WINTER QUARTERS
The matter of winter quarters is one of pronounced importance to polar
travelers, ranking second only to the question of an abundant supply of
food. Warmth, dryness, and abundance of light are the great desiderata.
A knowledge of Eskimo methods of house-building, combined with a little
ingenuity, enables these needs to be secured with few and simple
materials.
In an experience extending over twenty-three years I have had occasion
to prepare winter quarters afloat and ashore for parties of from three
up. Many ideas were tried out, and most of them discarded as useless.
Some were found of value, and utilizing these, I have introduced
on different expeditions, and have tried out with most gratifying
results, a new design for winter quarters the general principles of
which I believe will be of value to future explorers in these regions.
After I had had opportunities to study Eskimo principles and methods
of house-building I gained new points, and could easily have adopted
their practice _in toto_. With the addition of some materials of
civilization, it was possible, however, to improve upon their results.
Now, given a tent, a pick-ax, and a shovel, a bale of pressed hay,
a lamp, a few gallons of oil, and the wood of the cases in which my
provisions were packed, I could make a winter habitation for from two
to six men in which they would be just as comfortable as at home.
If the Eskimos, with their crude intelligence and almost utter lack of
materials, can construct comfortable habitations to protect them and
their children through the bitter, months-long winter night, surely
the white man, with his superior intelligence and limitless range of
material, should be able to do as well.
Headquarters for my expedition of 1891–93 were established in McCormick
Bay, where I was sure of securing an abundance of fresh meat for my
party of seven. The site for our winter home was selected only after
most careful consideration. It was essential that it be on land high
enough to insure dryness; that it be sheltered from strong winds, and
yet get as much sunlight as possible. It should also be free from
danger of snow or rock slides and from spring floods, and not too far
from the shore.
A grassy knoll on the southern shore of the bay about a hundred feet
from the water’s-edge was finally decided upon as meeting most fully
our requirements. A brook on each side made a good water-supply
certain. A hundred feet back of the house were brown cliffs, which had
the disadvantage of cutting off the sun in the early spring and late
autumn; but they served as a protection against the winds, and we felt
this was the best we could do.
All material for the house was of course taken north with us, and on
the way up was cut and fitted, ready to nail together and set up at
once upon our arrival.
Red Cliff House, when finally completed, was a sort of house within
a house, there being an inner frame that was separated from an outer
frame by an air space ranging from ten inches on the sides to something
over three feet in the middle of the roof. A sheathing of closely
joined boards and two layers of tarred paper on the outside of the
outer framework made it air-tight, while the inner house was made of
heavy boards, and rendered air-tight by a coating of heavy brown paper.
[Illustration: COMPLETE POLAR WINTER HOUSE
Before banking in with snow]
[Illustration: A SCENE AT HUBBARDVILLE 82° 30´ N. LAT.
One of the box houses in winter]
The interior was twenty-one feet long, twelve feet wide, and eight
feet high, and was divided into two rooms. A wall was constructed all
the way around the house, leaving a passageway of four feet between.
For the lower portion of this wall, empty barrels, stones, and turf
were used, while wooden boxes containing canned supplies, piled in
regular courses on top of this foundation, formed the upper portion
of the wall. I had the supply boxes made the same width and depth, but
of different lengths, specially for this purpose. A roof of canvas
extending from the house to the wall made a closed-in corridor, which
we used as a storeroom. The boxes were stacked so that the covers could
be opened from the inside, making their contents as easily accessible
as if they were on pantry-shelves. This corridor was quite large
enough to serve as a workroom, and here we made our sledges and other
equipment necessary for sledge-journeys. When the snow came, a long
snow entrance to the corridor was constructed; the roof was covered
with a thick blanket of it, and the walls were banked, still further to
protect us from the wintry blasts.
For our stove a pit was dug in the ground, so that the fire-box came
below the level of the floor, thus insuring the warmth of air even down
to the floor level, and lessening the danger of fire. To carry the
stovepipe out so that it would not come into contact with the woodwork,
we ran it through a double window the glass of which had been replaced
with sheets of tin. Air-shafts were suitably arranged for carrying off
moisture and bad air.
