The North Pole Part 15

I did not join the field parties during the winter moons this time, but remained on the s.h.i.+p, going over and perfecting the plans for the spring campaign--the sledge journey toward the Pole--and giving considerable study to the new type of Peary sledge, to the improvement of details of clothing, and to experimenting with the new alcohol stove which I had designed for the spring work--determining the most effective charge of alcohol, the most effective size of broken ice for melting, and so on.

The question of weights is a most important factor in all sledge equipment, and it was necessary constantly to study to obtain the maximum effectiveness with the minimum weight and bulk. For relaxation, I devoted many hours to a new form of taxidermy.

About the middle of November I had a large snow igloo built on the top of the hatch on the main deck of the _Roosevelt_, which we called "the studio," and Borup and I began to experiment with flashlight pictures of the Eskimos. They had become accustomed to seeing counterfeit presentments of themselves on paper, and were very patient models. We also got some good moonlight pictures--time exposures varying from ten minutes to two or three hours.

On this last expedition I did not permit myself to dream about the future, to hope, or to fear. On the 1905-06 expedition I had done too much dreaming; this time I knew better. Too often in the past had I found myself face to face with impa.s.sable barriers. Whenever I caught myself building air castles, I would either attack some work requiring intense application of the mind, or would go to sleep--it was hard sometimes to fight back the dreams, especially in my solitary walks on the ice-foot under the arctic moon.

On the evening of November 11, there was a brilliant paraselene, two distinct halos and eight false moons being visible in the southern sky.

This phenomenon is not unusual in the Arctic, and is caused by the frost crystals in the air. On this particular occasion the inner halo had a false moon at its zenith, another at its nadir, and one each at the right and left. Outside was another halo, with four other moons.

Sometimes during the summer we see the parhelion, a similar phenomenon of the sun. I have seen the appearance of the false suns--or sun-dogs as the sailors call them--so near that the lowest one would seem to fall between me and a snow-bank twenty feet away, so near that by moving my head backward and forward I could shut it out or bring it into view.

This was the nearest I ever came to finding the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow.

On the night of November 12, the ice of the channel pack, which for more than two months had seemed unmindful of our intrusive presence, arose in wrath and tried to hurl us upon the equally inhospitable sh.o.r.e.

All that evening the wind had been gradually increasing in violence, and about half-past eleven the s.h.i.+p began to complain, creaking, groaning and muttering to herself. I lay in my bunk and listened to the wind in the humming rigging, while the moonlight, s.h.i.+ning through the porthole, filled the cabin with dim shadows. Toward midnight, mingled with the noises of the s.h.i.+p, another and more ominous sound became audible--the grinding of the ice in the channel outside.

I threw on my clothes and went on deck. The tide was running flood, and the ice was moving resistlessly past the point of the cape. The nearer ice, between us and the outer pack, was humming and groaning with the steadily increasing pressure. By the light of the moon we could see the pack as it began to break and pile up just beyond the edge of the ice-foot outside us. A few minutes later the whole ma.s.s broke with a rabid roar into a tumbling chaos of ice blocks, some upheaving, some going under, and a big rafter, thirty feet high, formed at the edge of the ice-foot within twenty feet of the s.h.i.+p. The invading ma.s.s grew larger and larger and steadily advanced toward us. The grounded piece off our starboard beam was forced in and driven against the big ice block under our starboard quarter. The s.h.i.+p shook a little, but the ice block did not move.

With every pulse of the tide the pressure and the motion continued, and in less than an hour from the time I had come on deck, a great floe-berg was jammed against the side of the _Roosevelt_ from amids.h.i.+ps to the stern. It looked for a minute as if the s.h.i.+p were going to be pushed bodily aground.

All hands were called, and every fire on board was extinguished. I had no fear of the s.h.i.+p being crushed by the ice, but she might be thrown on her side, when the coals, spilled from a stove, might start that horror of an arctic winter night, the "s.h.i.+p on fire." The Eskimos were thoroughly frightened and set up their weird howling. Several families began to gather their belongings, and in a few minutes women and children were going over the port rail onto the ice, and making for the box houses on the sh.o.r.e.

The list of the _Roosevelt_ toward the port or sh.o.r.e side grew steadily greater with the increasing pressure from outside. With the turn of the tide about half-past one in the morning, the motion ceased, but the _Roosevelt_ never regained an even keel until the following spring. The temperature that night was 25 below zero, but it did not seem so very cold.

Marvin's tidal igloo was split in two, but he continued his observations, which were of peculiar interest that night; and as soon as the ice had quieted down Eskimos were sent out to repair the igloo.

