I aimed to reach the top of the globe in the angle between Alaska and Greenland, a promising route through a new and lonesome region which had not been tried, abandoning what has come to be called the "American Route." I should strike westward and then northward, working new trails. With Annoatok as a base of operations, I planned to carry sufficient supplies over Schley Land and along the west coast of the game lands, trusting that the game along this region would furnish sufficient supplies en route to the shores of the Polar sea. This journey to land's end would also afford a test of every article of equipment needed in the field work, and would enable us to choose finally from a selected number of Eskimos those most able to endure the rigors of the unlimited journey which lay before us.
I sent out a few hunters along the intended line to seek for haunts of game, but I was not surprised that their searching in the dark was practically unsuccessful, and it merely meant that I must depend upon my previous knowledge of conditions. I knew from the general reports of the natives, and from the explorations of Sverdrup, that the beginning of the intended route offered abundant game, and the indications were that further food would likewise be found as we advanced. The readiness with which the Eskimos declared themselves ready to trust to the food supply of the unknown region was highly encouraging.
To start from my base with men and dogs in superb condition, with their bodies nourished with wholesome fresh meat instead of the nauseating laboratory stuff too often given to men in the North, was of vital importance; and if the men and dogs could afterwards be supported in great measure by the game of the region through which we were to pass, it would be of an importance more vital still. If my information was well founded and my general conjectures correct, I should have advantages which had not been possessed by any other leader of a Polar expedition. The new route seemed to promise, also, immunity from the highly disturbing effects of certain North Greenland currents. In all, the chances seemed not unfavorable.
With busy people hard at work about me, I knew that the months of the long night would pass rapidly by. There was much to do, and with the earliest dawn of the morning of the next year we must be ready to start for the Pole.
THE CURTAIN OF NIGHT DROPS
TRIBE OF TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY NATIVES BUSILY BEGIN PREPARATIONS FOR THE POLAR DASH—EXCITING HUNTS FOR THE UNICORN AND OTHER GAME FROM ANNOATOK TO CAPE YORK—EVERY ANIMAL CAUGHT BEARING UPON THE SUCCESS OF THE VENTURE—THE GREY-GREEN GLOOM OF TWILIGHT IN WHICH THE ESKIMO WOMEN COMMUNICATE WITH THE SOULS OF THE DEAD
VI
The Sunset of 1907
Winter, long-lasting, dark and dismal, approached. To me it was to be a season of feverish labor in which every hand at work and every hour employed counted in the problem of success. While the hands of the entire tribe would be busy, and while I should direct and help in the making of sleds, catching of game, preparing of meat, I knew that my mind would find continual excitement in dreams of my quest, in anticipating and solving its difficulties, in feeling the bounding pulse of the dash over the ice of the Polar sea, with dogs joyously barking, whips cracking the air, and the reappearing sun paving our pathway with liquid gold. In the labor of the long winter which I began to map out I knew I should find ceaseless zest, for the pursuit of every narwhal, every walrus, every fox I should regard with abated suspense, each one bearing upon my chances; in the employment of every pair of hands I should hang with an eager interest, the expediency and excellence of the work making for success or failure. From this time onward everything of my life, every native, every occurrence began to have some bearing upon the dominating task to which I had set myself.