Edith Horton

“ The seals lie all around on the edges of the ice floes, and at first pay no attention to the boats. They lift their heads and see the boats coming from a long distance away; then, ignorant [109] of their danger, they lower their heads again and lie quiet.
As the boats draw nearer, the seals sometimes slide off into the water. The hunters are quick to see any movement on the part of the seals. As soon as one moves toward the water, the men in the boat begin to shout as loudly as they can. The seal is so astonished by the unusual noise that he lies still awhile to think it over. ”

“ Kampfe proposes to build a submarine boat, and proceed to the pole beneath the ice.
For more than three hundred years, men have struggled to reach the North Pole. They have braved bitter winds and faced starvation and death, in order to wrest the secrets of nature from the great white North.
Since Sir John Franklin’s first trip to the Arctic regions, interest in the Frozen North has never flagged. Very grave doubts as to the wisdom of spending so large sums of money and of risking so many human lives have arisen in the minds of those who have followed the story of suffering and death. ”

“ By the middle of September the thermometer had fallen to 14° and the ice was thickening fast. The long Arctic night was upon the explorers. During that first winter in Rensselaer harbor, the sun was below the horizon one hundred and twenty days, and ninety of these days were totally dark; for the remaining thirty days a faint light like our twilight glimmered during a part of every twenty-four hours.
During the time of darkness little exploring can be done. Explorers are obliged to stay on or near their ship and amuse themselves as best they may until the sun shines again. ”

“ Kane stored these supplies along the route that he intended to take as soon as the sun should shine again. By thus sending provisions ahead and burying them, Kane hoped to be able to make the journey without fear of starving; for his whole party could never have carried enough at once to last during the time he expected to be gone.
On long expeditions where the men were obliged to remain away from the ship all night, each man carried his bed with him. An Arctic bed is a bag made of fur, into which one crawls, covering up all save one’s nose. ”

“ Nansen’s report of this journey has led many people to believe that the warm and the cold ocean currents meet at the pole, and that the effect of the united currents is to make the ice rotten and dangerous for travel. Some explorers believe that it is impossible to travel the last hundred miles of the journey toward the pole by sledge or boat. They think that the ice is too soft for sledge [128] travel, and too compact for travel by boat. If this be true, a balloon or airship will have to be used in order to reach the pole. It is no wonder that Nansen and Johansen became discouraged. ”

“ The floes sometimes close up and float together as a pack, squeezing in everything between them. Sometimes they separate, leaving channels of water between. The pack floats with the wind and the current, and there is little chance of escape from it. If a ship is caught in the ice pack, it must float with it until a storm or some other change of weather breaks up the pack. When a ship is strong enough to resist the pressure of the ice pack, there is some chance of escape in the spring, but so tremendous is the power of the ice that Arctic voyagers avoid the pack if possible. ”

“ As winter advanced, the natives’ provisions gave out. Then they gathered around the ship at the time when they knew the crew were at dinner, and begged for food so hard that one day the cook himself came out with a large kettle full of meat soup. The Tchuktches seized [69] it like starving animals and bailed it out with spoons, empty tin cans, and even with their hands. Nordenskjöld gave them all the food he could spare, but in spite of his kindness the plump little babies grew thin and hollow-eyed. One day the Tchuktche hunters killed a polar bear and several seals. ”

“ When dinner was over, they started north again in boats along the coast, for Nansen wished to begin his journey across Greenland farther to the north than the place where he had landed.
The travelers picked their way on along the coast until a great glacier came in sight, which Nansen knew to be the famous Puisortok. Puisortok means the place where something shoots up, and the Eskimos regard the spot with fear. When they pass this dreadful place they will not speak, laugh, eat, nor smoke. ”

“ Seals and [6] walruses come out of the water upon the ice, during the summer, to enjoy the sun, and thousands of snow buntings, auks, and eider ducks visit the shores of the cold seas to build their nests and catch food. When the summer of three months is over, nearly all outward signs of animal and vegetable life disappear and the entire landscape becomes a dreary, white expanse.
The inhabitants of this cold land are called Eskimos. They find it hard to get a living, and their dwellings are of the rudest and most primitive sort. ”

