362 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 192 8 



whalers in Spitsbergen could conceive of no greater horror than to- 

 stay there during the winter. There is a tale that an attempt to 

 found a winter settlement to guard the whaling stores failed because 

 the settlers, who could be obtained onlj^ by releasing convicts, begged^ 

 on seeing Spitsbergen, to be allowed to return to gaol and even execu- 

 tion rather than stay and endure the unknown horrors of an Arctic 

 night. The legacy of fear is still part of Europe's regard for polar 

 regions, but the explorer has conquered it and he knows well that it 

 requires no particular courage to face the polar climate. Fifty years 

 ago expeditions dug themselves into winter quarters and stagnated 

 half the year, Nares considered it cruelty to ask his men to sledge 

 before April. But now winter is regarded by the explorer, as by the 

 Eskimo, as a useful period for sledging. The snow and ice have- 

 better surfaces and the temperatures are not uncomfortably high. 



Even more striking is the lightness of the modern explorer's equip- 

 ment compared with the heavy load of old. In " living off the land "" 

 and traveling lightly and quickly without supporting parties and 

 depots of stores, John Rae set an example 70 years ago which wa& 

 later followed by Nansen, Isachsen, Stefansson, and others. On a 

 purely meat diet man can maintain his health and vigor for weeks and 

 months. If he can so break with his habits as to give up tea, coffee^ 

 sugar, bread, and tobacco, his equipment in many of the more fav- 

 ored parts of the Arctic can be reduced to personal clothing, sleeping- 

 sack, rifle, and ammunition. But the practice can not everywhere be 

 adopted. Even its more ardent advocate, Stefansson, had to abandon 

 it at times and in certain gameless areas. The Arctic is not friendly 

 everywhere; it can be very unfriendly, and it is rash to generalize 

 from the most-favored regions. 



The Antarctic may be termed invariably hostile except for its 

 penguin rookeries tenanted for only a few weeks a year. Once the 

 ship is left in the Antarctic, a provisioned base is absolutely essential. 

 Journeys without stores would in all probability prove fatal. Ant- 

 arctic travel must be mainly over the land ice, which is wholly devoid 

 of any living thing. The sea ice, in the lack of landlocked channels 

 and basins, seldom affords a road for the traveler. Not only is it. 

 very rough, piled and rafted, but it drifts even in midwinter. Seals- 

 are seldom accessible to the Antarctic sledge traveler, for compara- 

 tively rarely can he descend from the ice cap to the sea ice owing to- 

 the steep ice cliffs. 



Even in the Arctic it must be remembered that living off the land 

 demands the sacrifice to hunting of much time that could be more 

 profitably employed by a party of scientific men, while if hunters are 

 specially attached to the expedition, in addition to the scientific staff, 

 there is the liability, even certainty, of a large party exhausting the 

 game in any one locality and requiring to move on in search of food. 



