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SECRETS OF POLAR
TRAVEL

THE STARS AND STRIPES FLYING FROM THE NORTH POLE

SECRETS OF POLAR
TRAVEL

BY
ROBERT E. PEARY

ILLUSTRATED WITH
PHOTOGRAPHS

NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1917

Copyright, 1917, by
The Century Co.
Published, October, 1917

INTRODUCTION

In my book “The North Pole” appeared a brief résumé, or synopsis, of my system of arctic exploration, which was the evolution of years of continuous practical work and experience in extreme high latitudes, wherein everything that could be thought of in the way of perfecting arctic methods and equipment was worked out.

Ideas that in the mind or on paper appeared promising were tested relentlessly under the most hostile conditions. Those that failed under the test were abandoned, and those that gave evidence of containing some meat were perfected, until at last the entire subject of perfected equipment and methods, combined with the thorough knowledge of all conditions to be encountered gained through years of experience, compelled success. This was the résumé:

The so-called “Peary System” is too complex to be covered in a paragraph, and involves too many technical details to be outlined fully in any popular narrative. But the main points of it are about as follows:

To drive a ship through the ice to the farthest possible northern land base from which she can be driven back again the following year.

To do enough hunting during the fall and winter to keep the party healthily supplied with fresh meat.

To have dogs enough to allow for the loss of sixty per cent of them by death or otherwise.

To have the confidence of a large number of Eskimos, earned by square dealing and generous gifts in the past, so that they will follow the leader to any point he may specify.

To have an intelligent and willing body of civilized assistants to lead the various divisions of Eskimos—men whose authority the Eskimos will accept when delegated by the leader.

To transport beforehand to the point where the expedition leaves the land for the sledge journey, sufficient food, fuel, clothing, stoves (oil or alcohol) and other mechanical equipment to get the main party to the Pole and back and the various divisions to their farthest north and back.

To have an ample supply of the best kind of sledges.

To have a sufficient number of divisions, or relay parties, each under the leadership of a competent assistant, to send back at appropriate and carefully calculated stages along the upward journey.

To have every item of equipment of the quality best suited to the purpose, thoroughly tested, and of the lightest possible weight.

To know, by long experience, the best way to cross wide leads of open water.

To return by the same route followed on the upward march, using the beaten trail and the already constructed igloos to save the time and strength that would have been expended in constructing new igloos and in trail-breaking.

To know exactly to what extent each man and dog may be worked without injury.

To know the physical and mental capabilities of every assistant and Eskimo.

Last, but not least, to have the absolute confidence of every member of the party, white, black, or brown, so that every order of the leader will be implicitly obeyed.

In “Secrets of Polar Travel” it is the intention to enlarge upon the above synopsis and to give the reader and the present and future polar traveler many details of serious polar work that it was impossible to embody in my former popular narratives without crowding out other and, as it seemed, more important matters.

Some of the things that will be described are well known to all polar explorers who have had serious practice, while others will be new to all except those who have had opportunities to obtain the information by personal conversation with members of my parties.

In extending the scope of the present book to touch on polar exploration, it seems well to post the reader at the very beginning on the striking antitheses of natural conditions, apparently known to only a few even among the best read and most intelligent people, existing at those mathematical points, the north and south poles, where the earth’s axis intersects the surface of the earth.

The north pole is situated in an ocean of some fifteen hundred miles’ diameter, surrounded by land. The south pole is situated in a continent of some twenty-five hundred miles’ diameter, surrounded by water. At the north pole I stood upon the frozen surface of an ocean more than two miles in depth. At the south pole, Amundsen and Scott stood upon the surface of a great, snow plateau more than two miles above sea-level. The lands that surround the north polar ocean have comparatively abundant life. Musk-oxen, reindeer, polar bears, wolves, foxes, arctic hares, ermines, and lemmings, together with insects and flowers, are found within five hundred miles of the pole. On the great south polar continent no form of animal life appears to exist.

Permanent human life exists within some seven hundred miles of the north pole; none is found within twenty-three hundred miles of the south pole. The history of arctic exploration goes back nearly four hundred years. The history of antarctic efforts covers a little more than one hundred and forty years. The record of arctic exploration is studded with crushed and foundering ships and the deaths of hundreds of brave men. The records of antarctic exploration show the loss of only three ships and the death of a score or more men.

For all those who aspire to the north pole the road lies over the frozen surface of an ocean the ice on which breaks up completely every summer, drifting about under the influence of wind and tide, and may crack into numerous fissures and lanes of open water at any time, even in the depth of the severest winter, under the influence of storms. For those who aspire to the south pole the road lies over an eternal, immovable surface, the latter part rising ten thousand and eleven thousand feet above sea-level. And herein lies the inestimable advantage to the south polar explorer which enables him to make his depots at convenient distances, and thus lighten his load and increase his speed.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

SECRETS OF POLAR
TRAVEL

CHAPTER I
BUILDING A POLAR SHIP

Of all the special tools that a polar explorer requires for the successful prosecution of his work, his ship stands first and preëminent. This is the tool which is to place him and his party and supplies within striking distance of his goal, the tool without which he can accomplish nothing.

The builder of a polar ship should live with his craft from the time the keel is laid till she is complete and has made her trial trips. He should see that every timber that goes into her is sound, tough, and seasoned. He should see the tests of iron for her bolts, and know that the iron is tough and homogeneous. He should see the bolts driven and upset, or the nuts set tight, as the case may be. He should direct the scarfing and the notching of the timbers in order to secure the maximum strength and binding grip. He should watch the calking and the tarring like a hawk, and see that no place is slighted, that, when it is done, he may have that delight of a seaman, a tight ship. He should pass sleepless nights going over again and again the calculations for his engines and boilers; and in checking and rechecking weights, dimensions, displacement.

In this way, by following every step of the ship’s growth, and sitting up night after night studying every detail with a view to improving and strengthening it, when the work is done, he will know every inch of his ship inside and out. Later, in the grim, protracted fight with the ice, he will feel in regard to his ship as Sullivan and Willard each felt on the eve of a great battle regarding his powerful body, that it can be depended upon absolutely. It is a wonderfully satisfactory feeling, and it counts far toward success.

