My attainment of the Pole
by Frederick Albert Cook · English · Gutenberg #36962 · 1,089,091 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: My attainment of the Pole
being the record of the expedition that first reached the boreal center, 1907-1909. With the final summary of the polar controversy
Author: Frederick Albert Cook
Release date: August 3, 2011 [eBook #36962]
Language: English
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[Illustration: Frederick A. Cook]
_Press Edition_
MY ATTAINMENT
OF THE POLE
_Being the Record of the Expedition that First Reached the Boreal
Center, 1907-1909. With the Final Summary of the Polar Controversy_
_By_
DR. FREDERICK A. COOK
THIRD PRINTING, 60TH THOUSAND
[Illustration]
NEW YORK AND LONDON
MITCHELL KENNERLEY
MCMXIII
By Special arrangements this edition is marketed by
The Polar Publishing Co., 601 Steinway Hall, Chicago
COPYRIGHT 1913
BY
DR. FREDERICK A. COOK
_OTHER BOOKS BY DR. COOK_
Through the First Antarctic Night
A Narrative of the Belgian South Polar Expedition.
To the Top of the Continent
Exploration in Sub-Arctic Alaska--The First Ascent of Mt. McKinley
My Attainment of the Pole
Edition de Luxe
Each of above series will be sent post paid for $5.00. All to one
address for $14.00.
Address: THE POLAR PUBLISHING CO.
601 Steinway Hall, Chicago
_To the Pathfinders_
To the Indian who invented pemmican and snowshoes;
To the Eskimo who gave the art of sled traveling;
To this twin family of wild folk who have no flag
Goes the first credit.
To the forgotten trail makers whose book of experience has been a
guide;
To the fallen victors whose bleached bones mark steps in the ascent
of the ladder of latitudes;
To these, the pathfinders--past, present and future--I inscribe the
first page.
In the ultimate success there is glory enough
To go to the graves of the dead and to the heads of the living.
THE PRESENT STATUS OF THE POLAR CONTROVERSY
DR. COOK IS VINDICATED. HIS DISCOVERY OF THE NORTH POLE IS ENDORSED BY
THE EXPLORERS OF ALL THE WORLD.
In placing Dr. Cook on the Chautauqua platform as a lecturer, we have
been compelled to study the statements issued for and against the rival
polar claims with special reference to the facts bearing upon the
present status of the Polar Controversy.
Though the question has been argued during four years, we find that it
is almost the unanimous opinion of arctic explorers today, that Dr. Cook
reached the North Pole on April 21, 1909.
With officer Peary's first announcement he chose to force a press
campaign to deny Dr. Cook's success and to proclaim himself as the sole
Polar Victor. Peary aimed to be retired as a Rear-Admiral on a pension
of $6,000 per year. This ambition was granted; but the American Congress
rejected his claim for priority by eliminating from the pension bill the
words "Discovery of the Pole." The European geographical societies,
forced under diplomatic pressure to honor Peary, have also refused him
the title of "Discoverer." By a final verdict of the American government
and of the highest European authorities, Peary is therefore denied the
assumption of being the discoverer of the Pole, though his claim as a
re-discoverer is allowed. The evasive inscriptions on the Peary medals
prove this statement.
Following the acute excitement of the first announcement, it seemed to
be desirable to bring the question to a focus by submitting to some
authoritative body for decision. Such an institution, however, did not
exist. Previously, explorers had been rated by the slow process of
historic digestion and assimilation of the facts offered, but it was
thought that an academic examination would meet the demands. Officer
Peary first submitted his case to a commission appointed by the National
Geographical Society of Washington, D. C. This jury promptly said that
in their "opinion" Peary reached the Pole on April 6, 1909; but a year
later in congress the same men unwillingly admitted that in the Peary
proofs there was no positive proof.
Dr. Cook's data was sent to a commission appointed by the University of
Copenhagen. The Danes reported that the material presented was
incomplete and did not constitute positive proof. This verdict, however,
did not carry the interpretation that the Pole had not been reached. The
Danes have never said, as they have been quoted by the press, that Dr.
Cook did not reach the Pole; quite to the contrary, the University of
Copenhagen conferred the degree of Ph. D. and the Royal Danish
Geographical Society gave a gold medal, both in recognition of the
merits of the Polar effort.
This early examination was based mostly upon the nautical calculations
for position, and both verdicts when analyzed gave the version that in
such observations there was no positive proof. The Washington jury
ventured an opinion. The Danes refused to give an opinion, but showed
their belief in Dr. Cook's success by conferring honorary degrees.
It is the unfair interpretation of the respective verdicts by the
newspapers which has precipitated the turbulent air of distrust which
previously rested over the entire Polar achievement. All this, however,
has now been cleared by the final word of fifty of the foremost Polar
explorers and scientific experts.
In so far as they were able to judge from all the data presented in the
final books of both claimants the following experts have given it as
their opinion that Dr. Cook reached the Pole, and that officer Peary's
similar report coming later is supplementary proof of the first victory:
General A. W. Greely, U. S. A., commander of the Lady Franklin Bay
Expedition, who spent four years in the region under discussion.
Rear Admiral W. S. Schley, U. S. N., commander of the Greely Relief
Expedition.
Capt. Otto Sverdrup, discoverer of the land over which Dr. Cook's route
was forced.
Capt. J. E. Bernier, commanding the Canadian Arctic Expeditions.
Prof. G. Frederick Wright, author of the "Ice Age of North America."
Capt. E. B. Baldwin, commanding the Baldwin-Ziegler Expedition.
Prof. W. H. Brewer for 16 years president of the Arctic Club of America.
Prof. Julius Payer of the Weyprecht-Payer Expedition.
Prof. L. L. Dyche, member of various Peary and Cook Expeditions.
Mr. Maurice Connell, Greely Expedition, and U. S. Weather Bureau.
Capt. O. C. Hamlet, U. S. A. Arctic Revenue Service.
Capt. E. A. Haven, Baldwin-Ziegler Expedition.
Mr. Andrew J. Stone, Explorer of North Coast of America.
Mr. Dillon Wallace, Labrador Explorer.
Mr. Edwin Swift Balch, author of "The North Pole and Bradley Land."
Captains Johan Menander, B. S. Osbon and Thomas F. Hall.
Messrs. Henry Biederbeck, Frederick B. Wright, F. F. Taylor, Ralph H.
Cairns, Theodore Lerner, M. Van Ryssellberghe, J. Knowles Hare, Chas. E.
Rilliet, Homer Rogers, R. C. Bates, E. C. Rost, L. C. Bement, Clarence
Wychoff, Alfred Church, Archibald Dickinson, Robert Stein, J. S.
Warmbath, Geo. B. Butland, Ralph Shainwald, Henry Johnson, S. J.
Entrikin, Clark Brown, W. F. Armbruster, John R. Bradley, Harry Whitney
and Rudolph Franke.
Drs. T. F. Dedrick, Middleton Smith, J. G. Knowlton, H. J. Egbert, W. H.
Axtell, A. H. Cordier and Henry Schwartz.
Judge Jules Leclercq, and Prof. Georges Lecointe, Secretary of the
International Bureau of Polar Research.
Thus endorsed by practically all Polar Explorers, Dr. Cook's attainment
of the Pole and his earlier work of discovery and exploration is farther
established by the following honorary pledges of recognition. (These are
now in the possession of Dr. Cook, the press reports to the contrary
being untrue).
By the King of Belgium, decorated as Knight of the Order of Leopold.
By the University of Copenhagen in conferring the degree of Ph. D.
By the Royal Danish Geographical Society, presentation of a gold medal.
By the Arctic Club of America, presentation of a gold medal.
By the Royal Geographical Society of Belgium, presentation of a gold
medal.
By the Municipality of the City of Brussels, presentation of a gold
medal.
By the Municipality of the City of New York, with the ceremony of
presenting the keys and offering the freedom of the city.
Without denying officer Peary's success, we note that his case rests
upon the opinion of three of his official associates in Washington.
Three men acting for a society financially interested--three men who
have never seen a piece of Polar ice--have given it as their "opinion"
that Mr. Peary (a year later than Dr. Cook) reached the Pole. By many
this was accepted as a final verdict of experts for Peary. But are such
men dependable experts?
Dr. Cook now offers in substantiation of his work the support and the
final verdict of fifty of the foremost explorers and scientific experts.
Each in his own way has during the past four years examined the polar
problem and pronounced in favor of Dr. Cook.
He is therefore vindicated of the propaganda of insinuation and distrust
which his enemies forced, and his success in reaching the Pole is
conceded and endorsed by his own peers.
In his book, "My Attainment of the Pole," Dr. Cook offers with thrilling
vividness a most remarkable series of adventures in the enraptured
wilderness at the top of the globe. And in his lectures he takes his
audience step by step over the haunts of northernmost man and beyond to
the sparkling sea of death at the pole. Above all he leaves in the
hearts of his listeners the thrills of a fresh vigor and a new
inspiration, which opens the way for other worlds to conquer. By his
books and by his lectures, Dr. Cook seeks justice at the bar of public
opinion, and three million people have applauded his effort on the
platform. One hundred thousand people will read his book during the
coming year. We are inclined to agree with Capt. E. B. Baldwin and other
Arctic explorers who say--"Putting aside the academic and idle argument
of pin-point accuracy, the North Pole has been honestly reached by Dr.
Cook, three hundred and fifty days before any one else claimed to have
been there."
May 22, 1913.
THE CHAUTAUQUA MANAGERS' ASSOCIATION,
ORCHESTRA BUILDING, CHICAGO.
Chas. W. Ferguson, Pres. A. L. Flude, Sec'y.
PREFACE
This narrative has been prepared as a general outline of my conquest of
the North Pole. In it the scientific data, the observations, every phase
of the pioneer work with its drain of human energy has been presented in
its proper relation to a strange cycle of events. The camera has been
used whenever possible to illustrate the progress of the expedition as
well as the wonders and mysteries of the Arctic wilds. Herein, with due
after-thought and the better perspective afforded by time, the rough
field notes, the disconnected daily tabulations and the records of
instrumental observations, every fact, every optical and mental
impression, has been re-examined and re-arranged to make a concise
record of successive stages of progress to the boreal center. If I have
thus worked out an understandable panorama of our environment, then the
mission of this book has served its purpose.
Much has been said about absolute geographic proof of an explorer's
work. History demonstrates that the book which gives the final
authoritative narrative is the test of an explorer's claims. By it every
traveler has been measured. From the time of the discovery of America to
the piercing of darkest Africa and the opening of Thibet, men who have
sought the truth of the claims of discovery have sought, not abstract
figures, but the continuity of the narrative in the pages of the
traveler's final book. In such a narrative, after due digestion and
assimilation, there is to be found either the proof or the disproof of
the claims of a discoverer.
In such narratives as the one herewith presented, subsequent travelers
and other experts, with no other interests to serve except those of fair
play, have critically examined the material. With the lapse of time
accordingly, when partisanship feelings have been merged in calm and
conscientious judgment, history has always finally pronounced a fair and
equitable verdict.
In a similar way my claim of being first to reach the North Pole will
rest upon the data presented between the covers of this book.
In working out the destiny of this Expedition, and this book which
records its doings, I have to acknowledge my gratitude for the
assistance of many people. First among those to whom I am deeply
indebted is John R. Bradley. By his liberal hand this Expedition was
given life, and by his loyal support and helpfulness I was enabled to
get to my base of operations at Annoatok. By his liberal donations of
food we were enabled to live comfortably during the first year. To John
R. Bradley, therefore, belong the first fruits of the Polar conquest.
A tribute of praise must be placed on record for Rudolph Francke. After
the yacht returned, he was my sole civilized helper and companion. The
faithful manner in which he performed the difficult duties assigned to
him, and his unruffled cheerfulness during the trying weeks of the long
night, reflect a large measure of credit.
The band of little people of the Farthest North furnished without pay
the vital force and the primitive ingenuity without which the quest of
the Pole would be a hopeless task. These boreal pigmies with golden
skins, with muscles of steel, and hearts as finely human as those of the
highest order of man, performed a task that cannot be too highly
commended. The two boys, Ah-we-lah and E-tuk-i-shook, deserve a place on
the tablet of fame. They followed me with a perseverance which
demonstrates one of the finest qualities of savage life. They shared
with me the long run of hardship; they endured without complaint the
unsatisfied hunger, the unquenched thirst, and the maddening isolation,
with no thought of reward except that which comes from an unselfish
desire to follow one whom they chose to regard as a friend. If a noble
deed was ever accomplished, these boys did it, and history should record
their heroic effort with indelible ink.
At the request of Mrs. Cook, the Canadian Government sent its ship, the
"Arctic," under Captain Bernier, with supplementary supplies for me, to
Etah. These were left under the charge of Mr. Harry Whitney. The return
to civilization was made in comfort, by the splendid manner in which
this difficult problem was carried out. To each and all in this
combination I am deeply indebted.
With sweet memories of the warm hospitality of Danes in Greenland, I
here subscribe my never-to-be-forgotten appreciation. I am also indebted
to the Royal Greenland Trading Company and to the United S. S. Company
for many favors; and, above all, am I grateful to the Danes as a nation,
for the whole-souled demonstrations of friendship and appreciation at
Copenhagen.
In the making of this book, I was relieved of much routine editorial
work by Mr. T. Everett Harry, associate editor of Hampton's Magazine,
who rearranged much of my material, and by whose handling of certain
purely adventure matter a book of better literary workmanship has been
made.
I am closing the pages of this book with a good deal of regret, for, in
the effort to make the price of this volume so low that it can go into
every home, the need for brevity has dictated the number of pages. My
last word to all--to friends and enemies--is, if you must pass judgment,
study the problem carefully. You are as capable of forming a correct
judgment as the self-appointed experts. One of Peary's captains has said
"that he knew, but never would admit, that Peary did not reach the
Pole." Rear Admiral Chester has said the same about me, but he "admits"
it in big, flaming type. With due respect to these men, in justice to
the cause, I am bound to say that these, and others of their kind, who
necessarily have a blinding bias, are not better able to judge than the
average American citizen.
If you have read this book, then read Mr. Peary's "North Pole." Put the
two books side by side. When making comparisons, remember that my
attainment of the Pole was one year earlier than Mr. Peary's claim; that
my narrative was written and printed months before that of Mr. Peary;
that the Peary narrative is such that Rear Admiral Schley has
said--"After reading the published accounts daily and critically of
both claimants, I was forced to the conclusion from their striking
similarity that each of you was the eye-witness of the other's success.
Without collusion, it would have been impossible to have written
accounts so similar."
This opinion, coming as it does from one of the highest Arctic and Naval
authorities, is endorsed by practically all Arctic explorers. Captain E.
B. Baldwin goes even further, and proves my claim from the pages of
Peary's own book. Governor Brown of Georgia, after a critical
examination of the two reports, says, "If it is true, as Peary would
like us to believe, that Cook has given us a gold brick, then Peary has
offered a paste diamond."
Since my account was written and printed first, the striking analogy
apparent in the Peary pages either proves my position at the Pole or it
convicts Peary of using my data to fill out and impart verisimilitude to
his own story of a second victory.
Much against my will I find myself compelled to uncover the dark pages
of the selfish unfairness of rival interests. In doing so my aim is not
to throw doubt and distrust on Mr. Peary's success, but to show his
incentive and his methods in attempting to leave the sting of discredit
upon me. I would prefer to close my eye to a long series of wrong doings
as I have done in the passing years, but the Polar controversy cannot be
understood unless we get the perspective of the man who has forced it.
Heretofore I have allowed others to expend their argumentative
ammunition. The questions which I have raised are minor points. On the
main question of Polar attainment there is not now room for doubt. The
Pole has been honestly reached--the American Eagle has spread its wings
of glory over the world's top. Whether there is room for one or two or
more under those wings, I am content to let the future decide.
FREDERICK A. COOK.
The Waldorf-Astoria,
New York, June 15, 1911.
[Illustration]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
I THE POLAR FIGHT 1
II INTO THE BOREAL WILDS 23
THE YACHT BRADLEY LEAVES GLOUCESTER--INVADES THE MAGIC WATERS
OF THE ARCTIC SEAS--RECOLLECTIONS OF BOYHOOD AMBITIONS--BEYOND
THE ARCTIC CIRCLE--THE WEAVING OF THE POLAR SPELL
III THE DRIVING SPUR OF THE POLAR QUEST 42
ON THE FRIGID PATHWAY OF THREE CENTURIES OF HEROIC MARTYRS--
MEETING THE STRANGE PEOPLE OF THE FARTHEST NORTH--THE LIFE
OF THE STONE AGE--ON THE CHASE WITH THE ESKIMOS--MANEE AND
SPARTAN ESKIMO COURAGE
IV TO THE LIMITS OF NAVIGATION 62
EXCITING HUNTS FOR GAME WITH THE ESKIMOS--ARRIVAL AT ETAH--
SPEEDY TRIP TO ANNOATOK, THE WINDY PLACE, WHERE SUPPLIES ARE
FOUND IN ABUNDANCE--EVERYTHING AUSPICIOUS FOR DASH TO THE
POLE--DETERMINATION TO ESSAY THE EFFORT--BRADLEY INFORMED--
DEBARK FOR THE POLE--THE YACHT RETURNS
V PREPARATIONS FOR THE POLAR DASH 73
AN ENTIRE TRIBE BREATHLESSLY AND FEVERISHLY AT WORK--MAPPING
OUT THE POLAR CAMPAIGN
VI THE CURTAIN OF NIGHT DROPS 81
TRIBE OF TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY NATIVES BUSILY BEGIN
PREPARATIONS FOR THE POLAR DASH--EXCITING HUNTS FOR THE
UNICORN AND OTHER GAME FROM ANNOATOK TO CAPE YORK--EVERY
ANIMAL CAUGHT BEARING UPON THE SUCCESS OF THE VENTURE--THE
GRAY-GREEN GLOOM OF TWILIGHT IN WHICH THE ESKIMO WOMEN
COMMUNICATE WITH THE SOULS OF THE DEAD
VII FIRST WEEK OF THE LONG NIGHT 99
HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC TWILIGHT--PURSUING BEAR, CARIBOU AND
SMALLER GAME IN SEMI-GLOOM
VIII THE MOONLIGHT QUEST OF THE WALRUS 114
DESPERATE AND DANGEROUS HUNTING, IN ORDER TO SECURE ADEQUATE
SUPPLIES FOR THE POLAR DASH--A THRILLING AND ADVENTUROUS
RACE IS MADE OVER FROZEN SEAS AND ICY MOUNTAINS TO THE WALRUS
GROUNDS--TERRIFIC EXPLOSION OF THE ICE ON WHICH THE PARTY
HUNTS--SUCCESS IN SECURING OVER SEVEN SLED-LOADS OF BLUBBER
MAKES THE POLE SEEM NEARER--AN ARCTIC TRAGEDY
IX MIDNIGHT AND MID-WINTER 130
THE EQUIPMENT AND ITS PROBLEMS--NEW ART IN THE MAKING OF
SLEDGES COMBINING LIGHTNESS--PROGRESS OF THE PREPARATIONS--
CHRISTMAS WITH ITS GLAD TIDINGS AND AUGURIES FOR SUCCESS
IN QUEST OF THE POLE
X EN ROUTE FOR THE POLE 149
THE CAMPAIGN OPENS--LAST WEEKS OF THE POLAR NIGHT--ADVANCE
PARTIES SENT OUT--AWAITING THE DAWN
XI EXPLORING A NEW PASS OVER ACPOHON 162
FROM THE ATLANTIC WATERS AT FLAGLER BAY TO THE PACIFIC WATERS
AT BAY FIORD--THE MECCA OF THE MUSK OX--BATTLES WITH THE
BOVINE MONSTERS OF THE ARCTIC--SUNRISE AND THE GLORY OF SUNSET
XII IN GAME TRAILS TO LAND'S END 176
SVERDRUP'S NEW WONDERLAND--FEASTING ON GAME EN ROUTE TO
SVARTEVOEG--FIRST SHADOW OBSERVATIONS--FIGHTS WITH WOLVES AND
BEARS--THE JOYS OF ZERO'S LOWEST--THRESHOLD OF THE UNKNOWN
XIII THE TRANS-BOREAL DASH BEGINS 194
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
XIV OVER THE POLAR SEA TO THE BIG LEAD 208
WITH TWO ESKIMO COMPANIONS, THE RACE POLEWARD CONTINUES OVER
ROUGH AND DIFFICULT ICE--THE LAST LAND FADES BEHIND--MIRAGES
LEAP INTO BEING AND WEAVE A MYSTIC SPELL--A SWIRLING SCENE OF
MOVING ICE AND FANTASTIC EFFECTS--STANDING ON A HILL OF ICE,
A BLACK, WRITHING, SNAKY CUT APPEARS IN THE ICE BEYOND--THE
BIG LEAD--A NIGHT OF ANXIETY--FIVE HUNDRED MILES ALREADY
COVERED--FOUR HUNDRED TO THE POLE
XV CROSSING MOVING SEAS OF ICE 221
CROSSING THE LEAD--THE THIN ICE HEAVES LIKE A SHEET OF
RUBBER--CREEPING FORWARD CAUTIOUSLY, THE TWO DANGEROUS MILES
ARE COVERED--BOUNDING PROGRESS MADE OVER IMPROVING ICE--THE
FIRST HURRICANE--DOGS BURIED AND FROZEN INTO MASSES IN DRIFTS
OF SNOW--THE ICE PARTS THROUGH THE IGLOO--WAKING TO FIND
ONE'S SELF FALLING INTO THE COLD SEA
XVI LAND DISCOVERED 232
FIGHTING PROGRESS THROUGH CUTTING COLD AND TERRIFIC STORMS--
LIFE BECOMES A MONOTONOUS ROUTINE OF HARDSHIP--THE POLE
INSPIRES WITH ITS RESISTLESS LURE--NEW LAND DISCOVERED BEYOND
THE EIGHTY-FOURTH PARALLEL--MORE THAN TWO HUNDRED MILES FROM
SVARTEVOEG--THE FIRST SIX HUNDRED MILES COVERED
XVII BEYOND THE RANGE OF LIFE 248
WITH A NEW SPRING TO WEARY LEGS BRADLEY LAND IS LEFT BEHIND--
FEELING THE ACHING VASTNESS OF THE WORLD BEFORE MAN WAS MADE--
CURIOUS GRIMACES OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN--SUFFERINGS INCREASE--BY
PERSISTENT AND LABORIOUS PROGRESS ANOTHER HUNDRED MILES IS
COVERED
XVIII OVER POLAR SEAS OF MYSTERY 260
THE MADDENING TORTURES OF A WORLD WHERE ICE WATER SEEMS HOT,
AND COLD KNIVES BURN ONE'S HANDS--ANGUISHED PROGRESS ON THE
LAST STRETCH OF TWO HUNDRED MILES OVER ANCHORED LAND ICE--
DAYS OF SUFFERING AND GLOOM--THE TIME OF DESPAIR--"IT IS
WELL TO DIE," SAYS AH-WE-LAH; "BEYOND IS IMPOSSIBLE"
XIX TO THE POLE--LAST HUNDRED MILES 269
OVER PLAINS OF GOLD AND SEAS OF PALPITATING COLOR THE DOG
TEAMS, WITH NOSES DOWN, TAILS ERECT, DASH SPIRITEDLY LIKE
CHARIOT HORSES--CHANTING LOVE SONGS THE ESKIMOS FOLLOW WITH
SWINGING STEP--TIRED EYES OPEN TO NEW GLORY--STEP BY STEP,
WITH THUMPING HEARTS THE EARTH'S APEX IS NEARED--AT LAST!
