The weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1891-1894, 1894-03-23
OFF FOR THE POLE
The Walter Wellman Party Starts
For Spitzbergen on a Unique
Arctic Enterprise.
Fascinating Mystery of the Frozen
North Likely to Soon Be
Solved.
Mistakes of Former Explorers to Be
AvOided-SOme of the Novel
Features.

New York, March 15.-Mr. Walter
Wellman, the well known journalist
sailed on the steamer Britannia en- routt
for Spitzbergen, from which point hi.
expedition will make a summer dash fol
the north pole. Mr.. Wellman was &C.
companied by three other Americans
Professor Owen B. French, late of the
Unite1 States coast and geodetic survey
and an experienced and capable scien.
fist; DIR. Thomas B. Mohun, asuccessful
Washington physician, and Charles c.
Dodge, the artist and photographer of
the expedition. The enterprise is under
the leadership of Mr.. Wellman, and the
three men named are his lieutentants.
Ten hardy young Norwegians, ambi-
tious and experienced in Arctic explora-
ton. will join the party in Norway,
and the expedition will sail from from
soc, Norway, for the Islands of Spitz-
bergen about the lst of May. At Danes
island, which is very near the S0th
parallel-that point of latitude so far
north that many explorers have never
reached and few have ever passed it
headquarters will be established, and
then the party will steam to the edge of
the great ice pack about a degree
farther north. After a landing is
effected the steamer will return to
Danes island, and about the 10th or
18th of May the dash for the pole will
begin.
That marvellous new metal, alumni
mum, has been utilized in the construc-
ton of sledges, boats and other appar-
atus, and thus equipped with far lighter
paraphernalia than any previous ex-
plorer, Mr.. Wellman expects to be able
to push on north at the rate of from IL
to 20 miles per day. AS he will have
only about 900 miles to travel before
the pole is reached, he expects to either
reach that goal or a point very near it
in 80 days. He will then return to the
edge of the pack in 80 days more, his
steamer will pick him up, and he will
then return home.
Mr.. Wellman has carefully studied
the great problem before him and ex-
poets to profit by the knowledge gained
by previous explorers who have traversed
the pack and to avoid their mistakes,
His early start is for the purpose of get
ting far north before the pack begins its
drift toward the south. Away back in
1927 Sir Edward Parry pushed on north
ward over the pack at the rate of from
III to 20 miles per day, but his heavy
equipage compelled him to break his
loads into parts and pass from five to
seven times over the same road.
Other explorers, handicapped with old
time sledges and boats, have been COM
pelled to progress in the same slow
manner, but Mr.. Wellman believes that
with his light aluminium outfit ~retracing
his steps will be unnecessary, and that
every mile travelled will take him a mile
farther toward the pole. At the start
the drift of the ice pack will not be
against him, and when he returns later
in the season it will assist him in his
homeward journey.
Mr.. Wellman carries with him his
aluminium boats and sledges-the first
ever built in A~merica-and tests have
demonstrated that they are by far the
llghtest and at the same time the yery
strongest boats and sledges of their size
that the world has ever seen. The en-
tire equipment of the party of "A will be
about $500 pounds, and as 40 hardy
draft dogs will assist in carrying it, the
average weight per man and dogs will
be about 100 pounds.
One novel feature of Mr.. Wellman's
scheme of exploration is that it is strictly
a newspaper expedition, and if Mr..
Wellman's plans are carried out the
world will be apprised of his progress
the pole, a thing that has never
before been done in the case of any pre-
vious polar EXPEDITION. Members of his ,
party will lie sent back from time to !
to the edge of the ice pack with ,
letters describing the progress of the $
expedition and tho discoveries made by I
the explorers. At the edge of the ice ,
pack the dispatches will be taken ON 7
board Mr.. Wellman's steamer, which
will return to Norway, whence the
world will receive the news.
Whether MI. Wellman's dash for the
pole will be successful or not remains to
be seen, but if his novel plan is even ;
partly carried out he will succeed in
reaching a degree of latitude farther
north than that reached by any previous ,
explorer. With Wellman, Peary, Nan
sen and possibly Jackson in quest of the
pole this year, it seems highly probable
that 1894 will mark the solution OF the
frozen Ncrth's f~ascinoting mystery.