Manhauling

Manhauling, sometimes expressed as man-hauling: is the pulling forward of sledges, trucks or other load-carrying vehicles by human power unaided by animals or machines. The term is used primarily in connection with travel over snow and ice, and was common during Arctic and Antarctic expeditions before the days of modern motorised traction.

In the years following the end of the Napoleonic wars the British Royal Navy took up polar/cold climate exploration as its chief peacetime activity. Due to its simplicity, manhauling was adopted by the early British naval expeditions, where it quickly became the preferred even the 'traditional' technique. In time it would be hailed as inherently more noble than the sole use of dogs as practised by the native Arctic-dwelling peoples. The technique’s chief advocate was Sir Clements Markham, President of the Royal Geographical Society during the latter part of the 19th century. A figure of considerable influence, he brought his prejudices to bear on the series of great British Antarctic ventures during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, in all of which manhauling was predominant.

Many later writers would condemn manhauling, particularly with heavily loaded sledges, as inefficient and wasteful, citing it as a direct cause of the great Antarctic tragedy of 1910–12—the deaths of Captain Scott and his four companions as they man-hauled their way across the Ross Ice Shelf on their return from the South Pole.

Long before the nations of Europe and America became fascinated with polar exploration the native populations of Northern Canada, Greenland, Lapland and Siberia had trained dogs to draw sledges. Attempts by the early polar explorers to adopt these techniques were rarely successful—the handling of “Eskimo” dogs was recognised as a specialized art; This led to the use of manhauling as a simpler alternative, when the Royal Navy began its long association with polar exploration. The first example of manhauling on a naval Arctic expedition was the journey by William Edward Parry across Melville Island in 1820, when he and his party dragged 800 pounds (360 kg) of equipment on a two-wheeled cart. Thereafter man-hauling began to be seen as a natural, even a 'nobler' alternative to the use of dogs. earned the title of "Father of Arctic Sledging" for his feats of manhauling travel during despatched to search for the missing Franklin expedition. Among McClintock’s admirers on that expedition was a 21-year-old midshipman, Clements Markham

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