DRIVEN BY THE STORM 
43 
and when they were on board they all barked con¬ 
stantly day and night. 
I do not consider the Alaskan dog the equal of 
the dogs we had with us on the North Pole trips 
with Peary. I don’t know whether contact with 
civilization has caused them to deteriorate or not. 
It has certainly had that effect on the Eskimo who, 
since the coming of the whalers and traders, have 
not had to depend for their living on the country 
but go to Point Barrow and the other stations and 
buy whatever they need, exchanging pelts from the 
animals they shoot or trap. The dogs that Stef¬ 
ans son took with him on his shore journey on Sep¬ 
tember 20 were obtained from one of the best dog- 
drivers in Nome. The best of the remaining dogs 
were none of them so good as the worst of the 
dogs we had on the North Pole trips. They re¬ 
quired more food, could not stand fatigue so well, 
though they were heavier than the North Greenland 
dogs, and they were trained for land, not for ice, 
travel. 
When I came to use them later on, I found that 
they were terrified by the groaning and crushing 
of the ice and, when they were going over new ice 
that buckled, they would become frightened and 
instead of separating would all huddle together for 
mutual protection; perhaps they were not to be 
