Farthest North Volume I Part 21

"This evening it has begun to blow from the north, but probably this does not mean much; I must hope so, at all events, and trust that we shall soon get a south wind again. But it is not the mild zephyr we yearn for, not the breath of the blushing dawn. No, a cold, biting south wind, roaring with all the force of the Polar Sea, so that the Fram, the two-year-old Fram, may be buried in the snow-storm, and all around her be but a reeking frost--it is this we are waiting for, this that will drift us onward to our goal. To-day, then, Fram, thou art two years old. I said at the dinner-table that if a year ago we were unanimous in believing that the Fram was a good ship, we had much better grounds for that belief to-day, for safely and surely she is carrying us onward, even if the speed be not excessive, and so we drank the Fram's good health and good progress. I did not say too much. Had I said all that was in my heart, my words would not have been so measured; for, to say the truth, we all of us dearly love the ship, as much as it is possible to love any impersonal thing. And why should we not love her? No mother can give her young more warmth and safety under her wings than she affords to us. She is indeed like a home to us. We all rejoice to return to her from out on the icy plains, and when I have been far away and have seen her masts rising over the everlasting mantle of snow, how often has my heart glowed with warmth towards her! To the builder of this home grateful thoughts often travel during the still nights. He, I feel certain, sits yonder at home often thinking of us; but he knows not where his thought can seek the Fram in the great white tract around the Pole. But he knows his child; and though all else lose faith in her, he will believe that she will hold out. Yes, Colin Archer, could you see us now, you would know that your faith in her is not misplaced.

"I am sitting alone in my berth, and my thoughts glide back over the two years that have pa.s.sed. What demon is it that weaves the threads of our lives, that makes us deceive ourselves, and ever sends us forth on paths we have not ourselves laid out--paths on which we have no desire to walk? Was it a mere feeling of duty that impelled me? Oh no! I was simply a child yearning for a great adventure out in the unknown, who had dreamed of it so long that at last I believed it really awaited me. And it has, indeed, fallen to my lot, the great adventure of the ice, deep and pure as infinity; the silent, starlit polar night; nature itself in its profundity; the mystery of life; the ceaseless circling of the universe; the feast of death--without suffering, without regret--eternal in itself. Here in the great night thou standest in all thy naked pettiness, face to face with nature; and thou sittest devoutly at the feet of eternity, intently listening; and thou knowest G.o.d the all-ruling, the centre of the universe. All the riddles of life seem to grow clear to thee, and thou laughest at thyself that thou couldst be consumed by brooding, it is all so little, so unutterably little.... 'Whoso sees Jehovah dies.'

"Sunday, November 4th. At noon I had gone out on a snow-shoe expedition, and had taken some of the dogs with me. Presently I noticed that those that had been left behind at the ship began to bark. Those with me p.r.i.c.ked up their ears, and several of them started off back, with 'Ulenka' at their head. Most of them soon stopped, listening and looking behind them to see if I were following. I wondered for a little while whether it could be a bear, and then continued on my way; but at length I could stand it no longer, and set off homeward, with the dogs dashing wildly on in front. On approaching the ship I saw some of the men setting off with guns; they were Sverdrup, Johansen, Mogstad, and Henriksen. They had got a good start of me in the direction in which the dogs were barking before I, too, got hold of a gun and set off after them. All at once I saw through the darkness the flash of a volley from those in front, followed by another shot; then several more, until at last it sounded like regular platoon firing. What the deuce could it be? They were standing on the same spot, and kept firing incessantly. Why on earth did they not advance nearer? I hurried on, thinking it was high time I came up with my snow-shoes to follow the game, which must evidently be in full flight. Meanwhile they advanced a little, and then there was another flash to be seen through the darkness, and so they went on two or three times. One of the number at last dashed forward over the ice and fired straight down in front of him, while another knelt down and fired towards the east. Were they trying their guns? But surely it was a strange time for doing so, and there were so many shots. Meanwhile the dogs tore around over the ice, and gathered in clumps, barking furiously. At length I overtook them, and saw three bears scattered over the ice, a she-bear and two cubs, while the dogs lay over them, worrying them like mad and tearing away at paws, throat, and tail. 'Ulenka' especially was beside herself. She had gripped one of the cubs by the throat, and worried it like a mad thing, so that it was difficult to get her away. The bears had gone very leisurely away from the dogs, which dared not come to sufficiently close quarters to use their teeth till the old she-bear had been wounded and had fallen down. The bears, indeed, had acted in a very suspicious manner. It seemed just as if the she-bear had some deep design, some evil intent, in her mind, if she could only have lured the dogs near enough to her. Suddenly she halted, let the cubs go on in front, sniffed a little, and then came back to meet the dogs, who at the same time, as if at a word of command, all turned tail and set off towards the west. It was then that the first shot was fired, and the old bear tottered and fell headlong, when immediately some of the dogs set to and tackled her. One of the cubs then got its quietus, while the other one was fired at and made off over the ice with three dogs after it. They soon overtook it and pulled it down, so that when Mogstad came up he was obliged first of all to get the dogs off before he could venture to shoot. It was a glorious slaughter, and by no means unwelcome, for we had that very day eaten the last remains of our last bear in the shape of meat-cakes for dinner. The two cubs made lovely Christmas pork.