This done, heavy Indian blankets of bright red, adding warmth and color
to the interior, were used to cover the walls and ceiling; bunks were
built along the wall; and with a few chairs and a table, a library, and
our cooking-utensils, our home was ready for occupancy.
My expedition of 1893–95 had its headquarters at the head of Bowdoin
Bay a few miles north of Red Cliff. Our home here was to accommodate a
party of fourteen, just twice as many as were housed at Red Cliff, and
consequently had to be made much larger than our first winter home.
Anniversary Lodge, as this later came to be called, was built on the
same general plan as Red Cliff House, with an inner air-tight shell
separated from an outer air-tight shell by an air space from one to
three feet in width. The roof was almost flat, and a closed-in corridor
ranging from four to six feet in width, and with a nearly flat roof,
surrounded the whole building. The outer wall of this was likewise
made of boxes filled with supplies, and a covering of snow was used
to protect it from winter weather. The floor was double, tongued and
grooved, and lined with tarred paper. The inner and outer sheathing
were also tongued and grooved, the former lined with blankets and felt,
the latter covered inside and outside with tarred paper. The outer
joints were covered with battens.
The house was divided into four rooms, the central part of it, fourteen
feet long, nine feet wide, and eight feet high being partitioned off to
serve as kitchen and dining-room while two end rooms opening from it
were used for sleeping-quarters.
A window three feet high extended across the entire front of the main
part of the house, and each sleeping-room had a window, protected by a
storm-window, with an overhead sash to prolong the arctic day as long
as possible. During the arctic night this sash was covered with hay. In
addition to this a sky-light was built in the roof to catch the last
rays of the departing sun, and during the winter it was covered with
hay and a blanket of snow.
During the winter of 1894–95 my party was reduced to three members,
including myself, and the winter quarters was modified to meet our
requirements.
The central room was selected for our use. The partition between the
kitchen and the dining-room was taken down, and a small stove set up in
the middle of the forward part of the room. The stovepipe was carried
out through one of the ventilator-shafts, and carefully wrapped in
asbestos to prevent its burning the woodwork. The table was cut down
to one-half its original size to meet our needs, and a wide bench
extending the whole width of the room was built under the windows.
Covered with a large bearskin, it was used as a seat in the daytime,
and at night I slept on it.
The other two members of my party slept in the rear of the room. A
platform was built three feet from the floor, with a distance of six
feet between it and the back wall. Two cots were placed with their
heads resting on the platform and their feet supported by cleats nailed
to the rear wall. This arrangement is similar to the Eskimo method,
giving the occupants a good circulation of air as well as lifting them
out of the low temperature and drafts near the floor. These beds as
well as my own were fitted with blanket curtains. Shelves were built
under the bed platform and near the stove to hold our current supplies
of coffee, flour, etc., and the space back of them was utilized for
storage purposes.
A closet for dishes and books and another for medicines were built on
the east wall of the room, while along the west side was our gun-rack,
containing shot-guns, repeaters, carbines, and a Daly three-barrel gun.
A clock, chronometers, barometers, barograph, etc., were hung above
the gun-rack. A bird-net was suspended from the ceiling for drying
out grass, which we used in the bottom of our _kamiks_, and three
barrel-hoops were placed about the stovepipe at the top of the room for
drying our stockings, _kamiks_, mittens, and other articles of clothing.
The walls and ceiling of the room were decorated with magazine
pictures, which not only covered the cracks, but made the room brighter
and more cheerful. A large ten-gallon can served as a water-tank, and a
pail for our coal and a molasses-keg chair completed the furniture of
our living- and sleeping-room.
In the west room we kept our furs, clothing, and part of our equipment,
while the east room was used for a general storeroom and workroom. In
one end of it was our coal-bin, a barrel of sugar, and one of biscuit.
