"But he's going from Greenland," said Bruce. "That's different."

"Why"

"Steamboat. Farthest point of land north and everything."

"That's just it," exclaimed Barney disgustedly. "Steamboat and
everything. You're not a real explorer unless some society backs you up
with somebody's money to the tune of fifty thousand or so; till you've
got together a group of scholars and seamen for the voyage. Then the
proper thing to do is to get caught in the ice, you are all but lost.
But--the ice clears at the crucial moment, you push on and on for two
years; you live on seal meat and whale blubber. Half your seamen get
scurvy and die; your dogs go mad; your Eskimos prove treacherous, you
shoot one or more. You take long sled journeys, you freeze, you starve,
you erect cairns at your farthest point north, or west, or whatever it
is. Then, if you're lucky, you lose your ship in an ice-jam and walk
home, ragged and emaciated. A man that does it that way gets publicity;
writes a book, gets to be somebody.

"You see," he went on, "we've sort of got in the way of thinking that it
takes a big expedition to do exploring. But, after all, what good does a
big expedition do? Peary didn't need one. He landed at the Pole with two
Eskimos and a negro. Well, now it ought to be easy as nothing for two or
three men in a plane, like that one of the Major's, to go to the Pole
from here. There's a fort and trading post on Great Bear Lake with,
maybe, a power-boat and gasoline. Then, if there happened to be a whaler,
or something, to give you a second lift, why there you are!"