COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
ILLUMINATION OF THE ROOSEVELT IN WINTER QUARTERS ON A MOONLIGHT NIGHT
ILLUMINATION OF THE ROOSEVELT IN WINTER QUARTERS ON A MOONLIGHT NIGHTShowing the Ice Pressure Close to the Ship
Imagine us in our winter home on theRoosevelt, four hundred and fifty miles from the North Pole: the ship held tight in her icy berth, a hundred and fifty yards from the shore, the ship and the surrounding world covered with snow, the wind creaking in the rigging, whistling and shrieking around the corners of the deck houses, the temperature ranging from zeroto sixty below and the ice-pack in the channel outside groaning and complaining with the movement of the tides.
During the moonlit period of each month, some eight or ten days, when the moon seems to circle round and round the heavens, the younger members of the expedition were nearly always away on hunting trips; but during the longer periods of utter blackness most of us were on the ship together, as the winter hunting is done only by moonlight.
It must be understood that the arctic moon has its regular phases, its only peculiarity being the course it appears to travel in the sky. When the weather is clear there is starlight, even in the dark period; but it is a peculiar, cold, and spectral starlight, which, to borrow the words of Milton, seems but to make the "darkness visible."
When the stars are hidden, which may be much of the time, the darkness is so thick that it seems as if it could almost be grasped with the hand, and in a driving wind and snowstorm, if a man ventures to put his head outside the cabin door, he seems to be hurled back by invisible hands of demoniacal strength.
During the early part of the winter the Eskimos lived in the forward deck house of the ship. There was always a fire in the galley stove, a fire in the Eskimo quarters, and one in the crew's quarters; but though I had a small cylindrical coal stove in my cabin, it was not lighted throughout the winter. Leaving the forward door of my cabin open into the galley a part of the time, kept my cabin comfortably warm. Bartlett occasionally had a fire in his cabin, and the othermembers of the expedition sometimes lighted their oil-stoves.
On the first of November we adopted the winter schedule of two meals a day, breakfast at nine, dinner at four. This is the weekly bill of fare which Percy, the steward, and I made out and which was followed throughout the winter:
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.
Our table conversation was mainly with regard to our work. We would discuss the details of the last sledge trip, or talk over the plans for the next one. There was always something going on, and the minds of the men were so occupied that they did not have time to yield themselves to the traditional, maddening winter melancholy of the Arctic. Moreover, men of sanguine temperament had been selected, and much material in the rough had been carried along in order to keep everybody busy working it into shape for use.
On Sunday mornings I breakfasted in my cabin, thus leaving the men to themselves. On these occasions conversation was less technical and ranged from books to table manners, and sometimes Bartlett seized the opportunity to give his companions half-serious, half-humorous advice on the matter of table conduct, telling them that the time would come when they must return to civilization, and that they must not allow themselves to get into careless habits. Thus the academic and the practical elements of the party met on even ground.
I have never adopted rigorous rules for the members of my expeditions, because it is not necessary. There were regular hours for meals in the mess rooms. It was understood that lights should be out at midnight, but if any man wanted a light later, he could have it. These were our rules.
The Eskimos were allowed to eat when they pleased. They might sit up late at night, if they chose, but their work of making sledges and fur clothing had to proceed just the same the next day. There was only one rigid rule for them: that no loud noises, such aschopping dog meat or shouting, were to be made from ten o'clock at night until eight in the morning.
While living on theRoosevelt, in winter quarters, we abandoned much of the routine of ship life afloat. The only regular bells were those at ten and twelve at night, the first a signal for all loud noises to cease, the latter a signal for lights to be turned out. The only watches were those of the regular day and night watchmen.
With the exception of a few cases of grip, the health of the party was good during the whole period of our life at winter quarters. Grip in the Arctic, coincident with epidemics in Europe and America, is rather an interesting phenomenon. My first experience with it was in 1892, following one of the peculiar Greenland storms, similar to those in the Alps—a storm which evidently swept over the entire width of Greenland from the southeast, raising the temperature from the minus thirties to plus forty-one in twenty-four hours. Following that atmospheric disturbance every member of my party, and even some of the Eskimos, had a pronounced attack of grip. It was our opinion that the germs were brought to us by this storm, which was more than a local disturbance.
