What the Well-dressed Explorer Will Wear
Thus you have a fairly complete idea of my metamorphosed vessel, adapted to meet any and all conditions.
But one word more, as to stores and equipment, and I will promise not to bore my readers further with these deadly technical details, which I fully realize have prevented the success of many a tale of Arctic adventure. In making up my lists I was guided by a principle which I have followed all my life, namely, that of taking with me only those things for which a proper substitute could not be found in the high latitudes. This simple thought I always practise in a restaurant, for instance, where I never by any chance order anything which might be served in my home. Just prior to leaving New York I heard a gentleman ask for corned-beef hash in the Ritz! I could but pity him. Yet it is this apparently trivial tendency which has sent many an expedition off to the Arctic circle burdened with voluminous packs of furs and crushing weights of supplies, all of which could be most easily secured from the Eskimos themselves who, with the possible exception of the Cambodians, are the most friendly people I have ever encountered.[4]
Our clothing then was of the lightest. We started our journey dressed in plain business suits such as are worn by guides in the Canadian wilderness, but stowed in our duffle-bags were ample quantities of light underwear, both union and non-union, while included in my personal kit were three pairs of medium-weight, woolen longs with reinforced or sliding seats to make progress over the ice more easy. For outer wear during the warm season we carried the conventional tennis flannels and Palm-Beach suits and I am thankful to Swank for the suggestion that we include the tropical helmets which had shielded us so faithfully in the Filberts. They proved of inestimable value.
Most travellers into the land of refrigeration insist upon taking in with them bales of hay with which to pack their boots and thus absorb the moisture which would otherwise result in aggravated cases of cold feet. For this particular product I substituted a type of breakfast food of my own invention called "wheat whiskers" which comes in compacted cubes of farinaceous filament. These, when needed, can be teased out to four times their initial bulk. The advantages of this product are evident, since it is both excellent boot-packing and nourishing food, or, as Frizzie put it "good for both hoof and mouth disease." Another dual personality in our list of stores was the solid alcohol, primarily intended for fuel, but also edible. This necessity was under my immediate jurisdiction as the responsible head of the party.
Too much credit can never be given to those great American institutions, the 5-and-10-cent stores, from which we were able to obtain at slight cost the necessary snow-goggles, ice-picks, cooking utensils, etc., which form a part of every expedition. From the same source we also purchased a sizable number of toys for use in bartering with the natives. All these lighter elements of our baggage were rolled in bolts of mosquito netting in the folds of which were packed fly-swatters (two per man), bottles of citronella, green fishing-veils, and other objects useful in combating the teeming insect life which springs into being at the first touch of the Arctic sun.
These, then, were our general stores. Each individual looked after the equipment necessary for his own department. Sections of the Kawa, amidship, were allotted in alphabetical order, where, with a narrow aisle between, were tightly crammed Plock's anthropological charts, Miskin's map-cardboards, surveying instruments and colored crayons, Sloff's batteries, Wigmore's alpine ice instruments (including a horn), Dane's mummy-cases and scarabs, Whinney's camera supplies and radio-outfit, and Swank's paints and palettes. Frissell's personal impedimenta was unique and had no bearing whatever upon scientific research. It consisted of eighteen different fancy-dress costumes, wrapped up in which were a ukelele and six pogo sticks. At later intervals he kept producing smaller musical instruments, magic egg-cups and other entertaining devices which more than once rescued our spirits from the depths of black despair. Triplett carried, as usual, only his pouch of extra glass eyes and a small, well-worn, black bag which, to my certain knowledge, he never opened. I think he felt that it gave him dignity and was demanded of him, just as baggage is considered necessary by some punctilious hotel clerks. Whenever we left ship for more than a day, Triplett insisted on carrying his black bag. He looked as if he were about either to embalm a body or tune a piano. I could never quite decide which. One day when he was ill, during the latter part of our trip, I peeked in the bag. It contained the upper half of a pair of pajamas and the photograph of a beautiful,—but I feel that respect for the old fellow's romantic heart, hidden deep beneath his tough hide, forbids me to say more. Somehow that little black bag became to me a symbol of its owner, concealing beneath its alligator-skin rind the elements of some exquisite life-incident!
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