CHAPTER XI 



MIDWINTER TRAVEL AND PREPARATION FOR SPRING WORK, 1914 



THE meeting with Dr. Anderson had taken place at the camp 

 of the engineer of the Mary Sachs, J. R. Crawford. He as 

 well as several other members of the expedition had been 

 hired on the understanding that they would work for the Govern- 

 ment during six months of the year and would have leave of absence 

 the other six, during which time they were free to trap or do what- 

 ever they wanted to do in their own interests. There had been three 

 reasons for my making this sort of agreement with some of the men. 

 First, they preferred that arrangement; second, it is generally inad- 

 visable to retain in a winter camp a large number of unoccupied men, 

 for friction will then develop and it is better to have them scattered, 

 each on his own and doing something in which he is interested; 

 third, it was a manifest saving of money to the Government to feed 

 and pay a man only for that part of the year when he is useful, 

 still having him at hand when he was needed the following 

 spring. Yet it must be said that this arrangement, although logical, 

 did not work out very well, and before the expedition was over 

 all the men had been taken back on a yearly salary basis. 



Proceeding east along the coast, we visited some Eskimo camps 



and then arrived at the winter quarters of the Polar Bear, now in 



jcharge of Hulin S. Mott. Besides the crew, the Polar Bear carried 



a party of sportsmen, including two scientific men, from Boston, 



Massachusetts, who had chartered her for a hunting expedition and 



had been frozen in and obliged to winter. They were Winthrop S. 



brooks, Joseph Dixon, John Heard, Jr., Samuel Mixter and George 



5. Silsbee. Two of the original party, Eben S. Draper and Dunbar 



^ockwood, had gone home overland in the fall with the captain and 



'wner of the ship, Louis Lane, and his photographer, W. H. Hudson, 



rossing the mountains by sled, going south to the Yukon and thence 



3 the Pacific by way of Fairbanks and Cordova. 



Not having expected to winter in the Arctic, the Polar Bear, 

 /hen she was caught by the ice, found herself with incomplete equip- 

 |aent and limited food supplies. One of the great needs in this 

 ountry for a party spending the winter is dog teams and sledges, 



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