Secrets of Polar Travel

by Robert E. Peary

The adjacent shore for a quarter of a mile was lined with the remaining boxes of supplies, each item of provisions having a pile to itself. This packing-box village was called Hubbardville.

Had we lost the Roosevelt at Cape Sheridan, we should have spent the winter in the box houses which we constructed, and in the spring should have made the dash for the pole just the same. We should have then walked the 350 miles to Cape Sabine, crossed the Smith Sound ice to Etah, and waited for a ship.

The second new element introduced into my later expeditions by the presence of a ship was the preparation of the ship itself for winter quarters.

A partial beginning at this was made on the Windward, where my own personal quarters were an Erie Railroad caboose given to me by my friend Eben Thomas, president of that road. This caboose I put on the deck of the Windward between the mainmast and foremast, and bolted it down like any deck-house. In the autumn at Cape D’Urville, when the temperatures began to go down seriously, I had my Eskimos incase and cover it in with a wall of snow-blocks, and build a beehive-shaped vestibule or storm entrance of snow-blocks round the door.

This arrangement, in its comfort, facility of ventilation, freedom from the moisture and condensation incident to the quarters of the others below decks and the old system of ships’ quarters, was so superior that I was convinced the only place for the quarters of a polar ship was on deck.

In building the Roosevelt I put the quarters for every one, officers, crew, and Eskimos, on deck, and in the two expeditions of 1905–06 and 1908–09, in wintering at Cape Sheridan, I worked out fully what I believe to be the most comfortable and satisfactory method of ship’s winter quarters.

As a result, the officers and crew of my last two expeditions had light and roomy accommodations on deck, a great improvement over the old method of housing a party below decks, as in all old-fashioned ships, and even in ships built comparatively recently for polar work.

My assistants and the ship’s officers were quartered in a deck-house between the mainmast and mizzenmast. The deck-house extended clear across the ship, was low-posted,—seven feet from floor to ceiling,—and contained the cook’s galley and domain as well as our quarters. It was plainly and strongly constructed, sheathed inside, and special care was taken, by the use of heavy building paper, double planking, and close joints, to have no cracks or joints for the entrance of cold air.

The journey north in the ship, being a summer coasting voyage, with no danger from high or heavy seas, and the deck-house being above the main structure of the ship, I was able to put in large plate-glass ports along the sides to light the interior; and for the same reason I was able to put real windows—four in all, double and of special heavy glass—in the forward and after end of the deck-house, with generous panes of glass in the upper part of each of the four doors, two forward and two aft, which opened into it.

This arrangement made the quarters immeasurably pleasanter and more sanitary. On the upward voyage we got full value of all the sunlight there was, ventilation was perfect, and from my stateroom I could at all times command the situation; and if I was needed on the bridge, it was only a step through the door to the deck, and two jumps up the ladder to the bridge. The great value of this large window area was in the late autumn and early spring, when it gave us in each case about two weeks more of daylight in our quarters, and shortened by just so much the long period of continuous lamplight. The arrangement was also invaluable for those left on board when the main spring sledge-parties left for their work, and for the sledge-parties themselves in the weeks of waiting after their return in May or June till the ship could break out of her winter quarters in July or August.