CHAPTER IXSLEDGE EQUIPMENT

Thoroughpreparedness for a polar sledge journey is of vital importance, and no time devoted to the study and perfection of the equipment for a long journey can be considered wasted. Upon the perfection of this equipment depends the success of the expedition. It must be devised to meet every condition and every extreme, and my sledge-journeys have always been preceded by days and weeks, even months, of careful attention to the slightest details. To the inexperienced the amount of work this involves even for a small party would be surprising.

The major items of my sledging-equipment, as used in the north pole trip, are as follows:

Eskimos for majority of party.

Eskimo dogs for traction.

Special sledges.

Fur clothing exclusively.

Pemmican for mainstay of rations.

Special device for making tea.

Snow houses for shelter.

The more nearly perfect and simple the outfit and its adaptability to the various conditions to beencountered in overland or polar-sea sledging, the more the work which can be accomplished, and the greater the comfort and safety of the party.

Every reduction that can be made in the number of articles of food or equipment necessary, and in the number of routine operations or motions that have to be gone through with daily, as making and breaking camp, preparing meals, etc., conserves time, temper, and mental as well as physical energy, leaving more minutes for sleep and more vim for traveling.

Every precaution should be taken to render every article of equipment as impervious to the dangers of injury or breakage as possible. This not only saves the extra burden of a repair outfit, but valuable time in the field. Provisions must be rendered immune from loss or injury by wetting.

Next in importance comes weight. Everything should be just as light as it can possibly be made, for the number of miles a party can travel depends on the amount of food it can carry, and every pound deducted from the weight of equipment means an extra pound added to the food-supply.

The fundamental conditions of the supreme polar sledge-journeys should be fully comprehended. On leaving land to force a way across the surface of the north polar ocean, or leaving headquarters to drive to the center of the antarcticcontinent, not an ounce of food or supplies or equipment can be obtained on the way. Everything to use or eat on the journey must be carried on the sledges. The load that can be carried upon the sledges is a certain fixed amount, depending upon the character and amount of the tractive power. In my work it was fixed at five hundred pounds for a team of eight dogs.

That load is made up of two parts, the “constant” weights of cooking-outfit, rifle, instruments, etc., and the “variables” comprising supplies which are constantly decreasing as consumed by men and dogs. For every pound of “constant” weight that can be saved by elimination or refinement a pound of pemmican can be substituted, and this is a day’s, or, in an emergency, two days’, ration for a man or a dog. A saving of nine pounds in the “constants” represents a full day’s rations for a driver and his eight dogs, and this transformed into distance may mean anywhere from ten to forty miles.

For tractive power I have always used the Eskimo dogs, and believe they are theonlything for such work. Eight dogs are required to haul the standard load, but, with an extra load or for fast traveling, I have sometimes used ten or twelve good dogs.

A good team of eight dogs should always have one or two bitches in it. This makes a livelier and better-working team, and the bitches of the WhaleSound dogs almost without exception pull harder per pound of their weight than the dogs. If, when bitches go in heat, they are put in the leading team, there is no occasion to use the whip with the other teams.

From every point of view and under every consideration the Eskimo dog is at the present time the only motor for polar work. He is capable of wider adjustment to varying and always adverse conditions than any other; he can go where no other can; he can stand more cold and hardship than others; he uses the same fuel (pemmican) as the men; he requires no water, no special care or attention or shelter; and when he is no longer of use as a motor, he can be utilized as fuel for the other motors or the men of the party.

The first item of equipment to be considered is the sledge. Upon it all depends, and no detail of its construction is too small to be of the utmost importance. It must drag easily and be as light in weight as it can be without the sacrifice of strength for lightness.

Twenty-three years of experience in polar sledge-traveling and acquaintance with all types of sledges have given me clear and definite ideas as to essentials and non-essentials in the construction of sledges.