THE GOAL IS REACHED! THE STARS AND STRIPES ARE FLUNG TO THE
FRIGID BREEZES OF THE NORTH POLE!
XX AT THE NORTH POLE 286
OBSERVATIONS AT THE POLE--METEOROLOGICAL AND ASTRONOMICAL
PHENOMENA--SINGULAR STABILITY AND UNIFORMITY OF THE
THERMOMETER AND BAROMETER--A SPOT WHERE ONE'S SHADOW IS THE
SAME LENGTH EACH HOUR OF THE TWENTY-FOUR--EIGHT POLAR
ALTITUDES OF THE SUN
XXI THE RETURN--A BATTLE FOR LIFE 314
TURNED BACKS TO THE POLE AND TO THE SUN--THE DOGS, SEEMINGLY
GLAD AND SEEMINGLY SENSIBLE THAT THEIR NOSES WERE POINTED
HOMEWARD, BARKED SHRILLY--SUFFERING FROM INTENSE DEPRESSION--
THE DANGERS OF MOVING ICE, OF STORMS AND SLOW STARVATION--THE
THOUGHT OF FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY MILES TO LAND CAUSES
DESPAIR
XXII BACK TO LIFE AND BACK TO LAND 326
THE RETURN--DELUDED BY DRIFT AND FOG--CARRIED ASTRAY OVER
AN UNSEEN DEEP--TRAVEL FOR TWENTY DAYS IN A WORLD OF MISTS,
WITH THE TERROR OF DEATH--AWAKENED FROM SLEEP BY A HEAVENLY
SONG--THE FIRST BIRD--FOLLOWING THE WINGED HARBINGER--WE
REACH LAND--A BLEAK, BARREN ISLAND POSSESSING THE CHARM OF
PARADISE--AFTER DAYS VERGING ON STARVATION, WE ENJOY A FEAST
OF UNCOOKED GAME
XXIII OVERLAND TO JONES SOUND 341
HOURS OF ICY TORTURE--A FRIGID SUMMER STORM IN THE BERG-DRIVEN
ARCTIC SEA--A PERILOUS DASH THROUGH TWISTING LANES OF OPENING
WATER IN A CANVAS CANOE--THE DRIVE OF HUNGER
XXIV UNDER THE WHIP OF FAMINE 355
BY BOAT AND SLEDGE, OVER THE DRIFTING ICE AND STORMY SEAS OF
JONES SOUND--FROM ROCK TO ROCK IN QUEST OF FOOD--MAKING NEW
WEAPONS
XXV BEAR FIGHTS AND WALRUS BATTLES 365
DANGEROUS ADVENTURES IN A CANVAS BOAT--ON THE VERGE OF
STARVATION, A MASSIVE BRUTE, WEIGHING THREE THOUSAND POUNDS,
IS CAPTURED AFTER A FIFTEEN-HOUR STRUGGLE--ROBBED OF PRECIOUS
FOOD BY HUNGRY BEARS
XXVI BULL FIGHTS WITH THE MUSK OX 378
AN ANCIENT CAVE EXPLORED FOR SHELTER--DEATH BY STARVATION
AVERTED BY HAND-TO-HAND ENCOUNTERS WITH WILD ANIMALS
XXVII A NEW ART OF CHASE 393
THREE WEEKS BEFORE THE SUNSET OF 1908--REVELLING IN AN EDEN
OF GAME--PECULIARITIES OF ANIMALS OF THE ARCTIC--HOW NATURE
DICTATES ANIMAL COLOR--THE QUEST OF SMALL LIFE
XXVIII A HUNDRED NIGHTS IN AN UNDERGROUND DEN 406
LIVING LIKE MEN OF THE STONE AGE--THE DESOLATION OF THE LONG
NIGHT--LIFE ABOUT CAPE SPARBO--PREPARING EQUIPMENT FOR THE
RETURN TO GREENLAND--SUNRISE, FEBRUARY 11, 1909
XXIX HOMEWARD WITH A HALF SLEDGE AND HALF-FILLED STOMACHS 425
THREE HUNDRED MILES THROUGH STORM AND SNOW AND UPLIFTED
MOUNTAINS OF ICE TROUBLES--DISCOVER TWO ISLANDS--ANNOATOK IS
REACHED--MEETING HARRY WHITNEY--NEWS OF PEARY'S SEIZURE OF
SUPPLIES
XXX ANNOATOK TO UPERNAVIK 447
ELEVEN HUNDRED MILES SOUTHWARD OVER SEA AND LAND--AT ETAH--
OVERLAND TO THE WALRUS GROUNDS--ESKIMO COMEDIES AND TRAGEDIES--
A RECORD RUN OVER MELVILLE BAY--FIRST NEWS FROM PASSING SHIPS--
THE ECLIPSE OF THE SUN--SOUTHWARD BY STEAMER GODTHAAB
XXXI FROM GREENLAND TO COPENHAGEN 463
FOREWARNING OF THE POLAR CONTROVERSY--BANQUET AT
EGGEDESMINDE--ON BOARD THE HANS EGEDE--CABLEGRAMS SENT FROM
LERWICK--THE OVATION AT COPENHAGEN--BEWILDERED AMIDST THE
GENERAL ENTHUSIASM--PEARY'S FIRST MESSAGES--EMBARK ON OSCAR
II FOR NEW YORK
XXXII COPENHAGEN TO THE UNITED STATES 476
ACROSS THE ATLANTIC--RECEPTION IN NEW YORK--BEWILDERING
CYCLONE OF EVENTS--INSIDE NEWS OF THE PEARY ATTACK--HOW
THE WEB OF SHAME WAS WOVEN
XXXIII THE KEY TO THE CONTROVERSY 507
PEARY AND HIS PAST--HIS DEALING WITH RIVAL EXPLORERS--THE
DEATH OF ASTRUP--THE THEFT OF THE "GREAT IRON STONE," THE
NATIVES' SOLE SOURCE OF IRON
XXXIV THE MT. MCKINLEY BRIBERY 521
THE BRIBED, FAKED AND FORGED NEWS ITEMS--THE PRO-PEARY
MONEY POWERS ENCOURAGE PERJURY--MT. MCKINLEY HONESTLY
CLIMBED--HOW, FOR PEARY, A SIMILAR PEAK WAS FAKED
XXXV THE DUNKLE-LOOSE FORGERY 535
ITS PRO-PEARY MAKING
XXXVI HOW A GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY PROSTITUTED ITS NAME 541
THE WASHINGTON VERDICT--THE COPENHAGEN VERDICT
RETROSPECT 557
THE PRESENT STATUS OF THE POLAR CONTROVERSY (Preceding Preface) (a)
Dr. Cook Vindicated--His Discovery of the North Pole Endorsed
by the Explorers of all the World.
THE PEARY-PARKER-BROWN HUMBUG UP TO DATE (To Finish Page) 534
Parker contradicts former Statement--Says he climbed Mt.
McKinley by Northeast Ridge.--The Ridge used by Dr. Cook.
VERDICT OF THE GEOGRAPHIC HISTORIAN (By Edwin Swift Balch) 595
Dr. Cook's Record is Accurate--It is Certified--It is
Corroborated--He is the Discoverer of the North Pole.
A REQUEST FOR A NATIONAL INVESTIGATION (By Dr. Frederick A.
Cook) 600
Nation should decide--Congress Should Investigate Rival
Claims--Letter to the President.
CAN THE GOVERNMENT ESCAPE THE RESPONSIBILITY (By Fred High,
Editor of the Platform) 605
Cook Should Have a Fair Deal--An Unbiased Comparison--Letters
to and from Prominent Men.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FREDERICK A. COOK _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
RUDOLPH FRANCKE IN ARCTIC COSTUME 12
MIDNIGHT--"A PANORAMA OF BLACK LACQUER AND SILVER" 13
ON THE CHASE FOR BEAR--THE BOX-HOUSE AT ANNOATOK AND ITS
WINTER ENVIRONMENT 76
MAN'S PREY OF THE ARCTIC SEA--WALRUS ASLEEP 77
THE HELPERS--NORTHERNMOST MAN AND HIS WIFE 108
A MECCA OF MUSK OX ALONG EUREKA SOUND--A NATIVE
HELPER--AH-WE-LAH'S PROSPECTIVE WIFE 109
THE CAPTURE OF A BEAR--ROUNDING UP A HERD OF MUSK OXEN 140
SVARTEVOEG--CAMPING 500 MILES FROM THE POLE 141
"THE IGLOO BUILT, WE PREPARE FOR OUR DAILY CAMP" 172
CAMPING TO EAT AND TAKE OBSERVATIONS--ON AGAIN 173
DASHING FORWARD EN ROUTE TO THE POLE 204
DEPARTURE OF SUPPORTING PARTY--A BREATHING SPELL--POLEWARD 205
BRADLEY LAND DISCOVERED--SUBMERGED ISLAND OF POLAR
SEA--GOING BEYOND THE BOUNDS OF LIFE 236
SWIFT PROGRESS OVER SMOOTH ICE--BUILDING AN IGLOO--A
LIFELESS WORLD OF COLD AND ICE 237
"TOO WEARY TO BUILD IGLOOS, WE USED THE SILK TENT"
"ACROSS SEAS OF CRYSTAL GLORY TO THE BOREAL CENTRE" 268
MENDING NEAR THE POLE 269
FIRST CAMP AT THE POLE, APRIL 21, 1908 300
AT THE POLE--"WE WERE THE ONLY PULSATING CREATURES IN A
DEAD WORLD OF ICE" 301
"WITH EAGER EYES WE SEARCHED THE DUSKY PLAINS OF CRYSTAL, BUT
THERE WAS NO LAND, NO LIFE, TO RELIEVE THE PURPLE RUN OF DEATH" 332
RECORD LEFT IN BRASS TUBE AT NORTH POLE 333
OBSERVATION DETERMINING THE POLE--PHOTOGRAPH FROM ORIGINAL NOTE 364
BACK TO LAND AND BACK TO LIFE--AWAKENED BY A WINGED HARBINGER 365
E-TUK-I-SHOOK WAITING FOR A SEAL AT A BLOW HOLE 396
TOWARD CAPE SPARBO IN CANVAS BOAT--WALRUS--(PRIZE OF 15-HOUR
BATTLE) 4,000 LBS. OF MEAT AND FAT 397
PUNCTURED CANVAS BOAT IN WHICH WE PADDLED 1,000 MILES--FAMINE
DAYS, WHEN ONLY STRAY BIRDS PREVENTED STARVATION--DEN IN WHICH
WE SPENT 100 DOUBLE NIGHTS 428
BULL FIGHTS WITH THE MUSK OX ABOUT CAPE SPARBO 429
SAVED FROM STARVATION--THE RESULT OF ONE OF OUR LAST CARTRIDGES 460
"MILES AND MILES OF DESOLATION"--HOMEWARD BOUND 461
GOVERNOR KRAUL IN HIS STUDY--ARRIVAL AT UPERNAVIK 492
POLAR TRAGEDY--A DESERTED CHILD OF THE SULTAN OF THE NORTH AND
ITS MOTHER 493
My Attainment of the Pole
I.
THE POLAR FIGHT
On April 21, 1908, I reached a spot on the silver-shining desert of
boreal ice whereat a wild wave of joy filled my heart. I can remember
the scene distinctly--it will remain one of those comparatively few
mental pictures which are photographed with a terribly vivid
distinctness of detail, because of their emotional effect, during
everyone's existence, and which reassert themselves in the brain like
lightning flashes in stresses of intense emotion, in dreams, in the
delirium of sickness, and possibly in the hour of death.
I can see the sun lying low above the horizon, which glittered here and
there in shafts of light like the tip of a long, circular, silver blade.
The globe of fire, veiled occasionally by purplish, silver-shot mists,
was tinged with a faint, burning lilac. Through opening cracks in the
constantly moving field of ice, cold strata of air rose, deflecting the
sun's rays in every direction, and changing the vision of distant ice
irregularities with a deceptive perspective, as an oar blade seen in the
depth of still water.
Huge phantom-shapes took form about me; they were nebulous, their color
purplish. About the horizon moved what my imagination pictured as the
ghosts of dead armies--strange, gigantic, wraith-like shapes whose heads
rose above the horizon as the heads of a giant army appearing over the
summits of a far-away mountain. They moved forward, retreated,
diminished in size, and titanically reappeared again. Above them, in the
purple mists and darker clouds, shifted scintillantly waving flashes of
light, orange and crimson, the ghosts of their earthly battle banners,
wind-tossed, golden and bloodstained.
I stood gazing with wonder, half-appalled, forgetting that these were
mirages produced by cold air and deflected light rays, and feeling only
as though I were beholding some vague revelation of victorious hosts,
beings of that other world which in olden times, it is said, were
conjured at Endor. It seemed fitting that they should march and remarch
about me; that the low beating of the wind should suddenly swell into
throbbing martial music. For that moment I was intoxicated. I stood
alone, apart from my two Eskimo companions, a shifting waste of purple
ice on every side, alone in a dead world--a world of angry winds,
eternal cold, and desolate for hundreds of miles in every direction as
the planet before man was made.
I felt in my heart the thrill which any man must feel when an almost
impossible but dearly desired work is attained--the thrill of
accomplishment with which a poet must regard his greatest masterpiece,
which a sculptor must feel when he puts the finishing touch to inanimate
matter wherein he has expressed consummately a living thought, which a
conqueror must feel when he has mastered a formidable alien army.
Standing on this spot, I felt that I, a human being, with all of
humanity's frailties, had conquered cold, evaded famine, endured an
inhuman battling with a rigorous, infuriated Nature in a soul-racking,
body-sapping journey such as no man perhaps had ever made. I had proved
myself to myself, with no thought at the time of any worldy applause.
Only the ghosts about me, which my dazzled imagination evoked,
celebrated the glorious thing with me--a thing in which no human being
could have shared. Over and over again I repeated to myself that I had
reached the North Pole, and the thought thrilled through my nerves and
veins like the shivering sound of silver bells.
That was my hour of victory. It was the climacteric hour of my life. The
vision and the thrill, despite all that has passed since then, remain,
and will remain with me as long as life lasts, as the vision and the
thrill of an honest, actual accomplishment.
That I stood at the time on the very pivotal pin-point of the earth I do
not and never did claim; I may have, I may not. In that moving world of
ice, of constantly rising mists, with a low-lying sun whose rays are
always deflected, such an ascertainment of actual position, even with
instruments in the best workable condition, is, as all scientists will
agree, impossible. That I reached the North Pole approximately, and
ascertained my location as accurately, as painstakingly, as the
terrestrial and celestial conditions and the best instruments would
allow; that I thrilled with victory, and made my claim on as honest, as
careful, as scientific a basis of observations and calculations as any
human being could, I do emphatically assert. That any man, in reaching
this region, could do more than I did to ascertain definitely the
mathematical Pole, and that any more voluminous display of figures could
substantiate a claim of greater accuracy, I do deny. I believe still
what I told the world when I returned, that I am the first white man to
reach that spot known as the North Pole as far as it is, or ever will
be, humanly possible to ascertain the location of that spot.
Few men in all history, I am inclined to believe, have ever been made
the subject of such vicious attacks, of such malevolent assailing of
character, of such a series of perjured and forged charges, of such a
widespread and relentless press persecution, as I; and few men, I feel
sure, have ever been made to suffer so bitterly and so inexpressibly as
I because of the assertion of my achievement. So persistent, so
egregious, so overwhelming were the attacks made upon me that for a time
my spirit was broken, and in the bitterness of my soul I even felt
desirous of disappearing to some remote corner of the earth, to be
forgotten. I knew that envy was the incentive to all the unkind abuses
heaped upon me, and I knew also that in due time, when the public
agitation subsided and a better perspective followed, the justice of my
claim would force itself to the inevitable light of truth.
With this confidence in the future, I withdrew from the envious,
money-waged strife to the calm and restfulness of my own family circle.
The campaign of infamy raged and spent its force. The press lined up
with this dishonest movement by printing bribed, faked and forged news
items, deliberately manufactured by my enemies to feed a newspaper
hunger for sensation. In going away for a rest it did not seem prudent
to take the press into my confidence, a course which resulted in the
mean slurs that I had abandoned my cause. This again was used by my
enemies to blacken my character. In reality, I had tried to keep the
ungracious Polar controversy within the bounds of decent, gentlemanly
conduct; but indecency had become the keynote, and against this, mild
methods served no good purpose. I preferred, therefore, to go away and
allow the atmosphere to clear of the stench stirred up by rival
interest; but while I was away, my enemies were watched, and I am here
now to uncover the darkest campaign of bribery and conspiracy ever
forged in a strife for honor.
Now that my disappointment, my bitterness has passed, that my hurt has
partly healed, I have determined to tell the whole truth about myself,
about the charges made against me, and about those by whom the charges
were made. Herein, FOR THE FIRST TIME, I will tell how and why I
believed I reached the North Pole, and give fully the record upon which
this claim is based. Only upon such a complete account of day-by-day
traveling and such observations, can any claim rest.
Despite the hullabaloo of voluminous so-called proofs offered by a
rival, I am certain that the unprejudiced reader will herein find as
complete a story, and as valuable figures as those ever offered by
anyone for any such achievement in exploration as mine. Herein, for the
first time, shall I answer _in toto_ all charges made against me, and
this because the entire truth concerning these same charges I have not
succeeded in giving the world through other channels. Because of the
power of those who arrayed themselves against me, I found the columns of
the press closed to much that I wished to say; articles which I wrote
for publication underwent editorial excision, and absolutely necessary
explanations, which in themselves attacked my assailants, were
eliminated.
Only by reading my own story, as fully set down herein, can anyone judge
of the relative value of my claim and that of my rival claimant; only by
so doing can anyone get at the truth of the plot made to discredit me;
only by doing so can one learn the reason for all of my actions, for my
failure to meet charges at the time they were made, for my disappearing
at a time when such action was unfairly made to confirm the worst
charges of my detractors. That I have been too charitable with those who
attempted to steal the justly deserved honors of my achievement, I am
now convinced; when desirable, I shall now, having felt the smarting
sting of the world's whip, and in order to justify myself, use the
knife. I shall tell the truth even though it hurts. I have not been
spared, and I shall spare no one in telling the unadorned and unpleasant
story of a man who has been bitterly wronged, whose character has been
assailed by bought and perjured affidavits, whose life before he
returned from the famine-land of ice and cold--the world of his
conquest--was endangered, designedly or not, by a dishonest
appropriation of food supplies by one who afterwards endeavored
to steal from him his honor, which is more dear than life.
To be doubted, and to have one's honesty assailed, has been the
experience of many explorers throughout history. The discoverer of our
own continent, Christopher Columbus, was thrown into prison, and
another, Amerigo Vespucci, was given the honor, his name to this day
marking the land which was reached only through the intrepidity and
single-hearted, single-sustained confidence of a man whose vision his
own people doubted. Even in my own time have explorers been assailed,
among them Stanley, whose name for a time was shrouded with suspicion,
and others who since have joined the ranks of my assailants.
Unfortunately, in such cases the matter of proof and the reliability of
any claim, basicly, must rest entirely upon the intangible evidence of a
man's own word; there can be no such thing as a palpable and indubitable
proof. And in the case when a man's good faith is aspersed and his
character assailed, the world's decision must rest either upon his own
word or that of his detractors.