Aside from rheumatism and bronchial troubles, the Eskimos are fairly healthy; but the adults are subject to a peculiar nervous affection which they callpiblokto—a form of hysteria. I have never known a child to havepiblokto; but some one among the adult Eskimos would have an attack every day or two, and one day there were five cases. The immediate cause of this affection is hard to trace, though sometimes it seems to be the result of a brooding over absent or dead relatives,or a fear of the future. The manifestations of this disorder are somewhat startling.
The patient, usually a woman, begins to scream and tear off and destroy her clothing. If on the ship, she will walk up and down the deck, screaming and gesticulating, and generally in a state of nudity, though the thermometer may be in the minus forties. As the intensity of the attack increases, she will sometimes leap over the rail upon the ice, running perhaps half a mile. The attack may last a few minutes, an hour, or even more, and some sufferers become so wild that they would continue running about on the ice perfectly naked until they froze to death, if they were not forcibly brought back.
When an Eskimo is attacked withpibloktoindoors, nobody pays much attention, unless the sufferer should reach for a knife or attempt to injure some one. The attack usually ends in a fit of weeping, and when the patient quiets down, the eyes are bloodshot, the pulse high, and the whole body trembles for an hour or so afterward.
The well-known madness among the Eskimo dogs is also calledpiblokto. Though it does not seem to be infectious, its manifestations are similar to those of hydrophobia. Dogs suffering frompibloktoare usually shot, but they are often eaten by the Eskimos.
The first winter moon came early in November, and on the 7th MacMillan started for Cape Columbia for a month of tidal observations, taking with him Jack Barnes, a sailor, Egingwah, and Inighito and their wives. Poodloonah,Ooblooyahand Seegloo went as MacMillan's supporting party, to carry supplies, andWesharkoopsiand Keshungwah started for Cape Richardson to bring back the musk-ox skins which had been left there during the fall hunting trips.
The tidal observations by MacMillan at Cape Columbia were made in connection with the tidal observations which were constantly going on at Cape Sheridan during the fall and winter, and with those taken later at Cape Bryant on the other side of Robeson Channel. These tidal observations of the expedition of 1908-09 were the farthest north of all continuous series ever recorded anywhere, though similar observations had been taken by the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition at Fort Conger, about sixty miles southwest.
Marvin and Borup, during the November moon, continued the tidal observations at Cape Sheridan. The tidal igloo, which was built on the ice just inside the tide crack, about one hundred and eighty yards from the ship, was an ordinary Eskimo snow igloo and was used as a protection to the men in taking the observations at the tide staff. This staff, about twelve feet long, was driven into the bottom, and its length was marked off in feet and inches. As the tide rose and fell, the ice and the igloo moved with the water, but the staff remained stationary, and by the position of the ice upon the staff we measured the tides, varying with the day, the moon and the season.
The tides along the north coast of Grant Land are remarkable for the slightness of the rise and fall, which varies from an average of 1.8 feet at Cape Sheridan to .8 at Cape Columbia. As is well known to navigators, the tides at Sandy Hook, New York, sometimes rise twelve feet, while the tides in the Bay of Fundy areoften over fifty feet; in Hudson Strait they are about forty, and there are places on the coast of China where the extreme rise is even greater.
The two Eskimo women were sent to Cape Columbia with MacMillan's party because the Eskimo men like to have their families with them when they go on long trips. The women are useful in drying and mending the fur garments which are constantly going to pieces in the rough usage of the sledge trips. Some of them can drive a dog team as well as the men, and many of them are good shots. I have known them to shoot musk-oxen and even bears. They do not attempt the walrus, yet they can paddle a kayak as well as the men—to the limit of their strength.
The accomplishments of the Eskimo women are of the useful rather than the ornamental kind. The handling of the native lamp, for instance, requires great skill. If the lamp is well trimmed, it is as clear and smokeless as our own lamps; if it is neglected, it smokes and smells vilely. As the Eskimos are not highly romantic, a woman's skill in dressing skins and in making clothes largely determines the quality of husband she is likely to get. The Eskimo men have not a very critical eye for feminine beauty, but they are strong in appreciation of domestic accomplishments.
Even so early as November we began to be worried about the dogs. Many of them had died; they were nearly all in poor condition, and the food was none too abundant. It is always necessary to take up twice as many dogs as will be needed, in order to provide for probable accidents. On the 8th of November there were only one hundred and ninety-three out of thetwo hundred and forty-six with which we had left Etah in August. The whale meat brought for them seemed to be lacking in nutrition.
