The North Pole - Robert E. Peary (e book reader pdf .txt) 📗

a railway brakeman's lantern, only larger. It was a strange sight—that illuminated race-course within seven and a half degrees of the earth's end.

The first race was for Eskimo children, the second for Eskimo men, the third for Eskimo matrons with babies in their hoods, the fourth for unencumbered women. There were four entries for the matrons' race, and no one could have guessed from watching them that it was a running race. They came along four abreast, dressed in furs, their eyes rolling, puffing like four excited walruses, the babies in their hoods gazing with wide and half-bewildered eyes at the glittering lanterns. There was no question of cruelty to children, as the mothers were not moving fast enough to spill their babies. Then there were races for the ship's men and the members of the expedition, and a tug of war between the men aft and forward.

Nature herself participated in our Christmas celebrations by providing an aurora of considerable brilliancy. While the races on the ice-foot were in progress, the northern sky was filled with streamers and lances of pale white light. These phenomena of the northern sky are not, contrary to the common belief, especially frequent in these most northerly latitudes. It is always a pity to destroy a pleasant popular illusion; but I have seen auroras of a greater beauty in Maine than I have ever seen beyond the Arctic Circle.

Between the races and the dinner hour, which was at four o'clock, I gave a concert on the æolian in my cabin, choosing the merriest music in the rack. Then we separated to "dress for dinner." This ceremony consisted in putting on clean flannel shirts and neckties. The doctor was even so ambitious as to don a linen collar.

Percy, the steward, wore a chef's cap and a large white apron in honor of the occasion, and he laid the table with a fine linen cloth and our best silver. The wall of the mess room was decorated with the American flag. We had musk-ox meat, an English plum pudding, sponge cake covered with chocolate, and at each plate was a package containing nuts, cakes, and candies, with a card attached: "A Merry Christmas, from Mrs. Peary."

After dinner came the dice-throwing contests, and the wrestling and pulling contests in the forecastle. The celebration ended with a graphophone concert, given by Percy.

But perhaps the most interesting part of our day was the distribution of prizes to the winners in the various contests. In order to afford a study in Eskimo psychology, there was in each case a choice between prizes. Tookoomah, for instance, who won in the women's race, had a choice among three prizes: a box of three cakes of scented soap; a sewing outfit, containing a paper of needles, two or three thimbles, and several spools of different-sized thread; and a round cake covered with sugar and candy. The young woman did hot hesitate. She had one eye, perhaps, on the sewing outfit, but both hands and the other eye were directed toward the soap. She knew what it was meant for. The meaning of cleanliness had dawned upon her—a sudden ambition to be attractive.

The last time that all the members of the expedition ate together was at the four o'clock dinner on December 29, for that evening Marvin, the captain, and their parties started for the Greenland coast; and when we met together at the ship after my return from the Pole there was one who was not with us—one who would never again be with us.

Ross Marvin was, next to Captain Bartlett, the most valuable man in the party. Whenever the captain was not in the field, Marvin took command of the work, and on him devolved the sometimes onerous, sometimes amusing labor of breaking in the new members. During the latter part of the former expedition in the Roosevelt, Marvin had grasped more fully than any other man the underlying, fundamental principles of the work.

He and I together had planned the details of the new method of advance and relay parties. This method, given a fixed surface over which to travel, could be mathematically demonstrated, and it has proved to be the most effective way to carry on an arctic sledge journey.

The party that started for the Greenland coast, across the ice of Robeson Channel, on the evening of December 29, consisted of Marvin, the captain, nine Eskimos, and fifty-four dogs. They were all to go south along the coast to Cape Union, then cross the channel to Cape Brevoort, Marvin, with his men and supporting parties, going north to Cape Bryant for a month of tidal observations, the captain and his men going south along the ice of Newman Bay and on to the Polaris Promontory to hunt.

The following day, Dr. Goodsell and Borup, each with his party of Eskimos and dogs, started by way of Cape Belknap, the doctor to hunt in Clements Markham Inlet, Borup to hunt in the region of the first glacier north of Lake Hazen. No such extensive field work had ever before been attempted by any arctic expedition, the radius of territory covered being about ninety miles in all directions from our winter quarters.

