86 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



ignorance. Before Europeans had ever experienced a polar night, they 

 thought that it must be fatal. The old 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 only by releasing 

 convicts, begged, on seeing Spitsbergen, to be allowed to return to gaol and 

 even execution 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 equipment 

 compared with the heavy load of old. In ' living off the land ' and 

 travelling lightly and qvrickly without supporting parties and depots of 

 stores, John Rae set an example seventy years ago which was later 

 followed by Nansen, Isachsen, Stefansson and others. On a purely meat 

 diet man can maintain his health and vigour 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 favoured parts of the Arctic 

 can be reduced to personal clothing, sleeping-sack, rifle and ammunition. 

 But the practice cannot everywhere be adopted. Even its most 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 generalise from the most favoured 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. Antarctic travel 

 must be mainly over the land-ice which is wholly devoid of any living 

 thing. The sea-ice, in the lack of land-locked channels and basins, 

 seldom affords a road for the traveller. Not only is it very rough, piled 

 and rafted, but it drifts even in midwinter. Seals are seldom accessible 

 to the. Antarctic sledge traveller, for comparatively 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. 

 Such contingencies would be detrimental to the real aims of the expedition. 

 Without neglecting the valuable resources of sea and land, it will seldom 

 be wise for an exploring party to dispense wholly or even largely with 

 transported stores, however great the temptation may be to lighten the 

 load and thus widen the area of activity. In a forced march of retreat, 

 however, ability to find food and confidence in its value are important. 



