My attainment of the Pole

by Frederick Albert Cook

In six marches we reached Schei Island, which we found to be a peninsula. We halted here and a feast day was declared. Twenty-seven musk oxen and twenty-four hares were secured in one after-dinner hunt. This meat guaranteed a food supply to the shores of the Polar sea. A weight was lifted from my load of cares, for I had doubted the existence of game far enough north to count on fresh meat to the sea. The temperature was still low (-50° F.), but the nights were brightening, and the days offered twelve hours of good light. Our outlook was hopeful indeed.

In the Polar campaign, the bear was unconsciously our best friend, and also consciously our worst enemy. There were times when we admired him, although he was never exactly friendly to us. There were other times when we regarded him with a savage wrath. Only beyond the range of life in the utmost North were we free from his attacks. In other places he nosed our trail with curious persistence. He had attacked the first party that was sent out to explore a route, under cover of night and storms. One man was wounded, another lost the tail of his coat and a part of his anatomy.

In our march of glory through the musk ox land, the bear came as a rival, and disputed not only our right to the chase, but also our right to the product from our own catch. But we had guns and dogs, and the bears fell easily. We were jealous of the quest of the musk ox. It seemed properly to belong to the domain of man's game. We were equal at the time to the task, and did not require the bear's help.

The bears were good at figures, and quickly realized ours was a superior fighting force. So they joined the ranks in order that they might share in the division of the spoils. The bear's goodly mission was always regarded with suspicion. We could easily spare the bones of our game, which he delighted to pick. We were perfectly able to protect our booty with one hundred dogs, whose dinners depended on open eyes. But the bear did not always understand our tactics. We afterwards learned that we did not always understand his, for he drove many prizes into our arms. But man is a short-sighted critic—he sees only his side of the game.

In the northern march a much more friendly spirit was developed. We differed on many points of ethics with bruin, and our fights, successful or otherwise, were too numerous and disagreeable to relate fully. Only one of these battles will be recorded here, to save the reputation of man as a superior fighting animal.

We had made a long march of about forty miles. Already the dull purple of twilight was resting heavily on darkening snows. The temperature was -81°. There was no wind. The air was semi-liquid with suspended crystals. When standing still we were perfectly comfortable, although jets of steam from our nostrils arranged frost crescents about our faces.

We had been advancing towards a group of musk oxen for more than an hour. We were now in the habit of living from catch to catch, filling up on meat at the end of each successful hunt, and waiting for pot-luck for the next meal. The sledges were too heavily loaded to carry additional weight. Furthermore, the temperature was too low to split up frozen meat. Indeed, most of our axes had been broken in trying to divide meat as dog food. It was plainly an economy of axes and fuel to fill up on warm meat as the skin was removed, and wait for the next plunder.

We had been two days without setting eyes on an appetizing meal of steaming meat. Not a living speck had crossed our horizon; and, therefore, when we noted the little cloud of steam rise from a side hill, and guessed that under it were herds of musk ox, our palates moistened with anticipatory joys. A camping place was sought. Two domes of snow were erected as a shelter.

Through the glasses we counted twenty-one musk oxen. Some were digging up snow to find willows; others were sleeping. All were unsuspecting. After the experience we had in this kind of hunting, we confidently counted the game as ours. A holiday was declared for the morrow, to dispose of the surplus. Nourishment in prospect, one hundred dogs started with a jump, under the lashes of ten Eskimos. Our sledges began shooting the boreal shoots. After rushing over minor hills, the dog noses sank into bear tracks. A little farther along, we realized we had rivals. Two bears were far ahead, approaching the musk oxen.

The dogs scented their rivals. The increased bounding of the sledges made looping-the-loop seem tame. But we were too late; the bears ran into the bunch of animals, and spoiled our game with no advantage to themselves. Giving a half-hearted chase, they rose to a bank of snow, deliberately sat down, and turned to a position to give us the laugh.