Free The Pole by Eric Walters

I’d learned to trust mine more, too. I was seeing things more clearly, more quickly, noticing little differences that I hadn’t noticed before.
    Captain Bartlett screamed down an order from the crow’s nest for the ship to come to, and within seconds it tilted to one side and followed his direction. I had the strangest thought that it wasn’t anybody steering or responding to his order but the ship itself simply listening and doing what it was told.
    For the first time since we’d left the Etah Fjord, there was land on both sides of us.We were working our way deeper into a bay, a harbour, where the ship would be spending the winter. This was the same place they had wintered before—the farthest north that any ship had ever travelled. Captain Bartlett had done it!
    There were times when I’d had my doubts. Over the past five days we’d been stopped repeatedly. We’d doubled back, tried new routes, sent men out with axes and pry bars and dynamite. One day we’dbarely travelled ten miles. And I was told that the day before we’d sailed almost twenty miles but only gone three miles north.
    I looked out at the coast. It was rough, rocky, and barren. If there was life to be seen it wasn’t going to be from this distance with the naked eye. I pulled up the binoculars that hung around my neck. George had lent them to me.They were hard to focus, but I worked until I had a better look at the shore. The rocks and ruggedness were still visible, but I could also see what looked like grass—probably muskeg— and patches of colour … flowers.
    I caught sight of movement against a cliff. It was small and fleeting, and then I focused. It was birds. Dozens—no, there were hundreds, maybe thousands of birds flying up and down and around the cliff face. They had to be nesting. Amazing. This wasn’t just ice and snow and rock. Even up here, farther north than any man could live, life existed. Birds and flowers, seals and polar bears, and, of course, all the things that lived beneath the surface of the ocean and the ice.
    â€œSee anything interesting?”
    I put down the binoculars. It was Matt.
    â€œI see nothin’ that isn’t interestin’.”
    Matt smiled. “That is a very good answer. Are you going to be happy to be on solid land?”
    â€œI will be, but not as happy as the Eskimos.”
    â€œYou’re right about that. They don’t seem to like being cooped up on a ship. I can’t say I won’t be glad to get the dogs off, as well.”
    â€œThink how I feel!” I said. “You’re not the one cleanin’ up after ’em.Will we be landing today?”
    He nodded. “As soon as we drop anchor, everybody will be put to work to set up a camp on shore.”
    â€œI thought we’d be staying on the ship … living onboard.”
    â€œSome people will stay on the ship, but it’s important to get everything that’s needed off the ship as quickly as possible.You can never tell about the ice.”
    â€œBut … but we’re here … we don’t have to worry about the ice now,” I said.
    â€œWe always have to worry about the ice.Whether we’re moving or not, the ice is always moving. Depending on the winds and currents, the ice can raft, pick the ship up, rip open a hole in the bottom, or tip it onto its side.”
    How could that be?
    â€œLast trip here, the ship was caught in shifting ice and tilted up close to forty-five degrees,” Matt said, holding his arm out to show the angle of the ship. “Then, just as it looked like the Roosevelt was going to be lost, the ice opened, released the ship, and she settled back down into the water.”
    â€œIf that happened, if the ship was lost, how would we get back home?”
    â€œYou’ve been tending to the answer,” Matt said. “Dog teams and sledges would take us down Ellesmere and eventually back to