While distributing material for the spring sewing among the Eskimo women in the forward deck house and in the box houses and snow igloos on shore, I learned that some of the Eskimo men felt somewhat shaky about going north again on the ice of the polar sea. They had not forgotten the narrow escape we had had in recrossing the "big lead" on the return journey from the "farthest north" of 1906. Though I felt confident of my ability to handle them when the time came, still, I realized that we might have trouble with them yet. But I would not permit myself to worry about the outcome.

The first of the January hunting parties, Dr. Goodsell's, came in on the 11th. They had had no luck, though they had seen fresh tracks of musk-oxen. Borup came in the next morning with eighty-three hares, and an interesting story. They were right up against the glacier when they came across a whole colony of the little white arctic animals. He said there must have been nearly a hundred of them. The arctic hares are not wild; they will come so near to the hunter that he can almost grasp them with his hand. They have not learned the fear of man, because in their wilds man is practically unknown. Borup and the Eskimos surrounded the hares, until finally they got so near to them that instead of using any more ammunition they knocked the creatures over the heads with the butts of their rifles.

One day, during this hunting trip, Borup and his Eskimos became confused and were unable to find their igloo for twenty-four hours. The saw-knives, essential in constructing a snow igloo, had been left behind, and none of the men had even an ordinary knife which might have been used as a substitute. There was a gale of wind, the moon was obscured, the air was full of whirling snow, and it was very cold. They spent most of the time walking to and fro to keep warm. At last, when they were exhausted, they turned the sledges on their sides, the Eskimos worked out with their feet snow blocks which reinforced the shelter, and they were able to snatch a little sleep. When the weather cleared, they found themselves half a mile from their igloo.

The day following Borup's return, the captain came in with his men and Marvin's supporting party of four. We were just beginning to be worried about them, as the ice of Robeson Channel in the dark of winter is not the safest road for a sledge party. The captain reported that they had been only six hours in crossing the channel; but, though he had reconnoitered the whole plain of the Polaris Promontory, he had seen no musk-oxen.

By the end of January we could see a faint redness in the south at noon, and the twilight was increasing. The last moon of the winter was now circling in the sky, and I wrote in my diary: "Thank Heaven, no more moons!" No matter how many dark winters a man may have gone through in the Arctic, the longing for the sun does not grow less intense.

In the February moon Bartlett went to Cape Hecla, Goodsell moved more supplies from Hecla to Cape Colan, and Borup went to Markham Inlet on another hunting trip. Before leaving, the doctor completed a record of the approximate mean temperatures for the season, which showed that every month except October had been colder than three years before. For December the mean was eight degrees lower.

Marvin was still at Cape Bryant, but the last of the February parties came in on the 9th, and from that time on we were all busy preparing for the great and last journey. On Sunday night, February 14, I had a brief talk with the Eskimo men, telling them what we proposed to do, what was expected of them, and what each man who went to the farthest point with me would get when he returned: boat, tent, Winchester repeater, shotgun, ammunition, box of tobacco, pipes, cartridges, numerous knives, hatchets, et cetera.

Their fears of the "big lead" took flight at the prospect of what to them was untold riches; and when it came to the point of making up my sledge parties, only one Eskimo, Panikpah, would admit any fears. They had seen me return so many times that they were ready to take their chances with me this one time more.

Bartlett left the ship on Monday, February 15, with instructions to go straight through to Cape Columbia, then put in two or three days hunting for musk-oxen in the neighborhood. The three divisions following Bartlett had instructions to go to Cape Columbia with their loads; then return to Cape Colan, where there was a cache, and take full loads from there to Cape Columbia. Goodsell's division started on Tuesday, on Wednesday it was stormy, and MacMillan and Henson got away on Thursday. They were all to meet me at Cape Columbia on the last day of February.

Marvin and his party had come in from Cape Bryant about six o'clock on Wednesday night. They were all well. Borup's division left the ship on Friday, Marvin's division got away on Sunday, the 21st, and I was left alone on the ship for one day.

That last day was one of perfect quiet and rest, free from interruption. The morning I devoted to going over carefully the details of the work already done, to see that no slenderest necessary thread had been overlooked, and to considering again, point by point, the details of the coming journey.