A quite general idea regarding the work of a polar ship seems to be that such a ship breaks up the ice of one season, like river and harbor ice-breakers. As a matter of fact, smooth, unbroken ice of uniform thickness is rarely found in Northern voyages except in Melville Bay, or at the end of the season, when new ice is forming. The chief work of a polar ship is to push and pry and wedge its way in and out among cakes and floes ranging from three to twenty or fifty and even up to one hundred and twenty feet thick. A passage cannot be smashed through such ice, and nothing remains but to squeeze and twist and dodge through it. A hundred Yermaks (the powerful Russian ice-breaker) merged in one could accomplish nothing in such ice.

BEGINNING OF THE “ROOSEVELT”

First frame erected, ship now under construction, Bucksport, Maine, October, 1904

MIDSHIPS CROSS SECTION OF THE “ROOSEVELT”

Looking aft. Note section nearly a semi-circle

Many qualities are necessary in a first-class polar ice-fighter. First, there must be such a generally rounded model as will rise readily when squeezed, and thus escape the death-crush of the ice. Then there must be no projection of keel or other part to give the ice an opportunity to get a grip, or to hold the ship from rising.

When the Jeannette was destroyed northeast of the New Siberian Islands, the ice on one side of her caught and held her firmly, while the floe on the other side, turning down under her side, caught the keel, and with its resistless pressure opened up the ship her entire length along the garboard-strake. She then filled, and when the ice pressure was released she sank.

The polar ship must be most heavily braced and trussed to enable it to withstand terrific pressure of ice-floes, and hold its shape until the pressure is released by the rising of the ship; or to make it possible for her to be supported at each end only or in the middle, or thrown out on to the ice, so she would rest on her bilge during a convulsion of the floes, without strain or injury. Power and strength and solidity to fight a way through ice rather than drift inertly with it, are absolutely essential. For ramming, she must have a sharply raking stem, which will rise on the ice at each blow. This not only makes it possible for a loaded ship to deliver blows at full speed without danger of smashing in her bows or starting her fastenings or seams, but also gives her an initial impetus astern when she backs for another blow.

When it is understood that this ramming may continue for hours (I have used my ship in this way continuously for twenty-four hours in crossing Melville Bay), striking a blow, backing, then going ahead full speed for another, the value of this little assistance with each blow will be appreciated. The shape of the bow is also important in ramming. If too bluff, headway is deadened, and the force of the blows is lessened. If too sharp, the ship may stick at each blow, and require more time and power to back out each time. The run of the polar ship should be full rather than fine, to keep the passing ice away from the propeller as much as possible.

The ship must be as short as practicable and have a lively helm to enable her to twist and turn rapidly and sharply through the narrow, tortuous lanes of water among the ice-fields.

It will be seen at once that a ship for arctic or antarctic work must be as small as the size of the party and the amount of supplies, equipment, and coal for the proposed work will permit. The smaller a ship can be built, the greater will be her strength and the ease with which she can be handled.

Finally the polar ship must be a good sea boat to ride out the furious autumn gales of the North Atlantic and polar oceans.

This is especially important in South Polar work with its long voyage and cyclonic blizzards.

Many are under the impression that steel should be used in constructing polar ships. This idea is erroneous, for though a ship so made would be strong structurally, she would be particularly vulnerable to the ragged, sharp corners of heavy ice. Wood, with its elasticity and toughness, is the prime essential in the construction of a ship of this kind. It is also virtually impossible to repair injury to a steel ship during the voyage. But steel and methods of composite ship building, used in a vessel’s interior, may reduce weight and increase her strength.

Numbers of failures and catastrophes in polar work are directly attributable to the unsuitable model of the ship. Particularly striking examples of this were the Polaris and the Jeannette. Neither of these ships should ever have been allowed to go into the ice, as their straight sides gave them no possible chance to lift when squeezed by the ice, and their destruction was only a matter of time, when they should be squarely caught between two floes. In the case of the Jeannette Melville’s engineering skill postponed the catastrophe for a time, but the final result was inevitable.

The Esquimaux of the Ziegler Expedition and the Duke of the Abruzzi’s Stella Polare were scarcely better, but the skill of the Italians enabled their ship to pull through and bring the party home.

Virtually all the ships used in the history of ice navigation have been the sailing-vessels built in Scotland, Norway, and the United States for the whaling and sealing industries. These whalers were short, stocky, heavily sparred, and square rigged. The Victory, used by John Ross, in 1829, was fitted with auxiliary steam-power, and was the first attempt to utilize such motive power for ice work. The innovation of steam with paddle-wheels, than which nothing could have been more impracticable for ice navigation, proved a decided failure, and the engine was finally torn out and thrown overboard, and the voyage continued under sail.

The Norwegians operating in the waters about Spitzbergen, Jan Mayen, and Nova Zembla; the Americans, in Bering Sea and Hudson Bay, encountered ice conditions strikingly different from those met by the Scotch whose region of operations was chiefly in Davis Strait, Baffin Bay, Lancaster Sound, together with their tributaries, and the seas about eastern Greenland. Broadly speaking, the work of Norwegians and Americans was carried on among floes and broken ice drifting in open seas, through which they had to thread their way, while the Scotch in Melville Bay encountered an almost solid stretch of one season’s ice, and in the narrow, landlocked channels to the westward the currents of which are notoriously strong, they had to contend with old and heavier ice. Some one has very aptly said that American whalers used steam to avoid ice, the Scotch, to go into and through it.

STEM, FOREFOOT, AND BOW FRAMES

January 11, 1905

MASSIVE KING-POST TRUSSES STRENGTHENING THE “ROOSEVELT’S” SIDES AGAINST ICE PRESSURE

The horizontal timber in center of picture is 14 in. × 16 in.

The following average proportions of beam to length among these whalers is rather interesting: Scotch, 1:5.75; Norwegian, 1:4.7; American, 1:4.5. The average ratio in modern schooners built in Bath is 1:4.78.

The Scotch, thanks to the shrewdness of their seamen and builders and over one hundred years of experience in whaling work, where the best ships secured large financial returns, have gradually evolved the more powerful and efficient type of ship, and this type has been used exclusively by the British even in their latest expeditions.

