CHAPTER III.

THE EQUIPMENT OF A SLEDGE EXPEDITION.

1. The equipment of a sledge expedition on a large scale demands an amount of circumspection and precision which experience alone can give, and its safety and success may be endangered by the neglect of apparently trifling precautions. At a distance from the ship the most formidable dangers may arise, from allowing the matches to become damp, from the leaking or the loss of a vessel containing spirit, from the setting fire to a tent, which only too probably may happen from the carelessness of the cook, to say nothing of those yet greater perils,—the inability of some of the party to march, the destruction of depôts of provisions by bears, or the breaking in of the sea. The first principle in fitting out such an expedition should be the rejection of everything not absolutely necessary for the support of life, the instruments only excepted; and the second, that the whole of the travelling gear should be of the most perfect and convenient form. The departure from these rules contributed, among other things, to the melancholy issue of the Franklin expedition. McClintock speaks most emphatically of the evils of over-loading with things not absolutely necessary. The success of an undertaking may be defeated by the neglect even of things apparently insignificant. Mojsejew’s sledge expedition along the coast of Novaya Zemlya in 1839 was a proof and illustration of this. It was wrecked within a few days by the snow-blindness of the entire party, caused by their want of snow-spectacles. If we except the journeys of the Russian explorers of the Siberian coast, carried out, however, at the sacrifice of the whole nomad population, and of all the dogs and reindeer of North Asia—from which to this day the exhausted country has not recovered—the merit of the organization of sledge expeditions belongs pre-eminently to the English. It was by Parry and James Ross that those experiments with sledges were begun, which have since been brought nearly to perfection by McClintock.[29] The method thus perfected serves to this day as a pattern to be imitated, as it enables a party of men, inured to hardships and fatigues, to pass many weeks without the help of those resources which only a ship in such icy wastes can afford. I will now endeavour to describe with sufficient detail the equipment of our sledges in the journeys we carried out.

2. The changeableness of the weather during the season for sledging, and the character of our expeditions, required the employment of three sledges of different sizes. The smallest of these was a dog-sledge, and the two others were larger and intended to be drawn by men. The runners were respectively 6, 8 and 11 feet long, and 1½, 2 and 2¾ inches broad[30]—gently curved at each end—and about one foot high, so as to raise the lading above the snow. The sledges were constructed of the best ash, and carried loads amounting to 7, 12, and 20 cwts. respectively. The two runners were fastened together by two strong front boards, and by four cross-pieces of wood firmly lashed to the upright standards of the sledge, which were themselves dovetailed into the runners. Screws were sparingly used, and chiefly in the fittings of the two horns of the sledge, and of the rail on which the rifles were suspended, and which also was used to push and guide the sledge. The rail was, therefore, of considerable strength, in order to withstand the pressure of a man’s force. The runners were shod with steel carefully riveted on. The accompanying sketch shows the manner in which a sledge is drawn by a team of men and dogs combined. Those who take the longest steps in the march should precede, and the less active should be placed in the middle, so that any slackness may be easily detected; for in a sledge journey it is disgraceful to draw a weight less than the weight of what we can eat. The centre trace should never be grasped, as this diminishes the force of the pull.

3. The proper construction of the cooking apparatus is of the greatest importance, the great principle being to develop heat and prevent its escape as much as possible. The accompanying woodcut represents an apparatus which excellently well fulfils this condition. A, is the inner compartment; B, the holder containing about a bottle of spirit, with seven wicks; C, the covered pan for cooking; D, the outer case; and E, a pan filled with snow and fitted with a moveable handle, which, being placed over an opening in the outer case, utilizes the ascending heat, which would otherwise escape, to liquefy the snow. The apparatus should be made of sheet iron, each of its parts of one piece, and there should be no soldering, in order to diminish the risk of breakage and the setting fire to the tent by the escape of the spirit in a state of combustion. These cooking machines should be of different sizes, according to the number of men in the expedition. The largest of those used by us consumed ¾lb. of spirits of wine to convert snow, with a thermometer from 13° to 22° below zero F., into three gallons of boiling water. On account of the smaller consumption of alcohol, it is better to use ice than snow for the purpose of cooking.