Returning from the North, exhausted both in body and brain by a savage
and excruciating struggle against famine and cold, yet thrilling with
the glorious conviction of a personal attainment, I was tossed to the
zenith of worldly honor on a wave of enthusiasm, a world-madness, which
startled and bewildered me. In that swift, sudden, lightning-flash
ascension to glory, which I had not expected, and in which I was as a
bit of helpless drift in the thundering tossing of an ocean storm, I was
decorated with unasked-for honors, the laudations of the press of the
world rang in my ears, the most notable of living men hailed me as one
great among them. I found myself the unwilling and uncomfortable guest
of princes, and I was led forward to receive the gracious hand of a
King.
Returning to my own country, still marveling that such honors should be
given because I had accomplished what seemed, and still seems, a merely
personal achievement, and of little importance to anyone save to him who
throbs with the gratification of a personal success, I was greeted with
mad cheers and hooting whistles, with bursting guns and blaring bands. I
was led through streets filled with applauding men and singing children
and arched with triumphal flowers. In a dizzy whirl about the
country--which now seems like a delirious dream--I experienced what I am
told was an ovation unparalleled of its kind.
Coincident with my return to civilization, and while the world was
ringing with congratulations, there came stinging through the cold air
from the North, by wireless electric flashes, word from Mr. Peary that
he had reached the North Pole and that, in asserting such a claim
myself, I was a liar. I did not then doubt the good faith of Peary's
claim; having reached the boreal center myself, under extremely
favorable weather conditions, I felt that he, with everything in his
favor, could do as much a year later, as he claimed. I replied with all
candor what I felt, that there was glory enough for two. But I did, of
course, feel the sting of my rival's unwarranted and virulent attacks.
In the stress of any great crisis, the average human mind is apt to be
carried away by unwise impulses.
Following Mr. Peary's return, I found myself the object of a campaign to
discredit me in which, I believe, as an explorer, I stand the most
shamefully abused man in the history of exploration. Deliberately
planned, inspired at first, and at first directed, by Mr. Peary from
the wireless stations of Labrador, this campaign was consistently and
persistently worked out by a powerful and affluent organization, with
unlimited money at its command, which has had as its allies dishonest
pseudo-scientists, financially and otherwise interested in the success
of Mr. Peary's expedition. With a chain of powerful newspapers, a
financial backer of Peary led a campaign to destroy confidence in me. I
found myself in due time, before I realized the importance of underhand
attacks, in a quandary which baffled and bewildered me. Without any
organization behind me, without any wires to pull, without, at the time,
any appreciable amount of money for defence, I felt what anyone who is
not superhuman would have felt, a sickening sense of helplessness, a
disgust at the human duplicity which permitted such things, a sense of
the futility of the very thing I had done and its little worth compared
to the web of shame my enemies were endeavoring to weave about me.
One of the remarkable things about modern journalism is that, by
persistent repetition, it can create as a fact in the public mind a
thing which is purely immaterial or untrue. Taking the cue from Peary,
there was at the beginning a widespread and unprecedented call for
"proofs," which in some vague way were to consist of unreduced
reckonings. Mr. Peary had his own--he had buried part of mine. I did not
at the time instantly produce these vague and obscure proofs, knowing,
as all scientists know, that figures must inevitably be inadequate and
that any convincing proof that can exist is to be found only in the
narrative account of such a quest. I did not appreciate that in the
public mind, because of the newspapers' criticisms, there was growing a
demand for this vague something. For this reason, I did not consider an
explanation of the absurdity of this exaggerated position necessary.
Nor did I appreciate the relative effect of the National Geographic
Society's "acceptance" of Mr. Peary's so-called "proofs" while mine were
not forthcoming. I did not know at the time, what has since been brought
out in the testimony given before the Naval Committee in Washington,
that the National Geographic Society's verdict was based upon an
indifferent examination of worthless observations and a few seconds'
casual observation of Mr. Peary's instruments by several members of the
Society in the Pennsylvania Railroad Station at Washington. With many
lecture engagements, I considered that I was right in doing what every
other explorer, including Mr. Peary himself, had done before me; that
is, to fulfill my lecture and immediate literary opportunities while
there was a great public interest aroused, and to offer a narrative of
greater length, with field observations and extensive scientific data,
later.
Following the exaggerated call for proofs, there began a series of
persistently planned attacks. So petty and insignificant did many of
them seem to me that I gave them little thought. My speed limits were
questioned, this charge being dropped when it was found that Mr. Peary's
had exceeded mine. The use by the newspaper running my narrative story
of photographs of Arctic scenes--which never change in character--that
had been taken by me on previous trips, was held up as visible evidence
that I was a faker! Errors which crept into my newspaper account
because of hasty preparation, and which were not corrected because there
was no time to read proofs, were eagerly seized upon, and long, abstruse
and impressive mathematical dissertations were made on these to prove
how unscrupulous and unreliable I was.
The photograph of the flag at the Pole was put forth by one of Mr.
Peary's friends to prove on _prima facie_ evidence that I had faked.
Inasmuch as the original negative was vague because of the non-actinic
light in the North, the newspaper photographers retouched the print and
painted on it a shadow as being cast from the flag and snow igloos. This
shadow was seized upon avidly, and after long and learned calculations,
was cited as showing that the picture was taken some five hundred miles
from the Pole.
A formidable appearing statement, signed by various members of his
expedition, and copyrighted by the clique of honor-blind boosters, was
issued by Mr. Peary. In this he gave statements of my two Eskimo
companions to the effect that I had not gotten out of sight of land for
more than one or two "sleeps" on my trip. I knew that I had encouraged
the delusion of my Eskimos that the mirages and low-lying clouds which
appeared almost daily were signs of land. In their ignorance and their
eagerness to be near land, they believed this, and by this innocent
deception I prevented the panic which seizes every Arctic savage when he
finds himself upon the circumpolar sea out of sight of land. I have
since learned that Mr. Peary's Eskimos became panic-stricken near the
Big Lead on his last journey and that it was only by the
life-threatening announcement to them of his determination to leave
them alone on the ice (to get back to land as best they might or starve
to death) that he compelled them to accompany him.
In any case, I did not consider as important any testimony of the
Eskimos which Mr. Peary might cite, knowing as well as he did that one
can get any sort of desired reply from these natives by certain adroit
questioning, and knowing also that the alleged route on his map which he
said they drew was valueless, inasmuch as an Eskimo out of sight of land
and in an unfamiliar region has no sense of location. I felt the whole
statement to be what it was, a trumped-up document in which my helpers,
perhaps unwittingly, had been adroitly led to affirm what Mr. Peary by
jesuitical and equivocal questioning planned to have them say, and that
it was therefore unworthy of a reply.
I had left my instruments and part of the unreduced reckonings with Mr.
Harry Whitney, a fact which Mr. Whitney himself confirmed in published
press interviews when he first arrived--in the heat of the controversy
and after I left Copenhagen--in Sidney. When interviews came from Mr.
Peary insinuating that I had left no instruments in the North, this
becoming a definite charge which was taken up with great hue and cry,
I bitterly felt this to be a deliberate untruth on Mr. Peary's part.
I have since learned that one of Mr. Peary's officers cross-questioned
my Eskimos, and that by showing them Mr. Peary's own instruments he
discovered just what instruments I had had with me on my trip, and that
by describing the method of using these instruments to E-tuk-i-shook
and Ah-we-lah, Bartlett learned from them that I did take observations.
This information he conveyed to Mr. Peary before his expedition left
Etah for America, and this knowledge Mr. Peary and his party,
deliberately and with malicious intent, concealed on their return. At
the time I had no means of refuting this insinuation; it was simply my
word or Mr. Peary's.
[Illustration: RUDOLPH FRANCKE IN ARCTIC COSTUME]
[Illustration: MIDNIGHT--"A PANORAMA OF BLACK LACQUER AND SILVER."]
I had no extraordinary proofs to offer, but, such as they were, I now
know, by comparison with the published reports of Mr. Peary himself,
they were as good as any offered by anyone. I was perhaps unfortunate in
not having, as Mr. Peary had, a confederate body of financially
interested friends to back me up, as was the National Geographic
Society.
Not satisfied with unjustly attacking my claim, Mr. Peary's associates
proceeded to assail my past career, and I was next confronted by an
affidavit made by my guide, Barrill, to the effect that I had not scaled
Mt. McKinley, an affidavit which, as I later secured evidence, had been
bought. A widely heralded "investigation" was announced by a body of
"explorers" of which Peary was president. One of Colonel Mann's
muck-rakers was secretary, while its moving spirit was Mr. Peary's press
agent, Herbert L. Bridgman. In a desperate effort to help Peary, a
cowardly side issue was forced through Professor Herschell Parker, who
had been with me on the Mt. McKinley trip but who had turned back after
becoming panic-stricken in the crossing of mountain torrents. Mr. Parker
expressed doubt of my achievements because he differed with me as to the
value of the particular instrument to ascertain altitude which I, with
many other mountain climbers, used. I had offered all possible proofs
as to having climbed the mountain, as full and adequate proofs as any
mountaineer could, or ever has offered.
I resented the meddlesomeness of this pro-Peary group of kitchen
explorers, not one of whom knew the first principles of mountaineering.
From such an investigation, started to help Peary in his black-hand
effort to force the dagger, with the money power easing men's
conscience--as was evident at the time everywhere--no fair result could
be expected. And as to the widely printed Barrill affidavit--this
carried on its face the story of pro-Peary bribery and conspiracy. I
have since learned that for it $1,500 and other considerations were
paid. Here was a self-confessed liar. I did not think that a sane public
therefore could take this underhanded pro-Peary charge as to the climb
of Mt. McKinley seriously. Indeed, I paid little attention to it, but by
using the cutting power of the press my enemies succeeded in inflicting
a wound in my side.
I was thus plunged into the bewildering chaos which friends and enemies
created, and swept for three months through a cyclone of events which I
believe no human being could have stood. Before returning, I felt
weakened mentally and physically by the rigors of the North, where for a
year I barely withstood starvation. I was now whirled about the country,
daily delivering lectures, greeting thousands of people, buffeted by
mobs of well-meaning beings, and compelled to attend dinners and
receptions numbering two hundred in sixty days. The air hissed about me
with the odious charges which came from every direction. I was alone,
helpless, without a single wise counsellor, under the charge of the
enemies' press, mud-charged guns fired from every point of the compass.
Unlimited funds were being consumed in the infamous mill of bribery.
I had not the money nor the nature to fight in this kind of battle--so I
withdrew. At once, howls of execration gleefully rose from the ranks of
my enemies; my departure was heralded gloriously as a confession of
imposture. Advantage was taken of my absence and new, perjured, forged
charges were made to blacken my name. Far from my home and unable to
defend myself, Dunkle and Loose swore falsely to having manufactured
figures and observations under my direction. When I learned of this,
much as it hurt me, I knew that the report which I had sent to
Copenhagen would, if it did anything, disprove by the very figures in it
the malicious lying document published in the New York _Times_. This,
combined with the verdict rendered by the University of Copenhagen--a
neutral verdict which carried no implication of the non-attainment of
the Pole, but which was interpreted as a rejection--helped to stamp me
in the minds of many people as the most monumental impostor the world
has ever seen.
I fully realized that under the circumstances the only verdict of an
unprejudiced body on any such proofs to such a claim must be favorable
or neutral. The members of the University of Copenhagen who examined my
papers were neither personal friends nor members of a body financially
interested in my quest. Their verdict was honest. Mr. Peary's Washington
verdict was dishonest, for two members of the jury admitted a year later
in Congress, under pressure, that in the Peary data there was no
absolute proof.
By the time I determined to return to my native country and state my
case, I had been placed, I am certain, in a position of undeserved
discredit unparalleled in history. No epithet was too vile to couple
with my name. I was declared a brazen cheat who had concocted the most
colossal lie of ages whereby to hoax an entire world for gain. I was
made the subject of cheap jokes. My name in antagonistic newspapers had
become a synonym for cheap faking. I was compelled to see myself held up
gleefully as an impostor, a liar, a fraud, an unscrupulous scoundrel,
one who had tried to steal honors from another, and who, to escape
exposure, had fled to obscurity.
All the scientific work which scientists themselves had accepted as
valuable, all the necessary hardships and the inevitable agonies of my
last Arctic journey were forgotten; I was coupled with the most
notorious characters in history in a press which panders to the lowest
of human emotions and delights in men's shame. When I realized how
egregious, how frightful, how undeserved was all this, my soul writhed;
when I saw clearly, with the perspective which only time can give, how
I, stepping aside, in errors of confused judgment which were purely
human, had seemingly contributed to my unhappy plight, I felt the sting
of ignominy greater than that which has broken stronger men's hearts.
For the glory which the world gives to such an accomplishment as the
discovery of the North Pole, I care very little, but when the very
result of such a victory is used as a whip to inflict cuts that mark my
future destiny, I have a right to call a halt. I have claimed no
national honors, want no medals or money. My feet stepped over the
Polar wastes with a will fired only by a personal ambition to succeed in
a task where all the higher human powers were put to the test of
fitness. That victory was honestly won. All that the achievement ever
meant to me--the lure of it before I achieved it, the only satisfaction
that remains since--is that it is a personal accomplishment of brain and
muscle over hitherto unconquered forces, a thought in which I have
pride. From the tremendous ovations that greeted me when I returned to
civilization I got not a single thrill. I did thrill with the handclasp
of confident, kindly people. I still thrill with the handclasp of my
countrymen.
Insofar as the earthly glory and applause are concerned, I should be
only too glad to share them, with all material accruements, to any
honest, manly rivals--those of the past and those of the future. But
against the unjust charges which have been made against me, against the
aspersions on my personal integrity, against the ignominy with which my
name has been besmirched, I will fight until the public gets a normal
perspective.
I have never hoaxed a mythical achievement. Everything I have ever
claimed was won by hard labor, by tremendous physical fortitude and
endurance, and by such personal sacrifice as only I, and my immediate
family, will ever know.
For this reason, I returned to my country in the latter part of 1910, as
I always intended to do, after a year's rest. By this time I knew that
my enemies would have said all that was possible about me; the
excitement of the controversy would have quieted, and I should have the
advantage of the last word.
In the heat of the controversy, only just returned in a weakened
condition from the North, and mentally bewildered by the unexpected
maelstrom of events, I should not have been able, with justice to
myself, to have met all the charges, criminal and silly, which were made
against me. Even what I did say was misquoted and distorted by a
sensational press which found it profitable to add fuel to the
controversy. Sometimes I feel that no man ever born has been so
variedly, so persistently lied about, misrepresented, made the butt of
such countless untruths as myself. When I consider the lies, great and
small, which for more than a year, throughout the entire world, have
been printed about me, I am filled almost with hopelessness. And
sometimes, when I think how I have been unjustly dubbed as the most
colossal liar of history, I am filled with a sort of sardonic humor.
Returning to my country, determined to state my case freely and frankly,
and making the honest admission that any claim to the definite, actual
attainment of the North Pole--the mathematical pin-point on which the
earth spins--must rest upon assumptions, because of the impossibility of
accuracy in observations, I found that this admission, which every
explorer would have to make, which Mr. Peary was unwillingly forced to
make at the Congressional investigation, was construed throughout the
country and widely heralded as a "confession," that garbled extracts
were lifted from the context of my magazine story and their meaning
distorted. In hundreds of newspapers I was represented as confessing to
a fraudulent claim or as making a plea of insanity. A full answer to the
charges made against me, necessary in order to justly cover my case,
because of the controversial nature of certain statements which
involved Mr. Peary, was prohibited by the contract I found it necessary
to sign in order to get any statement of a comparatively ungarbled sort
before a public which had read Mr. Peary's own account of his journey.
I found the columns of the press of my country closed to the publication
of statements which involved my enemies, because of the unfounded
prejudice created against me during my absence and because of the power
of Mr. Peary's friends. It is almost impossible in any condition for
anyone to secure a refutation for an unfounded attack in the American
papers. With the entire press of the country printing misstatements, I
was almost helpless. The justice, kindliness and generous spirit of fair
dealing of the American people, however, was extended to me--I found the
American people glad--nay, eager--to listen.
It is this spirit which has encouraged me, after the shameful campaign
of opprobrium which well-nigh broke my spirit, to tell the entire and
unalterable truth about myself and an achievement in which I still
believe--in fairness to myself, in order to clear myself, in order that
the truth about the discovery of the North Pole may be known by my
people and in order that history may record its verdict upon a full,
free and frank exposition. I do not address myself to any clique of
geographers or scientists, but to the great public of the world, and
herein, for the first time, shall I give fully whatever proofs there may
be of my conquest. Upon these records must conviction rest.
Did I actually reach the North Pole? When I returned to civilization and
reported that the boreal center had been attained, I believed that I
had reached the spot toward which valiant men had strained for more than
three hundred years. I still believe that I reached the boreal center as
far as it is possible for any human being to ascertain it. If I was
mistaken in approximately placing my feet upon the pin-point about which
this controversy has raged, I maintain that it is the inevitable mistake
any man must make. To touch that spot would be an accident. That any
other man has more accurately determined the Pole I do deny. That Mr.
Peary reached the North Pole--or its environs--with as fair accuracy as
was possible, I have never denied. That Mr. Peary was better fitted to
reach the Pole, and better equipped to locate this mythical spot, I do
not admit. In fact, I believe that, inasmuch as the purely scientific
ascertainment is a comparatively simple matter, I stood a better chance
of more scientifically and more accurately marking the actual spot than
Mr. Peary. I reached my goal when the sun was twelve degrees above the
horizon, and was therefore better able to mark a mathematical position
than Mr. Peary could have with the sun at less than seven degrees. Mr.
Peary's case rests upon three observations of sun altitude so low that,
as proof of a position, they are worthless.
Besides taking observations, which, as I shall explain in due course in
my narrative, cannot be adequate, I also ascertained what I believed to
be my approximate position at the boreal center and en route by
measuring the shadows each hour of the long day. Inasmuch as one's
shadow decreases or increases in length as the sun rises toward the
meridian or descends, at the boreal center, where the sun circles the
entire horizon at practically the same height during the entire day,
one's shadow in this region of mystery is of the same length. In this
observation, which is so simple that a child may understand it, is a
sure and certain means of approximately ascertaining the North Pole. I
took advantage of this method, which does not seem to have occurred to
any other Arctic traveler, and this helped to bring conviction.
I shall in this volume present with detail the story of my Arctic
journey--I shall tell how it was possible for me to reach my goal, why I
believe I attained that goal; and upon this record must the decision of
my people rest. I shall herein tell the story of an unfair and unworthy
plot to ruin the reputation of an innocent man because of an achievement
the full and prior credit of which was desired by a brutally selfish,
brutally unscrupulous rival. I shall tell of a tragedy compared with
which the North Pole and any glory accruing to its discoverer pales into
insignificance--the tragedy of a spirit that was almost broken, of a man
whose honor and pride was cut with knives in unclean hands.
When you have read all this, then, and only then, in fairness to
yourself and in fairness to me, do I ask you to form your opinion. Only
by reading this can you learn the full truth about me, about my claim
and about the plot to discredit me, of the charges made against me, and
the reason for all of my own actions. So persistent, so world-wide has
been the press campaign made by my enemies, and so egregious have the
charges seemed against me, so multitudinous have the lies, fake stories,
fake interviews, fake confessions been, so blatant have rung the
hideous cries of liar, impostor, cheat and fraud, that the task to right
myself, explain myself, and bring the truth into clean relief has seemed
colossal.
To return to my country and face the people in view of all that was
being said, with my enemies exultant, with antagonistic press men
awaiting me as some beast to be devoured, required a determined gritting
of the teeth and a reserve temperament to prevent an undignified battle.
For against such things nature dictates the tactics of the tiger. I
faced my people, I found them fair and kindly. I accused my enemies of
their lies, and they have remained silent. Titanic as is this effort of
forcing fair play where biased abuse has reigned so long, I am confident
of success. I am confident of the honesty and justice of my people; of
their ability spiritually to sense, psychically to appreciate the
earmarks of a clean, true effort--a worthy ambition and a real
attainment.
INTO THE BOREAL WILDS
THE YACHT BRADLEY LEAVES GLOUCESTER--INVADES THE MAGIC OF THE WATERS
OF THE ARCTIC SEAS--RECOLLECTION OF BOYHOOD AMBITIONS--BEYOND THE
ARCTIC CIRCLE--THE WEAVING OF THE POLAR SPELL
II
OVER THE ARCTIC CIRCLE
On July 3, 1907, between seven and eight o'clock in the evening, the
yacht, which had been renamed the _John B. Bradley_, quietly withdrew
from the pier at Gloucester, Massachusetts, and, turning her prow
oceanward, slowly, quietly started on her historic journey to the Arctic
seas.
In the tawny glow of sunset, which was fading in the western sky, she
looked, with her new sails unfurled, her entire body newly painted a
spotless white, like some huge silver bird alighting upon the sunshot
waters of the bay. On board, all was quiet. I stood alone, gazing back
upon the picturesque fishing village with a tender throb at my heart,
for it was the last village of my country which I might see for years,
or perhaps ever.
Along the water's edge straggled tiny ramshackle boat houses,
dun-colored sheds where fish are dried, and the humble miniature homes
of the fisherfolk, in the windows of which lights soon after appeared.
