My Attainment of the Pole Part 13

"Dig a hole," said Koo-loo-ting-wah.

Now, to try to dig a hole without a shovel, and with snow coming more rapidly than any power of man could remove, seemed a waste of needed vital force. But I had faith in the intelligence of my savage companions, and ordered all hands to work. They gathered at one corner of the bank, and began to talk and shout, while I allowed myself to be buried in a pocket of the cliffs to keep my tender skin from turning to ice. Every few minutes someone came along to see if I was safe.

The igloo was progressing. Two men were now inside. In the course of another hour they reported four men inside; in another hour seven men were inside, and the others were piling up the blocks, cut with knives from the interior. A kind of vestibule was made to allow the wind to shoot over the entrance. Inside, the men were sweating.

Soon afterward I was told that the igloo was completed. I lost no time in seeking its shelter. A square hole had been cut, large enough for the entire party if packed like sardines. Our fur clothing was removed, and beaten with sticks and stones.

The lamps sang cheerily of steaming musk ox steaks. The dogs were brought into the canyon. A more comfortable night was impossible. We were fifty feet under the snow. The noise of the driving storm was lost.

The blinding drift about the entrance was effectually shut out by a block of snow as a door. Two holes afforded ventilation, and the tremendous difference between the exterior and the interior air a.s.sured a circulation.

When we emerged in the morning the sky was clear. A light wind came from the west, with a temperature of -78 F. Two dogs had frozen during the storm. All were buried in the edge of a drift that was piled fifteen feet. An exploration of the canyon showed other falls and boulders impossible for sledge travel.

A trail was picked over the hills to the side. The day was severe. How we escaped broken legs and smashed sleds was miraculous. But somehow, in our plunges down the avalanches, we always landed in a soft bed of snow.

We advanced about ten miles, and made a descent of five hundred feet, first camping upon a glacial lake.

The temperature now was -79 F., and although there were about nine hours of good light, including twilight, we had continued our efforts too long, and were forced to build igloos by moonlight. Glad were we, indeed, when the candle was placed in the dome of snow, to show the last cracks to be stuffed.

In the searchlight of the frigid dawn I noticed that our advance was blocked by a large glacier, which tumbled barriers of ice boulders into the only available line for a path. A way would have to be cut into this barrier of icebergs for about a mile. This required the full energy of all the men for the day. I took advantage of the halt to explore the country through which we were forcing a pa.s.s. The valley was cut by ancient glaciers and more modern creeks along the meeting line of two distinct geological formations. To the north were silurian and cambro-silurian rocks; to the south were great archaean cliffs.

With the camera, the field-gla.s.s, and other instruments in the sack, I climbed into a gorge and rose to the level of the mountains of the northern slopes. The ground was here absolutely dest.i.tute of vegetation, and only old musk ox trails indicated living creatures. The snow had all been swept into the ditches of the lowlands. Climbing over frost-sharpened stones, I found footing difficult.

The average height of the mountains proved to be nineteen hundred feet.

To the northeast there was land extending a few miles further, with a gradual rising slope. Beyond was the blue edge of the inland ice. To the northwest, the land continued in rolling hills, beyond which no land-ice was seen. The cliffs to the south were of about the same height, but they were fitted to the crest with an ice-cap. The overflow of perpetual snows descended into the gorges, making five overhanging glaciers.

The first was at the divide, furnishing in summer the waters which started the vigorous stream to the Atlantic slopes. It was a huge stream of ice, about a mile wide, and it is marked by giant cliffs, separated by wide gaps, indicating the roughness of the surface over which it pushes its frozen height. To the stream to which it gives birth, flowing eastward from the divide, I will give the name of Schley River, in honor of Rear-Admiral Schley.

The stream starting westward from the divide, through picturesque rocks, tumbles in icy falls into a huge canyon, down to the Pacific waters at Bay Fiord. To this I will give, in honor of General A. W. Greely, the name Greely River.

The second and third glaciers were overhanging ma.s.ses about a half-mile wide, which gave volume in summer time to Greely River.

The fourth was a powerful glacier, with a discharging face of blue three miles long, closing up a valley and damming up a lake about four miles long and one mile wide. The lake was beyond the most precipitous of the descending slopes. The upper cliffs of the walled valley to Flagler Bay were still visible, while to the west was seen a line of mountains and cliffs which marked the head of Bay Fiord, under which was seen the ice covering the first water of the Pacific upon which our future fortunes would be told. To this sea level there was an easy descent of four hundred feet on the river ice and snowdrifts, making, with good luck, a day's run of twenty miles.

