Robert E. Peary was born at Cresson Springs, Pennsylvania, May 6th,
1856. When he was but three years of age his father died and his young
mother moved back to her old home at Portland, Maine. Here his boyhood
days were spent in fishing and swimming in the bay, or in roaming over
the hills and through the forests. True, the fields with their birds
and flowers interested him to some extent, but the mighty ocean,
heaving with its mysterious tides and beset with treacherous gales,
interested him most. Never did he tire of the stories of danger and
hardship as told by the sturdy, adventurous fishermen. So eager was he
to learn the mysteries of the mighty deep that he would sit for hours
at a time listening to the sailors as they explained the tides and
shifting winds. Little did he realize in those early days that this
was precisely the knowledge that he would later need in his work as an
arctic explorer.
But the fishermen were not his only teachers; for so faithful was he
in his regular school work that, at the age of seventeen, he was ready
to enter college. Bowdoin, the oldest and best known college in the
state, was chosen. Upon his graduation, at the age of twenty-one, he
was ready to start in life. But where should he go and what should he
do? Odd as it then seemed to his friends, he chose the little village
of Fryeburg, away back amid the mountains of Maine. Here he hung out
his sign as land surveyor. As practically no one in that little town
wanted land surveyed, he had much leisure time which he spent in long
hikes over the mountains and along the trout streams. This experience
further fitted him for his tasks as an arctic explorer.
That he had always been an energetic student was shown by his success
in passing the United States Civil Service examination which he took
at the age of twenty-five. This examination, given by the Navy
Department, was for the purpose of choosing civil engineers. Out of
forty who took the examination only four passed, and Mr. Peary was the
youngest of the four.
As soon as he had won the rank of Lieutenant, his first task was to
estimate carefully the cost of building a huge pier at Key West,
Florida. When the estimate was handed in, the contractors said that it
could not be built for that amount. Since Lieutenant Peary insisted
that it could, the government told him to engineer the building of the
pier himself. This he did so skillfully that he saved for the
government thirty thousand dollars.
So brilliant was this success that he was sent to Nicaragua to
engineer the survey for the Inter-Oceanic Canal. Here his experience
in equipping an expedition, and in managing half-civilized men,
further fitted him for his great work in the north land.
Prior to this time he seems never to have thought of arctic
explorations, for he writes: "One evening in one of my favorite
haunts, an old book store in Washington, I came upon a fugitive paper
on the Inland Ice of Greenland. A chord, which as a boy had vibrated
intensely in me at the reading of Kane's wonderful book, was touched
again. I read all I could upon the subject, noted the conflicting
experiences of the explorers, and felt that I must see for myself what
the truth was of this great mysterious interior." Then it was, as he
tells us later, that he caught the "Arctic Fever" which he never got
over until he had discovered the North Pole. As a result of this fever
he has made nine trips into the north land, and these expeditions have
consumed so much time that, though he had been married twenty-one
years when he reached the Pole, only three of these years had been
spent in the quiet of his home with his family.
Interested as we are in all these expeditions, we are most interested,
I am sure, in the one in which he reached his goal.
Embarked on the good ship _Roosevelt_, his expedition had no trouble
in reaching Etah Fiord on the north coast of Greenland. This place
interests us because it is the northernmost Eskimo village and is
within seven hundred miles of the Pole.
In speaking of these Eskimos, Mr. Peary says: "There are now between
two hundred and twenty and two hundred and thirty in the tribe. They
are savages, but they are not savage; they are without government, but
they are not lawless; they are utterly uneducated according to our
standard, yet they exhibit a remarkable degree of intelligence. In
temperament like children, with a child's delight in little things,
they are nevertheless enduring as the most mature of civilized men and
women, and the best of them are faithful unto death. Without religion
and having no idea of God, they will share their last meal with anyone
who is hungry. They have no vices, no intoxicants, and no bad
habits--not even gambling. Altogether they are a people unique upon
the face of the earth."
In his journeys into the far North Mr. Peary enjoyed many a walrus
hunt. How should you like to hunt walruses? Before you answer read the
following description of a walrus hunt:
"Walrus-hunting is the best sport in the shooting line that I know.
There is something doing when you tackle a herd of fifty-odd, weighing
between one and two tons each, that go for you whether wounded or not;
that can punch a hole through eight inches of young ice; that try to
get into the boat to get at or upset you,--we could never make out
which, and didn't care, as the result to us would have been the
same,--or else try to raise your boat and stave holes in it.