"In all probability these were the same bears whose tracks we had seen before. Sverdrup and I had followed on the tracks of three such animals on the last day of October, and had lost them to N.N.W. of the ship. Apparently they had come from that quarter now.

"When they wanted to shoot, Peter's gun, as usual, would not go off; it had again been drenched with vaseline, and he kept calling out: 'Shoot! shoot! Mine won't go off.' Afterwards, on examining the gun I had taken with me to the fray, I found there were no cartridges in it. A nice account I should have given of myself had I come on the bears alone with that weapon!

"Monday, November 5th. As I was sitting at work last night I heard a dog on the deck howling fearfully. I sprang up, and found it was one of the puppies that had touched an iron bolt with its tongue and was frozen fast to it. There the poor beast was, straining to get free, with its tongue stretched out so far that it looked like a thin rope proceeding out of its throat; and it was howling piteously. Bentzen, whose watch it was, had come up, but scarcely knew what to do. He took hold of it, however, by the neck, and held it close to the bolt, so that its tongue was less extended. After having warmed the bolt somewhat with his hand, he managed to get the tongue free. The poor little puppy seemed overjoyed at its release, and, to show its grat.i.tude, licked Bentzen's hand with its b.l.o.o.d.y tongue, and seemed as if it could not be grateful enough to its deliverer. It is to be hoped that it will be some time before this puppy, at any rate, gets fast again in this way; but such things happen every now and then.

"Sunday, November 11th. I am pursuing my studies as usual day after day; and they lure me, too, deeper and deeper into the insoluble mystery that lies behind all these inquiries. Nay! why keep revolving in this fruitless circuit of thought? Better go out into the winter night. The moon is up, great and yellow and placid; the stars are twinkling overhead through the drifting snow-dust.... Why not rock yourself into a winter night's dream filled with memories of summer?

"Ugh, no! The wind is howling too shrilly over the barren ice-plains; there are 33 degrees of cold, and summer, with its flowers, is far, far away. I would give a year of my life to hold them in my embrace; they loom so far off in the distance, as if I should never come back to them.

"But the northern lights, with their eternally shifting loveliness, flame over the heavens each day and each night. Look at them; drink oblivion and drink hope from them: they are even as the aspiring soul of man. Restless as it, they will wreathe the whole vault of heaven with their glittering, fleeting light, surpa.s.sing all else in their wild loveliness, fairer than even the blush of dawn; but, whirling idly through empty s.p.a.ce, they bear no message of a coming day. The sailor steers his course by a star. Could you but concentrate yourselves, you too, O northern lights, might lend your aid to guide the wildered wanderer! But dance on, and let me enjoy you; stretch a bridge across the gulf between the present and the time to come, and let me dream far, far ahead into the future.