Returning, at camp I was informed that not only had a trail been cut, but many of the sledges had been advanced to the good ice beyond. Two of the sledges, however, had been badly broken, and must be mended at dawn before starting.

The day was beautiful. For the first time I felt the heat of the sun. It came through the thick fur of my shoulders with the tenderness of a warm human hand. The mere thought of the genial sunbeams brought a glow of healthful warmth, but at the same time the thermometer was very low, -78 F. One's sense of cold, under normal conditions, is a correct instrument in its bearing upon animal functions, but as an instrument of physics it makes an unreliable thermometer. If I had been asked to guess the temperature of the day I should have placed it at -25 F.

The night air had just a smart of bitterness. The igloo failed to become warm, so we fed our internal fires liberally with warming courses, coming in easy stages. We partook of superheated coffee, thickened with sugar, and biscuits, and later took b.u.t.ter chopped in squares, which was eaten as cheese with musk ox meat chopped by our axes into splinters.

Delicious hare loins and hams, cooked in pea soup, served as dessert.

The amount of sugar and fat which we now consumed was quite remarkable.

Fortunately, during the journey to the edge of the Polar sea, there was no urgent limit to transportation, and we were well supplied with the luxury of sugar and civilized foods, most of which later were to be abandoned.

In this very low temperature I found considerable difficulty in jotting down the brief notes of our day's doings. The paper was so cold that the pencil barely left a mark. A few moments had to be spent warming each page and pencil before beginning to write. With the same operation, the fingers were also sufficiently warmed to hold the pencil. All had to be done by the light and heat of a candle.

To economize fuel, the fires later were extinguished before retiring to sleep. In the morning we were buried in the frost falling from our own breath.

It was difficult to work at dawn with fur-covered hands; but the Eskimo can do much with his glove-fitting mitten. The broken sledges were soon repaired. After tumbling over irregular ice along the face of the glacier, the river offered a splendid highway over which the dogs galloped with remarkable speed. We rode until cold compelled exercise.

The stream descended among picturesque hills, but the most careful scrutiny found no sign of life except the ever-present musk ox trails of seasons gone by.

As we neared the sea line, near the mouth of the river, we began to see a few fresh tracks of hare and musk ox. Pa.s.sing out on the south of Bay Fiord, we noted bear and wolf tracks. Then the eyes of the hunter and the dog rolled with eager antic.i.p.ation.

The sun flushed the skies in flaming colors as it was about to sink behind a run of high peaks. The western sky burned with gold, the ice flashed with crimson inlets, but the heat was very feeble. The temperature was -72 F. We had already gone twenty-five miles, and were looking forward to a point about ten miles beyond as the next camping place, when all my companions, seemingly at once, espied a herd of musk ox on the sky line of a whale-backed mountain to the north.

The distance was about three miles, but the eagle eyes of the natives detected the black spots.

We searched the gorge with our gla.s.ses. Suddenly one of the Eskimos cried out in a joyous tone: "_Ah-ming-ma! Ah-ming-ma!_"

I could detect only some dark specks on the snow, which looked like a hundred others that I knew to be rocks. I levelled my gla.s.ses on the whale-backed mountain at which the Eskimo was staring, and, sure enough, there were three musk oxen on a steep snow slope. They seemed to be digging up the winter snow fields to get "scrub" willows. They were not only three miles away, but at an alt.i.tude of perhaps a thousand feet above us.

The c.u.mbersome loads were quickly pitched from three sledges. Rifles and knives were securely fastened. In a few moments the long lashes snapped, and away we rushed, with two men on each of the sledges and with double teams of twenty dogs.

The dogs galloped at a pace which made the sledges bound like rubber b.a.l.l.s over irregularities of rocks, slippery ice, and hard-crusted snow, and our hold tightened on the hickory in the effort to keep our places.

It disturbed the dogs not at all whether they were on rock or snow, or whether the sledge rested on runners or turned spirally; but it made considerable difference to us, and we lost much energy in the constant efforts to avoid somersaults. We did not dare release our grip for a moment, for to do so would have meant painful b.u.mping and torn clothes, as well as being left behind in the chase.

It took but a brief time to cover the three miles. We made our final advance by three separate ravines, and for a time the musk oxen were out of sight. When we again saw them they had not taken the alarm, nor did they until we were ready to attack them from three separate points.

All but five dogs from each sledge were now freed from harness. They darted toward the oxen with fierce speed.

