My attainment of the Pole

by Frederick Albert Cook

MIDNIGHT AND MID-WINTER

THE EQUIPMENT AND ITS PROBLEMS—NEW ART IN THE MAKING OF SLEDGES COMBINING LIGHTNESS—PROGRESS OF THE PREPARATIONS—CHRISTMAS, WITH ITS GLAD TIDINGS AND AUGURIES FOR SUCCESS IN QUEST OF THE POLE

IX
The Coming of the Eskimo Stork

In planning for the Polar dash I appreciated fully the vital importance of sledges. These, I realized, must possess, to an ultimate degree, the combined strength of steel with the lightness and elasticity of the strongest wood. The sledge must neither be flimsy nor bulky; nor should it be heavy or rigid. After a careful study of the art of sledge-traveling from the earliest time to the present day, after years of sledging and sledge observation in Greenland, the Antarctic and Alaska, I came to the conclusion that success was dependent, not upon any one type of sledge, but upon local fitness.

All natives of the frigid wilds have devised sledges, traveling and camp equipment to fit their local needs. The collective lessons of ages are to be read in this development of primitive sledge traveling. If these wild people had been provided with the best material from which to work out their hard problems of life, then it is probable that their methods could not be improved. But neither the Indian nor the Eskimo was ever in possession of either the tools or the raw material to fit their inventive genius for making the best equipment. Therefore, I had studied first the accumulated results of the sledge of primitive man and from this tried to construct a sledge with its accessories in which were included the advantages of up-to-date mechanics with the use of the most durable material which a search of the entire globe had afforded me.[9]

The McClintock sledges, made of bent wood with wide runners, had been adopted by nearly all explorers, under different names and with considerable modifications, for fifty years. This sledge is still the best type for deep soft snow conditions, for which it was originally intended. But such snow is not often found on the ice of the Polar sea. The native sledge which Peary copied, although well adapted to local use along the ice-foot and the land-adhering pack, is not the best sledge for a trans-boreal run. This is because it is too heavy and too easily broken, and breakable in such a way that it cannot be quickly repaired.

For the Arctic pack, a sledge must be of a moderate length, with considerable width. Narrow runners offer less friction and generally give sufficient bearing surface. The other qualities vital to quick movement and durability are lightness, elasticity and interchangeability of parts. All of these conditions I planned to meet in a new pattern of sledge which should combine the durability of the Eskimo sledges and the lightness of the Yukon sledge of Alaska.

The making of a suitable sledge caused me a good deal of concern. Before leaving New York I had taken the precaution of selecting an abundance of the best hickory wood in approximately correct sizes for sledge construction. Suitable tools had also been provided. Now, as the long winter with its months of darkness curtailed the time of outside movement, the box-house was refitted as a workshop. From eight to ten men were at the benches, eight hours each day, shaping and bending runners, fitting and lashing interchangeable cross bars and posts, and riveting the iron shoes. Thus the sledge parts were manufactured to possess the same facilities to fit not only all other sledges, but also other parts of the same sledge. If, therefore, part of a sledge should be broken, other parts of a discarded sledge could offer repair sections easily.

The general construction of this new sledge is easily understood from the various photographs presented. All joints were made elastic by seal-thong lashings. The sledges were twelve feet long and thirty inches wide; the runners had a width of an inch and an eighth. Each part and each completed sledge was thoroughly tested before it was finally loaded for the long run. For dog harness, the Greenland Eskimo pattern was adopted. But canine habits are such that when rations are reduced to minimum limits the leather strips disappear as food. To obviate this disaster, the shoulder straps were made of folds of strong canvas, while the traces were cut from cotton log line.