Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled Part 21

PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE ARCTIC

THERE is no country in which an anastigmatic lens is of more use to the photographer than Alaska, and every camera with which it is hoped to take winter scenes should have this equipment. During two or three months in the year it makes the difference in practice between getting photographs and getting none. In theory one may always set up a tripod and increase length of exposure as light diminishes. But the most interesting scenes, the most attractive effects often present themselves under the severest conditions of weather, and he must be an enthusiast, indeed, who will get his tripod from the sled, pull out its telescoped tubes, set it up and adjust it for a picture with the thermometer at 40 or 50 below zero; and when he is done he is very likely to be a frozen enthusiast.

With an anastigmatic lens working at, say f. 6-3, and with a "speed"

film (gla.s.s plates are utterly out of the question on the trail), it is possible to make a snap-shot at one twenty-fifth of a second on a clear day, around noon, even in the dead of winter, in any part of Alaska that the writer has travelled in. There are those who write that they can always hold a camera still enough to get a sharp negative at even one tenth of a second. Probably the personal equation counts largely in such a matter, and a man of very decided phlegmatic temperament may have advantage over his more sanguine and nervous brother. The thing may be done; the writer has done it himself; but the point is it cannot be depended on; at this speed three out of four of his exposures will be blurred, whereas at one twenty-fifth of a second a sharp, clear negative may always be secured.

It may be admitted at once that at extremely low temperatures the working of any shutter becomes doubtful, and most of them go out of any reliable action altogether. After trying and failing completely with three or four of the more expensive makes of shutters, the writer has for the last few years used a "Volute" with general satisfaction, though in the great cold even that shutter (from which all trace of grease or oil was carefully removed by the makers) is somewhat slowed up, so that a rare exposure at 50 or 60 below zero would be made at an indicated speed of one fiftieth rather than at one twenty-fifth, taking the chance of an under-exposed rather than a blurred negative. To wish for a shutter of absolute correctness and of absolute dependability under all circ.u.mstances, arranged for exposures of one fifteenth and one twentieth as well as one tenth and one twenty-fifth, is probably to wish for the un.o.btainable.

[Sidenote: CARE OF FILMS AND CAMERAS]

The care of the camera and the films, exposed and unexposed, the winter through, when travelling on the Alaskan trail, is a very important and very simple matter, though not generally learned until many negatives have been spoiled and sometimes lenses injured. It may be summed up in one general rule--keep instrument and films always outdoors.

One unfamiliar with arctic conditions would not suppose that much trouble would be caused by that arch-enemy of all photographic preparations and apparatus--damp, in a country where the thermometer rarely goes above freezing the winter through; and that is a just conclusion provided such things be kept in the natural temperature, outdoors. But consider the great range of temperature when the thermometer stands at -50 outdoors, and, say, 75 indoors. Here is a difference of 125. Anything wooden or metallic, especially anything metallic, brought into the house immediately condenses the moisture with which the warm interior atmosphere is laden and becomes in a few moments covered with frost. Gradually, as the article a.s.sumes the temperature of the room, the frost melts, the water is absorbed, and the damage is done as surely as though it had been soused in a bucket. If it be necessary to take camera and films indoors for an interior view--which one does somewhat reluctantly--the films must be taken at once to the stove and the camera only very gradually; leaving the latter on the floor, the coldest part of the room, for a while and shifting its position nearer and nearer until the frost it has acc.u.mulated begins to melt, whereupon it should be placed close to the heat that the water may evaporate as fast as it forms.

Outdoors, camera and films alike are perfectly safe, however intense the cold. Indeed, films keep almost indefinitely in the cold and do not deteriorate at all. One learns, by and by, to have all films sent sealed up in tin cans, _and to put them back and seal them up again when exposed_, despite the maker's instructions not to do so. The maker knows the rules, but the user learns the exceptions. When films are thus protected they may be taken indoors or left out indifferently, as no moist air can get to them.

The rule given is one that all men in this country follow with firearms.

