The Siege and Conquest of the North PoleBryce, George
History
The Siege and Conquest of the North Pole
Bryce, George
Arctic regions; North Pole; Scientific expeditions
On 8th October, Peary, with Henson, and the Eskimo Maksingwah, more
familiarly known as “Flaherty,” set out for the ice-cap. On the second
day they reached the vicinity of the first cache, but no trace of it
could be found. Next morning signs of a coming storm induced Peary to
make preparations to meet it, and for some time it was not observed that
Maksingwah had decamped rather than face a storm on the dreaded ice-cap.
It was afterwards ascertained that it took the Eskimo four days to reach
the Lodge, and he was then in an extremely exhausted condition.
The storm confined Peary and Henson to the tent six weary days. Peary’s
thoughts during this time were far from pleasant. He saw that this
terrible storm was destroying the last chance of finding his caches, and
this meant not only the destruction of all the work of that year, but
also of the resources on which depended his chance of success next year.
When the storm passed over, a diligent search was made for the cache,
but no trace of it could be found. Peary had to acknowledge the terrible
fact that all his alcohol and pemmican, which with other provisions
weighed nearly a ton and a half, were buried beneath the ice-cap.
The blow was a severe one, but with his characteristic tenacity of
purpose Peary determined that venison and walrus-meat must take the
place of pemmican, and that coal-oil must serve instead of alcohol. The
idea of abandoning the journey, even after this overwhelming disaster,
he could not entertain.
During December, Peary and Lee made a sledge-journey to Cape York. One
of the main objects was to determine accurately the positions of some of
the capes, but the weather was unfavourable most of the time. During the
last stage of the return journey Peary was without food or sleep
forty-six hours, and travelled 60 miles.
Several other journeys were made during the winter, for dog-food and
various articles of equipment. Every effort was made to be prepared for
the ice-cap journey, but when the time came to depart Peary was far from
satisfied with his resources.
On 1st April 1895, Peary, Henson, and Lee, with six Eskimo, six sledges,
and sixty dogs, left the Lodge. On one of the sledges, drawn by thirteen
picked dogs, were the supplies for the return trip, and also those for
consumption at and beyond Independence Bay. It had also the tent and
sleeping and cooking-gear, the total weight being about 1000 lb. Another
sledge drawn by ten dogs held about 750 lb. of dog-food.
On the second day’s march the vicinity of one of the caches was reached,
and another determined attempt was made to find it, but in vain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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