A Negro Explorer at the North Pole

by Matthew Alexander Henson

There is a cache of Dr. Cook's provisions here, which Franke turned over to the Commander, and Mr. Whitney has agreed to help Murphy and Billy to guard it.

Mr. Harry Whitney is one of the party of men who came here on the Erik to hunt in this region, and he has decided to stay here at Etah for the winter and wait for a ship to take him out next summer. The other two members of the hunting-party, Mr. Larned and Mr. Norton, returned on the Erik. If Mr. Whitney had asked me my advice, I would not have suggested that he remain, because, although he has a fine equipment, there will not be much sport in his experience, and there will be a great deal of roughness. He will have to become like the Esquimos and they will be practically his only companions. However, Mr. Whitney has had a talk with the Commander in the cabin of the Roosevelt, and the Commander has given his consent and best wishes. Mr. Whitney's supplies have been unloaded and some additions from the Erik made, and there is no reason to fear for his safety.

August 8, 1908: My forty-second birthday. I have not mentioned it to any one, and there's only one other besides myself who knows that to-day I am twice three times seven years of age. Seventeen years ago to-day, Commander Peary, hobbling about on his crutches with his right leg in a sling, insisted on giving me a birthday party. I was twenty-five years old then, and on the threshold of my Arctic experience. Never before in my life had the anniversary of my birth been celebrated, and to have a party given in my honor touched me deeply. Mrs. Peary was a member of the expedition then, and I suppose that it was due to her that the occasion was made a memorable one for me. Last year, I was aboard the Roosevelt in the shadow of the "Statue of Liberty" in New York Bay, and was treated to a pleasant surprise by my wife.

Commander Peary gave me explicit instructions to get Nipsangwah and Myah ashore as quick as the Creator would let them, but to be sure that their seven curs were kept aboard; these two huskies having exalted ideas as to their rights and privileges. Egingwah, or Karko as we knew him, and Koodlootinah and his family were to come aboard.

Acting under orders, I obeyed, but it was not a pleasant task. I have known men who needed dogs less to pay a great deal more for one pup than was paid to Nipsangwah for his pack of seven. The dogs are a valuable asset to this people and these two men were dependent on their little teams to a greater extent than on the plates and cups of tin which they received in exchange for them.

August 8-9, 1908: Have been trading with the natives without any trouble; they will give anything I want for anything that I have that they want. "It's a shame to take the money," or, as money is unknown up here and has no value, I should say that I should be ashamed to take such an advantage of them, but if I should stop to consider the freight-rates to this part of the world, no doubt a hatchet or a knife is worth just what it can be traded in for.

The ship has been rapidly littering up until it is now in a most perfect state of dirtiness, and in order to get the supplies from the Erik, coal, etc., the movable articles, dogs, Esquimos, etc., will have to be shifted and yours truly is helping.

The dogs have been landed on a small island in the bay, where they are safe and cannot run away, and they can have a glorious time, fighting and getting acquainted with each other. Some of the Esquimos' goods are ashore, some aboard the Erik, and the rest forward on the roof of the deck-house, while the Roosevelt is getting her coal aboard.

The loading of the meat and coal has been done by the crews of the ships, assisted and hampered by some of the Esquimos, and I have been walrus-hunting, and taxidermizing; that is, I have skinned a pair of walrus so that they can be stuffed and mounted. This job has been very carefully, and I think successfully, done and the skins have been towed ashore. The hearts, livers, and kidneys have been brought aboard and the meat is to be loaded to-morrow. Two boat-loads of bones have been rowed over to Dog Island for dog-food.

Coaling and stowing of whale-meat aboard the Roosevelt was finished at noon, August 15, and all day Sunday, August 16, all hands were at the job transferring to the Erik the boxes of provisions that were to be left at the cache at Etah. Bos'n Murphy and Billy Pritchard, the cabin-boy, are to stay as guard until the return of the Roosevelt next summer. A blinding storm of wind and snow prevented the Roosevelt from starting until about two-thirty p. m., when, with all the dogs a-howling, the whistle tooting, and the crew and members cheering, we steamed out of the Harbor into Smith Sound, and a thick fog which compelled half-speed past Littleton Island and into heavy pack-ice.