PREPARING FOR WINTER AT CAPE SHERIDAN—THE ARCTIC LIBRARY

Now that we had reached Cape Sheridan in the ship, every one’s spirits seemed to soar. It was still daylight, with the sun above the horizon, and although two parties had been landed for hunting, no one seemed to be in any particular hurry. The weather was cold but calm, and even in the rush of unloading the ship I often heard the hum of songs, and had it not been for the fur-jacketed men who were doing the work, it would not have been difficult for me to imagine myself in a much warmer climate.

Of course! in accordance with my agreement with some other members of this expedition I kept my eye on the Commander, and although it was not usual for him to break forth into song, I frequently heard him humming a popular air, and I knew that for the present all was well with him.

With the ship lightened, by being unloaded, to a large extent, of all of the stores, she did not very appreciably rise, but the Commander and the Captain agreed that she could be safely worked considerably closer to the shore, inside of the tide-crack possibly; and the Roosevelt was made fast to the ice-foot of the land, with a very considerable distance between her and open water. Her head was pointed due north, and affairs aboard her assumed regulation routine. The stores ashore were contracted, and work on getting them into shape for building temporary houses was soon under way. The boxes of provisions themselves formed the walls, and the roofing was made from makeshifts such as sails, overturned whale-boats, and rocks; and had the ship got adrift and been lost, the houses on shore would have proved ample and comfortable for housing the expedition.

A ship, and a good one like the Roosevelt, is the prime necessity in getting an expedition within striking distance of the Pole, but once here the ship (and no other boat, but the Roosevelt could get here) is not indispensable, and accordingly all precautions against her loss were taken.

It is a fact that Arctic expeditions have lost their ships early in the season and in spite of the loss have done successful work. The last Ziegler Polar Expedition of 1903-1905 is an example. In the ship America they reached Crown Prince Rudolph Island on the European route, and shortly after landing, in the beginning of the long night, the America went adrift, and has never been seen since. It is not difficult to imagine her still drifting in the lonely Arctic Ocean, with not a soul aboard (a modern phantom ship in a sea of eternal ice). A more likely idea is that she has been crushed by the ice, and sunk, and the skeleton of her hulk strewn along the bottom of the sea, full many a fathom deep.

However, the depressing probabilities of the venture we are on are not permitted to worry us. The Roosevelt is a "Homer" and we confidently expect to have her take us back to home and loved ones.

In the meantime, I have a steady job carpentering, also interpreting, barbering, tailoring, dog-training, and chasing Esquimos out of my quarters. The Esquimos have the run of the ship and get everywhere except into the Commander’s cabin, which they have been taught to regard as "The Holy of Holies." With the help of a sign which tersely proclaims "No Admittance," painted on a board and nailed over the door, they are without much difficulty restrained from going in.

The Commander’s stateroom is a state room. He has a piano in there and a photograph of President Roosevelt; and right next door he has a private bath-room with a bath-tub in it. The bath-tub is chock-full of impedimenta of a much solider quality than water, but it is to be cleared out pretty soon, and every morning the Commander is going to have his cold-plunge, if there is enough hot water.

There is a general rule that every member of the expedition, including the sailors, must take a bath at least once a week, and it is wonderful how contagious bathing is. Even the Esquimos catch it, and frequently Charley has to interrupt the upward development of some ambitious native, who has suddenly perceived the need of ablutions, and has started to scrub himself in the water that is intended for cooking purposes. If the husky has not gone too far, the water is not wasted, and our stew is all the more savory.

On board ship there was quite an extensive library, especially on Arctic and Antarctic topics, but as it was in the Commander’s cabin it was not heavily patronized. In my own cabin I had Dickens’ "Bleak House," Kipling’s "Barrack Room Ballads," and the poems of Thomas Hood; also a copy of the Holy Bible, which had been given to me by a dear old lady in Brooklyn, N. Y. I also had Peary’s books, "Northward Over the Great Ice," and his last work "Nearest the Pole." During the long dreary midnights of the Arctic winter, I spent many a pleasant hour with my books. I also took along with me a calendar for the years 1908 and 1909, for in the regions of noonday darkness and midnight daylight, a calendar is absolutely necessary.

But mostly I had rougher things than reading to do.