BY FORCED EFFORTS AND THE USE OF AXES SPEED IS MADE OVER THE LAND—ADHERING PACK ICE OF POLAR SEA—THE MOST DIFFICULT TRAVEL OF THE PROPOSED JOURNEY SUCCESSFULLY ACCOMPLISHED—REGRETFUL PARTING WITH THE ESKIMOS

XIII
Five Hundred Miles From the Pole

Svartevoeg is a great cliff, the northernmost point of Heiberg Land, which leaps precipitously into the Polar sea. Its negroid face of black scarred rocks frowns like the carven stone countenance of some hideously mutilated and enraged Titan savage. It expresses, more than a human face could, the unendurable sufferings of this region of frigid horrors. It is five hundred and twenty miles from the North Pole.

From this point I planned to make my dash in as straight a route as might be possible. Starting from our camp at Annoatok late in February, when the curtain of night was just beginning to lift, when the chill of the long winter was felt at its worst, we had forced progress through deep snows, over land and frozen seas, braving the most furious storms of the season and traveling despite baffling darkness, and had covered in less than a month about four hundred miles—nearly half the distance between our winter camp and the Pole.

Arriving at land's end my heart had cause for gratification. We had weathered the worst storms of the year. The long bitter night had now been lost. The days lengthened and invaded with glitter the decreasing nights. The sun glowed more radiantly daily, rose higher and higher to a continued afterglow in cheery blues, and sank for periods briefer and briefer in seas of running color. Our hopes, like those of all mankind, had risen with the soul-lifting sun. We had made our progress mainly at the expense of the land which we explored, for the game en route had furnished food and clothing.

The supplies we had brought with us from Annoatok were practically untouched. We had stepped in overfed skins, were fired by a resolution which was recharged by a strength bred of feeding upon abundant raw and wholesome meat. Eating to repletion on unlimited game, our bodies were kept in excellent trim by the exigencies of constant and difficult traveling.

As a man's mental force is the result of yesteryears' upbuilding, so his strength of to-day is the result of last week's eating. With the surge of ambition which had been formulating for twenty years, and my body in best physical shape for the supreme test, the Pole now seemed almost near.

As the great cliffs of Svartevoeg rose before us my heart leaped. I felt that the first rung in the ladder of success had been climbed, and as I stood under the black cliffs of this earth's northernmost land I felt that I looked through the eyes of long experience. Having reached the end of Nansen Sound, with Svartevoeg on my left, and the tall, scowling cliffs of Lands-Lokk on my right, I viewed for the first time the rough and heavy ice of the untracked Polar sea, over which, knowing the conditions of the sea ice, I anticipated the most difficult part of our journey lay. Imagine before you fields of crushed ice, glimmering in the rising sunlight with shooting fires of sapphire and green; fields which have been slowly forced downward by strong currents from the north, and pounded and piled in jagged mountainous heaps for miles about the land. Beyond this difficult ice, as I knew, lay more even fields, over which traveling, saving the delays of storms and open leads, would be comparatively easy. To encompass this rough prospect was the next step in reaching my goal. I felt that no time must be lost. At this point I was now to embark upon the Polar sea; the race for my life's ambition was to begin here; but first I had finally to resolve on the details of my campaign.

I decided to reduce my party to the smallest possible number consistent with the execution of the problem in hand. In addition, for greater certainty of action over the unknown regions beyond, I now definitely resolved to simplify the entire equipment. An extra sled was left at the cache at this point to insure a good vehicle for our return in case the two sleds which we were to take should be badly broken en route. I decided to take only two men on the last dash. I had carefully watched and studied every one of my party, and had already selected E-tuk-i-shook and Ah-we-lah, two young Eskimos, each about twenty years old, as best fitted to be my sole companions in the long run of destiny.

Twenty-six of the best dogs were picked, and upon two sleds were to be loaded all our needs for a trip estimated to last eighty days.

To have increased this party would not have enabled us to carry supplies for a greater number of days.

The sleds might have been loaded more heavily, but I knew this would reduce the important progress of the first days.

With the character of ice which we had before us, advance stations were impossible. A large expedition and a heavy equipment would have been imprudent. We must win or lose in a prolonged effort at high pressure. Therefore, absolute control and ease of adaptability to a changing environment was imperative.

