Secrets of Polar Travel

by Robert E. Peary

Future polar explorers may find this whale meat a convenient and economical source of supply for their winter dog food.

The whale meat should be packed at the station in tins containing fifty to one hundred pounds each. These tins should be filled with fresh sweet meat from whales just killed, and each tin should be filled solid under the constant supervision of a representative of the expedition.

In my various expeditions I have naturally had some experiences with pemmican. In my first two journeys my pemmican supply was part of the pemmican made for the Greely relief expedition. A large amount of pemmican was made for this party; but as the few survivors of the unfortunate Greely expedition were rescued at Cape Sabine and brought home in a few weeks, virtually none of it was used. On the return of the rescue party this pemmican was bought in at auction by a dealer in such supplies, and my outfit was obtained from him. This pemmican was more satisfactory than any I have ever had since. Nine-tenths of it was just as good as when made, and the fact that occasional tins of it were bad was no drawback and caused me no loss, as such tins were accepted by the dogs at their face value.

The one objection to this pemmican, in the extreme refinement of space and weight demanded for the sledge-journey across the central polar ocean, was that it was put up in round tins.

When this supply was exhausted, I had some pemmican made for me; but it was not entirely satisfactory, and on a still later expedition I was persuaded to purchase some so-called pemmican of a foreign make. This, after I had sailed and it was too late to remedy the error, I found to be largely composed of pea-flour. While nourishing and more or less satisfactory to the men of the party, it was of essentially no value whatever for the dogs, and the work of the expedition was just cut in half by the impossibility of keeping the dogs in first-class condition to do hard work.

Later on I was consoled to a certain extent for this mistake on learning that a foreign expedition, in having its pemmican prepared, had very carefully extracted all fat from the preparation, with the consequent loss of heat-producing qualities, which was quickly discovered in the field under the stress of serious work.

In my last expeditions my pemmican was made specially by American firms, and specially packed for my particular requirements. Its composition, as ordered, was as follows: two-thirds lean beef, dried until friable, then ground fine, and mixed with one-third beef fat, a little sugar, and a few raisins. Of course no one but the makers knew how much cat, dog, mule, and horse meat masqueraded in the pemmican under the guise of beef; but it all went, and in the case of the dog pemmican, of course, it made no difference. In my 1905–06 expedition the makers, however, in a business-like and perhaps legitimate effort to make the meat go as far as possible, made liberal use of bone meal in the dog pemmican. The effect of this upon the dogs was exactly like feeding a boiler with coal fifty per cent. of which is slate and dirt, and the work obtained from them was just about in proportion to the work that would be obtained from boilers in these circumstances.

In my last expedition a more careful inspection and insistence on edible substances in the dog pemmican remedied this trouble. A portion of the pemmican, however, contained an ingredient which was not at all in the original specifications, and which I should strongly advise against in the pemmican of future expeditions, that is, broken glass. Fortunately, none of my party experienced any ill effects from this, owing to the fact that we still retained the civilized habit of chewing our food, and detected the presence of the glass before it was swallowed. A number of sudden and unaccountable deaths of my dogs, however, we attributed directly to this cause.

Pemmican made of the materials and in the proportions required by my specifications is, in my opinion, as nearly perfect for the purpose for which it is intended as it is possible to make it. I do not believe that it can be improved upon, and I feel that experiments or changes in it are likely to be dangerous to the success of an expedition.

As an illustration of this a subsequent expedition, feeling that the pemmican would be improved in taste by the addition of some seasoning, ordered the addition of salt to the other ingredients, and as a result when it was used continuously in the field the Eskimo dogs, unaccustomed to salt in any form whatever, sickened and some of them died.