My attainment of the Pole

by Frederick Albert Cook

In searching every nook and cranny of land we had acquired new arts of life and a new perspective of nature's wonders. We slept in caves in storm; in the lee of icebergs in strong winds and on the mossy cushions of earth concavities. Here we learned to study and appreciate primal factors of both animal and plant life.

In the Arctic, nature tries to cover its nakedness in places where the cruel winds do not cut its contour. The effort is interesting, not only because of the charm of the verdant dress, but because of the evidence of a motherly protection to the little life cells which struggle against awful odds to weave that fabric wherever a terrestrial dimple is exposed to the kisses of the southern sun. In these depressions, sheltered from the blasts of storms, a kindly hand spreads a beautiful mantle of colorful grass, moss, lichens and flowery plants.

Here the lemming digs his home under the velvet cover, where he may enjoy the roots and material protection from the abysmal frost of the long night. Here in the protected folds of Mother Earth, blanketed by the warm white robe of winter, he sleeps the peace of death while the warring elements blast in fury outside.

Here the Arctic hare plays with its bunnies during summer, and as the winter comes the young grow to full maturity and dress in a silky down of white. Under the snow they burrow, making long tunnels, still eating and sleeping on their loved cushions of frozen plants, far under the snow-skirts of Mother Earth, while the life-stilling blasts without expend their wintry force.

Here the ptarmigan scratches for its food. The musk ox and the caribou browse, while the raven, with a kind word for all, collects food for its palate. The bear and the wolf occasionally visit to collect tribute, while the falcon and the fox with one eye open are ever on the alert for the exercise of their craft.

In these little smiling indentations of nature, when the sun begins to caress the gentle slopes, while the snow melts and flows in leaping streams—the sea still locked by the iron grip of the winter embrace—the Arctic incubator works overtime to start the little ones of the snow wilds. Thus in these dimples of nature rocks the cradle of boreal life.

Relieved of the all-absorbing care of providing food, I now was often held spellbound as I wandered over these spots of nature's wonders. Phases of life which never interested me before now riveted my attention. Wandering from the softly cushioned gullies, the harsh ridge life next came under my eyes. While the valleys and the gullies become garden spots of summer glory, the very protection from winds which makes this life possible buries the vegetable luxuriousness in winter under unfathomable depths of snow. The musk ox and the caribou, dependent upon this plant life for food, therefore become deprived of the usual means of subsistence. But Mother Nature does not desert her children. The same winds which compel man and feebler animals to seek shelter from its death-dealing assault, afford food to the better fitted musk ox and caribou. In summer, plants, like animals, climb to ridges, hummocks and mountain slopes, to get air and light and warm sunbeams. But the battle here is hard, and only very strong plants survive the force of wind and frosts.

The plant fibre here become tenacious; with a body gnarled and knotty from long conflict the roots dig yards deep into the soil. This leaves the breathing part of the plant dwarfed to a few inches. Here the winter winds sweep off the snow and offer food to the musk ox and caribou. Thus the wind, which destroys, also gives means of life. The equalizing balance of nature is truly wonderful.

In small, circumscribed areas we thus found ourselves in a new Eden of primeval life.

The topography of North Devon, however, placed a sharp limit to the animated wilderness. Only a narrow strip of coast about Cape Sparbo, extending about twenty-five miles to the east and about forty miles to the west, presented any signs of land life. All other parts of the south shore of Jones Sound are more barren than the shores of the Polar sea.