Nearest the Pole: a narrative of the polar expedition of the Peary Arctic Club in the S.S. Roosevelt, 1905-1906Peary, Robert E. (Robert Edwin)
History
Nearest the Pole: a narrative of the polar expedition of the Peary Arctic Club in the S.S. Roosevelt, 1905-1906
Peary, Robert E. (Robert Edwin)
Arctic regions
I could to a certain extent counteract this, and increase my radius of
action with the limited dog-food I had, by sending a man and team back
from here, and this I decided I must do.
Numbers of lemming burrows were observed here, also snowy owl exuviæ
containing their skeletons and hair.
The sun shone occasionally during the 21st but the land remained hidden
continuously by dense fog.
With much trouble we succeeded in drying out most of our clothing, and
then broke camp and got out to the cache, and proceeded on our way.
A snow-bunting was seen and an additional number of brant. The flock
which seemed to be hanging around here numbered about eighteen. The one
shot was a female and the eggs in the ovaries were small.
The hare killed here (ten in all) were small, very thin, and the meat
tough.
In getting away from the shore camp we marched through about a mile of
knee-deep slush and water, thoroughly wetting our feet of course, and
came out to the cache; fitted Koolootingwah out and started him for the
_Roosevelt_; left a small cache of provisions, and the various
specimens; loaded the two sledges with the remaining stuff (about nine
days’ rations of pemmican) and went on ten paced miles.
This was a disagreeable march; no sun, only fog and clouds and snow
squalls, straining the eyes and rendering it very difficult to keep a
course; strong head wind and deep soft snow, but it was good to be
moving again.
It was thick all day while we slept, and continued so, with the land
invisible. Just after we pitched the tent, there was a brief, sharp
flurry of hail, which rattled on the tent in great shape, and startled
the dogs.
Another wearing march, though an improvement on the previous one; and I
had no reason to complain as we covered sixteen paced miles in seven
hours fifty minutes, including ten minutes for lunch, and fifteen for
examining some moraine tumuli. Though the sun did not shine through the
clouds, it was warm enough to thaw the surface of the snow, and this
layer of wet snow made very heavy snowshoeing. As a compensation the
sledges ran measurably easier.
I kept the same pace as on previous marches, one-half mile in ten
minutes, then waited for the dogs to come up. In this march the dogs
made each half mile in twelve and one-half minutes, as against full
fifteen minutes in the two previous marches.
The densest of fog shrouded us for the first five hours, and I kept my
course by the wind-marks in the snow; then it cleared overhead, and the
sun shone brilliantly, but the land remained shrouded.
There was a persistent “fog eater” (fog bow) ahead of us during this
time. From 3:30 till 7, we could just make out the low shores on our
left. We pitched our tent on a little patch of just-dried glacial clay
in what seemed to be a small bight of the shore, and having plenty of
water about us the supper was quickly cooked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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