My attainment of the Pole

by Frederick Albert Cook

It aimed almost directly for us, and would probably cut our floe. We prepared for a quick leap upon the deck of our prospective craft.

Bearing down upon us it touched a neighboring piece and pushed us away. We quickly pulled to the other pan, and then found, to our dismay, a wide band of mushy slush, as impossible to us for a footing as quicksand would have been. As the berg passed, however, it left a line of water behind it. We quickly threw boat and sledge into this, paddled after the berg, and, reaching it, leaped to its security. What a relief to be raised above the crumbling pack-ice and to watch from safety the thundering of the elements!

The berg which we had boarded was square, with rounded corners. Its highest points were about twenty feet above water; the general level was about ten feet. The ice was about eighty feet thick, and its width was about a hundred feet. These dimensions assured stability, for if the thing had turned over, as bergs frequently do, we should be left to seek breath among the whales.

It was an old remnant of a much larger berg which had stood the Arctic tempest for many years. This we figured out from the hard blue of the ice and its many caverns and pinnacles. We were, therefore, on a secure mass of crystal which was not likely to suffer severely from a single storm. Its upper configuration, however, though beautiful in its countless shades of blue, did not offer a comfortable berth. There were three pinnacles too slippery and too steep to climb, with a slope leading by a gradual incline on each side. Along these the seas had worn grooves leading to a central concavity filled with water. The only space which we could occupy was the crater-like rim around this lake. At this time we had to endure only the seething pitch of the sea and the cutting blast of the storm.

The small ice about kept the seas from boarding. To prevent our being thrown about on the slippery surface, we cut holes into the pinnacles and spread lines about them, to which we clung. The boat was securely fastened in a similar way by cutting a makeshift for a ringbolt in the floor of ice. Then we pushed from side to side along the lines, to encourage our hearts and to force our circulation. Although the temperature was only at the freezing point, it was bitterly cold, and we were in a bad way to weather a storm.

The sea had drenched us from head to foot. Only our shirts were dry. With hands tightly gripped to the line and to crevasses, we received the spray of the breaking icy seas while the berg ploughed the scattered pack and plunged seaward. The cold, though only at the freezing point, pierced our snow-pasted furs and brought shivers worse than that of zero's lowest. Thus the hours of physical torture and mental anguish passed, while the berg moved towards the gloomy black cliff of Hell Gate. Here the eastern sky bleached and the south blued, but the falling temperature froze our garments to coats of mail. We were still dressed in part of our winter garments.

The coat was of sealskin, with hood attached; the shirt of camel's hair blanket, also with a hood; the trousers of bear fur; boots of seal, with hair removed, and stockings of hare fur. The mittens were of seal, and there were pads of grass for the palms and soles. Our garments, though not waterproof, shed water and excluded the winds, but there is a cold that comes with wet garments and strong winds that sets the teeth to chattering and the skin to quivering.

As all was snug and secure on the berg, we began to take a greater interest in our wind and sea-propelled craft. Its exposed surface was swept by the winds, while its submarine surface was pushed by tides and undercurrents, giving it a complex movement at variance with the pack-ice. It ploughed up miles of sea-ice, crushing and throwing it aside.

After several hours of this kind of navigation—which was easy for us, because the movement of the swell and the breaking of the sea did not inflict a hardship—the berg suddenly, without any apparent reason, took a course at right angles to the wind, and deliberately pushed out of the pack into the seething seas. This rapid shift from comfort to the wild agitation of the black waters made us gasp. The seas, with boulders of ice, rolled up over our crest and into the concavity of the berg, leaving no part safe. Seizing our axes, we cut many other anchor holes in the ice, doubly secured our life lines, and shifted with our boat to the edge of the berg turned to the wind. The hours of suspense and torment thus spent seemed as long as the winters of the Eskimo. The pack soon became a mere pearly glow against a dirty sky. We were rushing through a seething blackness, made more impressive by the pearl and blue of the berg and the white, ice-lined crests.

What could we do to keep the springs of life from snapping in such a world of despair? Fortunately, we were kept too busy dodging the storm-driven missiles of water and ice to ponder much over our fate. Otherwise the mind could not have stood the infernal strain.