Those built for my first expedition were modeled on the same general principles as the McClintock sledge, but weighing about one-third asmuch. Each succeeding expedition has seen some improvement in our sledge designing and building, and the Peary sledge, used for the first time on my last expeditions, is in my opinion the best type of sledge yet built for polar-sea-ice work. Because of its model, this style of sledge proved much stronger and much more easy to draw than any others I have ever used.

They are two feet wide, from twelve to thirteen feet long, with a height of seven inches. The sides are made of solid oak or hickory, rounded in back as well as in front, and bent ash runners two inches wide are attached to the sides. The runners are equipped with shoes two inches wide and an eighth of an inch thick of cold sheared steel. Sealskin thongs lash the sides together, making a sledge which is strong enough to support from one thousand to twelve hundred pounds on level surfaces.

For antarctic or polar ice-cap work these sledges, while still retaining their dimensions and shape, can be materially reduced in weight by using framed construction for the sides instead of solid. The full length should be retained, as this is a great advantage and factor of safety in crossing the crevasses of the ice-cap.

ESKIMO TYPE SLEDGE

ONE OF THE PEARY SLEDGES

The framed, or McClintock, type of sledge, with its various modified forms as used by Nansen, Abruzzi, and others, is entirely unsuited for sea-ice work with dogs. For ice-cap work, where thesurface is nearly level and composed of snow and the course is straight away, or for sea-ice work, if dragged by men who will handle it carefully, the framed type of sledge has the advantage of lightness. In some of my Greenland ice-cap work I had fifty-pound sledges that would carry one thousand pounds, and twelve-pound ones that would carry two hundred pounds.

But for the grueling rough-and-tumble work with dogs on sea ice, over the pressure ridges, through rubble zones, and among the sharp-cornered ice-blocks, flinty with minus 50° or 60°F., only the solid-sided sledge will stand the racket. With it, a sharp corner of ice, coming against the side, grates and slides along until it slips off at the stern without damage, while with the framed sledge the same sharp corner will rip out three or four side posts, and necessitate a long and trying job of repairs.

Another most important feature of a sledge for sea-ice or coast work is a shoe that will bite the ice like a skate iron and not slip sidewise.

The most trying thing for sledges, dogs, and men is the side sluing of a sledge in rough ice, gathering momentum as it goes, only to bring up with a side crash against a piece of steel-blue ice. This worries and discourages the dogs by jerking them off their feet, strains the driver sometimes seriously in his efforts to soften the crash, and in my earlier sledges I have often had a side splitfrom end to end and bent flat under the sledge. This means unloading the sledge, work at it for two or three hours, then reloading, all in temperatures far below zero. Not until my last two expeditions did I find the material—cold sheared steel—which met my requirements for sledge-shoes.

Another absolute essential in every sledge is that there shall be no rigid joints. Such joints go to everlasting smash very quickly under the continuous succession of blows, with the entire weight of the load acting as a hammer at every impact with the flinty ice. Every joint must be lashed,—preferably with rawhide,—thus giving a certain elasticity, which eases the blow. Some expeditions have never learned this, but the Eskimos have worked it out very thoroughly, and I availed myself fully of their wonderful ingenuity and adaptation of lashings and knots for the different parts of a sledge.

There are numbers of little details in the construction of an ideal, easy-running, easy-steering sledge that are as important as the proper angle for the cutting edge of a tool in various materials, but which it would be tedious if not impossible to describe here.

This native art of sledge-building, not only the common knowledge of the tribe, but the individual knowledge of the picked Eskimos of my expedition, I was able to utilize for my sledge-equipmentby the simple expedient of having every man build his own sledge, material and tools of course being furnished by me. The desire to excel the other fellow, which the better men of this tribe possess, and the wish to reduce to a minimum his own personal labor and discomfort led each man to put forth every effort to make his sledge the lightest, strongest, most unbreakable, and the easiest running and most readily steered.

Thus my own practical experience of twenty years, the experience of generations of the tribe, the individual ambition and pride of my picked men, the best of material and tools, and the long hours of the winter night in which to work—all combined to give me what I have no hesitation in considering the best sledge-equipment that ever went into the field.