From past experience I knew it was impossible to control adequately the complex human temperament of white men in the Polar wilderness. But I felt certain the two Eskimo boys could be trusted to follow to the limit of my own endurance. So our sleds were burdened only with absolute necessaries.

Because of the importance of a light and efficient equipment, much care had to be taken to reduce every ounce of weight. The sleds were made of hickory, the lightest wood consistent with great endurance, and every needless fibre was gouged out. The iron shoes were ground thin, and up to the present had stood the test of half the Polar battle.

Eliminating everything not actually needed, but selecting adequate food, I made the final preparations.

The camp equipment selected included the following articles: One blow fire lamp (jeuel), three aluminum pails, three aluminum cups, three aluminum teaspoons, one tablespoon, three tin plates, six pocket knives, two butcher knives (ten inches), one saw knife (thirteen inches), one long knife (fifteen inches), one rifle (Sharp's), one rifle (Winchester .22), one hundred and ten cartridges, one hatchet, one Alpine axe, extra line and lashings, and three personal bags.

The sled equipment consisted of two sleds weighing fifty-two pounds each; one twelve-foot folding canvas boat, the wood of which formed part of a sled; one silk tent, two canvas sled covers, two reindeer skin sleeping bags, floor furs, extra wood for sled repairs, screws, nails and rivets.

My instruments were as follows: One field glass; one pocket compass; one liquid compass; one aluminum surveying compass, with azimuth attachment; one French surveyor's sextant, with radius 7½, divided on silver to 10', reading by Vernier to 10" (among the extra attachments were a terrestrial and an astronomical telescope, and an extra night telescope mounted in aluminum, and also double refracting prisms, thermometers, etc.—the instrument was made by Hurleman of France and bought of Keuffel & Esser); one glass artificial horizon; three Howard pocket chronometers; one Tiffany watch; one pedometer; map-making material and instruments; three thermometers; one aneroid barometer; one camera and films; notebook and pencils.

The personal bags contained four extra pairs of kamiks, with fur stockings, a woolen shirt, three pairs of sealskin mittens, two pairs of fur mittens, a piece of blanket, a sealskin coat (netsha), extra fox tails and dog harness, a repair kit for mending clothing, and much other necessary material.

On the march we wore snow goggles, blue fox coats (kapitahs) and birdskin shirts (Ah-tea), bearskin pants (Nan-nooka), sealskin boots (Kam-ik), hare-skin stockings (Ah-tee-shah), and a band of fox tails under the knee and about the waist.

The food supply, as will be seen by the following list, was mostly pemmican:

Eight hundred and five pounds of beef pemmican, one hundred and thirty pounds of walrus pemmican, fifty pounds of musk ox tenderloin, twenty-five pounds of musk ox tallow, two pounds of tea, one pound of coffee, twenty-five pounds of sugar, forty pounds of condensed milk, sixty pounds of milk biscuit, ten pounds of pea soup powdered and compressed, fifty pounds of surprises, forty pounds petroleum, two pounds of wood alcohol, three pounds of candles and one pound of matches.

We planned our future food supply with pemmican as practically the sole food; the other things were to be mere palate satisfiers. For the eighty days the supply was to be distributed as follows:

For three men: Pemmican, one pound per day for eighty days, two hundred and forty pounds. For six dogs: Pemmican, one pound per day for eighty days, four hundred and eighty pounds. This necessitated a total of seven hundred and twenty pounds of pemmican.

Of the twenty-six dogs, we had at first figured on taking sixteen over the entire trip to the Pole and back to our caches on land, but in this last calculation only six were to be taken. Twenty, the least useful, were to be used one after the other, as food on the march, as soon as reduced loads and better ice permitted. This, we counted, would give one thousand pounds of fresh meat over and above our pemmican supply. We carried about two hundred pounds of pemmican above the expected consumption, and in the final working out the dogs were used for traction purposes longer than we anticipated. But, with a cautious saving, the problem was solved somewhat more economically than any figuring before the start indicated.

Every possible article of equipment was made to do double service; not an ounce of dead weight was carried which could be dispensed with.

After making several trips about Svartevoeg, arranging caches for the return, studying the ice and land, I decided to make the final start on the Polar sea on March 18, 1908.

