Arctic expedition

“ The absolutely essential supplies for a serious arctic expedition are few, but they should be of the best quality. Luxuries have no place in arctic work.
Supplies for an arctic expedition naturally divide themselves into two classes: those for the sledge work in the field; those for the ship, going and returning, and in winter quarters. ”

“ His interest in Arctic exploration had never ceased, and in 1873 he induced Commander Albert Markham to undertake a summer voyage for the purpose of testing the conditions of ice-navigation with the aid of steam, with the result that a new Arctic expedition, under Sir George Nares, was determined upon. ”

“ Hence arose the Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1872. The promoters of this undertaking assumed neither the existence of an open Polar Sea, nor the possibility of reaching the Pole by sledge or boat expeditions. Their object, simply and broadly stated, was the exploration of the still unknown Arctic regions, and it was their belief, that a vessel could penetrate further into this region by the route between Novaya Zemlya and Spitzbergen, where the Isbjörn in her pioneer voyage found the ice more loose and navigable than had been imagined possible. ”

“ Now a wedge of airplanes zoomed across the sky, come to bid the expedition farewell in their own particular aerial style. For this departing mammoth of the air was answering the greatest challenge of them all—a prolonged exploration flight over the vast frozen Arctic.
On this exploration were going a wonderful picked crew of scientists, geologists, meteorologists—learned men of many professions had striven for a chance to face any hardship, if only they might go on this expedition to the “geologist’s paradise,” the fearful, mysterious frozen Polar Region with its lure of unrevealed secrets. ”

“ NARES AND SMITH SOUND After the return of Sir Edward Belcher’s expedition in 1854 the British Government was content to rest on its laurels, so far as Arctic research was concerned, and to leave the field entirely to Germans, Austrians, Americans, and to such private individuals as cared to undertake the very heavy cost of equipping an expedition for the Polar regions. ”

“ If the vessels were frozen in, they were hauled upon shore the next spring, repaired, and the expedition continued. And if these intrepid fellows were checked in their course by masses of impenetrable ice, they continued their explorations on dog sledges, which here for the first time were employed in Arctic exploration. Cold, scurvy, and every degree of discomfort wrought sad havoc among them, but many survived the long polar winter in miserable wooden huts or barracks. Nowhere has Russian hardiness erected for itself a more enduring monument. ”

“ The publication of Commander Markham’s most interesting narrative much increased the feeling in favour of Arctic enterprise. The battle had indeed been a hard and long-contested one, but victory was in sight. On November 17th, 1874, the Prime Minister, Lord Beaconsfield, announced that the Government would despatch an Arctic expedition for the encouragement of maritime enterprise, and for the exploration of the region round the North Pole. Nothing could be more satisfactory. ”

“ Profiting by the advance of science and the experiences of their predecessors, Arctic explorers have, of course, reduced the danger of travelling in the frozen regions to a minimum, and it is very rarely that an expedition ends in tragedy. ”

“ FEW Arctic expeditions have done so much to increase the world's knowledge as to the physical condition of large areas of the north polar zone as has that of the Fram, initiated and commanded by Dr. Fridtjof Nansen.
The expedition was unique in many respects. The Fram was a departure from the accepted models of Arctic ships; the route followed was one unindorsed by any Arctic authority. The ship was destined to drift unprecedented distances, beset by the enormous ice-pack of the Arctic ocean. ”

“ We packed the supplies, sledges, two kayaks, guns, ammunition, stoves, oil, pemmican, and the assorted constituents of the regular provisioning of an Arctic expedition, into and on the launch, which made a very original and unique picture. The Eskimos who came offshore with the steamer and the dogs themselves seemed quite thoroughly perplexed, and doubtless entertained unspoken and unfavorable opinions as to our final success, and the dogs were perhaps dubious as to their own fate. ”

“ It is quite possible that by favorable circumstances an expedition might succeed in getting far north, or discovering large areas of the unknown regions, as has happened in former years. However, the risk which the adventurers run can not be compared with the probable results. By deliberate perseverance, though the progress may be slower, the exploration of the Arctic will be accomplished in greater safety and with far greater results for science. ”

“ It concluded by advocating a great Arctic expedition, which would awaken in Russia a permanent interest in Arctic questions and Arctic navigation, and in the meantime a reconnoitring expedition on board a schooner chartered in Norway with its captain, pushing north or (218) north-east of Nóvaya Zemlyá. This expedition, we suggested, might also try to reach, or at least to sight, an unknown land which must be situated at no great distance from Nóvaya Zemlyá. ”

“ Far different was the condition of Arctic explorers now, than it had been when Franklin sailed on his fatal expedition. Then they had to depend entirely on their own resources; now, through the sagacity and forethought of those who sent them forth, depots of provisions and boats and sledges, and even huts, had been provided, to afford every possible means of escape should any disaster overtake their ships. ”

“ The colours were laid on in the warmth and candle-light between decks, and verified by repeated trips into the cold. In regions where wind could crush the ice together, or where open water existed to leeward, Arctic ships have more than once been blown to sea with the ice of their winter quarters; and, as a precautionary measure, our ship was secured to shore by chain cables, raised at intervals on casks to prevent them sinking into the ice. ”

“ The ambitious Anglo-American Arctic expedition of 1906–7 achieved relatively little real polar work except a journey from March to May 1907 by E. de K. Leffingwell, E. Mikkelsen, and S. Storkersen from the coast in long. 149° W. across the sea ice to lat. 72° 3' N., long. 149° 44' W. where they got a sounding of no bottom in 620 fathoms. V. Stefansson, who was nominally a member of the expedition, spent his time with the Eskimo in the Mackenzie delta, learning their habits and language in order to equip himself for future explorations. ”

