My Arctic journal: a year among ice-fields and Eskimos

by Josephine Diebitsch Peary

The sea has its days of towering, angry waves, of laughing, glistening whitecaps, of mirror-like calm. The “frozen sea” is always the same—motionless, petrified. Around its white shield the sun circles for months in succession, never hiding his face except in storms. Once a month the pale full moon climbs above the opposite horizon, and circles with him for eight or ten days.

Sometimes, though rarely, cloud shadows drift across the white expanse, but usually the cloud phenomena are the heavy prophecies or actualities of furious storms veiling the entire sky; at other times they are merely the shadows of dainty, transparent cirrus feathers. In clearest weather the solitary traveler upon this white Sahara sees but three things outside of and beyond himself—the unbroken, white expanse of the snow, the unbroken blue expanse of the sky, and the sun. In cloudy weather all three of these may disappear.

Many a time I have found myself in cloudy weather traveling in gray space. Not only was there no object to be seen, but in the entire sphere of vision there was no difference in intensity of light. My feet and snow-shoes were sharp and clear as silhouettes, and I was sensible of contact with the snow at every step. Yet as far as my eyes gave me evidence to the contrary, I was walking upon nothing. The space between my snow-shoes was as light as the zenith. The opaque light which filled the sphere of vision might come from below as well as above. A curious mental as well as physical strain resulted from this blindness with wide-open eyes, and sometimes we were obliged to stop and await a change.

The wind is always blowing on the great ice-cap, sometimes with greater, sometimes with less violence, but the air is never quiet. When the velocity of the wind increases beyond a certain point it scoops up the loose snow, and the surface of the inland ice disappears beneath a hissing white torrent of blinding drift. The thickness of this drift may be anywhere from six inches to thirty or even fifty feet, dependent upon the consistency of the snow. When the depth of the drift is not in excess of the height of the knee, its surface is as tangible and almost as sharply defined as that of a sheet of water, and its incessant dizzy rush and strident sibilation become, when long continued, as maddening as the drop, drop, drop, of water on the head in the old torture-rooms.

While traversing the inland ice our hours of marching were those corresponding to what here would be night—that is, when the sun was above the northern horizon. In our line of march I took the lead, on snow-shoes or ski as the condition of the snow demanded, setting the course by compass, or by time, and the shadow cast by my bamboo staff. The dogs, a few yards in the rear, followed my trail, and Astrup traveled on ski beside the sledge, encouraging the dogs and keeping them up to their work.

Our daily routine was as follows: When the day’s march (measured sometimes by the hours we had been on the move and sometimes by the distance covered) was completed, I began sounding the snow with the light bamboo staff to which my little silken guidon was attached, until I found a place where it was firm enough to permit of blocks being cut from it. This done, the guidon-staff was erected in the snow, and at the shout of “Tima” from me, my dogs, no matter how long or how hard the day had been, would prick up their ears and come hurrying up to me until they could lie down around my feet, glad that the day’s work was done.

As soon as the sledge came to a standstill I read the odometer, aneroid, and thermometer; then Astrup and myself undid the lashings, and as soon as the lines were loose Astrup took the saw-knife and began excavating for our kitchen, while I took the short steel-pointed stake to which we fastened our dogs and drove it firmly into the snow in front, and some fifty feet to leeward, of the kitchen site. I then untangled the dogs’ traces, detached the animals from the sledge, and made them fast to the stake. I next got out a tin of pemmican, a can-opener, and a heavy hunting-knife, and, kneeling behind the sledge, prepared the dogs’ rations, which consisted of a pound of pemmican each. I then fed the hungry creatures, standing over them meanwhile with the whip, to see that the weaker ones were not deprived of their share.

By this time Astrup had completed an excavation in the snow, about eight feet long by three feet wide and a foot and a half deep, and with the snow blocks obtained from this excavation had formed a wall a foot or a foot and a half high across one end and half-way down each side. Across this wall was put one, and sometimes both, of the ski, and over this was spread a light cotton sail, weighted down with blocks of snow. This was known as our kitchen, and at the innermost end was placed the kitchen-box, containing our milk, tea, pea-soup, Liebig’s Extract, drinking-cups, can-opener, knives, spoons, and the day’s rations of pemmican and biscuit; also the alcohol-stove and a box of matches, done up in a waterproof package.

Then, if it was Astrup’s turn as cook he immediately began the preparations for dinner by lighting the alcohol-lamp and filling the boiler with snow, while I lay down in the lee of the sledge and made my notes of the day’s work. If it was my turn as chef, as soon as the kitchen was finished I took possession of it, and Astrup retreated to the shelter of the sledge. While the snow was melting I wrote up my notes, Astrup usually devoting this time to rubbing vaseline into his face to repair the ravages of the sun and wind. As soon as sufficient water had been melted, two cupfuls of pea-soup were made, and this, with a half-pound lump of pemmican, formed our first course. While we were enjoying this the water for our tea was brought to the boiling-point. Pea-soup and pemmican finished, we each had a cupful of cold milk, and when this had disappeared the tea was made; six biscuits apiece formed our dessert.

When our luxurious repast was over, what was left of our day’s allowance of alcohol was allowed to expend itself on a fresh boilerful of snow for our morning tea, while the cook made his preparations for the night by changing his footgear and tightening the drawstrings of his furs. In addition to his other duties, the cook of the day had the entire responsibility, from dinner-time until breakfast, of the dogs, and it was the first rigid regulation of the journey that he should always be so dressed that he could at a moment’s notice jump from his shelter and capture a loose dog. The dogs were always fastened directly in front of the opening of the kitchen, so that the occupant, by raising his head, could see at once if his presence were needed. During the first portion of our journey this duty was an onerous one, and frequently meant a sleepless night; but later on, after several of the dogs had received some severe discipline for attempted thefts, and particularly after we had adopted the plan of muzzling them every night as soon as they had finished their dinner, we had but little trouble.