Four more that were in the worst condition were killed, to save the dog food, and on the 10th we had to kill five more. Then we tried the experiment of feeding them on pork, with the result that seven more died. I began to wonder whether we should have enough dogs left for the spring journey toward the Pole.
It is absolutely impossible to figure on the Eskimo dog's uncertain tenure of life. The creatures will endure the severest hardships; they will travel and draw heavy loads on practically nothing to eat; they will live for days exposed to the wildest arctic blizzard; and then, sometimes in good weather, after an ordinary meal of apparently the best food, they will lie down and die.
On the 25th of November we again overhauled and counted the dogs. There were now only one hundred and sixty left, and ten of these were in bad condition. But I discovered that day, on having the frozen walrus meat ripped up on the forecastle, that we had a greater supply than we had believed, and the discovery drove away the nightmare which had been haunting us. From now on the dogs could be fed a little more generous allowance of the best kind of food. For, after we had tried practically everything, including our bacon, it was found that walrus meat agreed with them better than anything else.
The importance of this matter must not be lost sight of for an instant. Dogs, and plenty of them, were vitally necessary to the success of the expedition. Hadan epidemic deprived us of these animals, we might just as well have remained comfortably at home in the United States. All the money, brains and labor would have been utterly thrown away, so far as concerned the quest of the North Pole.
It is perfectly true that the building business is not extensive in the arctic regions, but it is also a fact that if you expect to travel extensively there you must know how to build your own dwellings. If you neglect to instruct yourself in this direction the chances are that some time or other you will regret it.
Toward the end of the autumn field work, the use of the canvas tents had been discontinued, and snow igloos had been constructed along the line of march. These were permanent, and were used by the various parties, one after the other. The new members of the expedition were instructed in the art of igloo building by Marvin, Henson, and the Eskimos. No man should go into the field in the North in winter unless he knows how to build a shelter for himself against the cold and the storm.
The size of the igloo depends usually upon the number of men in the party. If built for three men, it will be about five by eight feet on the inside; if for five men, it will be about eight by ten, in order to give greater width to the sleeping platform.
Four good men can build one of these snow houses in an hour. Each takes a saw knife from the up-standers of the sledge and sets to work cutting snow blocks. The saw knives are about eighteen inches long and arestrong and stiff, with a cutting edge on one side and saw-teeth on the other. The blocks of snow are of different sizes, those for the bottom row being larger and heavier than those for the upper rows, and all are curved on the inner side, so that when set together they will form a circle. The thickness of the walls depends upon the hardness of the snow. If it is closely packed, the walls may be only a few inches thick; if the snow is soft, the blocks are thicker, that they may hold their shape. The blocks for the bottom layer are sometimes two or three feet long and two feet high; but sometimes they are much smaller, as there is no ironclad rule about it.
When sufficient blocks have been cut to make an igloo, an Eskimo takes his position on the spot (usually a sloping bank of snow) which is to be the center of the structure. Then the others bring the snow blocks and place them end to end, on edge, to form an egg-shaped ring about the man in the center, who deftly joints and fits them with his snow knife. The second row is placed on top of the first, but sloping slightly inward; and the following rows are carried up in a gradually ascending spiral, each successive layer leaning inward a little more, and each block held in place by the blocks on either side, until finally an aperture is left in the top to be filled with one block.
This block is then properly shaped by the man inside the igloo; he pushes it up endwise through the aperture, turns it over by reaching through the top, lowers it into place, and chips off with his knife until it fits the hole like the keystone of an arch, firmly keying the structure, whose general proportions are not unlike those of a beehive.
A hole just large enough for a man to crawl through is cut close to the bottom on one side, and any superfluous snow inside the igloo is thrown out through this hole. In the rear or larger end, the sloping floor is leveled off to form a bed platform, and in front of this the floor is dug down a foot or more for a standing space and a place for the cookers.
Then the sleeping gear and cooking outfit are passed into the igloo, and, after the dogs have been fed and tethered for the night, the members of the party enter, the opening at the bottom is closed by a large block of snow, the edges of which have been shaped and chipped by a saw knife to make a tight joint, and everything is ready for the night.