I also used on my last expedition the regular type of sledge which has been in use among the Eskimos since the early days when they had to depend on the bones of the walrus and whale and the antlers of the deer for material for building them. This type of sledge has two oak runners seven inches in height and one and a quarter inch in thickness. These are steel shod but are curved only at the front. To render them better adapted to the special work before us, I increased the length of these Eskimo sledges from six or seven feet to nine and a half feet.

Sledges intended for inland work differ slightlyfrom those to be used in sea-ice work. Deep, soft snow is generally prevalent in the interior regions, and to keep a sledge from sinking into it, it must be equipped with broad, flat runners. There can also be a decided gain in lightness in the sledges for this class of work, although the strong winds of the ice-cap carve portions of it into sharp, almost marble-like sastrugi, which tests the power of endurance of the strongest of sledges. None of those used by me in my Greenland inland-ice cap-work weighed over fifty pounds, while those used on my trip to the pole averaged ninety-five pounds.

Next after the ship, Eskimos, the Eskimo dogs, and special sledges, a vital tool for the polar explorer is the clothing for himself and the members of his party on his serious sledge-journeys. The meaning of suitable clothing on a serious polar sledge-journey goes beyond the mere personal comfort of the wearer. Fur clothing of suitable material, properly made and intelligently worn, means conservation of the vital heat and energy of the wearer, which can thus all be devoted to the object of the party, covering distance. Unsuitable clothing, as represented by the cumbersome, awkward, heavy, and ludicrous outfits of various expeditions, including some of my earliest ones, means the wastage of from fifty to seventy-five per cent. of the wearer’s warmth and energy in the struggle to keep alive, leaving only fromfifty to twenty-five per cent. to be devoted to the work. A parallel illustration is that of two similar engines generating the same power but one of them consuming fifty per cent. or more of that power in overcoming its own frictional resistances, while the other uses only five per cent. for this purpose.

POLAR SLEDGE COSTUMEThe figure on the left has deerskin boots, the one on the right boots of musk-ox skin. Both have the sheepskin coat with bearskin roll about the face. The man on the right, boring a hole through the ice for a sounding, has pushed his hood back

POLAR SLEDGE COSTUME

The figure on the left has deerskin boots, the one on the right boots of musk-ox skin. Both have the sheepskin coat with bearskin roll about the face. The man on the right, boring a hole through the ice for a sounding, has pushed his hood back

The former engine will have but fifty per cent. of its power for performing its work, while the other will have essentially all its power for its work, and will be able to accomplish twice as much as the first.

There is no question in my mind that if Scott and his men had had the clothing outfit of my men and had known how to wear it, the conservation of heat and energy effected by it, would, in spite of short rations, have enabled them to pull through.

The members of my later sledge-parties were normally warm and comfortable nearly all of the time, and so could devote all their energies to travel.

Nature’s own insulation against cold—animal fur—and the wind-impervious integument of animal skin are the only materials for this purpose. This is nature’s own protection to her warm-blooded animals living in those same regions. Once stated, the proposition is so simple as to be self-evident. If further proof were needed, there is the example of the Eskimos, whose sole clothing is fur of animals and feathers of birds.

Believing their dress perfect for conditions under which they use it, I have adopted it with slight modifications for my parties.

As so modified, the clothing outfit for every member of my party, including the Eskimos, was as follows:

One short-hooded coat of selected deerskin.

One short-hooded working-coat of selected sheepskin.

One blanket or flannel shirt.

One pair of short, flannel-lined bearskin trousers.

One pair of bearskin or deerskin or musk-ox skin winter-weather boots. One pair of sealskin boots.

Two or three pair of polar hareskin stockings.

One pair of bearskin mittens.

One or two pairs of deerskin or sealskin mittens.

Three or four pairs of blanket inner mittens.

Two or three pairs of deerskin inner soles.

