My Attainment of the Pole Part 5

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 sh.o.r.e. 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 s...o...b..a.l.l.s 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 seash.o.r.e. 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 gla.s.s. Pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed the sharp rocks of Cairn Point, we saw a cl.u.s.ter 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 quant.i.ties of meat were strewn along the sh.o.r.e, 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 s.h.i.+p 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 ash.o.r.e. Only a few reached Annoatok itself, for the wind increased and a troublesome sea made haste a matter of great importance. Things were pitched ash.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e in spite of dangerous winds and forbidding seas. That the goods were spread along the sh.o.r.e 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 a.s.sistance 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 s.h.i.+pped 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 a.s.sistance. 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 accomplis.h.i.+ng of a splendid, unprecedented feat--a feat of brain and muscle in which I should, if successful, signally surpa.s.s 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 mult.i.tudinous, conflicting ambitions. I could see, in my mind, the gigantic globe of my world swinging in cloud-swept emerald s.p.a.ces, 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. .h.i.therto unattained goal. I felt, as I thought of my antic.i.p.ation 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 G.o.d 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 s.p.a.ces, braving terrific storms, a.s.sailing 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 p.a.w.n 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ON THE CHASE FOR BEAR

THE BOX-HOUSE AT ANNOATOK AND ITS WINTER ENVIRONMENT]