TO THE NORTH POLE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20252, 11 May 1929, Page 11

TO THE NORTH POLE.

ADVENTUROUS SCHEME. DRIFT IN ICE-PROOF SHIP. CAPTAIN BARTLETT'S PLAN. [from our own correspondent.] VANCOUVER, April 17. Captain Robert Bartlett, who was with Peary in his days to within two degrees of the North Pole, and who rescued his 13 companions when they were crushed in the ice near Wrangell Island in 1914, plans to drift across the North Pole in an ice-proof ship of oak, which will leave Seattle next autumn.

The plan is to freeze in the ice pack and drift over the Pole, or as close to it as the ice pack will go. Captain Bartlett expects that the trip will take two years.

The boat will have a saucer bottom, so that she cannot be crushed, as the Karlpk was on the previous trip. She will have a crew of ten hardy young scientists, together with Eskimos and dogs. There will be two planes, and runways will be built on the ice pack. Captain Bartlett will build a house on the pack and roof it over, while kennels will be built' for the dogs. There will be a radio, to keep in touch with the world.

The drift ship will be a schooner with a Diesel engine for auxiliary power. Captain Bartlett says she will be so strong and so built as to withstand the pressure of the ice. He says he even believes she cannot be rolled over. Sailing from Seattle, she will go through the Yuminak Pass to the Aleutians, and the Behring Sea, north to the Behring Straits. Then Captain Bartlett will watch for an opening north, put her in the ice, let her freeze in an,d drift. He expects to be kept busy for two or three years, taking soundings and meteorological observations, as well as studying sea and animal life, till he reaches Spitzbergen or Greenland. Asked as to the hardships of! such a venture, Captain Bartlett observed: —"No —not for me. The elements are kinder than things you meet in the city. The winds, the storms, the ice—l know how to get along with them." If the suggestion to drift in the ice. pack across the North Polo camo from anyone but Captain Bartlett, it would get scant attention. But he knows the pack better than any man living or dead. He was only 22 when he wintered with Peary at D'Urville, Kane Basin, on a hunting expedition in 1897-98. From 1901 he captained a sealer for four years, then lie commanded the Roosevelt from 1905 to 1909, taking an active part in Peary's expedition to the Pole, and reaching the 88th parallel. On a private hunting expedition Captain Bartlett again went to Kane Basin in 1910. He was with the Canadian Government Arctic Expedition of 1913-14 as captain of the Karluk, which was crushed by the ice. With 17 persons he reached Wrangell Island. Leaving 15 there, with one Eskimo ho crossed the ice to Siberia and returned with a rescue party, reaching Wrangell eight months after. A year later he reached Nome with 13 survivors.

In 1917 Captain Bartlett commanded the Crocker land relief expedition to Northern Greenland. In 1925 he was sent by the National Geographic Society to locate bases for aircraft in North-west Alaska and on the shores of ,the ArcticOcean, also recording tides and currents and dredging for flora and fauna. In 1926 he went to North Greenland and Ellesmere Land; in 1927 to Fox Basin and the western shores of Baffin Land; last year to Siberia. ,