THE DAILY WORK OF AN ARCTIC 

 EXPLORER 



By DR. FREDERICK A. COOK 



[EW of us ever have a long run over a hill of 

 happiness without stumbling upon sev- 

 eral ups and downs of misfortune, but we 

 soon forget this, and, altogether, life 

 seems easy enough to most of us who live 

 in temperate climes. It is not the same, 

 however, with the men who seek the 

 realms of the great frozen lands in the Arctic and Ant- 

 arctic. Their path is over a series of ups and downs, but 

 mostly ups. Their comfort, if they have any, is involved in 

 the effort to overcome the ever-present discomfort. The 

 men who aim to reach the pole are kicked about by giant 

 seas, are pounded by heavy storms, are brushed by freezing 

 drifts of snow, and yet they calmly resign themselves to 

 become the footballs of a hard fate because of a few pleas- 

 ures. An effort only partly crowned with success gives 

 such elation and joy that all the sufferings and discom- 

 forts are forgotten. 



Herein lies the reason for the unfaltering law that he 

 who has once beheld the other-world conditions, and has 

 felt the charm of the white snowy silence of the frigid zones, 

 will ever long to return. If from any cause a polar ex- 

 plorer cannot return to the dream of his life he either com- 

 mits suicide, gets married, or dies an unnatural death in 

 some way. 



Individuals differ very much in their impressions of the 

 degrees of comfort and discomfort which result from the 

 prosecution of the work of polar exploration. The 



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