1901–1902
On the 16th of September I succeeded in reaching Payer Harbour, crossing Ross Bay, partly by sledge and partly by boat, and going overland across Bedford Pim Island.
Soon after this my Eskimos began to sicken, and by November 19th six of them were dead. During this time I personally sledged much of the material from Erik Harbour to headquarters, and Henson went to the head of Buchanan Bay with some of the Eskimos, and secured ten musk-oxen.
The winter passed quietly and comfortably. Two more musk-oxen were secured in Buchanan Bay, and six deer at Etah.
January 2d, work was begun in earnest on preparations for the spring campaign, which opened on the 11th of February. On this day I sent off six sledges, with light loads, to select a road across the mouth of Buchanan Bay, and build an igloo abreast of Cape Albert. On the 12th I sent two of my best hunters on a flying reconnoissance and bear hunt, in the direction of Cape Louis Napoleon.
On the 13th eight sledges went out, taking dog-food nearly to Cape D’Urville. On the 16th my two scouts returned with a favourable report, and on the 18th ten sledges went out loaded with dog-food to be taken to Cape Louis Napoleon. This party returned on the 22d. On the evening of the 28th, everything was in readiness for Henson to start the next day, it being my intention to send him on ahead with three picked men and light loads to pioneer the way to Conger; I to follow a few days later with the main party. A northerly gale delayed his departure until the morning of March 3d, when he got away with six sledges and some fifty dogs. Two of these sledges were to act as a supporting party as far as Cape Lawrence. At 9 A. M. of March 6th fourteen sledges trailed out of Payer Harbour and rounded Cape Sabine for the northern journey, and at noon I followed them, with my big sledge, the “Long Serpent,” drawn by ten fine grays. Two more sledges accompanied me. The temperature at the time was –20° F. The minimum of the previous night had been –38° F. We joined the others at the igloos abreast of Cape Albert and camped there for the night. Temperature –43° F. The next day we made Cape D’Urville in temperature from –45° to –49°F.
Here I stopped a day to dry our foot-gear thoroughly, and left on the morning of the 9th with some supplies from the box house. Two sledges returned from here. Camped about five miles from Cape Louis Napoleon. The next march carried me to Cape Fraser, and the next to Cape Collinson. During this march, for the first time in the four seasons that I have been over this route, I was able to take a nearly direct course across the mouth of Scoresby Bay, instead of making a long detour into it.
One march from Cape Collinson carried me to Cape Lawrence, on the north side of Rawlings Bay. The crossing of this bay, though more direct than usual, was over extremely rough ice. Learning from Henson’s letter at Cape Lawrence, that I had gained a day on him, and not wanting to overtake him before reaching Conger, I remained here a day, repairing several sledges which had been damaged in the last march. Five men with the worst sledges and poorest dogs returned from here. Three more marches took us to Cape L. von Buch on the north side of Carl Ritter Bay, temperature ranging from –35° to –45° F. Heavy going in many places.
Two more marches carried us to the first coast valley north of Cape Defosse. I had now gained two days on the advance party. The character of the channel ice being such that we were able to avoid the terrible ice-foot, which extends from here to Cape Lieber, and my dogs being still in good condition, I made a spurt from here and covered the distance to Conger in one march, arriving about an hour and a half after Henson and his party.
I had covered the distance from Payer Harbour to Conger, some 300 miles, in twelve marches.
Four days were spent at Conger overhauling sledges and harness, drying and repairing clothing, and scouting the country, as far as The Bellows, in search of musk-oxen. None were seen, but about 100 hare were secured in the four days. Temperature during this time from –40° to –57° F. Seven Eskimos returned from here, taking with them the instruments of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, and other items of Government property abandoned here in 1883.
On the morning of the 24th I started north with nine sledges. We camped the first night at “Depot B.” The next march I had counted on making Lincoln Bay, but just before reaching Wrangel Bay a sudden furious gale with blinding drift drove us into camp at the south point of the bay. Here we were storm-bound during the 26th, but got away on the morning of the 27th and pushed on to Cape Union, encountering along this portion of the coast the steep side slopes of hard snow, which are so trying to men and sledges and dogs.
Open water, the clouds over which we saw from Wrangel Bay Camp, was about 100 yards beyond our igloo, and extended from there, as I judged, northward beyond Cape Rawson, and reached entirely across the channel to the Greenland coast at Cape Brevoort, as in 1900.
Fortunately, with the exercise of utmost care, and with a few narrow escapes, and incessant hard work, we were able to work our sledges along the narrow and dangerous ice-foot to and around Black Cape.
The ice-foot along this section of the coast was the same as was found here by Egerton and Rawson in 1876, and Pavy in 1882, necessitating the hewing of an almost continuous road; but a party of willing, lighthearted Eskimos makes comparatively easy work of what would be a slow and heart-breaking job for two or three white men. Beyond Black Cape the ice-foot improved in character, and I pushed along to camp at the Alert’s winter quarters. Simultaneously with seeing the Alert’s cairn three musk-oxen were seen a short distance inland, and secured. The animals were very thin and furnished but a scant meal for my dogs.
One march from here carried us to Cape Richardson, and the next under the lee of View Point, where we were stopped and driven to build our igloo with all possible speed by one of the common Arctic gales. There were young ice, pools of water, and a nearly continuous water sky all along the shore.
As the last march had been through deep snow, I did not dare to attempt the English short cut across Fielden Peninsula behind Cape Joseph Henry, preferring to take the ice-foot route round it.
For a short distance this was the worst bit of ice-foot I have ever encountered. By the slipping of my sledge two men nearly lost their lives, saving themselves by the merest chance, with their feet already dangling over the crest of a vertical face of ice some fifty feet in height. At the very extremity of the cape we were forced to pass our sledges along a shelf of ice, less than three feet in width, glued against the face of the cliff at an elevation which I estimated at the time as seventy-five feet above the ragged surface of the floe beneath. On the western side of the cape the ice-foot broadened and became nearly level, but was smothered in such a depth of light snow that it stalled us and we went into camp. The next day we made Crozier Island.
During April 2d and 3d we were held here by a westerly storm, and the 4th and 5th were devoted to hunting musk-oxen, of which three were secured, two of them being very small. From here I sent back three Eskimos, keeping Henson and four Eskimos with me.
Reconnoissances of the polar pack northward were made with the glasses from the summit of the island and from Cape Hecla.
The pack was very rough, but apparently not as bad as that which I saw north of Cape Washington two years before. Though unquestionably difficult, it yet looked as though we might make some progress through it unless the snow was too deep and soft. This was a detail which the glasses could not determine.
On the morning of April 6th I left Crozier Island, and a few hours later, at the point of Cape Hecla, we swung our sledges sharply to the right and climbed over and down the parapet of the ice-foot on to the polar pack. As the sledges plunged down from the ice-foot their noses were buried out of sight, the dogs wallowed belly deep in the snow, and we began our struggle due northward.
We had been in the field now just a month. We had covered not less than 400 miles of the most arduous travelling in temperatures of from –35° to –57° F., and we were just beginning our work, i. e., the conquest of the polar pack, the toughest undertaking in the whole expanse of the Arctic region.
