Chapter XXXVI: How a Geographic Society Prostituted Its Name 541 (3)

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 shore. 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 snowballs 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 seashore. 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 glass. Passing 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 passed the sharp rocks of Cairn Point, we saw a cluster 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 quantities of meat were strewn along the shore, 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 shore, 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 ship 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 ashore. Only a few reached Annoatok itself, for the wind increased and a troublesome sea made haste a matter of great importance. Things were pitched ashore 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 shore in spite of dangerous winds and forbidding seas. That the goods were spread along the shore 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 assistance 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 shipped 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 assistance. 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 accomplishing of a splendid, unprecedented feat--a feat of brain and muscle in which I should, if successful, signally surpass 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 multitudinous, conflicting ambitions. I could see, in my mind, the gigantic globe of my world swinging in cloud-swept emerald spaces, 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 hitherto unattained goal. I felt, as I thought of my anticipation 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 God 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 spaces, braving terrific storms, assailing 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 pawn 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.

THE BOX-HOUSE AT ANNOATOK AND ITS WINTER ENVIRONMENT]

Enclosing a space thirteen by sixteen feet, the cases were quickly piled up. The walls were held together by strips of wood, the joints sealed with pasted paper, with the addition of a few long boards. A really good roof was made by using the covers of the boxes as shingles. A blanket of turf over this confined the heat and permitted, at the same time, healthful circulation of air.

We slept under our own roof at the end of the first day. Our new house had the great advantage of containing within it all our possessions within easy reach at all times. When anything was needed in the way of supplies, all we had to do was to open a box in the wall.

The house completed, we immediately began the work of building sledges, and the equally important work, at which a large proportion of the Eskimos were at once set, of making up furs into clothing. According to my plans, each one of us embarking in the Polar journey would have to carry two suits of fur clothing. In the Arctic regions, especially when men are marching to the limit of their strength every day, the bodily heat puts the clothing into such condition that the only safe way, if health is to be preserved, is to change suits frequently, while the perspiration-soaked furs are laid out to dry.

The Eskimos had also to prepare for winter. Tents of sealskin are inhabitable only in the summer time. For the coming period of darkness and bitter cold, they made igloos of stone and snow.

Meanwhile, they were not in the least averse to agreeable relaxation. I had with me a good supply of tea, and was in the habit of drinking a cup of it with Francke about four o'clock every afternoon. Observing this, the Eskimos at once began to present themselves at the tea hour. Fortunately, tea was one of the supplies of which I had brought a good deal for the sake of pleasing the natives, and it was not long before I had a very large and gossipy afternoon tea party every day, in this northernmost human settlement of the globe.

I planned to superintend every detail of progress, as far as it concerned our journey. I could watch the men, too, and see which ones promised to be the best to accompany me. And, what was a most important point, I could also perfect my final plans for the advance right at my final base.

I aimed to reach the top of the globe in the angle between Alaska and Greenland, a promising route through a new and lonesome region which had not been tried, abandoning what has come to be called the "American Route." I should strike westward and then northward, working new trails. With Annoatok as a base of operations, I planned to carry sufficient supplies over Schley Land and along the west coast of the game lands, trusting that the game along this region would furnish sufficient supplies en route to the shores of the Polar sea. This journey to land's end would also afford a test of every article of equipment needed in the field work, and would enable us to choose finally from a selected number of Eskimos those most able to endure the rigors of the unlimited journey which lay before us.

I sent out a few hunters along the intended line to seek for haunts of game, but I was not surprised that their searching in the dark was practically unsuccessful, and it merely meant that I must depend upon my previous knowledge of conditions. I knew from the general reports of the natives, and from the explorations of Sverdrup, that the beginning of the intended route offered abundant game, and the indications were that further food would likewise be found as we advanced. The readiness with which the Eskimos declared themselves ready to trust to the food supply of the unknown region was highly encouraging.