The room was heated by a small stove, was furnished with a table and
Eskimo lamp and a wide bench covered with skins, which served as a
seat for our Eskimo seamstresses, who made all our fur clothing in
this room. Our sledges and tent also were constructed here, and walrus
meat was cut up and packed for the sledge-trips, so that the room was
usually full of happy, noisy natives.
Most of the wall surrounding the house had been emptied of supplies
during the previous year, and the empty boxes and barrels used for
fuel. Now we had to find a new way to protect our room from the cold.
Finally we dried thoroughly all our baled hay, and filled the spaces
between the inner and outer framework of the house with it. We also
reinforced the wall between our living-room and the east room by a wall
of hay two and a half feet in thickness from the floor clear to the
ceiling, finishing it with a small vestibule with double doors. The
wall between our room and the west room we packed with furs. Outside
protection was secured by placing four large biscuit-casks along the
side of the house under the windows of our room. Their tops came even
with the window-sills, and hay was packed in the spaces between them
and the house. When the snow came, everything was banked in snow three
or four feet deep, a wall of snow-blocks was built along the east side
of the house, a snow entrance erected, and we were snugly housed for
the long winter night.
In these expeditions I gained a fairly thorough knowledge of Eskimo
methods and principles of house-building, and it may not be amiss to
give here my description from “Northward Over the Great Ice” of their
winter igloos:
These igloos vary in size, from nine to fourteen feet in length
inside, and occasionally two, more rarely three, are built close
together, the party wall doing double duty and thus economizing
material and labor. In plan and method of construction, each igloo
is built like all the others. There is a long, low, narrow stone
tunnel; a small standing room; a shallow platformed alcove on
either side for meat and the stone lamps; and a large platformed
alcove in the rear,--the family bed. A single small window of seal
intestines over the entrance admits a little light.
The construction of one of these primitive habitations, half
excavated beneath, half built above the surface, would seem at
first glance to demand nothing beyond a considerable outlay of
manual labor in transporting and arranging the stones. Yet the
spanning of a space twelve by fourteen feet in such a way as to
support a heavy load of stones, turf, and snow, is not an entirely
simple problem in a country where there is literally not a splinter
of wood or anything that can serve as a substitute for it. Yet
these children of the ice have met and solved this problem with
the cantilever principle, and the roofs of these old stone houses
are every one supported with massive stone cantilevers, firm and
unyielding as a masonry arch. In the plan and arrangement of
his house, too, the Eskimo has met and solved each problem that
confronted him, and though the entrance is never closed, yet no
draught or current of air disturbs the quiet interior, the thick
non-conducting walls of stone and turf are perfect insulators from
the savage cold, and the heat from every drop of the precious oil
burned in the stone lamps is fully conserved. Many of these igloos
have every appearance of being centuries old. Vertebrae of the now
extinct whale are almost invariably built into their walls and
frequently such enormous stones are used in supporting the roofs,
that it seems impossible they could have been handled without
mechanical appliances.
All the roof and bed platform stones, which must be large, flat and
thin, as well as many of those for the walls, had to be brought by
the men on their backs from the mountains, sometimes a distance of
several miles. The construction of the igloos falls very largely
upon the women, and in an emergency they even assist in bringing
stones.
These stone dwellings are occupied from the latter part of
September till April or May, depending upon the season, locality,
and movements of the occupants. By May they usually become very
damp, and then the family betakes itself to its tupik, removing,
at its departure from the igloo, the windows and a portion of the
roof, so that throughout the summer the sun and wind may have free
access to the interior. There is no ownership of these igloos
beyond the period of actual occupancy. Any one of them is free to
each and all, and it is the exception rather than the rule that a
family lives in the same igloo, or in fact in the same place, two
years in succession.... The building of a new igloo is rather a
rarity, also, and is necessary only when, for some special reason,
an unusually large number of natives are attracted to one place.
Usually no more families locate in a place than the existing igloos
will shelter.
