In contrast to the Italian expedition, the Baldwin-Ziegler Polar expedition, which sailed from Tromsoe, Norway, July 17, 1900, stands out conspicuously. Mr. Baldwin was born in Springfield, Missouri, in 1862. He had seen Arctic service with the Peary expedition of 1893-1894, and had come near being one of the ill-fated Andrée balloon party. He had done good service with Wellman in Franz Josef Land, and now with the unlimited means put at his disposal by the munificence of Mr. William Ziegler of New York, he proposed to conquer the Pole.
“Our fleet,” wrote Mr. Baldwin in McClure’s Magazine, September, 1901, “comprises three vessels. The America, our flagship, as some one has expressed it, is a three-masted ship-rigged steamer of 466 tons net burden, driving a single screw. Her length over all is 157 feet; beam, 27 feet; depth, 19 feet.... The Frithiof is a Norwegian sailing-vessel, ... the third vessel is the Belgia, which carried the Belgian Antarctic expedition of 1897-1899, under Captain Gerlache.”
Never before in the history of Polar expeditions was food and equipment carried in such luxurious profusion. The three vessels were as many floating hotels with larders lacking “nothing that foresight, experience, and the generosity of Mr. Ziegler could suggest or procure.”
The scientific equipment was also complete, including small balloons with releasing devices for depositing records when the ground was reached, buoys with records to be sent floating back to civilization by the currents, search-lights and wireless telegraph, besides the standard scientific instruments for meteorological, astronomical, and geodetic work. There were three hundred and twenty dogs, and fifteen ponies in charge of six expert Russian drivers.
“The present expedition,” wrote Mr. Baldwin, “typifies the spirit of the twentieth century;” and he adds, “No previous expedition to the north has ever made such complete arrangements for the transmission of news back to civilization as that which I have the honor to command.”
“The America and the Frithiof left Tromsoe, Norway, in July, 1901, for Franz Josef Land, which Baldwin regarded as the best starting-point for a polar venture,” writes Mr. P. F. M’Grath in the Review of Reviews, July, 1905, “proceeding to Alger Island, in latitude 80° 24´ north, longitude 55° 52´ east, where he established his winter quarters. The Frithiof unloaded her stores and proceeded south, leaving the America harbored, with the dogs and equipment ashore, portable houses erected, and detail of duties being carried out. The personnel comprised 42 souls,—17 Americans, 6 Russians, and 19 shipmen, mostly Norwegians. Game was plentiful, and several tons of bear and walrus meat were accumulated, the former for the men and the latter for the dogs. With this base beyond the eightieth parallel, Baldwin intended to push forward with his ship, or over the ice, exploring the adjacent region for uncharted land masses which would supply stationary points, insuring him against the disadvantages of an advance across the shifting ice, and from the farthest north of these he would, the next spring, make his dash across the crystal fields for the Pole. In this he would employ about twenty-five men as a vanguard and reserve, the flying column pushing rapidly ahead, and the transport train following with the heavier supplies. Numerically, the party would be strong enough to overcome otherwise serious obstacles, while the quantity of supplies to be carried by 320 dogs and 15 ponies would put the possibility of disaster almost out of the question.... With this elaborate programme, and the knowledge that the Duke of Abruzzi, with a much smaller party, attained a northing of 86° 33´, Baldwin confidently anticipated making the Pole. And, as in that segment of the Arctic Circle he might find himself, in returning, obliged by ice and currents to head for the Greenland coast, which reaches to 83° 27´, or 180 miles nearer the Pole than his base, he planned that if he should be swerved westward by the tides, it would be easier to reach that shore. There he would find musk-oxen to eke out his supplies, and journey down the east coast to where the depot was made by the Belgica for him. But, as often happens in Polar work, Baldwin’s hopes were blasted, dissensions rent his party asunder, his dogs perished by the score, and after a futile attempt to get north, he and his whole party returned to Tromsoe in August, 1902, while the Frithiof, which had sailed for Alger Island a month previous with additional outfits and for news of him, had to retreat, owing to the unbroken ice-pack.”
The return of the Baldwin-Ziegler expedition in the autumn of 1902 was followed by that reorganized by Mr. Ziegler and given to the leadership of Mr. Anthony Fiala of Brooklyn, New York, to be carried out on practically the same lines laid out by Mr. Baldwin.
Captain Edwin Coffin, of Edgartown, Massachusetts, was chosen as navigating officer, and he assembled an American crew, most of them experienced whalers. Of the Field Staff, Mr. William J. Peters, of the Geological Survey and representing the National Geographic Society, was chosen as chief scientist and second in command of the expedition. The results of his systematic records and magnetical observations, when in the north, were of the highest value, and he rendered most efficient service.
