With the Eskimo dogs, Kane was obliged to use other means. Eskimo dogs are not easily managed. They are near relatives of the wolf, and share the wolf’s nature. They are driven in teams of ten or twelve, and must be guided mainly by the whip. Dr. Kane had to use a whip with a lash six yards long, and a handle only sixteen inches in length. It required a sort of “sleight of hand” movement to swing this long lash and hit the right dog with it. Dr. Kane found this driving very lively exercise.
Sometimes Kane wanted to travel with a heavier load than the dogs could draw. For this purpose he used a larger sledge, thirteen feet long and four feet wide, upon which he could carry fourteen hundred pounds of baggage. This sledge was called the “Faith,” and nine men were often harnessed to it. Each man wore a shoulder belt or, as it was called, a “rue-raddy.” A walrus-skin trace attached this rue-raddy to the sledge.
In this way heavy loads of provisions were drawn over the ice. Kane stored these supplies along the route that he intended to take as soon as the sun should shine again. By thus sending provisions ahead and burying them, Kane hoped to be able to make the journey without fear of starving; for his whole party could never have carried enough at once to last during the time he expected to be gone.
On long expeditions where the men were obliged to remain away from the ship all night, each man carried his bed with him. An Arctic bed is a bag made of fur, into which one crawls, covering up all save one’s nose.
On one occasion some of the men delayed in returning from their trip, and it was feared that they were lost. After waiting twenty days for them to return, Kane harnessed four of his best Newfoundland dogs to the “Little Willie” and started out to search for his missing companions. He took but one man with him. The ice was full of cracks and very dangerous. The dogs galloped swiftly along; whenever they came to a fissure, over it they leaped and over flew the sledge also, simply by reason of its rapid movement. At length the party came to a fissure so wide that the dogs could not leap across it. They were going too fast to stop or turn aside, and dogs and sledge were thrown into the water. The two men, who had been running beside the sledge, quickly cut the harness from the dogs. The faithful animals, freed from the traces, sprang to the ice, and with their intelligent help the sledge was dragged out.