“ The north polar regions lie within the Arctic circle, and at their center is the North Pole. The distance from the circle to the pole is more than fourteen hundred miles. Intense cold and the hardships of ice navigation have made the discovery and exploration of this region very slow and hazardous.
It is believed that Norsemen from Norway and Sweden, after colonizing Iceland, made settlements on the Greenland coast and carried their seal hunting beyond the Arctic circle, far into the polar regions. But in 1347 a plague broke out in Norway, and the people forgot their far-off colonies. ”

“ This large stream flows across Siberia into the Arctic ocean. Its banks are usually occupied by tribes of Indians, who remain there during the summer season to fish and hunt. It was encouraging to know that land was so near, and the weary travelers kept bravely on, working with all their strength to steer through the masses of ice. It seemed as if two new perils sprang up for every danger escaped. In a heavy gale Lieutenant Chipps’s boat went down, and De Long and Melville lost sight of each other. Melville at length succeeded in guiding his boat to the mouth of the Lena river. ”

“ After sailing along the Siberian coast for a short distance, the Jeannette bade farewell to land and started on her perilous journey.
In the Arctic regions the ice is divided into what is known as young ice and the pack. Young ice is that which is forming all the time. It is thin at first, and vessels can usually cut their way through. The pack is the old ice which has been formed for many years, and is composed of large pieces, called floes, which are often thirty or forty feet thick and extend over a great surface both above and below the water. ”

“ Then Hans would fasten a thong of walrus hide about the neck of the seal and drag him away, across the ice, to the ship. The meat of the seal is delicious, and great was the rejoicing among the men when a hunting expedition was successful.
When the sun begins to shine, the Eskimos hunt in a different way. They know that the seals like to creep out of the water and lie on the ice in the sunshine. The hunters take with them a sledge with a white screen [48] fastened across it, which they push along in front of them, the screen hiding their bodies from view. ”

“ When the summer comes it is still easier to hunt seals, for their eyes are blinded by the bright sun shining on the snow and ice, and the hunters can often walk within gunshot of them without using the screen. ”

“ The return journey to land was made by forced marches of about twenty-nine and a half miles a day. This speed was made possible by the lighter sledge loads, and the fact that they were retracing their steps over a trail kept partially open by the other detachments. But the Eskimos said, “The devil is asleep, or we never should have come back so easily!” Peary knew that they came back easily because of favorable weather and ice conditions, and because his plans had been wise.
When the party came in sight of the Roosevelt again, the joy of the men cannot be described. ”

“ These people worship idols, which look like dolls made of skin, and which they always carry with them on their travels. Some of these idols, or gods, have faces of brass or copper, and some carry bows made of forged iron. The Samoyeds worship by making pilgrimages to certain spots, where they offer sacrifices and make vows; they eat the flesh of their victims, and besmear their idols with the blood. At these sacred places there are piles of bones and skulls of the reindeer, with the horns. ”

“ He believed that in order to reach the Pole he must adopt the manner of life of the Eskimos. These natives of the Arctic zone know how to travel over the icy seas with less discomfort and danger than any other people.
Peary again, as in his previous expeditions, decided to engage the hardy Eskimos from Whale Sound, with their dogs, for the mainstay of his party, and to take with him as few white men as possible. The expedition was thus mostly made up of natives accustomed to the difficulties and hardships of Arctic travel. ”

“ From his face also extend the tusks, which on the larger animals are often thirty inches in length, and are prized as ivory. Altogether the walrus is a fierce-looking creature, with a tough hide and an ugly temper.
Like the seal, the walrus has to come to the surface of the water to breathe. So Dr. Kane and his Eskimo friends tried to find open water, or, at least, a place where the ice was thin. The walrus has a habit of bellowing as he lies on the ice, so that hunters are guided by this strange and terrible sound. Every few minutes the hunters took off their fur hoods to listen. ”

“ The bear, when brought to bay, rises on his haunches, seizes the nearest dog in his teeth and tosses him to one side. The dogs instinctively relax their muscles in falling, and are seldom hurt; they usually rise immediately and return to the conflict. In this way the bear is detained until the hunters arrive.
Sometimes two hunters engage one animal, striking at him with their lances. Two men can easily kill a bear. As one man pretends to thrust his lance into the right side, the animal turns, and tries to protect himself with his fore paws. ”

“ At nine o’clock the explorers ate their breakfast. From eleven until one o’clock every man took his gun and went out on the ice to exercise. At three in the afternoon dinner was served, and the galley fires were put out in order to save coal. Between seven and eight o’clock tea was made. The crew lived on pork and beans, salt beef, and canned goods. Sometimes, when the hunters were successful, they had the meat of the seal, bear, or walrus. For amusements there were theatricals and a navigation class. ”

