The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1908-01-24

. There are other things to discover
In the frozen regions Of the Arctic
besides the elusive North Pole, and
Capt. Ejnar Mikkelsen, the intrepid
Danish explorer, is content to attain
the possible even while perhaps he has
the yearning of all Arctic adventures
to win what up to the present time has
been the impossible. 1t is the hope
of gaining the northern axis of the
earth, Familiarity known as the North
Pole, which has lured Mikkelsen into
the frozen desolations of the far north,
and while striving for that goal, he
has done some remarkable sledging
over the Polar sea which makes in
teresting reading. In a report which
he has just sent back to scientific and
geographical circles, Mikkelsen tells
of his truly marvellous sledge journey
of 533 nautical miles over the ice of
Beaufort sea-
Next to finding the North Pole itself
the greatest Arctic discovery yet to
be made is that of vast unknown
polar continent, or archipelago, which,
from soundings, driftwood, thickness
of Ice, currents, etc., is thought to ex-
list in the great North Polar sea to the
is an immense unexplored area which
may contain land and people of great
interest of which nothing is now
known. The exploration attempted
by Capt. Mikkelsen is considered one
of the most important geographical
undertakings and chief arctic explora-
ton remaining uncompleted
The graphic and interesting con-
densed account of Capt. Mikkelsen's
sledge journey, the latest feat in Arc
tic research, which was sent from
Herschel island, is as follows: eve
lost our vessel, the Duchess of Bed
ford. She sprung leak at Flaxman
island on January q this year, and
from that time, as long as she was
afloat, the pumps were going almost
necessarily. The leak was probably
caused by the pulling out of the caulk-
ing, which the ice around the vessel
has permeated. The ice contracted,
leaving cracks along her sides.
Fortunately, with the aid of the
Eskimos, we got our stores ashore
without serious loss. From the be-
ginning of the trouble until April 3,
when We decided to abandon the YES
sci, the forecastle floor was flooded
many times. Meanwhile house was
built ashore from lumber broken out
Of the ship. On April IL the crew
moved ashore and the ship filled rap
idly. She could not be saved, and
on May II we began to break up the
hull in order to get more building
material. On March II we started
with food for IS days and a total
weight on the sledges of 1925 pounds.
In addition, we carried food enough
for men and dogs while travelling on
the lagoon ice (between the chain of
islands and the Alaskan mainland)
and one weeks food to be cached for
our return trip. The party consisted
Of Mr.. Lef1ngwell, Mr.. Storkersen and
myself. We took three sledges, and
our dogs were strong animals, with
an average weight of about 70 pounds.
AS we advanced northward we had
stretches of bad ridges, on which we
had to work hard with our pickaxes,
without which we could not possibly
have made any headway
Travelling became worse as we adj
vanced further from the land, and
some days we made only three miles
in ten hours. The ice consisted of last
years heavy foes, with pressure
ridges and lanes covered with thin ice.
Luckily the temperature was rather
low (between 80 and 40 degrees cent?
grade), so that new lanes froze over
very rapidly. Large rubble with soft
snow between caused much trouble
and delayed our progress. Our teams
were not strong enough to pull the
sledges alone, so we had to pull stead
lily in soft, deep snow, through which
it is very tiresome even merely to
walk. The dogs at times sank so far
in that they could do no pulling and
the crossbars of the sledges often
dragged through the snow.
"The further we penetrated north
the more foes of old ice we en-
countered. The ice consists of very
old foes with rounded-off hummocks.
the whole covered with snow of
yellowish tint, making the foes dis
tinguishable for great distance. The
highest hummocks were about 80 feet
above water level.
ZIP to April we made some head
way every day, though it was hard 60
ing, either deep, soft snow, or heavy
pressure ridges, over which we had
to hew road. From the first day out
the pichaxes were in constant use. We
could not have advanced without