My polar experience has made me a fanatic on the subject of light. My little summer cottage on the bluff point of a rocky islet off the Maine coast has so many windows that it is known by the surrounding inhabitants as the “glass house.” Sun-worship seems to me the most natural of religions, and I wonder why all primitive peoples were not devotees of it.
My crew and Eskimos were quartered in a long, commodious topgallant forecastle, which extended from the heel of the bowsprit to well aft of the foremast. This fo’c’sle, like the after deck-house, extended the full width of the ship, and was low posted,—six and a half feet from deck to ceiling,—and also had large ports along the sides, and large windows in the after end, looking out on the main-deck. A fore-and-aft bulkhead its entire length divided it into two equal parts. The starboard side was assigned to the crew and the port side to the Eskimos.
Around the walls of the Eskimo half of the fo’c’sle was built a wide platform, three or four feet above the deck, to simulate the internal arrangement of their usual winter houses. The quarters of each family were partitioned off by boards, and curtains screened the front. They were supplied with oilstoves, pots, pans, plates, etc., and cooked their meat and anything else they wanted, eating when the spirit moved, as is the custom among these people. Beans, hash, or anything of that kind provided from the ship’s stores were cooked for them, and they were also supplied with tea, coffee, and bread by the steward.
The winter of 1908–09 the Roosevelt lay at Cape Sheridan, parallel to the shore, just over the edge of the ice-foot bank. Her nose pointed north, her port side was next the shore. On that side, between ship and shore, a distance of a hundred yards, was the shallow ice-foot lagoon, covered with one season’s ice. On the starboard side was the heavy polar ice, and a short distance from the ship a depth of twenty fathoms.
The experience of the previous expedition had shown that a severe westerly storm or the grounding of a heavy floe at a point where it would deflect the moving ice against the ship, or a big floe rotating down the shore on the surge of the spring-tides might at any time send a cataract of ice against the Roosevelt with a force which, if not deflected, might push the ship high and dry ashore. To assist the ice in turning down and passing under the ship when such pressure came I had the heavy ice cut away round the ship on a bevel toward the ship’s sides, with the inner edge in contact with the ship down to or below the water-level.
Small pieces of ice and snow were then banked against the ship’s sides up to the deck-level. The object of this was twofold, to help by its weight to turn the ice under the ship when the pressure came, and also to blanket the ship against the winter storms and bitter cold. On top of this embankment a wall or armor-plating of snow-blocks from a foot to eighteen inches thick was built as high as the tops of the deck-houses both forward and aft. The tops of the deck-houses were covered with an equal thickness, and the thwartship ends of the deck-houses protected by similar walls. Entrances to the after deck-house to the fo’c’sle, and to the Eskimo quarters were guarded by roomy beehive-shaped snow houses, with a small low door opening out upon the deck.
AN INOPPORTUNE SNOWSTORM
Behind this snow-armor protection against the siege of the frost king, we passed the winter in complete comfort, with a minimum expenditure of fuel, with perfect ventilation, with very little of the moisture and condensation which is usually the bugbear of polar ship’s quarters, and with instant and easy access to the outside for work or in an emergency. The snow armor costs nothing; it is found on the spot, and therefore takes no room on the upward voyage, and when it has served its purpose it is thrown overboard.
During the successive expeditions north I also had several other experiences in building winter quarters, some of which may be of interest.