A temporary form of habitation used by the Eskimos at the spring walrus
hunt at Cape Chalon, and sometimes when a death in winter drives a
family out of the permanent habitation, is constructed of snow, lined,
in the case of the more-well-to-do Eskimos, with their skin _tupiks_,
or tents.
These igloos are for use only for a few weeks. The Whale Sound Eskimos
do not, like the Baffin Land tribes, use snow houses for their
permanent winter habitations. The following is a description of one of
these:
It was twelve feet long, by twelve feet wide, and seven feet high,
in the highest part beneath the sealskin lining. The bed-platform,
raised a foot and a half above the floor, was six and a half feet
deep; and the standing room in front of it six feet by five feet.
The window of seal intestines was two feet square. The igloo was
lined throughout with the tupik or summer tent, so arranged as to
leave an air space between it and the snow walls of the igloo, thus
preventing the latter from melting, and keeping the interior dry. A
small hole in the highest part of this lining, and another directly
over it in the top of the igloo, afforded ventilation.
A long, low, narrow snow tunnel gave access to the igloo, and protected
the interior from drafts or penetration by the furious spring storms.
[Illustration: AFTER A WINTER BLIZZARD
“Roosevelt” surrounded by chaos of shattered and upheaved ice]
[Illustration: UNLOADING SHIP AT WINTER QUARTERS
The “Roosevelt” at Cape Sheridan]
A still more temporary form is the small, rapidly constructed snow
igloo used by traveling parties in winter and spring, and occupied only
for a single night unless the travelers are held by storms. This is
the kind of igloo invariably used by my parties on their sledging-trips.
The Eskimos can nearly always tell who built an igloo. Though they
are all constructed on one general principle, there are always
peculiarities of individual workmanship which are readily recognized
by these experienced children of the North, whose horizon is so narrow
that they see and remember every minute trifle.
The fundamental principle of all these houses is that warm air is
lighter than cold and rises. The level of the bed and living-platform
in an Eskimo igloo is always higher than the highest part of the
entrance opening. In the best of the permanent winter igloos the
entrance is through the floor. As a result of this construction, every
bit of warm air is retained in the igloo, and the long and--whenever
practicable--downward-sloping entrance tunnel prevents even the most
violent air-waves of furious blizzards from penetrating the quiet
interior. The vertical variations in temperature in the winter igloo
of a successful hunter who has good store of blubber to keep the
stove-lamps going are pronounced. On the bed platform, at the level
of the lamps, the host and hostess and children are usually in their
birthday suits, unless the lady, in deference to the presence of a
guest, assumes a strip of seal skin half an inch wide. If one stands,
bringing the head to the top of the igloo, it is like putting one’s
head into a furnace. Yet a drop of water spilled on the floor of the
igloo, a foot below the level of the bed platform, is instantly frozen
into ice.
On several subsequent expeditions my parties wintered on board ship,
and this introduced new elements. The first thing to be done by any
well-managed polar expedition on reaching winter quarters is to land
everything in the way of supplies and equipment and fuel, and to erect
suitable shelter for the entire party ashore as a precaution against
fire or other mishap to the ship. The ship should, in fact, be emptied
completely.
My first practical working out of this proposition was with the
_Windward_ at Cape D’Urville in the winter of 1898–99. The boxes
of supplies landed here were erected into a compact house, with
a box-tunnel entrance, fitted with a small stove, and banked in
completely with gravel, which in winter of course became covered with
snow, giving the appearance of a snow-drift. This house, in addition
to serving as insurance for the party during 1898 and 1899 in case of
the loss of the _Windward_, lying unprotected in the ice offshore, was
during the three following years a welcome haven and refuge for my
parties sledging from Etah and Payer Harbor to Fort Conger.
This box-house idea was greatly extended and developed in my last two
expeditions of 1905–06 and 1908–09 in the _Roosevelt_.
At Cape Sheridan, the winter quarters for these last two expeditions,
we built box houses ashore, using the boxes containing supplies just
as we did in previous years, and packing them in firmly with hay. The
packing of our supplies for this purpose in boxes of certain sizes was
one of the many details which determined the success of the expedition.