It had long been a recognized fact that a form of hull which would permit a ship to rise readily and easily under pressure was desirable; yet the Fram was the first ship built to meet this requirement. The Fram was built with a special view to drifting in and with the ice. Her beam was about one-third her length, and her hull was so designed as to allow her to rise easily under pressure. While she was well adapted for this work, she would have been still better fitted for it if she had been bowl-shaped. Moreover, appearance, speed, ability to push through the ice, and virtually everything that goes to make a ship seaworthy was sacrificed to insure this quality.

The Gauss, the German antarctic ship, was much like the Fram, though less pronounced in type, having a broad beam of 36 feet, but with a greater length to make her more seaworthy for the long voyage to the antarctic regions. Her ratio is 1:4.25 as compared with the Fram’s ratio of 1:3.25.

The British Discovery, built for antarctic exploration, was also of the sailing type, with auxiliary steam-power. She was built with a little broader beam and a draft slightly less than that of the Scotch whalers, with a ratio of 1:5.27. She differed from the Fram and the Gauss in that she was not specially constructed to rise under pressure, and the rake of her stem was somewhat greater than in previous ships.

With the building of the Roosevelt came a complete reversal of former practice in ships for the arctic and antarctic regions. She was the first Polar ship built that was first of all a powerful steamer. All her predecessors had been sailing-vessels, usually full-rigged barks, with steam as a secondary consideration. This was done to economize on coal and enable the ship to cover long distances at slow speed and be gone for years, if necessary.

In the Roosevelt sail power was a mere auxiliary, and everything was given over to making steam-power first and foremost and her strength sufficient to withstand the ice. This is undoubtedly the correct principle on which to build any Polar ship for effective results. For this method the Smith Sound route is specially advantageous, affording a coasting voyage, ample facilities for caching coal, as well as presenting opportunities to obtain coal en route.

As the Roosevelt was to be built for navigating the very seas where the Scotch gained their valuable experience and for which their ships were specially designed and improved, the Scotch model seemed the proper one to use as a base for studies.

In the case of Nansen, and the British and German polar expeditions, the size of the ship was determined by fixing the size of the party, the length of the expedition, and the amount of coal which would be consumed by the engines and the cargo to be carried, all of which factors, when the dead weight of the ship and machinery was added, would give the displacement required.

In the case of the Roosevelt I believed it advisable to settle in advance the size and proportions which would come nearest to balancing and meeting the various requirements, allowing the difference between her displacement and her dead weight to go for cargo capacity, chief of which would be coal. The size determined was 184 feet over all, with 35 feet beam and 16 feet draft, loaded, and a load water-line of 166 feet. These dimensions make her almost as long as, but with a slightly greater beam than, the Discovery, the British antarctic ship. Her length ratio, while not quite as fine as that of the Scotch model, is much finer than the Norwegian or American averages.

After determining her length and beam, came the question of draft. For the ship navigating the waters of Smith Sound a light draft is far better than a heavier one, permitting her to hug the shore in order to get round barriers, or, when crowded by heavy ice, to retreat close to the shore and let it ground outside the ship. Another distinct advantage of light draft in a ship is the greater ease with which she will rise under the heavy pressure of ice-floes. The greater her draft, the harder it is for her to rise and avoid the grip of the ice.

So much depends on the ship in the serious work of ice navigation that it may be well to describe in detail the ship which I consider the ablest of ice fighters.

BOW OF “ROOSEVELT” IN DRY DOCK

Note massiveness and rounded, egg-like curves

The official measurements of the Roosevelt are as follows: length, 184 feet; breadth, 35.5 feet; depth, 16.2 feet; gross registered tonnage, 614 tons; maximum load displacement, about 1500 tons. The keel, main keelsons, stem- and stern-posts, frames, plank sheer, waterways, and garboard-strake, are white oak. Beams, sister-keelsons, deck clamps, ’tween-deck waterways, bilge-strakes, ceiling, and inner course of planking, are yellow pine. The outer planking is white oak and the decks of Oregon pine. Both the ceiling and the outer course of white-oak planking are edge-bolted from stem to stern, and from plank sheer to garboard-strake. The fastenings are galvanized iron bolts, going through both courses of planking and the frames, and riveting up over washers on the inside of the ceiling.

The great oak timbers of the keel, false keel and keelsons, bolted and strapped and scarfed together in every way that experience and ingenuity could suggest formed a rigid backbone over six feet high. The oak timber sources were searched to secure these timbers, and some of them perhaps could not be duplicated to-day.

Massive oak timbers formed the stem, stern and rudder posts, bolted and strapped to each other and to the keel.

The frames or ribs of the Roosevelt were placed almost close together, each made of three courses of selected timbers bolted together.

At the stem the ribs were close together and the triangular space at the bow between the port and starboard ribs was filled in solid for a distance of some ten feet aft of the stem with oak timbers bolted and scarfed together to make a solid ram, or fighting head or cæstus.

Main deck beams and ’tween deck beams were unusually large and spaced unusually close together. The latter were placed on a water line instead of with a sheer, so that they were just below the load water line where the severest and most frequent ice pressure would come.

Each main deck beam together with the ’tween deck beam below it, and four stout diagonal braces to the ship’s sides and a 2½″ vertical steel tie-rod from the bottom of the keel to the upper side of the deck binding all together, formed a double king post truss, one superimposed upon the other.

This truss arrangement was made possible by my method of housing the personnel of the expedition in light roomy quarters on deck, rather than below the decks.

The sides of the ship varied from twenty-four to thirty inches in thickness. These sides, supported at every four feet of the ship’s length by the truss system above described, and still further reinforced by three solid timber transverse bulkheads, were immune from being crushed in.

To avoid unnecessary weight, no planking was used between decks; there were no interior fittings; and spars and rigging were as lightly made as possible. The hatch coamings were of stout white oak, built almost as high as the top of the bulwarks, to add to the safety of the ship in heavy weather.

To protect her planks from the gnawing of the ice while steaming through it, as well as to reduce friction, the ship was surrounded at the water line with an armor belt of dense slippery greenheart.

This wood imported from Guiana expressly for the purpose, is so tough and dense that spikes or bolts cannot be driven into it but must have holes bored for them.

The shipyard which puts on the greenheart usually has to get a new set of saws, planers and drills for the next job, and the echoes of profanity linger for a long time.

