The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-06-10
THE FARE TO NORTH POLE.
COST or GOING AS NEAR TO IT is
 POSSIBLE.


 visions mn Undertaking For Which
 Experience is Necessary -Diiicml,y ot
 Obtaining Pemmiean Not So Mpny
 Applicants For Berths ns There Were
 Formerly.
 It cost about $25 1000 to fit out for a seasons voyage to the Arctic such a vessel as that for the Peary expedition, which sails in July, or that for the Baldwin expedition which sails next month, The fare for the round trip, if any passengers are taken, is usually $500 Arctic voyages are no longer the hazardous adventures they were fifty i years ago, but have come more and more to be practical propositions planned on business and scientific lines. More detailed knowledge of the polar regions has greatly reduced the ele- ment of danger, while the excellence of modern canned foods has done much to i eliminate the problem of subsistence.
 Ten thousand dollars must be set aside for ship and insurance. The ships used in the seal fisheries of British America are the craft most suitable Tor Arctic work, as in their regular | voyages around the Labrador coast they encounter geographical and weather conditions very similar to those of the polar regions. It is usual to charter the ship for the two months, cash down, with an agreed rental for the subsequent months if she winters in the ice. This is where the compl- cations come in. Unless the ship re- turns in time to take part in the seal fishing, which begins on March 12 and lasts for six weeks, she makes practi- cally no profit for that year It is, moreover, perfectly certain that if ship does not come south in the early autumn, she will not return until the seal fishing is over. Her owners nat urally want to be reimbursed for their losses, in such an event. Then there Is the question of insurance. Consid- cred purely on basis of it's earning power, one of these ships is worth a very large sum, and the owners some times insist that she be insured at a valuation so high that the underwriters will not accept it.
 Then there must be a compromise of some sort. and even when valuation is agreed upon, the insurance compan- ies charge premium of per cent or more for two months. A fairly ser viceable vessel could doubtless be char tered for less than the sum named, but only the best ships, with the strongest engines, can be used for this sort of work.
 Members of the crew of an Arctic ship are paid about g. fifth more than on ordinary voyages. The captain will receive about S125 a month, the mates and engineers perhaps $50 to $75, and the seamen $35 month. These wages, it is always stipulated beforehand, must be paid promptly and regularly to the mems families in Newfoundland or Nova Scotia There are usually ten to twenty men in the crew.
 Every explorer has ideas of his own on the question of food The forty tons of provisions carried to Lieut. Peary two years ago were put up on the general lines of the United States army ration, which includes beef, ba- con, flour, or hard bread beans, rice, deslccated potatoes and onions, evap- orated apples and peaches prunes, cof- fee, sugar, vinegar pepper and salt. At the suggestion of experienced army of fficers, the meat ration should be va red with pemmican, sausage, ham and GriS6 n 1Cb nf,tn ,te af vegetables and sugar should be about doubled pickles substituted for half of | the vinegar, tea, coffe and sugar added, and there should be rations of anti scorbutic foods, such as canned rhu- barb, cranberries and pears
 The army allows about 33,000 pounds | of food a year for fifteen men, but in | the Arctic regions people eat at least a quarter as much more. It costs $3 a | month more to feed man in Green | land than in New York. The habits of | the people on board must be consulted 1 The Newfoundland sailor for instance, consumes great quantities of tea, but | draws the line at desiccated potatoes, | and something else must be provided.
 To provide suitable woollen clothing | is, of course, simple matter The | skin clothing that must be worn in the field through the winter has no fixed price A special arrangement has to be made for each lot bought. Twenty full suits of sealskin were sold few years ago for $250, and this was considered an extravagant price. Further on the ice, bear and deer-skin suits are worn, though the white men do not adopt the blrd-skin shirts worn by natives
 Even after food clothing and lodg- ing have been provided for there are still almost numberless items of equip ment for the exploring party is to all ntents and purposes an Independent Whaleboats, runners for sledges, carpenters tools, canvas bags for coal, surveying instruments, sole leather, and photographic apparatus are among the requisites.
 It in an interesting fact that no pem- nican has been made in this country since the Greedy expedition. A concern n London has a plant for making 1t. md Evelyn B. Baldwin has had quantity of it manufactured on spe- ,ial order. Pemmican is not in reality he mixed sort of sausage meat de- 'cribed in the Swiss Family Robin on,' but is simply dried and pulverized neat mixed with suet, and favored with dried currants and other season. 1 ne. ,,,, ,,. a.a,i .9..l.p- --.r ,,