They are, for instance, terrible fighters.
Every one who possesses a canine friend knows that this is a very dog-like attribute, and one of which no dog, large or small, can be entirely broken.
We all appreciate how unpleasant it is to be out walking with our favorite French bulldog, and suddenly have our be-ribboned aristocrat forget the dignity that his long pedigree should give him, and dash from our side to make tufts of hair fly from somebody else's equally be-ribboned poodle.
Such an occurrence is serious enough—but it becomes a matter of life and death when, miles from home in a frozen country, you are depending on your dogs to bring you safely back again, and your team forgets its duty and becomes a waving mass of legs and tails, from which you hear nothing but the howls of the vanquished. A dog-fight often becomes one of the most terrible catastrophes that can overtake an explorer.
With these fierce little Eskimo dogs, the result of such an encounter means generally the loss of two or three, and a walk home with the wounded survivors occupying the sled.
Under the circumstances it is very necessary to understand how to handle these useful but eccentric beasts. The Eskimos have reduced this knowledge to a science, and from them Nansen learned to be the master of those dogs which were of so much service to him in his last and greatest expedition.
This expedition was undertaken in June, 1893, and its object was to drift across the pole from Siberia to Greenland.
During Nansen's Arctic experiences he had noticed that the shores of Greenland were strewn with driftwood of a kind also found on the shores of Siberia.
The matter caused him some deep thought, and at length he arrived at the conclusion that there must be a current which crosses the Arctic Ocean and carries this material from Asia to America.
After much thought, he came to the conclusion that if he could only build himself a vessel which would withstand the pressure of the ice, and once get into the stream, he and his vessel would be carried with the rest of the drift from Asia to America, and in the course of the trip would be borne right across the North Pole.