All the material for these outfits was carefully selected and prepared, and the garments were made in accordance with the Eskimo methods, carefully fitted for each man and tried out by actual practice in hunting-trips during the winter, so that all defects were remedied before the long spring journey.

Such a clothing outfit as this reduces to the minimum the chances of frost-bite among the members of the party. A man who is normallywarm and whose blood circulates vigorously can have his hand exposed to low temperatures for a short time, as in unlashing a load or untangling the dogs, or his feet wet for a short time as the result of his getting into a lead, without having hands or feet frozen; whereas a man dressed in artificial clothing, chilly all the time, drawing on his vital heat and energy continuously, would freeze his hands or feet almost instantly under the same conditions.

Such a costume is also a very practical auxiliary of the rations in certain circumstances. When it is necessary to go on scant rations, the conservation of animal heat and life represented by one of these costumes is a very material equivalent of a considerable amount of food.

With an outfit of this kind it is possible for a party to undertake the longest of sledge-journeys in very low temperatures, and under all conditions, from sleeping in the open to the hard work of lifting and hauling the sledges over difficult places, with comparatively little discomfort.

For polar sea-ice work I consider this costume absolutely vital, because of the protection which it affords in case of falling into the leads or cracks in the ice. With the draw-string at the bottom of the coat fastened tight, with the tops of the boots tied tightly over the flap at the bottom of the trousers, a man, falling or slipping into a narrow lead, may be immersed in the water or slush to hisshoulders for two or three minutes before scrambling out, and not only not experience any ill effects, but not even have to pay any attention to the mishap. During a few minutes’ immersion no water will have penetrated his fur costume; and if he is immediately scraped down with a whip-handle or back of a knife to remove most of the water or slush from the outside fur of his clothing and then, as he walks briskly along, from time to time he beats his clothing with whip-stock or knife-blade, he will have it virtually dry and clear of frost and ice at the end of three or four hours.

If he falls into a lead in such a way that he cannot extricate himself, the bulk and contained air of his fur clothing will buoy him up for a long time before the water finally penetrates it.

A sleeping-bag has always been considered an absolutely essential item of equipment for any and every sledge-party, but I have not used one since my expedition of 1891–92. My clothing outfit has served as sleeping-bag, and has enabled me to dispense entirely with that heavy, cumbersome, temper-destroying feature of sledge-work, and has permitted me to substitute on my sledges, in place of each sleeping-bag, ten or twelve additional pounds of pemmican.

COMPASS COURSE INDICATORDevised by Peary for keeping course on the great interior ice cap in thick weather and clouds. A liquid boat compass mounted on two ski at the end of a bamboo pole and pushed ahead of him by the leader of the party

COMPASS COURSE INDICATOR

Devised by Peary for keeping course on the great interior ice cap in thick weather and clouds. A liquid boat compass mounted on two ski at the end of a bamboo pole and pushed ahead of him by the leader of the party

PEARY SLEDGE IN ACTION

For any serious sledge-journey in polar regions there are four and only four food essentials, whatever the time of year, the temperature, or thelength of the trip. These are pemmican, tea, ship’s biscuit, and condensed milk. Long experience with these foods as staples has convinced me that nothing else is necessary either to provide heat for the body or to build muscle. As a matter of fact, all could be omitted except the pemmican. The others, while desirable, are all from the stern polar point of view, merely luxuries.

The pemmican for my last expedition was a preparation of lean beef, dried until nearly all water was expelled from it, then ground fine and mixed with beef fat, a little sugar, and a few raisins. No more concentrated or more satisfying meat food can be prepared, and it forms the one absolutely indispensable item of any polar sledge-ration.

My hard-tack, pilot-bread, army-bread, whatever one chooses to call it, was made specially for my expedition as regards size and weight of the individual biscuit. The ingredients of the bread were essentially the same as those of regular hard-tack, being little else than flour, water and salt.