"O thou mysterious radiance! what art thou, and whence comest thou? Yet why ask? Is it not enough to admire thy beauty and pause there? Can we at best get beyond the outward show of things? What would it profit even if we could say that it is an electric discharge or currents of electricity through the upper regions of the air, and were able to describe in minutest detail how it all came to be? It would be mere words. We know no more what an electric current really is than what the aurora borealis is. Happy is the child.... We, with all our views and theories, are not in the last a.n.a.lysis a hair's-breadth nearer the truth than it.

"Tuesday, November 13th. Thermometer -38 C. (-36.4 Fahr.). The ice is packing in several quarters during the day, and the roar is pretty loud, now that the ice has become colder. It can be heard from afar--a strange roar, which would sound uncanny to any one who did not know what it was.

"A delightful snow-shoe run in the light of the full moon. Is life a vale of tears? Is it such a deplorable fate to dash off like the wind, with all the dogs skipping around one, over the boundless expanse of ice, through a night like this, in the fresh, crackling frost, while the snow-shoes glide over the smooth surface, so that you scarcely know you are touching the earth, and the stars hang high in the blue vault above? This is more, indeed, than one has any right to expect of life; it is a fairy tale from another world, from a life to come.

"And then to return home to one's cozy study-cabin, kindle the stove, light the lamp, fill a pipe, stretch one's self on the sofa, and send dreams out into the world with the curling clouds of smoke--is that a dire infliction? Thus I catch myself sitting staring at the fire for hours together, dreaming myself away--a useful way of employing the time. But at least it makes it slip unnoticed by, until the dreams are swept away in an ice-blast of reality, and I sit here in the midst of desolation, and nervously set to work again.

"Wednesday, November 14th. How marvellous are these snow-shoe runs through this silent nature! The ice-fields stretch all around, bathed in the silver moonlight; here and there dark cold shadows project from the hummocks, whose sides faintly reflect the twilight. Far, far out a dark line marks the horizon, formed by the packed-up ice, over it a shimmer of silvery vapor, and above all the boundless deep-blue, starry sky, where the full moon sails through the ether. But in the south is a faint glimmer of day low down of a dark, glowing red hue, and higher up a clear yellow and pale-green arch, that loses itself in the blue above. The whole melts into a pure harmony, one and indescribable. At times one longs to be able to translate such scenes into music. What mighty chords one would require to interpret them!

"Silent, oh, so silent! You can hear the vibrations of your own nerves. I seem as if I were gliding over and over these plains into infinite s.p.a.ce. Is this not an image of what is to come? Eternity and peace are here. Nirvana must be cold and bright as such an eternal star-night. What are all our research and understanding in the midst of this infinity?

"Friday, November 16th. In the forenoon I went out with Sverdrup on snow-shoes in the moonlight, and we talked seriously of the prospects of our drift and of the proposed expedition northward over the ice in the spring. In the evening we went into the matter more thoroughly in his cabin. I stated my views, in which he entirely coincided. I have of late been meditating a great deal on what is the proper course to pursue, supposing the drift does not take us so far north by the month of March as I had antic.i.p.ated. But the more I think of it, the more firmly am I persuaded that it is the thing to do. For if it be right to set out at 85, it must be no less right to set out at 82 or 83. In either case we should penetrate into more northerly regions than we should otherwise reach, and this becomes all the more desirable if the Fram herself does not get so far north as we had hoped. If we cannot actually reach the Pole, why, we must turn back before reaching it. The main consideration, as I must constantly repeat, is not to reach that exact mathematical point, but to explore the unknown parts of the Polar Sea, whether these be near to or more remote from the Pole. I said this before setting out, and I must keep it continually in mind. Certainly there are many important observations to be made on board during the further drift of the ship, many which I would dearly like to carry on myself; but all the more important of these will be made equally well here, even though two of our number leave the ship; and there can scarcely be any doubt that the observations we shall make farther north will not many times outweigh in value those I could have made during the remainder of the time on board. So far, then, it is absolutely desirable that we set out.

