SUPPLIES AND EQUIPMENT
The detail of equipping a polar expedition is like the detail of
equipping an army for foreign service, with, however, this difference.
After the expedition has cast loose from civilization there is no
chance to rectify mistakes or omissions. No rush wires or cables can be
sent back to ship this or that article by next train or steamer. The
little ship which bears the hopes of a polar expedition must contain in
its restricted space everything to supply all the needs of its people
for two or three years in a region where nothing can be obtained but
meat, and even that only by those who possess the “know how.” Even when
the needs are reduced to almost primeval simplicity, the multiplicity
of essential things is great.
As an illustration of how an article, though so common that, like
breathing, we are unaware of it, may be overlooked, it is said that a
great polar expedition costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, and
fitted out under the supervision of committees of scientists and polar
experts, discovered, when it reached its winter quarters, that there
was no salt on board except that in the salt pork and beef.
Supplies for a polar expedition comprise primarily equipment and
provisions. The latter subdivides again into provisions for ship and
headquarters and provisions for sledge-work.
The former are essentially normal, comprising standard commercial
supplies, the principal thing being to have the best, and the
specialness lies largely in the packing. The latter number only four
items, pemmican, compressed tea, condensed milk, hard tack; but they
are special in every detail of make and packing, with the exception of
the condensed milk.
Here are a few of the items and figures on the list of supplies for one
of my last expeditions, flour, 16,000 pounds; coffee, 1000 pounds; tea,
800 pounds; sugar, 10,000 pounds; kerosene, 3500 gallons; bacon, 7000
pounds; biscuit, 10,000 pounds; condensed milk, 100 cases; pemmican,
30,000 pounds; dried fish, 3000 pounds.
To illustrate how normal was our bill of fare on the _Roosevelt_ in
winter quarters, here is our weekly menu for the winter of 1908–09 (the
north pole voyage):
Monday. Breakfast: cereal, beans and brown bread, butter, coffee.
Dinner: liver and bacon, macaroni and cheese, bread and butter, tea.
Tuesday. Breakfast: oatmeal, ham and eggs, bread and butter, coffee.
Dinner: corned beef and creamed peas, duff, tea.
Wednesday. Breakfast: choice of two kinds of cereal, fish, forward
(that is, for the sailors), sausage, aft (for the members of the
expedition), bread and butter, coffee. Dinner: steak and tomatoes,
bread and butter, tea.
Thursday. Breakfast: cereal, ham and eggs, bread and butter, coffee.
Dinner: corned beef and peas, duff, tea.
Friday. Breakfast: choice of cereal, fish, Hamburger on starboard (our
own) table, bread and butter, coffee. Dinner: pea soup, fish, cranberry
pie, bread and butter, tea.
Saturday. Breakfast: cereal, meat stew, bread and butter, coffee.
Dinner: steak and tomatoes, bread and butter, tea.
Sunday. Breakfast: cereal, “brooze” (Newfoundland hard biscuit softened
and boiled with salt codfish), bread and butter, coffee. Dinner: salmon
trout, fruit, chocolate.
In addition to the large quantities of the bedrock staple provisions,
there is a long list of odd and often amusing supplies that would never
be thought of except by those who had already had polar experience. Yet
for the mere problem of existence in those regions, to the experienced
one the essentials are few, rifle and ammunition, matches, knife,
hatchet, needles.
In my work another special class of supplies came in, that is,
articles for my Eskimos; tools, weapons, implements, etc., for pay and
gifts.
Many details so numerous as to be almost impossible to remember
develop in connection with polar supplies as the result of experience
in various expeditions. The packing of all provisions is of the
utmost importance. The first requisite is that everything must be in
water-tight packages, as an insurance against damage or deterioration
if the expedition is a long one, and particularly as a safeguard
against damage and spoiling in case of injury to the ship or in
emergency transportation in boats or across the ice under conditions
which may mean the repeated immersion of the supplies in sea-water.
Another fundamental essential is that all provisions must be in
packages not to exceed a certain maximum weight, which can be readily
handled by one man in loading or unloading a ship or boats or sledges,
particularly in an emergency, where rapid work is essential.
My standard net weight for every package of all provisions which were
not particularly ship provisions was fifty pounds. The water-tight tins
and the light box or crate outside of the tin made the gross weight of
packages from sixty-two or sixty-three to a maximum of seventy-five
pounds. Packages of this size can be easily picked up and passed up
from the hold of a ship by one man, or can be tossed over the rail to
the ice in case of the crushing of the ship, and they are easily and
rapidly handled by one man in stowing in a boat or in taking out of a
boat.
