The North Pole

The North Pole, by Robert E.
Peary

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Title: The North Pole Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the
Peary Arctic Club
Author: Robert E. Peary
Release Date: August 3, 2006 [EBook #18975]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE NORTH POLE
COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

[Illustration: THE FIVE FLAGS AT THE POLE
LEFT TO RIGHT
1. Navy League--Ooqueah 2. D. K. E. Fraternity--Ootah 3. Polar Flag
Carried 15 Years--Henson 4. D. A. R. Peace Flag--Egingwah 5. Red
Cross Flag--Seegloo]

THE NORTH POLE
ITS DISCOVERY IN 1909 UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE
PEARY ARCTIC CLUB
BY
ROBERT E. PEARY
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT
AND A FOREWORD BY GILBERT H. GROSVENOR DIRECTOR
AND EDITOR, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY
[Illustration]
GREENWOOD PRESS, PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Originally published in 1910 by Frederick A. Stokes Co.
First Greenwood Reprinting, 1968
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 68-55210
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO MY WIFE

INTRODUCTION
SOME years ago I met at a dinner in Washington the famous
Norwegian arctic explorer, Nansen, himself one of the heroes of polar
adventure; and he remarked to me, "Peary is your best man; in fact I
think he is on the whole the best of the men now trying to reach the
Pole, and there is a good chance that he will be the one to succeed." I
cannot give the exact words; but they were to the above effect; and they
made a strong impression on me. I thought of them when in the summer
of 1908 I, as President of the United States, went aboard Peary's ship
to bid him Godspeed on the eve of what proved to be his final effort to
reach the Pole. A year later, when I was camped on the northern
foothills of Mt. Kenia, directly under the equator, I received by a native
runner the news that he had succeeded, and that thanks to him the
discovery of the North Pole was to go on the honor roll of those feats in
which we take a peculiar pride because they have been performed by
our fellow countrymen.
Probably few outsiders realize the well-nigh incredible toil and
hardship entailed in such an achievement as Peary's; and fewer still
understand how many years of careful training and preparation there
must be before the feat can be even attempted with any chance of
success. A "dash for the pole" can be successful only if there have been
many preliminary years of painstaking, patient toil. Great physical
hardihood and endurance, an iron will and unflinching courage, the
power of command, the thirst for adventure, and a keen and farsighted
intelligence--all these must go to the make-up of the successful arctic
explorer; and these, and more than these, have gone to the make-up of
the chief of successful arctic explorers, of the man who succeeded
where hitherto even the best and the bravest had failed.
Commander Peary has made all dwellers in the civilized world his
debtors; but, above all, we, his fellow Americans, are his debtors. He
has performed one of the great feats of our time; he has won high
honor for himself and for his country; and we welcome his own story of
the triumph which he won in the immense solitudes of the wintry North.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT. THE WHITE NILE, March 12, 1910.

COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF ROBERT E. PEARY, IN HIS ACTUAL
NORTH POLE COSTUME]

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION vii FOREWORD xv I THE PLAN 1 II
PREPARATIONS 11 III THE START 25 IV UP TO CAPE YORK 34
V WELCOME FROM THE ESKIMOS 42 VI AN ARCTIC OASIS 53
VII ODD CUSTOMS OF AN ODD PEOPLE 63 VIII GETTING
RECRUITS 72 IX A WALRUS HUNT 79 X KNOCKING AT THE
GATEWAY TO THE POLE 88 XI CLOSE QUARTERS WITH THE
ICE 97 XII THE ICE FIGHT GOES ON 106 XIII CAPE SHERIDAN
AT LAST 117 XIV IN WINTER QUARTERS 126 XV THE
AUTUMN WORK 134 XVI THE BIGGEST GAME IN THE ARCTIC
143 XVII MUSK-OXEN AT LAST 151 XVIII THE LONG NIGHT
162 XIX THE Roosevelt's NARROW ESCAPE 172 XX CHRISTMAS
ON THE Roosevelt 182 XXI ARCTIC ICE SLEDGING AS IT
REALLY IS 193 XXII ESSENTIALS THAT BROUGHT SUCCESS
201 XXIII