Some two miles from the cape was a belt of very recent young ice, running parallel with the general trend of the coast. Areas of rough ice caught in this compelled us to exaggerated zigzags, and doubling on our track. It was easier to go a mile round, on the young ice, than to force the sledge across one of these islands.
The northern edge of the new ice was a high wall of heavily rubbled old ice, through which, after some reconnoissance, we found a passage to an old floe, where I gave the order to build an igloo. We were now about five miles from the land.
The morning of the 7th brought us fine weather. Crossing the old floe we came upon a zone of old floe fragments deeply blanketed with snow. Through the irregularities of this we struggled; the dogs floundering, almost useless, occasionally one disappearing for a moment; now treading down the snow round a sledge to dig it out of a hole into which it had sunk, now lifting the sledges bodily over a barrier of blocks; veering right and left; doubling in our track; road-making with snowshoe and pickaxe.
Late in the day a narrow ditch gave us a lift for a short distance, then one or two little patches of level going, then two or three small old floes which, though deep with snow, seemed like a Godsend compared with the wrenching earlier work. We camped in the lee of a large hummock on the northern edge of a small but very heavy old floe, everyone thoroughly tired, and the dogs dropping motionless in the snow as soon as the whip stopped.
We were now due north to Hecla, and I estimated we had made some six miles, perhaps seven, perhaps only five. A day of work like this makes it difficult to estimate distances. This is a fair sample of our day’s work.
On the 12th we were storm-bound by a gale from the west, which hid even those dogs fastened nearest to the igloo. During our stay here the old floes on which we were camped split in two with a loud report, and the ice cracked and rumbled and roared at frequent intervals.
In the first march beyond this igloo we were deflected westward by a lead of practically open water, the thin film of young ice covering it being unsafe even for a dog. A little further on a wide canal of open water deflected us constantly to the northwest and then west until an area of extremely rough ice prevented us from following it farther. Viewed from the top of a high pinnacle this area extended west and northwest on both sides of the canal, as far as could be seen. I could only camp and wait for this canal, which evidently had been widened (though not newly formed) by the storm of the day before, to close up or freeze over. During our first sleep at this camp there was a slight motion of the lead, but not enough to make it practicable. From here I sent back two more Eskimos.
Late in the afternoon of the 14th the lead began to close, and hastily packing the sledges we hurried them across over moving fragments of ice. We now found ourselves in a zone of high parallel ridges of rubble ice covered with deep snow. These ridges were caused by successive opening and closing of the lead. When, after some time, we found a practicable pass through this barrier, we emerged upon a series of very small but extremely heavy and rugged old floes; the snow on them still deeper and softer than on the southern side of the lead. At the end of a sixteen-hour day I called a halt, though we were only two or three miles north of the big lead.
During the first portion of the next march we passed over fragments of very heavy old floes slowly moving eastward. Frequently we were obliged to wait for the pieces to crush close enough together to let us pass from one to the other. Farther on I was compelled to bear away due east by an impracticable area extending west, northwest, north and northeast as far as could be seen, and just as we had rounded this and were bearing away to the north again, we were brought up by a lead some fifty feet wide. From this on, one day was much like another, sometimes doing a little better sometimes a little worse, but the daily advance, in spite of our best efforts, steadily decreasing. Fog and stormy weather also helped to delay us.
I quote from my Journal:
April 21st.—The game is off. My dream of sixteen years is ended. It cleared during the night and we got under way this morning, deep snow. Two small old floes. Then came another region of old rubble and deep snow. A survey from the top of a pinnacle showed this extending north, east and west, as far as could be seen. The two old floes, over which we had just come, are the only ones in sight. It is impracticable and I gave the order to camp. I have made the best fight, I knew. I believe it has been a good one. But I cannot accomplish the impossible.
A few hours after we halted there came from the ice to the north a sound like that made by a heavy surf, and it continued during our stay at this camp. Evidently the floes in that direction were crushing together under the influence of the wind, or what was, perhaps, more probable, from the long continuation of the noise, the entire pack was in slow motion to the east. A clear day enabled me to get observations which showed my latitude to be 84° 17′ 27″ N., magnetic variation, 99° west. I took some photographs of the camp, climbed and floundered through the broken fragments and waist-deep snow for a few hundred yards north of the camp, gave the dogs a double ration, then turned in to sleep, if possible, for a few hours preparatory to returning.
We started on our return soon after midnight of the 21st. It was very thick, with wind from the west and snowing heavily. I hurried our departure in order to utilise as much of our tracks as possible before they were obliterated. It was very difficult to keep the trail in the uncertain light and driving snow. We lost it repeatedly, when we would be obliged to quarter the surface like bird dogs. On reaching the last lead of the upward march, instead of the open water which had interrupted our progress then, our tracks now disappeared under a huge pressure ridge, which I estimated to be from seventy-five to one hundred feet high. Our trail was faulted here by the movement of the floes, and we lost time in picking it up on the other side.
This was to me a trying march. I had had no sleep the night before, and to the physical strain of handling my sledge was added the mental tax of trying to keep the trail. When we finally camped, it was only for a few hours, for I recognised that the entire pack was moving slowly, and that our trail was everywhere being faulted and interrupted by new pressure ridges and leads, in a way to make our return march nearly, if not quite, as slow and laborious as the outward one. The following marches were much the same. In crossing one lead I narrowly escaped losing two sledges and the dogs attached to them. Arrived at the “Grand Canal,” as I called the big lead at which I had sent two Eskimos back, the changes had been such as to make the place almost unrecognisable.
Two marches south of the Grand Canal the changes in the ice had been such, between the time of our upward trip and the return of my two men from the canal, that they, experienced as they were in all that pertains to ice-craft, had been hopelessly bewildered and wandered apparently, for at least a day, without finding the trail. After their passage other changes had taken place, and, as a result, I set a compass course for the land, and began making a new road. In the next march we picked up our old trail again.
Early in the morning of the 22d, we reached the second igloo out from Cape Hecla, and camped in a driving snowstorm. At this igloo we were storm-bound during the 27th and 28th, getting away on the 29th in the densest fog, and bent on butting our way in a “bee” line compass course, for the land. Floundering through the deep snow and ice, saved from unpleasant falls only by the forewarning of the dogs, we reached Crozier Island after a long and weary march. The band of young ice along the shore had disappeared, crushed up into confused ridges and mounds of irregular blocks.
The floe at the island camp had split in two, the crack passing through our igloo, the halves of which stared at each other across the chasm. This march finished two of my dogs, and three or four more were apparently on their last legs. We did not know how tired we were until we reached the island. The warm foggy weather and the last march together dropped our physical barometer several degrees.
SIDE
FRONT
HEAD OF RANGIFER PEARYI, ALLEN. Killed near Cape Joseph Henry, October, 1905
AHNGMALOKTO
PEWAHTO
AHNGODOBLAHO
PANIKPAH
ESKIMOS OF THE “FARTHEST NORTH” PARTY
As we now had light sledges, I risked the short cut across the base of Fielden Peninsula and camped that night under the lee of View Point. Four more marches carried us to Conger, where we remained three days, drying clothing and repairing sledges, and giving the dogs a much needed rest. Leaving Conger on the 6th of May, eleven marches brought us back to Payer Harbour on the 17th of May. A few days after this I went north to complete the survey of the inner portions of Dobbin Bay, being absent from headquarters some ten days. Open water vetoing a trip which I had planned for June up Buchanan Bay and across to the west coast of Ellesmere Land, the remainder of the time was devoted to assiduous hunting, in order to secure a supply of meat for the winter, in the contingency of no ship arriving.
On the 5th of August the new Windward, sent north by the Club, and bringing to me Mrs. Peary and my little girl, steamed into the harbour. As soon as people and supplies could be hurried aboard her, she steamed across the Sound to the Greenland side. Here my faithful Eskimos were landed, and, after devoting a week or so to the work of securing sufficient walrus to carry them in comfort through the winter, the Windward steamed southward, and, after an uneventful voyage, arrived at Sydney, C. B., on the 17th of September, where I had the pleasure of meeting Secretary Bridgman, of the Club, and forwarding through him a brief report of my movements during the past year.
A New Caribou from Ellesmere Land[[4]]
BY J. A. ALLEN
[4]. Bulletin Am. Museum of Nat. History, Vol. xvi, Article xxxii.
The valuable natural history material brought by the Arctic explorer, Commander R. E. Peary, U. S. N., to the American Museum of Natural History on his return from his recent long sojourn in the high North contains five specimens of Caribou taken in Ellesmere Land, Lat. 79°, in June, 1902. They comprise four flat skins of adults without skulls, and more or less defective, and the complete skin of a young fawn. In colouration they are strikingly different from any other known Caribou, being pure white except for a large dark patch on the middle and posterior part of the back.
ELLESMERE LAND CARIBOU
Rangifer Pearyi, sp. nov.
Type, No. 19231 ♂ ad., Ellesmere Land, N. Lat. 79°, June 15, 1902, Commander Robert E. Peary, U. S. N.
Entire animal pure white except an oval grayish brown patch over the posterior half of the dorsal surface, gradually fading into white toward the shoulders, the hair being white to the base, or of a pale shade of lilac below the surface, where the surface colour is white. The dorsal patch occupies an area of about 670 mm. in length by 350 mm. in width, and is drab-gray, divided by a very narrow median line of white. The legs and feet are wholly white; the ears are slightly tinged with gray, the hair beneath the surface being plumbeous and showing slightly at the surface. The antlers are just budding, being represented by small protuberances, about an inch and a half in length, covered with short hair. Total length of flat skin, 1660 mm. Corresponding measurement of flat skins of the dark form of Caribou from Greenland, 1820 mm.
A female (No. 19232) is similar, except that the dark dorsal area extends a little further forward at the shoulders, and is a little darker. As in the male, the patch fades out to whitish toward the shoulders. Length of the flat skin, 1560 mm.
Two other females are similarly marked, but the dorsal patch in both is much darker, approaching dark slate gray. The region around the base of the antlers and ears is clouded with grayish, as are the edges of the ears; the front surface of the forelegs is dark grayish brown, and of the hind legs faint buffy grayish brown, increasing in amount and intensity apically from the tarsal joint to the hoofs. These skins measure respectively 1610 and 1570 mm. in total length. In one the antlers form knobs an inch or two in height, covered with short hair.
A fawn (No. 19235), a few weeks old, is grayish white on the head, ears, neck, limbs, ventral surface and sides of the body, the hairs being dusky basally and broadly tipped with white, the dusky basal portion showing through the white enough to give a general dingy effect. The top of the nose and a narrow band bordering the nostrils are blackish, passing posteriorly on the upper part of the rostrum into brownish dusky; a broad central band from the nose nearly to the ears is darker or more dingy than the sides of the face; a rusty brownish spot marks the point where the antlers are to appear, and there is a faint rusty wash on the sides of the face both before and behind the rusty antler spots. The back is marked by a strongly defined, very narrow, ferruginous line, running from the nape to the base of the tail, which, over the middle of the back, broadens a little and darkens to deep dusky ferruginous; the whole dorsal area, from a little behind the shoulders to the rump, is pale fawn colour, darkest medially and fading out on the sides to pale buffy white. This coloured area corresponds in position and outline with the dark dorsal patch of the adults. A narrow, ill-defined, dusky chestnut-brown band borders the hoofs of all the feet, but is rather broader and more distinct on the hind feet than on the fore feet. The tail is wholly white to the base, as in the adults.
The adult specimens, though killed in June, are in winter coat, the hair being long, thick, and very soft, much softer and finer than in the Greenland Caribou, and the skins are also much thinner and softer. The skin of the fawn was preserved in brine, which may have slightly intensified or darkened the buffy shades of the dorsal surface.
Rangifer Pearyi is evidently a very distinct insular form, very different from R. Grœnlandicus in colouration and doubtless in other features. Unfortunately only flat skins are available for examination. Specimens of R. Grœnlandicus in corresponding pelage are dark slaty brown above, this colour fading gradually on the sides to the white of the ventral surface, the Greenland Caribou being very much darker in its winter pelage than the Newfoundland Caribou, which heretofore has been the whitest known form of the group.
I am indebted to Commander Peary for the following information regarding the occurrence of Caribou in Ellesmere Land. In a letter dated Philadelphia, October 13, 1902, he says: “In answer to your inquiries I will say that remains and traces of reindeer have been noted by previous explorers at the following points in Ellesmere Land and Grinnell Land: Alexandra Haven, Ellesmere Land; Rawlings Bay, Grinnell Land, and in the Fort Conger region, Grinnell Land; and an antler was picked up by a member of my party in the summer of 1901 at Erik Harbour, some twelve miles south of Cape Sabine. The published reports of Sverdrup’s expedition state that he found reindeer in abundance on the west side of Ellesmere Land.
“I have seen many winter coats of the Greenland Caribou and they are pronouncedly darker than the Ellesmere specimens.”
CHAPTER XVI
THE ARCTIC S. S. “ROOSEVELT”
In July, 1904, in one of the charming villas overlooking the city of Bar Harbor a meeting took place, small as to numbers but weighty with importance in the affairs of the Peary Arctic Club, for at that meeting was taken the formal step which meant the building of the Roosevelt.
Four men were present at the meeting: Morris K. Jesup, Lewis L. Delafield his counsel, Captain Charles B. Dix, and myself.
Mr. Jesup had stated some time previous, that if subscriptions to the Peary Arctic Club could be secured to the amount of $50,000, including his own generous check for not less than half that sum, he would assume responsibility for the construction of the ship and guarantee the contract, thus insuring the construction of the ship in time to go North in 1905, and giving nearly a year additional time in which to secure the additional funds necessary.
Up to this time the interest had not been particularly widespread. The amount of subscriptions was still short of $50,000, but time was pressing and the material must be ordered at once in order to give even a reasonable chance of completing the ship in time.
Personally I felt no doubt but what the total amount of money could be raised, and yet it must be admitted that the prospects were none too favourable and discussion did not seem to appreciably clear the situation.
Mr. Jesup was as deeply interested as I, and was not only willing but anxious to do everything in his power to put the matter through, but he hesitated at assuming too much responsibility because, as he frankly told me, he did not feel, much as he wished to, that he could properly assume the entire burden of the expedition.
Finally Captain Dix said that he would order the timber for the building of the Roosevelt on his own responsibility; that he believed the money would be raised, and that if it were not, he would assume whatever loss might result from his action. His statement was like a ray of sunlight both to Mr. Jesup and myself, for it brought out clearly the fact that there was something in the project which appealed irresistibly to business men of big ideas.
The next scene which I recall most distinctly was in another beautiful villa in Vermont, commanding miles and miles of beautiful country and with a regal mountain and forest domain back of it. It was just before the 1st of August, the date on which the $50,000 must be subscribed to insure the signing of the contract for the construction of the ship. The total still fell several thousands short of that amount. Mr. Colgate had already promised a generous check with an intimation that he might increase it if it were necessary.
At this meeting there were but three: Mr. Colgate, Judge Darling, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and myself. The situation was presented to Mr. Colgate, and with characteristic promptitude and generosity his check was increased by an amount that rounded out the $50,000 and so the building of the Roosevelt became a certainty.
CAPTAIN CHAS. B. DIX. BUILDER OF THE “ROOSEVELT”
THE “ROOSEVELT” ON HER TRIAL TRIP, JUNE, 1905
THE PEARY ARCTIC CLUB’S S. S. “ROOSEVELT”
In approaching the general question of a ship for Arctic or Antarctic ice navigation, one thing is immediately apparent to anyone at all conversant with the matter, i. e., that she should be as small as is consistent with carrying the party, supplies, equipment, and coal for the work planned.
The reasons for this are evident. The smaller a ship is, the stronger she is, and the more easily handled.
In looking for facts to show the results of past experience in this field, it is at once discovered that practically all ice boats past and present have been built by the three countries, Scotland, the United States, and Norway, for the prosecution of the whale and seal fisheries.
In this work the Norwegians have operated in the seas about Spitzbergen, Jan Mayen, East Greenland, and Nova Zembla; the United States in Hudson Bay and Bering Sea; and the Scotch principally in the chain of waters comprising Davis Strait, Baffin Bay, Lancaster Sound and their tributaries, with a few voyages to East Greenland and Hudson Bay.
The ice conditions encountered by the Norwegians and Americans may be very broadly stated as floes and broken ice drifting in an open sea, through which the ships have to thread their way.
The ice conditions encountered by the Scotch whalers, are a nearly solid expanse of one season’s ice in Melville Bay, and when that is passed, heavy ice in narrow land-locked channels, notorious for their strong currents, the direction of which is opposed to the course of the whalers.
It has been said by one writer that the American whalers use their steam to keep out of the ice, while the Scotch use theirs to get into and through it.
Comparing existing ships of the Scotch, Norwegian, and United States whaling fleets, it is found that the following average proportions of beam to length exist:
| Scotch, | 1:5.75 |
| Norwegian, | 1:4.7 |
| American, | 1:4.5 |
It is seen at once that the Norwegians and Americans have not departed from the old-fashioned sailing ship model. (The average ratio in our modern Bath-built schooners is 1:4.78.)
The Scotchmen have a finer model, and since this model is a practical evolution by shrewd seamen and builders from an experience of over one hundred and twenty-five years, in a business where large financial returns were the lot of the best ship; and the seas where that experience was secured and for which that evolution was designed, are the seas to be navigated by the proposed ship, it seemed clear that the Scotch model was the one on which to base our studies.
The problem of size did not present itself in the present instance in quite the form that it did to Nansen, and the English and German Antarctic Expeditions. In these instances the size of the party and the length of time it was to be absent being determined upon, and the coal consumption of the engines fixed, it was easy to calculate the cargo to be carried which, plus the dead weight of the ship and machinery, gave at once the displacement needed.
In the present case it was regarded as practicable to determine in advance upon a size and proportion of ship which should most nearly balance and meet the various requirements, and let the difference between her displacement, and her own dead weight, go for cargo capacity, of which the greater portion would be coal.
The size fixed upon was 184 feet over all by 35 feet beam by 16 feet draft, loaded. (Load water-line 166 feet.) This gives a ship of nearly the same length, but a little greater beam than the English Antarctic ship, Discovery. Her length ratio would be 1:5.26, not quite as fine as the Scotch average, but much finer than the Norwegian or American models.
Such a ship is in the same class as the Terra Nova, Bear, Thetis, and Neptune of existing whalers, the Proteus (lost), and the exploring ship Discovery.
Length and beam having been determined, the form of hull was next to be considered. In the navigation of the particular regions contemplated by the Expedition, a light draft is preferable to a heavier one, as enabling the ship to go closer to the shore, and thus get round a barrier, or retreat close in shore from advancing heavy ice, and let it ground outside of the ship.
The element of light draft also enters into the consideration of the lifting of the ship under heavy pressure from ice-floes. The deeper a ship is in the water, the more difficult will it be for her to rise and save herself.
It has been well said that while a form of hull that would allow a ship to rise easily and readily under ice pressure is desirable, and this desirability has been recognised, no ship previous to the Fram had been built to meet that requirement.
In the Fram almost everything else was sacrificed to this requirement. Seaworthiness was sacrificed, and as the Fram’s experience in her two voyages shows, ability to make her way through ice was sacrificed.
For the purpose for which she was designed, i. e., to enter the ice and then drift with it, evading destruction from ice pressure, she was well adapted, but as the designers of the German Antarctic ship Gauss said in discussing the Fram model, she would have been even better adapted for this had she been bowl-shaped.
Contrary to popular ideas, the work which an Arctic ship has to do is not principally that of breaking up one season’s ice, as is done by harbour and river icebreakers, in Canadian and Russian waters for instance. Such conditions of level, unbroken ice of uniform thickness are found only in Melville Bay on the upward voyage, where the one season ice is encountered, and late in the season when the new ice is beginning to form. The main work of the Arctic ship is that of threading and pushing and wedging and prying her way among and between and around fragments and cakes and large floes of ice, the latter of such thickness (twenty to fifty or seventy feet) that nothing could break a passage through them. Of course, nothing can be done but squeeze a way around these. It is for this reason that the powerful Russian Ermack is not available for a Polar voyage, and why she is not treated of in this discussion. Fifty Ermacks merged in one could not break through these floes, and in squeezing around them the Ermack could not carry enough coal to take her half-way to the Pole.
To return to the hull model. In the Fram everything was sacrificed to secure certainty of lifting under pressure. In the Gauss, which is a modified Fram, while the broad beam of the Fram (thirty-six feet) was retained, greater length was given the ship to render her a better sea boat for the long voyage from Germany to the Antarctic Circle. Her ratio is 1 to 4.25 as compared with the Fram’s 1 to 3.25. The Gauss’s draft, however, is excessive (nineteen feet).
As already noted, great draft is a disadvantage in the region under consideration, and every increase in beam makes impassable leads which otherwise would be available, and greatly increases the power required and the difficulties of pushing a way through loose ice.
The English Discovery was built, as was to be expected, on the lines of the Scotch whalers, with a little broader beam. Her ratio is 1 to 5.27. Her draft is a little less than that of the whalers. She was not specially modelled to rise under pressure, but was specially constructed (as the Fram and Gauss were not) for ramming a way through opposing ice.
The model selected for the Roosevelt was intended to meet the requirements of lifting under pressure, of being short enough to handle easily, and of being able to ram a passage through heavy ice effectively and continuously.
Detailed features of these requirements are as follows:
For lifting under pressure, steel-sheathed sides, sloping bilges, flat floor to prevent heeling when lifted, flush stem and keel, raking stem, raking stern (this a new feature). For forcing a way through loose ice: sharp wedge bow, and full counter to keep ice from propeller. For ramming ice: a sharply raking stem, steel-sheathed.
From this general description, it will be understood that while the hull model contained the best features of preceding ships, it was not a departure from ordinary models, like the Fram and Gauss, but rather a modification of them to meet special requirements.
When the question of power was approached, there was a radical departure, in fact a complete reversal of previous practice in Arctic ships, and the adoption of ordinary commercial practice.
Hitherto Arctic ships have had full sail power (full-rigged bark being the favourite rig) and auxiliary engines, often of surprisingly puny power. The object of this has been economy of coal, and the consequent ability of the ship to cover long distances at slow speed, and remain away from home for a period of years.
The Roosevelt is a powerful steamer, with all the engine force she could contain, and with only moderate sail area. There is no question in my mind but that this is the correct principle upon which to build a modern Arctic ship for effective results.
The Smith Sound or “American” route is especially advantageous for this method, presenting a coasting voyage, facilities for placing coal depots, the key of the route condensed in a few hundred miles of heavy ice navigation, and the possibility of even obtaining coal in situ along the route.
The Roosevelt had engines capable of developing one thousand horse-power. They were of the inverted, compound type, driving a single eleven-foot propeller, and steam was supplied by two water-tube boilers and one Scotch boiler. Her sail plan is a light, American, three-masted schooner rig, possessing the advantage of light weight (it is to be remembered that every pound of weight saved in rigging or fitting means a pound of coal in the hold), and small surface to be forced through a head wind; yet sufficient to materially help the engines in a favouring wind, and to enable the ship to make her way home should her coal be exhausted.
As to construction: The strength of the hull must be such that it will resist the terrific pressure of the ice-floes, and keep its shape intact until the lifting of the ship bodily releases the pressure; such that if supported at each end only, or in the middle only, or thrown up on the ice and resting upon her bilge, during the paroxysms of the floes, she will not be strained or injured; and such that she can ram the ice by the hour when necessary, without injury to seams or fastenings.
It is a popular fallacy that steel is a suitable material for the construction of an Arctic ship. A steel ship, though structurally strong, is peculiarly vulnerable locally to the ragged, rock-like tongues and corners of heavy Arctic ice.
The elasticity, toughness and resiliency of thick wooden sides are essential in an Arctic ship; but the wood planking may be steel-sheathed on the outside to enable the ship more easily to slip from the grip of the ice, and the methods of composite ship building may be utilised in the interior of the vessel, to reduce weight, while at the same time increasing its structural strength, and not lessening the strength and rigidity of the interior bracing.
In the interests of strength, the frames of the Roosevelt were made treble, keel, keelson, stem and stern-post exceptionally strong; the planking is double; the deck beams, and especially the ’tween-deck beams, which are to be just below the water-line, are extra heavy, and spaced more closely than usual. Additional struts from the bilges, and strong posts from the keelson, longitudinal tie plates at the waterways and on the upper-deck beams, and transverse bulkheads, add still further to her great strength.
In the interest of lightness there is no ’tween-deck planking, no interior fittings; and the spars and rigging are made as light as possible.
The keel, false keel and keelsons are of oak, and form a rigid backbone to the ship six feet in height. The stem and rudder and propeller posts also are of massive oak timbers, the former having a depth on the ship’s axis of seven to ten feet, to take the blows when ramming ice. The frames also are of oak, placed almost close together, and each composed of three thicknesses of timber bolted together to give great strength. The planking is double, yellow pine inside and oak outside.
The sides of the ship are from twenty-four to thirty inches thick.
A STUDY IN BRONZE
Typical face of Eskimo woman
AHWEAHGOODLOO
Four-year-old Eskimo girl dressed in blue fox kapetah and sealskin kamiks
To keep even these heavy sides from being crushed in, they were reinforced by heavy deck beams placed unusually close together, and a lower tier of heavy beams just below the water-line forming with steel rods and inclined posts and struts to the ship’s sides and bilges, a strong truss at an interval of every four feet in the length of the ship.
The housing of the personnel of the expedition in light structures on deck, which personal experience has shown to be much the simpler and better plan than below decks, permits a stronger and more effective arrangement of these trusses than has been attained in previous ships. The interior of the bow, which is to the ship what the cestus was to the ancient gladiator, is filled in solid with timbers and iron.
The stern also, as well as the stem, is iron-plated, and the rudder post, which is the Achilles’s heel of an Arctic ship, is of unusually strong construction. The rudder is so arranged that it can be hoisted on deck out of the way of the ice if necessary. The propeller is so arranged that it can be used either as a two-bladed or a four-bladed propeller, and is made of unusual strength. Powerful deck appliances in the shape of windlass, steam capstans and winch, enable the ship to warp herself out of a dangerous place, or pull herself off the bottom should she get aground.
The whole plan and theory of the ship was, first, that her strength, her power, her weight, her carrying capacity, should all be below the main deck, and that everything above deck—houses, bulwarks, spars, sails, rigging, boats and equipment—should be as light as possible, to permit more coal in the hold; and second, that not a dollar was to be wasted on fittings or frills, everything to be for strength, power, and effectiveness.
The keel of the Roosevelt was laid October 15, 1904, in the McKay & Dix shipyard at Bucksport, Maine, and the ship was launched the 23d of March, 1905, Mrs. Peary shattering a block of ice containing a bottle of champagne against the steel-clad stem as the hull glided down the ways and christening the ship Roosevelt.
The installation of the machinery began two days later at Portland, Maine, and was practically completed in less than two months.
The official measurements of the ship are as follows: length, 184 feet; breadth, 35.5 feet; depth, 16.2 feet; gross registered tonnage, 614 tons; maximum load displacement, about 1,500 tons. The backbone of the ship, viz. keel, main keelson, stem and stern posts, as also her frames, plank sheer, the waterways, and garboard strake, are white oak. Beams, sister keelsons, deck clamps, ’tween-deck waterways, bilge strakes, ceiling, and inner course of planking, yellow pine. Outer planking, white oak, and decks, Oregon pine. Both the ceiling and outer course of white oak planking are edge-bolted from stem to stern and from plank sheer to garboard strake. The fastenings are galvanised iron bolts, going through both courses of planking and the frames, and riveting up over washers on the inside of the ceiling.
Special features of the ship are as follows:
First, in model, a pronounced raking stem and wedge-shaped bow; very sharp dead rise of floor, affording a form of side which cannot be grasped by the ice; a full run to keep the ice away from the propeller; a pronounced overhang at the stern to still further protect the propeller, and a raking stern-post.
Second, peculiarities of construction; the unusual fastening, as noted above; the unusual and massive arrangement of the beams, and bracing of the sides to resist pressure; the introduction of screw tie rods to bind the ship together; the development of the ’tween-deck beams and waterways on a water-line, instead of on a sheer, like the upper-deck beams; the placing of the ceiling continuous from sister keelson to upper-deck clamps, and the placing of the ’tween-deck waterways, deck clamps, and the bilge strakes on top of the ceiling; the filling in of the bow almost solid where it meets the impact of the ice; the massive and unusual reinforcement of the rudder post to prevent twisting; the adoption of a lifting rudder, which may be raised out of danger from contact with the ice; the armouring of the stem and bows with heavy plates of steel; the protection of the outer planking with a 2–inch course of greenheart ice sheathing.
Peculiarities of rig are: pole masts throughout; very short bowsprit, which can be run inboard when navigating in ice of considerable elevation; three-masted schooner rig with large balloon staysails. The Roosevelt carries fourteen sails, including storm staysails, and has a sail area somewhat less than that of a three-masted coasting schooner of the same size.
Peculiarities of the machinery installation are: a compound engine of massive construction; an unusually heavy shaft of forged steel 12 inches in diameter; a massive propeller 11 feet in diameter, but with blades of large area, which are detachable in case of injury; a triple boiler battery; arrangements for admitting live steam to the low-pressure cylinder, in order to largely increase the power for a limited time; an elliptical cruiser-type smoke-stack to reduce wind resistance.
The best quality of material and labour were put into the ship, and it was believed and has since been proven that she is the ablest ship ever built for Arctic exploration.
CHAPTER XVII
MY ESKIMOS[[5]]
Plump and rounded figures, emphatically expressive countenances, bronze-skinned, keen-eyed, black-maned inhabitants of an icy desert; simple and honest, occasionally sulky; wandering, homeless people: these are my children, the Eskimos.
[5]. For portions of this chapter taken from Peary’s “Northward,” the courtesy of the Frederick A. Stokes Company is hereby gratefully acknowledged.
Their origin, no one can tell to a certainty; but their appearance indicates the strong probability of the correctness of the theory advanced by Sir Clements Markham, distinguished President of the Royal Geographical Society of London, that these people are remnants of an ancient Siberian tribe, the Onkilon. Many of them are of strikingly Mongolian type of countenance.
What first impresses one is their inquisitiveness. Dr. Hayes records the case of an Eskimo woman who had subjected herself to a temperature of thirty-five degrees below zero, with the liability to be caught in a gale; she had travelled forty miles over a track, the roughness of which frequently compelled her to dismount from the sledge and walk; she had carried her child all the way; her sole motive being her curiosity to see the white men, their igloo (hut), and their strange treasures.
Imagine, then, the arrival of a box—which most probably in a civilised community, would be looked upon as a cartload of rubbish. Placed within the vision of the unspoiled Eskimo, it becomes transformed into Dantes’s grotto filled with “such stuff as dreams are made of.” With fox-like inquisitiveness, the object is approached. Each article is touched, felt and examined; and later, as the “village gossips” get together, we listen to the cheery verboseness of “Sairy Gamp” and Megipsu, discussing the riches of the Koblunah (white man).
In a country where men, women and children exist in complete isolation, where vegetation, mineral matter and even so common a thing as salt are unknown—the people’s capacity for imitation would ordinarily be wholly a matter of conjecture; but when brought in contact with my expedition the Eskimos have shown wonderful characteristics of Oriental imitation and adaptation. If given a gun, a hatchet, or a knife as a model they will reproduce these in miniature, in walrus ivory, with a faithfulness and accuracy that seems almost startling in view of their tools and previous lack of training. The men also pick up with great ease and celerity the use of the tools of the blacksmith and the carpenter.
In 1897, an Eskimo boy was brought to New York, partly because of his unquenchable thirst for novelty and adventure, and also because we had here a good opportunity for studying the effects of outside influence upon primitive innocence. Within a comparatively short period, this lad acquired a good understanding of the English tongue; and, in studies as well as in athletics, he has been considered a match for the average American youth of his age.
INUAHO
Eskimo girl and dog
AKATINGWAH
Wife of Ooblooyah, with baby
In their own country, Eskimos care little or nothing about acquiring the use of our language. The fact is, their savage environment and continuous struggle for existence is hardly conducive to learning of any kind, beyond the absolute necessaries. Some of the tribe were taught the use of numerals, the alphabet, and a few easy words; and, parrot-like, these pupils had an embarrassing aptitude for picking up the loose words of the sailors. But as to a common means of communication, their good sense argued that it was much the simpler for us to learn their language.
Their vocabulary is composed of many complicated prefixes and suffixes, and roughly speaking, several hundred radicals. Naturally quick-witted, they find no difficulty in expression; and throughout their conversations, the features and the entire body are brought into play. I have often observed the remarkable animation of the eye, the sudden twitching of the mouth, the laggard or the swift movement of the arms and legs, when an Eskimo tells his story. It is thus he excites interest, and the audience is held by the unstudied dramatic effect.
Shall we mention it? In the Arctic regions as is the case all over the universe, Woman holds the reputation for loquacity; hers is the “last word.”
Churches, schools, and governments are unknown quantities. Yet in every home a perfect system of training goes on for the benefit of the rising generation. At the earliest age an Eskimo lad will be taught the use of his arms in the throwing of a harpoon; a little later he learns the hitching up of dog-teams to sledges; and by the time he has lived twelve winters, he is taken to the walrus hunting ground to learn to be a man.
An Eskimo mother loses no time in teaching her daughter the requirements of a good wife. Household duties are as carefully practised (allowing for differences in materials) as in any domestic circle. Sewing is taught by the fond parent, with as much patience as was ever evinced by Griselda. At fourteen or earlier, the young Miss is ripe for marriage.
During my fifteen years of experience with the Eskimos, I have seen little of the savage treachery which is so frequently alluded to. Quite the contrary. These people are subservient to us in a most gratifying way. It is true that in the beginning of our adventures, they were inclined to scoff at our awkward adaptation to Polar conditions; but as we acquainted them with the use of compass, etc., their laughter soon changed to expressions of admiration and wonder.
The position of the sun and the movements of the stars, are the Eskimos’ gauges for time and location. Thus it will be seen that their ideas of astronomy are definite, though necessarily limited. For the benefit of those who have not read my previous work, I shall retabulate what significance celestial bodies have to Eskimos. They recognise the Great Dipper as a herd of reindeer; the three triangular stars of Cassiopeia are the three stones supporting a celestial stone lamp; the Pleiades are a team of dogs in pursuit of a bear; the three glittering brilliants of the belt of Orion are the steps cut by some celestial Eskimo in a steep snow-bank to enable him to climb to the top; Gemini are the two door stones of an igloo; Arcturus and Aldebaran are personifications; and the moon and the sun are a maiden and her pursuing lover. Less observant than were the Arab shepherds, they have not noticed that one star is the centre about which all the others move, nor have they set apart the planets, which to them are simply large stars. Probably this is due to the fact that the movements of the stars can be observed during only three months of the year.
Amongst themselves, punctuality is a thing of small value. Yet, I have never known the time when I could not thoroughly trust my “old guard,” among these people, for carrying out my orders. When told to get ready for a certain time—say, daybreak, next morning—sledges would be found packed, and everything arranged with the utmost precision.
