INTRODUCTION 3 



forward, with painful effort. Slowly the day has ap- 

 proached ; even now we are but in its early dawn ; 

 darkness still broods over vast tracts around the Pole. 



Our ancestors, the old Vikings, were the first Arctic 

 voyagers. It has been said that their expeditions to the 

 frozen sea were of no moment, as they have left no en- 

 during marks behind them. This, however, is scarcely 

 correct. Just as surely as the whalers of our age, in their 

 persistent struggles with ice and sea, form our outposts 

 of investigation up in the north, so were the old North- 

 men, with Eric the Red, Leif, and others at their head, 

 the pioneers of the polar expeditions of future gener- 

 ations. 



It should be borne in mind that as they were the first 

 ocean navigators, so also were they the first to combat 

 with the ice. Long before other seafaring nations had 

 ever ventured to do more than hug the coast lines, our 

 ancestors had traversed the open seas in all directions, 

 had discovered Iceland and Greenland, and had colo- 

 nized them. At a later period they discovered America, 

 and did not shrink from making a straight course over 

 the Atlantic Ocean, from Greenland to Norway. Many 

 and many a bout must they have had with the ice along 

 the coasts of Greenland in their open barks, and many 

 a life must have been lost. 



And that which impelled them to undertake these 

 expeditions was not the mere love of adventure, though 

 that is, indeed, one of the essential traits of our national 



