My attainment of the Pole

by Frederick Albert Cook

To the huge carcass frail kayaks are hitched in a long line. Towing is slow, wind and sea combining to make the task difficult and dangerous. One sees nothing of the narwhal and very little of the kayak, for dashing seas wash over the little craft, but the double-bladed paddles see-saw with the regularity of a pendulum. Homecoming takes many hours and demands a prodigious amount of hard work, but there is energy to spare, for a wealth of meat and fat is the culmination of all Eskimo ambition.

Seven of these ponderous animals were brought in during five days, making a heap of more than forty thousand pounds of food and fuel. The sight of this tremulous, blubbering mass filled my heart with joy. Our success was not too soon, for now the narwhals suddenly disappeared, and we saw no more of them. About this time three white whales were also obtained at Etah by a similar method of hunting.

With the advent of actual winter, storms swept over the land and sea with such fury that it was no longer safe to venture out on the water in kayaks. After the catching of several walruses from boats, sea hunting now was confined to the quest of seal through young ice. As such hunting would soon be limited to only a few open spaces near prominent headlands, an industrious pursuit was feverishly engaged in at every village from Annoatok to Cape York, and hour by hour, day by day, until the hunt of necessity changed from sea to land, the husky natives engaged in seal catching. As yet we had no caribou meat, and the little auks, which had been gathered in nets during the summer, with the eider-duck bagged later, soon disappeared as a steady diet. We must now procure such available land game as hare, ptarmigan and reindeer, for we had not yet learned to eat with a relish the fishy, liver-like substance which is characteristic of all marine mammals.

Guns and ammunition were now distributed, and when the winds were easy enough to allow one to venture out, every Eskimo sought the neighboring hills. Francke also took his exercise with a gun on his shoulder.

The combined efforts resulted in a long line of ptarmigan, two reindeer and sixteen hares. As snow covered the upper slopes, the game was forced down near the sea, where we could still hope to hunt in the feeble light of the early part of the night.

With a larder fairly stocked and good prospects for other tasty meats, we were spared the anxiety of a winter without supplies. Francke was an ideal chef in the preparation of this game to good effect, for he had a delightful way of making our primitive provisions quite appetizing.

In the middle of October fox skins were prime, and then new steel traps were distributed and set near the many caches. By this time all the Eskimos had abandoned their sealskin tents and were snugly settled in their winter igloos. The ground was covered with snow, and the sea was almost entirely frozen.

Everybody was busy preparing for the coming cold and night. The temperature was about 20° below zero. Severe storms were becoming less frequent, and the air, though colder, was less humid and less disagreeable. An ice-foot was formed by the tides along shore, and over this the winter sledging was begun by short excursions to bait the fox traps and gather the foxes.

Our life now resolved itself into a systematic routine of work, which was practically followed throughout the succeeding long winter night. About the box-house in which Francke and I lived were igloos housing eight to twelve families. The tribe of two hundred and fifty was distributed in a range of villages along the coast, an average of four families constituting a community. Early each morning Koo-loo-ting-wah would bang at my door, enter, and I would drowsily awaken while he freshened the fire. Rising, we would prepare hot coffee and partake of breakfast with biscuits. By seven o'clock—according to our standard of time—five or six of the natives would arrive, and, after a liberal libation of coffee, begin work. I taught them to help me in the making of my hickory sleds. Some I taught to use modern carpentering instruments, which I had with me. Another group was schooled in bending the resilient but tough hickory. This was done by wrapping old cloths about the wood and steeping it in hot water. Others engaged, as the days went by, in making dog harness, articles of winter clothing, and drying meat. Not an hour was lost during the day. At noon we paused for a bite of frozen meat and hot tea. Then we fell to work again without respite until five or six o'clock.

Meanwhile, beginning in the early morning of our steadily darkening days, other male members of the tribe pursued game. Others again followed a routine of scouring of the villages and collecting all the furs and game which had been caught. The women of the tribe, in almost every dimly lighted igloo, were no less industrious. To them fell the task of assisting in drying the fur skins, preparing dried meat and making our clothing. Throughout the entire days they sat in their snow and stone houses, masses of ill-smelling furs before them, cutting the skins and sewing them into serviceable garments. This work I often watched, passing from igloo to igloo, with an interest that verged on anxiety; for upon the strength, thickness and durability of these depended my life, and that of the companions I should choose, on the frigid days which would inevitably come on my journey Poleward. But these broad-faced, patient women did their work well. Their skill is quite remarkable. They took my measurements, for instance, by roughly sizing up my old garments and by measuring me by sight. Garments were made to fit snugly after the preliminary making by cutting out or inserting patches of fur. Needles among the natives are indeed precious. So valuable are they that if a point or eye is broken, with infinite skill and patience the broken end is heated and flattened, and by means of a bow drill a new eye is bored. A new point is with equal skill shaped on local stones. With marvelous patience they make their own thread by drying and stripping caribou or narwhale sinews.