The North Pole, Robert E. Peary [e book reader android .TXT] 📗

youthful years, a little past the time when most men begin to leave the strenuous things to the younger generation; but these drawbacks were fully balanced perhaps by a trained and hardened endurance, a perfect knowledge of myself, and of how to conserve my strength. I knew it was my last game upon the great Arctic chess-board. It was win this time or be forever defeated.

The lure of the North! It is a strange and a powerful thing. More than once I have come back from the great frozen spaces, battered and worn and baffled, sometimes maimed, telling myself that I had made my last journey thither, eager for the society of my kind, the comforts of civilization and the peace and serenity of home. But somehow, it was never many months before the old restless feeling came over me. Civilization began to lose its zest for me. I began to long for the great white desolation, the battles with the ice and the gales, the long, long arctic night, the long, long arctic day, the handful of odd but faithful Eskimos who had been my friends for years, the silence and the vastness of the great, white lonely North. And back I went accordingly, time after time, until, at last, my dream of years came true.

CHAPTER II PREPARATIONS

A great many persons have asked when I first conceived the idea of trying to reach the North Pole. That question is hard to answer. It is impossible to point to any day or month and to say, "Then the idea first came to me." The North Pole dream was a gradual and almost involuntary evolution from earlier work in which it had no part. My interest in arctic work dates back to 1885, when as a young man my imagination was stirred by reading accounts of explorations by Nordenskjöld in the interior of Greenland. These studies took full possession of my mind and led to my undertaking, entirely alone, a summer trip to Greenland in the following year. Somewhere in my subconscious self, even so long ago as that, there may have been gradually dawning a hope that I might some day reach the Pole itself. Certain it is, the lure of the North, the "arctic fever," as it has been called, entered my veins then, and I came to have a feeling of fatality, a feeling that the reason and intent of my existence was the solution of the mystery of the frozen fastnesses of the Arctic.

But the actual naming of the Pole as the object of an expedition did not materialize until 1898, when the first expedition of the Peary Arctic Club went north with the avowed intention of reaching ninety north—if it were possible. Since then I have made six different attempts, in six different years, to reach the coveted point. The sledging season, when such a "dash" is possible, extends from about the middle of February until the middle of June. Before the middle of February there is not sufficient light, and after the middle of June there is likely to be too much open water.

During these six former attempts made by me to win the prize, the successive latitudes of 83° 52´, 84° 17´, and 87° 6´ were attained, the last giving back to the United States the record of "farthest north," which had for a time been wrested from it by Nansen, and from him in turn by the Duke of the Abruzzi.

In writing the story of this last and successful expedition, it is necessary to go back to my return from the former expedition of 1905-6. Before the Roosevelt entered port, and before I reached New York, I was planning for another journey into the North, which, if I could obtain the essential funds—and retained my health—I intended to get under way as soon as possible. It is a principle in physics that a ponderable body moves along the line of least resistance; but that principle does not seem to apply to the will of man. Every obstacle which has ever been placed in my way, whether physical or mental, whether an open "lead" or the opposition of human circumstances, has ultimately acted as a spur to the determination to accomplish the fixed purpose of my life—if I lived long enough.

On my return in 1906, great encouragement was received from Mr. Jesup, the president of the Peary Arctic Club, who had contributed so generously to my former expeditions, and in whose honor I had named the northernmost point of land in the world, latitude 83° 39´, Cape Morris K. Jesup. He said, in so many words, that he would "see me through" on another journey north. His promise meant that I should not have to beg all the money in small sums from a more or less reluctant world.

The winter of 1906-7 and the spring of 1907 were devoted to presenting to the world the results of the previous undertaking, and to the work of interesting friends as far as possible in another expedition. We had the ship, which had cost about $100,000 in 1905; but $75,000 more was needed for new boilers and other changes, for equipment and for operating expenses. While the bulk of the necessary funds was furnished by the members and friends of the Peary Arctic Club, a very considerable amount came from all parts of the country in contributions ranging from $100 to $5 and even $1. These donations were not less appreciated than the big ones, because they showed the friendliness and the interest of the givers, and demonstrated to me the general recognition of the fact that while the expedition was financed by private individuals, it was in spirit a national affair.

At last the funds, actual and promised, were in such amount as to authorize our contracting for new boilers for the Roosevelt, and ordering certain modifications in her structure which would fit her more effectively for another voyage: such as enlarging the quarters forward for the crew, adding a lug sail to the foremast, and changing the interior arrangements somewhat. The general features of the ship had already proved themselves so well adapted for the purpose for which she was intended that no alteration in them was required.

Experience had taught me how to figure on delays in the North; but the exasperating delays of ship contractors at home had not yet entered into my scheme of reckoning. Contracts for this work on the Roosevelt were signed in the winter, and called for the completion of the ship by July 1, 1907. Repeated oral promises were added to contractual agreements that the work should certainly be done on that date; but, as a matter of fact, the new boilers were not completed and installed until September, thus absolutely negativing any possibility of going north in the summer of 1907.

The failure of the contractors to live up to their word, with the consequent delay of a year, was a serious blow to me. It meant that I must attack the problem one year older; it placed the initiation of the expedition further in the future, with all the possible contingencies that might occur within a year; and it meant the bitterness of hope deferred.

On the day when it became lamentably clear that I positively could not sail north that year, I felt much as I had felt when I had been obliged to turn back from 87° 6´, with only the empty bauble "farthest north," instead of the great prize which I had almost strained my life out to achieve. Fortunately I did not know that Fate was even then clenching her fist for yet another and more crushing blow.

While trying to possess my soul in patience despite the unjustified delay, there came the heaviest calamity encountered in all my arctic work—the death of my friend, Morris K. Jesup. Without his promised help the future expedition seemed impossible. It may be said with perfect truth that to him, more than to any other one man, had been due the inception and the continuance of the Peary Arctic Club, and the success of the work thus far. In him we lost not only a man who was financially a tower of strength in the work, but I lost an intimate personal friend in whom I had absolute trust. For a time it seemed as if this were the end of everything; that all the effort and money put into the project had been wasted. Mr. Jesup's death, added to the delay caused by the default of the contractors, seemed at first an absolutely paralyzing defeat.

Nor was it much help that there was no lack of well-meaning persons who were willing to assure me that the year's delay and Mr. Jesup's death were warnings indicating that I should never find the Pole.

Yet, when I gathered myself together and faced the situation squarely, I realized that the project was something too big to die; that it never, in the great scheme of things, would be allowed to fall through. This feeling carried me past many a dead center of fatigue and utter ignorance as to where the rest of the money for the expedition was to be obtained. The end of the winter and the beginning of the spring of 1908 were marked by more than one blue day for everybody concerned in the success of the expedition.

Repairs and changes in the Roosevelt had exhausted all the funds in the Club's treasury. We still needed the money for purchase of supplies and equipment, pay of crew, and running expenses. Mr. Jesup was gone; the country had not recovered from the financial crash of the previous fall; every one was poor.

Then from this lowest ebb the tide turned. Mrs. Jesup, in the midst of her distracting grief, sent a munificent check which enabled us to order essential items of special supplies and equipment which required time for preparation.