Polar Photography 



141 



In regard to apparatus and' material, 

 around the ship and hut any good camera 

 can be used. I had several sizes. On the 

 first expedition I took a number of glass 

 plates, but was unfortunate enough to 

 break some of my best negatives, so when 

 I went into the field again I took nothing 

 but films. On the sledge journeys, where 

 the question of weight is of great conse- 

 quence, the lightest form of camera is 

 sure to be the favorite. In my last trip 

 over the moving polar pack I found that 

 a kodak was about the most convenient, 

 and took with me a panoram kodak 

 (which weighed with its leather case 

 only four and a half pounds) and a small 

 suppl)' of films in water-tight tin tubes. 



On a sledge journey the camera and 

 films were always kept in the outer air, 

 usually in a compartment of the canoe 

 that was lashed to one of the sledges. 

 During low temperatures, the interior of 

 a tent is not the place in which to load 

 a camera. The little difference in tem- 

 perature between the air of the shelter 

 and of the outside is sufficient to cause 

 condensation of moisture and the cold 

 lenses and metal work of the instrument 

 coat with a film of ice. Often, as I stood 

 with my back to the sun in an endeavor 

 to shade the camera as much as possible, 

 with a temperature of from 30 to 40° 

 below zero, I have struggled with the 

 little catches of the kodak and have had 

 my fingers stick to the cold metal of the 

 tin tubes containing the films while tak- 

 ing out an exposed roll and reloading the 

 camera with a new one. Care had also 

 to be exercised to keep the instrument 

 from being frosted by the vapor from 

 hands and body. It was always with a 

 feeling of thankfulness and relief that 

 the camera was made ready and I could 

 slip my half-frozen hands into mittens 

 and by swinging the arms and perform- 

 ing a sort of Indian war dance restore 

 circulation. On return to camp the 

 films were all developed in an improvised 

 dark-room with a small alcohol lamp to 

 keep the developer at about 60 degrees 

 temperature. I believe the new tank 

 developer would be just the thing for 



explorers and particularly good for de- 

 veloping films exposed in the Arctic, 

 where long development is absolutely 

 necessary to insure good results. Part 

 of the outfit comprised a bioscope, a form 

 of moving-picture camera, with which I 

 hoped to secure views of men, dogs, and 

 ponies moving over the ice-fields, the ad- 

 vance of the America through the ice, 

 and, if possible, a bear fight. Of all my 

 photographic apparatus, the bioscope 

 gave me the most trouble, particularly 

 in the low temperatures of spring and 

 early autumn. The long celluloid film 

 upon which the numerous little negatives 

 were made (twenty to a second) became 

 very brittle under the influence of the ex- 

 treme cold, and would fly to pieces when 

 the mechanism of the instrmnent was 

 started, and pieces of celluloid would clog 

 the gear wheels and jam between moving 

 parts. After many failures, I hit upon 

 the plan of warming the machine and 

 wrapping it up in hot blankets just be- 

 fore taking a picture. The heating and 

 wrapping up was done in the hut at 

 camp. I was thus enabled to secure some 

 valuable films ; a few of them reached a 

 length of 300 feet. But always, as soon 

 as the instrument became cold, the films 

 broke like fragile glass. It was impos- 

 sible to warm the bioscope on the trail, 

 so I was limited to views near the ship 

 and in the vicinity of camp. 



We shot a number of bears for food. 

 A bear fighting for his life, surrounded 

 by a biting, snarling pack of dogs, would 

 have been a splendid subject for a mo- 

 tion-picture camera ; but I was never so 

 fortunate as to have camera and fight 

 at the same time. 



The pictures which show the ponies 

 and dogs hauling their loaded sledges 

 over the ice bring back in vivid reality 

 the cold, white fields and the struggling 

 men and animals fighting their way over 

 the frozen wastes. 



The explorer with a camera has gone 

 over very nearly all the earth and has 

 brought back as part of his record views 

 of life and land in the far-off parts of the 

 earth. 



