Polar Pathways: Robert E. Peary's Arctic Expeditions

1898 to Fort Conger-Cape Defosse : Burrowing in the Snow

 greenland ice field arctic
An arctic ice-field

“The ice-foot grew steadily worse as we advanced, until, after rounding Cape Defosse, it was almost impassable, even for light sledges… Just south of Cape Defosse we ate the last of our biscuit, just north of it the last of our beans. On the next march a biting wind swept down the Channel and numbed the Eskimo who had spent the previous winter in the United States… we were obliged to halt just above Cape Cracroft and dig a burrow in a snowdrift.” - Robert E. Peary in Nearest the Pole, published in 1907

"Greenland Ice Field" by Maurice Tanqueray, 1913-1917, Peary-MacMillan Museum Collections

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