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 sh.o.r.e, 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 b.u.t.ts 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 subst.i.tute. 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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CRANE CITY, CAPE COLUMBIA, AT THE TIME OF DEPARTURE

March 1st, 1909]

When I had satisfied myself (as I had not been able to do during the bustle and constant interruptions of the last two weeks) that everything was in its place and every possible contingency provided for, I had a few hours in which to look the situation squarely in the face, and to think of those other times, when, as now, I was on the eve of departure into the void and unknown North.

When at last I turned in for a few hours' sleep before the morning start, it was with the consciousness that so far as my knowledge and ability went, everything had been done, and that every member of the party, as well as myself, would put into his efforts all there was in him of will and sinew and vitality. This being settled, the outcome rested with the elements--the vagaries of the arctic pack, and the quality and amount of our own physical and mental stamina.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FACE OF THE LAND ICE, "GLACIAL FRINGE," OFF CAPE COLUMBIA]

This was my final chance to realize the one dream of my life. The morning start would be the drawing of the string to launch the last arrow in my quiver.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PINNACLE NEAR THE Sh.o.r.e]

CHAPTER XXI

ARCTIC ICE SLEDGING AS IT REALLY IS

Perhaps it will a.s.sist the reader to form a more vivid picture of the sort of work that now lay before the expedition and which the expedition eventually performed, if an effort is made to make him understand exactly what it means to travel nearly a thousand miles with dog sledges over the ice of the polar pack. In that belief, I shall at this point endeavor to describe as briefly as is consistent with clearness the conditions that confronted us and the means and methods by which those conditions were met.

Between the winter quarters of the _Roosevelt_ at Cape Sheridan, and Cape Columbia, the most northerly point on the north coast of Grant Land, which I had chosen as the point of departure for the ice journey, lay ninety miles in a northwesterly direction along the ice-foot and across the land, which we must traverse before plunging onto the trackless ice fields of the Arctic Ocean.

From Cape Columbia we were to go straight north over the ice of the Polar Sea,--four hundred and thirteen geographical miles. Many persons whose memories go back to the smooth skating ponds of their childhood, picture the Arctic Ocean as a gigantic skating pond with a level floor over which the dogs drag us merrily--we sitting comfortably upon the sledges with hot bricks to keep our toes and fingers warm. Such ideas are distinctly different from the truth, as will appear.

There is no land between Cape Columbia and the North Pole and no smooth and very little level ice.

For a few miles only after leaving the land we had level going, as for those few miles we were on the "glacial fringe." This fringe, which fills all the bays and extends across the whole width of North Grant Land, is really an exaggerated ice-foot; in some places it is miles in width. While the outer edge in places is afloat and rises and falls with the movement of the tides, it never moves as a body, except where great fields of ice break off from it and float away upon the waters of the Arctic Ocean.

Beyond the glacial fringe is the indescribable surface of the sh.o.r.e lead, or tidal crack--that zone of unceasing conflict between the heavy floating ice and the stationary glacial fringe. This sh.o.r.e lead is constantly opening and shutting; opening when there are offsh.o.r.e winds, or spring ebb-tides, crushing shut when there are northerly winds or spring flood-tides. Here the ice is smashed into fragments of all sizes and piled up into great pressure ridges parallel with the sh.o.r.e.

The ice is smashed into these pressure ridges by the sheer and unimaginable force with which the floes are driven against the edge of the glacial fringe, just as farther out the pressure ridges are caused by the force with which the great floes themselves are crushed and smashed together by the force of the wind and the tides.

These pressure ridges may be anywhere from a few feet to a few rods in height; they may be anywhere from a few rods to a quarter of a mile in width; the individual ma.s.ses of ice of which they are composed may vary, respectively, from the size of a billiard ball to the size of a small house.

Going over these pressure ridges one must pick his trail as best he can, often hacking his way with pickaxes, encouraging the dogs by whip and voice to follow the leader, lifting the five-hundred-pound loaded sledges over hummocks and up acclivities whose difficulties sometimes seem likely to tear the muscles from one's shoulder-blades.

Between the pressure ridges are the old floes, more or less level. These floes, contrary to wide-spread and erroneous ideas, are not formed by direct freezing of the water of the Arctic Ocean. They are made up of great sheets of ice broken off from the glacial fringe of Grant Land and Greenland, and regions to the westward, which have drifted out into the polar sea. These fields of ice are anywhere from less than twenty to more than one hundred feet in thickness, and they are of all shapes and sizes. As a result of the constant movement of the ice during the brief summer, when great fields are detached from the glaciers and are driven hither and thither under the impulse of the wind and the tides--impinging against one another, splitting in two from the violence of contact with other large fields, crushing up the thinner ice between them, having their edges shattered and piled up into pressure ridges--the surface of the polar sea during the winter may be one of almost unimaginable unevenness and roughness.

At least nine-tenths of the surface of the polar sea between Cape Columbia and the Pole is made up of these floes. The other one-tenth, the ice between the floes, is formed by the direct freezing of the sea water each autumn and winter. This ice never exceeds eight or ten feet in thickness.

