Polar Pathways: Robert E. Peary's Arctic Expeditions

1895 Sledge Voyage- Petermann Fjord: Windswept Waste

 

“We kept on day after day across the white, wind-swept waste, constantly ascending, and the snow surface gradually becoming less firm. While crossing the head of the Petermann-Fjord Basin, we were caught in an ahnoahtaksoah[*], which went hurtling down the ice slopes toward the land with express-train speed. This storm delayed us for forty-eight hours… the gradual ascent continued, and the next week found us over seven thousand feet above sea-level.” -Robert E. Peary in Northward over the “Great Ice”, published in 1898

* "Ahnoahtaksoah" is an Inuit word that describes a katabatic windstorm. Katabatic winds are strong, sudden winds that blow from high points of land down a slope. In Greenland they blow from the tops of ice caps and can reach speeds of over 100 miles per hour.

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