Granted three years’ leave of absence by the Hon. B. F. Tracy, Secretary of the Navy, the North Greenland expedition of 1893-1894 sailed in the Falcon, June, 1893, and entered the mouth of Bowdoin Bay, in Inglefield Gulf, August 3.
Here a house was rapidly constructed, stores landed, the Falcon making a brief trip after the winter supply of meat, with a stop at Life-Boat Cove, where a visit was made to the site of Polaris House. A few relics were picked up bearing the stamp of the United States Navy-yard at Washington, dated 1865 to 1870. The 20th of August, after her return to the station at Bowdoin Bay, the Falcon steamed south, leaving the little group of fourteen persons, including, among others, Mr. and Mrs. Peary, Mr. Samuel J. Entrikin, Eivind Astrup, Dr. Edward E. Vincent, Mr. E. B. Baldwin, Mrs. Susan J. Cross, and the coloured man, Matthew Henson.
On September 12, in this far-away land, the famous “snow baby” was born, little blue-eyed Marie Ahnighito Peary, and “bundled deep in soft, warm Arctic furs, and wrapped in the Stars and Stripes.”
In early March, 1894, the last preparations were completed for a second twelve-hundred-mile journey across the Greenland Ice-cap. On the 6th of the month, accompanied by eight men, twelve sledges, and ninety-two dogs, Peary ascended the Inland Ice. The advance of such a caravan was slow and heavy. The dogs of the various teams, being unaccustomed to one another, were constantly fighting; the penetrating cold nipped with frost-bites the hands and feet of his men, so that after an advance of one hundred and thirty-four miles, at an elevation of five thousand five hundred feet, Peary determined at the end of thirteen days to cache surplus stores, send back the majority of his men, and proceed with three men alone. But the conditions of cold and storms were too adverse for human endurance, the thermometer reaching as low as -60°. The dogs were reduced to a most pitiable condition, many dying from exposure. On April 10, having advanced only about eighty-five miles, Peary decided it was inadvisable to attempt to proceed and prepared for his return to Bowdoin Bay.
Cairn erected over the Body of Marvin
Courtesy of F. A. Stokes Company
Abandoning and caching all unnecessary impedimenta, with only twenty-six dogs remaining out of the original number, the party reached the station in a much enfeebled and reduced state.
Though temporarily defeated in the main object of his enterprise, Peary had gleaned much information concerning the famous “Iron Mountain” of Melville Bay, first mentioned by Captain Ross in 1818, and as part of the programme he had laid down for himself, a visit to that interesting spot was undertaken. On May 27, 1894, Peary located this remarkable meteorite, leaving a cairn with records at a short distance from the spot.
In the meantime, Astrup had made a successful sledge journey and reconnoissance of Melville Bay, and carefully charting much of its hitherto little-known northeastern shore.