For convenience in issuing rations, these biscuit were made sixteen to the pound, which meant that, when we were on full rations, sixteen were issued to each man each day; if on half-rations, eight biscuit; if on quarter-rations, four biscuit. The biscuit were made square in the interests of reduced bulk, and they were packed in hermetically sealed,rectangular tins containing twenty-five pounds, with each tin just as long as the width of one of my sledges, so that they stowed compactly.

These biscuit, when perfectly dry, were as sweet and crisp and fresh as any cake, and in a division of four men one tin lasted a trifle over six days. This did not give the biscuit time to become moist or soft from the drifting snow.

Our tea also was compressed to save bulk.

A daily ration of one pound of pemmican, one pound of biscuits, four ounces of condensed milk, and half an ounce of compressed tea, with six ounces of alcohol or oil for fuel, will keep a man in good working condition for an indefinite period even in the coldest of weather, and this has been the standard ration on all my polar sledge-trips.

It is policy to keep the dogs as well, if not better, fed than oneself, and one pound of pemmican per day is sufficient to keep a dog healthy and strong. When necessary, an Eskimo dog can keep hard at work for some time on very little to eat. On the other hand, an occasional double ration, if conditions permit, produces good results.

In my expedition of 1891–92 I deliberately planned to use dogs for food for the first time in the history of polar exploration. As the dogs wore out, we fed them to those remaining or ate them ourselves, thus making our load of provisions last much longer. This has been the principleof all my subsequent trips, and results have fully proved it to be a sound one.

My parties in the field have had two meals a day, one in the morning, the other in the evening. On the polar trips the party which went ahead to break a way for the main party was allowed tea and a lunch at noon, so strenuous was the work.

Essential working-tools of a sledge-party over sea ice comprise pick-axes, ice lances, snow knives, hatchets, spades, and coils of walrus line. Every one of my sledges carried a light, special double-pointed pick-ax weighing five pounds, with a selected hickory handle. When we encountered a serious pressure ridge or a zone of rough rubble-ice, the sledges stopped, the dogs lay down and went to sleep instantly, and every man in the party pulled a pick-ax from the upstanders of his sledge and stepped forward to chop a trail for the sledges through this zone of ice. This trail had already been indicated by me or some member of the party scouting in advance. As a result, trails were very quickly made.

Another very valuable instrument, used on the last expedition only, was an ice lance. There was one of these also for each sledge. Reconnoitering one day in a big second-hand military establishment in New York, I saw a lot of vicious-looking boarding-pikes. It occurred to me at once that by simply shortening and changing the shape of theselances they would make valuable ice-cutters, and I immediately ordered several dozens. I had their shape changed somewhat, fitted them with shorter handles, and found them invaluable as an ice tool, both for cutting and chopping ice-blocks in the way of the sledges and for drilling holes in the ice.

Every sledge and every man had a twenty-inch-long saw-knife,—knife on one edge, saw on the other,—with a strong handle. These were used for repairing sledges, for chopping up pemmican, and were specially useful for cutting the snow-blocks from which our shelters were made at each camp. With every man cutting these blocks, it did not take long to erect a snow house. Hatchets are useful for ice work, for repairing, and for chopping up pemmican for the dogs.

A light, narrow-bladed spade for every four-man unit of my party was found very satisfactory in building igloos.

My firearms outfit comprised two Winchester 40–44 carbines, each weighing only a trifle over five pounds, with magazines carrying ten or eleven cartridges. These rifles are heavy enough for seals or polar bear, the only game there was any chance of our encountering on the ice. They were carried pistol fashion in a canvas holster at the upstanders of the sledges, so that if game was sighted, there was no delay. One had simply to snatch the rifle out of its holster and use it.

Every member of the party had a pair of snowshoes.Snow-shoes may be a life-preserver for a man in sea-ice work in enabling him to cross young ice which would be absolutely impossible without them. Members of my party had snow-shoes six feet long and a foot wide. The Eskimos’ snow-shoes were five feet long and a foot wide. All were made by Dunham of Norway, Maine, the best snow-shoes I ever saw.