On the bay about us, fishing boats were lazily bobbing up and down; in
some, old bearded fishermen with broad hats, smoking clay and corncob
pipes, were drying their seines. Other boats went by, laden with
wriggling, silver-scaled fish; along the shore I could still see tons of
fish being unloaded from scores of boats. Through the rosy twilight,
voices came over the water, murmurous sounds from the shore, cries from
the sea mixed with the quaint oaths of fisherfolk at work. Ashore, the
boys of the village were testing their firecrackers for the morrow;
sputtering explosions cracked through the air. Occasionally a faint fire
rocket scaled the sky. But no whistles tooted after our departure. No
visiting crowds of curiosity-seekers ashore were frenziedly waving us
good-bye.
An Arctic expedition had been born without the usual clamor. Prepared in
one month, and financed by a sportsman whose only mission was to hunt
game animals in the North, no press campaign heralded our project, no
government aid had been asked, nor had large contributions been sought
from private individuals to purchase luxuries for a Pullman jaunt of a
large party Poleward. For, although I secretly cherished the ambition,
there was no definite plan to essay the North Pole.
At the Holland House in New York, a compact was made between John R.
Bradley and myself to launch an Arctic expedition. Because of my
experience, Mr. Bradley delegated to me the outfitting of the
expedition, and had turned over to me money enough to pay the costs of
the hunting trip. A Gloucester fishing schooner had been purchased by
me and was refitted, covered and strengthened for ice navigation. To
save fuel space and to gain the advantage of a steamer, I had a Lozier
gasoline motor installed. There had been put on board everything of
possible use and comfort in the boreal wild. As it is always possible
that a summer cruising ship is likely to be lost or delayed a year,
common prudence dictated a preparation for the worst emergencies.
So far as the needs of my own personal expedition were concerned, I had
with me on the yacht plenty of hard hickory wood for the making of
sledges, instruments, clothing and other apparatus gathered with much
economy during my former years of exploration, and about one thousand
pounds of pemmican. These supplies, necessary to offset the danger of
shipwreck and detention by ice, were also all that would be required for
a Polar trip. When, later, I finally decided on a Polar campaign, extra
ship supplies, contributed from the boat, were stored at Annoatok.
There, also, my supply of pemmican was amplified by the stores of walrus
meat and fat prepared during the long winter by myself, Rudolph Francke
and the Eskimos.
As the yacht slowly soared toward the ocean, and night descended over
the fishing village with its home lights glimmering cheerfully as the
stars one by one flecked the firmament with dots of fire, I felt that at
last I had embarked upon my destiny. Whether I should be able to follow
my heart's desire I did not know; I did not dare hazard a guess. But I
was leaving my country, now on the eve of celebrating its freedom,
behind me; I had elected to live in a world of ice and cold, of hunger
and death, which lay before me--thousands of miles to the North.
Day by day passed monotonously; we only occasionally saw writhing curves
of land to the west of us; about us was the illimitable sea. That I had
started on a journey which might result in my starting for the Pole,
that my final chance had come, vaguely thrilled me. Yet the full purport
of my hope seemed beyond me. On the journey to Sydney my mind was full.
I thought of the early days of my childhood, of the strange ambition
which grew upon me, of my struggles, and the chance which favored me in
the present expedition.
In the early days of my childhood, of which I now had only indistinct
glimmerings, I remembered a restless surge in my little bosom, a
yearning for something that was vague and undefined. This was, I
suppose, that nebulous desire which sometimes manifests itself in early
youth and later is asserted in strivings toward some splendid, sometimes
spectacular aim. My boyhood was not happy. As a tiny child I was
discontented, and from the earliest days of consciousness I felt the
burden of two things which accompanied me through later life--an innate
and abnormal desire for exploration, then the manifestation of my
yearning, and the constant struggle to make ends meet, that sting of
poverty, which, while it tantalizes one with its horrid grind, sometimes
drives men by reason of the strength developed in overcoming its
concomitant obstacles to some extraordinary accomplishment.
As a very small boy, I remember being fascinated by the lure of a
forbidden swimming pool. One day, when but little over five, I, impelled
to test the depth, plunged to the center, where the water was above my
head, and nearly lost my life. I shall never forget that struggle, and
though I nearly gave out, in that short time I learned to swim. It seems
to me now I have been swimming and struggling ever since.
Abject poverty and hard work marked my school days. When quite a boy,
after the death of my father, I came to New York. I sold fruit at one of
the markets. I saved my money. I enjoyed no luxuries. These days vividly
occur in my mind. Later I engaged in a dairy business in Brooklyn, and
on the meager profits undertook to study medicine.
At that time the ambition which beset me was undirected; it was only
later that I found, almost by accident, what became its focusing point.
I graduated from the University of New York in 1890. I felt (as what
young man does not?) that I possessed unusual qualifications and
exceptional ability. An office was fitted up, and my anxiety over the
disappearing pennies was eased by the conviction that I had but to hang
out my shingle and the place would be thronged with patients. Six months
passed. There had been about three patients.
I recall sitting alone one gloomy winter day. Opening a paper, I read
that Peary was preparing his 1891 expedition to the Arctic. I cannot
explain my sensations. It was as if a door to a prison cell had opened.
I felt the first indomitable, commanding call of the Northland. To
invade the Unknown, to assail the fastness of the white, frozen
North--all that was latent in me, the impetus of that ambition born in
childhood, perhaps before birth, and which had been stifled and starved,
surged up tumultuously within me.
I volunteered, and accompanied Peary, on this, the expedition of
1891-92, as surgeon. Whatever merit my work possessed has been cited by
others.
Unless one has been in the Arctic, I suppose it is impossible to
understand its fascination--a fascination which makes men risk their
lives and endure inconceivable hardships for, as I view it now, no
profitable personal purpose of any kind. The spell was upon me then. It
was upon me as I recalled those early days on the _Bradley_ going
Northward. With a feeling of sadness I realize that the glamor is all
gone now.
On the Peary and all my subsequent expeditions I served without pay.
On my return from that trip I managed to make ends meet by meager
earnings from medicine. I was nearly always desperately hard pressed for
money. I tried to organize several cooeperative expeditions to the
Arctic. These failed. I then tried to arouse interest in Antarctic
exploration, but without success. Then came the opportunity to join the
Belgian Antarctic Expedition, again without pay.
On my return I dreamed of a plan to attain the South Pole, and for a
long time worked on a contrivance for that end--an automobile arranged
to travel over ice. Financial failure again confronted me.
Disappointment only added to my ambition; it scourged me to a
determination, a conviction that--I want you to remember this, to bear
in mind the mental conviction which buoyed me--I must and should
succeed. It is always this innate conviction which encourages men to
exceptional feats, to tremendous failures or splendid, single-handed
success.
A summer in the Arctic followed my Antarctic trip, and I returned to
invade the Alaskan wilds. I succeeded in scaling Mt. McKinley. After my
Alaskan expeditions, the routine of my Brooklyn office work seemed like
the confinement of prison. I fretted and chafed at the thought. Let me
have a chance, and I would succeed. This thought always filled my mind.
I convinced myself that in some way the attainment of one of the
Poles--the effort on which I had spent sixteen years--would become
possible.
I had no money. My work in exploration had netted me nothing, and all my
professional income was soon spent. Unless you have felt the goading,
devilish grind of poverty hindering you, dogging you, you cannot know
the mental fury into which I was lashed.
I waited, and fortune favored me in that I met Mr. John R. Bradley. We
planned the Arctic expedition on which I was now embarked. Mr. Bradley's
interest in the trip was that of a great sportsman, eager to seek big
game in the Arctic. My immediate purpose was to return again to the
frozen North. The least the journey would give me was an opportunity to
complete the study of the Eskimos which I had started in 1891.
Mr. Bradley and I had talked, of course, of the Pole; but it was not an
important incentive to the journey. Back in my brain, barely above the
subconscious realm, was the feeling that this, however, might offer
opportunity in the preparation for a final future determination. I,
therefore, without any conscious purpose, and with my last penny, paid
out of my purse for extra supplies for a personal expedition should I
leave the ship.[1]
Aboard the _Bradley_, going northward, my plans were not at all
definite. Even had I known before leaving New York that I should try for
the Pole, I should not have sought any geographical license from some
vague and unknown authority. Though much has since been made by critics
of our quiet departure, I always felt the quest of the Pole a personal
ambition[2], a crazy hunger I had to satisfy.
Fair weather followed us to Sydney, Cape Breton.
From this point we sailed over the Gulf of St. Lawrence, then entered
the Straits of Belle Isle at a lively speed. On a cold, cheerless day in
the middle of July we arrived at Battle Harbor, a little town at the
southeastern point of Labrador, where Mr. Bradley joined us. He had
preceded us north, by rail and coasting vessels, after watching a part
of the work of outfitting the schooner.
On the morning of July 16 we left the rockbound coast of North America
and steered straight for Greenland. In this region a dense and heavy fog
almost always lies upon the sea. Then nothing is visible but
slow-swaying gray masses, which veil all objects in a shroud of ghostly
dreariness. Through the fog can be heard the sound of fisher-boat horns,
often the very voices of the fishermen themselves, while their crafts
are absolutely hidden from view. On this trip, however, from time to
time, great fragments of fog slowly lifted, and we saw, emerging out of
the gray mistiness, islands, bleak and black and weathertorn, and
patches of ocean dotted with scores of Newfoundland boats, which invade
this region to fish for cod. We entered the Arctic current, and
breasting its stream, a fancy came that perhaps this current, flowing
down from out of the mysterious unknown, came from the very Pole itself.
Continuing, we entered Davis Straits, where we encountered headwinds
that piled up the water in great waves. It was a good test of the
sailing qualities of the _Bradley_, and well did the small craft
respond.
Long before the actual coast line of Greenland could be seen we had a
first glimpse of the beauties that these northern regions can show.
Like great sapphires, blue ice floated in a golden sea; towering masses
of crystal rose gloriously, dazzling the eye and gladdening the heart
with their superb beauty. The schooner sailed into this wonderful yellow
sea, which soon became a broad and gleaming surface of molten silver.
Although this striking beauty of the North, which it often is so chary
of displaying, possesses a splendor of color equal to the gloriousness
of tropical seas, it always impresses one with a steely hardness of
quality suggestive of the steely hardness of the heart of the North. And
it somehow seemed, curiously enough, as if all this wonderful glitter
was a shimmering reflection from the ice-covered mountains of the
Greenland interior, although the mountains themselves were still
invisible.
We swung from side to side, dodging icebergs. We steered cautiously
around low-floating masses, watching to see that the keel was not caught
by some treacherous jutting spur just beneath the water-line. Through
this fairyland of light and color we sailed slowly into a region rich in
animal life, a curious and striking sight. Seals floundered in the
sunbeams or slumbered on masses of ice, for even in this Northland there
is a strange commingling and contrast of heat and cold. Gulls and
petrels darted and fluttered about us in every direction, porpoises were
making swift and curving leaps, even a few whales added to the magic and
apparent unreality of it all.
At length the coast showed dimly upon the horizon, veiled in a glow of
purple and gold. The wind freshened, the sails filled, and the speed of
the schooner increased. We were gradually nearing Holsteinborg, and the
course was set a point more in towards shore. The land was thrown into
bold relief by the brilliancy of lights and shadows, and in the
remarkably clear air it seemed as if it could be reached in an hour. But
this was an atmospheric deception, of the kind familiar to those who
know the pure air of the Rocky Mountains, for, although the land seemed
near, it was at least forty miles away. The general color of the land
was a frosty blue, and there were deep valleys to be seen, gashes cut by
the slow movement of centuries of glaciers, with rocky headlands leaping
forward, bleak and cold. It appeared to be a land of sublime desolation.
The course was set still another point nearer the coast; the wind
continued fair and strong; and, with every possible stitch of canvas
spread, the schooner went rapidly onward.
We saw rocky islands, drenched by clouds of spray and battered by
drifting masses of ice. There the eider duck builds its nest and spends
the brief summer of the Arctic. We saw dismal cliffs, terra cotta and
buff in color, in the crevasses of which millions of birds made their
homes, and from which they rose, frightened, in dense clouds, giving
vent to a great volume of clamorous hoarseness.
Through our glasses we could see a surprising sight in such a
land--little patches of vegetation, seal brown or even emerald green.
Yet, so slight were these patches of green that one could not but wonder
what freak of imagination led the piratical Eric the Red, one thousand
years ago, to give to this coast a name so suggestive of luxuriant
forests and shrubs and general lushness of growth as "Greenland." Never,
surely, was there a greater misnomer, unless one chooses to regard the
old-time Eric as a practical joker.
Between the tall headlands there were fiords cutting far into the
interior; arms of the sea, these, winding and twisting back for miles.
Along these quiet land-locked waters the Eskimos love to hunt and fish,
just as their forefathers have done for centuries. Shaggy looking
fellows are these Eskimos, clothed in the skins of animals, relieved by
dashes of color of Danish fabric, most of them still using spears, and
thus, to outward appearance, in the arts of life almost like those that
Eric saw.
Although this rugged coast, with its low-lying islands, its icebergs and
floating icefields, its bleak headlands, its picturesque scenes of
animal life, is a continuous delight, it presents the worst possible
dangers to navigation, not only from reefs and under-water ice, but
because there are no lighthouses to mark permanent danger spots and
because signs of impending storm are ever on the horizon. While
navigating the coast, our officers spent sleepless nights of anxiety;
but the shortening of the nights and lengthening of the days, the daily
night brightening resulting from the northerly movement, combined with
an occasional flash of the aurora, gradually relieved the tension of the
situation.
By the time the island of Disco rose splendidly out of the northern
blue, the Arctic Circle had been crossed, and a sort of celestial
light-house brightened the path of the schooner. Remaining on deck until
after midnight, we were rewarded by a sight of the sun magnified to many
times its normal size, glowing above the rim of the frosty sea. A light
wind blew gently from the coast, the sea ran in swells of gold, and the
sky was streaked with topaz and crimson.
Bathed in an indescribable glow, the towering sides of the greatest
icebergs showed a medley of ever-changing, iridescent colors. The
jutting pinnacles of others seemed like oriental minarets of alabaster
fretted with old gold. Here and there, as though flung by an invisible
hand from the zenith, straggled long cloud ribbons of flossy crimson and
silver. Gradually, imperially, the sun rose higher and flushed sky and
sea with deeper orange, more burning crimson, and the bergs into vivid
ruby, chalcedony and chrysophase walls. This suddenly-changing,
kaleidoscopic whirl of color was rendered more effective because, in its
midst, the cliffs of Disco rose frowningly, a great patch of blackness
in artistic contrast. A pearly vapor now began to creep over the
horizon, and gradually spread over the waters, imparting a gentle and
restful tone of blue. This gradually darkened into irregular shadows;
the brilliant color glories faded away. Finally we retired to sleep with
a feeling that sailing Poleward was merely a joyous pleasure journey
over wonderful and magic waters. This, the first glorious vision of the
midnight sun, glowed in my dreams--the augury of success in that for
which my heart yearned. The glow never faded, and the weird lure
unconsciously began to weave its spell.
Next morning, when we went on deck, the schooner was racing eastward
through heavy seas. The terraced cliffs of Disco, relieved by freshly
fallen snow, were but a few miles off. The cry of gulls and guillemots
echoed from rock to rock. Everything was divested of the glory of the
day before. The sun was slowly rising among mouse-colored clouds. The
bergs were of an ugly blue, and the sea ran in gloomy lines of ebony.
Although the sea was high, there was little wind, but we felt that a
storm was gathering and sought to hasten to shelter in Godhaven--a name
which speaks eloquently of the dangers of this coast and the precious
value of such a harbor.
As we entered the narrow channel, which turns among low, polished rocks
and opens into the harbor, two Eskimos in kayaks came out to act as
pilots. Taking them aboard, we soon found a snug anchorage, secure from
wind and sea. The launch was lowered, and in it we left the schooner for
a visit to the Governor.
Coming up to a little pier, we were cordially greeted by Governor
Fenker, who escorted us to his home, where his wife, a cultivated young
Danish woman, offered us sincere hospitality.
The little town itself was keenly alive. All the inhabitants, and all
the dogs as well, were jumping about on the rocks, eagerly gazing at our
schooner. The houses of the Governor and the Inspector were the most
important of the town. They were built of wood imported from Denmark,
and were covered with tarred paper. Though quite moderate in size, the
houses seemed too large and out of place in their setting of
ice-polished rocks. Beyond them were twenty Eskimo huts, nearly square
in shape, constructed of wood and stone, the cracks of which were filled
tightly with moss.
We deferred our visit to the native huts, and invited Governor Fenker
and his wife to dine aboard the schooner. The surprise of the evening
for these two guests was the playing of our phonograph, the tunes of
which brought tears of homesickness to the eyes of the Governor's gentle
wife.
Anywhere on the coast of Greenland, the coming of a ship is always one
of the prime events of the season. So uneventful is life in these
out-of-the-way places that such an arrival is the greatest possible
social enlivener. The instant that the approach of our schooner had been
noted, the Eskimo girls--queer little maids in queer little
trousers--decided upon having a dance, and word was brought us that
everyone was invited to take part. The sailors eagerly responded, and
tumbled ashore as soon as they were permitted, leaving merely enough for
a watch on board ship. Then, to the sound of savage music, the dance was
continued until long after midnight. A curious kind of midnight dance it
was, with the sun brightly shining in a night unveiled of glitter and
color glory. The sailors certainly found pleasure in whirling about,
their arms encircling fat and clumsy waists. They did admit, however,
when back on board the schooner, that the smell of the furs within which
the maidens had spent the past winter was less agreeable than the savor
of fish. The name of this scattered settlement of huts, Godhaven, comes,
clearly enough, from its offering fortunate refuge from storms; that the
place is also known as Lively is not in the least to be wondered at, if
one has watched a midnight dance of the little population and their
visitors.
Before hauling in anchor in the harbor of Godhaven, we made some
necessary repairs to the yacht and filled our tanks with water. With a
free wind speeding onward to the west of Disco, we passed the narrow
strait known as the Vaigat early the following morning. As I stood on
deck and viewed the passing of icebergs, glittering in the limpid,
silvery light of morning like monstrous diamonds, there began to grow
within me a feeling--that throbbed in pulsation with the onward movement
of the boat--that every minute, every mile, meant a nearing to that
mysterious center, on the attaining of which I had set my heart, and
which, even now, seemed unlikely, improbable. Yet the thought gave me a
thrill.
Before noon we reached the mouth of Umanak Fiord, into the delightful
waters of which we were tempted to enter. The lure of the farther North
decided us against this, and soon the striking Svarten Huk (Black Hook),
a great rock cliff, loomed upon the horizon. Beyond it, gradually
appeared a long chain of those islands among which lies Upernavik, where
the last traces of civilized or semi-civilized life are found. The wind
increased in force but the horizon remained remarkably clear. Over a
bounding sea we sped rapidly along to the west, into the labyrinth of
islands that are sprinkled along the southern shore of Melville Bay.[3]
Beyond, we were to come into the true boreal wilderness of ice, where
there were only a few savage aborigines, its sole inhabitants.
On the following day, with reduced sail and the help of the auxiliary
engine, we pushed far up into Melville Bay, where we ran into fields of
pack-ice. Here we decided to hunt for game. With this purpose it was
necessary to keep close to land. Here also came our first realistic
experience with the great forces of the North. The pack-ice floated
close around us, young ice cemented the broken masses together, and for
several days we were thus closely imprisoned in frozen seas.
These days of enforced delay were days of great pleasure, for the bears
and seals on the ice afforded considerable sport. The constant danger of
our position, however, required a close watch for the safety of the
schooner. The Devil's Thumb, a high rock shaped like a dark thumb
pointing at the sky, loomed darkly and beckoningly before us. A biting
wind descended from the interior.
The ice groaned; the eiderducks, guillemots and gulls uttered shrill and
disturbing cries, seemingly sensing the coming of a storm.
For three days we were held in the grip of the relentless pack; then the
glimmer of the land ice changed to an ugly gray, the pack around us
began to crack threateningly, and the sky darkened to the southward.
The wind ominously died away. The air thickened rapidly. A general
feeling of anxiety came over us, although my familiarity with storms in
the North made it possible for me to explain that heavy seas are seldom
felt within the zone of a large ice-pack, for the reason that the
icebergs, the flat ice masses, and even the small floating fragments,
ordinarily hold down the swells. Even when the pack begins to break, the
lanes of water between the fragments thicken under the lower temperature
like an oiled surface, and offer an easy sea. Furthermore, a really
severe wind would be sure to release the schooner, and it would then be
possible to trust it to its staunch qualities in free water.
Hardly had we finished dinner when we heard the sound of a brisk wind
rushing through the rigging. Hurrying to the deck, we saw coils of what
looked like smoky vapor rising in the south as if belched from some
great volcano. The gloom on the horizon was rapidly growing deeper. The
sound of the wind changed to a threatening, sinister hiss. In the
piercing steel-gray light we saw the ice heave awesomely, like moving
hills, above the blackening water. The bergs swayed and rocked, and the
massed ice gave forth strange, troublous sounds.
Suddenly a channel began to open through the ice in front of us. The
trisail was quickly set, the other sails being left tightly furled, and
with the engine helping to push us in the desired direction, we drew
deep breaths of relief as we moved out into the free water to the
westward.
We felt a sense of safety now, although, clear of the ice, the sea rose
about us with a sickening suddenness. Black as night, the water seemed
far more dangerous because the waves were everywhere dashing angrily
against walls of ice. Already strong, the wind veered slightly and
increased to a fierce, persistent gale. Like rubber balls, the bergs
bounded and rolled in the sea. The sound of the storm was now a thunder
suggestive of constantly exploding cannons. But, fortunately, we were
snug aboard, and, keeping the westerly course, soon escaped the dangers
of ensnaring ice.
