Ponies at the Poles: a proud history
Basha O’Reilly reports on the invaluable utilization of ponies inward the exploration of the polar regions.
Who remembers that horses helped men explore the Arctic together with the Antarctic for 43 years?
And 100 years later, Equus caballus together with passenger facial expression just the same! Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 modern-day Siberian Yakut horseman riding inward minus 64 bird weather. © Mikael StrandbergUntil today, the Polar “experts” guide keep been pedestrians who create non sympathize the importance of horses inward these regions. They mistakenly claim equines are non equally robust equally dogs together with that at that spot is zilch for them to consume on the snow.
But the truth is really different.
The utilization of horses at the Poles was started past times the “father of Polar exploration”, the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen.
For the starting fourth dimension crossing of Greenland inward 1888 he improved clothing, invented a stove, introduced pemmican [a concentrated mixture of fat and protein used equally a nutritious food] and recruited a Equus caballus to describe the sledge.
What Nansen knew was that horses could hold upwardly inward freezing climates. This was proved inward 1893 when the English linguistic communication Long Rider, Frederick Jackson, travelled 3000 miles across Siberia inward winter. His sledge was pulled past times Siberian horses, legendary for their resistance to the cold.
The next year, 1894, Jackson became the starting fourth dimension to utilization Russian horses for polar exploration. He took iv of them to Franz Joseph Land together with they were a dandy success. They pulled 700 pound sledges along abominable tracks inward temperatures of -30o F (-34o C).
Jackson noted: “The ponies proved past times far the most useful creature for sledge dragging. They were hardy, together with when the provide of oats together with hay was exhausted, easily accustomed themselves to eating dry out domestic dog biscuit or polar send meat.”
These lessons weren’t lost on the Americans.
In 1903 Anthony Fiala led an expedition into the Arctic Circle. He employed U.S. of A. of America cavalrymen to accept aid of his Siberian horses.
“The ponies were less troublesome than the dogs together with to a greater extent than powerful, dragging loads that astonished us all,” Fiala reported.
At this quest inward history, horses galloped from the Arctic Circle towards the South Pole.
When the Irish Gaelic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton left for Antarctica inward 1907, he took Siberian horses, so creating an extraordinary chain of events which led from Siberia to the Arctic Circle together with so to Antarctica.
Like his Arctic predecessors, Shackleton knew at that spot would live no grazing for his horses, so he turned to the British Army for advice. These experts knew other cultures fed their horses poly peptide equally good equally fodder. To assist Shackleton plough over the South Pole, they invented a meat-based ration for the explorer’s horses.
Shackleton wrote, “It consisted of dried beef, carrots, milk, currants together with sugar, together with was chosen because it provides a large amount of nourishment amongst comparatively petty weight.”
Shackleton had to plough dorsum less than xc miles from his finish only ane horse, Socks, came closer to reaching the South Pole than whatsoever other equine.
The most extraordinary equestrian events happened inward 1910, only they guide keep been forgotten or misinterpreted.
Modern folklore delights inward focusing on the race to the South Pole betwixt the Norwegian Roald Amundsen together with the English linguistic communication Captain Robert Scott.
England also sent Indian mules, which had been trained inward the Himalayas, to Antarctica. The mules pulled the sleds of the rescue political party that institute Captain Scott after he disappeared returning from the South Pole.
Disregarded is the fact that Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II sent Long Rider Wilhelm Filchner to Antarctica at the same time.
Filchner had already explored Central Asia on horseback only he had no Polar experience. He travelled to London to try advice from Sir Ernest Shackleton together with Robert Scott.
Following Shackleton’s example, Scott together with Filchner decided to utilization Manchurian horses. They also agreed to link their expeditions inward Antarctica.
Scott’s lastly words to his German linguistic communication friend were, “See you lot at the Pole.”
The unexpected arrival of Amundsen disrupted these plans.
Scott together with Filchner landed their men, dogs together with horses on contrary sides of Antarctica, only never met. Scott reached the Pole only died on the render journey. Filchner was non able to go really far inland, only he made of import equestrian observations.
Filchner noticed that the dogs considered the ship equally their domicile together with had to live forcibly taken from the vessel, whereas the ponies were impatient to larn to province and, “when they felt terra firma beneath their hooves, they bit, kicked together with pranced from high spirits together with joie de vivre.”
Filchner also noticed the relaxation amongst which his horses pulled sledges weighing 1200 pounds.
“As draught horses, the ponies guide keep achieved miracles!”
When Filchner left Antarctica he turned his horses loose on South Georgia Island, where they thrived for many generations.
The concluding deed inward the drama of the Polar ponies took house at the other side of the planet.
In 1912, twenty-four years after Nansen left Greenland, Danish explorer Johann Koch returned there. He was determined to cross the isle using Icelandic horses.
Koch’s squad arrived inward summer, together with built a hut to overstep the wintertime in. The temperature dropped to -50o, only the mutual depression temperature did no terms to the horses. When they laid off inward March 1913, the temperature was -40o.
Koch had equipped his horses amongst particular equine snowfall shoes that had been used inward Scandinavia for hundreds of years. His expedition travelled to a greater extent than than 750 miles to the westward coast.
Critics struggle that dogs together with skis are preferable to horses.
In 1930, German linguistic communication scientist Alfred Wegener returned to Greenland and, for the starting fourth dimension time inward history, combined all of the innovations painfully acquired past times his predecessors.
Wegener arrived inward Greenland amongst Vigfus Sigurdsson, the equestrian skillful who had served Koch. In add-on to using skis together with sled dogs, the experienced explorers brought 25 Icelandic ponies together with equine snowfall shoes amongst them.
Wegener died inward a blizzard.
That was the terminate of polar exploration amongst horses – only non the terminate of polar travel!
Scott together with Filchner had failed to link their expeditions, only inward 1951 an instance of international equestrian brotherhood reached the Arctic Circle, when Donald Brown from England together with Gorm Skifter from Kingdom of Denmark became the starting fourth dimension modern Long Riders to journeying from Hammerfest, the most northerly town inward the world, to Copenhagen.
But the floor of Polar ponies continues.
This summertime Lithuanian Long Rider Vaidotas Digaitis rode betwixt his hamlet of Laukuva to the Arctic Circle together with back.
Yet what well-nigh the marvellous Siberian horses who began this story? Do they all the same exist?
In the wintertime of 2004 Swedish explorer, Mikael Strandberg, laid off across Siberia on skis. The Long Riders Guild had asked him to respect out if the Yakut horses had survived the Soviet regime.
Strandberg made an amazing discovery. Thousands of the astonishing horses were thriving inward minus 60o weather, equally was the Yakut equestrian culture.
This article starting fourth dimension appeared inward French inward the first-class journal Randonner à Cheval. http://www.randonneracheval.fr/
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