Another detail of packing provisions which, as far as I know, was
unique and peculiar to my expeditions, was making the depth and width
of all boxes containing provisions the same, and letting the length
vary in accordance with the specific gravity of the particular item of
supplies. To illustrate: All boxes of oatmeal, corn-meal, rice, tea,
coffee, sugar, etc., were about twelve inches wide by ten inches deep,
and of a length that would just contain fifty pounds of the particular
article. Of course a sugar box would be shorter than an oatmeal or
corn-meal box, and a corn-meal box would be shorter than a box of tea.
The reason for this standardizing of two dimensions of the boxes was
to fit them to be utilized for constructing houses, being laid up like
blocks of granite, and breaking joints in the same way. By this method
the supplies landed from the ship at headquarters could easily be
formed into two or three comfortable houses for shelter of the members
of the expedition in case the ship should be crushed or burned.
[Illustration: WHALE MEAT FOR DOG FOOD]
These houses were built by forming four walls of the boxes of supplies,
with the tops of the boxes inside; then putting boards or sails across
the top, and banking the whole structure in with snow. When supplies
of any kind were required, the cover of a box in the wall of the
house would be removed from the inside, the tin containing the supplies
removed, the empty box then becoming a sort of shelf or locker for
other articles, if needed. The main point, however, was that all the
supplies could be used, and the house still remain intact.
This method was also valuable wherever large caches of supplies were
made at particular points, as the supplies formed at once a strong,
comfortable, and rapidly constructed shelter for the use of parties
traveling that route and camping at the cache.
Another special point was the marking of all special supplies, such as
tea, coffee, sugar, milk, ship’s biscuit, which might be called the
emergency supplies, on every side with a dash of paint in such a way
that any one, whether able to read or write or not (or an Eskimo),
if able to see one side of a box, would know at once its contents.
This method of marking was the result of the experiences of some
expeditions previous to mine in which much time was lost hunting for
and endeavoring to identify supplies.
This method also worked for instant efficiency in case of emergency, as
a man could seize a case of sugar or coffee to throw over the ship’s
side or out of a crushed boat without any false motions.
All these points were worked out rather carefully, and in my opinion
are so valuable that they never should be omitted in preparing the
supplies of a polar expedition.
Material for equipment of my expeditions (lumber for sledges, webbing
for dog harnesses, furs for clothing, tin for making utensils, etc.)
was always taken in bulk and in the rough, partly for economy in space,
partly for economy in cost, and largely to give occupation to members
of the party during the long winter night in making the finished
articles.
It can readily be seen that in stowing the ship for the northern
voyage, oak and hickory boards for sledges would stow much more
compactly than the sledge itself, and be less subject to injury. So,
too, with sheets of tin as compared with utensils made from the tin.
With furs the same, for made up into clothing they would require double
the space taken up by bales.
This method as regards sledge material is particularly valuable during
the upward voyage, when, as happened much of the time, the ship was
sometimes delayed by the heavy character of the ice, and would have
to lie motionless, with banked fires, several days in one place. At
such times sledge material was brought on deck, and crew and Eskimos
set to work in the best of light, in comfortable temperatures, to make
and assemble the sledges. In this way every one was kept occupied
and interested instead of loafing and fretting at the delay, and the
sledges, as completed, were in readiness for instant use as soon as
we reached winter quarters for the ship. And they were also valuable
for an emergency, in the event of the loss of the ship, to transport
provisions over the ice to the shore.
The stowing of supplies on board the ship was done in accordance
with a plan worked out almost as carefully as would be the builders’
plans of the blocks in a granite building, so that every item could
be located, and the essential supplies and items of equipment for an
emergency--tea, coffee, sugar, ship’s biscuit, oil, guns, rifles,
ammunition, hatchets, fur clothing--were on top and instantly
accessible. When navigating in ice, tea, coffee, sugar, ship’s biscuit,
and oil were stowed in continuous lines on deck and just inside the
bulwarks of the ship throughout the waist, quarter-deck, and on both
deck-houses in such a way that one active man could throw a ton of
provisions out on the ice in a few minutes. This was in addition to
having the whale-boats, as they hung at the davits, stowed and fitted
with rifles, shot-guns, ammunition, hatchets, oil-stoves, matches
in waterproof packages, together with several days’ rations of tea,
coffee, sugar, milk, ship’s biscuit, and oil.
This was in rather striking contrast to an earlier American expedition,
where, it is stated in the official report, nearly the entire cargo
had to be overhauled in order to get at some particular item--guns
and ammunition, if I remember aright. Such experiences as this are
striking examples and illustrations of what my friend Stefansson has
described very effectively in an article entitled “Incompetence as a
Literary Asset in Arctic Matters.”
