POLAR MEMORIES.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LX, Issue 10831, 1 April 1932, Page 3

POLAR MEMORIES.

FORGOTTEN EXPLORERS. Four Norwegian boys, members of the crew of the Norkap the Second, had the experience last summer of eating food more than twice their own age.

The Norkap was off the coast of Greenland with the Dudley Talcott Expedition when it was decided to put in at Pendulum Island, about 76 degrees north latitude, to hunt and take on water. Here was encountered the tel-tale record of the BaldwinZiegler Expedition which set out for the pole thirty years ago. It was a big expedition, with 45 ponies and 250 dogs and no end of equipment, apparently for a balloon ascent. It was all found abandoned on Pendulum Island; two buns, heaps of iron filings, and lead containers for sulphuric acid, as well as a large supply of food in tins. In addition, there was a big pile of bronze projectiles, spiked and filled with lead, carrying an American flag on a spring. These were probably to throw out of the balloon to mark its route, and to claim the region for the country of the explorers.

The members of the Talcott Expedition sampled the food and found most of it good. No one was ill after eating’ it. Back in Norway they ma.de inquiries as to the earlier venture ami succeeded in getting in touch with an old man who had taken part in it. His account of it was far from clear. ' “Yes, yes; they failed. Nothing came of it, I remember we had to kill the ponies to feed the dogs, and then we got stuck. It seemed rather a mad idea. Yes, yes; wo were glad enough, to get back. One does not count the cost of lost equipment at a time like that.” That was as much as the old sailor would say.