To start from my base with men and dogs in superb condition, with their bodies nourished with wholesome fresh meat instead of the nauseating laboratory stuff too often given to men in the North, was of vital importance; and if the men and dogs could afterwards be supported in great measure by the game of the region through which we were to pass, it would be of an importance more vital still. If my information was well founded and my general conjectures correct, I should have advantages which had not been possessed by any other leader of a Polar expedition. The new route seemed to promise, also, immunity from the highly disturbing effects of certain North Greenland currents. In all, the chances seemed not unfavorable.

With busy people hard at work about me, I knew that the months of the long night would pass rapidly by. There was much to do, and with the earliest dawn of the morning of the next year we must be ready to start for the Pole.

THE CURTAIN OF NIGHT DROPS

TRIBE OF TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY NATIVES BUSILY BEGIN PREPARATIONS FOR THE POLAR DASH--EXCITING HUNTS FOR THE UNICORN AND OTHER GAME FROM ANNOATOK TO CAPE YORK--EVERY ANIMAL CAUGHT BEARING UPON THE SUCCESS OF THE VENTURE--THE GREY-GREEN GLOOM OF TWILIGHT IN WHICH THE ESKIMO WOMEN COMMUNICATE WITH THE SOULS OF THE DEAD

VI

THE SUNSET OF 1907

Winter, long-lasting, dark and dismal, approached. To me it was to be a season of feverish labor in which every hand at work and every hour employed counted in the problem of success. While the hands of the entire tribe would be busy, and while I should direct and help in the making of sleds, catching of game, preparing of meat, I knew that my mind would find continual excitement in dreams of my quest, in anticipating and solving its difficulties, in feeling the bounding pulse of the dash over the ice of the Polar sea, with dogs joyously barking, whips cracking the air, and the reappearing sun paving our pathway with liquid gold. In the labor of the long winter which I began to map out I knew I should find ceaseless zest, for the pursuit of every narwhal, every walrus, every fox I should regard with abated suspense, each one bearing upon my chances; in the employment of every pair of hands I should hang with an eager interest, the expediency and excellence of the work making for success or failure. From this time onward everything of my life, every native, every occurrence began to have some bearing upon the dominating task to which I had set myself.

With the advance of winter, storms of frightful ferocity began to arise. Inasmuch as we had stored meat and blubber in large quantities about our camp, it was not necessary at these times to venture out to dig up supplies from great depths of snow drift. During these periods hands were employed busily inside the igloos. Although a large quantity of animals and furs had been gathered by the hunters before our arrival, we now unexpectedly discovered that the supply was inadequate. According to my plans, a large party of picked natives would accompany me to land's end and somewhat beyond on the Polar sea when I started for my dash in the coming spring. As spring is the best hunting season, it was therefore imperative to secure sufficient advance provisions for the families of these men in addition to preparing requisites for my expedition. So the early days of the winter would have to be busily occupied by the men in a ceaseless hunt for game, and later, even when the darkness had fully fallen, the moonlight days and nights would thus have to be utilized also.

In the Polar cycle of the seasons there are peculiar conditions which apply to circumstances and movements. As the word, seasons, is ordinarily understood, there are but two, a winter season and a summer season--a winter season of nine months and a summer of three months.

But, for more convenient division of the yearly periods, it is best to retain the usual cycle of four seasons. Eskimos call the winter "ookiah," which also means year, and the summer "onsah." Days are "sleeps." The months are moons, and the periods are named in accord with the movements of various creatures of the chase.

In early September at Annoatok the sun dips considerably under the northern horizon. There is no night. At sunset and at sunrise storm clouds hide the bursts of color which are the glory of twilight, and the electric afterglow is generally lost in a dull gray.

The gloom of the coming winter night now thickens. The splendor of the summer day has gone. A day of six months and a night of six months is often ascribed to the Polar regions as a whole, but this is only true of a very small area about the Pole.

As we come south, the sun slips under the horizon for an ever-increasing part of each twenty-four hours. Preceding and following the night, as we come from the Pole, there is a period of day and night which lengthens with the descent of latitude.

