Ten Years of the Peary Arctjc Club 



66 3 



was necessary to provide in the first 

 place for the party of the Diana for at 

 least a year, as her return, like that of all 

 other Arctic-bound steamers, was uncer- 

 tain; for the company of the Windward 

 in case she should be met at the North, 

 and to deposit for Peary and his party 

 subsistence for at least two years. Noth- 

 ing else would adequately meet the con- 

 tingencies, which were further increased 

 by the presence on the Diana of a party 

 of Princeton University scientists, led 

 by Prof. William Libbey and another 

 sportsman, together with Robert Stein, 

 of Washington, D. C, with two asso- 

 ciates and supplies, who were landed at 

 Payer Harbor, near Cape Sabine. 



Etah was reached August 5, and on the 

 next morning a characteristic letter and 

 instructions from Commander Peary 

 were taken from a bamboo pole, sur- 

 rounded by rocks, on the summit of 

 Littleton Island, the most northern post- 

 office in the world. A week later junc- 

 tion was effected with the Windward, 

 when her winter's imprisonment in All- 

 man Bay and Commander Peary's mid- 

 winter marches along the ice-foot of Fort 

 Conger and his sufferings and disabilty 

 from frost-bite were for the first time 

 learned. The Diana, having gathered 

 dogs and equipment from the native set- 

 tlements and discharged her entire cargo 

 on the rocky knoll of Etah, returned on 

 schedule time to Sydney, and was fol- 

 lowed a few days later by the Windward 

 to Brigus, Newfoundland, where she was 

 laid up for the winter. 



Repairs having been effected, the 

 Windward, with Mrs Peary and Marie 

 Ahnighito Peary on board, was dis- 

 patched in July, 1900, from Sydney a 

 second time for the North, from which 

 came that season no returning word. 

 Therefore, early in 1901, the Club began 

 to bestir itself to discover the fate of its 

 leader, then almost two years isolated, 

 and of the Windzvard, from which noth- 

 ing had been heard since departure from 

 Sydney. The former Hudson Bay 

 steamer Brik was chartered, dispatched 

 July 18, 1901, from Sydney, and on the 

 morning of August 5 steamed into Foulke 



Fjord, where she found at anchor the 

 Windzvard, which a^few days before had 

 broken out of her winter ice prison at 

 Payer Plarbor, with Commander Peary, 

 Mrs Peary and the entire party, Ameri- 

 can and native, on board. The following 

 characteristic letter by Commander 

 Peary, written on the chance that he 

 might not meet the auxiliary ship, was 

 delivered by him in person : 



Conger, April 4, 1901. 

 My Dear Bridgman : 



It gives me great pleasure to present to the 

 Club the results of the work of 1900. 



First. The rounding of the northern limit of 

 the Greenland Archipelago, the most northerly 

 known land in the world, probably the most 

 northerly- land. 



Second. The highest latitude yet attained in 

 the Western Hemisphere (83 degrees 50 min- 

 utes north). 



Third. The determination of the origin of 

 the so-called paleocrystic ice (floe berg), etc., 

 etc. 



■ Considering that I am an old man, have one 

 broken leg and only three toes, and that my 

 starting point was Etah, I feel that this was 

 doing tolerably well. It is almost 1,000 years 

 since Erik the Red first sighted the southern 

 extremity of the archipelago, and from that 

 time Norwegians, Dutch, Danes, Swedes, 

 Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Americans have 

 crept gradually northward up its shores until 

 at last, through the instrumentality and liberal- 

 ity of the Club, its northern cape has been 

 lifted out of the Arctic mists and obscurity. It 

 seems fitting that this event, characterized by 

 Sir Clements Markham as second in impor- 

 tance only to the attainment of the Pole itself, 

 should fall in the closing year of the century. 

 If I do not capture the Pole itself in this 

 spring campaign, I shall try it again next 

 spring. 



My gratitude and respects to all the members 

 of the Club. 



Always most sincerely, Peary. 



Six weeks later the Brik, after a des- 

 perate struggle with the ice, prevented 

 from reaching headquarters at Cape 

 Sabine, landed Commander Peary and 

 his party on August 26 in a temporary 

 camp, in Herschel Bay, Ellesmere Land, 

 whence he later marched to headquarters, 

 and, followed by the Windzvard, returned 

 to Sydney late in September. 



The next year, 1902, the Windzvard, 

 having received at Newburg, New York, 

 new engines and boilers, and commanded 

 by Capt. Samuel W. Bartlett, entered for 