The time had come to part with most of our faithful Eskimo companions. Taking their hands in my manner of parting, I thanked them as well as I could for their faithful service to me. "Tigishi ah yaung-uluk!" (The big nail!), they replied, wishing me luck.

Then, in a half gale blowing from the northwest and charged with snow, they turned their backs upon me and started upon the return track. They carried little but ammunition, because we had learned that plenty of game was to be provided along the return courses.

Even after they were out of sight in the drifting snowstorm their voices came cheerily back to me. The faithful savages had followed me until told that I could use them no longer; and it was not only for their simple pay of knives and guns, but because of a real desire to be helpful. Their parting enforced a pang of loneliness.[10]With a snow-charged blast in our faces it was impossible for us to start immediately after the Eskimos returned. Withdrawing to the snow igloo, we entered our bags and slept a few hours longer. At noon the horizon cleared. The wind veered to the southwest and came with an endurable force. Doubly rationed the night before, the dogs were not to be fed again for two days. The time had come to start. We quickly loaded our sleds. Hitching the dogs, we let the whips fall, and with bounds they leaped around deep ice grooves in the great paleocrystic floes.

Our journey was begun. Swept of snow by the force of the preceding storm, the rough ice crisply cracked under the swift speed of our sleds. Even on this uneven surface the dogs made such speed that I kept ahead of them only with difficulty. Their barking pealed about us and re-echoed from the black cliffs behind. Dashing about transparent ultramarine gorges, and about the base of miniature mountains of ice, we soon came into a region of undulating icy hills. The hard irregularity of the ice at times endangered our sleds. We climbed over ridges like walls. We jumped dangerous crevasses, keeping slightly west by north; the land soon sank in the rear of us. Drifting clouds and wind-driven snows soon screened the tops of black mountains. Looking behind, I saw only a swirling, moving scene of dull white and nebulous gray. On every side ice hummocks heaved their backs and writhed by. Behind me followed four snugly loaded sleds, drawn by forty-four selected dogs, under the lash of four expert Eskimo drivers. The dogs pranced; the joyous cries of the natives rose and fell. My heart leaped; my soul sang. I felt my blood throb with each gallop of the leaping dog teams. The sound of their feet pattering on the snow, the sight of their shaggy bodies tossing forward, gave me joy. For every foot of ice covered, every minute of constant action, drew me nearer, ever nearer, to my goal.

Our first run was auspicious; it seemed to augur success. By the time we paused to rest we had covered twenty-six miles.

We pitched camp on a floeberg of unusual height; about us were many big hummocks, and to the lee of these banks of hardened snow. Away from land it is always more difficult to find snow suitable for cutting building blocks. There, however, was an abundance. We busily built, in the course of an hour, a comfortable snow igloo. Into it we crept, grateful for shelter from the piercing wind.

The dogs curled up and went to sleep without a call, as if they knew that there would be no food until to-morrow. My wild companions covered their faces with their long hair and sank quietly into slumber. For me sleep was impossible. The whole problem of our campaign had again to be carefully studied, and final plans made, not only to reach our ultimate destination, but for the two returning Eskimos and for the security of the things left at Annoatok, and also to re-examine the caches left en route for our return. These must be protected as well as possible against the bears and wolves.

Already I had begun to think of our return to land. It was difficult at this time even to approximate any probable course. Much would depend upon conditions to be encountered in the northward route. Although we had left caches of supplies with the object of returning along Nansen Sound, into Cannon Fiord and over Arthur Land, I entertained grave doubts of our ability to return this way. I knew that if the ice should drift strongly to the east we might not be given the choice of working out our own return. For, in such an event, we should perhaps be carried helplessly to Greenland, and should have to seek a return either along the east or the west coast.

This drift, in my opinion, would not necessarily mean dangerous hardships, for the musk oxen would keep us alive to the west, and to the east it seemed possible to reach Shannon Island, where the Baldwin-Zeigler expeditions had abandoned a large cache of supplies. It appeared not improbable, also, that a large land extension might offer a safe return much further west. I fell asleep while pondering over these things. By morning the air was clear of frost crystals. It was intensely cold, not only because of a temperature of 56° below zero, Fahrenheit, but a humid chill which pierced to the very bones. A light breeze came from the west. The sun glowed in a freezing field of blue.