Their sense of humour is very pronounced. It is seen in their nicknames for each other, and particularly for the white men, and again in their drawings. These latter, crude as they are, leave no doubt as to the victim. Bow-legs, hooked nose, protuberant stomach, such deformities as these are gleefully pounced upon by the local artists, and emphasised in their portraiture.
Much skill is shown in their carvings. To look at the minute walrus teeth, one-half inch in length, which have been wrought upon, one is reminded over and over again of the dexterity of the Chinese and the Japanese. Notwithstanding all this ingenuity in ornamentation, Eskimos find little pleasure in trinkets or personal frills of any kind. Remembering the stories of Captain John Smith and the Indians, bracelets, beads and rings were taken North in our first trips, in the expectation of finding appreciation. At most, these were received with gratitude for the good will. None of the women wore them or seemed particularly to care for them. Occasionally they were brought forth from a peg in the wall where they had hung for some time, and examined with a certain air of curiosity. But as for adorning themselves—such vanities did not occur to them.
The tupiks (tents) and igloos (winter-houses) are all built after the same plans. There is only the superiority of workmanship to distinguish the abode of one man from another. We sometimes see an interesting form of competition when two huts commence building simultaneously: One man, Nupsah, has discovered a huge stone and succeeds in placing it in position. The neighbours, by their approving glances, proclaim him master builder. Presently, Pooadloonah finds a larger stone than any secured by his rival. This is placed in position, silently. Throughout the proceeding not a word has been spoken; yet within that conqueror’s breast there thrills an indisputable note of triumph and satisfaction. It is the peculiarity of this silent competition that, even when extended to greater deeds than the hauling of stones, the best of good nature is preserved on both sides.
Duels and battles never take place; and there is only one case of Eskimo murder which comes within my experience.
Kyo was an angakok (medicine man). He knew exactly how many sinnipahs (sleeps) would elapse before this or that man would die—almost as well as our weather bureau can prophesy the coming of a storm. Often he went into trances, for this is necessary when one is an angakok. But people do not like to be told that they are about to expire, particularly when time proves that the medicine man must have miscalculated. Such was the case with our Eskimos. Those of a more optimistic frame of mind took exception to a man who could inspire the sick with so much terror; accordingly, a plot was set for the riddance of his evil spirit.
Their “plot” was nothing more than a scurvy trick; they reasoned between them that it was justice. One day, Kyo was asked to accompany a hunting party, little suspecting that he was to be the object of the hunt. About five miles from camp he was struck from behind, and fell, hardly realising what had taken place. Then, lest his spirit should escape, he was buried and weighted with stones.
An Eskimo execution is always done after this manner. Lacking government and laws of any kind, even subsisting without a leader, the avenger is at liberty to decide the fate of the criminal. There is this peculiarity; the execution is never done in open fight; always by stealth. Yet Eskimos are far from cowardly—as proved when attacking the polar bear and musk-ox.
The life of an Eskimo rarely exceeds sixty years. It is amazing that it should persevere to this extent, despite the malignity of Nature.
There is a particularly touching case of a native who has been dependent upon his fellow men for the past fifteen years. When we first saw him he seemed troubled with a slight touch of rheumatism—a malady not infrequent in those parts. But year after year his condition grew worse, until to-day he lives practically ossified—all but his head. Through all these years he has received consideration; the devotion shown by his people—is it not wonderful? Nothing is thought about the matter in that community. Neither age nor infirmity go neglected; they are cared for without thought of reward.
The main causes of death are lung and bronchial troubles.
There exists among these people a form of hysteria known as piblocto (the same name as given to the well-known madness among their dogs), with which women, more frequently than men, are afflicted. During these spells, the maniac removes all clothing and prances about like a broncho. In 1898 while the Windward was in winter quarters off Cape D’Urville, a married woman was taken with one of these fits in the middle of night. In a state of perfect nudity she walked the deck of the ship; then, seeking still greater freedom, jumped the rail, on to the frozen snow and ice. It was some time before we missed her, and when she was finally discovered, it was at a distance of half a mile, where she was still pawing, and shouting to the best of her abilities. She was captured and brought back to the ship; and then there commenced a wonderful performance of mimicry in which every conceivable cry of local bird and mammal was reproduced in the throat of Inaloo. This same woman at other times attempts to walk the ceiling of her igloo; needless to say she has never succeeded.
A case of piblocto lasts from five minutes to half-an-hour or more. When it occurs under cover of a hut, no apparent concern is felt by other inmates, nor is any attention paid to the antics of the mad one. It is only when an attempt is made to run abroad, that the cords of restraint are felt.
Of alcohol, and other artificial drinks, there is none. No excess of any kind—unless we can call “excess” the hearty eating which is necessary to the Eskimos’ existence. On the other hand, hunger is no particular hardship to these people. Their bodies are well-rounded, seemingly to answer the purpose of the camel’s hump.
Generosity and hospitality are characteristic. There is no such thing up North as individual poverty and riches. It is an unwritten law that when one man has been particularly fortunate in a hunting expedition, his tribe will share the net results. It is this feeling of good fellowship which preserves the race. In other matters, each family is practically independent. Each man for himself, a Jack-of-all-trades.
As a rule no Eskimo family lives in one place more than two consecutive years. The reasons are several; perhaps the most important being a natural feeling of unrest. The Eskimo feels more keenly than any other people that it is not possession, but acquisition which gives men pleasure and sense of power. Then, too, there is the desire for change of food. A prolonged diet of bear flesh has quite as much irksome sameness for him, as hard tack has for the sailor. Scarcity of game is another vital consideration. After a siege of several months’ duration, the food supply is likely to become exhausted and then nothing is left for the man to do, but shift.
The seal is the Eskimo’s staple food. It is also his most valuable resource in that it supplies him with material for clothing, boots, tents, harpoon lines, heat, light, and food for his dogs. Winter is calculated upon as nicely in the northern parts, as in any thrifty community. The Eskimo moderates his appetite during these months of animal hibernation, according to the supplies on hand—cuts the coat after the cloth, as it were.
One is grieved to note a state of reckless abandon in the matter of dirt. It is quite beyond the comprehension of these simple folk why washing should be considered necessary for the comfort of humans. When we were caught using a tooth-brush, this was too much. We must indeed be a filthy tribe! “If the mouth is unclean, what part of us is clean?” Was ever injured innocence expressed in more sober language?
In the very water in which a walrus feast is about to be prepared, may often be found the drippings of greasy garments hanging above: or perhaps excited by civilisation, the good woman of the place will take to washing her hands at this moment.
We despair of ever civilising these people, permanently. While we are in their midst, they seem to be progressing. But out of sight, out of mind—so far as civilisation (and hair-combing!) are concerned.
“From many children and little bread, good Lord deliver us.” This would seem to be the Eskimo’s prayer, for in no family will be found more than six children. Though not lacking in warmth of blood they are not a prolific people. “The females arrive at the age of puberty neither very early nor very late, but according to their own statements they rarely have children, even with every possible provocation, till at least three years later, and I am inclined to think the statement is substantially correct.
“As the males are considerably in excess there is a constant demand for wives, and girls frequently marry while still as flat-chested and as lank-hipped as a boy.
“As regards morals, these people do not stand high according to our scale. The wife is as much a piece of personal property, which may be sold, exchanged, loaned, or borrowed, as a sledge or a canoe. It must be said in their favour, however, that the children as well as aged and infirm members of the tribe are well taken care of, and that, for the former the parents evince the liveliest affection.