In two particular items of supplies my expeditions have been an
antithesis of other expeditions. In the case of one item in its
absence, in the case of the other in its great abundance. These two
items were meat and flour. As a result of my plan from my earliest
expedition to depend upon the country itself for my fresh meat supply,
I have never carried any of this in the ship’s stores. On the other
hand, having been most fortunate in my later expeditions, when I had my
own ship, in having a steward (Charles Percy) who was a blue-ribboner
in making bread and cooking meat, I have carried large quantities of
flour. Some idea of the amount of this can be obtained by the fact that
in my last north polar expedition, during the eleven months that the
_Roosevelt_ was lying at Cape Sheridan, Percy baked some 18,000 pounds
of bread.
The members of an Arctic party that have fresh meat and fresh bread
regularly can never have scurvy, regardless of whether they see a
vegetable or a fruit or lime juice from one year’s end to another. My
work, extending over a period of twenty-three years, during which no
symptoms of scurvy ever developed, has shown conclusively that white
men can remain in the highest latitudes for a period of years with
complete immunity from the dreaded scourge.
[Illustration: LABRADOR WHALING STEAMER]
[Illustration: OFF FOR WHALES--LABRADOR COAST]
When it came to the matter of sledge-supplies, even greater care in
packing was applied. Pemmican for the dogs was put up in tins just as
long as the width of my sledges, so that in a standard sledge-load of
dog pemmican the tins formed a continuous flooring to the sledge. The
pemmican for the men was put up in tins that were creased in such a
way that the block of pemmican, when removed from the tin, was lightly
scored in a way that marked it off into one pound cakes, and whoever
had the distribution of the pemmican ration at a camp had only to
insert a hunting-knife or saw-knife or edge of a hatchet into these
marks, and with a blow or two separate the pemmican at once into
standard rations.
All these refinements and details may seem amusing to those who have
read the accounts of some polar expeditions where such supplies as
ship’s biscuit or flour or the like were carried in bags, with no
protection from moisture or water, and where contact with the sharp
edges of ice or the sledge could easily punch a hole through a bag,
with a consequent loss of some of the provisions before the mishap was
noted.
Some of the same expeditions would get out their scales at each camp
and carefully weigh out the various amounts of each item of the
rations.
On my polar expeditions my ship’s biscuit were all made rectangular
in form and sixteen to the pound, so that the matter of adjusting
the size of a ration of biscuit was simply the matter of counting a
certain number. If it was a full ration,--that is, a pound per man per
day,--then the number of biscuit was sixteen. If it was half-ration,
eight; a quarter ration, four.
These things may seem trivial to some readers, but every movement and
operation which can be eliminated and every minute that can be saved
under the trying accompaniments of cold, wind, hunger, and fatigue,
which are inevitable in polar travel, make for the conservation of the
energy, vitality, and morale of the members of the party.
My last two expeditions carried no food experiments, no wonderful
preparations, no condensed products of astonishing powers. I had been
through all this in earlier expeditions, and had tried preparation
after preparation, only to find them of no value on the serious
northern sledge-journey, which was the object and climax of each
expedition. For that journey only the four tried articles, pemmican,
tea, condensed milk, and hard tack, are necessary, and I could not
change or better them for another expedition. On various expeditions I
made and tried out several food mixtures, but discarded them all after
trial.
In obtaining many of the special items of materials a great deal of
time was spent searching through the stores in various places for the
particular thing needed.
To obtain a particular size and shape of aluminum dish all in one
piece, for a detail of my special alcohol field-stove, I have gone over
the entire aluminum stock of New York’s great department stores, and
then through the catalogues of all the manufacturers, till I found what
I wanted or something that could be made to meet my requirements.
Another thing that I recall was steel sledge-shoes. It would seem a
simple thing to find in any place that dealt in steel, strips of the
metal two inches wide, one-eighth of an inch thick, and fifteen feet
long, yet it took me two expeditions to find just what I wanted. The
steel for my purpose must be soft enough so that I could drill it in
the field, yet hard enough so that the constant use would not too
quickly wear it through. Then the edges of the steel must be sharp,
like the edges of a skate, so that the sledges would not slew heavily
sidewise, with almost certain injury, and so they could be tilted on
the edge of one runner, like a skater doing the outer edge, without
losing grip on the ice. This is a favorite device of expert Eskimo
sledge-drivers in difficult situations. All bar steel in the market
had rounded edges, and not till my last expedition, when I found a
cold-sheared steel with edges as sharp as a skate, did I get just the
sledge-shoe that I needed.