It is this period which enables us to retain the names of the usual seasons--summer for the double days, fall for the period of the setting sun. This season begins when the sun first dips under the ice at midnight for a few moments. These moments increase rapidly, yet one hardly appreciates that the sun is departing until day and night are of equal length, for the night remains light, though not cheerful. Then the day rapidly shortens and darkens, and the sun sinks until at last there is but a mere glimmer of the glory of day. Winter is limited to the long night, and spring applies to the days of the rising sun, a period corresponding to the autumn days of the setting sun.

At Annoatok the midnight sun is first seen on April 23. It dips in the sea on August 19. It thus encircles the horizon, giving summer and continuous day for one hundred and eighteen days. It sets at midday on October 24, and is absent a period of prolonged night corresponding to the day, and it rises on February 19. The Arctic air, with its low temperature and its charge of frosted humidity, so distorts the sun's rays that when low it is frequently lifted one or two diameters; therefore, the exact day or hour for sunrise or sunset does not correspond to mathematical calculations. Then follow days of spring.

In the fall, when the harmonizing influence of the sun is withdrawn, there begins a battle of the elements which continues until stilled by the hopeless frost of early night.

At this time, although field work was painful, the needs of our venture forced us to persistent action in the chase of walrus, seal, narwhal and white whale. We thus harvested food and fuel.

Before winter ice spread over the sea, ptarmigan, hare and reindeer were sought on land to supply the table during the long night with delicacies, while bear and fox pleased the palates of the Eskimos, and their pelts clothed all.

Many long journeys were undertaken to secure an important supply of grass to pad boots and mittens and also to secure moss, which serves as wick for the Eskimo lamp. During the months of September and October, along the entire Greenland coast, the Eskimos were engaged in a feverish quest for reserve supplies. Shortly after my arrival, word had been carried from village to village that I was at Annoatok, and, intending to make a dash for the "Big Nail," desired the help of the entire tribe. Intense and spontaneous activity followed. Knowing the demands of the North, and of such work as I planned, the natives, without specific instructions from me and with only a brief outline of the planned Polar campaign which was sent from village to village, immediately got busy gathering the needed things. They knew better than I where to go for certain game, and where certain desirable things were obtainable. This relieved me of a great responsibility. Each local group of natives was to perform some important duty, suited to its available resources, in gathering the tremendous amount of material required for our trip. Each village had its peculiar game advantages.

In some places foxes and hares, the skins of which were necessary for coats and stockings, were abundant, and the Eskimos must not only gather the greatest number possible, but prepare the skins and make them into properly fitting garments. In other places reindeer were plentiful. The skin of these was needed for sleeping bags, while the sinew was required for thread. In still other places seal was the luck of the chase; its skin was one of our most important needs. Of it boots were made, and an immense amount of line and lashings prepared.

Thus, in one way or another, every man and woman and most of the children of this tribe of two hundred and fifty people were kept busy in the service of the expedition. The work was well done, and with much better knowledge of the fitness of things than could have been possessed by any possible gathering of alien white men.

The quest of the walrus and the narwhal came in our own immediate plan of adventure, although the narwhal, called by whale fishers the unicorn, does not often come under the eye of the white man. It afforded for a brief spell good results in sport and useful material. Its blubber is the pride of every housekeeper, for it gives a long, hot flame to the lamp, with no smoke to spot the igloo finery. The skin is regarded as quite a delicacy. Cut into squares, it looks and tastes like scallops, with only a slight aroma of train oil. The meat dries easily, and is thus prized as an appetizer or as a lunch to be eaten en route in sled or kayak. In this shape it was an extremely useful thing for us, for it took the place of pemmican on our less urgent journeys.

Narwhals played in schools, far off shore, and usually along the edges of some large ice field, their long ivory tusks rising under spouts of breath and spray. Whenever this glad sight was noted, every kayak about camp was manned, and the skin canoes went flittering like birds over the water. Some of the Eskimos climbed to the ice fields and delivered their harpoons from a secure footing. Others hid behind floating fragments of heavy ice and made a sudden rush as the animals passed. Still others came up in the rear, for the narwhal cannot easily see backward, and does not often turn to watch its enemies, its speed being so fast that it can easily keep ahead of them.

