Part 13 (1/2)
”Dig a hole,” said Koo-loo-ting-wah.
Now, to try to dig a hole without a shovel, and with snow coming more rapidly than any power of man could remove, seemed a waste of needed vital force. But I had faith in the intelligence of my savage companions, and ordered all hands to work. They gathered at one corner of the bank, and began to talk and shout, while I allowed myself to be buried in a pocket of the cliffs to keep my tender skin from turning to ice. Every few minutes someone came along to see if I was safe.
The igloo was progressing. Two men were now inside. In the course of another hour they reported four men inside; in another hour seven men were inside, and the others were piling up the blocks, cut with knives from the interior. A kind of vestibule was made to allow the wind to shoot over the entrance. Inside, the men were sweating.
Soon afterward I was told that the igloo was completed. I lost no time in seeking its shelter. A square hole had been cut, large enough for the entire party if packed like sardines. Our fur clothing was removed, and beaten with sticks and stones.
The lamps sang cheerily of steaming musk ox steaks. The dogs were brought into the canyon. A more comfortable night was impossible. We were fifty feet under the snow. The noise of the driving storm was lost.
The blinding drift about the entrance was effectually shut out by a block of snow as a door. Two holes afforded ventilation, and the tremendous difference between the exterior and the interior air a.s.sured a circulation.
When we emerged in the morning the sky was clear. A light wind came from the west, with a temperature of -78 F. Two dogs had frozen during the storm. All were buried in the edge of a drift that was piled fifteen feet. An exploration of the canyon showed other falls and boulders impossible for sledge travel.
A trail was picked over the hills to the side. The day was severe. How we escaped broken legs and smashed sleds was miraculous. But somehow, in our plunges down the avalanches, we always landed in a soft bed of snow.
We advanced about ten miles, and made a descent of five hundred feet, first camping upon a glacial lake.
The temperature now was -79 F., and although there were about nine hours of good light, including twilight, we had continued our efforts too long, and were forced to build igloos by moonlight. Glad were we, indeed, when the candle was placed in the dome of snow, to show the last cracks to be stuffed.
In the searchlight of the frigid dawn I noticed that our advance was blocked by a large glacier, which tumbled barriers of ice boulders into the only available line for a path. A way would have to be cut into this barrier of icebergs for about a mile. This required the full energy of all the men for the day. I took advantage of the halt to explore the country through which we were forcing a pa.s.s. The valley was cut by ancient glaciers and more modern creeks along the meeting line of two distinct geological formations. To the north were silurian and cambro-silurian rocks; to the south were great archaean cliffs.
With the camera, the field-gla.s.s, and other instruments in the sack, I climbed into a gorge and rose to the level of the mountains of the northern slopes. The ground was here absolutely dest.i.tute of vegetation, and only old musk ox trails indicated living creatures. The snow had all been swept into the ditches of the lowlands. Climbing over frost-sharpened stones, I found footing difficult.
The average height of the mountains proved to be nineteen hundred feet.
To the northeast there was land extending a few miles further, with a gradual rising slope. Beyond was the blue edge of the inland ice. To the northwest, the land continued in rolling hills, beyond which no land-ice was seen. The cliffs to the south were of about the same height, but they were fitted to the crest with an ice-cap. The overflow of perpetual snows descended into the gorges, making five overhanging glaciers.
The first was at the divide, furnis.h.i.+ng in summer the waters which started the vigorous stream to the Atlantic slopes. It was a huge stream of ice, about a mile wide, and it is marked by giant cliffs, separated by wide gaps, indicating the roughness of the surface over which it pushes its frozen height. To the stream to which it gives birth, flowing eastward from the divide, I will give the name of Schley River, in honor of Rear-Admiral Schley.
The stream starting westward from the divide, through picturesque rocks, tumbles in icy falls into a huge canyon, down to the Pacific waters at Bay Fiord. To this I will give, in honor of General A. W. Greely, the name Greely River.
The second and third glaciers were overhanging ma.s.ses about a half-mile wide, which gave volume in summer time to Greely River.
The fourth was a powerful glacier, with a discharging face of blue three miles long, closing up a valley and damming up a lake about four miles long and one mile wide. The lake was beyond the most precipitous of the descending slopes. The upper cliffs of the walled valley to Flagler Bay were still visible, while to the west was seen a line of mountains and cliffs which marked the head of Bay Fiord, under which was seen the ice covering the first water of the Pacific upon which our future fortunes would be told. To this sea level there was an easy descent of four hundred feet on the river ice and snowdrifts, making, with good luck, a day's run of twenty miles.
Returning, at camp I was informed that not only had a trail been cut, but many of the sledges had been advanced to the good ice beyond. Two of the sledges, however, had been badly broken, and must be mended at dawn before starting.
The day was beautiful. For the first time I felt the heat of the sun. It came through the thick fur of my shoulders with the tenderness of a warm human hand. The mere thought of the genial sunbeams brought a glow of healthful warmth, but at the same time the thermometer was very low, -78 F. One's sense of cold, under normal conditions, is a correct instrument in its bearing upon animal functions, but as an instrument of physics it makes an unreliable thermometer. If I had been asked to guess the temperature of the day I should have placed it at -25 F.
The night air had just a smart of bitterness. The igloo failed to become warm, so we fed our internal fires liberally with warming courses, coming in easy stages. We partook of superheated coffee, thickened with sugar, and biscuits, and later took b.u.t.ter chopped in squares, which was eaten as cheese with musk ox meat chopped by our axes into splinters.
Delicious hare loins and hams, cooked in pea soup, served as dessert.
The amount of sugar and fat which we now consumed was quite remarkable.
Fortunately, during the journey to the edge of the Polar sea, there was no urgent limit to transportation, and we were well supplied with the luxury of sugar and civilized foods, most of which later were to be abandoned.
In this very low temperature I found considerable difficulty in jotting down the brief notes of our day's doings. The paper was so cold that the pencil barely left a mark. A few moments had to be spent warming each page and pencil before beginning to write. With the same operation, the fingers were also sufficiently warmed to hold the pencil. All had to be done by the light and heat of a candle.
To economize fuel, the fires later were extinguished before retiring to sleep. In the morning we were buried in the frost falling from our own breath.
It was difficult to work at dawn with fur-covered hands; but the Eskimo can do much with his glove-fitting mitten. The broken sledges were soon repaired. After tumbling over irregular ice along the face of the glacier, the river offered a splendid highway over which the dogs galloped with remarkable speed. We rode until cold compelled exercise.
The stream descended among picturesque hills, but the most careful scrutiny found no sign of life except the ever-present musk ox trails of seasons gone by.