The dogs are hitched to the sledge fanwise. The standard team is eight dogs; but for rapid traveling with a heavy load, ten or twelve are sometimes used. They are guided by the whip and the voice. The Eskimo whip has a lash sometimes twelve, sometimes eighteen, feet long, and so skilful are the Eskimos in its manipulation that they can send the lash flying through the air and reach any part of any particular dog they wish. A white man can learn to use an Eskimo whip, but it takes time. It takes time also to acquire the exact Eskimo accent to the words "How-eh, how-eh, how-eh," meaning to the right; "Ash-oo, ash-oo, ash-oo," to the left; as well as the standard, "Huk, huk, huk," which is equivalent to "go on." Sometimes, when the dogs do not obey, the usual "How-eh, how-eh, how-eh," will reverse its accent, and the driver will yell, "How-ooooooo," with an accompaniment of other words in Eskimo and English which shall be left to the imagination of the reader. The temperature of a new man trying to drive a team of Eskimo dogs is apt to be pretty high. One is almost inclined to believe with the Eskimos that demons take possession of these animals. Sometimes they seem to be quite crazy. A favorite trick of theirs is to leap over and under and around each other, getting their traces in a snarl beside which the Gordian knot would be as nothing. Then, in a temperature anywhere between zero and 60° below, the driver has to remove his heavy mittens and disentangle the traces with his bare hands, while the dogs leap and snap and bark and seem to mock him. And this brings me to an incident which practically always happens when a new man starts out to drive Eskimo dogs.
"PEARY" TYPE OF SLEDGE
12½ ft. Long, 2 ft. Wide, 7 in. High; With Steel Shoes 2 in. Wide
ESKIMO TYPE OF SLEDGE USED ON JOURNEY
9 ft. 6 in. Long, 2 ft. Wide, 8 in. High; With Steel Shoes 1¼ in. Wide
Each has standard load of supplies for team and driver for fifty days—pemmican, biscuit, milk, tea, oil, alcohol
A member of the expedition—I, who have also suffered, will not give his name away—started out with his dog team. Some hours later shouts and hilarious laughter were heard from the Eskimos. It was not necessary to inquire what had happened. The dog team had returned to the ship—without the sledge. The new dog driver, in attempting to unsnarl the traces of his dogs, had let them get away from him. Another hour or two went by, and the man himself returned, crestfallen and angry clear through. He was greeted by the derisive shouts of the Eskimos, whose respect for the white man is based primarily on the white man's skill in the Eskimo's own field. The man gathered up his dogs again and went back for the sledge.
The gradual breaking in of the new men is one of the purposes of the short trips of the fall. They have to become inured to such minor discomforts as frosted toes and ears and noses, as well as the loss of their dogs. They have to learn to keep the heavy sledges right side up when the going is rough and sometimes, before a man gets hardened, this seems almost to rip the muscles from the shoulder blades. Moreover, they have to learn how to wear their fur clothing.