“ When the great beast was dead, the Eskimos drew it up on the ice, the flesh was divided, and Dr. Kane packed his share upon his sledge. Then with his own four dogs he set out to return to the brig. He himself ran most of the way home, because the dogs had difficulty in drawing the heavy load. The crew were glad to see Kane once more, and glad, too, for what he had brought. During the winter fresh meat had been so scarce that many of the men became sick with the terrible disease which salt meat produces. ”

“ Notwithstanding the dangers and hardships of the journey, Nordenskjöld advanced thirty miles over the glacier to a height of twenty-two hundred feet above the level of the sea. Upon returning to the coast, he visited Disco Fiord, and then went home to Sweden.
About the time that Nordenskjöld reached home, the Swedish government decided to send a sledge expedition [60] from Spitzbergen to the North Pole. The nation which should first succeed in reaching the pole would gain the admiration of the civilized world, and Sweden hoped to win this glory. ”

“ They pay high prices for articles which cost the white men very little money.
When the farewell was over, the Eskimos parted, and Nansen tried to keep the north-bound travelers in sight, but he soon found that he must depend upon himself and break his own way through the ice. The journey grew harder and harder, and in camp the travelers were often tormented by swarms of mosquitoes. Clouds of the small insects swarmed around them and annoyed the men almost beyond endurance. Any amount of work in the ice was to be preferred to an attack by mosquitoes. ”

“ In 1893 Peary made another trip to North Greenland, and this time remained two years and one month. He made a second sledge journey of twelve hundred miles to Independence bay, and surveyed a large area of the country around Whale sound. During this trip, he also discovered the great Cape York meteorites.
Meteorites are stones, largely composed of iron, which fall to the earth from the heavens. They are supposed to follow in the train of meteors, or shooting stars. These pieces of meteoric iron differ from any kind of rock found [145] upon the earth. ”

“ Again, the pack closed up about the stanch little vessel, which was like an eggshell at the mercy of enormous blocks of floating ice.
But all this time the Jeannette was drifting, and at length she came in sight of Wrangel Land. Before De Long lost sight of this land, he satisfied himself that it was an [76] island, and not a part of Greenland as some explorers had supposed.
On November 10 the black Arctic night began, which lasted until January 25. The bitterness of the cold during this long period of darkness is inconceivable. ”

“ The Roosevelt steamed northward from Etah, pushing her way through the ice pack towards Cape Sheridan, on the northern coast of Grant Land. During the trip the Eskimo men were put to work making sledges and harness, and the women began to make winter garments for the men. There was much sewing to be done, for the white men wore in winter just the same kind of clothing that the Eskimos did.
McMillan, Borup, and Dr. Goodsell found amusement in watching the women at their sewing. Sitting on the ground or whatever is nearest, they take off their footgear and put out one foot. ”

“ In 1888 a young Norwegian named Fridtjof Nansen determined to cross the ice cap of Greenland.
Nansen was an expert in the use of the ski. Ski are Norwegian snowshoes. They consist of long, narrow strips of wood, which are fastened to the shoes in about the same way in which we fasten skates. The ski are about eight feet in length and three or four inches in breadth. In front they are slightly pointed and curved up; often the back is pointed also. A man who is skillful in the use of ski can travel over the snow by means of them at a rate of eight or nine miles an hour. ”

“ Many are tall, with brown skin and raven-black hair, and a large nose like that of our North American Indians. Some have high cheek bones and slanting eyes, like the Mongolian race. They live in tents, which are made double to insure warmth during the winter. The inner tent is the sleeping room. The framework is of wood, and over this are spread thick reindeer skins. The floor is a walrus skin, and at night extra reindeer skins are thrown down like a carpet. ”

“ While Peary was caring for the dogs, Astrup had fashioned a fur couch from the hides of the musk-oxen, and had broiled some delicious musk-ox steaks. That night men and dogs fell asleep happy and comfortable.
After climbing over another slope, the company halted on the edge of a high cliff, the northeastern point of Greenland. Beyond the mainland they could descry islands in the distance. An icebound channel marked the northern boundary of Greenland. The large bay spreading out before them Peary named Independence bay, in honor of the day of discovery, July 4, 1892. ”