We were still in a heavy storm, and had we not had full confidence in
the ship, built as she was to withstand the storms of the Grand Banks,
we should still have felt anxiety, for the schooner rolled and pitched
and the masts dipped from side to side until they almost touched the
water.
Icy water swept the deck. A rain began to fall, and quickly sheathed the
masts and ropes in ice. Snow followed, giving a surface as of sandpaper
to the slippery, icy decks. The temperature was not low, but the cutting
wind pierced one to the very marrow. Our men were drenched with spray
and heavily coated with ice. Although suffering severely, the sailors
maintained their courage and appeared even abnormally happy. Gradually
we progressed into the open sea. In the course of four hours the storm
began to abate, and, under a double-reefed foresail, at last we
gleefully rode out the finish of the storm in safety.
THE DRIVING SPUR OF THE POLAR QUEST
ON THE FRIGID PATHWAY OF THREE CENTURIES OF HEROIC MARTYRS--MEETING THE
STRANGE PEOPLE OF THE FARTHEST NORTH--THE LIFE OF THE STONE AGE--ON THE
CHASE WITH THE ESKIMOS--MANEE AND SPARTAN ESKIMO COURAGE
III
STRANGE TRAITS OF NORTHERNMOST MAN
I have often wondered of late about the dazzling white, eerie glamor
with which the Northland weaves its spell about the heart of a man. I
know of nothing on earth so strange, so wonderful, withal so sad.
Pursuing our course through Melville Bay, I felt the fatal magic of it
enthralling my very soul. For hours I stood on deck alone, the midnight
sun, like some monstrous perpetual light to some implacable
frozen-hearted deity, burning blindingly upon the horizon and setting
the sea aflame. The golden colors suffused my mind, and I swam in a sea
of molten glitter.
I was consumed for hours by but one yearning--a yearning that filled and
intoxicated me--to go on, and on, and ever onward, where no man had ever
been. Perhaps it is the human desire to excel others, to prove, because
of the innate egotism of the human unit, that one possesses qualities of
brain and muscle which no other possesses, that has crazed men to
perform this, the most difficult physical test in the world. The lure of
the thing is unexplainable.
During those dizzy hours on deck I thought of those who had preceded me;
of heroic men who for three centuries had braved suffering, cold and
famine, who had sacrificed the comforts of civilization, their families
and friends, who had given their own lives in the pursuit of this
mysterious, yea, fruitless quest. I remembered reading the thrilling
tales of those who returned--tales which had flushed me with excitement
and inspired me with the same mad ambition. I thought of the noble,
indefatigable efforts of these men, of the heart-sickening failures, in
which I too had shared. And I felt the indomitable, swift surge of their
awful, goading determination within me--to subdue the forces of nature,
to cover as Icarus did the air those icy spaces, to reach the
silver-shining vacantness which men called the North Pole.
As we cut the shimmering waters, I felt, as it were, the wierd, unseen
presence of those who had died there--died horribly--men whose bodies
had withered, with slow suffering, in frigid blasts and famine, who
possibly had prolonged their suffering by feeding upon their own doomed
companions--and of others who had perished swiftly in the sudden yawning
of the leprous white mouth of the hungry frozen sea. It is said by some
that souls live only after death by the energy of great emotions, great
loves, or great ambitions generated throughout life. It seemed to me, in
those hours of intoxication, that I could feel the implacable,
unsatisfied desire of these disembodied things, who had vibrated with
one aim and still yearned in the spirit for what now they were
physically unable to attain. It seemed that my brain was fired with the
intensity of all these dead men's ambition, that my heart in sympathy
beat more turbulently with the throb of their dead hearts; I felt
growing within me, irresistibly, what I did not dare, for fear it might
not be possible, to confide to Bradley--a determination, even in the
face of peril, to essay the Pole!
From this time onward, and until I turned my back upon the fruitless
silver-shining place of desolation at the apex of the world, I felt the
intoxication, the intangible lure of the thing exhilarating, buoying me
gladsomely, beating in my heart with a singing rhythm. I recall it now
with marveling, and am filled with the pathos of it. Yet, despite all
that I have suffered since because of it, I regret not those enraptured
hours of perpetual glitter of midnight suns.
One morning we reached the northern shore of Melville Bay, and the bold
cliffs of Cape York were dimly outlined through a gray mist. Strong
southern winds had carried such great masses of ice against the coast
that it was impossible to make a near approach, and as a strong wind
continued, there was such a heavy sea along the bobbing line of outer
ice as to make it quite impossible to land and thence proceed toward the
shore.
We were desirous of meeting the natives of Cape York, but these ice
conditions forced us to proceed without touching here, and so we set our
course for the next of the northernmost villages, at North Star Bay. By
noon the mist had vanished, and we saw clearly the steep slopes and warm
color of crimson cliffs rising precipitously out of the water. The coast
line is about two thousand feet high, evidently the remains of an old
tableland which extends a considerable distance northward. Here and
there were short glaciers which had worn the cliffs away in their
ceaseless effort to reach the sea. The air was full of countless gulls,
guillemots, little auks and eider-ducks.
As the eye followed the long and lofty line of crimson cliffs, there
came into sight a towering, conical rock, a well-known guidepost for the
navigator. Continuing, we caught sight of the long ice wall of Petowik
Glacier, and behind this, extending far to the eastward, the
scintillating, white expanse of the overland-ice which blankets the
interior of all Greenland.
The small and widely scattered villages of the Eskimos of this region
are hemmed in by the ice walls of Melville Bay on the southward, the
stupendous cliffs of Humboldt Glacier on the north, an arm of the sea to
the westward, and the hopelessly desolate Greenland interior toward the
east.
There is really no reason why many Eskimos should not live here, for
there is abundant food in both sea and air, and even considerable game
on land. Blue and white foxes are everywhere to be seen. There is the
seal, the walrus, the narwhal, and the white whale. There is the white
bear, monarch of the Polar wilds, who roams in every direction over his
kingdom. The principal reason why the population remains so small lies
in the hazardous conditions of life. Children are highly prized, and a
marriageable woman or girl who has one or more of them is much more
valuable as a match than one who is childless.
The coast line here is paradoxically curious, for although the coast
exceeds but barely more than two hundred miles of latitude it presents
in reality a sea line of about four thousand miles when the great
indentations of Wolstenholm Sound, Inglefield Gulf, and other bays,
sounds and fiords are measured.
We sailed cautiously now about Cape Atholl, which we were to circle; a
fog lay upon the waters, almost entirely hiding the innumerable
icebergs, and making it difficult to pick our course among the dangerous
rocks in this vicinity.
Rounding Cape Atholl, we sailed into Wolstenholm Sound and turned our
prow toward the Eskimo village on North Star Bay.
North Star Bay is guarded by a promontory expressively named Table
Mountain, "Oomanaq." As we neared this headland, many natives came out
in kayaks to meet us. Inasmuch as I knew most of them personally, I felt
a singular thrill of pleasure in seeing them. Years before, I learned
their simple-hearted faithfulness. Knud Rasmussen, a Danish writer,
living as a native among the Eskimos, apparently for the sake of getting
local color, was in one of the canoes and came aboard the ship.
As it was necessary to make slight repairs to the schooner, we here had
to follow the primitive method of docking by preliminary beaching her.
This was done at high tide when the propeller, which had been bent--the
principal damage to the ship--was straightened. At the same time we gave
the yacht a general looking-over, and righted a universal joint whose
loosening had disabled the engine.
Meanwhile the launch kept busy scurrying to and fro, our quest being
occasionally rewarded with eider-ducks or other game. Late at night, a
visit was made to the village of Oomanooi. It could hardly be called a
village, for it consisted merely of seven triangular sealskin tents,
conveniently placed on picturesque rocks. Gathered about these in large
numbers, were men, women and children, shivering in the midnight chill.
These were odd-looking specimens of humanity. In height, the men
averaged but five feet, two inches, and the women four feet, ten. All
had broad, fat faces, heavy bodies and well-rounded limbs. Their skin
was slightly bronzed; both men and women had coal-black hair and brown
eyes. Their noses were short, and their hands and feet short, but thick.
A genial woman was found at every tent opening, ready to receive
visitors in due form. We entered and had a short chat with each family.
Subjects of conversation were necessarily limited, but after all, they
were about the same as they would have been in a civilized region. We
conversed as to whether or not all of us had been well, of deaths,
marriages and births. Then we talked of the luck of the chase, which
meant prosperity or need of food. Even had it been a civilized
community, there would have been little questioning regarding national
or international affairs, because, in such case, everyone reads the
papers. Here there was no comment on such subjects simply because nobody
cares anything about them or has any papers to read.
That a prominent Eskimo named My-ah had disposed of a few surplus wives
to gain the means whereby to acquire a few more dogs, was probably the
most important single item of information conveyed. I was also informed
that at the present time there happened to be only one other man with
two wives.
Marriage, among these folk, is a rather free and easy institution. It
is, indeed, not much more than a temporary tie of possession. Men
exchange partners with each other much in the manner that men in other
countries swap horses. And yet, the position of women is not so humble
as this custom might seem to indicate, for they themselves are
permitted, not infrequently, to choose new partners. These exceedingly
primitive ideas work out surprisingly well in practice in these isolated
regions, for such exchanges, when made, are seemingly to the advantage
and satisfaction of all parties; no regrets are expressed, and the feuds
of divorce courts, of alimony proceedings, of damages for alienation of
affection, which prevail in so-called civilization, are unknown.
It is certainly a curious thing that these simple but intelligent people
are able to control their own destinies with a comfortable degree of
success, although they are without laws or literature and without any
fixed custom to regulate the matrimonial bond.
It would seem as if there ought to be a large population, for there is
an average of about three fat, clever children for each family, the
youngest as a rule picturesquely resting in a pocket on the mother's
back. But the hardships of life in this region are such that accidents
and deaths keep down the population.
Each tent has a raised platform, upon which all sleep. The edge of this
makes a seat, and on each side are placed stone lamps in which blubber
is burned, with moss as a wick. Over this is a drying rack, also a few
sticks, but there is no other furniture. Their dress of furs gives the
Eskimos a look of savage fierceness which their kindly faces and easy
temperament do not warrant.
On board the yacht were busy days of barter. Furs and ivory were
gathered in heaps in exchange for guns, knives and needles. Every
seaman, from cabin boy to captain, suddenly got rich in the gamble of
trade for prized blue-fox skins and narwhal tusks.
The Eskimos were equally elated with their part of the bargain. For a
beautiful fox skin, of less use to a native than a dog pelt, he could
secure a pocket knife that would serve him half a lifetime!
A woman exchanged her fur pants, worth a hundred dollars, for a red
pocket handkerchief with which she would decorate her head or her igloo
for years to come.
Another gave her bearskin mits for a few needles, and she conveyed the
idea that she had the long end of the trade! A fat youth with a fatuous
smile displayed with glee two bright tin cups, one for himself and one
for his prospective bride. He was positively happy in having obtained
nine cents' worth of tin for only an ivory tusk worth ninety dollars!
With the coming of the midnight tide we lifted the schooner to an even
keel from the makeshift dry-dock on the beach. She was then towed out
into the bay by the launch and two dories, and anchored.
Our first walrus adventures began in Wolstenholm Sound during the
beautiful nightless days of mid-August. The local environment was
fascinating. The schooner was anchored in North Star Bay, a lake of
glitter in which wild men in skin canoes darted after seals and
eider-ducks. On grassy shores were sealskin tents, about which fur-clad
women and children vied with wolf-dogs for favorite positions to see the
queer doings of white men. A remarkable landmark made the place
conspicuous. A great table-topped rock rose suddenly out of a low
foreland to an altitude of about six hundred feet. About this giant
cliff, gulls, guillemots and ravens talked and winged uproariously. The
rock bore the native name of Oomanaq. With the unique Eskimo manner of
name-coining, the village was called Oomanooi.
Wolstenholm Sound is a large land-locked body of water, with arms
reaching to the narrow gorges of the overland sea of ice, from which
icebergs tumble ceaslessly. The sparkling water reflected the
surroundings in many shades of blue and brown, relieved by strong
contrasts of white and black. On the western sky line were the chiseled
walls of Acponie and other islands, and beyond a steel-gray mist in
which was wrapped the frozen sea of the Polar gateway. Fleets of
icebergs moved to and fro, dragging tails of drift bejeweled with blue
crystal.
Far out--ten miles from our outlook--there was a meeting of the
currents. Here, small pieces of sea-ice slowly circled in an eddy, and
upon them were herds of walruses. We did not see them, but their shrill
voices rang through the icy air like a wireless message. This was a
call to action which Mr. Bradley could not resist, and preparations were
begun for the combat.
The motor boat--the most important factor in the chase--had been
especially built for just such an encounter. Covered with a folding
whale-back top entirely painted white to resemble ice, we had hoped to
hunt walrus under suitable Arctic cover.
Taking a white dory in tow, two Eskimo harpooners were invited to
follow. The natives in kayaks soon discovered to their surprise that
their best speed was not equal to ours--for the first time they were
beaten in their own element. For ages the Eskimos had rested secure in
the belief that the kayak was the fastest thing afloat. They had been
beaten by big ships, of course, but these had spiritual wings and did
not count in the race of man's craft. This little launch, however, with
its rapid-fire gas explosions, made their eyes bulge to a wondering,
wide-open, seal-like curiosity. They begged to be taken aboard to watch
the loading of the engines; they thought we fed it with cartridges.
After a delightful run of an hour, a pan of ice was sighted with black
hummocks on it. "_Ahwek! Ahwek!_" the Eskimos shouted. A similar sound
floated over the oily waters from many walrus throats. The walruses were
about three miles to the southwest. At a slower speed we advanced two
miles more. In the meantime Mr. Bradley cleared the deck for action. The
direction of the hunting tactics was now turned over to My-ah. The mate
was at the wheel. I pushed the levers of the gasoline kicker. Our line
of attack was ordered at right angles to the wind. As we neared the
game, the engines were stopped.
Looking through glasses, the sight of the gregarious herd made our
hearts quicken. They were all males of tremendous size, with glistening
tusks with which they horned one another in efforts for favorable
positions. Some were asleep, others basked in the sun with heads turning
lazily from side to side. Now and then, they uttered sleepy, low grunts.
They were quivering in a gluttonous slumber, while the organs piled up
their bank account of fat to pay the costs of the gamble of the coming
winter night.
With muffled paddles the launch was now silently propelled forward,
while the kayaks stealthily advanced to deliver the harpoons. The Eskimo
reason for this mode of procedure is based on a careful study of the
walrus' habits. Its nose in sleep is always pointed windwards. Its ears
are at all times sensitive to noises from every direction, while the
eyes during wakeful moments sweep the horizon. But its horizon is very
narrow. Only the nose and the ear sense the distant alarm. We advanced
very slowly and cautiously, and that only when all heads were down. Our
boat slowly got within three hundred yards of the herd. Preparing their
implements to strike, the Eskimos had advanced to within fifty feet. The
moment was tense. Of a sudden, a tumultuous floundering sound smote the
air. The sleeping creatures awoke, and with a start leaped into the sea.
Turning their kayaks, the Eskimos paddled a wild retreat and sought the
security of the launch. The sport of that herd was lost to us. Although
they darted about under water in a threatening manner, they only rose to
the surface at a safe distance.
Scanning the surroundings with our glasses, about two miles to the
south another group was sighted. This time Bradley, as the chief nimrod,
assumed direction. The kayaks and the Eskimos were placed in the dory.
Tactics were reversed. Instead of creeping up slowly, a sudden rush was
planned. No heed was taken of noise or wind. The carburetor was opened,
the spark lever of the magneto was advanced to its limit, and we shot
through the waters like a torpedo boat. As we neared the herd, the dory,
with its Eskimos, was freed from the launch. The Eskimos were given no
instructions, and they wisely chose to keep out of the battle.
As we got to within two hundred yards, the canvas top of the launch fell
and a heavy gun bombardment began. The walruses had not had time to
wake; the suddenness of the onslaught completely dazed them. One after
another dropped his ponderous head with a sudden jerk as a prize to the
marksmen, while the launch, at reduced speed, encircled the
walrus-encumbered pan. Few escaped. There were heads and meat and skins
enough to satisfy all wants for a long time to follow. But the game was
too easy--the advantage of an up-to-date sportsman had been carried to
its highest degree of perfection. It was otherwise, however, in the
walrus battles that followed later--battles on the success of which
depended the possibility of my being able to assail the northern ice
desert, in an effort to reach the Polar goal.
Oomanooi was but one of six villages among which the tribe had divided
its two hundred and fifty people for the current season. To study these
interesting folk, to continue the traffic and barter, and to enjoy for a
short time the rare sport of sailing and hunting in this wild region,
we decided to visit as many of the villages as possible.
In the morning the anchor was raised and we set sail in a light wind
headed for more northern villages. It was a gray day, with a quiet sea.
The speed of the yacht was not fast enough to be exciting, so Mr.
Bradley suggested lowering the launch for a crack at ducks, or a chase
at walrus or a drive at anything that happened to cut the waters. His
harpoon gun was taken, as it was hoped that a whale might come our way,
but the gun proved unsatisfactory and did not contribute much to our
sport. In the fleet launch we were able to run all around the schooner
as she slowly sailed over Wolstenholm Sound.
Ducks were secured in abundance. Seals were given chase, but they were
able to escape us. Nearing Saunders Island, a herd of walruses was seen
on a pan of drift ice far ahead. The magneto was pushed, the carburetor
opened, and out we rushed after the shouting beasts. Two, with splendid
tusks, were obtained, and two tons of meat and blubber were turned over
to our Eskimo allies.
The days of hunting proved quite strenuous, and in the evening we were
glad to seek the comfort of our cosy cabin, after dining on eider-ducks
and other game delicacies.
A few Eskimos had asked permission to accompany us to a point farther
north. Among them was a widow, to whom, for herself and her children, we
had offered a large bed, with straw in it, between decks, but which,
savage as she was, she had refused, saying she preferred the open air on
deck. There she arranged a den among the anchor chains, under a shelter
of seal skins.
In tears, she told us the story of her life, a story which offered a
peep into the tragedy and at the same time the essential comedy of
Eskimo existence. It came in response to a question from me as to how
the world had used her, for I had known her years before. At my simple
question, she buried her face in her hands and for a time could only
mutter rapidly and unintelligibly to her two little boys. Then, between
sobs, she told me her story.
Ma-nee--such was her name--was a descendant of the Eskimos of the
American side. A foreign belle, and, although thin, fair to look upon,
as Eskimo beauty goes, her hand was sought early by the ardent youths of
the tribe, who, truth to tell, look upon utility as more desirable than
beauty in a wife. The heart of Ma-nee throbbed to the pleadings of one
Ik-wa, a youth lithe and brave, with brawn and sinews as resilient as
rubber and strong as steel, handsome, dark, with flashing eyes, yet with
a heart as cruel as the relentless wind and cold sea of the North.
Ma-nee married Ik-wa and bore to him several children. These, which
meant wealth of the most valuable kind (children even exceeding in value
dogs, tusks and skins), meant the attainment of Ik-wa's selfish purpose.
Ma-nee was fair, but her hands were not adroit with the needle, nor was
she fair in the plump fashion desirable in wives.
Ik-wa met Ah-tah, a good seamstress, capable of much toil, not
beautiful, but round and plump. Whereupon, Ik-wa took Ah-tah to wife,
and leading Ma-nee to the door of their igloo, ordered her to leave.
Cruel as can be these natives, they also possess a persistence and a
tenderness that manifest themselves in strange, dramatic ways. Ma-nee,
disconsolate but brave, departed. There being at the time a scarcity of
marriageable women in the village, Ma-nee was soon wooed by another, an
aged Eskimo, whose muscles had begun to wither, whose eyes no longer
flashed as did Ik-wa's, but whose heart was kind. To him Ma-nee bore two
children, those which she had with her on deck. To them, unfortunately,
descended the heritage of their father's frailities; one--now
eight--being the only deaf and dumb Eskimo in all the land; the other,
the younger, aged three, a weakling with a pinched and pallid face and
thin, gaunt arms. Ma-nee's husband was not a good hunter, for age and
cold had sapped his vigor. Their home was peaceful if not prosperous;
the two loved one another, and, because of their defects, Ma-nee grew to
love her little ones unwontedly.
Just before the beginning of the long winter night, the old father,
anxious to provide food and deer skins for the coming months of
continuous darkness, ventured alone in search of game among the
mountains of the interior. Day after day, while the gloom descended,
Ma-nee, dry eyed waited. The aged father never came back. Returning
hunters finally brought news that he had perished alone, from a gun
accident, in the icy wilderness, and they had found him, his frozen,
mummied face peeping anxiously from the mantle of snow. Ma-nee wept
broken-heartedly.
Ma-nee gazed into the faces of the two children with a wild, tragic
wistfulness. By the stern and inviolable law of the Eskimos, Ma-nee knew
her two beloved ones were condemned to die. In this land, where food is
at a premium, and where every helpless and dependent life means a
sensible drain upon the tribe's resources, they have evolved that
Spartan law which results in the survival of only the fittest. The one
child, because of its insufficient senses, the other because it was
still on its mother's back and under three at the time its father died,
and with no father to support them, were doomed. Kind-hearted as the
Eskimos naturally are, they can at times, in the working out of that
code which means continued existence, be terribly brutal. Their fierce
struggle with the elements for very existence has developed in them an
elemental fierceness. From probable experience in long-past losses of
life from contagion, they instinctively destroy every igloo in which a
native dies, or, at times, to save the igloo, they heartlessly seize the
dying, and dragging him through the low door, cast him, ere breath has
ceased, into the life-stilling outer world.