After the cookers are lighted, the igloo is soon comparatively warm, and in the arctic regions, when men are tired out from a long march, they generally fall asleep easily. Insomnia is not one of the arctic annoyances.
We never carry alarm clocks in the field to arouse us in the morning. The first man who has had his sleep out looks at his watch, and if it is time to be on the march again, he wakes the others. After breakfast we break camp and are out again.
I did not join the field parties during the winter moons this time, but remained on the ship, going over and perfecting the plans for the spring campaign—the sledge journey toward the Pole—and giving considerable study to the new type of Peary sledge, to the improvement of details of clothing, and to experimenting with the new alcohol stove which I had designed for the spring work—determining the most effectivecharge of alcohol, the most effective size of broken ice for melting, and so on. The question of weights is a most important factor in all sledge equipment, and it was necessary constantly to study to obtain the maximum effectiveness with the minimum weight and bulk. For relaxation, I devoted many hours to a new form of taxidermy.
About the middle of November I had a large snow igloo built on the top of the hatch on the main deck of theRoosevelt, which we called "the studio," and Borup and I began to experiment with flashlight pictures of the Eskimos. They had become accustomed to seeing counterfeit presentments of themselves on paper, and were very patient models. We also got some good moonlight pictures—time exposures varying from ten minutes to two or three hours.
On this last expedition I did not permit myself to dream about the future, to hope, or to fear. On the 1905-06 expedition I had done too much dreaming; this time I knew better. Too often in the past had I found myself face to face with impassable barriers. Whenever I caught myself building air castles, I would either attack some work requiring intense application of the mind, or would go to sleep—it was hard sometimes to fight back the dreams, especially in my solitary walks on the ice-foot under the arctic moon.
On the evening of November 11, there was a brilliant paraselene, two distinct halos and eight false moons being visible in the southern sky. This phenomenon is not unusual in the Arctic, and is caused by the frost crystals in the air. On this particular occasion the inner halo had a false moon at its zenith, another atits nadir, and one each at the right and left. Outside was another halo, with four other moons.
Sometimes during the summer we see the parhelion, a similar phenomenon of the sun. I have seen the appearance of the false suns—or sun-dogs as the sailors call them—so near that the lowest one would seem to fall between me and a snow-bank twenty feet away, so near that by moving my head backward and forward I could shut it out or bring it into view. This was the nearest I ever came to finding the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow.
On the night of November 12, the ice of the channel pack, which for more than two months had seemed unmindful of our intrusive presence, arose in wrath and tried to hurl us upon the equally inhospitable shore.
All that evening the wind had been gradually increasing in violence, and about half-past eleven the ship began to complain, creaking, groaning and muttering to herself. I lay in my bunk and listened to the wind in the humming rigging, while the moonlight, shining through the porthole, filled the cabin with dim shadows. Toward midnight, mingled with the noises of the ship, another and more ominous sound became audible—the grinding of the ice in the channel outside.
I threw on my clothes and went on deck. The tide was running flood, and the ice was moving resistlessly past the point of the cape. The nearer ice, between us and the outer pack, was humming and groaning with the steadily increasing pressure. By the light of the moon we could see the pack as it began to break and pile up just beyond the edge of the ice-foot outside us. A few minutes later the whole mass broke with a rabidroar into a tumbling chaos of ice blocks, some upheaving, some going under, and a big rafter, thirty feet high, formed at the edge of the ice-foot within twenty feet of the ship. The invading mass grew larger and larger and steadily advanced toward us. The grounded piece off our starboard beam was forced in and driven against the big ice block under our starboard quarter. The ship shook a little, but the ice block did not move.
With every pulse of the tide the pressure and the motion continued, and in less than an hour from the time I had come on deck, a greatfloe-bergwas jammed against the side of theRooseveltfrom amidships to the stern. It looked for a minute as if the ship were going to be pushed bodily aground.
All hands were called, and every fire on board was extinguished. I had no fear of the ship being crushed by the ice, but she might be thrown on her side, when the coals, spilled from a stove, might start that horror of an arctic winter night, the "ship on fire." The Eskimos were thoroughly frightened and set up their weird howling. Several families began to gather their belongings, and in a few minutes women and children were going over the port rail onto the ice, and making for the box houses on the shore.
