Polar Pathways: Robert E. Peary's Arctic Expeditions

“The marches of the three following days… carried us across the Whale-Sound-Kane-Basinwindt-divide and well into the snow-shed of the Humboldt glacier… Lee and myself each had a frost-bitten toe, and the cheeks and noses of Henson and myself were frozen… from here I sent my faithful Eskimo allies back to the lodge. Only I and they can know how brave and loyal and faithful they were… One of them carried a letter to the brave woman waiting in the South, in which was the following paragraph: ‘I shall push on to Independence Bay and do all that is possible for man to do. After that I do not know. Everything will depend upon circumstances, and in any case a knowledge of my plans would avail nothing. We have only ourselves and the All-Powerful One to rely upon, and in the event of mishap no human help can find or reach us.’” - Robert E. Peary in Northward over the “Great Ice”, published in 1898

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