The weather conditions of the fall determine to a great extent the character of the ice surface of the polar sea during the following winter. If there have been continuous sh.o.r.eward winds at the time when the increasing cold was gradually cementing the ice ma.s.ses together, then the heavier ice will have been forced toward the sh.o.r.e; and the edges of the ice-fields farther out, where they come in contact, will have piled up into a series of pressure ridges, one beyond the other, which any one traveling northward from the land must go over, as one would go over a series of hills.

If, on the other hand, there has been little wind in the fall, when the surface of the polar sea was becoming cemented and frozen over, many of these great floes will have been separated from other floes of a like size and character, and there may be stretches of comparatively smooth, young, or new, ice between them. If, after the winter has set in, there should still be violent winds, much of this thinner ice may be crushed up by the movement of the heavier floes; but if the winter remains calm, this smoother ice may continue until the general breaking up in the following summer.

But the pressure ridges above described are not the worst feature of the arctic ice. Far more troublesome and dangerous are the "leads" (the whalers' term for lanes of open water), which are caused by the movement of the ice under the pressure of the wind and tides. These are the ever-present nightmare of the traveler over the frozen surface of the polar ocean--on the upward journey for fear that they may prevent further advance; on the return journey for fear they may cut him off from the land and life, leaving him to wander about and starve to death on the northern side. Their occurrence or non-occurrence is a thing impossible to prophesy or calculate. They open without warning immediately ahead of the traveler, following no apparent rule or law of action. They are the unknown quant.i.ty of the polar equation.

Sometimes these leads are mere cracks running through old floes in nearly a straight line. Sometimes they are zigzag lanes of water just wide enough to be impossible to cross. Sometimes they are rivers of open water from half a mile to two miles in width, stretching east and west farther than the eye can see.

There are various ways of crossing the leads. One can go to the right or the left, with the idea of finding some place where the opposite edges of the ice are near enough together so that our long sledges can be bridged across. Or, if there are indications that the lead is closing, the traveler can wait until the ice comes quite together. If it is very cold, one may wait until the ice has formed thick enough to bear the loaded sledges going at full speed. Or, one may search for a cake of ice, or hack out a cake with pickaxes, which can be used as a ferry-boat on which to transport the sledges and teams across.

But all these means go for naught when the "big lead," which marks the edge of the continental shelf where it dips down into the Arctic Ocean, is in one of its tantrums, opening just wide enough to keep a continual zone of open water or impracticable young ice in the center, as occurred on our upward journey of 1906 and the never-to-be-forgotten return journey of that expedition, when this lead nearly cut us off forever from life itself.

A lead might have opened right through our camp, or through one of the snow igloos, when we were sleeping on the surface of the polar sea.

Only--it didn't.

Should the ice open across the bed platform of an igloo, and precipitate its inhabitants into the icy water below, they would not readily drown, because of the buoyancy of the air inside their fur clothing. A man dropping into the water in this way might be able to scramble onto the ice and save himself; but with the thermometer at 50 below zero it would not be a pleasant contingency.

This is the reason why I have never used a sleeping-bag when out on the polar ice. I prefer to have my legs and arms free, and to be ready for any emergency at a moment's notice. I never go to sleep when out on the sea ice without my mittens on, and if I pull my arms inside my sleeves I pull my mittens in too, so as to be ready for instant action. What chance would a man in a sleeping-bag have, should he suddenly wake to find himself in the water?

The difficulties and hardships of a journey to the North Pole are too complex to be summed up in a paragraph. But, briefly stated, the worst of them are: the ragged and mountainous ice over which the traveler must journey with his heavily loaded sledges; the often terrific wind, having the impact of a wall of water, which he must march against at times; the open leads already described, which he must cross and recross, somehow; the intense cold, sometimes as low as 60 below zero, through which he must--by fur clothing and constant activity--keep his flesh from freezing; the difficulty of dragging out and back over the ragged and "lead" interrupted trail enough pemmican, biscuit, tea, condensed milk, and liquid fuel to keep sufficient strength in his body for traveling.

It was so cold much of the time on this last journey that the brandy was frozen solid, the petroleum was white and viscid, and the dogs could hardly be seen for the steam of their breath. The minor discomfort of building every night our narrow and uncomfortable snow houses, and the cold bed platform of that igloo on which we must s.n.a.t.c.h such hours of rest as the exigencies of our desperate enterprise permitted us, seem hardly worth mentioning in comparison with the difficulties of the main proposition itself.

At times one may be obliged to march all day long facing a blinding snowstorm with the bitter wind searching every opening in the clothing.

Those among my readers who have ever been obliged to walk for even an hour against a blizzard, with the temperature ten or twenty degrees _above_ zero, probably have keen memories of the experience. Probably they also remember how welcome was the warm fireside of home at the end of their journey. But let them imagine tramping through such a storm all day long, over jagged and uneven ice, with the temperature between fifteen and thirty degrees _below_ zero, and no shelter to look forward to at the end of the day's march excepting a narrow and cold snow house which they would themselves be obliged to build in that very storm before they could eat or rest. I am often asked if we were hungry on that journey. I hardly know whether we were hungry or not. Morning and night we had pemmican, biscuit and tea, and the pioneer or leading party had tea and lunch in the middle of the day's march. Had we eaten more, our food supply would have fallen short. I myself dropped twenty-five pounds of flesh between my departure from the ship and my return to it.