THE SECRET OF THE NORTH POLF.

Otago Witness, Issue 2782, 10 July 1907, Page 80

THE SECRET OF THE NORTH POLF.

PERILOUS SLEDGE JOURNEY. Commander Peary has given the New York correspondent of the Standard some interesting details concerning the plans he has formed for his third attempt to reach the North Pole.. A start will be made from New York on Ist July ; that is to say, a fortnight earlier in the year than when he left on his second expedition in 1905. The explorer holds that the old theories of an open sea at the Pole itself are nonsense. His experience has convinced him "that one must rely there [the Pole] ultimately on a small sledging party, and that the Eskimos and their dogs are the chief instruments of success." During the last few days he had been superintending the overhauling of the Roosevelt, the barque which got back to New York last Christmas Eve, and is now dry-docked at Staten Island. Her hull is structurally sound ; her timbers, notwithstanding the squeezing she received in the Arctic ice floes during her 17 months' commission, show little sign of the strain. Modelled on the Scotch whaler type, and fortified with treble frames and double planking, she has justified the design of her builder, Captain Charles B. Dix, of Bucksport, Maine. She needed new boilers, however, and when the Peary Arctic Club resolved in March to tender her again to Commander Peary for a final attempt to reach the North Pole the work of refitting was started forthwith, although less than half the £20,000 necessary to meet the expenses of the expedition had been subscribed. When Peary sailed from New York Harbour in 1905, on 16th July, it was a fortnight too late, owing to the delay in completing the ship's equipment and supplies. This time the commander hopes to sail earlier, and — whatever conditions he may find in the Arctic icefield — to reach a point on the northern phore of Greenland in time to establish his winter base, and staTt thence early in February on his perilous sledge journey across the centra] Polar ocean of drifting ice. "I mean this time," he said in his resolute tone, "when I start from the northern shore of Grant Land 1 , in the sledging part of the expedition, to set my course to the north-westward in order to counteract the easterly drift of the ice, and not to head directly for the Pole due north. I shall bear, as it were, to windward, and trust to the drifting ice pack to help me eastwards to the Pole. "There is no open 6ea likely to be found at the Pole itself, or any land. The old theories of that sort are absolute nonsense. I may come across again open leads of water, channels made between the extreme Arctic icefields and the broken drifting icepacks minding along the shores of Grant Land and Greenland. The seven days I lost in March halted us till we could cross on new, thin ice the big lead, which I called the 'Hudson' — on account of its strong flow setting eastwards — and together with the seven days lost in a great storm, when travelling was impossible in the blizzard, which upset my calculations, caused us to consume our margin

of provisions and eat our dogs. Otherwise every man of our party was convinced that we could have reached the goal. But when on 21st April I found that the reckoning was 87deg 6min north latitude, and that I had at last beaten the record for ' nearest the Pole,' I had to decide that the prize, though it seemed within grasp, was still out of reach. The sledge was nearly empty, the few remaining doge were skeletons, and I had to remember the drifting ice and unknown quantity of the big lead between us and the nearest land." You had used all your pemmican? "Why, we were living altogether on dog. From time to time the weakest was killed and divided in mere rations between the seven of us and the other poor animals." None of you have suffered permanently from your previous hardships? "We all came back better, stronger men physically. We didn't lose a single man." There was hardly any need to assure oneself of Commander Peary's own fitness. His tall, spare frame appears the essence of toughness. His face looks hardly weather-beaten, and betrays scarcely a sign of his 50 years. "Personally," he frankly admitted, "though I am a year older, I am none the worse. If it comes to the last ration, I think I can hold up my end. And then the Eskimos, you know — that tribe of Eskimos scattered along the Smith Sound, whom I call 'my children ' from a close acquaintance of 15 years. I "There are 207 of them, according to Mr Marvin's census. I shall pick them up as the Roosevelt passes on her way to Smith Sound and Robeson Channel, along the west coast of Greenland, which has come to be known as the American route. Their wives and children go with them, and pass t,he dark-night winter months near the musk ox grounds in camps along , the northernmost shores. The women are indispensable for making clothes from the furs we get by hunting and for Tefittmg the sledges. "The round tiip of 1000 miles from the I shores of Grant Land to the Pole and | back to the coast across the Polar icefield I must come within the 12 or 13 weeks from February to June. Precisely, the journey must be made in the interval between the return of daylight, about the ' middle of February, and the breaking up iof the ioe in June. It cannot but be a ! snatch expedition. If I reach the Pole i next year I shall be back in 16 months. Otherwise I 6hall have sufficient supplies to keep me in the Arctic circle for the two seasons following "