Fern Rock
“September 12.—Still going on with Saturday’s operations, amid the thousand discomforts of house-cleaning and moving combined. I escaped them for an hour this morning, to fix with Mr Sontag upon a site for our observatory; and the men are already at work hauling the stone for it over the ice on sledges. It is to occupy a rocky islet, about a hundred yards off, that I have named after a little spot that I long to see again, ‘Fern Rock.’ This is to be for me the centre of familiar localities. As the classic Mivins breakfasted lightly on a cigar, and took it out in sleep, so I have dined on salt pork and made my dessert of dreams.
“September 13.—Besides preparing our winter quarters, I am engaged in the preliminary arrangements for my provision-depôts along the Greenland, coast. I purpose arranging three of them at intervals,—pushing them as far forward as I can,—to contain in all some twelve hundred pounds of provision, of which eight hundred will be pemmican.”
My plans of future search were directly dependent upon the success of these operations of the autumn. With a chain of provision-depôts along the coast of Greenland, I could readily extend my travel by dogs. These noble animals formed the basis of my future plans: the only drawback to their efficiency as a means of travel was their inability to carry the heavy loads of provender essential for their support. A badly-fed or heavily-loaded dog is useless for a long journey; but with relays of provision, I could start empty, and fill up at our final station.
My dogs were both Esquimaux and Newfoundlanders. Of these last I had ten: they were to be carefully broken, to travel by voice without the whip, and were expected to be very useful for heavy draught, as their tractability would allow the driver to regulate their pace. I was already training them in a light sledge to drive, unlike the Esquimaux, two abreast, with a regular harness, a breast-collar of flat leather, and a pair of traces. Six of them made a powerful travelling-team; and four could carry me and my instruments, for short journeys around the brig, with great ease.
The sledge I used for them was built, with the care of cabinet-work, of American hickory, thoroughly seasoned. The runners were shod with annealed steel, and fastened by copper rivets, which could be renewed at pleasure. Except this, no metal entered into its construction. All its parts were held together by seal-skin lashings, so that it yielded to inequalities of surface and to sudden shock. The three paramount considerations of lightness, strength, and diminished friction, were well combined in it. This beautiful, and, as we afterwards found, efficient and endurable sledge was named the Little Willie.
The Esquimaux dogs were reserved for the great tug of the actual journeys of search. They were now in the semi-savage condition which marks their close approach to the wolf; and, according to Mr Petersen, under whose care they were placed, were totally useless for journeys, over such ice as was now before us. A hard experience had not then opened my eyes to the inestimable value of these dogs: I had yet to learn their power and speed, their patient, enduring fortitude, their sagacity in tracking these icy morasses, among which they had been born and bred.
The “Faith”
The men appointed to establish the depôt were furnished with a sledge. Its model—which had been previously tested by the adventurous journeys of M’Clintock in Lancaster Sound—was to lessen the height and somewhat increase the breadth of the runner; both of which, I think, were improvements, giving increased strength. I named her the Faith. Her length was thirteen feet, and breadth four. She could readily carry fourteen hundred pounds of mixed stores.
This noble old sledge, which is now endeared to me by every pleasant association, bore the brunt of the heaviest parties, and came back, after the descent of the coast, comparatively sound. The men were attached in her in such a way as to make the line of draught or traction as near as possible in the axis of the weight. Each man had his own shoulder-belt, or “rue-raddy,” as we used to call it, and his own track line, which, for want of horse hair, was made of Manilla rope; it traversed freely by a ring on a loop or bridle, that extended from runner to runner In front of the sledge.