This inviolable custom of ages Ma-nee, with a Spartan courage,
determined to break. During the long night which had just passed,
friends had been kind to Ma-nee, but now that she was defying Eskimo
usage, she could expect no assistance. Brutal as he had been to her,
hopeless as seemed such prospects, Ma-nee thought of the cruel Ik-wa and
determined to go to him, with the two defective children of her second
husband, beg him to accept them as his own and to take her, as a
secondary wife, a servant--a position of humiliation and hard labor. In
this determination, which can be appreciated only by those who know how
implacable and heartless the natives can be, Ma-nee was showing one of
their marvellous traits, that indomitable courage, persistence and
dogged hopefulness which, in my two later companions, E-tuk-i-shook and
Ah-we-lah, enabled them, with me, to reach the Pole.
I admired the spirit of Ma-nee, and promised to help her, although the
mission of reuniting the two seemed dubious.
Ma-nee was not going to Ik-wa entirely empty-handed, however, for she
possessed some positive wealth in the shape of several dogs, and three
bundles of skins and sticks which comprised her household furniture.
We soon reached the village where Ma-nee was to be put ashore. Very
humbly, the heroic mother and her two frail children went to Ik-wa's
tent. Ik-wa was absent hunting, and his wife, who had supplanted Ma-nee,
a fat, unsociable creature, appeared. Weeping, Ma-nee told of her plight
and begged for shelter. The woman stolidly listened; then, without a
word, turned her back on the forlorn mother and entered her tent. For
the unintentional part we had played she gave us exceedingly cold,
frowning looks which were quite expressive.
Ma-nee now went to the other villagers. They listened to her plans, and
their primitive faces lighted with sympathy. I soon saw them serving a
pot of steaming oil meat in her honor--a feast in which we were urgently
invited to partake, but which we, fortunately, found some good excuse
for avoiding. Although she had violated a custom of the tribe, these
people, both stern-hearted and tender, recognized the greatness of a
mother-love which had braved an unwritten law of ages, and they took her
in. Several months later, on a return to the village, I saw Ik-wa
himself. Although he did not thank me for the unwitting part I had
played in their reunion, he had taken Ma-nee back, and near his own
house was a new igloo in which the mother lived with her children.
Resuming our journey, a snow squall soon frosted the deck of the yacht,
and to escape the icy air we retired early to our berths. During the
night the speed of the yacht increased, and when we appeared on deck
again, at four o'clock in the morning, the rays of the August sun seemed
actually warm.
We passed the ice-battered and storm-swept cliffs of Cape Parry and
entered Whale Sound. On a sea of gold, strewn with ice islands of
ultramarine and alabaster, whales spouted and walrus shouted. Large
flocks of little auks rushed rapidly by.
The wind was light, but the engine took us along at a pace just fast
enough to allow us to enjoy the superb surroundings. In the afternoon we
were well into Inglefield Gulf, and near Itiblu. There was a strong head
wind, and enough ice about to make us cautious in our prospect.
We aimed here to secure Eskimo guides and with them seek caribou in
Olrik's Bay. While the schooner was tacking for a favorable berth in the
drift off Kanga, the launch was lowered, and we sought to interview the
Eskimos of Itiblu. The ride was a wet one, for a short, choppy sea
poured icy spray over us and tumbled us about.
There were only one woman, a few children, and about a score of dogs at
the place. The woman was a remarkably fast talker, long out of practice.
She told us that her husband and the other men were absent on a caribou
hunt, and then, with a remarkably rapid articulation and without a
single question from us, plunged incessantly on through all the news of
the tribe for a year. After gasping for breath like a smothered seal,
she then began with news of previous years and a history of forgotten
ages. We started back for the launch, and she invited herself to the
pleasure of our company to the beach.
We had gone only a few steps before it occurred to her that she was in
need of something. Would we not get her a few boxes of matches in
exchange for a narwhal tusk? We should be delighted, and a handful of
sweets went with the bargain. Her boy brought down two ivory tusks, each
eight feet in length, the two being worth one hundred and fifty dollars.
Had we a knife to spare? Yes; and a tin spoon was also given, just to
show that we were liberal.
The yacht was headed northward, across Inglefield Gulf. With a fair
wind, we cut tumbling seas of ebony with a racing dash. Though the wind
was strong, the air was remarkably clear.
The great chiselled cliffs of Cape Auckland rose in terraced grandeur
under the midnight sun. The distance was twelve miles, and it was twelve
miles of submerged rocks and shallow water.
It was necessary to give Karnah a wide berth. There were bergs enough
about to hold the water down, though an occasional sea rose with a
sickening thump. At Karnah we went ashore. There was not a man in town,
all being absent on a distant hunting campaign. But, though there were
no men, the place was far from being deserted, for five women, fifteen
children and forty-five dogs came out to meet us.
Here we saw five sealskin tents pitched among the bowlders of a glacial
stream. An immense quantity of narwhal meat was lying on the rocks and
stones to dry. Skins were stretched on the grass, and a general air of
thrift was evidenced about the place. Bundles of seal-skins, packages of
pelts and much ivory were brought out to trade and establish friendly
intercourse. We gave the natives sugar, tobacco and ammunition in
quantities to suit their own estimate of value.
Would we not place ourselves at ease and stay for a day or two, as their
husbands would soon return? We were forced to decline their hospitality,
for without the harbor there was too much wind to keep the schooner
waiting. Eskimos have no salutation except a greeting smile or a parting
look of regret. We got both at the same time as we stepped into the
launch and shouted good-bye.
The captain was told to proceed to Cape Robertson. The wind eased, and a
descending fog soon blotted out part of the landscape, horizon and sky.
It hung like a gray pall a thousand feet above us, leaving the air below
this bright and startlingly clear.
TO THE LIMITS OF NAVIGATION
EXCITING HUNTS FOR GAME WITH THE ESKIMOS--ARRIVAL AT ETAH--SPEEDY
TRIP TO ANNOATOK, THE WINDY PLACE, WHERE SUPPLIES ARE FOUND IN
ABUNDANCE--EVERYTHING AUSPICIOUS FOR DASH TO THE POLE--DETERMINATION
TO ESSAY THE EFFORT--BRADLEY INFORMED--DEBARK FOR THE POLE--THE
YACHT RETURNS
IV
ALONE WITH OUR DESTINY, SEVEN HUNDRED MILES FROM THE POLE
We awoke off Cape Robertson early on August 13, and went ashore before
breakfast. The picturesque coast here rises suddenly to an altitude of
about two thousand feet, and is crowned with a gleaming, silver ice cap.
Large bays, blue glacial walls and prominent headlands give a pleasing
variety. It is much like the coast of all Greenland. On its southern
exposure the eroded Huronian rocks provide shelter for millions of
little auks. They dart incessantly from cliff to sea in a chattering
cloud of wings. Rather rich and grassy verdure offers an oasis for the
Arctic hare, while the blue fox finds life easy here, for he can fill
his winter den with the fat feathered creatures which teem by millions.
The Eskimos profit by the combination, and pitch their camp at the foot
of the cliffs, for the chase on sea is nearly as good here as in other
places, while land creatures literally tumble into the larder.
As we approached the shore, ten men, nine women, thirty-one children and
one hundred and six dogs came out to meet us. I count the children and
dogs for they are equally important in Eskimo economy. The latter are by
far the most important to the average Caucasian in the Arctic.
Only small game had fallen to the Eskimos' lot, and they were eager to
venture out with us after big game. Mr. Bradley gathered a suitable
retinue of native guides, and we were not long in arranging a compact.
Free passage, the good graces of the cook, and a knife each were to be
their pay. A caribou hunt was not sufficiently novel to merit a return
to Olrik's Bay, where intelligent hunting is always rewarded, but it was
hoped we might get a hunt at Kookaan, near the head of Robertson Bay.[4]
Although hunting in the bay was not successful from a practical
standpoint, it afforded exciting pleasure in perilous waters. Even
during these hours of sport, my mind was busy with tentative plans for a
Polar journey. Whenever I aimed my gun at a snorting walrus, or at some
white-winged Arctic bird, I felt a thrill in the thought that upon the
skill of my arms, of my aim, and upon that of the natives we were later
to join, would depend the getting of food sufficient to enable me to
embark upon my dream. Everything I did now began to have some bearing
upon this glorious, intoxicating prospect; it colored my life, day and
night. I realized how easily I might fail even should conditions be
favorable enough to warrant the journey; for this reason, because of the
unwelcome doubt which at times chilled my enthusiasm, I did not yet
confide to Bradley my growing ambition.
Returning to the settlement, we paid our hunting guides, made presents
to the women and children, and set sail for Etah. An offshore breeze
filled the big wings of the canvas. As borne on the back of some great
white bird, we soared northward into a limpid molten sea. From below
came the music of our phonograph, curiously shouting its tunes, classic
and popular, in that grim, golden region of glory and death.
It is curious how ambition sets the brain on fire, and quickens the
heart throbs. As we sped over the magical waters, the wild golden air
electric about me, I believe I felt an ecstasy of desire such as mystics
achieved from fasting and prayer. It was the surge of an ambition which
began to grow mightily within me, which I felt no obstacle could
withstand, and which, later, I believe carried me forward with its wings
of faith when my body well nigh refused to move. We passed Cape
Alexander and entered Smith Sound. We sped by storm-chiselled cliffs,
whereupon the hand of nature had written a history, unintelligible to
humans, as with a pen of iron. The sun was low. Great bergs loomed up in
the radiant distance, and reflecting silver-shimmering halos, seemed to
me as the silver-winged ghosts of those who died in this region and who
were borne alone on the wind and air.
Nature seemed to sing with exultation. Approaching a highland of emerald
green and seal brown, I heard the wild shouting of hawks from the
summit, and from below the shrill chattering of millions of auks with
baby families. And nearer, from the life enraptured waters, the minor
note of softly cooing ducks and mating guillemots. From the interior
land of ice, rising above the low booming of a sapphire glacier moving
majestically to the sea, rang the bark of foxes, the shrill notes of the
ptarmigan, and from an invisible farther distance the raucous wolf howl
of Eskimo dogs.
Before us, at times, would come a burst of spouting spray, and a whale
would rise to the surface of the sea. Nearby, on a floating island of
ice, mother walrus would soothingly murmur to her babies. From invisible
places came the paternal voices of the oogzook, and as we went forward,
seals, white whales and unicorns appeared, speaking perhaps the sign
language of the animal deaf and dumb in the blue submarine.
Occasionally, there was an explosion, when thunder as from a hundred
cannons echoed from cliff to cliff. A berg was shattered to ruins.
Following this would rise the frightened voices of every animal above
water. Now and then, from ultramarine grottoes issued weird, echoing
sounds, and almost continually rising to ringing peals and shuddering
into silence, reiterant, incessant, came nature's bugle-calls--calls of
the wind, of sundering glaciers, of sudden rushes of ice rivers, of
exploding gases and of disintegrating bergs. With those sounds pealing
in our ears clarion-like, we entered the "Gates of Hades," the Polar
gateway, bound for the harbor where the last fringe of the world's
humanity straggles finally up on the globe.
As we entered Foulke Fiord, half a gale came from the sea. We steered
for the settlement of Etah. A tiny settlement it was, for it was
composed of precisely four tents, which for this season, had been
pitched beside a small stream, just inside of the first projecting point
on the north shore. Inside this point there was sheltered water for the
Eskimo's kayaks, and it also made a good harbor for the schooner. It is
possible in favorable seasons to push through Smith Sound, over Kane
Basin, into Kennedy Channel, but the experiment is always at the risk of
the vessel.
So, as there was no special reasons for us to hazard life in making this
attempt, we decided to prepare the schooner here for the return voyage.
These preparations would occupy several days. We determined to spend as
much of this time as possible in sport, since much game abounded in this
region. Before we landed we watched the Eskimos harpoon a white whale.
There were no unexplored spots in this immediate vicinity, as both
Doctor Kane and Doctor Hayes, in the middle of the last century, had
been thoroughly over the ground. The little auks kept us busy for a day
after our arrival, while hares, tumbling like snowballs over
wind-polished, Archaean rocks, gave another day of gun recreation. Far
beyond, along the inland ice, were caribou, but we preferred to confine
our hunting to the seashore. The bay waters were alive with eider-ducks
and guillemots, while, just outside, walruses dared us to venture in
open contest on the wind-swept water.
After satisfying our desire for the hunt, we prepared to start for
Annoatok, twenty-five miles to the northward. This is the northernmost
settlement of the globe, a place beyond which even the hardy Eskimos
attempt nothing but brief hunting excursions, and where, curiously,
money is useless because it has no value.
We decided to go in the motor boat, so the tanks were filled with
gasoline and suitable food and camp equipment were loaded. On the
morning of August 24, we started for Annoatok.
It was a beautiful day. The sun glowed in a sky of Italian blue. A light
air crossed the sea, which glowed dully, like ground glass. Passing
inside of Littleton Island, we searched for relics along Lifeboat Cove.
There the _Polaris_ was stranded in a sinking condition in 1872, with
fourteen men on board. The desolate cliffs of Cape Hatherton were a
midsummer blaze of color and light that contrasted strongly with the
cold blue of the many towering bergs.
As we went swiftly past the series of wind-swept headlands, the sea and
air became alive with seals, walruses and birds. We did little shooting
as we were eagerly bent on reaching Annoatok.
As we passed the sharp rocks of Cairn Point, we saw a cluster of nine
tents on a small bay under Cape Inglefield.
"Look, look! There is Annoatok!" cried Tung-we, our native guide.
Looking farther, we saw that the entire channel beyond was blocked with
a jam of ice. Fortunately we were able to take our boat as far as we
desired. A perpendicular cliff served as a pier to which to fasten it.
Here it could rise and fall with the tide, and in little danger from
drifting ice.
Ordinarily, Annoatok is a town of only a single family or perhaps two,
but we found it unusually large and populous, for the best hunters had
gathered here for the winter bear hunt. Their summer game catch had been
very lucky. Immense quantities of meat were strewn along the shore,
under mounds of stone. More than a hundred dogs, the standard by which
Eskimo prosperity is measured, yelped a greeting, and twelve
long-haired, wild men came out to meet us as friends.
It came strongly to me that this was the spot to make the base for a
Polar dash. Here were Eskimo helpers, strong, hefty natives from whom I
could select the best to accompany me; here, by a fortunate chance, were
the best dog teams; here were plenty of furs for clothing; and here was
unlimited food. These supplies, combined with supplies on the schooner,
would give all that was needed for the campaign. Nothing could have been
more ideal.
For the past several days, having realized the abundance of game and the
auspicious weather, I had thought more definitely of making a dash for
the Pole. With all conditions in my favor, might I not, by one powerful
effort, achieve the thing that had haunted me for years? My former
failures dogged me. If I did not try now, it was a question if an
opportunity should ever again come to me.
Now every condition was auspicious for the effort. I confess the task
seemed audacious almost to the verge of impossibility. But, with all
these advantages so fortunately placed in my hands, it took on a new and
almost weird fascination. My many years of schooling in both Polar zones
and in mountaineering would now be put to their highest test.
Yes, I would try, I told myself; I believed I should succeed. I informed
Mr. Bradley of my determination. He was not over-optimistic about
success, but he shook my hand and wished me luck. From his yacht he
volunteered food, fuel, and other supplies, for local camp use and
trading, for which I have been thankful.
"Annoatok" means "a windy place." There is really nothing there to be
called a harbor; but we now planned to bring the schooner to this point
and unload her on the rocky shore, a task not unattended with danger.
However, the base had to be made somewhere hereabout, as Etah itself is
still more windy than Annoatok. Moreover, at Etah the landing is more
difficult, and it was not nearly so convenient for my purpose as a base.
Besides, there were gathered at Annoatok, as I have described, with
needed food and furs in abundance, the best Eskimos[5] in all Greenland,
from whom, by reason of the rewards from civilization which I could
give them, such as knives, guns, ammunition, old iron, needles and
matches, I could select a party more efficient, because of their
persistence, tough fibre, courage and familiarity with Arctic traveling,
than any party of white men could be.
The possible combination of liberal supplies and valiant natives left
absolutely nothing to be desired to insure success, so far as
preliminaries were concerned. It was only necessary that good health,
endurable weather and workable ice should follow. The expenditure of a
million dollars could not have placed an expedition at a better
advantage. The opportunity was too good to be lost. We therefore
returned to Etah to prepare for the quest.
At Etah, practically everything that was to be landed at Annoatok was
placed on deck, so that the dangerous stop beside the rocks of Annoatok
could be made a brief one. The ship was prepared for the contingency of
a storm.
Late in the evening of August 26, the entire population of Etah was
taken aboard, the anchor was tripped, and soon the _Bradley's_ bow put
out on the waters of Smith Sound for Annoatok. The night was cold and
clear, brightened by the charm of color. The sun had just begun to dip
under the northern horizon, which marks the end of the summer double
days of splendor and begins the period of storms leading into the long
night. Early in the morning we were off Annoatok.
The launch and all the dories were lowered and filled. Eskimo boats were
pressed into service and loaded. The boats were towed ashore. Only a few
reached Annoatok itself, for the wind increased and a troublesome sea
made haste a matter of great importance. Things were pitched ashore
anywhere on the rocks where a landing could be found for the boats.
The splendid efficiency of the launch proved equal to the emergency, and
in the course of about thirteen hours all was safely put on shore in
spite of dangerous winds and forbidding seas. That the goods were spread
along the shore for a distance of several miles did not much matter, for
the Eskimos willingly and promptly carried them to the required points.
Now the time had come for the return of the schooner to the United
States. Unsafe to remain longer at Annoatok at this advanced stage of
the season, it was also imperative that it go right on with barely a
halt at any other place. The departure meant a complete severance
between the civilized world and myself. But I do not believe, looking
back upon it, that the situation seemed as awesome as might be supposed.
Other explorers had been left alone in the Northland, and I had been
through the experience before.
The party, so far as civilized men were concerned, was to be an
unusually small one. That, however, was not from lack of volunteers, for
when I had announced my determination many of the crew had volunteered
to accompany me. Captain Bartlett himself wished to go along, but
generously said that if it seemed necessary for him to go back with the
schooner, he would need only a cook and engineer, leaving the other men
with me.
I wanted only one white companion, however, for I knew that no group of
white men could possibly match the Eskimos in their own element. I had
the willing help of all the natives, too, at my disposal. More than that
was not required. I made an agreement with them for their assistance
throughout the winter in getting ready, and then for as many as I wanted
to start with me toward the uttermost North. For my white companion I
selected Rudolph Francke, now one of the Arctic enthusiasts on the
yacht. He had shipped for the experience of an Arctic trip. He was a
cultivated young German with a good scientific schooling. He was strong,
goodnatured, and his heart was in the prospective work. These were the
qualities which made him a very useful man as my sole companion.
Early on the morning of September 3, I bade farewell to Mr. Bradley, and
not long afterward the yacht moved slowly southward and faded gradually
into the distant southern horizon. I was left alone with my destiny,
seven hundred miles from the Pole.
BEGINNING PREPARATIONS FOR THE POLAR DASH
THE ARCTIC SOLITUDE--RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION--THE DETERMINATION
TO ACHIEVE--PLANNING OUT THE DETAILS OF THE CAMPAIGN--AN ENTIRE TRIBE
BUSILY AT WORK
V
THE POLE, THE ROUTE, AND THE INCENTIVE
When the yacht disappeared I felt a poignant pang at my heart. After it
had faded, I stood gazing blankly at the sky, and I felt the lure of the
old world. The yacht was going home--to the land of my family and
friends. I was now alone, and, with the exception of Francke, there was
no white man among this tribe of wild people with whom to converse
during the long Arctic night that was approaching. I knew I should not
be lonely, for there was a tremendous lot of work to do, although I had
unstinted assistance. In every detail, the entire six months of labor
including the catching of animals, the drying of meat, the making of
such clothes and sledges as would be necessary, and the testing of them,
would have to be managed by myself. Turning from the rocky highland
where I stood, a wild thrill stirred my heart. The hour of my
opportunity had come. After years of unavailing hopes and depressing
defeats my final chance was presented! In the determination to succeed,
every drop of blood in my body, every fibre of me responded.
Why did I desire so ardently to reach the North Pole? What did I hope to
gain? What, if successful, did I expect to reap as the result of my
dreams? These questions since have been asked by many. I have searched
the chambers of my memory and have tried to resolve replies to myself.
The attaining of the North Pole meant at the time simply the
accomplishing of a splendid, unprecedented feat--a feat of brain and
muscle in which I should, if successful, signally surpass other men. In
this I was not any more inordinately vain or seekful of glory than one
who seeks pre-eminence in baseball, running tournaments, or any other
form of athletics or sport.
At the time, any applause which the world might give, should I succeed,
did not concern me; I knew that this might come, but it did not enter
into my speculations.
For years I had felt the lure of the silver glamor of the North, and I
can explain this no more than the reason why a poet is driven to express
himself in verse, or why one child preternaturally develops amazing
proficiency in mathematics and another in music. Certain desires are
born or unconsciously developed in us. I, with others before me, found
my life ambition in the conquest of the Pole. To reach it would mean, I
knew, an exultation which nothing else in life could give.
This imaginary spot held for me the revealing of no great scientific
secrets. I never regarded the feat as of any great scientific value.