The heavy cases of bacon, pemmican, flour, etc., were used as so many
blocks in the construction of several houses about thirty feet long and
fifteen feet wide. For roofs, sails thrown over boat-spars or beams
were used, and later were covered in solid with snow. A stove set up in
these made good workrooms for the Eskimos through the winter. On the
last trip north, when the _Roosevelt_ was caught in the grip of the
ice, the Eskimos became so thoroughly frightened that they picked up
their belongings and took to the box houses for the night, some of them
spending the rest of the winter in them or in snow igloos.
The adjacent shore for a quarter of a mile was lined with the remaining
boxes of supplies, each item of provisions having a pile to itself.
This packing-box village was called Hubbardville.
Had we lost the _Roosevelt_ at Cape Sheridan, we should have spent
the winter in the box houses which we constructed, and in the spring
should have made the dash for the pole just the same. We should have
then walked the 350 miles to Cape Sabine, crossed the Smith Sound ice
to Etah, and waited for a ship.
The second new element introduced into my later expeditions by the
presence of a ship was the preparation of the ship itself for winter
quarters.
A partial beginning at this was made on the _Windward_, where my own
personal quarters were an Erie Railroad caboose given to me by my
friend Eben Thomas, president of that road. This caboose I put on the
deck of the _Windward_ between the mainmast and foremast, and bolted
it down like any deck-house. In the autumn at Cape D’Urville, when the
temperatures began to go down seriously, I had my Eskimos incase and
cover it in with a wall of snow-blocks, and build a beehive-shaped
vestibule or storm entrance of snow-blocks round the door.
This arrangement, in its comfort, facility of ventilation, freedom from
the moisture and condensation incident to the quarters of the others
below decks and the old system of ships’ quarters, was so superior that
I was convinced the only place for the quarters of a polar ship was on
deck.
In building the _Roosevelt_ I put the quarters for every one, officers,
crew, and Eskimos, on deck, and in the two expeditions of 1905–06 and
1908–09, in wintering at Cape Sheridan, I worked out fully what I
believe to be the most comfortable and satisfactory method of ship’s
winter quarters.
As a result, the officers and crew of my last two expeditions had light
and roomy accommodations on deck, a great improvement over the old
method of housing a party below decks, as in all old-fashioned ships,
and even in ships built comparatively recently for polar work.
My assistants and the ship’s officers were quartered in a deck-house
between the mainmast and mizzenmast. The deck-house extended
clear across the ship, was low-posted,--seven feet from floor to
ceiling,--and contained the cook’s galley and domain as well as our
quarters. It was plainly and strongly constructed, sheathed inside,
and special care was taken, by the use of heavy building paper, double
planking, and close joints, to have no cracks or joints for the
entrance of cold air.
The journey north in the ship, being a summer coasting voyage, with
no danger from high or heavy seas, and the deck-house being above the
main structure of the ship, I was able to put in large plate-glass
ports along the sides to light the interior; and for the same reason I
was able to put real windows--four in all, double and of special heavy
glass--in the forward and after end of the deck-house, with generous
panes of glass in the upper part of each of the four doors, two forward
and two aft, which opened into it.
This arrangement made the quarters immeasurably pleasanter and more
sanitary. On the upward voyage we got full value of all the sunlight
there was, ventilation was perfect, and from my stateroom I could at
all times command the situation; and if I was needed on the bridge,
it was only a step through the door to the deck, and two jumps up the
ladder to the bridge. The great value of this large window area was in
the late autumn and early spring, when it gave us in each case about
two weeks more of daylight in our quarters, and shortened by just so
much the long period of continuous lamplight. The arrangement was also
invaluable for those left on board when the main spring sledge-parties
left for their work, and for the sledge-parties themselves in the weeks
of waiting after their return in May or June till the ship could break
out of her winter quarters in July or August.
My polar experience has made me a fanatic on the subject of light.