"Then comes the question: What is the best time to start? That the spring--March, at the latest--is the only season for such a venture there can be no doubt at all. But shall it be next spring? Suppose, at the worst, we have not advanced farther than to 83 north lat.i.tude and 110 east longitude; then something might be said for waiting till the spring of 1896; but I cannot but think that we should thus in all probability let slip the propitious moment. The drifting could not be so wearingly slow but that after another year had elapsed we should be far beyond the point from which the sledge expedition ought to set out. If I measure the distance we have drifted from November of last year with the compa.s.ses, and mark off the same distance ahead, by next November we should be north of Franz Josef Land, and a little beyond it. It is conceivable, of course, that we were no farther advanced in February, 1896, either; but it is more likely, from all I can make out, that the drift will increase rather than diminish as we work westward, and, consequently, in February, 1896, we should have got too far; while, even if one could imagine a better starting-point than that which the Fram will possibly offer us by March 1, 1895, it will, at all events, be a possible one. It must, consequently, be the safest plan not to wait for another spring.

"Such, then, are the prospects before us of pushing through. The distance from this proposed starting-point to Cape Fligely, which is the nearest known land, I set down at about 370 miles, [72] consequently not much more than the distance we covered in Greenland; and that would be easy work enough over this ice, even if it did become somewhat bad towards land. If once a coast is reached, any reasonable being can surely manage to subsist by hunting, whether large or small game, whether bears or sandhoppers. Thus we can always make for Cape Fligely or Petermann's Land, which lies north of it, if our situation becomes untenable. The distance will, of course, be increased the farther we advance northward, but at no point whatever between here and the Pole is it greater than we can and will manage, with the help of our dogs. 'A line of retreat' is therefore secured, though there are those doubtless who hold that a barren coast, where you must first sc.r.a.pe your food together before you can eat it, is a poor retreat for hungry men; but that is really an advantage, for such a retreat would not be too alluring. A wretched invention, forsooth, for people who wish to push on is a 'line of retreat'--an everlasting inducement to look behind, when they should have enough to do in looking ahead.

"But now for the expedition itself. It will consist of 28 dogs, two men, and 2100 pounds of provisions and equipments. The distance to the Pole from 83 is 483 miles. Is it too much to calculate that we may be able to accomplish that distance in 50 days? I do not of course know what the staying powers of the dogs may be; but that, with two men to help, they should be able to do 9 1/2 miles a day with 75 pounds each for the first few days, sounds sufficiently reasonable, even if they are not very good ones. This, then, can scarcely be called a wild calculation, always, of course, supposing the ice to be as it is here, and there is no reason why it should not be. Indeed, it steadily improves the farther north we get; and it also improves with the approach of spring. In 50 days, then, we should reach the Pole (in 65 days we went 345 miles over the inland ice of Greenland at an elevation of more than 8000 feet, without dogs and with defective provisions, and could certainly have gone considerably farther). In 50 days we shall have consumed a pound of pemmican a day for each dog [73]--that is, 1400 pounds altogether; and 2 pounds of provisions for each man daily is 200 pounds. As some fuel also will have been consumed during this time, the freight on the sledges will have diminished to less than 500 pounds; but a burden like this is nothing for 28 dogs to draw, so that they ought to go ahead like a gale of wind during the latter part of the time, and thus do it in less than the 50 days. However, let us suppose that it takes this time. If all has gone well, we shall now direct our course for the Seven Islands, north of Spitzbergen. That is 9, or 620 miles. But if we are not in first-rate condition it will be safer to make for Cape Fligely or the land to the north of it. Let us suppose we decide on this route. We set out from the Fram on March 1st (if circ.u.mstances are favorable, we should start sooner), and therefore arrive at the Pole April 30th. We shall have 500 pounds of our provisions left, enough for another 50 days; but we can spare none for the dogs. We must, therefore, begin killing some of them, either for food for the others or for ourselves, giving our provisions to them. Even if my figures are somewhat too low, I may a.s.sume that by the time twenty-three dogs have been killed we shall have travelled 41 days, and still have five dogs left. How far south shall we have advanced in this time? The weight of baggage was, to begin with, less than 500 pounds--that is to say, less than 18 pounds for each dog to draw. After 41 days this will at least have been reduced to 280 pounds (by the consumption of provisions and fuel and by dispensing with sundry articles of our equipment, such as sleeping-bags, tent, etc., etc., which will have become superfluous). There remain, then, 56 pounds for each of the five dogs, if we draw nothing ourselves; and should it be desirable, our equipment might be still further diminished. With a burden of from 18 to 56 pounds apiece (the latter would only be towards the end), the dogs would on an average be able to do 13-4/5 miles a day, even if the snow-surface should become somewhat more difficult. That is to say, we shall have gone 565 miles to the south, or we shall be 18 1/2 miles past Cape Fligely, on June 1st, with five dogs and nine days' provisions left. But it is probable, in the first place, that we shall long before this have reached land; and, secondly, so early as the first half of April the Austrians found open water by Cape Fligely and abundance of birds. Consequently, in May and June we should have no difficulty as regards food, not to mention that it would be strange indeed if we had not before that time met with a bear or a seal or some stray birds.