The massive construction of the Roosevelt so impressed the inhabitants of Bucksport, accustomed to usual ship building, that one of the village oracles is said to have delivered himself around the glowing stove of the “hotel” office of the following, “By heck there’s so much wood in the d—— ship that she’ll sink when they launch her.”

After the hull of the Roosevelt was completed, she was put into dry-dock and “watered”; that is, water was pumped into her to detect any bolt-holes that had not been filled with a bolt, or any seam that had been overlooked in calking, just as one would test a pail by filling it with water to see if it leaked.

By this test leaks are located that cannot be detected in any other way, and the explorer during his voyage is saved the maddening annoyance of listening to the trickling of incoming water as he lies in his bunk at night, of the daily clank of the pumps, and of a ship with bilges full of ice at the end of the Polar winter.

In regard to engine power, my ideas have been radically different from those of other navigators. I have believed in all the power it was possible to get into the ship. I know of few more comfortable feelings for the commander of a ship beset in the ice than the knowledge that he has beneath his feet the power that with the least slackening of the ice pressure will enable him to force his ship ahead on her course.

The motive power of the Roosevelt consisted of a single, inverted, compound engine, capable of developing a thousand horse-power, and driving an eleven-foot four-blade propeller. Two water-tube boilers and one Scotch boiler supplied steam.

Two specially distinctive features of the machinery of the Roosevelt were a large “by-pass,” by means of which, by turning a valve, steam from all the boilers at full pressure could be turned directly into the big fifty-two-inch low-pressure cylinder, more than doubling the power for a short time; that is, as long as the boilers could meet this excessive demand. The object of this was to give me a reserve of power with which to extricate the ship from a particularly dangerous position. On at least two occasions this device accomplished all that was expected of it, and, by resistlessly forging the ship ahead a length or two against all odds, removed her from the line of deadly pressure, and so saved her.

STERN OF “ROOSEVELT” IN DRY DOCK

Note rounded curves, massiveness of propeller, skeg and rudder, and lavish use of steel plates. Rudder is of white oak timbers 16 in. × 16 in.

The other was an enormously heavy and strong propeller and shaft. The shaft was a twelve-inch diameter solid steel forging, a shaft big enough for a 2000-ton tramp steamer. The propeller was correspondingly heavy. The object of this was to prevent the complete crippling of the ship by breaking of shaft or propeller.

This idea entailed unusual weight and expense, but it served its purpose and was never regretted.

When in July, 1906, the Roosevelt was smashed against the unyielding ice-foot at Cape Union, tossed about like an egg-shell, and treated generally as if she were of no account, a particularly vicious corner of an old floe struck her astern, broke one propeller-blade square off, tore off the ponderous white-oak skeg, or after stern-post, and, catching under propeller and projecting end of shaft, lifted the whole after part of the ship as a man would lift a wheel-barrow, until her heel was out of water, and held her in this way for several hours until the tide changed. Had propeller and shaft been of usual proportions, neither would ever have made another revolution. As it was, my twelve-inch shaft was not even thrown out of line, and barring the broken propeller-blade, the machinery suffered no damage.

Another device which added to the effectiveness of the Roosevelt is the arrangement for raising and lowering the rudder while at sea, or lifting it when under pressure in the ice. A large open well was provided, reaching through to the main-deck. This was large enough to permit the massive rudder to be drawn up and hoisted on the deck for repairs, or into the overhang of the stern, out of the way of the ice. Instead of having to send a diver down to unfasten the gudgeons, these worked in an upright groove arranged in the after end of the stern-post, something like a window-sash. Heavy bolts attached the pintles to the rudder-post, and in unshipping the rudder, the gudgeons came up with the rudder itself, leaving the raking steel-clad stern-post as smooth and clean as the stem, with nothing for the ice to get a grip upon.

The problem of protecting the propeller-blades and keeping ice away from them, was solved partly by the full counter and overhanging stern of the Roosevelt, and partly by the design of the propeller. The blades of the propeller, though short, were large in sectional area, and particularly strong and massive. Their extremities were so shaped as to make it difficult for a cake of ice to get between them, and the blades were so arranged that either two or four of them could be used.

Powerful deck appliances were the windlass, steam-capstans forward and aft, and steamwinch, which enabled the ship to float herself should she get aground, or to warp herself out of a dangerous spot.

The special features of the Roosevelt’s model are a smooth and rounded form not readily gripped by the ice; midships transverse section that is a semi-circle; a sharply raking heavily steel clad stem and stern post giving large deck room, sufficient water line displacement and a short keel which makes the ship quick and handy in turning; an overhanging stern to assist in protecting rudder and propeller from the ice.

Her peculiarities of construction include unusually massive and close arrangement of beams and bracing to withstand pressure on the sides; filling the bow in almost solid with iron and timbers, where it gets the brunt of blows; strong and unusual reinforcement of the rudder-post; the introduction of a lifting rudder; heavy steel plates for stem and bow; a course of greenhart ice-sheathing to protect the outer planking.

Her peculiarities of rig are pole-masts; three-masted schooner rig, with big balloon staysails; and a very short bowsprit, which, when navigating through ice of some height, can be run inboard.

Her sail-plan is an American three-masted schooner rig, of light weight (a decided advantage when every pound saved in weight in rigging or fittings means an extra pound of coal on board), large enough to assist the engines considerably in favorable weather, or to get the ship home in case of her supply of coal becoming depleted.

The whole scheme on which the Roosevelt was built was to place all her strength, power, weight, carrying capacity below the main-deck; to make everything above deck, such as bulwarks, spars, sails, rigging, whale-boats, with their equipment, and deck-houses, as light as possible, in order to allow more coal to be stowed on board, and to waste no money on frills or fittings, but to use every dollar in the interests of strength, power, and effectiveness.

Constructed of southern oak and yellow pine, New England white pine and Oregon pine, by New England labor, the Roosevelt as a thoroughly American ship combines the qualities of shape which as in the Fram insure her rising under heavy ice pressure, with the splendid ramming qualities of the best of the Scotch whalers. These permit the ship to be fearlessly driven into the ice with all the force of her powerful engines.

The Roosevelt embodies all that a most careful study of previous polar ships and my own years of personal experience could suggest.

With the sturdiness of a battleship and the shapely lines of a Maine built schooner, I regard her the fittest ice-fighter afloat.