In these exciting hunts I participated with eager delight, and by proxy mentally engaged in every encounter. For, in this sea game, existed food supplies which, instead of entirely confining myself to pemmican, I planned also to use on my Polar journey. As the skin boats, like bugs, sped over the water, I felt the movement of them surge in my brain; with the upraising of each swift-darting native's arm I felt, as it were, my heart stop with bated suspense. With every failure I experienced a throb of dismay. With the hauling in of each slimy beast I felt, as it were, nearer my goal.

Narwhal hunting, in itself, and without the added spur of personal interest, which I had, is brimful of thrilling sport. The harpoon is always delivered at close range. Whenever the dragging float marks the end of the line in tow of the frightened creature, the line of skin canoes follows. Timid by nature and fearing to rise for breath, the narwhal plunges along until nearly strangled. When he does come up, there are likely to be several Eskimos near with drawn lances, which inflict deep gashes.

Again the narwhal plunges deep down, with but one breath, and hurries along as best it can. But its speed slackens and a line of crimson marks its hidden path. Loss of blood and want of air do not give it a chance to fight. Again it comes up with a spout. Again the lances are hurled.

The battle continues for several hours, with many exciting adventures, but in the end the narwhal always succumbs, offering a prize of several thousands of pounds of meat and blubber. Victory as a rule is not gained until the hunters are far from home, and also far from the shore line. But the Eskimo is a courageous hunter and an intelligent seaman.

To the huge carcass frail kayaks are hitched in a long line. Towing is slow, wind and sea combining to make the task difficult and dangerous. One sees nothing of the narwhal and very little of the kayak, for dashing seas wash over the little craft, but the double-bladed paddles see-saw with the regularity of a pendulum. Homecoming takes many hours and demands a prodigious amount of hard work, but there is energy to spare, for a wealth of meat and fat is the culmination of all Eskimo ambition.

Seven of these ponderous animals were brought in during five days, making a heap of more than forty thousand pounds of food and fuel. The sight of this tremulous, blubbering mass filled my heart with joy. Our success was not too soon, for now the narwhals suddenly disappeared, and we saw no more of them. About this time three white whales were also obtained at Etah by a similar method of hunting.

With the advent of actual winter, storms swept over the land and sea with such fury that it was no longer safe to venture out on the water in kayaks. After the catching of several walruses from boats, sea hunting now was confined to the quest of seal through young ice. As such hunting would soon be limited to only a few open spaces near prominent headlands, an industrious pursuit was feverishly engaged in at every village from Annoatok to Cape York, and hour by hour, day by day, until the hunt of necessity changed from sea to land, the husky natives engaged in seal catching. As yet we had no caribou meat, and the little auks, which had been gathered in nets during the summer, with the eider-duck bagged later, soon disappeared as a steady diet. We must now procure such available land game as hare, ptarmigan and reindeer, for we had not yet learned to eat with a relish the fishy, liver-like substance which is characteristic of all marine mammals.

Guns and ammunition were now distributed, and when the winds were easy enough to allow one to venture out, every Eskimo sought the neighboring hills. Francke also took his exercise with a gun on his shoulder.

The combined efforts resulted in a long line of ptarmigan, two reindeer and sixteen hares. As snow covered the upper slopes, the game was forced down near the sea, where we could still hope to hunt in the feeble light of the early part of the night.

With a larder fairly stocked and good prospects for other tasty meats, we were spared the anxiety of a winter without supplies. Francke was an ideal chef in the preparation of this game to good effect, for he had a delightful way of making our primitive provisions quite appetizing.

In the middle of October fox skins were prime, and then new steel traps were distributed and set near the many caches. By this time all the Eskimos had abandoned their sealskin tents and were snugly settled in their winter igloos. The ground was covered with snow, and the sea was almost entirely frozen.

Everybody was busy preparing for the coming cold and night. The temperature was about 20 deg. below zero. Severe storms were becoming less frequent, and the air, though colder, was less humid and less disagreeable. An ice-foot was formed by the tides along shore, and over this the winter sledging was begun by short excursions to bait the fox traps and gather the foxes.