My little summer cottage on the bluff point of a rocky islet off the
Maine coast has so many windows that it is known by the surrounding
inhabitants as the “glass house.” Sun-worship seems to me the most
natural of religions, and I wonder why all primitive peoples were not
devotees of it.
My crew and Eskimos were quartered in a long, commodious topgallant
forecastle, which extended from the heel of the bowsprit to well aft
of the foremast. This fo’c’sle, like the after deck-house, extended the
full width of the ship, and was low posted,--six and a half feet from
deck to ceiling,--and also had large ports along the sides, and large
windows in the after end, looking out on the main-deck. A fore-and-aft
bulkhead its entire length divided it into two equal parts. The
starboard side was assigned to the crew and the port side to the
Eskimos.
Around the walls of the Eskimo half of the fo’c’sle was built a wide
platform, three or four feet above the deck, to simulate the internal
arrangement of their usual winter houses. The quarters of each family
were partitioned off by boards, and curtains screened the front. They
were supplied with oilstoves, pots, pans, plates, etc., and cooked
their meat and anything else they wanted, eating when the spirit moved,
as is the custom among these people. Beans, hash, or anything of that
kind provided from the ship’s stores were cooked for them, and they
were also supplied with tea, coffee, and bread by the steward.
The winter of 1908–09 the _Roosevelt_ lay at Cape Sheridan, parallel to
the shore, just over the edge of the ice-foot bank. Her nose pointed
north, her port side was next the shore. On that side, between ship and
shore, a distance of a hundred yards, was the shallow ice-foot lagoon,
covered with one season’s ice. On the starboard side was the heavy
polar ice, and a short distance from the ship a depth of twenty fathoms.
The experience of the previous expedition had shown that a severe
westerly storm or the grounding of a heavy floe at a point where it
would deflect the moving ice against the ship, or a big floe rotating
down the shore on the surge of the spring-tides might at any time send
a cataract of ice against the _Roosevelt_ with a force which, if not
deflected, might push the ship high and dry ashore. To assist the ice
in turning down and passing under the ship when such pressure came I
had the heavy ice cut away round the ship on a bevel toward the ship’s
sides, with the inner edge in contact with the ship down to or below
the water-level.
Small pieces of ice and snow were then banked against the ship’s sides
up to the deck-level. The object of this was twofold, to help by its
weight to turn the ice under the ship when the pressure came, and
also to blanket the ship against the winter storms and bitter cold.
On top of this embankment a wall or armor-plating of snow-blocks
from a foot to eighteen inches thick was built as high as the tops
of the deck-houses both forward and aft. The tops of the deck-houses
were covered with an equal thickness, and the thwartship ends of
the deck-houses protected by similar walls. Entrances to the after
deck-house to the fo’c’sle, and to the Eskimo quarters were guarded
by roomy beehive-shaped snow houses, with a small low door opening out
upon the deck.
[Illustration: AN INOPPORTUNE SNOWSTORM]
Behind this snow-armor protection against the siege of the frost king,
we passed the winter in complete comfort, with a minimum expenditure of
fuel, with perfect ventilation, with very little of the moisture and
condensation which is usually the bugbear of polar ship’s quarters,
and with instant and easy access to the outside for work or in an
emergency. The snow armor costs nothing; it is found on the spot, and
therefore takes no room on the upward voyage, and when it has served
its purpose it is thrown overboard.
During the successive expeditions north I also had several other
experiences in building winter quarters, some of which may be of
interest.
The Erie Railroad caboose mentioned above, which was used as a
deck-house on the _Windward_ during the winter of 1898–99, served also
a second season at Etah. In the summer of 1899, after the _Windward_
broke out of the ice at Cape D’Urville, she returned to Etah, and here
I had the caboose hoisted over the side, floated ashore, and hauled up
to a place which I had selected. From one end of this a long workroom
was built with the boxes of provisions, and roofed over with a sail.
The Eskimos of my immediate party constructed their winter houses with
entrances leading into this common workroom, and the whole group was
then buried deep in snow, forming an entirely comfortable habitation
for the entire party.