PUTTING ON THE GREENHEART ICE-SHEATHING

This view shows the sharpness of the bows and the pronounced rake of the stem

As I write these lines, I see her slowly but surely forcing a way through the crowding ice. I see the black hull hove out bodily onto the surface of the ice by a cataclysm of the great floes. I see her squeezed as by a giant’s hand against a rocky shore till every rib and timber is vocal with the strain.

And I see her out in the North Atlantic lying to for days through a wild autumn northeaster, rudderless, with damaged propeller, and shattered stern post, all pumps going, a scrap of double reefed foresail keeping her up to the wind, riding the huge waves like a seagull till they are tired out.

After my return from the north pole in 1909, the Roosevelt was purchased from the Peary Arctic Club, which had built her for me, by John Arbuckle, the great tea, coffee, and sugar merchant of Brooklyn.

Mr. Arbuckle’s personal hobby was wrecking. He desired the Roosevelt as a powerful ocean-going wrecking-tug. He made some changes in her rigging, removing the mainmast completely, and replacing the foremast with a powerful boom derrick. Air-compressors and additional powerful winches were installed upon her deck. Thus equipped, the Roosevelt assisted in the attempts to save the Yankee, and salvaged other wrecks along the coast as far south as Florida.

Mr. Arbuckle’s death put a stop to this work, and for a year or two the Roosevelt and other craft of his wrecking fleet lay in a Brooklyn slip almost under the east end of the Brooklyn Bridge, where thousands of passers-by could look almost directly down into her big, elliptical smoke-stack.

Then the Roosevelt was purchased by the Bureau of Fisheries of the Department of Commerce for an Alaskan patrol-boat. The bureau changed the Roosevelt to an oil-burner, restored her foremast, and made some minor changes in her accommodations for officers and men.

For a time she made her headquarters at Norfolk, Virginia, whence she went out on various fisheries trips. In the spring of 1917 she went through the Panama Canal, and proceeded to Seattle, Washington, to fit out for her work of patrolling the Alaskan coast, carrying supplies to the various stations and settlements, inspecting the canneries and seal-rookeries, and giving assistance, when necessary, to ships along that coast. For this work the Roosevelt is specially adapted, and will be able to perform her duties in all weathers and at all seasons of the year.

While waiting at Seattle, the Roosevelt took part in an important local event, carrying the official party and leading the naval pageant on the occasion of the opening of the Lake Washington ship canal connecting the lake with Puget Sound, and giving Seattle a double water front.

I was on board the Roosevelt for an hour late in May, and as I stood again on the bridge the succession of scenes that passed before me was as rapid as the changing pictures of a movie.

I was much pleased to have the Government take over the Roosevelt. Naturally my feeling for the ship was strong; yet I personally had neither the means to purchase her nor to maintain her after purchase. Nor did I feel like suggesting to the friends who had splendidly furnished the money for the discovery of the pole that the ship be purchased and taken care of.

From time to time I receive letters suggesting some action—public subscription or otherwise—for the maintenance and preservation of the Roosevelt as a national object of interest. These letters have referred to the government ownership by Italy of Abruzzi’s Stella Polare, by Norway of Nansen’s Fram, and by England of Nelson’s Victory; but none of these suggestions ever materialized.

Some day it is my hope to build a Roosevelt II to carry the Stars and Stripes around and into the heart of the antarctic regions. Drawings for such a ship, both in general and in detail, based on my experience in designing, building, and using the Roosevelt, were one of my amusements and occupations during the two long winter nights which the ship spent at Cape Sheridan. These plans contain a number of new ideas and improvements over the Roosevelt. The actual sail-plan, cross-section and longitudinal models to the scale of a quarter of an inch to the foot, are now stored on Eagle Island.

On the conclusion of the war, with the new impetus that has been given to wooden ship-building, perhaps it may be possible to realize these ideas, and send a ship south that will place the name of the United States high in the record of antarctic work. Such a ship, under command of Bartlett, and utilizing the experience gained and the methods developed in twenty-three years of north polar work, could probably do in a given time twice as much work as any existing ship.

There are three pieces of antarctic work of major importance and of great attractiveness that lie ready to the hand of the United States whenever we are ready to undertake them.

One is the complete delimitation of the great Weddell Sea indentation in the antarctic continent lying southeast of Cape Horn. Another is the establishment of a station at the south pole for a year of continuous, systematic scientific observations. A third is the exploration, survey, and study through several seasons of the entire periphery of the antarctic continent.

The first of these, the exploration of Weddell Sea, which thus far has baffled the efforts of every expedition, Scotch, German, French, Swedish, and British, is, from its location in the Western Hemisphere, in our sphere of influence, and would also be likely to give the maximum amount of general results in the shortest time and at the least expense.

BOW OF THE “ROOSEVELT” IN ICE

Impressive in its massive sturdiness and evident power

LAUNCHING THE “ROOSEVELT”

Bucksport, Maine, March 23, 1905. Very appropriate that the baptism of the ship should be in ice-filled water

The second, an observation station at the pole, might be an adjunct of the first, an overland party from the head of Weddell Sea establishing and provisioning the station. The traverse of such a party from the head of Weddell Sea to the south pole would, with the journeys of Amundsen, Scott, and Shackleton from McMurdo Sound on the opposite side, give a complete cross section of the antarctic continent.

The natural conditions in the antarctic region, that is, a continuous permanent surface from year to year, as compared with the north polar ocean, which may become intersected with lanes of open water at any time as the result of a storm—makes it possible for a party equipped like my north-pole party, to establish and maintain a regular route and system of transporting supplies right through the antarctic night. Or a few aëroplanes, working from a base at the head of Weddell Sea, could in a few weeks of the antarctic summer provision such a station for a year, as British planes in the Mesopotamia campaign carried supplies to Kut-el-amara.

Such a station, by making simultaneous observations with other existing stations, ought to add greatly to our meteorological and magnetic knowledge. If at the same time a similar station at Cape Columbia, the most northerly easily accessible point of land in the arctic regions, should be established, and take synchronous observations, the value of all would be still further increased.

The Cape Columbia station like the one at the south pole could be established and provisioned by aëroplanes in a few weeks from Whale Sound less than 400 miles distant and easily accessible every summer. With two such stations at the extremities of the globe observing simultaneously with selected stations in the inhabited portions of the world, there would certainly result a broader knowledge of meteorological, magnetic, and other natural conditions. The proposition has the approval of distinguished scientists, and will undoubtedly be eventually put in execution.

