THE GREAT WHITE NORTH
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
Commander Robert Edwin Peary, U.S.N.
Who reached the Pole April 6, 1909
Copyright by Clinedinst, Washington, D.C.
THE GREAT WHITE NORTH
THE STORY OF
POLAR EXPLORATION
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE
DISCOVERY OF THE POLE
BY
HELEN S. WRIGHT
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1910
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1910,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1910.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
The material for this book has been gathered from therich storehouse of Arctic Literature. The chief labourof its composition lay in elimination rather than construction.The great field I have endeavoured to present canhardly be brought with justice to the narrow bounds ofa single cover, but I have conscientiously endeavouredto bring to the reader’s mind an accurate record of brilliantdeeds that go to make the history of the far North,and have let the explorers themselves tell the story of howthese deeds have been accomplished.
Between the lines of their simple language describingstern facts or desperate realities, one reads the characterand temperament of the adventurer; one gathers lessonsof patience, self-sacrifice, and endurance unsurpassed inthe history of mankind, and perhaps appreciates, for thefirst time, the splendid fibre of which he is made. Strippedof the conventions and luxuries of civilized life, he plungesinto the great unknown to fight a relentless war againstthe greatest foes to his existence,—Cold, Starvation, andDeath. Though he may fall by the wayside a victim tothe Cause, or crawl home on hands and knees over therough fastnesses of the frozen wilderness, famishing,—perhapsdying,—the record of his work lives on; the fundamentalprinciples of great character do not perish, butstand through the centuries, a star of hope to the weary[vi]traveller on his pilgrimage along