The list of theRoosevelttoward the port or shore side grew steadily greater with the increasing pressure from outside. With the turn of the tide about half-past one in the morning, the motion ceased, but theRooseveltnever regained an even keel until the following spring. The temperature that night was 25° below zero, but it did not seem so very cold.
Marvin's tidal igloo was split in two, but he continued his observations, which were of peculiar interest that night; and as soon as the ice had quieted down Eskimos were sent out to repair the igloo.
Strange to say, none of the Eskimos was attacked withpibloktobecause of their fright, and I learned that one of the women, Ahtetah, had remained quietly sewing in the Eskimo quarters during the whole disturbance. After this experience, however, some of the Eskimo families took up their winter residence in the box houses and in snow igloos ashore.
The winter winds of the Far North are almost unimaginable by any one who has never experienced them. Our winter at Cape Sheridan this last time was less severe than the winter of 1905-06, but we had several storms that reminded us of old times. The north and northwest winds sweeping down along the coast are the coldest; but for absolutely insane fury the winds from the south and the southwest, falling off the highland of the coast with almost the impact of a wall of water, are unsurpassed anywhere else in the arctic regions.
Sometimes these storms come on gradually, the wind from the northwest steadily increasing in force and swinging through the west to the southwest, gathering fury with every hour, until the snow is picked up bodily from the land and the ice-foot and carried in blinding, horizontal sheets across the ship. On deck it is impossible to stand or move, except in the shelter of the rail, and so blinding is the cataract of snow that the lamps, powerful as are their reflectors, are absolutely indistinguishable ten feet away.
When a party in the field is overtaken by a storm,they have to stay in the snow igloo until the fury is over. If there is no igloo near them, they build one just as quickly as they can when they see the storm approaching, or, if there is not time for that, they have to make a dugout in a snow bank.
Thursday, the 26th of November, was proclaimed to be Thanksgiving Day in Grant Land. For dinner we had soup, macaroni and cheese, and mince pie made of musk-ox meat. During the December moon Captain Bartlett, with two Eskimos, two sledges, and twelve dogs, went out to scour the region between the ship and Lake Hazen for game. Henson, with similar equipment, went to Clements Markham Inlet. Borup, with seven Eskimos, seven sledges, and forty-two dogs, set out for Cape Colan and Cape Columbia. Dr. Goodsell started at the same time with three Eskimos, two sledges, and twelve dogs, to hunt in the region from Black Cliffs Bay to James Ross Bay. The parties were to use the regular arctic ration of tea, pemmican, and biscuit, unless they found game, in which case they were to use fresh meat for both men and dogs. In addition to the hunting, supplies for the spring sledge work were to be moved from one cache to another along the coast.
To give variety to the work, the men who remained with the ship during one moon went into the field the next. The ship's men, engineers and sailors, seldom went on hunting trips but remained with the ship, attending to their regular duties and sometimes helping with the work of equipment.
I had in my cabin a good arctic library—absolutely complete as regards the work of later years. Thisincluded Abruzzi's "On thePolar Starin the Arctic Sea," Nansen's "Farthest North," Nares' "Voyage to the Polar Sea," Markham's two volumes on arctic explorations, the narratives of Greely, Hall, Hayes, Kane, Inglefield—in fact, all the stories of the navigators of the Smith Sound region, as well as those who have attempted the Pole from other directions, such as the Austrian expedition under Payer and Weyprecht, Koldewey's East Greenland expedition, and so forth.
Then, in antarctic literature I had Captain Scott's two magnificent volumes, "The Voyage of theDiscovery," Borchgrevink's "TheSouthern CrossExpedition to the Antarctic," Nordenskjöld's "Antarctica," the "Antarctica" of Balch, and Carl Fricker's "The Antarctic Regions," as well as Hugh Robert Mills' "Siege of the South Pole."
The members of the expedition used to borrow these books, one at a time, and I think that before the winter was over they all knew pretty well what had been done by other men in this field.
Every week or ten days throughout the winter we had to remove from our cabins the ice caused by the condensation of the moist air where it came in contact with the cold outer walls. Behind every article of furniture near the outer wall the ice would form, and we used to chop it out from under our bunks by the pailful.
The books were always placed far forward on the shelves, because if a book were pushed back it would freeze solid to the wall. Then, if a warmer day came, or a fire was built in the cabin, the ice would melt, the water would run down and the leaves of the book would mold.