“ We must now go back a few years. In May 1819, an overland expedition was despatched to ascertain the exact position of the Coppermine River, to descend it to its mouth, and to explore the coast of the Arctic Sea on either hand. The command was given to Lieutenant Franklin, who was accompanied by Dr. Richardson the naturalist, by Messrs. Hood and Back, two English midshipmen, and two picked seamen. The expedition was spread over a period of two years and a half, and the narrative of what was accomplished and endured by its members reads like a romance. ”

“ Lengthy records of most of these expeditions have been published, in which the trials and hardships undergone are recorded in a matter-of-fact way, without any attempt to excite sympathy, and all honour should be paid to the memory of these men, many of them volunteers, for the dangers they passed through in the endeavour to rescue their fellowmen from terrible death by starvation and cold in the inaccessible Arctics. Many lost their own lives, while others drifted all winter in ships crushed between great floes of arctic ice ”

“ When strong winds and tides occur together during autumn, pools and fissures, crevasses rather, sometimes form in the edges of this polar-ice cap, but only those who have seen it can fully appreciate the utter impossibility of “boring” any ship through this polar pack; a nut-shell would have as much chance under a steam-hammer as a ship between the closing walls of such a crevasse. This was the open polar sea we had heard so much of, but which in truth no one in the Expedition had ever expected to sail in. What we had not calculated on was the absence of land northward ”

“ ADRIFT IN THE ARCTIC ICE-PACK, By Elisha Kent Kane, M. D. Out of the many expeditions that went north in search of Sir John Franklin over fifty years ago, it fell to the lot of one, financed by a New York merchant, to spend an Arctic winter drifting aimlessly in the grip of the Polar ice in Lancaster Sound. The surgeon of the expedition kept a careful diary and out of that record told the first complete story of a Far Northern winter. ”

“ With constant watchfulness and unremitting labour the way northward was won mile by mile. Every hour opened up some fresh possibility of advance, or some new danger to be combated. The tired watch-keepers found little rest during their short spell below. Almost every one “turned in” without undressing. The tearing and splintering of the ice along the ship’s sides, and the creaking and crushing as she charged the floes, made sleep difficult. “All hands up screw and rudder,” became a familiar order. ”

“ At a time when the attention of this country is again being specially directed to the question of Arctic exploration, it becomes interesting to take note of what other nations have recently achieved in the region of Polar discovery. It is not too much to say that it is with justice that England considers herself in the van as yet of Arctic enterprise; but we have little hesitation in affirming that the expedition the story of which is told in the two volumes under notice, [A] is worthy of ranking side by side with the most memorable of our own voyages of discovery ”

“ It was then midnight and very calm. A well-sheltered bay shut in by Bellot Island offered a secure harbour, and both ships entered it, steaming in towards a snow-covered valley at its head. Half-a-mile inland in the valley lay a cluster of dark objects; through our telescopes they looked like boulders; but as we watched them, wondering at their uniform size, they appeared to move. In a moment there could be no mistake. They were musk oxen, eleven of them in all, and within easy reach. A hunting party of six was soon organised, and in a few minutes a boat landed us on this yet untrodden shore. ”

“ The Polaris, however, was nothing better than a river-steamer of small power, ill adapted for encountering the perils of Arctic navigation,—with a crew, all told, of thirty men, women, and children, including eight Eskimos. If she could accomplish such a voyage without difficulty, and could attain so high a latitude, it was reasonable to anticipate that a properly equipped English expedition, under equally favourable circumstances, would do, not only as much, but much more, and carry the British flag into the waters of the circumpolar sea, if such existed. ”

“ It might be possible to make our jailor berg float by digging off the whole top of it; so all hands set to work, and for three days all that gunpowder, pick, and shovel could do was done. Time was everything, for the tide fell lower every day. At last our enemy gave up the fight, floated up, turned partly over, and sailed out through the gate, considerably smaller than when he came in. Victory came just in time; the ice opened before us across the bay and down the coast. Ice navigation is never very rapid work, every mile has to be fought for. ”

“ One who studies the enormous volume of literature in which the Arctic story is told, scarcely can fail to be impressed by the pertinacity with which men, after one experience in the polar regions, return again and again to the quest for adventure and honors in the ice-bound zone. The subaltern on the expedition of to-day, has no sooner returned than he sets about organizing a new expedition, of which he may be commander. The commander goes into the ice time and again until, perhaps, the time comes when he does not come out. ”

“ THE severe sufferings of the last Arctic expeditions, and the losses of life and property they occasioned, have depressed the public mind in regard to Arctic explorations. Great hopes have given way to the conviction of the impossibility of penetrating the ice-bound seas and accomplishing the task which formerly seemed easy. The effect of these failures is even more profound than we could anticipate; for scientists themselves, and other men of intelligence and influence, now doubt if Arctic expeditions could be of any use either for mankind or for science. ”

“ Enough, however, has been learned to justify the belief, that a continuous mass of ice, many thousand feet deep, loads the whole of Greenland, from the land’s end near Cape Farewell, to far north beyond Petermann’s fiord, where our Expedition traced its outline behind the coast hills on the shores of the Polar Sea. ”

“ If a comparatively unbroken ice-cap exists, and if its surface affords better travelling than its broken margin, it is possible that some future expedition may yet find it lying nearer Cape Joseph Henry, and travel over it to 84° or 85°, but certainly not to the Pole. The broken condition of the floes is inexplicable; perhaps a small island or bank exists to the northward. Those who choose to think so have two facts to hang their faith on: a hare track was found thirty miles from the land, and the depth of the Polar Sea at the furthest camp was only seventy fathoms. ”