS OF CRYSTAL,
BUT THERE WAS NO LAND, NO LIFE, TO RELIEVE THE PURPLE RUN OF DEATH"]
[Illustration: RECORD LEFT IN BRASS TUBE AT NORTH POLE]
We stepped about on the solid ground with a new sense of security. But
the land about was low, barren, and shapeless. Its formation was
triassic, similar to that of most of Heiberg land, but in our immediate
surroundings, erosion by frost, the grind of ice sheets, and the power
of winds, had leveled projecting rocks and cliffs. Part of its interior
was blanketed with ice. Its shore line had neither the relief of a
colored cliff nor a picturesque headland; there was not even a wall of
ice; there were only dull, uninteresting slopes of sand and snow
separating the frozen sea from the land-ice. The most careful scrutiny
gave no indication of a living creature. The rocks were uncovered even
with black lichens. A less inviting spot of earth could not be
conceived, yet it aroused in us a deep sense of enthusiasm. A strip of
tropical splendor could not have done more. The spring of man's passion
is sprung by contrast, not by degrees of glory.
In camp, the joy of coming back to earth was chilled by the agonizing
call of the stomach. The effervescent happiness could not dispel the
pangs of hunger. A disabled dog which had been unsuccessfully nursed for
several days was sacrificed on the altar of hard luck, and the other
dogs were thereupon given a liberal feed, in which we shared. To our
palates the flesh of the dog was not distasteful, yet the dog had been
our companion for many months, and at the same time that our
conscienceless stomachs were calling for more hot, blood-wet meat, a
shivering sense of guilt came over me. We had killed and were eating a
living creature which had been faithful to us.
We were hard-looking men at this time. Our fur garments were worn
through at the elbows and at the knees. Ragged edges dangled in the
winds. All the boot soles were mere films, like paper with many holes.
Our stockings were in tatters. The bird-skin shirts had been fed to the
dogs, and strips of our sleeping bags had day by day been added to the
canine mess. It took all our spare time now to mend clothing. Dressed in
rags, with ugly brown faces, seamed with many deep wind-fissures, we had
reached, in our appearance, the extreme limit of degradation.
At the Pole I had been thin, but now my skin was contracted over bones
offering only angular eminences as a bodily outline. The Eskimos were as
thin as myself. My face was as black as theirs. They had risen to higher
mental levels, and I had descended to lower animal depths. The long
strain, the hard experiences, had made us equals. We were, however,
still in good health and were capable of considerable hard work. It was
not alone the want of food which had shriveled our bodies, for greater
pangs of hunger were reserved for a later run of misfortune. Up to this
point persistent overwork had been the most potent factor.
As we passed out of Hassel Sound, the ice drifted southward. Many new
fractures were noted, and open spaces of water appeared. Here was seen
the track of a rat--the first sign of a four-footed creature--and we
stopped to examine the tiny marks with great interest. Next, some old
bear tracks were detected. These simple things had an intense
fascination for us, coming as we did out of a lifeless world; and, too,
these signs showed that the possibilities of food were at hand, and the
thought sharpened our senses into savage fierceness.
We continued our course southward, as we followed, wolf-like, in the
bear footprints. The sledges bounded over the icy irregularities as they
had not done for months. Every crack in the ice was searched for seals,
and with the glasses we mounted hummock after hummock to search the
horizon for bears.