They are always left outdoors, and no iron will rust outdoors in the winter. Unless a man intend to take his gun to pieces and clean it thoroughly, he never brings it in the house. The writer has on several occasions removed an exposed film and inserted a new one outdoors, using the loaded sled for a table, at 50 below zero; taking the chance of freezing his fingers rather than of ruining the film. It is an interesting exercise in dexterity of manipulation. Everything that can be done with the mittened hand is done, the material is placed within easy reach--then off with the mittens and gloves, and make the change as quickly as may be!

There is just one brief season in the year when high speeds of shutters may be used: in the month of April, when a new flurry of snow has put a mantle of dazzling whiteness upon the earth and the sun mounts comparatively high in the heavens. Under such circ.u.mstances there is almost, if not quite, tropical illumination. Here is a picture of native football at the Allakaket, just north of the Arctic Circle, made late in April with a Graflex, fitted with a lens working at f. 4.5, at the full speed of its focal-plane shutter--one one-thousandth of a second. In five years' use that was the only time when that speed was used, or any speed above one two-hundred-and-fiftieth. Commonly, even in summer, many more exposures are made with it at one fiftieth than at one one-hundredth, for this is not a brightly lit country in summer, and nearly all visitors and tourists find their negatives much under-timed.

The Graflex, though unapproached in its own sphere, is not a good all-round camera, despite confident a.s.sertions to the contrary. It is too bulky to carry at all in the winter, and its mechanism is apt to refuse duty in the cold. The 3A Graflex cannot be turned to make a perpendicular photograph, but must always be used with the greatest dimension horizontal. Except in brilliant sunshine it is difficult to get a sharp focus, and, even though the focus appear sharp on the ground gla.s.s, the negative may prove blurred. Then the instrument is a great dust catcher and seems to have been constructed with a perverse ingenuity so as to make it as difficult as possible to clean.

The writer uses his Graflex almost solely for native portraits and studies, for which purpose it is admirable, and has enabled him to secure negatives that he could not have obtained with any other hand camera. Even in the summer, however, he always carries his 3A Folding Pocket Kodak as well, and uses it instead of the Graflex for landscapes and large groups. If he had to choose between the two instruments and confine himself to one, he would unhesitatingly choose the Folding Pocket Kodak.

The difficulties of winter photography in Alaska do not end with the making of the exposure. All water must be brought up in a bucket from a water-hole in the river, and though it be clear water when it is dipped up from under the ice, it is chiefly ice by the time it reaches the house, during any cold spell. One learns to be very economical of water when it is procured with such difficulty, learns to dry prints with blotting-paper between the successive washings, which is the best way of washing with the minimum of water. Blotting-paper is decidedly cheaper than water under some circ.u.mstances.

While the rivers run perfectly clear and bright under the ice in the winter, in summer the turbid water of nearly all our large streams introduces another difficulty, and photographic operation must sometimes be deferred for weeks, unless the rain barrels be full or enough ice be found in the ice-house, over and above the domestic needs, to serve.

[Sidenote: EFFECT OF COLD ON EMULSIONS]

It seems certain that the speed of the sensitive emulsions with which the films are covered is reduced in very cold weather. To determine whether or not this was so, the following experiments were resorted to.

The camera was brought out of the house half an hour before noon, at 50 below zero, and an exposure made immediately. Then the camera was left in position for an hour and another exposure made. There was little difference in the strength of the negatives, and what difference there was seemed in favour of the second exposure. Evidently, if the emulsion had slowed, the shutter had slowed also; so opportunity was awaited to make a more decisive test. When there remained but one exposure on a roll of film, the camera was set outdoors at a temperature of 55 below zero and left for an hour. Then an exposure was made and the film wound up and withdrawn; while a new film, just brought from the house, was as quickly as possible inserted in its place and a second exposure made.

The latter was appreciably stronger. Even this test is, of course, not entirely conclusive; one would have to be quite sure that the emulsions were identical; but it confirms the writer's impression that extreme cold slows the film. It would be an easy matter for the manufacturers to settle this point beyond question in a modern laboratory, and it is certainly worth doing.

There is much sameness about winter scenes in Alaska, as the reader has doubtless already remarked; yet the sameness is more due to a lack of alertness in the photographer than to an absence of variety. If the traveller had nothing to think about but his camera, if all other considerations could be subordinated to the securing of negatives, then, here as elsewhere, the average merit of pictures would be greater.