"Getting in a mix-up with a herd, when every man in the whale-boat is
standing by to repel boarders, hitting them over the head with oars,
boat-hooks, axes, and yelling like a cheering section at a football
game to try to scare them off; with the rifles going like young
Gatling guns, and the walruses bellowing from pain and anger, coming
to the surface with mad rushes, sending the water up in the air till
you would think a flock of geysers was turned loose in your immediate
vicinity--oh, it's great!"
The _Roosevelt_ after leaving Etah Fiord was able to go as far north
as Cape Sheridan, about 500 miles from the North Pole. Here, on
February 15, 1909, the little party left the ship for the long journey
over a wide waste of ice. The army that was to fight the bitter polar
cold was made up of six white men, one negro, fifty-nine Eskimos, one
hundred forty dogs, and twenty-three sledges.
For the first hundred miles after leaving the ship they were forced to
cut their way through vast stretches of jagged ice. After twenty-four
days of struggle, only twenty-four men remained; all the others having
been sent back. These twenty-four, however, were the freshest and
strongest. On they battled, always sending back the weakest. Finally,
when but two degrees from the Pole, only the negro, four Eskimos, Mr.
Peary and forty dogs remained.
Suppose we ask Mr. Peary, in his own language, to describe the final
dash to the pole.
"This was that for which I had worked for thirty-two years; for which
I had trained myself as for a race. For success now, in spite of my
fifty-three years, I felt trim-fit for the demands of the coming days
and eager to be on the trail. As for my party, my equipment, and my
supplies, I was in shape beyond my fondest dreams of earlier years. My
party was as loyal and responsive to my will as the fingers of my
right hand. Two of them had been my companions to the farthest point
three years before. Two others were in Clark's division, which had
such a narrow escape at that time, and were now willing to go
anywhere. My dogs were the very best. Almost all were powerful males,
hard as nails and in good spirits. My supplies were ample for forty
days.
"I decided that I should strain every nerve to make five marches of
fifteen miles each, crowding these marches in such a way as to bring
us to the end of the fifth long enough before noon to permit the
immediate taking of an observation for latitude."
Usually these marches were for ten or twelve hours, and the distance
covered averaged about twenty-five miles. The dangers encountered are
suggested by the following: "Near the end of the march I came upon a
lead which was just opening. It was ten yards wide directly in front
of me, but a few yards to the east was an apparently good crossing
where the single crack was divided into several. I signaled to the
sledges to hurry; then, running to the place, I had time to pick a
road across the moving ice cakes and return to help teams across
before the lead widened so as to be impassable. This passage was
effected by my jumping from one cake to another, picking the way, and
making sure that the cake would not tilt under the weight of the dogs
and the sledge, returning to the former cake where the dogs were,
encouraging the dogs ahead while the driver steered the sledge across
from cake to cake, and threw his weight from one side to the other so
that it could not overturn. We got the sledges across several cracks
so wide that while the dogs had no trouble in jumping, the men had to
be pretty active in order to follow the long sledges."
Luckily at the end of the fifth march they were less than two miles
from the pole. Should you like to know how Mr. Peary felt at this
eventful hour?
"Of course, I had many sensations that made sleep impossible for
hours, despite my utter fatigue--the sensations of a lifetime; but I
have no room for them here. The first thirty hours at the Pole were
spent in taking observations; in going some ten miles beyond our camp,
and some eight miles to the right of it; in taking photographs,
planting my flags, depositing my records, studying the horizon with my
telescope for possible land, and searching for a place to make a
sounding. Ten hours after our arrival the clouds cleared before a
light breeze from our left, and from that time until our departure on
the afternoon of April 7th the weather was cloudless and flawless. The
coldest temperature during the thirty hours was thirty-three degrees
below zero, and the warmest twelve below."
Thus it was that after the nations of the world had sent out over five
hundred expeditions in search of the North Pole, an American,
educated in Old New England, schooled in hardship in the United States
Navy, planted "Old Glory" at the northernmost point of this mighty
world. To Admiral Peary, then, is conceded the greatest scientific
triumph of the century and April sixth, 1909, is a memorable day in
the history of America and the world.
* * * * *
_THE AMERICAN'S CREED_
I believe in the United States of America as a government of the
people, by the people, for the people, whose just powers are derived
from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic; a
sovereign Nation of many sovereign States, a perfect Union, one and
inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality,
justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their
lives and fortunes.
I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it; to support
its Constitution; to obey its laws; to respect its flag, and to defend
it against all enemies.
--WILLIAM TYLER PAGE.