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
Then I started with my transit for the end of the low point (extremity
of the foreshore) to select a place for a cairn, and take a few angles.
After going less than a mile, I was obliged to give it up and return to
camp, the saturated clayey earth letting my feet sink in nearly to the
top of my boots at every step, and taking all my strength to pull out.
With snowshoes I could have got along, but I had left those at the
snow-bank a mile or more on the other side of the camp, and was too lazy
to go after them. I was forcibly reminded of the travelling
Trevor-Battye found in Kolguev.
After this I brought more rocks for the tent guys, then took a nap to
make up for the previous night.
At 2 P. M. the men returned. They found at close quarters that the three
deer seen from the summit of the cape had increased to six and a fawn,
all of which were secured (three bucks and three does). They scarcely
had the dogs fastened when yesterday’s fawn came trotting up to within
fifty yards of the tent, then started off again.
Egingwah went after him, followed him up to the mother’s skin, and
brought both in.
We all had another square feed, the dogs as well, more stones were added
to the tent guys, and the men were soon snoring.
By this time the wind was blowing very fresh, clouds were gathering, and
there was every indication that this spell of fine weather was at an
end.
I had no reason to complain. It had lasted long enough for me to get and
see what I wanted.
When we awoke about midnight, snow or, more likely, rain was so
evidently imminent, that I had the men cover the deerskins with the
floor cloths, feed the dogs to repletion, and sew up some holes in the
tent. This was barely completed when the rain began, driving furiously
before a strong southwest gale.
But with a waterproof tent, gravel underneath, all belongings that were
not in the tent protected with waterproof covers, the dogs and ourselves
well fed, and an ample supply of food at hand, we could take this kind
of weather with a good deal of equanimity.
I quote from my Journal:
_July 1st._—Am glad to be over this first stage of our return journey
short as it is.
The storm continued throughout the 29th and 30th, rain falling during
the middle of the day, and snow the rest of the time, with continuous
strong southwesterly wind.
This morning it moderated, and I got out at once and moved everything
down to the ice-foot where we had left one sledge. A small cairn with a
piece of box embedded in the top of it was built not far from the
ice-foot upon the low foreshore. While this was being done a lemming was
caught, thus adding this animal to the fauna of Jesup Land. No previous
cairn exists on or near this cape nor does it appear from Sverdrup’s
narrative or his map that he reached this point. The two sledges were
then loaded and we started on our return, but not by the way we had
come.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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