Strange to say, none of the Eskimos was attacked with _piblokto_ because of their fright, and I learned that one of the women, Ahtetah, had remained quietly sewing in the Eskimo quarters during the whole disturbance. After this experience, however, some of the Eskimo families took up their winter residence in the box houses and in snow igloos ash.o.r.e.

The winter winds of the Far North are almost unimaginable by any one who has never experienced them. Our winter at Cape Sheridan this last time was less severe than the winter of 1905-06, but we had several storms that reminded us of old times. The north and northwest winds sweeping down along the coast are the coldest; but for absolutely insane fury the winds from the south and the southwest, falling off the highland of the coast with almost the impact of a wall of water, are unsurpa.s.sed anywhere else in the arctic regions.

Sometimes these storms come on gradually, the wind from the northwest steadily increasing in force and swinging through the west to the southwest, gathering fury with every hour, until the snow is picked up bodily from the land and the ice-foot and carried in blinding, horizontal sheets across the s.h.i.+p. On deck it is impossible to stand or move, except in the shelter of the rail, and so blinding is the cataract of snow that the lamps, powerful as are their reflectors, are absolutely indistinguishable ten feet away.

When a party in the field is overtaken by a storm, they have to stay in the snow igloo until the fury is over. If there is no igloo near them, they build one just as quickly as they can when they see the storm approaching, or, if there is not time for that, they have to make a dugout in a snow bank.

Thursday, the 26th of November, was proclaimed to be Thanksgiving Day in Grant Land. For dinner we had soup, macaroni and cheese, and mince pie made of musk-ox meat. During the December moon Captain Bartlett, with two Eskimos, two sledges, and twelve dogs, went out to scour the region between the s.h.i.+p and Lake Hazen for game. Henson, with similar equipment, went to Clements Markham Inlet. Borup, with seven Eskimos, seven sledges, and forty-two dogs, set out for Cape Colan and Cape Columbia. Dr. Goodsell started at the same time with three Eskimos, two sledges, and twelve dogs, to hunt in the region from Black Cliffs Bay to James Ross Bay. The parties were to use the regular arctic ration of tea, pemmican, and biscuit, unless they found game, in which case they were to use fresh meat for both men and dogs. In addition to the hunting, supplies for the spring sledge work were to be moved from one cache to another along the coast.

To give variety to the work, the men who remained with the s.h.i.+p during one moon went into the field the next. The s.h.i.+p's men, engineers and sailors, seldom went on hunting trips but remained with the s.h.i.+p, attending to their regular duties and sometimes helping with the work of equipment.

I had in my cabin a good arctic library--absolutely complete as regards the work of later years. This included Abruzzi's "On the _Polar Star_ in the Arctic Sea," Nansen's "Farthest North," Nares' "Voyage to the Polar Sea," Markham's two volumes on arctic explorations, the narratives of Greely, Hall, Hayes, Kane, Inglefield--in fact, all the stories of the navigators of the Smith Sound region, as well as those who have attempted the Pole from other directions, such as the Austrian expedition under Payer and Weyprecht, Koldewey's East Greenland expedition, and so forth.

Then, in antarctic literature I had Captain Scott's two magnificent volumes, "The Voyage of the _Discovery_," Borchgrevink's "The _Southern Cross_ Expedition to the Antarctic," Nordenskjold's "Antarctica," the "Antarctica" of Balch, and Carl Fricker's "The Antarctic Regions," as well as Hugh Robert Mills' "Siege of the South Pole."

The members of the expedition used to borrow these books, one at a time, and I think that before the winter was over they all knew pretty well what had been done by other men in this field.

Every week or ten days throughout the winter we had to remove from our cabins the ice caused by the condensation of the moist air where it came in contact with the cold outer walls. Behind every article of furniture near the outer wall the ice would form, and we used to chop it out from under our bunks by the pailful.

The books were always placed far forward on the shelves, because if a book were pushed back it would freeze solid to the wall. Then, if a warmer day came, or a fire was built in the cabin, the ice would melt, the water would run down and the leaves of the book would mold.

The sailors amused themselves after the manner of sailors everywhere, playing dominoes, cards and checkers, boxing and telling stories. They used to play at feats of strength, such as finger-pulling, with the Eskimos. One of the men had an accordion, another a banjo, and as I sat working in my cabin I used often to hear them singing "Annie Rooney,"

"McGinty," "The Spanish Cavalier," and sometimes "Home, Sweet Home."

n.o.body seemed to be bored. Percy, who had special charge of the phonograph, often treated the men to a concert, and all through the winter I heard n.o.body complain of monotony or homesickness.

