The enterprise. [volume] (Harlem, Mont.) 1899-1926, 1909-09-15
PEARY TELLS Of HIS VOYAGE
First Authentic Account of the Won
derful Expedition, Related
by Explorer.

! in the story, not only of Peary's jour
ney to the north pole. but also Of q
remarkably fast sledge trip over the
ice of the open polar sea.
The dispatch says that the Roose.
welt passed the winter of 1908-1909 at
Cape Sheridan, on the coast of Grant
Land The vessel had threaded the
comparatively narrow channels, sew.
eral hundreds of miles in length, lead.
ing from Cape Sabine to the Arctic
ocean.
This journey is apt to be difficult
and sometimes impossible, but the
conditions were evidently favorable.
The ship that disappeared in the fog
while the crew of Peary's auxiliary
steamer Erik were watching it's de.
parture from Etah made a good pas
sage through the long channels, and
arrived safely on the shores of the
sea- where the explorer was to start
on his sledEes for the north pole.
But at Cape Sheridan Peary was not
as far west as he probably had hoped
to be. He had announced his inten-
ton, in the previous year, of making
his sledge route to the pole along
some meridian much further to the
west of his route in 1906, when he
made the highest north attained up
to that time-S7 d. 6 m.
On that occasion he was greatly i'm
peded by the rapid drift of the ice to
the east which a little retarded his
progress north, and worse still, car
ried him so far to the east that he had
to make his landing on the coast of
North Greenland, many days march
from the Roosevelt, his base of sup
plies.
On his expedition of 1905-06 he tried
hard to force the Roosevelt good dis.
lance to the west of Cape Sheridan,
but the ice baffled him. For one rea-
son or another on the edge of the arc.
tic winter last year he did not or could
not take his vessel along the northern
coast of Grant Land to the west of Cape
not so far from it's old berth in tho
ice in the winter of 1866.
1t is no wonder that it took the par.
ty Is days to travel westwardeas far
as Cape Columbia. 1t is likely, how
ever that Commander Peary succeed
ed, before winter set in, in cacheing
supplies to the westward so as to &C.
celerate little the westward move.
ment of the sledge party before 1t
struck out northward over the sea.
Arriving at Cape Columbia on
March Is the sledges turned to the
north on the sea ice. The explorer had
laid much stress upon the fact that he
intended to travel much further to the
west than on his trip in 1906. His dis
patch shows, however, that he did
not take to the sea any farther to the
west than he did on his earlier trip.
Commander Peary says nothing in
his report of being detained by pres.
sure ridges or hummocks, and it is
certain that he met with no impede
ment of this sort such as made his at
tempt to reach the pole in 1902 con.
tinuous and terrible Struggle.
: A great obstacle and the one that
undoubtedly prevented him from
reaching the pole in 1906 was the wide
water James or leads of water, some
of them SO long that he could not get
around them.
Peary's summary seems to show
that he was a little over thirty-five
days on the journey from the land to
the north pole. In this time he was
delayed about fourteen days by water
weeks for the actual sledging work.