Then there were the screws for attaching the shoes. The constant
pounding to which sledge-shoes are subjected in traversing rough
sea-ice soon jars off the heads of any screw that I could find in the
market. After a long search I found a tough wire nail of the right
diameter, which, by cutting to the necessary length, gave me what I
wanted.
As a matter not of conscientious scruples, but of judgment and taste, I
am neither a drinker nor a smoker, and I have always selected men for
my parties who used neither tobacco nor spirits. Liquor should have
no place in a polar ration either for camp or field. Yet on special
occasions, as on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and birthdays, nothing gives
more zest or helps to lift the day out of the even monotony of the days
on each side than a glass of grog or light wine.
The liquor supply of my expeditions has always included brandy and
whisky and a little wine. Neither was ever a part of the regular
ration, and yet no party was ever sent out without brandy or whisky
in its equipment. Brandy or whisky is a medicine as much as salts
or calomel, and should be regarded and utilized as such despite the
shrieks of fanatics.
[Illustration: DUNHAM SNOW SHOES
The center pair of shoes, five feet long, one foot wide, with raised
toe and ski curve in middle, is the best shoe made]
[Illustration: ITEMS OF SLEDGE RATIONS
Left to right: Compressed tea, condensed milk, pemmican, oil, alcohol,
dog pemmican, and ship biscuit]
If it were possible to obtain strong hot tea or coffee instantly on
a sledge-journey in extreme low temperatures, there would be little
use for spirits. But when every drop of water must be melted from ice
at temperatures of minus sixty degrees or lower, and then raised to
the boiling point, it takes time. And when a member of the party has
seriously injured himself or has fallen in the icy water, something is
needed on the instant to brace his system and keep him from too serious
a reaction until a snow igloo can be built to shelter him.
Tobacco is equally or more objectionable in polar work. It affects
the wind endurance of a man, particularly in low temperatures, adds
an extra and entirely unnecessary article to the outfit, vitiates the
atmosphere of tent or igloo, and, when the supply gives out, renders
the user a nuisance to himself and those about him.
Of all the items which go to make up the list of supplies for a polar
expedition, the one which ranks first in importance is pemmican. It
is also the one which starts the most instant interrogation from the
average person. I usually find that the character of this absolutely
indispensable food is most quickly grasped if I describe it as a dry
mince-meat.
Pemmican is understood to be of Indian origin, originally made of the
meat and fat of the buffalo, and its name, from the Cree language,
means ground meat and grease. It is said that in the days when buffalo
herds were numerous the Indians and half-breeds made large quantities
of pemmican in the autumn hunting, cutting the buffalo meat in long,
thin strips, which were dried in the sun and wind, then, mixed with
buffalo fat, were pounded into a mass.
Too much cannot be said of the importance of pemmican to a polar
expedition. It is an absolute sine qua non. Without it a sledge-party
cannot compact its supplies within a limit of weight to make a serious
polar journey successful. Perhaps I should modify that by saying to
make a north polar journey possible, as the conditions in the north are
such as to make a successful journey in that region a severer test of
refinement in methods and supplies and equipment than anywhere else.
With pemmican, the most serious sledge-journey can be undertaken and
carried to a successful issue in the absence of all other foods.
Of all foods that I am acquainted with, pemmican is the only one that,
under appropriate conditions, a man can eat twice a day for three
hundred and sixty-five days in a year and have the last mouthful taste
as good as the first. And it is the most satisfying food I know. I
recall innumerable marches in bitter temperatures when men and dogs had
been worked to the limit and I reached the place for camp feeling as if
I could eat my weight of anything. When the pemmican ration was dealt
out, and I saw my little half-pound lump, about as large as the bottom
third of an ordinary drinking-glass, I have often felt a sullen rage
that life should contain such situations. By the time I had finished
the last morsel I would not have walked round the completed igloo for
anything or everything that the St. Regis, the Blackstone, or the
Palace Hotel could have put before me.
Even the Eskimo dogs were at times obliged to yield to the filling
qualities of pemmican, and anything that will stay the appetite of
a healthy Eskimo dog must possess some body. I recall an instance
where my powerful king dog discovered a tin of pemmican that had had
a hole punched in it in some way. The maddening smell of the luscious
beef fat through the hole spurred him to drive his iron jaws through
the tin until he had ripped it like a can-opener and reached the
contents. Had the tin contained ordinary meat, the twelve pounds would
have been merely an appetizer for him; but when I found him later,
he had voluntarily quit, with only a portion of the pemmican eaten.