CHAPTER XX

CHRISTMAS ON THE ROOSEVELT

The four December field parties returned to the s.h.i.+p one after the other. Captain Bartlett was the only one who had found any game, and he got only five hares. During this trip the captain had an experience which might have been decidedly uncomfortable for him, had it turned out a bit less fortunately. He was up in the Lake Hazen region with his Eskimos, and he had left them at the igloo while he looked around for game. He had just found some deer tracks when the moon went behind a bank of clouds and the night became suddenly black.

He waited an hour or two for the moon to come out that he might see where he was, and meanwhile the two Eskimos, thinking he was lost, broke camp and set out for the s.h.i.+p. As soon as there was light enough, he started off to the south of the igloo, and after a time overtook his companions. Had he gone even a little way to the north he would not have met them, and would have had to walk back alone to the s.h.i.+p, without supplies, a distance of seventy or eighty miles, with a storm brewing.

This party had bad weather nearly all the way home. The temperature was comparatively mild, only ten or fifteen degrees below zero, and the sky was overcast. The captain made the last march a long one, notwithstanding the darkness. Of course he could not always keep the trail. Sometimes he would be walking along over snow as level as a floor, then suddenly the level would drop ten or fifteen feet, and, walking right on in the dark, he would land on the back of his head with such force that he saw stars which do not appear in any scientific celestial map.

At one point in the journey they struck going so rough that it was impossible to push ahead and drive the dogs without light. They had no lantern, but Bartlett took a sugar tin, cut holes in the sides, and put a candle in it. With this makes.h.i.+ft beacon he was able to keep somewhere near the trail. But there was considerable wind, and he declared that he used enough matches in relighting the candle on that march to keep an Eskimo family cheerful throughout a whole winter.

The failure of these parties to obtain game was a serious matter. In order to save food I had still further to reduce the number of dogs. We overhauled them, and fourteen of the poorest--they would not have survived the winter--were killed and used as food for the others.

I am often asked how the wild herbivorous animals, like the musk-ox and the reindeer, survive the winter in that snow-covered land. By a strange paradox, the wild winds that rage in that country help them in their struggle for existence, for the wind sweeps the dried gra.s.ses and scattered creeping willows bare of snow over great stretches of land, and there the animals can graze.

December 22 marked the midnight of the "Great Night," the sun from that day starting on the return journey north. In the afternoon all the Eskimos were a.s.sembled on deck, and I went to them with my watch in my hand, telling them that the sun was now coming back. Marvin rang the s.h.i.+p's bell, Matt Henson fired three shots, and Borup set off some flashlight powder. Then the men, women, and children formed in line and marched into the after deck house by the port gangway, pa.s.sing the galley, where each one received, in addition to the day's rations, a quart of coffee, with sugar and milk, s.h.i.+p's biscuit, and musk-ox meat; the women were also given candy and the men tobacco.

After the celebration, Pingahshoo, a boy of twelve or thirteen, who helped Percy in the galley, started confidently south over the hills to meet the sun. After a few hours he returned to the s.h.i.+p, quite crestfallen, and Percy had to explain to him that while the sun was really on its way back, it would not get to us for nearly three months more.

The next day after the winter solstice, our supply of water from the Cape Sheridan River having failed, Eskimos were sent out to reconnoiter the ponds of the neighborhood. The English expedition on the _Alert_ had melted ice during their entire winter, and on the expedition of 1905-06 we had been obliged to melt ice for a month or two; but this year the Eskimos sounded the ponds, and about fifteen feet of water was found in one a mile inland from the _Roosevelt_. Over the hole in the ice they built a snow igloo with a light wooden trap-door, so as to keep the water in the hole from freezing too quickly. The water was brought to the s.h.i.+ps in barrels on sledges drawn by the Eskimo dogs.

As Christmas fell in the dark of the moon, all the members of the expedition were on the s.h.i.+p, and we celebrated with a special dinner, field sports, raffles, prizes, and so on. It was not very cold that day, only minus 23.

In the morning we greeted each other with the "Merry Christmas" of civilization. At breakfast we all had letters from home and Christmas presents, which had been kept to be opened on that morning. MacMillan was master of ceremonies and arranged the program of sports. At two o'clock there were races on the ice-foot. A seventy-five-yard course was laid out, and the s.h.i.+p's lanterns, about fifty of them, were arranged in two parallel rows, twenty feet apart. These lanterns are similar to 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 unenc.u.mbered 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 s.h.i.+p's men and the members of the expedition, and a tug of war between the men aft and forward.

Nature herself partic.i.p.ated 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 lat.i.tudes. 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 aeolian 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 s.h.i.+rts 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 ap.r.o.n 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 s.h.i.+p 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.