“There seems to be no ceremony for marriage (and there is none for birth). The matrimonial arrangement is frequently perfected by the parents while the parties are children.
“As the female is eligible for marriage much earlier than the male, a girl may be appropriated by a man whose wife has died, before her intended is old enough to marry. This arrangement may continue, or her intended may claim her when he is old enough. This is largely a matter of mutual agreement.
“Young couples frequently change partners several times in the first year or two, till both are suited, when the union is practically permanent, except for temporary periods during which an exchange may be effected with another man, or the wife loaned to a friend.
“Motherhood and the various female functions cause them hardly if any more inconvenience than is the case with animals.
“The causes of death among the men come largely under the terse Western expression, ‘with their boots on.’
“A kayak capsizes, and the occupant is hurled into the icy water; a hunter harpoons a walrus or bearded seal from the ice, a bight of the line catches round arm or leg, and the big brute drags him under to his death; an iceberg capsizes as he is passing it; a rock or snowslide from the steep shore cliffs crushes him; or a bear tears him mortally with a stroke of his paw: and so on. Occasionally, in the past, starvation has wiped out an entire village.
“On the death of a man or woman, the body, fully dressed, is laid straight upon its back on a skin or two, and some extra articles of clothing placed upon it. It is then covered with another skin, and the whole covered in with a low stone structure, to protect the body from dogs, foxes, and ravens. A lamp with some blubber is placed close to the grave; and if the deceased is a man, his sledge and kayak, with his weapons and implements, are placed close by, and his favourite dogs, harnessed and attached to the sledge are strangled to accompany him. If a woman, her cooking-utensils and the frame on which she has dried the family boots and mittens, are placed beside the grave. If she has a dog, it is strangled to accompany her; and if she has a baby in the hood, it too must die with her.
“If the death occurred in a tent, the poles are removed, allowing it to settle down over the site, and it is never used again, but rots or is finally blown away. If the death occurred in an igloo, it is vacated and not used again for a long time.
“The relatives of the deceased must observe certain formalities in regard to clothing and food for a certain time; the name of the dead person is never spoken, and any other members of the tribe who have the same name must assume another until the arrival of an infant, to which the name can be applied, removes the ban.
“Of religion, properly speaking, they have none. The nearest approach to it is simply a collection of miscellaneous superstitions and beliefs in good and evil spirits. It may be said, in relation to this latter subject, that information in regard to it is extremely difficult to obtain, and probably, the bottom facts of the matter will be known only when some enthusiast is willing to devote five or six years of his time to living with them and doing as they do, becoming in fact, one of them.
“Their amusements are few. In summer there are tests of strength between the young men of the tribe, consisting of wrestling, pulling, lifting, and a rude kind of boxing. In winter the sole amusements are marital pleasures, and the songs and improvisations of the angakoks, or medicine men, of the tribe. In the choruses of these the entire assembled company join.”
At these choruses which are sometimes all-night affairs, a sort of tambourine is used to keep time to the “music.” It is made of membrane from the throat of a walrus, stretched across the antlers of a reindeer. Dancing is practised only among some of the southerly Greenland folk. These people, without impediment of clothing are often charmingly graceful; and like negroes, are indefatigable.
I have often been asked: Of what use are Eskimos to the world? They are too far removed to be of value in commercial enterprises, and furthermore they lack ambition. They have no literature, nor, properly speaking, any art. They value life only as does a fox, or a bear, purely by instinct.
But, let us not forget that these people, trustworthy and hardy, will yet prove their value to mankind. With their help, the world shall discover the Pole.
CENSUS OF THE SMITH SOUND ESKIMOS[[6]]
SEPTEMBER, 1906
COMPILED BY ROSS G. MARVIN
Accomadingwah
Acrah
Acutah
Adareingwah
Adareingwah
Adareingwah
Adareteah
Adareteah
Adashungwah
Adicka
Adingnedu
Agootah
Ahcreah
Ahmahmie
Ahmungwah
Ahnenah
Ahnighite
Ahpedah
Ahpelah
Ahwaktungwah
Ahweagoodlu
Ahweah
Ahwegingwah
Ahweingohna
Akageah
Akatingwah
Akatingwah
Akpudashawhu
Akpudashawhu
Akpudie
Akpudingwah
Aleta
Alnadu
Alnaduah
Alnaghite
Alnalnaweah
Alnalnaweah
Alnanungwah
Alnawingwah
Alningwah
Amah
Anahwe
Anowka
Asayu
Ashuah
Atinganah
Atinganah
Atita
Atita
Awatingwah
Awitackshua
Cadahuh
Cahateah
Cahweahshua
Cahweingwah
Cahweingwah
Cahweingwah
Calwahsooh
Clayingwah
Clayouh
Clayouh
Congwah
Contigito
Conughito
Conughito
Cowluhtoo
Cowangwah
Egeah
Egingwah
Egingwah
Ekeah
Emenyah
Etokshawsui
Evalee
Evalee
Eykapingwah
Ewe
Idingwah
Illyah
Ilquah
Ilquahwishah
Ilquyenah
Ilyatee
Ilyatingwah
Ilyatingwah
Inadleah
Inaloo
Ingyapadoo
Inughito
Inughito
Inughito
Inutah
Inutah
Inuwahsu
Ienah
Ioshowty
Ircra
Isheata
Itookishoo
Itookishoo
Iyakpungwah
Kashadu
Kepehocshaw
Kepeingwah
Keshu
Keshu
Keshungwah
Kudeah
Kudla
Kudla
Kudlanah
Kudlooktoo
Kudlutinah
Kudlutinah
Kulitingwah
Kyangwah
Kyangwah
Kyangwah
Kyooh
Kyoohtah
Makshangwah
Maksingwah
Maksingwah
Mamonah
Mayshowna
Meetil
Meetil
Mehootiah
Mercrah
Merkrisha
Mickeyshoo
Mickgipsu
Moneyshaw
Mooney
Mooney
Mucktah
Mucktoo
Myooh
Nedickta
Nedingwah
Nehatalahow
Nelikateah
Nepsingwah
Netooh
Neuah
Neuahateah
Neuakina
Neuakingwah
Neuakingwah
Neucapingwah
Neuktah
Ongmalooktoo
Ongudablaho
Ongudloo
Ongudloogipsu
Ongwah
Oobluyah
Oobluyah
Oogwhi
Oohasingwah
Ootah
Ooyah
Ouatingwah
Ouheah
Ouweak
Oushakupsie
Oweah
Panikpah
Peowahtah
Poohtah
Puadloonah
Puadloonah
Puadloonah
Publa
Publa
Qouyoupee
Quoyoupee
Seadacuteah
Seakingwah
Segwah
Shakupsungwah
Shatooh
Siglu
Sihmeah
Silmah
Silmingwah
Sineungwah
Sipsu
Socrah
Sohningwah
Songwah
Taacheah
Taachingwag
Teddylingwah
Tongingwah
Tookamingwah
Tookumah
Touchingwah
Tungwhi
Un-named
Un-named
Un-named
Un-named
Un-named
Un-named
Un-named
Un-named