Hitching our dogs, we started. For several hours we seemed to soar over the white spaces. Then the ice changed in character, the expansive, thick fields of glacier-like ice giving way to floes of moderate size and thickness. These were separated by zones of troublesome crushed ice thrown into high-pressure lines, which offered serious barriers. Chopping the pathway with an ice axe, we managed to make fair progress. We covered twenty-one miles of our second run on the Polar sea. I expected, at the beginning of this final effort, to send back by this time the two extra men, Koo-loo-ting-wah and In-u-gi-to, who had remained to help us over the rough pack-ice. But progress had not been as good as I had expected; so, although we could hardly spare any food to feed their dogs, the two volunteered to push along for another day without dog food.

Taking advantage of big, strong teams and the fire of early enthusiasm, we aimed to force long distances through the extremely difficult ice jammed here against the distant land. The great weight of the supplies intended for the final two sleds were now distributed over four sleds. With axe and compass in hand, I led the way. With prodigious effort I chopped openings through barriers after barriers of ice. Sled after sled was passed over the tumbling series of obstacles by my companions while I advanced to open a way through the next. With increasing difficulties in some troublesome ice, we camped after making only sixteen miles. Although weary, we built a small snowhouse. I prepared over my stove a pot of steaming musk ox loins and broth and a double brew of tea. After partaking of this our two helpers prepared to return. To have taken them farther would have necessitated a serious drain on our supplies and an increased danger for their lives in a longer return to land.

By these men I sent back instructions to Rudolph Francke to remain in charge of my supplies at Annoatok until June 5th, 1908, and then, if we should not have returned by that date, to place Koo-loo-ting-wah in charge and go home either by a whaler or some Danish ship. I knew that, should we get in trouble, he could offer no relief to help us, and that his waiting an indefinite time alone would be a needless hardship.

The way before Koo-loo-ting-wah and In-u-gi-to, who had so cheerfully remained to the last possible moment that they could be of help, was not an entirely pleasant one. Their friends were by now well on their journey toward Annoatok, and they had to start after them with sleds empty of provisions and dogs hungry for food.

They hoped to get back to land and off the ice of the Polar sea in one long day's travel of twenty-four hours. Even this would leave their fourth day without food for their dogs. In case of storms or moving of the ice, other days of famine might easily fall to their lot. However, they faced possible dangers cheerfully rather than ask me to give them anything from the stores that were to support their two companions, myself and our dogs on our way onward to the Pole and back. I was deeply touched by this superlative devotion. They assured me too (in which they were right) that they had an abundance of possible food in the eighteen dogs they took with them. If necessary, they could sacrifice a few at any time for the benefit of the others, as must often be done in the Northland.

There were no formalities in our parting on the desolate ice. Yet, as the three of us who were left alone gazed after our departing companions, we felt a poignant pang in our hearts. About us was a cheerless waste of crushed wind-and-water-driven ice. A sharp wind stung our faces. The sun was obscured by clouds which piled heavily and darkly about the horizon. The cold and brilliant jeweled effects of the frozen sea were lost in a dismal hue of dull white and sombre gray. On the horizon, Svartevoeg, toward which the returning Eskimos were bound, was but a black speck. To the north, where our goal lay, our way was untrodden, unknown. The thought came to me that perhaps we should never see our departing friends. With it came a pang of tenderness for the loved ones I had left behind me. Although our progress so far had been successful, and half the distance was made, dangers unknown and undreamed of existed in the way before us. My Eskimos already showed anxiety—an anxiety which every aboriginal involuntarily feels when land disappears on the horizon. Never venturing themselves far onto the Polar sea, when they lose sight of land a panic overcomes them. Before leaving us one of the departing Eskimos had pointed out a low-lying cloud to the north of us. "Noona" (land), he said, nodding to the others. The thought occurred to me that, on our trip, I could take advantage of the mirages and low clouds on the horizon and encourage a belief in a constant nearness to land, thus maintaining their courage and cheer.[11]

Regrets and fears were not long-lasting, however, for the exigencies of our problem were sufficiently imperative and absorbing. To the overcoming of these we had now to devote our entire attention and strain every fibre.

We had now advanced, by persistent high-pressure efforts, over the worst possible ice conditions, somewhat more than sixty miles. Of the 9° between land's end and the Pole, we had covered one; and we had done this without using the pound of food per day allotted each of us out of the eighty days' supply transported.