The real victory would lie, not in reaching the goal itself, but in
overcoming the obstacles which exist in the way of it. In the battle
with these I knew there would be excitement, danger, necessary
expedients to tax the brain and heroic feats to tax the muscles, the
ever constant incentive which the subduing of one difficulty after
another excites.
During the first day at Annoatok, after the yacht left, I thought of the
world toward which it was going, of the continents to the south of me,
of the cities with their teeming millions, and of the men with their
multitudinous, conflicting ambitions. I could see, in my mind, the
gigantic globe of my world swinging in cloud-swept emerald spaces, and
far in the remote, vast, white regions in the north of it, far from the
haunts of men, thousands of miles from its populous cities, beyond the
raging of its blue-green seas, myself, alone, a wee, small atom on its
vast surface, striving to reach its hitherto unattained goal. I felt, as
I thought of my anticipation and lonely quest, a sense of the terrible
overwhelming hugeness of the earth, and the poignant loneliness any soul
must feel when it embarks upon some splendid solitary destiny.
Beyond and above me I visioned the unimaginable, blinding white regions
of ice and cold, about which, like a golden-crowned sentinel, with face
of flame, the circling midnight sun kept guard. Upon this desolate,
awe-inspiring stage--unchanged since the days of its designing--I saw
myself attempting to win in the most spectacular and difficult marathon
for the testing of human strength, courage and perseverance, of body and
brain, which God has offered to man. I could see myself, in my fancy
pictures, invading those roaring regions, struggling over icy lands in
the dismal twilight of the Arctic morning, and venturing, with a few
companions, upon the lifeless, wind-swept Polar sea. A black mite, I saw
myself slowly piercing those white and terrible spaces, braving terrific
storms, assailing green, adamantine barriers of ice, crossing the
swift-flowing, black rivers of those ice fields, and stoutly persisting
until, successful, I stood alone, a victor, upon the world's pinnacle!
This thought gave me wild joy. That I, one white man, might alone
succeed in this quest gave me an impetus which only single-handed effort
and the prospect of single-handed success can give. There was pleasure
in the thought that, in this effort, I was indebted to no one; no one
had expended money for me or my trip; no white men were to risk their
lives with me. Whether it resulted in success or defeat, I alone should
exult or I alone should suffer. I was the mascot of no clique of
friends, nor the pawn of scientists who might find a suppositious and
mythical glory in the reflected light of another's achievement. The
quest was personal; the pleasure of success must be personal.
Yet, I want you to understand this thing was no casual jaunt with me.
All my life hinged about it, my hopes were bent upon it; the doing of it
was part of me. My plans of action were not haphazard and hair-brained.
Logically and clearly, I mapped out a campaign. It was based upon
experience in known conditions, experience gathered after years of
discouragement and failure.
At Annoatok we erected a house of packing boxes.[6] The building of the
house, which was to be both storehouse and workshop, was a simple
matter. The walls were made of the packing boxes, especially selected of
uniform size for this purpose.
[Illustration: ON THE CHASE FOR BEAR
THE BOX-HOUSE AT ANNOATOK AND ITS WINTER ENVIRONMENT]
[Illustration: MAN'S PREY OF THE ARCTIC SEA--WALRUS ASLEEP]
Enclosing a space thirteen by sixteen feet, the cases were quickly piled
up. The walls were held together by strips of wood, the joints sealed
with pasted paper, with the addition of a few long boards. A really good
roof was made by using the covers of the boxes as shingles. A blanket of
turf over this confined the heat and permitted, at the same time,
healthful circulation of air.
We slept under our own roof at the end of the first day. Our new house
had the great advantage of containing within it all our possessions
within easy reach at all times. When anything was needed in the way of
supplies, all we had to do was to open a box in the wall.
The house completed, we immediately began the work of building sledges,
and the equally important work, at which a large proportion of the
Eskimos were at once set, of making up furs into clothing. According to
my plans, each one of us embarking in the Polar journey would have to
carry two suits of fur clothing. In the Arctic regions, especially when
men are marching to the limit of their strength every day, the bodily
heat puts the clothing into such condition that the only safe way, if
health is to be preserved, is to change suits frequently, while the
perspiration-soaked furs are laid out to dry.
The Eskimos had also to prepare for winter. Tents of sealskin are
inhabitable only in the summer time. For the coming period of darkness
and bitter cold, they made igloos of stone and snow.
Meanwhile, they were not in the least averse to agreeable relaxation. I
had with me a good supply of tea, and was in the habit of drinking a cup
of it with Francke about four o'clock every afternoon. Observing this,
the Eskimos at once began to present themselves at the tea hour.
Fortunately, tea was one of the supplies of which I had brought a good
deal for the sake of pleasing the natives, and it was not long before I
had a very large and gossipy afternoon tea party every day, in this
northernmost human settlement of the globe.
I planned to superintend every detail of progress, as far as it
concerned our journey. I could watch the men, too, and see which ones
promised to be the best to accompany me. And, what was a most important
point, I could also perfect my final plans for the advance right at my
final base.
I aimed to reach the top of the globe in the angle between Alaska and
Greenland, a promising route through a new and lonesome region which had
not been tried, abandoning what has come to be called the "American
Route." I should strike westward and then northward, working new trails.
With Annoatok as a base of operations, I planned to carry sufficient
supplies over Schley Land and along the west coast of the game lands,
trusting that the game along this region would furnish sufficient
supplies en route to the shores of the Polar sea. This journey to land's
end would also afford a test of every article of equipment needed in the
field work, and would enable us to choose finally from a selected
number of Eskimos those most able to endure the rigors of the unlimited
journey which lay before us.
I sent out a few hunters along the intended line to seek for haunts of
game, but I was not surprised that their searching in the dark was
practically unsuccessful, and it merely meant that I must depend upon my
previous knowledge of conditions. I knew from the general reports of the
natives, and from the explorations of Sverdrup, that the beginning of
the intended route offered abundant game, and the indications were that
further food would likewise be found as we advanced. The readiness with
which the Eskimos declared themselves ready to trust to the food supply
of the unknown region was highly encouraging.
To start from my base with men and dogs in superb condition, with their
bodies nourished with wholesome fresh meat instead of the nauseating
laboratory stuff too often given to men in the North, was of vital
importance; and if the men and dogs could afterwards be supported in
great measure by the game of the region through which we were to pass,
it would be of an importance more vital still. If my information was
well founded and my general conjectures correct, I should have
advantages which had not been possessed by any other leader of a Polar
expedition. The new route seemed to promise, also, immunity from the
highly disturbing effects of certain North Greenland currents. In all,
the chances seemed not unfavorable.
With busy people hard at work about me, I knew that the months of the
long night would pass rapidly by. There was much to do, and with the
earliest dawn of the morning of the next year we must be ready to start
for the Pole.
THE CURTAIN OF NIGHT DROPS
TRIBE OF TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY NATIVES BUSILY BEGIN PREPARATIONS FOR THE
POLAR DASH--EXCITING HUNTS FOR THE UNICORN AND OTHER GAME FROM ANNOATOK
TO CAPE YORK--EVERY ANIMAL CAUGHT BEARING UPON THE SUCCESS OF THE
VENTURE--THE GREY-GREEN GLOOM OF TWILIGHT IN WHICH THE ESKIMO WOMEN
COMMUNICATE WITH THE SOULS OF THE DEAD
VI
THE SUNSET OF 1907
Winter, long-lasting, dark and dismal, approached. To me it was to be a
season of feverish labor in which every hand at work and every hour
employed counted in the problem of success. While the hands of the
entire tribe would be busy, and while I should direct and help in the
making of sleds, catching of game, preparing of meat, I knew that my
mind would find continual excitement in dreams of my quest, in
anticipating and solving its difficulties, in feeling the bounding pulse
of the dash over the ice of the Polar sea, with dogs joyously barking,
whips cracking the air, and the reappearing sun paving our pathway with
liquid gold. In the labor of the long winter which I began to map out I
knew I should find ceaseless zest, for the pursuit of every narwhal,
every walrus, every fox I should regard with abated suspense, each one
bearing upon my chances; in the employment of every pair of hands I
should hang with an eager interest, the expediency and excellence of the
work making for success or failure. From this time onward everything of
my life, every native, every occurrence began to have some bearing upon
the dominating task to which I had set myself.
With the advance of winter, storms of frightful ferocity began to arise.
Inasmuch as we had stored meat and blubber in large quantities about our
camp, it was not necessary at these times to venture out to dig up
supplies from great depths of snow drift. During these periods hands
were employed busily inside the igloos. Although a large quantity of
animals and furs had been gathered by the hunters before our arrival, we
now unexpectedly discovered that the supply was inadequate. According to
my plans, a large party of picked natives would accompany me to land's
end and somewhat beyond on the Polar sea when I started for my dash in
the coming spring. As spring is the best hunting season, it was
therefore imperative to secure sufficient advance provisions for the
families of these men in addition to preparing requisites for my
expedition. So the early days of the winter would have to be busily
occupied by the men in a ceaseless hunt for game, and later, even when
the darkness had fully fallen, the moonlight days and nights would thus
have to be utilized also.
In the Polar cycle of the seasons there are peculiar conditions which
apply to circumstances and movements. As the word, seasons, is
ordinarily understood, there are but two, a winter season and a summer
season--a winter season of nine months and a summer of three months.
But, for more convenient division of the yearly periods, it is best to
retain the usual cycle of four seasons. Eskimos call the winter
"ookiah," which also means year, and the summer "onsah." Days are
"sleeps." The months are moons, and the periods are named in accord with
the movements of various creatures of the chase.
In early September at Annoatok the sun dips considerably under the
northern horizon. There is no night. At sunset and at sunrise storm
clouds hide the bursts of color which are the glory of twilight, and the
electric afterglow is generally lost in a dull gray.
The gloom of the coming winter night now thickens. The splendor of the
summer day has gone. A day of six months and a night of six months is
often ascribed to the Polar regions as a whole, but this is only true of
a very small area about the Pole.
As we come south, the sun slips under the horizon for an ever-increasing
part of each twenty-four hours. Preceding and following the night, as we
come from the Pole, there is a period of day and night which lengthens
with the descent of latitude.
It is this period which enables us to retain the names of the usual
seasons--summer for the double days, fall for the period of the setting
sun. This season begins when the sun first dips under the ice at
midnight for a few moments. These moments increase rapidly, yet one
hardly appreciates that the sun is departing until day and night are of
equal length, for the night remains light, though not cheerful. Then the
day rapidly shortens and darkens, and the sun sinks until at last there
is but a mere glimmer of the glory of day. Winter is limited to the
long night, and spring applies to the days of the rising sun, a period
corresponding to the autumn days of the setting sun.
At Annoatok the midnight sun is first seen on April 23. It dips in the
sea on August 19. It thus encircles the horizon, giving summer and
continuous day for one hundred and eighteen days. It sets at midday on
October 24, and is absent a period of prolonged night corresponding to
the day, and it rises on February 19. The Arctic air, with its low
temperature and its charge of frosted humidity, so distorts the sun's
rays that when low it is frequently lifted one or two diameters;
therefore, the exact day or hour for sunrise or sunset does not
correspond to mathematical calculations. Then follow days of spring.
In the fall, when the harmonizing influence of the sun is withdrawn,
there begins a battle of the elements which continues until stilled by
the hopeless frost of early night.
At this time, although field work was painful, the needs of our venture
forced us to persistent action in the chase of walrus, seal, narwhal and
white whale. We thus harvested food and fuel.
Before winter ice spread over the sea, ptarmigan, hare and reindeer were
sought on land to supply the table during the long night with
delicacies, while bear and fox pleased the palates of the Eskimos, and
their pelts clothed all.
Many long journeys were undertaken to secure an important supply of
grass to pad boots and mittens and also to secure moss, which serves as
wick for the Eskimo lamp. During the months of September and October,
along the entire Greenland coast, the Eskimos were engaged in a feverish
quest for reserve supplies. Shortly after my arrival, word had been
carried from village to village that I was at Annoatok, and, intending
to make a dash for the "Big Nail," desired the help of the entire tribe.
Intense and spontaneous activity followed. Knowing the demands of the
North, and of such work as I planned, the natives, without specific
instructions from me and with only a brief outline of the planned Polar
campaign which was sent from village to village, immediately got busy
gathering the needed things. They knew better than I where to go for
certain game, and where certain desirable things were obtainable. This
relieved me of a great responsibility. Each local group of natives was
to perform some important duty, suited to its available resources, in
gathering the tremendous amount of material required for our trip. Each
village had its peculiar game advantages.
In some places foxes and hares, the skins of which were necessary for
coats and stockings, were abundant, and the Eskimos must not only gather
the greatest number possible, but prepare the skins and make them into
properly fitting garments. In other places reindeer were plentiful. The
skin of these was needed for sleeping bags, while the sinew was required
for thread. In still other places seal was the luck of the chase; its
skin was one of our most important needs. Of it boots were made, and an
immense amount of line and lashings prepared.
Thus, in one way or another, every man and woman and most of the
children of this tribe of two hundred and fifty people were kept busy in
the service of the expedition. The work was well done, and with much
better knowledge of the fitness of things than could have been possessed
by any possible gathering of alien white men.
The quest of the walrus and the narwhal came in our own immediate plan
of adventure, although the narwhal, called by whale fishers the unicorn,
does not often come under the eye of the white man. It afforded for a
brief spell good results in sport and useful material. Its blubber is
the pride of every housekeeper, for it gives a long, hot flame to the
lamp, with no smoke to spot the igloo finery. The skin is regarded as
quite a delicacy. Cut into squares, it looks and tastes like scallops,
with only a slight aroma of train oil. The meat dries easily, and is
thus prized as an appetizer or as a lunch to be eaten en route in sled
or kayak. In this shape it was an extremely useful thing for us, for it
took the place of pemmican on our less urgent journeys.
Narwhals played in schools, far off shore, and usually along the edges
of some large ice field, their long ivory tusks rising under spouts of
breath and spray. Whenever this glad sight was noted, every kayak about
camp was manned, and the skin canoes went flittering like birds over the
water. Some of the Eskimos climbed to the ice fields and delivered their
harpoons from a secure footing. Others hid behind floating fragments of
heavy ice and made a sudden rush as the animals passed. Still others
came up in the rear, for the narwhal cannot easily see backward, and
does not often turn to watch its enemies, its speed being so fast that
it can easily keep ahead of them.
In these exciting hunts I participated with eager delight, and by proxy
mentally engaged in every encounter. For, in this sea game, existed
food supplies which, instead of entirely confining myself to pemmican, I
planned also to use on my Polar journey. As the skin boats, like bugs,
sped over the water, I felt the movement of them surge in my brain; with
the upraising of each swift-darting native's arm I felt, as it were, my
heart stop with bated suspense. With every failure I experienced a throb
of dismay. With the hauling in of each slimy beast I felt, as it were,
nearer my goal.
Narwhal hunting, in itself, and without the added spur of personal
interest, which I had, is brimful of thrilling sport. The harpoon is
always delivered at close range. Whenever the dragging float marks the
end of the line in tow of the frightened creature, the line of skin
canoes follows. Timid by nature and fearing to rise for breath, the
narwhal plunges along until nearly strangled. When he does come up,
there are likely to be several Eskimos near with drawn lances, which
inflict deep gashes.
Again the narwhal plunges deep down, with but one breath, and hurries
along as best it can. But its speed slackens and a line of crimson marks
its hidden path. Loss of blood and want of air do not give it a chance
to fight. Again it comes up with a spout. Again the lances are hurled.
The battle continues for several hours, with many exciting adventures,
but in the end the narwhal always succumbs, offering a prize of several
thousands of pounds of meat and blubber. Victory as a rule is not gained
until the hunters are far from home, and also far from the shore line.
But the Eskimo is a courageous hunter and an intelligent seaman.
To the huge carcass frail kayaks are hitched in a long line. Towing is
slow, wind and sea combining to make the task difficult and dangerous.
One sees nothing of the narwhal and very little of the kayak, for
dashing seas wash over the little craft, but the double-bladed paddles
see-saw with the regularity of a pendulum. Homecoming takes many hours
and demands a prodigious amount of hard work, but there is energy to
spare, for a wealth of meat and fat is the culmination of all Eskimo
ambition.
Seven of these ponderous animals were brought in during five days,
making a heap of more than forty thousand pounds of food and fuel. The
sight of this tremulous, blubbering mass filled my heart with joy. Our
success was not too soon, for now the narwhals suddenly disappeared, and
we saw no more of them. About this time three white whales were also
obtained at Etah by a similar method of hunting.
With the advent of actual winter, storms swept over the land and sea
with such fury that it was no longer safe to venture out on the water in
kayaks. After the catching of several walruses from boats, sea hunting
now was confined to the quest of seal through young ice. As such hunting
would soon be limited to only a few open spaces near prominent
headlands, an industrious pursuit was feverishly engaged in at every
village from Annoatok to Cape York, and hour by hour, day by day, until
the hunt of necessity changed from sea to land, the husky natives
engaged in seal catching. As yet we had no caribou meat, and the little
auks, which had been gathered in nets during the summer, with the
eider-duck bagged later, soon disappeared as a steady diet. We must now
procure such available land game as hare, ptarmigan and reindeer, for we
had not yet learned to eat with a relish the fishy, liver-like substance
which is characteristic of all marine mammals.
Guns and ammunition were now distributed, and when the winds were easy
enough to allow one to venture out, every Eskimo sought the neighboring
hills. Francke also took his exercise with a gun on his shoulder.
The combined efforts resulted in a long line of ptarmigan, two reindeer
and sixteen hares. As snow covered the upper slopes, the game was forced
down near the sea, where we could still hope to hunt in the feeble light
of the early part of the night.
With a larder fairly stocked and good prospects for other tasty meats,
we were spared the anxiety of a winter without supplies. Francke was an
ideal chef in the preparation of this game to good effect, for he had a
delightful way of making our primitive provisions quite appetizing.
In the middle of October fox skins were prime, and then new steel traps
were distributed and set near the many caches. By this time all the
Eskimos had abandoned their sealskin tents and were snugly settled in
their winter igloos. The ground was covered with snow, and the sea was
almost entirely frozen.
Everybody was busy preparing for the coming cold and night. The
temperature was about 20 deg. below zero. Severe storms were becoming less
frequent, and the air, though colder, was less humid and less
disagreeable. An ice-foot was formed by the tides along shore, and over
this the winter sledging was begun by short excursions to bait the fox
traps and gather the foxes.
Our life now resolved itself into a systematic routine of work, which
was practically followed throughout the succeeding long winter night.
About the box-house in which Francke and I lived were igloos housing
eight to twelve families. The tribe of two hundred and fifty was
distributed in a range of villages along the coast, an average of four
families constituting a community. Early each morning Koo-loo-ting-wah
would bang at my door, enter, and I would drowsily awaken while he
freshened the fire. Rising, we would prepare hot coffee and partake of
breakfast with biscuits. By seven o'clock--according to our standard of
time--five or six of the natives would arrive, and, after a liberal
libation of coffee, begin work. I taught them to help me in the making
of my hickory sleds. Some I taught to use modern carpentering
instruments, which I had with me. Another group was schooled in bending
the resilient but tough hickory. This was done by wrapping old cloths
about the wood and steeping it in hot water. Others engaged, as the days
went by, in making dog harness, articles of winter clothing, and drying
meat. Not an hour was lost during the day. At noon we paused for a bite
of frozen meat and hot tea. Then we fell to work again without respite
until five or six o'clock.
Meanwhile, beginning in the early morning of our steadily darkening
days, other male members of the tribe pursued game. Others again
followed a routine of scouring of the villages and collecting all the
furs and game which had been caught. The women of the tribe, in almost
every dimly lighted igloo, were no less industrious. To them fell the
task of assisting in drying the fur skins, preparing dried meat and
making our clothing. Throughout the entire days they sat in their snow
and stone houses, masses of ill-smelling furs before them, cutting the
skins and sewing them into serviceable garments. This work I often
watched, passing from igloo to igloo, with an interest that verged on
anxiety; for upon the strength, thickness and durability of these
depended my life, and that of the companions I should choose, on the
frigid days which would inevitably come on my journey Poleward. But
these broad-faced, patient women did their work well. Their skill is
quite remarkable. They took my measurements, for instance, by roughly
sizing up my old garments and by measuring me by sight. Garments were
made to fit snugly after the preliminary making by cutting out or
inserting patches of fur. Needles among the natives are indeed precious.
So valuable are they that if a point or eye is broken, with infinite
skill and patience the broken end is heated and flattened, and by means
of a bow drill a new eye is bored. A new point is with equal skill
shaped on local stones. With marvelous patience they make their own
thread by drying and stripping caribou or narwhale sinews.
Were it not for their extraordinary eyesight, such work, under such
conditions, would be impossible. But in the dark the natives can espy
things invisible to white men. This owl-sight enables them to hunt, if
necessary, in almost pitch darkness, and to perform tedious feats of
hand skill which, in such dim light, an alien would bungle. I noticed,
with much curiosity, that when the natives inspected any photograph or
object which I gave them they always held it upside down. All objects,
as is well known, are reflected in the retina thus, and it is our
familiarity with the size and comparative relations of things which
enables the brain to visualize an object or scene at its proper angle.
This strange, instinctive act of the natives might form an interesting
chapter in optics.
Meanwhile, busy and interested in the beginning of our various pursuits,
the great crust which was to hold down the sea for so many months,
closed and thickened.
During the last days of brief sunshine the weather cleared, and at noon
on October 24 everybody sought the open for a last glimpse of the dying
day. There was a charm of color and glitter, but no one seemed quite
happy as the sun sank under the southern ice, for it was not to rise
again for one hundred and eighteen days.