The sailors amused themselves after the manner of sailors everywhere, playing dominoes, cards and checkers, boxing and telling stories. They used to play at feats of strength, such as finger-pulling, with the Eskimos. One of the men had an accordion, another a banjo, and as I sat working in my cabin I used often to hear them singing "Annie Rooney," "McGinty," "The Spanish Cavalier," and sometimes "Home, Sweet Home." Nobody seemed to be bored. Percy, who had special charge of the phonograph, often treated the men to a concert, and all through the winter I heard nobody complain of monotony or homesickness.
The four December field parties returned to the ship one after the other. Captain Bartlett was the only one who had found any game, and he got only five hares. During this trip the captain had an experience which might have been decidedly uncomfortable for him, had it turned out a bit less fortunately. He was up in the Lake Hazen region with his Eskimos, and he had left them at the igloo while he looked around for game. He had just found some deer tracks when the moon went behind a bank of clouds and the night became suddenly black.
He waited an hour or two for the moon to come out that he might see where he was, and meanwhile the two Eskimos, thinking he was lost, broke camp and set out for the ship. As soon as there was light enough, he started off to the south of the igloo, and after a time overtook his companions. Had he gone even a little way to the north he would not have met them, and would have had to walk back alone to the ship, without supplies, a distance of seventy or eighty miles, with a storm brewing.
This party had bad weather nearly all the way home. The temperature was comparatively mild, only ten or fifteen degrees below zero, and the sky was overcast. The captain made the last march a long one, notwithstanding the darkness. Of course he could not always keep the trail. Sometimes he would be walking along over snow as level as a floor, then suddenly the level would drop ten or fifteen feet, and, walking right on in the dark, he would land on the back of his head with such force that he saw stars which do not appear in any scientific celestial map.
At one point in the journey they struck going so rough that it was impossible to push ahead and drive the dogs without light. They had no lantern, but Bartlett took a sugar tin, cut holes in the sides, and put a candle in it. With this makeshift beacon he was able to keep somewhere near the trail. But there was considerable wind, and he declared that he used enough matches in relighting the candle on that march to keep an Eskimo family cheerful throughout a whole winter.
The failure of these parties to obtain game was a serious matter. In order to save food I had still further to reduce the number of dogs. We overhauled them, and fourteen of the poorest—they would not have survived the winter—were killed and used as food for the others.
I am often asked how the wild herbivorous animals, like the musk-ox and the reindeer, survive the winter in that snow-covered land. By a strange paradox, the wild winds that rage in that country help them in their struggle for existence, for the wind sweeps the dried grasses and scattered creeping willows bare of snow over great stretches of land, and there the animals can graze.
December 22 marked the midnight of the "Great Night," the sun from that day starting on the returnjourney north. In the afternoon all the Eskimos were assembled on deck, and I went to them with my watch in my hand, telling them that the sun was now coming back. Marvin rang the ship's bell, Matt Henson fired three shots, and Borup set off some flashlight powder. Then the men, women, and children formed in line and marched into the after deck house by the port gangway, passing the galley, where each one received, in addition to the day's rations, a quart of coffee, with sugar and milk, ship's biscuit, and musk-ox meat; the women were also given candy and the men tobacco.
After the celebration, Pingahshoo, a boy of twelve or thirteen, who helped Percy in the galley, started confidently south over the hills to meet the sun. After a few hours he returned to the ship, quite crestfallen, and Percy had to explain to him that while the sun was really on its way back, it would not get to us for nearly three months more.
The next day after the winter solstice, our supply of water from the Cape Sheridan River having failed, Eskimos were sent out to reconnoiter the ponds of the neighborhood. The English expedition on theAlerthad melted ice during their entire winter, and on the expedition of 1905-06 we had been obliged to melt ice for a month or two; but this year the Eskimos sounded the ponds, and about fifteen feet of water was found in one a mile inland from theRoosevelt. Over the hole in the ice they built a snow igloo with a light wooden trap-door, so as to keep the water in the hole from freezing too quickly. The water was brought to the ships in barrels on sledges drawn by the Eskimo dogs.
As Christmas fell in the dark of the moon, all the members of the expedition were on the ship, and we celebrated with a special dinner, field sports, raffles, prizes, and so on. It was not very cold that day, only minus 23°.
