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

by Josephine Diebitsch Peary

In the morning I was generally the one to waken first, and would either start the alcohol-lamp myself or else call Astrup for that purpose. Our morning meal consisted of a lump of pemmican, six biscuits, two ounces of butter, and two cups of tea each. As soon as this was finished everything was repacked on the sledge, and while Astrup was completing the lashing, I removed the dogs’ muzzles, untangled their traces, and attached them to the sledge. I then read the odometer, aneroid, and thermometer, and, taking the guidon, which had waved and fluttered over the kitchen throughout our hours of rest, from its place, stepped forward, and the next march was commenced. After from four to six hours of marching we would halt for half an hour to eat our simple lunch of pemmican and give the dogs a rest, and then, after another four to six hours of traveling, halt again and repeat the already described routine.

DRIFTED IN.

The three sledges used on our journey were the survivors of a fleet of ten, comprising seven different styles. They consisted simply of two long, broad wooden runners curved at both ends, with standards supporting light but strong crossbars. The largest sledge was thirteen feet long and two feet wide, with runners four inches wide and standards six inches high; this sledge had no particle of metal in its construction, being composed entirely of wood, horn, and rawhide lashings. It weighed forty-eight pounds, and carried easily a load of a thousand pounds. After a two hundred and fifty mile trip round Inglefield Gulf, it made the long journey to the north and return to within two hundred miles of McCormick Bay, when it was abandoned for a lighter sledge. The second sledge was eleven feet by two, with three and one-half inch runners and six-inch standards. It weighed thirty-five pounds, and carried a load of over five hundred pounds. It broke down on the upward trip and was abandoned. The third sledge, made by Astrup, was ten feet by sixteen inches, with three-inch runners and two-inch standards; it weighed thirteen pounds, and carried a load of four hundred pounds. This sledge made the round trip of thirteen hundred miles, though carrying a load for only about eight hundred miles.

The result of this extended practical experience with sledges has been to show me that my previous ideas as to the great superiority of the toboggan type of sledge for inland-ice work (ideas gained during my reconnoissance in 1886, east of Disko Bay) were erroneous, and that the sledge with broad runners and standards is the sledge. Also, that the wear upon the runners is practically nil, and that shoes of steel or ivory are not only useless, but actually increase the tractive resistance.

Of even greater importance to our successful progress during the inland-ice journey than our sledges were the ski, or Norwegian snow-skates. Valuable as are the Indian snow-shoes for Arctic work, the ski far surpass them in speed, ease of locomotion, and reduced chances of chafing or straining the feet. On the upward journey I alternated between the snow-shoes and the ski, but while descending the northern ice-slope I had the misfortune to break one of the ski, and on the return trip was obliged to use the snow-shoes only. Astrup used ski entirely from start to finish.

I am satisfied that the only material for the clothing of men traveling upon the inland ice is fur, and that the man who dispenses with it adds to the weight he has to carry, and compels himself to endure serious drafts upon his vitality, to say nothing of deliberately choosing discomfort instead of comfort. The great objection urged against fur clothing is that, allowing the evaporation from the body no opportunity to escape, the clothing beneath it gets saturated while the wearer is at work, and then, when he ceases, he becomes thoroughly chilled. This trouble is, in my opinion, due entirely to inexperience and ignorance of how to use the fur clothing. It was a part of my plan to obtain the material for my fur clothing and sleeping-bags in the Whale Sound region, and I was entirely successful in so doing. My boys shot the deer, the skins were stretched and dried in Redcliffe, I devised and cut the patterns for the suits and sleeping-bags, and the native women sewed them. As a result of my study of the Eskimo clothing and its use, I adopted it almost literatim, and my complete wardrobe consisted of a hooded deerskin coat weighing five and one-fourth pounds, a hooded sealskin coat weighing two and one-half pounds, a pair of dogskin knee-trousers weighing three pounds nine ounces, sealskin boots with woolen socks and fur soles, weighing two pounds, and an undershirt; total, about thirteen pounds. With various combinations of this outfit, I could keep perfectly warm and yet not get into a perspiration, in temperatures from +40° F. to –50°, whether at rest, or walking, or pulling upon a sledge.

The deerskin coat, with the trousers, footgear, and undershirt, weighed eleven and one-fourth pounds, or about the same as an ordinary winter business suit, including shoes, underwear, etc., but not the overcoat. In this costume, with the fur inside and the drawstrings at waist, wrists, knees, and face pulled tight, I have seated myself upon the great ice-cap four thousand feet above the sea with the thermometer at –38°, the wind blowing so that I could scarcely stand against it, and with back to the wind have eaten my lunch leisurely and in comfort; then, stretching myself at full length for a few moments, have listened to the fierce hiss of the snow driving past me with the same pleasurable sensation that, seated beside the glowing grate, we listen to the roar of the rain upon the roof.

Our sleeping-bags, also of the winter coat of the deer, with the fur inside, were, I think, the lightest and warmest ever used. In my own bag, weighing ten and one-fourth pounds, I have slept comfortably out upon the open snow, with no shelter whatever and the thermometer at –41°, wearing inside the bag only undergarments. During the inland-ice journey, throughout which the temperature was never more than a degree or two below zero, our sleeping-bags were discarded, our fur clothing being ample protection for us when asleep, even though I carried no tent.

While the variety of food was not as great as it has been on some other expeditions, I doubt if any party ever had more healthy or nutritious fare. A carefully studied feature of my project was the entire dependence upon the game of the Whale Sound region for my meat supply; and though I took an abundance of tea, coffee, sugar, milk, flour, corn-meal, and evaporated fruits and vegetables, my canned meats were only sufficient to carry us over the period of installation, with a small supply for short sledge journeys. In this respect, as in others, my plans were fortunate of fulfilment, and we were always well supplied with venison. With fresh meat and fresh bread every day we could smile defiance at scurvy.