The third proposition, a complete systematic study of the entire periphery of the antarctic continent and its adjacent waters by a party of scientific experts in a special ship during a succession of seasons, would appeal most strongly to the scientists and museums of the country.

It would be an American Challenger expedition, with all the improvements and widened horizon of investigation that forty-four years of scientific progress represent. Such an expedition with good fortune could complete the circuit of the Antarctic continent in three or four seasons, coming north to pass each winter at some convenient port as Punta Arenas in the Straits of Magellan; Wellington, N. Z.; Hobart, Tasmania and Cape Town.

Each year the observations and collections could be sent home, and any necessary changes be made in the personnel.

The materialization of this program will give our museums a large amount of valuable material from a region which at present is most meagerly represented in their collections, and will furnish our scientists with material and observations to keep them occupied for years.

The financing of the work could be met by a group of American museums. Or it presents an opportunity for some man of means to place himself permanently in the scientific record of the nation by furnishing the funds for its realization.

CHAPTER II
SELECTING MEN

In my polar parties the matter of personnel has been different from that of other expeditions because of my extensive utilization of the Eskimos. From the beginning of my interest in polar matters my conception of an ideal polar party was one in which the rank and file should be composed of Eskimos, with one or more white men in command.

But I was not able to realize this ideal at the start of my polar work, and in my first expedition the entire work was done by the six members of my party. In my second expedition the Eskimos assisted for a short distance on the ice-cap. In the work and journeys of my long expedition of 1898–1902 (four years, three months, and seventeen days), my plans crystallized into actual shape, and all parties were made up of Eskimos and a white man or two, sometimes one member of my party commanding fifteen or sixteen Eskimos. In my last two expeditions of 1905–06 and 1908–09 the system was still further perfected.

Courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History

CAPTAIN ROBERT BARTLETT

In these last two expeditions another phase entered. With the close of my 1898–1902 expedition I had worked out the ultimate possibilities of sledging from a base south of the 79th parallel, and recognized that the pole could not be reached from such a base. The preliminary journey from the base to the most northern land made too serious a drain upon the energies of dogs and men to enable them to negotiate the final and most difficult part of the journey over the surface of the polar ocean. The only answer to the problem was a ship which would put me within striking distance of the pole.

The result was the Roosevelt, and in my last two expeditions the presence of a ship added to the personnel of my expedition the new element of ship’s officers and crew. Thus in the final evolution of my work my parties were made up of three elements: myself and my assistants for the exploration sledge-work; the ship’s officers and crew; and the Eskimos, these last being more numerous than both the others combined.

The Eskimo element is taken up more fully in another place, and I shall not go into it here. The selection of the ship’s personnel threw no burden of time or attention on my shoulders, as, with the exception of the chief engineer and his assistant, whom I myself selected, and who were Americans, I turned this matter over to Bartlett, himself a Newfoundlander, and held him responsible for a picked crew of these ideal, hardy ice-navigators.

In the general scheme of work it was not expected that any of this ship personnel should take part in the sledging expeditions. Bartlett’s eagerness to have a share in the sledge work, however, together with his personal qualifications, made him an invaluable addition to my field parties, and two or three of the men before the mast volunteered for, and did good, preliminary depot and hunting work.

My own particular work of selecting personnel was confined, therefore, to the limited number of my own assistants, and in the last expedition three of these, Henson, Percy, Marvin (I mention them in the order of length of service), were tried and faithful men from previous expeditions.

The day of large parties in successful polar work has passed. Effective results in these regions can, and in the future will be, obtained by very small parties. The records of some of the earlier expeditions show the fallacy of the popular idea that there is safety in numbers.

Franklin’s party of 138 men, the largest in the history of polar exploration, equipped with everything that the ample resources of the British Government could provide in that day, met with disaster, not a single member surviving to tell the fate which overtook them. Too large a party was, in my opinion, the direct cause of the utter loss of this expedition, and many of the tragedies which have preceded and followed it would not have occurred had the parties been small ones.

The whole situation in polar regions is against large parties. Starvation is inevitable when, as a result of the loss of ship or supplies, a large number of men find themselves dependent upon the resources of the country even for a short time, whereas a small company would have an abundant food-supply. On more than one occasion, on long sledge journeys with one or two companions, a single hare has made a hearty meal for us, which, followed by a good sleep, made it possible for us to travel some days more without meat. Had there been five or six of us, the portion of each would only have aggravated our hunger, and the strength and endurance of none would have been materially increased.

An illustration of this is an incident in the land beyond the ice-cap on my second trip across northern Greenland. Five hundred miles separated me and my companions from any other human beings. Then I wrote:

I saw a fresh hare-track, and a few hundred yards beyond came upon the hare itself, squatting among the rocks a few paces distant. With the sight of the beautiful, spotless little animal, the feeling of emptiness in the region of my stomach increased. I called to Matt, who was some little distance back, to stop the dogs and come up with his rifle. He was so affected by the prospect of a good supper that, though usually a good shot, his first and second bullets missed the mark; but at the third the white object collapsed into a shapeless mass, and on the instant gaunt hunger leaped upon us like a starving wolf upon its prey. A little pond, surrounded by high banks a short distance away, offered the advantage of ice for cooking purposes, and here we camped, lit our lamp, and cooked and ate the entire hare. It was the first full meal we had had since the Eskimos left us thirty-five days ago—the first meal possessing proper substance and staying quality to fit a man for a heavy day’s work.

While we were enjoying our feast, it began snowing, and at its conclusion we lay down as we were, upon the snow-covered shore of the little pond, without tent or sleeping-bag or anything except the clothes we wore, and, with the snowflakes falling thickly upon us, slept.

Demoralization is also much more easily caused by a disloyal or cowardly member in a large party than in a small one. The success of any expedition depends upon the magnetism and force of its leader. His example is contagious, his courage, activity, and cheerfulness being reflected in each person of his party up to a certain mark.

