| Summary: | Sleeping bag made of reindeer (caribou) hide, circa 1884. A hand-penned paper label dating from the 1890s is stitched to the hide, and reads: "Sleeping Bag From The Greely expedition (U.S. Steamer Bear Sent to their Rescue)." The sleeping bag originated with the rescue vessel USS Bear, sent to locate, if possible, members of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition led by Lt. Adolphus Greely. The Expedition was part of the first cooperative effort among a dozen countries around the world to collect and share meteorological data from the Arctic Circle, which would be used to understand the earth's climate as a system. In 1882 the Greely party had established a base on Ellsmere Island, which they called Fort Conger. Proteus, the vessel that brought the team to Ellsmere Island, dropped them off in August of 1881 and departed, leaving the men without the means to return, and dependent upon two planned re-supplying missions, both of which ended in disasterous failure. At the time of the rescue attempt by USS Bear and USS Thetis, it was unknown if any men were alive and if so, where they were located, since they could have left Fort Conger in search of the supplies that were to be secured for them in caches. Of the 26 men in the Greely party, eventually seven were found alive, only hours from death. The date of the rescue was June 22, 1884. Most of the men had perished of starvation and cold, or drowning; one was shot for stealing food. One of the seven remaining men died soon after the rescue. Images of the rescue scenes show the survivors placed in this type of sleeping bag. The bags that the men had been using were far beyond use at that point, even partly eaten as the men tried to stave off hunger. The sleeping bag is 7 feet long and and 2.5 feet wide, with wooden toggles and hide loops that fasten across the center to secure the opening and keep out wind and cold. At the "head" end there is circular opening for the sleeper's face, and above it, a triangular flap with a toggle fastener to pull over the face. It should be ...
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