Secrets of Polar Travel

by Robert E. Peary

In the attempts to reach the north pole the first of these methods was among the first to be attempted, the effort to sledge north from a ship. Then the second came into favor. The fourth method was the last to be exploited, and in this the writer feels he has some claim to having developed a new departure in polar sledging, through his years of Greenland ice-cap journeys.

In considering the two great prizes of polar exploration, the north pole and the south pole, the attainment of the former was dependent upon proficiency in sledging over the surface of a polar ocean; while the latter—in fact all antarctic sledge work—is of the fourth kind, the traverse of the continuous permanent interior ice-cap of the antarctic continent.

Still considering these prizes, the great distinction and contrast between north polar and south polar sledge-traveling must be clearly and constantly borne in mind. In the north polar game the last stage of the journey—from 500 to 600 miles, according to the route selected, whether Grant Land or Greenland or Franz-Josef Land—is over the frozen surface of the Arctic Ocean. This ocean breaks up every summer, the great fields of ice drifting under the influence of wind and tide to an eventual exit into the North Atlantic; and at any time of year, even the depth of the severest winter, a storm will rift the icy surface in many places with cracks and lanes of open water, and throw up great ridges of ice-blocks by the pressure of the ice-fields. No place on the frozen surface of the ocean can be counted upon to be in the same locality a month later.

From these facts result the following fundamental circumstances in north polar sledge-travel: first, that the sledge-journey must be undertaken in the very coldest part of the year, so that the sea ice may be most firmly cemented together, and that open water, if it does appear, may be most quickly frozen over again by the extreme cold. Second, that no caches or depots of provisions can be deposited on the outward journey, to be picked up on the return, thus lightening loads and increasing speed, because there would not be one chance in ten of ever finding them again. Everything used on the journey, therefore, must be carried the entire distance, and the objects of the journey must be accomplished within the limits of a single sledging season, from the time a little light returns in February to the breaking up of the ice in June, or the whole thing must be done over again.

The average layman will probably consider the first of these conditions, the extreme cold, as the most serious. As a matter of fact, the second is the most vital, and is the one which has caused the discovery of the north pole to drag along through hundreds of years, while the south pole was attained twice within thirteen years after the first sledge-journey in that region.

In the south polar game the last stage of the journey—from 700 to 800 miles—is over the eternal surface of the glaciers and the interior ice-cap. On this surface a depot of provisions put down to-day will be found in the same place to-morrow or next month or next year or ten years from now. From this fact result unique and ideal conditions for the establishment of caches to any extent desired, so that a returning party may come dashing back the entire distance with nearly empty sledges. A journey of any length in that region is only a matter of time.

Second, sledge-travel in the antarctic can be carried on in the summer season of greatest warmth and continuous light.

On the other hand, sledge-traveling to the south pole encounters the serious disadvantage of the pronounced altitude, 10,000 to 11,000 feet in the last stages of the journey, with its decrease in efficiency in men, dogs, or ponies.

My knowledge of conditions to be encountered in overland sledging was gained in numerous short trips in Greenland and two long journeys of 1200 miles each across northern Greenland’s ice-cap, the “inland ice.”

To the average reader the expression “inland ice” suggests a surface of ice. This idea is erroneous. Greenland is a great glacial country, with an area of 740,000 or 750,000 square miles, fully four fifths of which are covered by the inland ice, the only portion of it that could be called land being a ribbon of mountains, valleys, and deep fiords along the coast. This narrow strip of land is for the most part from five to twenty-five miles wide, but there are several places where it is sixty or eighty miles.