The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places (75 page)

“But we have no time to waste; we are getting very near now. The swell is so heavy that when we are down in the hollows we can see nothing of the ice around us, nothing but the sky above.
Floes crash together, break, and are ground to fragments all about us, and our own has also split. If we are going to sea we shall need all our strength in case we have to row for days together in
order to keep clear of the ice. So all hands are ordered to bed in the tent, which is the only thing we have not yet packed into the boats. Sverdrup, as the most experienced and cool-headed among
us, is to take the first watch and turn us out at the critical moment. In two hours Kristiansen is to take his place.

“I look in vain for any sign which can betray fear on the part of my comrades, but they seem as cool as ever, and their conversation is as usual. The Lapps alone show some anxiety, though
it is that of a calm resignation, for they are fully convinced that they have seen the sun set for the last time. In spite of the roar of the breakers we are soon fast asleep, and even the Lapps
seem to be slumbering quietly and soundly. They are too good children of nature to let anxiety spoil their sleep. Balto, who, not finding the tent safe enough, is lying in one of the boats, did not
even wake when some time later it was almost swept by the waves, and Sverdrup had to hold it to keep it on the floe.

“After sleeping for a while, I do not know how long, I am woke by the sound of the water rushing close by my head and just outside the wall of the tent. I feel the floe rocking up and down
like a ship in a heavy sea, and the roar of the surf is more deafening than ever. I lay expecting every moment to hear Sverdrup call me or to see the tent filled with water, but nothing of the kind
happened. I could distinctly hear his familiar steady tread up and down the floe between the tent and the boats. I seemed to myself to see his sturdy form as he paced calmly backwards and forwards,
with his hands in his pockets and a slight stoop in his shoulders, or stood with his calm and thoughtful face gazing out to sea, his quid now and again turning in his cheek – I remember no
more, as I dozed off to sleep again.

“I did not wake again till it was full morning. Then I started up in astonishment, for I could hear nothing of the breakers but a distant thunder. When I got outside the tent I saw that we
were a long way off the open sea. Our floe, however, was a sight to remember. Fragments of ice, big and little, had been thrown upon it by the waves till they formed a rampart all round us, and the
ridge on which our tent and one of the boats stood was the only part the sea had not washed.

“Sverdrup now told us that several times in the course of the night he had stood by the tent-door prepared to turn us out. Once he actually undid one hook, then waited a bit, took another
turn to the boats, and then another look at the surf, leaving the hook unfastened in case of accidents. We were then right out at the extreme edge of the ice. A huge crag of ice was swaying in the
sea close beside us and threatening every moment to fall upon our floe. The surf was washing us on all sides, but the rampart that had been thrown up round us did us good service, and the tent and
one of the boats still stood high and dry. The other boat, in which Balto was asleep, was washed so heavily that again and again Sverdrup had to hold it in its place.

“Then matters got still worse. Sverdrup came to the tent-door again, undid another hook, but again hesitated and waited for the next sea. He undid no more hooks, however. Just as things
looked worst, and our floe’s turn had come to ride out into the middle of the breakers, she suddenly changed her course and with astonishing speed we were once more sailing in towards land.
So marvellous was the change that it looked as if it were the work of an unseen hand. When I got out we were far inside and in a good harbour, though the roar of the breakers was still audible
enough to remind us of the night. Thus for this time we were spared the expected trial of the seaworthiness of our boats and our own seamanship.”

THE POLE IS MINE

Robert Edwin Peary

(1856–1920)

Born in Pennsylvania and latterly a commander in the US navy, Peary had set his sights on claiming the North Pole from childhood. It was not just an obsession but a
religion, his manifest destiny. Regardless of cost, hardship, and other men's sensibilities, he would be Peary of the Pole, and the Pole would be American. Critics might carp over the hundreds of
dogs that were sacrificed to his ambition, over the chain of supply depots that would have done credit to a military advance, and over the extravagance of Peary's ambition, but success, in 1909,
came only after a catalogue of failures; and even then it would be disputed. Under the circumstances his triumphalism is understandable and, however distasteful, not unknown amongst other Polar
travellers.

T
he last march northward ended at ten o’clock of the forenoon of April 6.1 had now made the five marches planned from the point at which
Bartlett turned back, and my reckoning showed that we were in the immediate neighbourhood of the goal of all our striving. After the usual arrangements for going into camp, at approximate local
noon, on the Columbia meridian, I made the first observation at our polar camp. It indicated our position as 89° 57'.

We were now at the end of the last long march of the upward journey. Yet with the Pole actually in sight I was too weary to take the last few steps. The accumulated weariness of all those days
and nights of forced marches and insufficient sleep, constant peril and anxiety, seemed to roll across me all at once. I was actually too exhausted to realize at the moment that my life’s
purpose had been achieved. As soon as our igloos had been completed, and we had eaten our dinner and double-rationed the dogs, I turned in for a few hours of absolutely necessary sleep, Henson and
the Eskimos having unloaded the sledges and got them in readiness for such repairs as were necessary. But, weary though I was, I could not sleep long. It was, therefore, only a few hours later when
I woke. The first thing I did after awaking was to write these words in my diary: “The Pole at last. The prize of three centuries. My dream and goal for twenty years. Mine at last! I cannot
bring myself to realize it. It seems all so simple and commonplace.”