In the morning we greeted each other with the "Merry Christmas" of civilization. At breakfast we all had letters from home and Christmas presents, which had been kept to be opened on that morning. MacMillan was master of ceremonies and arranged the program of sports. At two o'clock there were races on the ice-foot. A seventy-five-yard course was laid out, and the ship's lanterns, about fifty of them, were arranged in two parallel rows, twenty feet apart. These lanterns are similar to a railway brakeman's lantern, only larger. It was a strange sight—that illuminated race-course within seven and a half degrees of the earth's end.
The first race was for Eskimo children, the second for Eskimo men, the third for Eskimo matrons with babies in their hoods, the fourth for unencumbered women. There were four entries for the matrons' race, and no one could have guessed from watching them that it was a running race. They came along four abreast, dressed in furs, their eyes rolling, puffing like four excited walruses, the babies in their hoods gazing with wide and half-bewildered eyes at the glittering lanterns. There was no question of cruelty to children, as the mothers were not moving fast enough to spill their babies. Then there were races for the ship's men and the members of the expedition, and a tug of war between the men aft and forward.
Nature herself participated in our Christmas celebrations by providing an aurora of considerable brilliancy. While the races on the ice-foot were in progress, the northern sky was filled with streamers and lances of pale white light. These phenomena of the northern sky are not, contrary to the common belief, especially frequent in these most northerly latitudes. It is always a pity to destroy a pleasant popular illusion; but I have seen auroras of a greater beauty in Maine than I have ever seen beyond the Arctic Circle.
Between the races and the dinner hour, which was at four o'clock, I gave a concert on the æolian in my cabin, choosing the merriest music in the rack. Then we separated to "dress for dinner." This ceremony consisted in putting on clean flannel shirts and neckties. The doctor was even so ambitious as to don a linen collar.
Percy, the steward, wore a chef's cap and a large white apron in honor of the occasion, and he laid the table with a fine linen cloth and our best silver. The wall of the mess room was decorated with the American flag. We had musk-ox meat, an English plum pudding, sponge cake covered with chocolate, and at each plate was a package containing nuts, cakes, and candies, with a card attached: "A Merry Christmas, from Mrs. Peary."
After dinner came the dice-throwing contests, and the wrestling and pulling contests in the forecastle. The celebration ended with a graphophone concert, given by Percy.
But perhaps the most interesting part of our day was the distribution of prizes to the winners in the variouscontests. In order to afford a study in Eskimo psychology, there was in each case a choice between prizes. Tookoomah, for instance, who won in the women's race, had a choice among three prizes: a box of three cakes of scented soap; a sewing outfit, containing a paper of needles, two or three thimbles, and several spools of different-sized thread; and a round cake covered with sugar and candy. The young woman did hot hesitate. She had one eye, perhaps, on the sewing outfit, but both hands and the other eye were directed toward the soap. She knew what it was meant for. The meaning of cleanliness had dawned upon her—a sudden ambition to be attractive.
The last time that all the members of the expedition ate together was at the four o'clock dinner on December 29, for that evening Marvin, the captain, and their parties started for the Greenland coast; and when we met together at the ship after my return from the Pole there was one who was not with us—one who would never again be with us.
Ross Marvin was, next to Captain Bartlett, the most valuable man in the party. Whenever the captain was not in the field, Marvin took command of the work, and on him devolved the sometimes onerous, sometimes amusing labor of breaking in the new members. During the latter part of the former expedition in theRoosevelt, Marvin had grasped more fully than any other man the underlying, fundamental principles of the work.
He and I together had planned the details of the new method of advance and relay parties. This method, given a fixed surface over which to travel, could be mathematically demonstrated, and it hasproved to be the most effective way to carry on an arctic sledge journey.
The party that started for the Greenland coast, across the ice of Robeson Channel, on the evening of December 29, consisted of Marvin, the captain, nine Eskimos, and fifty-four dogs. They were all to go south along the coast to Cape Union, then cross the channel to Cape Brevoort, Marvin, with his men and supporting parties, going north to Cape Bryant for a month of tidal observations, the captain and his men going south along the ice of Newman Bay and on to the Polaris Promontory to hunt.
The following day, Dr. Goodsell and Borup, each with his party of Eskimos and dogs, started by way of Cape Belknap, the doctor to hunt in Clements Markham Inlet, Borup to hunt in the region of the first glacier north of Lake Hazen. No such extensive field work had ever before been attempted by any arctic expedition, the radius of territory covered being about ninety miles in all directions from our winter quarters.