But the infusion of fresh courage into a member whose mental and physical strength has been impaired by cold, hunger, or discouragement is a drain upon the leader’s nerve force. The larger the party, the more difficult it becomes to fill it with courage and hopefulness when confronted by serious disappointment or disaster, or to put down insubordination. The impetus of a sledge party in particular centers in the physical condition of its leader, and my various sledge-journeys have shown me how vital it is that things that drain his energies should be reduced to a minimum.

MATTHEW A. HENSON

HENSON IN FULL WINTER COSTUME WITH SNOWSHOES

Next after the leader and a suitable ship, is an ice master, and an ice navigator must be born to the art.

He must possess good judgment, nerve, endurance, quick decision, and an uncanny prevision as to what the ice is going to do next.

Bartlett is the type I have in mind, accustomed to the ice and to ships from his early teens, wide experience in different portions of the globe, great endurance, abundant nerve, good judgment, and with the intensive training and experience of two voyages with me in what is probably the worst ice-navigation of the north polar regions.

To this has now been added his unusual experience during his voyage in the Karluk in Bering Sea.

Much has been accomplished by small parties in polar work. Schwatka made his great sledge-journey with four white men and an Eskimo. Captain Holm made his eastern Greenland trip with four men; Payer’s party of seven in Franz-Josef Land was found impracticable, and was reduced to three. Striking examples of what one determined man can accomplish are found in the records of Hall’s early explorations and Graah’s sledge-trip along the eastern coast of Greenland. Nansen’s most striking work was done with a party of two. Captain Cagni’s main party to the then highest north, 86° 34´, numbered four. Amundsen reached the south pole with a party of five. Scott’s south pole party numbered five. Stefansson did valuable work through several years with one companion. My own work has been done with from two to six in the party, the latter being the number in my north pole party.

I have always limited my parties to the number absolutely necessary for the work I had laid out, believing that every addition means an element of danger and failure. My reconnaissance of the Greenland inland ice in 1886, resulting in the penetration of the ice-cap to a greater distance than ever before by a white man, and the attainment of the greatest elevation on the ice-cap, was made with only one companion.

My Greenland expedition in 1891–92, the record of which includes the determination of the insularity of Greenland, a survey of Inglefield Gulf and Whale and Murchison sounds, the first accurate and complete record of the arctic Highlanders, was composed of seven members. And the 1200-mile sledge-trip across the Greenland inland ice-cap was accomplished by me and one companion.

The work of my expedition of 1893–95, covering a period of twenty-five months, included a second sledge-journey of 1200 miles across the ice-cap, the discovery of the Cape York meteorites, the completion of the survey of the region about Whale Sound, and the completion of the study of the natives. There were fourteen members in this party, eleven of them returning in August, 1894, leaving three of us to carry on the work for the last year. Summer trips were made in 1896 and 1897 to secure the last and largest of the meteorites. There were five men in the first party, seven in the last.

Twenty-one white men, including the crew and firemen of the Roosevelt, and forty Eskimos made up the personnel of my 1905–06 expedition, which resulted in the attainment of “farthest north.” The personnel of my last and successful attempt to reach the pole (1908–09) included twenty-two white men and forty-nine Eskimos.

As to the quality of the personnel of a polar expedition, my experience has proved over and over again the accuracy of my theory that it should be made up wholly of young men, of first-class physique, perfect health, education, and attainment. Such men, interested in their work and the success of the expedition, with resources within themselves and plans for the future, are able to resist in a large measure the depressing effects of the long polar night, and in field-work their enthusiasm more than makes up for lack of experience or toughened endurance.

To nine out of ten the word polar is synonymous with cold. To one who has spent a year within the arctic or antarctic it is more likely to be synonymous with darkness. Any healthy man properly fed and clothed can pass the year in these regions with little discomfort so far as the cold is concerned. But when it comes to almost four months of polar night, it is different. A man of the most sanguine temperament cannot avoid entirely its effects, and there are those of nervous temperament whom a night in the arctic would drive insane. Not that it is so extremely dark, for the three or four winter moons give a brilliant light, and at other times the darkness is not greater than at home on starlit nights in the winter. It is only during heavy storms that the darkness becomes intense and tangible. It is the absence of the actinic or the physiological effects of the sun’s rays and the contraction of the physical horizon by the darkness which render a polar night so trying. As far as I was able I have selected blondes for the personnel of all my expeditions.

Men for the field-parties should be wiry, and their weight should be within the limits of not less than two pounds, nor more than two and a half pounds per inch of height. This means for a six-foot man a minimum of 144 pounds, a maximum of 180 pounds, and a mean of 162 pounds.

When I returned from the north pole sledge-trip, which was a trip of arduous and protracted exertion, but not a journey on half-rations, as had been the case on some of my earlier trips, my own weight, stripped to the buff, was 160 pounds, which, by the way, was the same weight to which I trained for my junior-class crew in college at the age of twenty.

OO-TAH

This photo of my best Eskimo, taken immediately after our return from the North Pole, indicates the type of Eskimo for Polar work. The portrait shows the protecting roll of bearskin about the face.

Courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History

GEORGE BORUP

Small, wiry men have a great advantage over large ones in polar work. The latter require more material for their clothing, and usually eat more than the former. Large men take up more space than small ones, necessitating the building of larger snow igloos when on the march, or the carrying of larger tents than would be needed for a party made up of small men. Every pound in weight beyond the maximum requirement tends to lessen a man’s agility; in fact, renders him clumsy and more apt to break his equipment. For instance, if a large man on snow-shoes stumbles, a sudden lunge to save himself more often than not results in a broken snow-shoe. The decided disadvantage which a large man is under in crossing a lead or new ice is apparent. This was brought to mind with striking forcefulness in crossing the “Great Lead” on our return from “farthest north” in 1906, when my little party came the nearest we have ever come to death. Two miles of young ice, which would not for an instant have supported us without snow-shoes, had to be crossed, the party spreading out in widely extended skirmish-line, with fifty or sixty feet between each man, each one of us constantly and smoothly gliding one shoe ahead of the other with the greatest care and evenness of pressure, the undulations going out in every direction through the thin ice as we advanced.

I was the heaviest one in the party,—160 pounds net,—and fortunately I had six-foot snow-shoes. Yet for a considerable part of the distance I doubted if I should ever reach the firm ice. The chief engineer of the Roosevelt was a heavy man, weighing 235 pounds or more, and as we stooped to untie our snow-shoes on firmer ice, one of my Eskimos, Ahngmalokto, turned to me with the remark that if the chief had been with us, he never would have reached firm ice. And he was quite right.