Our life now resolved itself into a systematic routine of work, which was practically followed throughout the succeeding long winter night. About the box-house in which Francke and I lived were igloos housing eight to twelve families. The tribe of two hundred and fifty was distributed in a range of villages along the coast, an average of four families constituting a community. Early each morning Koo-loo-ting-wah would bang at my door, enter, and I would drowsily awaken while he freshened the fire. Rising, we would prepare hot coffee and partake of breakfast with biscuits. By seven o'clock--according to our standard of time--five or six of the natives would arrive, and, after a liberal libation of coffee, begin work. I taught them to help me in the making of my hickory sleds. Some I taught to use modern carpentering instruments, which I had with me. Another group was schooled in bending the resilient but tough hickory. This was done by wrapping old cloths about the wood and steeping it in hot water. Others engaged, as the days went by, in making dog harness, articles of winter clothing, and drying meat. Not an hour was lost during the day. At noon we paused for a bite of frozen meat and hot tea. Then we fell to work again without respite until five or six o'clock.

Meanwhile, beginning in the early morning of our steadily darkening days, other male members of the tribe pursued game. Others again followed a routine of scouring of the villages and collecting all the furs and game which had been caught. The women of the tribe, in almost every dimly lighted igloo, were no less industrious. To them fell the task of assisting in drying the fur skins, preparing dried meat and making our clothing. Throughout the entire days they sat in their snow and stone houses, masses of ill-smelling furs before them, cutting the skins and sewing them into serviceable garments. This work I often watched, passing from igloo to igloo, with an interest that verged on anxiety; for upon the strength, thickness and durability of these depended my life, and that of the companions I should choose, on the frigid days which would inevitably come on my journey Poleward. But these broad-faced, patient women did their work well. Their skill is quite remarkable. They took my measurements, for instance, by roughly sizing up my old garments and by measuring me by sight. Garments were made to fit snugly after the preliminary making by cutting out or inserting patches of fur. Needles among the natives are indeed precious. So valuable are they that if a point or eye is broken, with infinite skill and patience the broken end is heated and flattened, and by means of a bow drill a new eye is bored. A new point is with equal skill shaped on local stones. With marvelous patience they make their own thread by drying and stripping caribou or narwhale sinews.

Were it not for their extraordinary eyesight, such work, under such conditions, would be impossible. But in the dark the natives can espy things invisible to white men. This owl-sight enables them to hunt, if necessary, in almost pitch darkness, and to perform tedious feats of hand skill which, in such dim light, an alien would bungle. I noticed, with much curiosity, that when the natives inspected any photograph or object which I gave them they always held it upside down. All objects, as is well known, are reflected in the retina thus, and it is our familiarity with the size and comparative relations of things which enables the brain to visualize an object or scene at its proper angle. This strange, instinctive act of the natives might form an interesting chapter in optics.

Meanwhile, busy and interested in the beginning of our various pursuits, the great crust which was to hold down the sea for so many months, closed and thickened.

During the last days of brief sunshine the weather cleared, and at noon on October 24 everybody sought the open for a last glimpse of the dying day. There was a charm of color and glitter, but no one seemed quite happy as the sun sank under the southern ice, for it was not to rise again for one hundred and eighteen days.

Just prior to the falling of darkness, with that instinctive and forced hilarity with which aboriginal beings seek to ward off an impending calamity, the Eskimos engaged in their annual sporting event. It is a curious sight, indeed, to behold a number of excited, laughing Eskimos gathering about two champion dogs which are to fight. Although the zest of betting is unknown, the natives regard dog fights with much the same eager excitement as a certain type of sporting man does a cock encounter. Sometimes the dogs do not fight fairly, a number of the animals bunching together and attacking a single dog. Dogs selected for the fight are, of course, the best of the teams. A dog which maintains his fighting supremacy becomes a king dog, and when beaten becomes a first lieutenant to the king.

After the forced enthusiasm of this brief period of excitement, the Eskimos begin to succumb to the inevitable melancholia of nature, when the sun, the source of natural life, disappears and darkness descends. A gloom descends heavily upon their spirits. A subtle sadness tinctures their life, and they are possessed by an impulse to weep. At this season, hour by hour, the darkness thickens; the cold increases and chills their igloos; the wind, exultant while the sun shines, now whines and sobs dolorously--there is something gruesome, uncanny, supernatural, in its siren sorrow. Outside, the snow falls, the sea closes. Its clamant beat of waves is silenced. Sea animals mostly disappear; land animals are rare. Their source of physical supply vanished, the Eskimos unconsciously feel the grim hand of want, of starvation, which means death, upon them. The psychology of this period of depression partly lies, undoubtedly, in this instinctive dread of death from lack of food and the natural depression of unrelieved gloom. Moreover, there is a grief, born of the native superstition that, when the sea freezes, the souls of all who have perished in the waters are imprisoned during the long night. Too fierce is the struggle of these people with the elemental forces to permit them, like many other aboriginal peoples to be obsessed greatly with superstitions. Although their religion is a very primitive and native one, it is usually only at the inception of night that they feel the appalling nearness of a world that is supernatural. As the last rim of the sun sank over the southern ice, the natives entered upon a formal period of melancholy, during which the bereavements of each family, and the discomforts and disasters of the year, were memoralized.

I shall never forget that long, sad evening, which lasted many normal days. The sun had descended. A sepulchral, gray-green curtain of gloom hung over the chilled earth. In the dim semi-darkness could be vaguely seen the outlines of the igloos, of the heaving curvatures of snow-covered land, and the blacker, snake-like twistings of open lanes of water, where the sea had not yet frozen. Sitting in my box-house, I was startled suddenly by a sound that made my flesh for the instant creep. I walked to the door and threw it open. Over the bluish, snow-covered land, formed by the indentures and hollows, stretched dark-purplish shapes--Titan shadows, sepulchral and ominous, some with shrouded heads, others with spectral arms threateningly upraised. Nebulous and gruesome shreds of blue-fog like wraiths shifted over the sea. Out of the sombre, heavy air began to issue a sound as of many women sobbing. From the indistinct distance came moaning, crooning voices. Sometimes hysterical wails of anguish rent the air, and now and then frantic choruses shrieked some heart-aching despair. My impression was that I was in a land of the sorrowful dead, some mid-strata of the spirit world, where, in this gray-green twilight, formless things in the distance moved to and fro.

There is, I believe, in the heart of every man, an instinctive respect for sorrow. With muffled steps, I left the igloo and paced the dreariness of ice, treading slowly, lest, in the darkness, I slip into some unseen crevasse of the open sea. A strange and eerie sight confronted me. Along the seashore, bending over the lapping black water, or standing here and there by inky, open leads in the severed ice, many Eskimo women were gathered. Some stood in groups of two or three. Bowed and disconsolate, her arms about them, with almost every hundred steps, I saw a weeping mother and her children. Standing rigid and stark, motionless graven images of despair, or frantically writhing to and fro, others stood far apart in desolate places, alone.

The dull, opaque air was tinged with a strange phosphorescent green, suggestive of a place of dead things; and now, like the flutterings of huge death-lamps, along the horizon, where the sun had sunk, gashes of crimson here and there fitfully glowed blood-red in the pall-like sky.

To the left, as I walked along, I recognized Tung-wingwah, with a child on her back and a bag of moss in her hand. She stood behind a cheerless rock, with her face toward the faint red flushes of the sun. She stood motionless. Big tears rolled from her eyes, but not a sound was uttered. To my low queries she made no response. I invited her to the camp to have a cup of tea, thinking to change her sad thoughts and loosen her tongue. But still her eyes did not leave that last distant line of open water. From another, I later learned that in the previous April her daughter of five, while playing on the ice-foot, slipped and was lost in the sea. The mother now mourned because the ice would bury her little one's soul.

A little farther along was Al-leek-ah, a woman of middle age, with two young children by her side. She was hysterical in her grief, now laughing with a weird giggle, now crying and groaning as if in great pain, and again dancing with emotions of madness. I learned her story from a chatter that ran through all her anguish. Towanah, her first husband, had been drawn under the ice, by the harpoon line, twenty years ago. And though she had been married three times since, she was trying to keep alive the memory of her first love. I went on, marveling at a primitive fidelity so long enduring.