While distributing material for the spring sewing among the Eskimo women in the forward deck house and in the box houses and snow igloos on shore, I learned that some of the Eskimo men felt somewhat shaky about going north again on the ice of the polar sea. They had not forgotten the narrow escape we had had in recrossing the "big lead" on the return journey from the "farthest north" of 1906. Though I felt confident of my ability to handle them when the time came, still, I realized that we might have trouble with them yet. But I would not permit myself to worry about the outcome.
The first of the January hunting parties, Dr. Goodsell's, came in on the 11th. They had had no luck, though they had seen fresh tracks of musk-oxen. Borup came in the next morning with eighty-three hares, and an interesting story. They were right up against the glacier when they came across a whole colony of the little white arctic animals. He said there must have been nearly a hundred of them. The arctic hares are not wild; they will come so near to the hunter that he can almost grasp them with his hand. They have not learned the fear of man, because in their wilds man is practically unknown. Borup and the Eskimos surrounded the hares, until finally they got so near to them that instead of using any more ammunition they knocked the creatures over the heads with the butts of their rifles.
One day, during this hunting trip, Borup and his Eskimos became confused and were unable to find their igloo for twenty-four hours. The saw-knives, essential in constructing a snow igloo, had been left behind, and none of the men had even an ordinary knife which might have been used as a substitute. There was a gale of wind, the moon was obscured, the air was full of whirling snow, and it was very cold. They spent most of the time walking to and fro to keep warm. At last, when they were exhausted, they turned the sledges on their sides, the Eskimos worked out with their feet snow blocks which reinforced the shelter, and they were able to snatch a little sleep. When the weather cleared, they found themselves half a mile from their igloo.
The day following Borup's return, the captain camein with his men and Marvin's supporting party of four. We were just beginning to be worried about them, as the ice of Robeson Channel in the dark of winter is not the safest road for a sledge party. The captain reported that they had been only six hours in crossing the channel; but, though he had reconnoitered the whole plain of the Polaris Promontory, he had seen no musk-oxen.
By the end of January we could see a faint redness in the south at noon, and the twilight was increasing. The last moon of the winter was now circling in the sky, and I wrote in my diary: "Thank Heaven, no more moons!" No matter how many dark winters a man may have gone through in the Arctic, the longing for the sun does not grow less intense.
In the February moon Bartlett went to Cape Hecla, Goodsell moved more supplies from Hecla to Cape Colan, and Borup went to Markham Inlet on another hunting trip. Before leaving, the doctor completed a record of the approximate mean temperatures for the season, which showed that every month except October had been colder than three years before. For December the mean was eight degrees lower.
Marvin was still at Cape Bryant, but the last of the February parties came in on the 9th, and from that time on we were all busy preparing for the great and last journey. On Sunday night, February 14, I had a brief talk with the Eskimo men, telling them what we proposed to do, what was expected of them, and what each man who went to the farthest point with me would get when he returned: boat, tent, Winchester repeater, shotgun, ammunition, box of tobacco, pipes, cartridges, numerous knives, hatchets, et cetera.
Their fears of the "big lead" took flight at the prospect of what to them was untold riches; and when it came to the point of making up my sledge parties, only one Eskimo, Panikpah, would admit any fears. They had seen me return so many times that they were ready to take their chances with me this one time more.
Bartlett left the ship on Monday, February 15, with instructions to go straight through to Cape Columbia, then put in two or three days hunting for musk-oxen in the neighborhood. The three divisions following Bartlett had instructions to go to Cape Columbia with their loads; then return to Cape Colan, where there was a cache, and take full loads from there to Cape Columbia. Goodsell's division started on Tuesday, on Wednesday it was stormy, and MacMillan and Henson got away on Thursday. They were all to meet me at Cape Columbia on the last day of February.
Marvin and his party had come in from Cape Bryant about six o'clock on Wednesday night. They were all well. Borup's division left the ship on Friday, Marvin's division got away on Sunday, the 21st, and I was left alone on the ship for one day.
That last day was one of perfect quiet and rest, free from interruption. The morning I devoted to going over carefully the details of the work already done, to see that no slenderest necessary thread had been overlooked, and to considering again, point by point, the details of the coming journey.