Another important item of equipment on my last sledge-journey was an entirely new alcohol-stove of my own design, which I spent hours in perfecting and trying out during the long winter night. This new device worked splendidly, enabling us to melt ice and make tea in ten minutes, a process which had on previous trips, with the old style stoves, taken a full hour. A saving of something over an hour and half every day on a long journey over the sea ice may mean the difference between success and failure. The hour and a half thus saved can either be utilized for sleep to keep the members of the party more fit under the severe strain to which they are subjected; or it can be utilized for traveling, with a resulting increase in the distance covered in each march.

The instrumental outfit for a sledge journey of any length should include a theodolite, a sextant, and artificial horizon, compasses, chronometers, thermometers, a good field-glass, cameras, and, for sea-ice work, a light sounding-equipment. Thetheodolite we carried on the north-polar trip was a small traveler’s, made by Fauth & Company of Washington, D. C. It was equipped not only with a tripod, but had an arrangement by which it could be mounted on its case for use when the wind was blowing hard enough to make the tripod too vibratory to be practicable.

The sextant and artificial horizon were of standard pattern and the artificial horizon was of special form designed by me expressly for this journey, with a wooden trough and a different method of returning the mercury to the bottle, the entire equipment representing a reduction of some pounds in weight from the standard mercurial horizon as furnished by dealers.

Our chronometers were made by the E. Howard Watch Company of Boston, the Elgin Co. and the Waltham Co. They were pocket-size, open-face, stem-winders, kept good time, were light in weight, easy to read, and were worn suspended by a cord round the neck inside our clothing.

Binoculars were the Academic Optiques, aluminum, and extremely light; thermometers were supplied by Green of New York, being the regular maximum and minimum self-registering kind; and cameras were the Eastman Kodaks No. 4, with rolls of twelve negatives each, daylight reloading.

The sounding equipment was new on this expedition, never having been taken on previous trips, and consisted at the start of two thousand fathoms(twelve thousand feet) of specially made steel piano wire in two reels of a thousand fathoms each, the net weight of each reel being twelve and a fraction pounds. The sounding-lead was cut down from its original weight to a final weight of about fourteen pounds, and had at the lower end an automatic clam-shell device for bringing up samples of the bottom.

The sounding wire was marked in one hundred fathoms by bits of brass soldered to it, and was wound round a wooden reel that could be attached temporarily either to the front or rear end of a sledge for making soundings, and then, by the attachment of cranks at both ends, the wire could be reeled up again when the sounding had been completed.

Some five hundred fathoms of this were lost by breaks in the earlier part of the trip north, but when Bartlett left me there were some fifteen hundred fathoms left, and fearing to lose more of it, I did not attempt to make any more soundings until just south of the pole on the return trip. It was fortunate that I did this, as in making the sounding the mishap which I had feared occurred, resulting in the loss of all but a hundred or two feet of the wire and making it impossible for me to make further soundings on the return trip, as I had planned, to supplement those made by Marvin and Bartlett.

The one sounding, however, showing that thecentral polar ocean is probably not less than two miles in depth, is of pronounced interest to the geographer and oceanographer.

Our instruments were all kept in a special instrument box. This was a milk case covered carefully with canvas to keep the fine snow from being blown into it, and reinforced with tin on the corners to withstand rough usage on the trip. The sextant was suspended from the cover of the box to protect it from shocks.

The instrument box was always stowed on the middle of the special sledge used to carry such equipment, where it would get the least motion and pounding, and rested on a cushion of spare clothing.

The theodolite, in its box, was carried in a canvas case in front of the upstanders of the sledge, resting on some item of spare fur clothing, and kept in place by elastic lashings of rawhide line.

The camera, thermometers, note-books, field-glasses, and Winchester carbine were carried in canvas pockets by the upstanders of the sledge, and arranged in such a way that any one of them could be obtained instantly for use without having to unlash any portion of the load.

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