Some Arctic travelers advise against having men who have had previous polar experience, as likely to make them opinionated and insubordinate.

There is much in this, and it is a precept well to be followed particularly if the leader is new at the work. Few men, having had experience in a certain direction and associated in a subordinate position with an inexperienced leader, are big enough to be loyal to their commander.

The usual result is constant slurring criticism which is sure to have its effect upon other members of the expedition, and opposition either direct and active or sullen and passive.

The last man of all is the one who is always wondering whether he will ever get back home or not, and is constantly congratulating himself as a hero because he is in the terrible polar regions and still alive.

I know of no better test of character than a season spent in the polar regions. In these regions men get to know one another better in a few months than they would in a lifetime at home. There is something about the life which very quickly shows the true caliber of a man. If he is a cur, or has a yellow streak it is sure to come out. In making up my last party I was exceptionally fortunate, for I had the membership of the preceding expedition to select from. Every one was glad to make the success of the expedition first and personal feelings and ambitions secondary. My party was efficient and congenial, and never had I spent a winter in the arctic so free from friction and petty annoyances.

CHAPTER III
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.

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.

LABRADOR WHALING STEAMER

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.

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

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.

CHAPTER IV
ICE NAVIGATION

On July 6,[1] 1908, a black, rakish-looking steamer moved slowly up the East River, New York, beside a puffing tug. Seen broadside on, this craft was as trim and rakish as a yacht; seen end on, the impression given was of the breadth of beam and solidity of a battle-ship.

A sailor, glimpsing any feature of this vessel,—the slender, raking pole-masts; the big, elliptical smoke-stack; the sharply inclined stem; the overhanging stern; the sheer of the bows; the barrel at the mast-head,—would have noted its peculiarity, and looked the vessel over with great interest; and yet she did not look a “freak” ship. As she passed along, whistles on each shore vied with one another in clamorous salutations, and passing craft, from the little power-boat to the big Sound steamer, dipped flags and shrieked a greeting.

BEGINNING THE NORTH POLE VOYAGE

The “Roosevelt” steaming up East River, N. Y., July 6, 1908

With glasses one could make out on a pennant flying from the masthead, Roosevelt. The Stars and Stripes at the stern were fluttering up and down incessantly, and the white jets of steam from her whistle were continuous in answer to the salutes.

This was the arctic ice-fighter Roosevelt, as sturdy and aggressive as her namesake, built on American plans, by American labor, of American material, and then on her way to secure the North Pole as an American trophy.

At Oyster Bay the ship was inspected and given God-speed by President Roosevelt, then steamed out through Long Island Sound, to Sydney, Cape Breton, for her cargo of coal, then through the Gulf of St. Lawrence, up the Labrador coast, through Davis Strait, across Melville Bay, and between the arctic Pillars of Hercules, Cape Alexander and Cape Isabella, to the battle-ground and the fight for which she was built—the conquest of the contracted channels filled with massive, moving ice which form the American gateway to the polar ocean.

The design of the Roosevelt was based upon twenty years of actual experience afloat and ashore in the very region where she was to be used. I had reversed all previous practice in regard to polar ships, and had made this one a powerful steamer with auxiliary sail power instead of a sailing-ship with auxiliary steam-power. I had seen her keel fashioned and laid, I had seen her ribs grow in place, I had seen them clothed with planks, the steel-clad stem and stern shape themselves, had seen every timber put into place and every bolt driven. I felt that I had beneath my feet a magnificent tool and fighting machine that would put me within striking distance of the pole.

Innumerable conversations during a number of years with all kinds of intelligent, well-read people have shown me conclusively that outside of the scientist, the geographer, and those who have made a study of polar exploration, the average person has no idea whatever of the real character of polar ice.

Perhaps the most general impression—I shall not call it idea, because it is not definite enough for that—is that the ice of the polar ocean is a smooth, even, permanent surface, and that the terrible cold of that region was the principal reason why it was not traversed long ago. Others think that this ice is snow-covered, and still others are far enough advanced to think of it as rough, hummocky, or even ragged, but yet as fixed as land itself.

Ideas as to the thickness of the ice are equally wrong, varying from a few feet to a conception of the entire polar ocean as solid. Most people take it for granted that the ice has been formed by the freezing of the ocean water.

The character of ice varies in different portions of the polar regions. North of Spitzbergen and Franz-Josef-Land and the long stretches of the Siberian coasts there may be even in midwinter miles of ice of a few inches or a foot or two in thickness. This, however, the navigator of a ship rarely sees, as it has either been broken up by the wind or melted by the sun before the season of navigation begins.

In Melville Bay and the channels of the North American archipelago, like Lancaster Sound and Jones Sound and their western extensions, ice forms early in the autumn and continues to increase in thickness through the winter until it reaches a thickness of six or eight feet or, in the fresher waters near the coast of North America, nine feet in thickness.

Some of this ice, with the advent of summer, slowly melts in place and disappears. Most of it, however, gradually decreases in thickness as spring progresses, becomes perforated with holes where the warmer and fresher water from the melting snow on its surface bores through, and then moves off in great fields sometimes miles across.

Ice of this kind, encountered in July or August, presents about the simplest form of ice-work. Two or three well-directed blows at full speed by a ship like the Roosevelt will often start a crack across a field a mile or more wide through which the ship can slowly crowd her way. Or continuous ramming will result in progress, from half to a full ship’s length being gained at a blow.

Such ice presents no menace at any time to a ship like the Roosevelt, as it cannot crush her, and is simply irritating because of the slow progress it causes and the persistent way in which it drags along the ship’s side. In ice like this the monotony is often relieved by the cry of “Nannook!” (bear), from the masthead, and the resulting scurry over the ice in pursuit of the animal.

North of Greenland and Grant Land, from their northern shores to the pole, the character of the ice of the polar ocean is entirely different. In my final journey to the pole less than one-tenth of the ice traversed was ice formed by the freezing of the ocean surface, and more than nine-tenths was fresh-water ice, great fields, some of them of astonishing thickness, broken off from the low, undulating glaciers of northern Grant Land and Greenland, and the “glacial fringe” which skirts all those northern coasts.