And--though this may not be believed by others who have had experience
with Eskimo dogs--he would eat nothing more that day.
Pemmican is the _only_ food for dogs on a serious polar sledge journey;
and there is nothing as good as walrus meat to keep dogs in good
condition during the autumn and winter at headquarters previous to the
sledge journey. I found a special brand of bacon which I obtained in
hundred-pound cases one of the best substitutes for the walrus meat.
On my last expedition as an insurance against lack of time or poor luck
in walrus hunting, I took on board several tons of whale meat in bulk
at one of the Labrador whaling stations.
Future polar explorers may find this whale meat a convenient and
economical source of supply for their winter dog food.
The whale meat should be packed at the station in tins containing fifty
to one hundred pounds each. These tins should be filled with fresh
sweet meat from whales just killed, and each tin should be filled solid
under the constant supervision of a representative of the expedition.
In my various expeditions I have naturally had some experiences with
pemmican. In my first two journeys my pemmican supply was part of
the pemmican made for the Greely relief expedition. A large amount
of pemmican was made for this party; but as the few survivors of the
unfortunate Greely expedition were rescued at Cape Sabine and brought
home in a few weeks, virtually none of it was used. On the return of
the rescue party this pemmican was bought in at auction by a dealer in
such supplies, and my outfit was obtained from him. This pemmican was
more satisfactory than any I have ever had since. Nine-tenths of it
was just as good as when made, and the fact that occasional tins of
it were bad was no drawback and caused me no loss, as such tins were
accepted by the dogs at their face value.
The one objection to this pemmican, in the extreme refinement of space
and weight demanded for the sledge-journey across the central polar
ocean, was that it was put up in round tins.
When this supply was exhausted, I had some pemmican made for me; but it
was not entirely satisfactory, and on a still later expedition I was
persuaded to purchase some so-called pemmican of a foreign make. This,
after I had sailed and it was too late to remedy the error, I found to
be largely composed of pea-flour. While nourishing and more or less
satisfactory to the men of the party, it was of essentially no value
whatever for the dogs, and the work of the expedition was just cut in
half by the impossibility of keeping the dogs in first-class condition
to do hard work.
Later on I was consoled to a certain extent for this mistake on
learning that a foreign expedition, in having its pemmican prepared,
had very carefully extracted all fat from the preparation, with
the consequent loss of heat-producing qualities, which was quickly
discovered in the field under the stress of serious work.
In my last expeditions my pemmican was made specially by American
firms, and specially packed for my particular requirements. Its
composition, as ordered, was as follows: two-thirds lean beef, dried
until friable, then ground fine, and mixed with one-third beef fat, a
little sugar, and a few raisins. Of course no one but the makers knew
how much cat, dog, mule, and horse meat masqueraded in the pemmican
under the guise of beef; but it all went, and in the case of the dog
pemmican, of course, it made no difference. In my 1905–06 expedition
the makers, however, in a business-like and perhaps legitimate effort
to make the meat go as far as possible, made liberal use of bone meal
in the dog pemmican. The effect of this upon the dogs was exactly like
feeding a boiler with coal fifty per cent. of which is slate and dirt,
and the work obtained from them was just about in proportion to the
work that would be obtained from boilers in these circumstances.
In my last expedition a more careful inspection and insistence on
edible substances in the dog pemmican remedied this trouble. A portion
of the pemmican, however, contained an ingredient which was not at
all in the original specifications, and which I should strongly
advise against in the pemmican of future expeditions, that is, broken
glass. Fortunately, none of my party experienced any ill effects from
this, owing to the fact that we still retained the civilized habit of
chewing our food, and detected the presence of the glass before it was
swallowed. A number of sudden and unaccountable deaths of my dogs,
however, we attributed directly to this cause.
Pemmican made of the materials and in the proportions required by my
specifications is, in my opinion, as nearly perfect for the purpose for
which it is intended as it is possible to make it. I do not believe
that it can be improved upon, and I feel that experiments or changes in
it are likely to be dangerous to the success of an expedition.
As an illustration of this a subsequent expedition, feeling that the
pemmican would be improved in taste by the addition of some seasoning,
ordered the addition of salt to the other ingredients, and as a
result when it was used continuously in the field the Eskimo dogs,
unaccustomed to salt in any form whatever, sickened and some of them
died.
Next to insistent, minute, personal attention to the building of
his ship the Polar explorer should give his personal, constant, and
insistent attention to the making of his pemmican, and should know that
every batch of it packed for him is made of the proper material in the
proper proportion and in accordance with his specifications.