"That we should now be pretty safe I consider as certain, and we can choose whichever route we please: either along the northwest coast of Franz Josef Land, by Gillis Land towards Northeast Island and Spitzbergen (and, should circ.u.mstances prove favorable, this would decidedly be my choice), or we can go south through Austria Sound towards the south coast of Franz Josef Land, and thence to Novaya Zemlya or Spitzbergen, the latter by preference. We may, of course, find Englishmen on Franz Josef Land, but that we must not reckon on.

"Such, then, is my calculation. Have I made it recklessly? No, I think not. The only thing would be if during the latter part of the journey, in May, we should find the surface like what we had here last spring, at the end of May, and should be considerably delayed by it. But this would only be towards the very end of our time, and at worst it could not be entirely impa.s.sable. Besides, it would be strange if we could not manage to average 11 1/2 miles a day during the whole of the journey, with an average load for each dog of from 30 to 40 pounds--it would not be more. However, if our calculations should prove faulty, we can always, as aforesaid, turn back at any moment.

"What unforeseen obstacles may confront us?

"1. The ice may be more impracticable than was supposed.

"2. We may meet with land.

"3. The dogs may fail us, may sicken, or freeze to death.

"4. We ourselves may suffer from scurvy.

"1 and 2. That the ice may be more impracticable farther north is certainly possible, but hardly probable. I can see no reason why it should be, unless we have unknown lands to the north. But should this be so--very well, we must take what chance we find. The ice can scarcely be altogether impa.s.sable. Even Markham was able to advance with his scurvy-smitten people. And the coasts of this land may possibly be advantageous for an advance; it simply depends on their direction and extent. It is difficult to say anything beforehand, except that I think the depth of water we have here and the drift of the ice render it improbable that we can have land of any extent at all close at hand. In any case, there must, somewhere or other, be a pa.s.sage for the ice, and at the worst we can follow that pa.s.sage.

"3. There is always a possibility that the dogs may fail us, but, as may be seen, I have not laid out any scheme of excessive work for them. And even if one or two of them should prove failures, that could not be the case with all. With the food they have hitherto had they have got through the winter and the cold without mishap, and the food they will get on the journey will be better. In my calculations, moreover, I have taken no account of what we shall draw ourselves. And, even supposing all the dogs to fail us, we could manage to get along by ourselves pretty well.

"4. The worst event would undeniably be that we ourselves should be attacked by scurvy; and, notwithstanding our excellent health, such a contingency is quite conceivable when it is borne in mind how in the English North Pole Expedition all the men, with the exception of the officers, suffered from scurvy when the spring and the sledge journeys began, although as long as they were on board ship they had not the remotest suspicion that anything of the kind was lying in wait for them. As far, however, as we are concerned, I consider this contingency very remote. In the first place, the English expedition was remarkably unfortunate, and hardly any others can show a similar experience, although they may have undertaken sledge journeys of equal lengths--for example, M'Clintock's. During the retreat of the Jeannette party, so far as is known, no one was attacked with scurvy; Peary and Astrup did not suffer from scurvy either. Moreover, our supply of provisions has been more carefully selected, and offers greater variety than has been the case in former expeditions, not one of which has enjoyed such perfect health as ours. I scarcely think, therefore, that we should take with us from the Fram any germs of scurvy; and as regards the provisions for the sledge journey itself, I have taken care that they shall consist of good all-round, nutritious articles of food, so that I can scarcely believe that they would be the means of developing an attack of this disease. Of course, one must run some risk; but in my opinion all possible precautions have been taken, and, when that is done, it is one's duty to go ahead.