Another experience was at Payer Harbor. When the remodeled _Windward_
went north in 1901 she had a commodious and well-built deck-house
forward that had been constructed for quarters for her officers. On my
decision to remain north another year, remembering my experience at
Etah, I decided to save my party the valuable time and labor incident
to constructing winter quarters by utilizing this deck-house. Captain
Sam Bartlett and his men lifted it from the deck, lowered it over
the side, ran it over the heavy harbor ice on timber shoes, and with
tackles and falls hauled it up the rocks to the place that I had
selected for it.
Here, after the ship had left, we banked it in completely as high as
the bottom of the portholes with loose dry gravel, which is abundant
at Payer Harbor, and when the snow came, covered it completely, roof
and all, with an armor of two-foot-thick snow-blocks, carefully laid
and cemented together by throwing water on the joints. A double snow
igloo, Eskimo style, at the entrance kept out completely the furious
winds which howled incessantly past Cape Sabine and Payer Harbor, and
we lived here through the winter of 1901–02 in perfect comfort, with a
minimum expenditure of fuel.
The third and perhaps most interesting experience was at Fort Conger,
the headquarters of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition. Returning here
in June, 1900, from my long sledge-journey round the northern end of
Greenland, in which I proved the insularity of that island continent,
I waited at Fort Conger through the summer on the possibility that an
auxiliary ship might come north and be able to reach me.
When late in the season it became evident that no ship would arrive,
I took up the matter of the winter quarters for my small party,
consisting, beside myself, of Henson, the doctor, and several Eskimos.
The utilization of the building known as Fort Conger was entirely
out of the question. This great barn of a structure, sixty feet
long by thirty feet wide, was grotesque in its utter unfitness and
unsuitableness for polar winter quarters. With its great size, its
light construction, and its high-posted rooms, nine or ten feet from
floor to ceiling, it embodied about everything that should not be found
in winter quarters.
One possibility would have been to construct in the center of one of
the great rooms of this building a small room with material taken
from other parts of the house, utilizing the big house simply as a
wind-break, and constructing the small apartment in the proper way,
with double walls, low ceiling, and tight joints.
After some consideration, however, I gave up this idea, and decided
upon three small structures outside of the big house and made partly of
material from it. For myself, partly to economize the lumber, partly as
a practical experiment, and partly to furnish occupation and amusement
for myself, as I still was somewhat incapacitated from taking part in
the hunting-trips over the rocks and frozen ground as the result of
the accident to my feet the year before, I decided to make for myself
a winter den, as perhaps it might be called, from an eight by twelve A
tent, which I found among the things at Conger, as a nucleus.
First I made an eight-by-twelve-foot floor of boards resting directly
upon a bed of gravel. The idea of air spaces round a polar dwelling as
an insulation against the cold is, like many other ideas connected with
the polar regions, a pure fallacy. At each corner of this floor I drove
a post, sawing it off four feet above the ground, connected the tops of
these posts with horizontal joists, boarded up to this joist with odds
and ends of old boards, and banked in to the top of this boarding with
the surrounding gravel, working in against the boards, as the gravel
bank gradually rose, a two-or-three-inch thickness of grass, which
grows somewhat abundantly in the neighborhood of Conger.
On top of these joists I erected the tent, putting in a few
intermediate rafters on each side of the ridge-pole to prevent the side
of the tent from sagging; fitted a small door-frame and door into one
end of the tent; and on the sides two window-frames and windows taken
from the big house; then covered the tent completely, roof and gable
ends, with the straw-filled mattresses taken from the men’s quarters
of the big house. A chimney made from a few lengths of vitrified
sewer-pipe found in the material at Conger, a stove constructed from a
ten-gallon sheet-iron oil tin, one of the cots from the big house, a
table, and a chair completed the outfit.
