TYPICAL VIEW OF THE ICE OF THE ARCTIC OCEAN, NORTH OF GRANT LAND
The new alcohol stove, the design of which I had perfected during the winter, was used altogether on this northern sledge trip. We did not carry oil-stoves at all, except some very small ones with two-inch wicks, which we used for drying mittens.
The standard method for loading each sledge was as follows: On the bottom was a layer of dog pemmican in red tins, covering the entire length and width of the sledge; on this were two tins of biscuit, and crew pemmican in blue tins; then the tins of alcohol and condensed milk, a small skin rug for the man to sleep on at night in the igloo, snowshoes and spare footgear, a pickax and a saw knife for cutting snow blocks. Practically the only extra items of wearing apparel which were carried were a few pairs of Eskimo sealskin kamiks (boots), for it can readily be imagined that several hundred miles of such walking and stumbling over snow and ice would be rather hard on any kind of footgear which could be made.
Compactness was the main idea in packing one of these sledges, the center of gravity of the load being brought as low as possible in order that the sledges might not easily overturn.
The standard daily ration for work on the final sledge journey toward the Pole on all expeditions has been as follows:
1 lb. pemmican, 1 lb. ship's biscuit, 4 oz. condensed milk, 1/2 oz. compressed tea, 6 oz. liquid fuel, alcohol or petroleum. A total of 2 lbs. 4½ oz. of solids per man, per day.
On this ration a man can work hard and keep in good condition in the lowest temperatures for a very long time. I believe that no other item of food, either for heat or muscle building, is needed.
The daily ration for the dogs is one pound of pemmican per day; but so hardy are these descendants of the arctic wolves that when there is a scarcity of food they can work for a long time on very little to eat. I have, however, always endeavored so to proportion provisions to the length of time in the field, that the dogs should be at least as well fed as myself.
A part of the scientific work of the expedition was a series of deep-sea soundings from Cape Columbia to the Pole. The sounding apparatus of the expedition on leaving Cape Columbia comprised two wooden reels of a length equal to the width of the sledge, a detachable wooden crank to go on each end of the reel, to each reel a thousand fathoms (six thousand feet) of specially made steel piano wire of a diameter .028 inches, and one fourteen-pound lead having at its lower end a small bronze clam-shell device, self-tripping when it reached the bottom, for the purpose of bringing up samples of the ocean bed. The weights of this outfit were as follows: each thousand fathoms of wire 12.42 pounds, each wooden reel 18 pounds, each lead 14 pounds. A complete thousand-fathom outfit weighed 44.42 pounds. The two outfits, therefore, weighed 89 pounds, and a third extra lead brought this total up to 103 pounds.
Both the sounding leads and the wire were made especially for the expedition, and so far as I know they were the lightest, for their capacity, that have ever been used.