Polar Pathways: Robert E. Peary's Arctic Expeditions
The North Pole - Breaking Ice
The dangers of crossing broken ice, referred
to as a "lead"
"Leaping to my feet and looking through the peep-hole of our igloo, I was startled to see a broad lead of black water between our two igloos and Bartlett's, the nearer edge of water being close to our entrance; and on the opposite side of the lead stood one of Bartlett's men yelling and gesticulating... The break in the ice had occurred within a foot of the fastening of one of my dog teams, the team escaping by just those few inches from being dragged into the water. Another team had just escaped being buried under a pressure ridge, the movement of the ice having providentially stopped after burying the bight which held their traces to the ice. Bartlett's igloo was moving east on the ice raft which had broken off, and beyond it, as far as the belching fog from the lead would let us see, there was nothing but black water. It looked as if the ice raft which carried Bartlett's division would impinge against our side a little farther on, and I shouted to his men to break camp and hitch up their dogs in a hurry, in readiness to rush across to us should the opportunity present itself."- Robert E. Peary in The North Pole, published in 1910
"North Pole party crossing a lead" by Donald B. MacMillan, 1909, Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum Collections
