Secrets of Polar Travel

by Robert E. Peary

Many details so numerous as to be almost impossible to remember develop in connection with polar supplies as the result of experience in various expeditions. The packing of all provisions is of the utmost importance. The first requisite is that everything must be in water-tight packages, as an insurance against damage or deterioration if the expedition is a long one, and particularly as a safeguard against damage and spoiling in case of injury to the ship or in emergency transportation in boats or across the ice under conditions which may mean the repeated immersion of the supplies in sea-water.

Another fundamental essential is that all provisions must be in packages not to exceed a certain maximum weight, which can be readily handled by one man in loading or unloading a ship or boats or sledges, particularly in an emergency, where rapid work is essential.

My standard net weight for every package of all provisions which were not particularly ship provisions was fifty pounds. The water-tight tins and the light box or crate outside of the tin made the gross weight of packages from sixty-two or sixty-three to a maximum of seventy-five pounds. Packages of this size can be easily picked up and passed up from the hold of a ship by one man, or can be tossed over the rail to the ice in case of the crushing of the ship, and they are easily and rapidly handled by one man in stowing in a boat or in taking out of a boat.

Another detail of packing provisions which, as far as I know, was unique and peculiar to my expeditions, was making the depth and width of all boxes containing provisions the same, and letting the length vary in accordance with the specific gravity of the particular item of supplies. To illustrate: All boxes of oatmeal, corn-meal, rice, tea, coffee, sugar, etc., were about twelve inches wide by ten inches deep, and of a length that would just contain fifty pounds of the particular article. Of course a sugar box would be shorter than an oatmeal or corn-meal box, and a corn-meal box would be shorter than a box of tea.

The reason for this standardizing of two dimensions of the boxes was to fit them to be utilized for constructing houses, being laid up like blocks of granite, and breaking joints in the same way. By this method the supplies landed from the ship at headquarters could easily be formed into two or three comfortable houses for shelter of the members of the expedition in case the ship should be crushed or burned.

WHALE MEAT FOR DOG FOOD

These houses were built by forming four walls of the boxes of supplies, with the tops of the boxes inside; then putting boards or sails across the top, and banking the whole structure in with snow. When supplies of any kind were required, the cover of a box in the wall of the house would be removed from the inside, the tin containing the supplies removed, the empty box then becoming a sort of shelf or locker for other articles, if needed. The main point, however, was that all the supplies could be used, and the house still remain intact.

This method was also valuable wherever large caches of supplies were made at particular points, as the supplies formed at once a strong, comfortable, and rapidly constructed shelter for the use of parties traveling that route and camping at the cache.

Another special point was the marking of all special supplies, such as tea, coffee, sugar, milk, ship’s biscuit, which might be called the emergency supplies, on every side with a dash of paint in such a way that any one, whether able to read or write or not (or an Eskimo), if able to see one side of a box, would know at once its contents. This method of marking was the result of the experiences of some expeditions previous to mine in which much time was lost hunting for and endeavoring to identify supplies.