The amount of compulsory open-air exercise that had to be taken by each man was two hours a day; but most of the men, that is to say all the working hands exclusive of cooks, stewards, and servants, were invariably at work, outside the ship, for at least five hours a day. A very favourite and at the same time healthy pastime of the men in their leisure hours, when the moon was up, was that of “tabogganing.” This consisted in dragging one of our small satellites or dog-sledges to the summit of a neighbouring hill, and then coming down, two or three on the sledge, at the rate of about sixty or seventy miles an hour! The men enjoyed this amazingly, and used to race one sledge against another. As they were not very expert in the management of these “taboggans,” and had little confidence in their own steering, they would, when they saw there was a chance of their sledge coming to grief, tumble out and roll for some distance after it. Fortunately the snow was soft and they never came to harm.
Rawson, who had acquired a knowledge of this sport in Canada, was the first to introduce it in the far north. The dexterity with which he managed his “taboggan” was marvellous, and he would frequently, accompanied by one of his messmates, come down the steep side of one of the highest floe-bergs in the vicinity of the ship. Poor “Nellie” could never understand whence the motive power of these machines was derived, and used to rush round barking at us in a frantic manner when we first started, until left far behind plunging in the soft snow and struggling to keep pace with us.
It was wonderful how this dog withstood the cold. The colder the day the more she appeared to enjoy it, dashing about in the soft fine snow and picking up pieces of ice in her mouth for the purpose of having them thrown for her. It must be remembered that for any one of us to touch a piece of ice with the uncovered hand in a temperature 50° below zero would have been a very serious matter; yet Nellie was able, in the same temperature, to carry pieces of ice, or bits of metal or stone, in her mouth for hours together. The only cause of annoyance to the poor old doggie was the caking or balling of the snow between her toes, which used to trouble her a good deal. To obviate this, four little flannel moccasins were made for her feet; but, although she enjoyed wearing them and seemed to be proud of her appearance in them, they had to be discontinued, as we were afraid that the tying them on sufficiently tight to prevent their coming off might stop the circulation of the blood and thus produce frost-bite. On the whole, however, Nellie throve wonderfully well, and until the following summer enjoyed perfect health. She was my constant companion wherever I went, attending me during my walks, and lying curled up at my feet in the observatory during the long hours that I was employed taking magnetic observations. She always slept in an arm-chair in my cabin, being provided with her own little blanket, on which her name was embroidered.
| NELLIE. |
Before concluding this chapter it will be as well to relate an interesting and rather curious incident connected with one of our Eskimo dogs.
In Aldrich’s sledge journey to Cape Joseph Henry, one of his dogs (Sallie), being attacked with a fit, had to be cast off from the team and was no more seen by him during that journey.
On crossing the floe with my sledge party about a week after, we were suddenly joined, to our great surprise, by an Eskimo dog which the men readily recognized as Sallie; all our attempts to make her approach were unsuccessful, although she followed us at a distance during the day and hovered round our camp, picking up scraps of pemmican that had been purposely left out for her during the night. She eluded all attempts at being caught, running away on the ice and disappearing amongst the hummocks. She followed us faithfully, at a distance, until the day we returned to the ship, when she vanished altogether. She was last seen on the floe about four miles from the “Alert.”
Amid the many preparations for the winter, poor Sallie was forgotten and had almost passed out of recollection altogether, when one day in December, more than two months after she had been last seen, a strange dog was observed hovering round the ship. This strange dog proved to be the long-lost Sallie!
No amount of coaxing would persuade her to come near us, and she was eventually driven off by the other Eskimo dogs, and took refuge on the pack. On the following day she again made her appearance, and this time we succeeded in getting her on board and into a place of safety. She was terribly thin and emaciated; but being well cared for and attended to, she rapidly picked up, and was eventually the strongest and best dog in our whole team.