Another very valuable instrument, used on the last expedition only, was an ice lance. There was one of these also for each sledge. Reconnoitering one day in a big second-hand military establishment in New York, I saw a lot of vicious-looking boarding-pikes. It occurred to me at once that by simply shortening and changing the shape of these lances they would make valuable ice-cutters, and I immediately ordered several dozens. I had their shape changed somewhat, fitted them with shorter handles, and found them invaluable as an ice tool, both for cutting and chopping ice-blocks in the way of the sledges and for drilling holes in the ice.
Every sledge and every man had a twenty-inch-long saw-knife,—knife on one edge, saw on the other,—with a strong handle. These were used for repairing sledges, for chopping up pemmican, and were specially useful for cutting the snow-blocks from which our shelters were made at each camp. With every man cutting these blocks, it did not take long to erect a snow house. Hatchets are useful for ice work, for repairing, and for chopping up pemmican for the dogs.
A light, narrow-bladed spade for every four-man unit of my party was found very satisfactory in building igloos.
My firearms outfit comprised two Winchester 40–44 carbines, each weighing only a trifle over five pounds, with magazines carrying ten or eleven cartridges. These rifles are heavy enough for seals or polar bear, the only game there was any chance of our encountering on the ice. They were carried pistol fashion in a canvas holster at the upstanders of the sledges, so that if game was sighted, there was no delay. One had simply to snatch the rifle out of its holster and use it.
Every member of the party had a pair of snowshoes. Snow-shoes may be a life-preserver for a man in sea-ice work in enabling him to cross young ice which would be absolutely impossible without them. Members of my party had snow-shoes six feet long and a foot wide. The Eskimos’ snow-shoes were five feet long and a foot wide. All were made by Dunham of Norway, Maine, the best snow-shoes I ever saw.
Another important item of equipment on my last sledge-journey was an entirely new alcohol-stove of my own design, which I spent hours in perfecting and trying out during the long winter night. This new device worked splendidly, enabling us to melt ice and make tea in ten minutes, a process which had on previous trips, with the old style stoves, taken a full hour. A saving of something over an hour and half every day on a long journey over the sea ice may mean the difference between success and failure. The hour and a half thus saved can either be utilized for sleep to keep the members of the party more fit under the severe strain to which they are subjected; or it can be utilized for traveling, with a resulting increase in the distance covered in each march.
The instrumental outfit for a sledge journey of any length should include a theodolite, a sextant, and artificial horizon, compasses, chronometers, thermometers, a good field-glass, cameras, and, for sea-ice work, a light sounding-equipment. The theodolite we carried on the north-polar trip was a small traveler’s, made by Fauth & Company of Washington, D. C. It was equipped not only with a tripod, but had an arrangement by which it could be mounted on its case for use when the wind was blowing hard enough to make the tripod too vibratory to be practicable.
The sextant and artificial horizon were of standard pattern and the artificial horizon was of special form designed by me expressly for this journey, with a wooden trough and a different method of returning the mercury to the bottle, the entire equipment representing a reduction of some pounds in weight from the standard mercurial horizon as furnished by dealers.
Our chronometers were made by the E. Howard Watch Company of Boston, the Elgin Co. and the Waltham Co. They were pocket-size, open-face, stem-winders, kept good time, were light in weight, easy to read, and were worn suspended by a cord round the neck inside our clothing.
Binoculars were the Academic Optiques, aluminum, and extremely light; thermometers were supplied by Green of New York, being the regular maximum and minimum self-registering kind; and cameras were the Eastman Kodaks No. 4, with rolls of twelve negatives each, daylight reloading.