CHAPTER II 



THE NORTH THAT NEVER WAS 



THE salient characteristics of the arctic regions are only too 

 well known. With minor modifications, they are as fol- 

 lows: The Arctic is a roughly circular or exactly circular 

 area "at the top of the world," with the Pole for a center. The 

 Pole is the point on the northern hemisphere most difficult of all 

 places to get to. Formerly explorers went north to find a short 

 route from Europe to China or in search of gold; but later they 

 strove and still are striving for the Pole itself. The Northwest 

 Passage was found by the Franklin Expedition in the middle of 

 the nineteenth century (some think it was found by Amundsen in 

 1905), and the Pole was attained by Peary in 1909. The Northwest 

 Passage has proved of no immediate commercial value and will 

 therefore forever remain worthless. The Pole has been attained, 

 and the supreme achievement of the Arctic thus made a finality. 



Why should any one want to explore the Arctic further? The 

 land up there is all covered with eternal ice; there is everlasting 

 winter with intense cold; and the corollary of the everlastingness 

 of the winter is the absence of summer and the lack of vegetation. 

 The country, whether land or sea, is a lifeless waste of eternal 

 silence. The stars look down with a cruel glitter, and the depress- 

 ing effect of the winter darkness upon the spirit of man is heavy 

 beyond words. On the fringes of this desolation live the Eskimos, 

 the filthiest and most benighted people on earth, pushed there by 

 more powerful nations farther south, and eking out a miserable 

 existence amidst hardship. 



This, with individual modifications, is the current picture of the 

 Arctic, and this is substantially what we have to unlearn before we 

 can read in a true light any story of arctic exploration. 



According to their varied temperaments, those who hold such 

 views of the North are forced to one or another semi-irrational ex- 

 planation of why explorers still go there. Some think it is because 

 of an insatiable desire, mysteriously implanted in our race, to throw 

 ourselves against obstacles, to brave dangers and suffer heroic 



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