Later, when the snow came, a wall of snow-blocks eighteen inches in
thickness was carefully laid, inclosing the entire tent, each course
as it was laid being sprinkled with water brought up from the bay, the
joints cemented in the same manner, and after all was done, bucketful
after bucketful of water dashed over the structure until it was
essentially a single block of ice. A low, narrow, covered snow-tunnel
entrance, with storm-door at the outer end, gave access to the tent.
In this structure I passed the polar winter at Fort Conger in entire
comfort, using for fuel chips, old papers, bits of tarred paper, and
the like picked up during the summer about Fort Conger. To give an
idea of the complete insulation of this place from the external cold,
I found, on returning from some of the autumn hunting-trips, that I
could warm the interior of my tent to a comfortable temperature by the
judicious burning of a yard of tar roofing paper in my sheet-iron stove.
Winter quarters should be as warm and comfortable as possible, as a
matter of improving the effectiveness of the personnel. In this they
play a very important part. Men who have passed the winter in comfort
and ample warmth have more vitality and endurance and will stand the
strain and exposure of the spring sledge-journey better than men who
have been uncomfortable and chilly through the winter. This is just
as definite a proposition as that Eskimo dogs that have been well fed
during the winter will stand the sledge-journey better than dogs that
have been half fed. The ideas of toughening one’s self against the
cold, of training for the sledge-journey, of inuring one’s self to
scant rations, are fallacies.
The Eskimos, through generation of life in the polar regions, have
worked out from stern experience the true practice in all such life
questions, and we find them keeping their winter habitations heated up
to the nineties, and we find them gorging themselves with food when
food is to be had. As a result, when the necessity arises, they are in
condition, and have a reserve vitality which enables them to endure
bitter cold and to go for a long time on scant food.
Even the animals, the musk-ox, the reindeer, the hare, know the trick,
and during the summer eat incessantly and travel little, and thus
get themselves in condition for the bitter winter when it requires
incessant travel to secure starvation rations.
After the question of suitable quarters for a party comes the problem
of keeping them in good spirits during the four months of darkness,
the secret of which lies in keeping each member busy and in varying
the monotony of the work as much as possible. For this purpose much
of my material was taken north in the rough, and the work of shaping
it--building sledges for our spring work, making harnesses for the
dogs, our fur clothing, and other equipment--as well as regular
hunting-trips, kept time from hanging heavily on our hands. The younger
members of the party invariably went out on hunting-parties during the
eight or ten days of moonlight each month, those who went into the
field one moon staying on the ship the next. The coming and going of
these parties gave plenty to talk about and to look forward to.
As for hedging my men about with rigorous rules, I believe it is not
necessary, and have never done it. Much of the routine of ship life
was laid aside while we were in winter quarters, there being only the
watches of the regular day and night watchmen, the only regular bells
being a signal for all noise to cease at ten in the evening, and
another for lights to be turned out at midnight. Meals were served at
regular hours in the mess-rooms, and lights were supposed to be out at
midnight, but were not forbidden if a man wanted one after that time.
For the Eskimos there was one rigid rule--no noise was to be made by
them after the ten o’clock bell until eight the next morning. And they
knew, if they were up late at night, they would be expected to go on
with their work of building sledges and making fur clothing as usual
the next day. The engineers and sailors, besides attending to their
regular work, sometimes helped with the equipment, but seldom went out
on hunting-trips.
I had a fairly complete arctic library in my cabin, and these books
were borrowed one at a time by the different members of the expedition.
We also had a good collection of the best novels, which did much to
while away the long evenings, and a pianola, the gift of a friend,
gave us all great pleasure. The sailors amused themselves with games
of checkers, dominoes, cards, in story-telling, boxing, and in
contests of strength with the Eskimos. A banjo or an accordion was
in almost every party, and frequent phonograph concerts in charge of
the steward, Percy, varied the monotony. Holidays like Christmas,
New Year’s, Thanksgiving, and birthdays were observed by a special
dinner, with a table-cloth and our best dishes, with perhaps games or
sports afterward. On all my expeditions few, if any, complaints of
homesickness or monotony were made.