Just prior to the falling of darkness, with that instinctive and forced
hilarity with which aboriginal beings seek to ward off an impending
calamity, the Eskimos engaged in their annual sporting event. It is a
curious sight, indeed, to behold a number of excited, laughing Eskimos
gathering about two champion dogs which are to fight. Although the zest
of betting is unknown, the natives regard dog fights with much the same
eager excitement as a certain type of sporting man does a cock
encounter. Sometimes the dogs do not fight fairly, a number of the
animals bunching together and attacking a single dog. Dogs selected for
the fight are, of course, the best of the teams. A dog which maintains
his fighting supremacy becomes a king dog, and when beaten becomes a
first lieutenant to the king.
After the forced enthusiasm of this brief period of excitement, the
Eskimos begin to succumb to the inevitable melancholia of nature, when
the sun, the source of natural life, disappears and darkness descends.
A gloom descends heavily upon their spirits. A subtle sadness tinctures
their life, and they are possessed by an impulse to weep. At this
season, hour by hour, the darkness thickens; the cold increases and
chills their igloos; the wind, exultant while the sun shines, now whines
and sobs dolorously--there is something gruesome, uncanny, supernatural,
in its siren sorrow. Outside, the snow falls, the sea closes. Its
clamant beat of waves is silenced. Sea animals mostly disappear; land
animals are rare. Their source of physical supply vanished, the Eskimos
unconsciously feel the grim hand of want, of starvation, which means
death, upon them. The psychology of this period of depression partly
lies, undoubtedly, in this instinctive dread of death from lack of food
and the natural depression of unrelieved gloom. Moreover, there is a
grief, born of the native superstition that, when the sea freezes, the
souls of all who have perished in the waters are imprisoned during the
long night. Too fierce is the struggle of these people with the
elemental forces to permit them, like many other aboriginal peoples to
be obsessed greatly with superstitions. Although their religion is a
very primitive and native one, it is usually only at the inception of
night that they feel the appalling nearness of a world that is
supernatural. As the last rim of the sun sank over the southern ice, the
natives entered upon a formal period of melancholy, during which the
bereavements of each family, and the discomforts and disasters of the
year, were memoralized.
I shall never forget that long, sad evening, which lasted many normal
days. The sun had descended. A sepulchral, gray-green curtain of gloom
hung over the chilled earth. In the dim semi-darkness could be vaguely
seen the outlines of the igloos, of the heaving curvatures of
snow-covered land, and the blacker, snake-like twistings of open lanes
of water, where the sea had not yet frozen. Sitting in my box-house, I
was startled suddenly by a sound that made my flesh for the instant
creep. I walked to the door and threw it open. Over the bluish,
snow-covered land, formed by the indentures and hollows, stretched
dark-purplish shapes--Titan shadows, sepulchral and ominous, some with
shrouded heads, others with spectral arms threateningly upraised.
Nebulous and gruesome shreds of blue-fog like wraiths shifted over the
sea. Out of the sombre, heavy air began to issue a sound as of many
women sobbing. From the indistinct distance came moaning, crooning
voices. Sometimes hysterical wails of anguish rent the air, and now and
then frantic choruses shrieked some heart-aching despair. My impression
was that I was in a land of the sorrowful dead, some mid-strata of the
spirit world, where, in this gray-green twilight, formless things in the
distance moved to and fro.
There is, I believe, in the heart of every man, an instinctive respect
for sorrow. With muffled steps, I left the igloo and paced the
dreariness of ice, treading slowly, lest, in the darkness, I slip into
some unseen crevasse of the open sea. A strange and eerie sight
confronted me. Along the seashore, bending over the lapping black water,
or standing here and there by inky, open leads in the severed ice, many
Eskimo women were gathered. Some stood in groups of two or three. Bowed
and disconsolate, her arms about them, with almost every hundred steps,
I saw a weeping mother and her children. Standing rigid and stark,
motionless graven images of despair, or frantically writhing to and fro,
others stood far apart in desolate places, alone.
The dull, opaque air was tinged with a strange phosphorescent green,
suggestive of a place of dead things; and now, like the flutterings of
huge death-lamps, along the horizon, where the sun had sunk, gashes of
crimson here and there fitfully glowed blood-red in the pall-like sky.
To the left, as I walked along, I recognized Tung-wingwah, with a child
on her back and a bag of moss in her hand. She stood behind a cheerless
rock, with her face toward the faint red flushes of the sun. She stood
motionless. Big tears rolled from her eyes, but not a sound was uttered.
To my low queries she made no response. I invited her to the camp to
have a cup of tea, thinking to change her sad thoughts and loosen her
tongue. But still her eyes did not leave that last distant line of open
water. From another, I later learned that in the previous April her
daughter of five, while playing on the ice-foot, slipped and was lost in
the sea. The mother now mourned because the ice would bury her little
one's soul.
A little farther along was Al-leek-ah, a woman of middle age, with two
young children by her side. She was hysterical in her grief, now
laughing with a weird giggle, now crying and groaning as if in great
pain, and again dancing with emotions of madness. I learned her story
from a chatter that ran through all her anguish. Towanah, her first
husband, had been drawn under the ice, by the harpoon line, twenty years
ago. And though she had been married three times since, she was trying
to keep alive the memory of her first love. I went on, marveling at a
primitive fidelity so long enduring.
Still farther along towards the steep slopes of the main coast, I saw
Ahwynet, all alone in the gloomy shadow of great cliffs. Her story was
told in chants and moans. Her husband and all her children had been
swept by an avalanche into the stormy seas. There was a kind of wild
poetry in the song of her bereavement. Tears came to my eyes. The rush
of the avalanche, the hiss of the wind, the pounding of the seas, were
all indicated. And then, in heart-breaking tones, came "blood of her
blood, flesh of her flesh, under the frozen waters," and other
sentiments which I could not catch in the undertone of sobs.
Cold shivers began to run up my spine, and I turned to retreat to camp.
Here was a scene that perhaps a Dante might adequately write about. I
cannot. I felt that I, an alien, was intruding into the realm of some
strange and mystic sorrow. I felt the sombre thrill of a borderland
world not human. These women were communicating with the souls of their
dead. To those who had perished in the sea they were telling, ere the
gates of ice closed above them, all the news of the past year--things of
interest and personal, and even of years before, as far back as they
could remember. Almost every family each year loses someone in the sea;
almost every family was represented by these weeping women, overburdened
with their own naive sorrow, and who yet strangely sought to cheer the
souls of the disconsolate and desolate dead.
Meanwhile, while the women were weeping and giving their parting
messages to the dead, the male members of the tribe, in chants and
dramatic dances, were celebrating, in the igloos, the important events
of the past year.
Inside, the igloos were dimly lighted with stone blubber lamps. These,
during the entire winter, furnish light and heat. The lamp consists of a
crescent-shaped stone with a concavity, in which there is animal oil and
a line of crushed moss as a wick. Lighted early in the season, for an
entire winter, these lamps cast a faint, perpetual, flickering light.
Shadows dance grotesquely about on the rounded walls. An oily stench
pervades the unventilated enclosure. In this weird, yellow-blackish
radiance the men engage in their fantastic dances. Moving the central
parts of their bodies to and fro, they utter weird sing-song chants.
They recite, in jerky, curious singing, the history of the big events of
the year; of successful chases; of notable storms; of everything that
means much in their simple lives. As they dance, their voices rise to a
high pitch of excitement. Their eyes flash like smoldering coals. Their
arms move frantically. Some begin to sob uncontrollably. A hysteria of
laughter seizes others. Finally the dance ends; exhausted, they pass
into a brief lethargy, from which they revive, their melancholia
departed. The women return from the shores of the sea; they wipe their
tears, and, with native spontaneity, forget their depression and smile
again.
While I was interested in the curious spectacles presented, the sunset
of 1907 to me was inspiration for the final work in directing the
completion of the outfit with which to begin the conquest of the Pole at
sunrise of 1908. Fortunately, I was not handicapped by the company of
the usual novices taken on Polar expeditions. There were only two of us
white men, and white men, at the best, must be regarded as amateurs
compared with the expert efficiency of Eskimos in their own environment.
Our food supply contained only the prime factors of primitive
nourishment. Special foods and laboratory concoctions and canned
delicacies did not fill an important space in our larder. Nor had we
balloons, automobiles, motor sleds or other freak devices. We did,
however, I have said, have what was of utmost importance, an abundance
of the best hickory and metal for the making of the sleds upon which our
destinies were vitally to depend.
FIRST WEEK OF THE LONG NIGHT
HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC TWILIGHT--PURSUING BEAR, CARIBOU AND SMALLER GAME
IN SEMI-GLOOM
VII
THE GLORY OF THE AURORA
The sun had dropped below the horizon. The gloom continued steadily to
thicken. Each twenty-four hours, at the approximate approach of what was
the noon hour when the sun had been above the horizon, the sky to the
south of us glowed with marvelous, subdued sunset hues. By this time our
work had gone ahead by progressive stages. Furs, to protect us from the
cold of the uttermost North on my prospective trip, had been prepared
and were being made into clothing; meat and fat, for food and fuel, were
being dried and stored in numerous caches about Annoatok; several of the
sledges and part of the equipment were ready.
We still had need of large quantities of supplies, and, while some of
the natives were busy with their routine work, we planned that as many
others as possible should use the twilight days pursuing bear, caribou,
fox, hare and other game far beyond the usual Eskimo haunts. Before the
dawn of the sun's afterglow, on the morning of October 26, seven sledges
with sixty dogs were on the ice-foot near our camp, ready to start for
hunting grounds near Humboldt Glacier, a distance of one hundred miles
northward.[7]
While the teamsters waited for the final password the dogs chafed
fiercely. I could barely see the outlines of my companions in the gloom,
and it was difficult, in the irregular snow and tide-lifted ice
descending to sea level, to find footing.
The word to start was given. My companions took up the cry.
"_Huk! Huk! Huk!_" (Go! Go!) they shouted.
The dogs responded in leaps and howls.
"_Howah! Howah!_" (Right! Right!) "_Egh! Egh!_" (Stop! Stop!)
"_Aureti!_" (Behave!) came echoingly along the line of teams. Finally
the wild dash slackened, the dogs regulated their paces to an easy trot,
and we swept steadily along the frozen highway of the tide-made shelf of
the ice-foot. The sledges dodged stones and ice-blocks, edged along
dangerous precipices, in the depths of which I heard the swish of water,
and glided miraculously over crevices and along deep gorges. Jumping
about the sledges, guiding, pushing, or retarding their speed, cracking
their whips in the air, the natives, with that art which only aborigines
seem to have, picked the way and controlled the dogs, but a few
generations removed from their wolf progenitors, with amazing dexterity.
A low wind blew down the slopes and froze our breath in lines of frost
about our heads. The temperature was 35 deg. below zero. To the left of us
was Kane Basin, recalling its history of human strife northward. It was
filled with serried ranges of crushed ice, a berg here and there, all in
the light of the kindling sky, aglow with purple and blue. To the far
west I saw the dim outline of Ellesmere, my promised land, over which I
hoped to force a new route to the Pole; upon its snowy highlands was
poured a soft creamy light from encouraging skies. To the right was the
rugged coast of Greenland, its huge, ice-chiselled cliffs leaping
portentously forward in the gloom. Thrilling with the race, we made a
run of twenty miles and reached Rensselaer Harbor, where Dr. Kane had
spent his long nights of misfortune.
We pitched camp at the ice-foot at the head of the bay. Although we
found traces of hare and fox, it was too dark to venture on the chase.
The temperature had fallen to -40 deg., the wind pierced with a sharp sting.
For my shelter I erected a new tent which I had invented, and the
efficiency of which I desired to test. Taking the sledge frame work as a
platform, a folding top of strong canvas was fastened, and spread
between two bars of hickory from each end. The entrance was in front.
Inside was a space eight feet long and three and one-half feet wide,
with a round whaleback top. Inside this a supplementary wall was
constructed of light blankets, offering an air space of an inch between
the outer wall as a non-conductor to confine the little heat generated
within. As there was ample room for only two persons, Koo-loo-ting-wah,
my leading man, was invited to share the tent. The natives had not
provided themselves with shelter of any kind. They had counted on either
building an igloo or seeking the shelter of the snows, as do the
creatures of the wilds.
Inside my tent I prepared a meal on the little German stove, burning the
vapor of alcohol. The meal consisted of a pail of hot corn meal, fried
bacon and a liberal all-round supply of steaming tea. To accomplish
this, which included melting the snow, heating the water, and cooking
everything separately, required about two hours. As I considered eating
outside with any degree of comfort impossible, my companions were
invited to crowd inside the tent. The vapor of their breath and that of
the cooking soon condensed into snow, and a miniature snowstorm covered
everything within. After this was swept out, the Eskimos were invited to
enter again. All partook of the meal ravenously, and then emerged to
reconnoiter the surroundings. Tracks of ptarmigan, hare and foxes were
found, and as we moved about with seeking, owl eyes, ravens shouted
notes of welcome.
We then retired to rest. As there was no snow about that was
sufficiently hard to cut blocks with which to erect snow houses, the
natives placed themselves in semi-reclining positions on their sledges
and slept in their traveling clothes. After a few hours they awoke and
partook of chopped frozen meat and blubber; two hours later, they made a
fire in a tin can, with moss and blubber as fuel, and over this prepared
a pot of parboiled meat. A crescent-shaped wall of snow was built to
break the wind; in the shelter of this they sat, grinning delightedly,
and eating savagely, with much smacking of the lips, the steaming broth
and walrus meat. All this I studied with intense interest. I desired on
this trip not only to test my tent, but to learn more of the native
arts of the Eskimo, knowing that I, on my Polar trip, must, if I would
be successful, adapt myself to just such methods of living.
This was my first winter experience of camping out in the night season
for this year, and, with only a diet of meal and bacon, I was miserably
cold. I was now testing also for the first time the new winter clothing
with which I and all my companions were dressed. Our shirts were made of
bird skins. Over these were coats of blue fox or caribou skins; our
trousers were of bear, our boots of seal, and our stockings of hare
skins. This was the usual native winter costume, but under it I had
added a suit of underwear.
Retiring again for rest, I left instructions to be called for an early
start. It seemed that I had hardly settled comfortably in my sleeping
bag when the call for action came.
We hastily partook of tea and biscuits, harnessed our teams and started
through the dark. The Eskimos, having eaten their fill of fat and frozen
meat, to which I must yet accustom myself, were thoroughly comfortable.
I was miserably cold.
By running behind my sledge I produced sufficient bodily heat after
awhile to feel comfortable. My face suffered severely from the cutting
slant of the winds. We passed the perpendicular walls of Cape Seiper at
dawn. We ran along the long, straight coast into Bancroft Bay during the
six hours of twilight. The journey was continued to Dallas Bay by a
forced march of fifty miles before we halted.
The scene displayed the rare glory of twilight charms as it had the day
before, but the snow was deeper, the temperature lower. The wind
steadily increased and veered northward. We made several efforts to
cross the bay ice, but cracked ice, huge uplifted blocks and deep snows
compelled a retreat to the ice-foot.
The ice-foot along Smith Sound is a superb highway, where otherwise
sledge travel would be quite impossible along the coast.
Along Dallas Bay we found a great deal of grass-covered land in
undulating valleys and on low hills, which offered grazing for caribou
and hare. The preceding glimmer of the new moon, which was to rise a few
days hence, offered sufficient light to search for game.
We now fed our dogs for the first time since leaving Annoatok. After a
liberal drink of snow water, we started to seek our luck in the chase.
In the course of an hour my companions returned with four hares which,
when dressed, weighed about forty-eight pounds. Two of these were
cached. The others were eaten later.
Before dawn of the day-long twilight the wind increased to a full gale.
The sky to the north, smoky all night, now blackened as with soot. The
wind came with a howl that brought to mind the despairing cries of the
dying explorers whose bleached bones were strewn along the shore. The
gloomy outline of the coast remained visible for awhile; but soon the
air thickened and came weighted with snow that piled up in huge drifts.
The Eskimos took a few of their favorite dogs and sought shelter to the
lee of the tent, where drift covered their blankets with snow. Breathing
holes were kept open over their faces. Buried in snow drifts, they were
imprisoned for twenty-eight hours. But this tent sled sheltered
Koo-loo-ting-wah and myself. When the rush of the storm had abated we
began digging our way out. In this effort we dug up men and dogs like
potatoes from a patch. The northern sky had paled, the south was
brightening. The pack was lined with long lines beyond each hummock; the
snow was covered with a strong crust. But the ice-foot was a hopeless
line of drifts which made travel over it quite impossible.
The work of pounding snow from the dogs and freeing the sledges brought
to our faces beads of perspiration which rolled off and froze in lines
of ice on our furs. We were none the worse as a result of the storm, and
although hungry as wolves, time was too precious to stop for a full
meal.
We now pushed out of the bay, on to the sea ice. At this point the dogs
scented a bear and soon crossed its track. Rested and hungry, they were
in condition for a desperate chase. Their sharp noses pointed keenly
into the huge bear foot-prints, their little ears quivered, while, with
howls, they started onward in a mad rush.
Neither our voices nor the whips made an impression on their wild speed.
We crossed banks and ridges of snow and swirled about slopes of ice,
gripping sledges violently. Now we were thrown to one side, again to the
other, dragging resistlessly beside the sleds. Rising, we gripped the
rear upstanders with fierce determination.
Just how we escaped broken limbs, and our sledges utter destruction, is
a mystery to me. After a run of an hour we sighted the bear. The animal
had evidently sighted us, for he was galloping for the open water
toward the northwest. We cut the fleetest dogs loose from each team.
Freed, they rushed over the snow like race-horses. But the bear had an
advantage. As the first dog nipped his haunches he plunged into the
black waters. We advanced and waited for him to rise. But this bruin had
sense enough to emerge on the opposite shore, where he shook off the
freezing waters vigorously, and then sat down as if to have a laugh at
us.
I knew that to plunge into the waters would have been fatal to dog or
man and equally fatal to a boat, as ice, in the intense cold, would form
about it so rapidly that it could not be propelled.
The dogs sat down and howled a chorus of sad disappointment. For miles
about, the men sought fruitlessly for a way to cross. Outwitted, we
returned to continue our journey Northward.
Advance Bay and its islands were in sight. Among these, we aimed to
place our central camp. The light was fading fast, and a cold wind came
from Humboldt Glacier, which at this time was located by a slight
darkening of the sky. Many grounded icebergs were about, and the sea ice
was much crossed. The hummocks and the snow were not as troublesome as
farther south.
Two ravens followed us, their shrill cries echoing from berg to berg.
The Eskimos inferred from their presence that bears were near, but we
saw no tracks.
The cries of the ravens were nearly as provoking to the dogs as the bear
tracks, and we moved along rapidly to Brook's Island. This was rather
high, with a plateau and sharp cliffs. Bonsall Island near by was
rounded by glacial action. Between them we found a place to camp
somewhat sheltered from the wind.
While eating our ration of corn meal and bacon, howls of the dogs rose
to a fierce crescendo. I supposed they were saluting the coming of the
moon, as is their custom, but the howls changed to tones of increasing
excitement. We went out to inquire, but saw nothing. It was so dark that
I could not see the dogs twenty feet away, and the cold wind made
breathing difficult.
"_Nan nook_" (Bear), the Eskimos said in an undertone. I looked around
for some position of defense. But the dense night-blackness rendered
this hopeless, so we took our position behind the tent, rifles in hand.
The bear, of an inquisitive turn of mind, deliberately advanced upon us.
"_Taokoo! taokoo! igloo dia oo-ah-tonie!_" (Look! look! beyond the
iceberg!) said the Eskimos. Neither the iceberg nor the bear was
visible. After a cold and exciting wait, the bear turned and hid behind
another iceberg. We separated a few of the best bear dogs from each
other. Bounding off, they disappeared quietly in the darkness. The other
dogs were fastened to the sledges, and away we started.
I sat on To-ti-o's sledge, as he had the largest team. We jumped
crevasses, and occasionally dipped in open water.
The track of the bear wound about huge bergs which looked in the
darkness like nebulous shadows. The dogs, of themselves, followed the
invisible line of tracks.
Soon the wolfish dogs ahead began to shout the chorus of their battle.
We left the track in an air-line course for the dark mystery out of
which the noise came. To-ti-o took the lead. As we neared the noise,
all but two dogs of his sledge were cut loose. The sledge overturned, I
under it. As Koo-loo-ting-wah came along, he freed all his dogs. I
passed him my new take-down Winchester.
Hurrying after To-ti-o, he had advanced only a few steps when To-ti-o
fired. Koo-loo-ting-wah, noting an effort of the bear to rise, fired the
new rifle.
A flash of fire lit the darkness. Koo-loo-ting-wah rushed to me, asking
for the folding lantern. The smokeless powder had broken the new gun.
To-ti-o had no more cartridges. The bear, however, was quiet. We
advanced, lances in hand.
The dogs danced wildly about the bear, but he managed to throw out his
feet with sufficient force to keep the canine fangs disengaged. The
other Eskimos now came, with rushing dogs in advance. To-ti-o dashed
forward and delivered the lance under the bear's shoulder. The bear was
his. He thereby not only gained the prize for the expedition, but, by
the addition of the bear to his game list, completed his retinue of
accomplishments whereby he could claim the full privileges of manhood.
Among other things, it gave him the right to marry. He had already
secured a bride of twelve, but, without this bear conquest, the match
wou
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