"There is yet another question that must be taken into consideration. Have I the right to deprive the ship and those who remain behind of the resources such an expedition entails? The fact that there will be two men less is of little importance, for the Fram can be handled quite as well with eleven men. A more important point is that we shall have to take with us all the dogs except the seven puppies; but they are amply supplied with sledge provisions and first-cla.s.s sledge equipments on board, and it is inconceivable that in case anything happened to the Fram they should be unable to reach Franz Josef Land or Spitzbergen. It is scarcely likely that in case they had to abandon her it would be farther north than 85; probably not even so far north. But suppose they were obliged to abandon her at 85, it would probably be about north of Franz Josef Land, when they would be 207 miles from Cape Fligely; or if farther to the east it would be some 276 miles from the Seven Islands, and it is hard to believe that they could not manage a distance like that with our equipments. Now, as before, I am of opinion that the Fram will in all probability drift right across the polar basin and out on the other side without being stopped, and without being destroyed; but even if any accident should occur, I do not see why the crew should not be able to make their way home in safety, provided due measures of precaution are observed. Consequently, I think there is no reason why a sledge expedition should not leave the Fram, and I feel that as it promises such good results it ought certainly to be attempted."

END OF VOL. I

NOTES

[1] Frost-giants.

[2] First Crossing of Greenland, Vol. I., p. 30.

[3] Mr. Lytzen, of Julianehaab, afterwards contributed an article to the Geografisk Tidsskrift (8th Vol., 1885-86, pp. 49-51, Copenhagen), in which he expressed himself, so far at least as I understand him, in the same sense, and, remarkably enough, suggested that this circ.u.mstance might possibly be found to have an important bearing on Arctic exploration. He says: "It will therefore be seen that polar explorers who seek to advance towards the Pole from the Siberian Sea will probably at one place or another be hemmed in by the ice, but these ma.s.ses of ice will be carried by the current along the Greenland coast. It is not, therefore, altogether impossible that, if the ship of such an expedition is able to survive the pressure of the ma.s.ses of ice for any length of time, it will arrive safely at South Greenland; but in that case it must be prepared to spend several years on the way."

[4] See on this point Dr. Y. Nielsen, in Forhandlinger i Videnskabsselskabet i Christiania. Meeting held June 11, 1886.

[5] Since writing the above I have tried to make such a calculation, and have come to the conclusion that the aggregate rainfall is not so large as I had at first supposed. See my paper in The Norwegian Geographical Society's Annual, III., 1891-92, p. 95; and The Geographical Journal, London, 1893, p. 5.

[6] The discovery during our expedition of a great depth in the polar basin renders it highly probable that this a.s.sumption is correct.

[7] The experience of our expedition, however, does not point to any such eastward-flowing current along the Siberian coast.

[8] I first thought of choosing the route through Bering Strait, because I imagined that I could reach the New Siberian Islands safer and earlier in the year from that side. On further investigation I found that this was doubtful, and I decided on the shorter route through the Kara Sea and north of Cape Cheliuskin.

[9] As subsequently stated in my lecture in London (Geographical Society's Journal, p. 18), I purposed to go north along the west coast of the New Siberian Islands, as I thought that the warm water coming from the Lena would keep the sea open here.

[10] See the Society's Annual, III., 1892, p. 91.

[11] Both my lecture and the discussion are printed in The Geographical Journal, London, 1893, Vol. I., pp. 1-32.

[12] After our return home, Admiral Nares, in the most chivalrous fashion, sent me a letter of congratulation, in which he said that the Fram's remarkable voyage over the Polar Sea proved that my theory was correct and his scepticism unfounded.

[13] With reference to his statement that Leigh-Smith had observed such icebergs on the northwest coast of Franz Josef Land, it may be remarked that no human being has ever been there.

[14] Nearly 25,000.