Sometimes the most interesting scenes occur in the midst of stress of difficult travel when there is opportunity for no more than a fleeting recognition of their pictorial interest. "Tight places" often make attractive pictures, but most commonly do not get made into pictures at all. The study of the aspects of nature is likely to languish amidst the severe weather of the Northern winter, and the bright, clear, mild day gets photographed into undue prominence. Snow is more or less white and spruce-trees in the ma.s.s are more or less black; one dog team is very like another; a native village has to be known very well, indeed, to be distinguishable from another native village. Yet there is individuality, there is distinction, there is variety, there is contrast, if a man have but the grace to recognise them and the zeal to record them. Snow itself has infinite variety; trees, all of them, have characters of their own.

Dogs differ as widely as men and Indians as widely as white men.

[Sidenote: INDIANS AND PHOTOGRAPHS]

The fear of the camera, or the dislike of the camera, that used to affect the native mind is gone now, save, perhaps, in certain remote quarters, and these interesting people are generally quite willing to stand still and be snapped. They ask for a print, and upon one's next visit there is clamorous demand for "picter, picter." A famous French physician said that his dread of the world to come lay in his expectation that the souls he met would reproach him for not having cured a certain obstinate malady that he had much repute in dealing with; so the travelling amateur in photography sometimes feels his conscience heavy under a load of promised pictures that he has forgotten or has been unable to make. He feels that his native friends whom he shall meet in the world to come will a.s.suredly greet him with "where's my picture?" The burden increases all the time, and the Indian never forgets. It avails nothing even to explain that the exposure was a failure. A picture was promised; no picture has been given; that is as far as the native gets. And the making of extra prints, in the cases where it is possible to make them, is itself quite a tax upon time and material.

Just as it is true that to be well informed on any subject a man must read a great deal and be content not to have use for a great deal that he reads, so to secure good photographs of spots and scenes of note as he travels, he must make many negatives and be content to destroy many.

The records of a second visit in better weather or at a more favourable season will supersede an earlier; typical groups more casual ones. The standard that he exacts of himself rises and work he was content with contents him no more. Sometimes one is tempted to think that the main difference between an unsuccessful and a successful amateur photographer is that the former h.o.a.rds all his negatives while the latter relentlessly burns those which do not come up to the mark--if not at once, yet a.s.suredly by and by. So the surprise that one feels at many of the ill.u.s.trations in modern books of arctic travel is not that the travellers made such poor photographs but that they kept them and used them; for there can be no question that poor photographs are worse than none at all.

CHAPTER XIII

THE NORTHERN LIGHTS

THE Northern Lights are a very common phenomenon of interior Alaska, much more common than in the very high lat.i.tudes around the North Pole, for it has been pretty well determined that there is an auroral pole, just as there is a magnetic pole and a pole of cold, none of which coincides with the geographical Pole itself. All the arctic explorers seem agreed that north of the 80th parallel these appearances are less in frequency and brilliance than in the regions ten or fifteen degrees farther south. It may be said roundly that it is a rare thing in winter for a still, clear night, when there is not much moon, to pa.s.s without some auroral display in the interior of Alaska. As long as we have any night at all in the early summer, and as soon as we begin to have night again late in the summer, they may be seen; so that one gains the impression that the phenomenon occurs the year round and is merely rendered invisible by the perpetual daylight of midsummer.

[Sidenote: A GENERAL AURORA]

The Alaskan auroras seem to divide themselves into two great cla.s.ses, those that occupy the whole heavens on a grand scale and appear to be at a great distance above the earth, and those that are smaller and seem much closer. Inasmuch as a letter written from Fort Yukon to a town in Ma.s.sachusetts describing one of the former cla.s.s brought a reply that on the same night a brilliant aurora was observed there also, it would seem that auroras on the grand scale are visible over a large part of the earth's surface at once, whereas the lesser manifestations, though sometimes of great brilliance and beauty, give one the impression of being local.