4. Alcohol of the greatest purity and strength is the best fuel, and is most easily transported in vessels containing about ten gallons. Next to alcohol, stearine is most to be recommended, on account of its great heating powers; and then train-oil, though the smoke and dirt produced by it in the tent are almost unbearable evils. Petroleum ought not to be employed, on account of its dangerous character and its being prejudicial to health. Wood and coals generate too little heat in proportion to their bulk. Parry was the first who, in his journey of 1827, employed spirits of wine; he still used wood and coals in 1820 and Lyon in 1822.

5. The nights are passed either in snow huts, or in tents. If tents be used, the climate must determine their material, whether cotton or sailcloth. A mackintosh floor-cloth should always be spread over the ground of the tent. It is indispensable to make the walls of the snow huts two or three feet high, in order to allow room for movement, and the closed side, _i.e._ the side opposite the entrance, must be made double, as it is always exposed to the direction of the wind. The tent entrance must be carefully closed with hooks and rings, and should not reach to the ground. A tent formed by two poles, about eight feet long, crossed at each end, with another to rest on these supports, is the most simple and secure form of erection. During the journey, a small sail may be advantageously used, whenever the wind is favourable; one of the tent-poles may be used as a mast, and an “Alpine stock” may serve as a yard for the sail.

6. The sledge party passes the night in a common sleeping bag, in which there may be, under propitious circumstances, smaller separate bags for each. When the temperature is not below -13° F., the sleeping bag may be made out of a warm strong quilt; but when the cold is more intense, it must be made of buffalo-skin, and to prevent its being pulled off during the night it should be buttoned at the top in the middle. Sheep-skins cannot be recommended for this purpose, as they are far heavier than buffalo-skins; and as they more easily collect moisture, so they freeze more quickly. The sleeping bag should always be wrapped up in the tent and packed with it on the sledge, so that it may come as little as possible in contact with the snow. If the temperature should fall below -35° F., the travelling party suffers greatly from the frost even in such a sleeping bag, and it would then be advisable to lay an inflated india-rubber mattress under the bag, so that only the legs of the sleepers should be exposed to the influence of the cold.

7. As for arms, it is enough to have three double-barrelled Lefaucheux rifles and one revolver; and even in districts where encounters with bears may be daily expected, three cartridges a day are a sufficient stock of ammunition. These should be explosive shells, with steel points. Small shot cartridges are indispensable on sledge expeditions, as birds are not unfrequently met with. When the cold is excessive, great caution must be used with the cock of the lock, as the brittleness of the metal then causes it to be easily broken; and from the same cause the hammer will often not stand at half-cock. The guns must not be oiled, as it sometimes happens that the hammer on full-cock will not go down where the lock is smeared with oil. Light woollen gloves should be worn for shooting, in order that the fingers may not be frozen in handling the guns.

8. A chest, fixed on the fore-part of the sledge, contains the instruments used in surveying and in the determination of localities; also a thermometer and an aneroid barometer, lucifer matches and cartridges, packed in tin boxes and carefully protected from damp; a supply of nails and screws, wind-screens for the travellers, sewing materials, the spoons of the party, extra soles of felt for shoes, medical stores, brushes, sketch-book, flags, and a supply of light cord. The pocket-chronometer must be worn in close contact with the body of the leader of the party, to guard it against the hurtful influences of the cold.

9. The provisions should be placed below everything, when the sledge is loaded. The daily allowance for each man ought to be increased by half a pound above the usual rations on board ship, so that about 2½ lbs. or 2¾ lbs. of solid food fall to the share of each man, and about an equal weight to each dog. McClintock allowed 2½ to 3 lbs. a head for the men; but only 1 lb. pemmican a day for the Eskimo dogs. Hayes calculates provisions for fourteen dogs for twelve days at 300 lbs.—almost 2 lbs. a day; and, on another occasion, for fifteen dogs for thirty-eight days, at 800 lbs; and considers 1½ lbs. for Eskimo dogs as too little, when great demands are made on their strength and endurance. From my own experience, I should say, that the least diminution of this quantity of nourishment reduces the capacity to endure great cold and excessive exertions, and produces, after even a few days, a feeling of lassitude both in the men and the dogs, harder to endure than even the sensation of hunger. Parry, in his sledge and boat expedition of 1827, found that 10 oz. of biscuit and 9 oz. of pemmican were hardly sufficient to sustain a man’s strength. “It may be useful,” he observes,[31] “to remark, as the result of absolute experience, that our daily allowance of provisions, although previously tried for some days on board the ship, and then considered to be enough, proved by no means sufficient to support the strength of men living constantly in the open air, exposed to wet and cold for at least twelve hours a day, seldom enjoying the luxury of a warm meal, and having to perform the kind of labour to which our people were subject. I have before remarked, that, previously to our return to the ship, our strength was considerably impaired, and, indeed, there is reason to believe, very soon after entering upon the ice the physical energies of the men were gradually diminishing, although for the first few weeks they did not appear to labour under any specific complaint. This diminishing of strength, which we considered to be owing to the want of sufficient sustenance, became apparent, even after a fortnight, in the lifting of the bread bags; and I have no doubt that, in spite of every care on the part of the officers, some of the men, who had begun to fail before we quitted the ice, would, in a week or two longer, have suffered very severely, and become a serious incumbrance, instead of an assistance, to our party; and we were of opinion, that in order to maintain the strength of men thus employed, for several weeks together, an addition would be requisite of at least one-third more to the provisions we daily issued.”

10. To facilitate inspection, it is advisable to portion off the stock of provisions for each week in separate sacks, and never to open a fresh sack till the previous one has been emptied. The contents of the sacks for the latter weeks should be increased a fifth-part at least above the normal weight; because hunger with its accompanying loss of strength generally grows in a distressing manner. The provisions should consist of boiled beef, hard bread, extract of meat, chocolate, grits, pea-sausages, sugar, rice, condensed milk, and coffee. Tea and the two last mentioned articles of food have an indescribably reviving effect, especially in the morning, and enable the party to make long forced marches, warding off the great enemy of such expeditions—thirst. Pemmican and fatty substances, however, when the temperature is very low, must be used in moderation, inasmuch as they tend to promote this evil. The fact that we require more carbon in our food in winter than in summer, and that the colder a country is, the more of this element should be found in its nourishment, may, indeed, be true for life in settled abodes or on board an Arctic ship, but does not hold good of sledge journeys. As fresh meat affords, under all circumstances, the strongest nourishment, the business of hunting must not be left to chance. In order to diminish the weight, all preserved foods—with the exception of milk—are turned out of their tin cases, and kept in small bags. Wherever there is a certainty of finding drift-wood, I would recommend, as Back does, vermicelli or macaroni, which can then be properly prepared. Good strong tea is of the greatest importance, though at first we set little store by it. A small ration of rum daily is almost indispensable in sledge journeys, especially when the temperature is very low. Franklin (1819) and John Ross (1829) both pronounce in favour of the moderate use of this spirit, though they were of opinion that rum, when the crews were leading an inactive life on board ship, promoted scurvy. The provisions we have specified do not altogether correspond with the views of earlier Polar navigators. Pachtussow and Ziwolka provided themselves in their sledge journeys (1835) with the following stores:—Salted meat, barley-meal, grits, biscuit, butter, tea and sugar; and Parry’s provisions, in 1827, consisted of pemmican, wheat-meal, sweet cocoa-powder, biscuit, and 300 lbs. of concentrated rum.[32] Hayes preferred dried meat, beef-soup, and potatoes to the usual pemmican.

11. The equipment should be supplemented by the following articles:—A small cask of strong rum, a funnel, an india-rubber bottle to measure out the daily allowance of spirit, a snow-shovel, and a stand for surveying purposes. The sketch given below exhibits a sledge laden and packed for a long journey.

12. To obviate the danger of being cut off from the ship by the breaking up of the ice, or to enable the party to push on further, boats have frequently been taken in sledge expeditions. For such purposes, boats of thin metal or of wood are not to be commended; those made of leather, india-rubber, or waterproof sailcloth, are preferable. But even when their wooden frame-work is made as light as possible, their weight is not less than 300 or 400 lbs. The addition of this weight, and the difficulty of lading them, are so much felt on such journeys, that the boat is usually left behind at a little distance from the ship, as was the case in Kane and Hayes’ journeys up Smith’s Sound. The case is different, however, in journeys which have to be carried out partly on the ice and partly—and, indeed, chiefly—on the sea. In such cases, boats of sufficient size to carry both the crews and the baggage are requisite. The whale boat of the Norwegian whalers, carrying seven or eight men, is best adapted for this purpose; although, in long reaches of deep snow, they have their inconveniences, as almost double the number of men is then needed to drag them along. The boats in such expeditions are transported over the ice when the snow road is good, or only passably good, by means of the largest of the sledges we have described; but, if the snow be very deep, it would be advisable to use sledges with three runners underneath, boarded over, so as to prevent the load from sinking into the snow.[33]

13. As the sledge party has to endure for several weeks all the horrors of Arctic weather, the article of clothing demands special care and consideration. Abundance of woollen under-garments and light furs best answer this purpose. The woollen under-garments should not fit too closely, so as to hinder the circulation of the blood; and the fur coat should be wide, and reach half-way down the leg. It would be a great mistake to take the clothing of the northern nomad as our pattern. Our powers of enduring the severities of Arctic climate are inferior to theirs, so that we cannot attempt to imitate their hardihood; but our own industries enable us to surpass all their resources. During the march, a long garment of lamb’s-wool, to which a belly-band is sewn, two stout linen shirts, one or two pairs of woollen drawers, strong cloth trousers, a pair of common mittens, and a light hood, are sufficient for all temperatures. Wind, especially if it be accompanied with drifting snow, necessitates fur coats, with hoods attached, two pairs of woollen gloves, and a band of flannel to protect the nose, buttoned on to the hood. Wind-guards, made of strong leather serving to protect the face against wind and frost, must not be neglected. Flannel masks, with holes cut for nose and mouth, are of little use, as they are completely frozen in a few hours. A shawl wrapped round the mouth is, after all, the best protection against cold wind, and the least hindrance to respiration. As the shortest beard is converted at once into a glacier by the freezing of the breath, it is necessary to cut it off. The accompanying figure exhibits the Arctic sledger prepared for the eventualities of cold. It need scarcely, however, be remarked, that no absolutely general rules can be laid down in the matter of clothing, which depends on the different capacities of resistance in individuals, and also on the variations of the weather. When the temperature is not more than 2° or 13° below zero F., some diminution of the garments enumerated above may safely be allowed. Knitted woollen hoods are sufficient protection for the head in almost all cases. Gloves, not intended to be used in drawing and in handling the instruments, should be made of lamb’s-wool, and the fingers lined with flannel. The stockings also should be strengthened with flannel at the heels and toes, and should be kept as dry as possible; because wet feet are inevitably frozen when the cold is excessive. Hence, also, the stockings must be changed at night and dried, by being laid on the chest during sleep.

14. In the matter of furs, no better can be selected than buffalo-skin, or wash-leather made of bear’s hide; though no covering can surpass that which is made from the skins of birds—Eider-ducks, for example—which is equally good for either summer or winter, during the march, or even during sleep, and which need be exchanged for furs only when the temperature during a night-camping falls 35° to 58° below zero F. Sheep-skin and wolf-skin are too heavy; and the reindeer-skin, though so light and warm, is not suitable, as it at once loses the hair when exposed to damp, and does not last a winter with constant use; but of these, the best are those of the young reindeer killed in autumn. Some Arctic travellers, in the absence of furs, have used an extra covering of light sailcloth, as a protection against the drifting snow, which penetrates the clothes and stiffens them. We have tried this experiment, but were not convinced of its success. In Parry’s second expedition, his people are said to have worn their furs next to their bodies, and to have found this warmer than the wearing of woollens next the skin; but this I am inclined to regard as a mistake. When furs are worn during the march, their congelation and consequent increase of weight are diminished by wearing the furs sometimes inside and sometimes outside. The inhabitants of Lapland and Kamschatka constantly wear the fur outside; and some Eskimo tribes wear double furs—one turned inside, the other outside. If cloth clothes are worn, their surface should be smooth, so as not to harbour the driving snow; and all buttons should be of a large size, as frozen fingers find it easier to manage them.

15. The covering for the feet of a sledge-party should be sailcloth boots, lined with flannel, and soled with stout felt; and it is not advisable to strengthen the soles by plaiting them with string, as the boot thereby loses that perfect pliability which is indispensable to preserve the foot from the danger of frost-bite. Hence also any covering of india-rubber is objectionable. Leather boots must not be used in sledging; because they become utterly unpliable at a low temperature, and make frost-bites inevitable; and when once put on they cannot be pulled off without being cut to pieces. All boots should be so large and their legs so wide, that they may be put on conveniently over the trousers; and sailcloth boots especially, because of their shrinking from frost, should be so wide, that they can be put on easily over three pairs of strong woollen stockings. The Eskimo, the inhabitants of Lapland, Kamschatka, and other northern nomad tribes, wear the dried grass of _Cyperacites_ as their foot-coverings; and this might be recommended, if it did not also involve the use of skin-coverings for the feet, in which no European can make long marches, without their being inflamed. Because, in the Arctic regions, the condensation of moisture in the shape of ice is an enemy constantly to be guarded against, all stuffs are to be avoided which tend to harbour moisture, especially the linings of coats, pockets, and so forth, made of cotton instead of pure wool. India-rubber garments must never be used, as they prevent evaporation from the body.

16. If dogs are used to draw the large sledges along with men, they ought to be harnessed in the way which the sketch on a preceding page represents. The dog-sledge should be laid across the hinder part of the principal sledge, and made fast to it. If, however, dogs alone are employed, and at walking-pace, they are harnessed in pairs, one pair behind the other. Each dog should draw by a single trace, as we can only thus avoid the constant entangling of the rope-traces. If more than four dogs be employed, they cannot well go in pairs one before the other, but must be harnessed to the sledge in a row, side by side, and the traces must be long, so as to enable the most powerful and best-trained dogs, which are placed in the middle, to be somewhat in advance of the others. The dogs should be selected according to the special purpose for which they are to be employed; for, while an Eskimo dog will run, but shirks the effort of drawing heavy loads, a Newfoundland submits to its load, but, goes at a foot’s-pace. In the Hudson’s Bay territory a cross between a wolf and a dog is regarded as the best animal for draught, because it surpasses the dog proper in strength and courage. Newfoundlands of pure breed are, on the whole, most to be recommended, and next to them, the Eskimo dog, which has a good deal of the character of the wolf, though he is difficult to hold. These dogs, too, although they are indescribably, thievish, voracious, and ill-tempered, in consequence of their harsh treatment and bad feeding, have this further distinguishing quality, that they will stick to a retreating bear with wonderful pertinacity till the hunter comes up to kill it. European dogs are only to be taken when an expedition has not the opportunity of procuring dogs of the kinds we have mentioned; but, if they be employed, they should be strong and hardy, with long hair and thick coat. The purity of their breed is of less consequence than their being good-tempered, as fights between large dogs end in the destruction of the weaker. The Ostjaks, in the neighbourhood of Obdorsk, are the nomad tribes nearest Europe who use dogs for sledges; and their breed of dogs is far superior to any other, either in Lapland or Northern Russia. The dogs of Russia in Europe were employed in the expedition (1839) of Ziwolka and Mojsejew to Novaya Zemlya; but it does not appear that they answered the expectations which had been formed. In sledge-expeditions the dogs are allowed to sleep in the open air; but they must be fastened to stakes, lest the scenting some animal should tempt them to run off. We ourselves, however, allowed a small tent, weighing little, for the few dogs which accompanied us. Dogs whose paws have not been early hardened by long marches on the ice, easily hurt their feet, which do not heal during the journey; and wounds can only be prevented from getting worse by a daily application of collodion and brandy, and by a protection of flannel; and this is the treatment we pursued to Jubinal in the journey we are about to describe. Whenever a dog is exhausted by dragging, it is generally blooded in the tail or ear after the fashion followed by the Siberian tribes.