My attainment of the Pole

by Frederick Albert Cook

We had now passed the highest reaches of all our predecessors. The inspiration of the Farthest North for a brief time thrilled me. The time was at hand, however, to consider seriously the possible necessity of an early return.

Nearly half of the food allowance had been used. In the long marches supplies had been more liberally consumed than anticipated. Now our dog teams were much reduced in numbers. Because of the cruel law of the survival of the fittest, the less useful dogs had gone into the stomachs of their stronger companions. With the lessening of the number of dogs had come at the same time a reduction of the weight of the sledge loads, through the eating of the food. Now, owing to food limitations and the advancing season, we could not prudently continue the onward march a fortnight longer.

We had dragged ourselves three hundred miles over the Polar sea in twenty-four days. Including delays and detours, this gave an average of nearly thirteen miles daily on an airline in our course. There remained an unknown line of one hundred and sixty miles to the Pole. The same average advance would take us to the Pole in thirteen days. There were food and fuel enough to risk this adventure. With good luck the prize seemed within our grasp. But a prolonged storm, a deep snowfall, or an active ice-pack would mean failure.

In new cracks I measured the thickness of the ice. I examined the water for life. The technical details for the making and breaking of ice were studied, and some attention was given to the altitude of uplifted and submerged irregularities. Atmospheric, surface water and ice temperatures were taken, the barometer was noted, the cloud formations, weather conditions and ice drifts were tabulated. There was a continuous routine of work, but like the effort of the foot in the daily drive, it became more or less automatic.

Running along over seemingly endless fields of ice, the physical appearances now came under more careful scrutiny. I watched daily for possible signs of failing in the strength of any of us, because a serious disability would now mean a fatal termination. A disabled man could neither continue nor return. Each new examination gave me renewed confidence and was another reason to push human endurance to the limit of straining every fibre and cell.

As a matter of long experience I find life in this extreme North is healthful so long as there is sufficient good food, so long as exertion is not overdone. A weakling would easily be killed, but a strong man is splendidly hardened and kept in perfect physical trim by sledging and tramping in this germless air. But, as I have said, sufficient food and not too much exertion are requisites to full safety, and in our case we were working to the limit, with rations running low. Still, the men responded superbly.

Our tremendous exertion in forcing daily rushing marches, under occasional bursts of burning sunbeams, provoked intense thirst. Following the habit of the camel, we managed to take enough water before starting to keep sufficient liquid in the stomach and veins for the ensuing day's march. Yet it was painful to await the melting of ice at camping time.

In two sittings, evening and morning, each of us took an average of three quarts of water daily. This included tea and also the luxury of occasional soup. Water was about us everywhere in heaps, but before the thirst could be quenched, several ounces of precious fuel, which had been sledged for hundreds of miles, must be used. And yet, this water, so expensive and so necessary to us, became the cause of our greatest discomfort. It escaped through pores of the skin, saturated the boots, formed a band of ice under the knee and a belt of frost about the waist, while the face was nearly always encased in a mask of icicles from the moist breath. We learned to take this torture philosophically.

With our dogs bounding and tearing onward, from the eighty-seventh to the eighty-eighth parallel we passed for two days over old ice without pressure lines or hummocks. There was no discernible line of demarcation to indicate separate fields, and it was quite impossible to determine whether we were on land or sea ice. The barometer indicated no perceptible elevation, but the ice had the hard, wavering surface of glacial ice, with only superficial crevasses. The water obtained from this was not salty. All of the upper surface of old hummock and high ice of the Polar sea resolves into unsalted water. My nautical observations did not seem to indicate a drift, but nevertheless my combined tabulations do not warrant a positive assertion of either land or sea; I am inclined, however, to put this down as ice on low or submerged land.

The ice presented an increasingly cheering prospect. A plain of purple and blue ran in easy undulations to the limits of vision without the usual barriers of uplifted blocks. Over it a direct air-line course was possible. Progress, however, was quite as difficult as over the irregular pack. The snow was crusted with large crystals. An increased friction reduced the sled speed, while the snow surface, too hard for snowshoes, was also too weak to give a secure footing to the unprotected boot. The loneliness, the monotony, the hardship of steady, unrelieved travel were keenly felt.