Robert E. Peary. From
The North Pole,
London, 1910.

Everything was in readiness for an observation at 6 p.m., Columbia meridian time, in case the sky should be clear, but at that hour it was, unfortunately, still overcast. But as there were
indications that it would clear before long, two of the Eskimos and myself made ready a light sledge carrying only the instruments, a tin of pemmican, and one or two skins; and drawn by a double
team of dogs, we pushed on an estimated distance of ten miles. While we travelled, the sky cleared, and at the end of the journey, I was able to get a satisfactory series of observations at
Columbia meridian midnight. These observations indicated that our position was then beyond the Pole.

Nearly everything in the circumstances which then surrounded us seemed too strange to be thoroughly realized, but one of the strangest of those circumstances seemed to me to be the fact that, in
a march of only a few hours, I had passed from the western to the eastern hemisphere and had verified my position at the summit of the world. It was hard to realize that, on the first miles of this
brief march, we had been travelling due north, while, on the last few miles of the same march, we had been travelling south, although we had all the time been travelling precisely in the same
direction. It would be difficult to imagine a better illustration of the fact that most things are relative. Again, please consider the uncommon circumstance that, in order to return to our camp,
it now became necessary to turn and go north again for a few miles and then to go directly south, all the time travelling in the same direction.

As we passed back along that trail which none had ever seen before or would ever see again, certain reflections intruded themselves which, I think, may fairly be called unique. East, west, and
north had disappeared for us. Only one direction remained and that was south. Every breeze which could possibly blow upon us, no matter from what point of the horizon, must be a south wind. Where
we were, one day and one night constituted a year, a hundred such days and nights constituted a century. Had we stood in that spot during the six months of the Arctic winter night, we should have
seen every star of the northern hemisphere circling the sky at the same distance from the horizon, with Polaris (the North Star) practically in the zenith.

All during our march back to camp the sun was swinging around in its ever-moving circle. At six o’clock on the morning of April 7, having again arrived at Camp Jesup, I took another series
of observations. These indicated our position as being four or five miles from the Pole, towards Behring Strait. Therefore, with a double team of dogs and a light sledge, I travelled directly
towards the sun an estimated distance of eight miles. Again I returned to the camp in time for a final and completely satisfactory series of observations on April 7 at noon, Columbia meridian time.
These observations gave results essentially the same as those made at the same spot twenty-four hours before.

I had now taken in all thirteen single, or six and one-half double, altitudes of the sun, at two different stations, in three different directions, at four different times. All were under
satisfactory conditions, except for the first single altitude on the sixth. The temperature during these observations, had been from minus 11° Fahrenheit to minus 30° Fahrenheit, with clear
sky and calm weather (except as already noted for the single observation on the sixth).

In traversing the ice in these various directions as I had done, I had allowed approximately ten miles for possible errors in my observations, and at some moment during these marches and
countermarches, I had passed over or very near the point where north and south and east and west blend into one.

Of course there were some more or less informal ceremonies connected with our arrival at our difficult destination, but they were not of a very elaborate character. We planted five flags at the
top of the world. The first one was a silk American flag which Mrs. Peary gave me fifteen years ago. That flag has done more travelling in high latitudes than any other ever made. I carried it
wrapped about my body on every one of my expeditions northward after it came into my possession, and I left a fragment of it at each of my successive “farthest norths”: Cape Morris K.
Jesup, the northernmost point of land in the known point of Jesup Land, west of Grant land; Cape Columbia, the northernmost point of North American lands; and my farthest north in 1906, latitude
87° 6' in the ice of the polar sea. By the time it actually reached the Pole, therefore, it was somewhat worn and discoloured.

A broad diagonal section of this ensign would now mark the farthest goal of earth – the place where I and my dusky companions stood.

It was also considered appropriate to raise the colours of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, in which I was initiated a member while an undergraduate student at Bowdoin College, the
“World’s Ensign of Liberty and Peace,” with its red, white, and blue, in a field of white, the Navy League flag, and the Red Cross flag.

After I had planted the American flag in the ice, I told Henson to time the Eskimos for three rousing cheers, which they gave with the greatest enthusiasm. Thereupon, I shook hands with each
member of the party – surely a sufficiently unceremonious affair to meet with the approval of the most democratic. The Eskimos were childishly delighted with our success. While, of course,
they did not realize its importance fully, or its world-wide significance, they did understand that it meant the final achievement of a task upon which they had seen me engaged for many years.

Then, in a space between the ice blocks of a pressure ridge, I deposited a glass bottle containing a diagonal strip of my flag and records of which the following is a copy: