Across the Frozen Sea

On July 6, 1908, dockside crowds cheered and tugboat whistles blew as a strongly-built steamship sailed out of New York harbor. She was named the Roosevelt for President Theodore Roosevelt, and the president himself saw her off. Aboard were Commander Robert E. Peary and a hand-picked crew to accompany him on his latest attempt to reach the North Pole.

The Roosevelt had been built in 1905 according to Peary's own specifications at a cost of one hundred thousand dollars and was the one of the first models of the modern icebreaker.

Northward along the shore of Greenland, stops were made at several Eskimo villages to take on board forty-nine Eskimos—twenty-two men to handle the sledges, seventeen women to sew winter garments for the party, and ten children.

"Now began 21 days of the hardest kind of work imaginable for a ship, actually fighting for every foot of the way against the unyielding ice," wrote Matthew Henson. "The constant bumping of the ship against the ice made work and comfort all but impossible." The ship smashed its way through the ice, its front rising up on the ice and then crashing through it to open the way.

On September 5, 1908, the Roosevelt reached Cape Sheridan on Ellesmere Island, where the crew would pass the winter. From there, once the dark winter ended, Peary would set out for the Pole.

Preparation, timing, and speed all were important. They could not begin the journey until sunlight returned to the Arctic but had to finish before great sections of the polar ice melted in the Arctic summer. Peary's expedition consisted of five advance sledge teams, besides his own, which would take turns going ahead to open the way and establish supply camps. As they finished their marches, each team would return to the supply ship. Only one of the team leaders would accompany Peary all the way to the Pole.

The journey began in February 1909:

FEBRUARY 18—The last of the advance parties, under Henson, left the ship for Cape Columbia, the last point of land before the floating ice of the Arctic Ocean. Henson wrote, "The Arctic night still holds sway."

FEBRUARY 28—Peary called the expedition teams to his tent for a final briefing. He defined the problems and explained what measures the teams could take to meet them. He expressed confidence in the venture but said, "From now on we must be prepared to undergo hardships. We must always be moving on."

MARCH 1—Henson wrote, "By 6 A. M. we were ready, standing beside our sledges awaiting the command, 'Forward! March!'" With a crack of the whip and a "Huk! Huk!" to the dogs, they were off—23 men, 19 sledges, and 133 barking dogs—across the Arctic Ocean.

An easy start soon turned rough, and the men used axes to clear a path through walls of ice. Sledges broke and had to be repaired. Dead tired, they made only twelve miles.

MARCH 5—"First view of the sun today. Made us all cheerful."

Cheer soon turned to worry, as progress was halted by the "Big-Lead"—an open stretch of water a quarter mile wide. Instead of making the twenty to twenty-five miles they had hoped, they waited for days for the lead to freeze over. "We eat, sleep, and watch this lead," Henson wrote. "Are we to be driven back again?"

The Eskimos complained and wanted to return. Some were sent back, and athletic contests were organized to keep the others busy. Commander Peary walked back and forth in dissatisfaction.

MARCH 11—"The lead is shut, but Commander Peary would not let us take chances, until he was sure he could keep all the party together. Off we go. No halt. The ice could open at any moment to let us sink in the cold, black water."

MARCH 22—"Daylight for full 24 hours. Marched from 6 A.M. to 9 P.M.—a full 15 hours."

On they went. Temperatures as low as forty degrees below zero froze their hoods to their beards.

APRIL 1—They were now at 88 degrees north latitude. Four teams had been sent back to the ship.

"Now we were 6—Peary, 4 Eskimos and myself," Henson wrote. "Peary and I looked at each other. We knew without speaking that the time had come to demonstrate that we were the men who should unlock the door which held the mystery of the Arctic." APRIL 6—"The memory of the last 5 marches is a memory of toil, fatigue and exhaustion. Urged on by our Commander we marched until it was impossible to go on. We were forced to camp in spite of the impatience of the Commander, who found himself unable to rest."

Finally, having reached a point that he believed should be close to his goal, Peary ordered the men to stop and make camp. Eyes red and burning, he took sightings of the sun and calculated that they were about three miles from the Pole. Too tired to do anything more than eat, he crawled into a tent to sleep. He gave orders to his crew not to let him sleep more than four hours.

When he awoke, Peary set out with a sledge and his instruments to find, as closely as possible, 90 degrees north. As he crossed and recrossed an area of several square miles, he knew that he must have passed directly "over or very near the point where north and south and east and west blend into one."

APRIL 7—"When Peary returned, he roused us all," Henson wrote, "and gave the word, We will plant the Stars and Stripes at the North pole."

The sight meant different things to those present. Otah, speaking for the Eskimos, said, "There is nothing here. Just ice." Henson felt honored to be the first man of his race to reach the North Pole. And Peary wrote, "The Pole at last! The prize of 3 centuries, my dream and goal of 23 years. Mine at last! I cannot bring myself to realize it. It all seems so simple and commonplace."

The party spent only thirty hours at the Pole. Peary left a strip of flag in a glass jar and at 4 P.M. gave the order to depart, saying, "From now on it is a case of big travel, little sleep, and action every minute." They made it back to the Roosevelt in seventeen days.