The oxen tried to escape through a ravine, but it was too late. The dogs were on every side of them, and all the oxen could do was to grunt fiercely and jump into a bunch, with tails together and heads directed at the enemy. There were seven musk oxen in all, and they tried to keep the dogs scattered at a safe distance.

The dogs would rush up to within a few feet, showing their teeth and uttering wolfish sounds, and every now and then an ox would rush out from its circle, with head down, in an effort to strike the dogs; but the dogs were always too quick to be caught by the savage thrust, and each time the ox, in its retreat, would feel canine fangs closing on its haunches.

After a few such efforts, the bulls, with lowered horns, merely held to the position, while the dogs, not daring actually to attack under such circ.u.mstances, sat in a circle and sent up blood-chilling howls.

Meanwhile, the Eskimos and myself were hurrying up.

The strife was soon over. I snapped my camera at an old bull which at that moment broke through the dogs and, followed by a group of them, was driven madly over a cliff in a plunge of five thousand feet. The other oxen were soon killed by the hunters.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE IGLOO BUILT, WE PREPARE FOR OUR DAILY CAMP"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CAMPING TO EAT AND TAKE OBSERVATIONS ON AGAIN!]

The sun settled under mountains of ice, and the purple twilight rapidly thickened. It was very cold. The breath of each man came like jets of steam from a kettle. The temperature was now -81 F. No time could be lost in dressing the game. But the Eskimos were equal to the task, and showed such skill as only Indians possess.

While this was being done by my companions, I strolled about to note the ear-marks of the home of the musk ox. The mountain was in line of the sweep of the winds, and was bared of snows. Here were gra.s.s, mosses, and creeping willows in abundance, descending into the gullies. I found fossil-stumps of large trees and bits of lignite coal. The land in pre-glacial times had evidently supported a vigorous vegetation; but now the general aspect offered a scene of frosty hopelessness. Still, in this desolation of snowy wastes, nature had supplied creatures with food in their hard pressure of life.

Fox and wolf tracks were everywhere, while on every little eminence sat an Arctic hare, evincing ear-upraised surprise at our appearance. With the gla.s.ses I noted on neighboring hills three other herds of musk ox.

This I did not tell the hunters, for they would not have rested until all were secured. Living in a land of cold and hunger, the Eskimo is insatiable for game. We had as much meat as we could possibly use for the next few days, and it was much easier to fill up, and secure more when we needed it, than now to carry almost impossible loads. In a remarkably short time the skins were removed and the meat was boned and cut in small strips in such a way that the axe would break it when frozen. Neatly wrapped in skins, the loads did not seem large.

Selecting a few choice bits for later use, the balance was separated and allowed to cool. I looked at the enormous quant.i.ty of meat, and wondered how it could be transported to camp, but no such thought troubled the Eskimos. Piece after piece went down the canine throats with a gulp. No energy was wasted in mastication. With a drop of the jaws and a twist of the neck, the task of eating was finished and the stomach began to spread. The dogs had not yet reached their limit when the snow was cleared of its weight of dressed meat and a canine wrangle began for the possession of the cleaned bones.

With but little meat on the sledges, we began the descent, but the spirit of the upward rush was lost. The dogs, too full to run, simply rolled down the slopes, and we pushed the sledges ourselves. The ox that had made the death plunge was picked up and taken as reserve meat. It was midnight before camp was pitched. The moon burned with a cheerful glow. The air was filled with liquid frost, but there was no wind and consequently no suffering from cold.

Two comfortable snowhouses were built, and in them our feasts rivalled the canine indulgence. Thus was experienced the greatest joy of savage life in boreal wilds--the hunt of the musk ox, with the advantage of the complex cunning gathered by forgotten ages. The balance of the meat left after our feast was buried, with the protecting skins, in the snow. On opening the meat on the following morning, it was still warm, although the minimum thermometer registered -80 F. for the night.

A few minutes before midday, on our next march, the sledge train halted.

We sat on the packs, and, with eyes turned southward, waited. Even an Eskimo has an eye for color and a soul for beauty. To us there appeared a play of suppressed light and bleached color tints, as though in harmony with bars of music, which inspired my companions to shouts of joy.

Slowly and majestically the golden orb lifted. The dogs responded in low, far-reaching calls. The Eskimos greeted the day G.o.d with savage chants. The sun, a flushed crimson ball, edged along the wintry outline of the mountains' purplish snowy glitter. The pack was suddenly screened by a moving sheet of ever-changing color, wherein every possible continuation of purple and gold merged with rainbow hues.