Still farther along towards the steep slopes of the main coast, I saw Ahwynet, all alone in the gloomy shadow of great cliffs. Her story was told in chants and moans. Her husband and all her children had been swept by an avalanche into the stormy seas. There was a kind of wild poetry in the song of her bereavement. Tears came to my eyes. The rush of the avalanche, the hiss of the wind, the pounding of the seas, were all indicated. And then, in heart-breaking tones, came "blood of her blood, flesh of her flesh, under the frozen waters," and other sentiments which I could not catch in the undertone of sobs.

Cold shivers began to run up my spine, and I turned to retreat to camp. Here was a scene that perhaps a Dante might adequately write about. I cannot. I felt that I, an alien, was intruding into the realm of some strange and mystic sorrow. I felt the sombre thrill of a borderland world not human. These women were communicating with the souls of their dead. To those who had perished in the sea they were telling, ere the gates of ice closed above them, all the news of the past year--things of interest and personal, and even of years before, as far back as they could remember. Almost every family each year loses someone in the sea; almost every family was represented by these weeping women, overburdened with their own naive sorrow, and who yet strangely sought to cheer the souls of the disconsolate and desolate dead.

Meanwhile, while the women were weeping and giving their parting messages to the dead, the male members of the tribe, in chants and dramatic dances, were celebrating, in the igloos, the important events of the past year.

Inside, the igloos were dimly lighted with stone blubber lamps. These, during the entire winter, furnish light and heat. The lamp consists of a crescent-shaped stone with a concavity, in which there is animal oil and a line of crushed moss as a wick. Lighted early in the season, for an entire winter, these lamps cast a faint, perpetual, flickering light. Shadows dance grotesquely about on the rounded walls. An oily stench pervades the unventilated enclosure. In this weird, yellow-blackish radiance the men engage in their fantastic dances. Moving the central parts of their bodies to and fro, they utter weird sing-song chants. They recite, in jerky, curious singing, the history of the big events of the year; of successful chases; of notable storms; of everything that means much in their simple lives. As they dance, their voices rise to a high pitch of excitement. Their eyes flash like smoldering coals. Their arms move frantically. Some begin to sob uncontrollably. A hysteria of laughter seizes others. Finally the dance ends; exhausted, they pass into a brief lethargy, from which they revive, their melancholia departed. The women return from the shores of the sea; they wipe their tears, and, with native spontaneity, forget their depression and smile again.

While I was interested in the curious spectacles presented, the sunset of 1907 to me was inspiration for the final work in directing the completion of the outfit with which to begin the conquest of the Pole at sunrise of 1908. Fortunately, I was not handicapped by the company of the usual novices taken on Polar expeditions. There were only two of us white men, and white men, at the best, must be regarded as amateurs compared with the expert efficiency of Eskimos in their own environment. Our food supply contained only the prime factors of primitive nourishment. Special foods and laboratory concoctions and canned delicacies did not fill an important space in our larder. Nor had we balloons, automobiles, motor sleds or other freak devices. We did, however, I have said, have what was of utmost importance, an abundance of the best hickory and metal for the making of the sleds upon which our destinies were vitally to depend.

FIRST WEEK OF THE LONG NIGHT

HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC TWILIGHT--PURSUING BEAR, CARIBOU AND SMALLER GAME IN SEMI-GLOOM

VII

THE GLORY OF THE AURORA

The sun had dropped below the horizon. The gloom continued steadily to thicken. Each twenty-four hours, at the approximate approach of what was the noon hour when the sun had been above the horizon, the sky to the south of us glowed with marvelous, subdued sunset hues. By this time our work had gone ahead by progressive stages. Furs, to protect us from the cold of the uttermost North on my prospective trip, had been prepared and were being made into clothing; meat and fat, for food and fuel, were being dried and stored in numerous caches about Annoatok; several of the sledges and part of the equipment were ready.