It is nearly four hundred years (1526) since the first recorded
expedition went forth to seek the North Pole under the initiative of
England.
Trade, the great prize of the commerce of the opulent East, land lust,
and the spirit of adventure in turn played their part as incentives for
the earlier expeditions. It seems to be generally accepted that nothing
had a more powerful influence on the work than England’s determination
to have a trade route of her own to the riches of the East, independent
of the southern routes controlled by Spain and Portugal. It was this
determination that made the terms Northeast Passage and Northwest
Passage historic, and brought about years of search that, though
latterly scientific, have been largely the acme of adventure and
sentiment.
[Illustration: TRAVELING IN THE FAR NORTH
_Dog sledges used by Peary on his expedition to the North Pole._]
From the misty date of Pytheas (325 B.C.) down through the succeeding
centuries, the record of polar exploration contains much of interest,
of mystery, of superstition, followed by some of the grandest epics,
most heroic efforts and sacrifices, and somberest catastrophes
and tragedies in all the wide field of exploration. Briton and
Scandinavian, Teuton and Latin, Slav and Magyar, and American, have
entered the lists and struggled for the prize.
[Illustration: THE ROOSEVELT
_Peary’s ship, in which he sailed to discover the North Pole._]
In the earlier years of this long record occurred the strange voyages
of the Zeni, and Eric the Red, Icelandic outlaw, with his discovery and
colonization of Greenland,--strange stories of hot springs in that far
country, with which the monks warmed their monastery and cooked their
food; a tribute of walrus tusks toward the expenses of the Crusades;
tales of the rich green pastures, and herds of grazing cattle, of these
colonists, and later their mysterious and complete disappearance,
leaving only a scattered ruin here and there to show that they ever
existed.