One gets, unfortunately, so accustomed to this light in the sky in Alaska that it becomes a matter of course and is little noticed unless it be extraordinarily vivid. Again, often very splendid displays occur in the intensely cold weather, when, no matter how warmly one may be clad, it is impossible to stand still long outdoors, and outdoors an observer must be to follow the constant movement that accompanies the aurora. Moreover, there is something very tantalising in the observing, for it is impossible to say at what moment an ordinary waving auroral streamer that stretches its greenish milky light across the sky, beautiful yet commonplace, may burst forth into a display of the first magnitude, or if it will do so at all.

The winter traveller has the best chance for observing this phenomenon, because much of his travel is done before daylight, and often much more than he desires or deserves is done after daylight; while, if his journeys be protracted so long as snow and ice serve for pa.s.sage at all, towards spring he will travel entirely at night instead of by day.

It is intended in this chapter merely to attempt a description of a few of the more striking auroral displays that the writer has seen, the accounts being transcribed from journals written within a few hours, at most, from the time of occurrence, and in the first case written so soon as he went indoors.

This was on the 6th of October, 1904, at Fairbanks, a little removed from the town itself. When first the heavens were noticed there was one clear bow of milky light stretching from the northern to the southern horizon, reflected in the broken surface of the river, and glistening on the ice cakes that swirled down with the swift current. Then the southern end of the bow began to twist on itself until it had produced a queer elongated corkscrew appearance half-way up to the zenith, while the northern end spread out and bellied from east to west. Then the whole display moved rapidly across the sky until it lay low and faint on the western horizon, and it seemed to be all over. But before one could turn to go indoors a new point of light appeared suddenly high up in the sky and burst like a pyrotechnic bomb into a thousand pear-shaped globules with a molten centre flung far out to north and south. Then began one of the most beautiful celestial exhibitions that the writer has ever seen. These globules stretched into ribbon streamers, dividing and subdividing until the whole sky was filled with them, and these ribbon streamers of greenish opalescent light curved constantly inward and outward upon themselves, with a quick jerking movement like the cracking of a whip, and every time the ribbons curved, their lower edges frayed out, and the fringe was prismatic. The pinks and mauves flashed as the ribbon curved and frayed--and were gone. There was no other colour in the whole heavens save the milky greenish-white light, but every time the streamers thrashed back and forth their under edges fringed into the glowing tints of mother-of-pearl. Presently, the whole display faded out until it was gone. But, as we turned again to seek the warmth of the house, all at once tiny fingers of light appeared all over the upper sky, like the flashing of spicules of alum under a microscope when a solution has dried to the point of crystallisation, and stretched up and down, lengthening and lengthening to the horizon, and gathering themselves together at the zenith into a crown. Three times this was repeated; each time the light faded gradually but completely from the sky and flashed out again instantaneously.

For a full hour, until it was impossible to stand gazing any longer for the cold, the fascinating display was watched, and how much longer it continued cannot be said. It was a grand general aurora, high in the heavens, not vividly coloured save for the prismatic fringes, but of brilliant illumination, and remarkable amongst all the auroras observed since for its sudden changes and startling climaxes. Draped auroras are common in this country, though it has been wrongly stated that they are only seen near open seas, but their undulations are generally more deliberate and their character maintained; this one flashed on and off and changed its nature as though some finger were pressing b.u.t.tons that controlled the electrical discharges of the universe. Yet it was noticed that even in its brightest moments the light of the stars could be seen through it.

[Sidenote: A LOCAL AURORA]

The next aurora to be described was of a totally different kind. It occurred on the 18th of March, 1905. The writer, with an Indian attendant, was travelling on the Koyukuk River from Coldfoot to Bettles, and, owing to a heavy, drifted trail, night had fallen while yet the road-house was far away. There was no moon and the wind-swept trail was wholly indistinguishable from the surrounding snow, yet to keep on the trail was the only chance of going forward at all, for whenever the toboggan slid off into the deep, soft snow it came to a standstill and had to be dragged laboriously back again. A good leader would have kept the trail, but we had none such amongst our dogs that year. Thus, slowly, we went along in the dark, continually missing the trail on this side and on that. We did not know on which bank of the river the road-house was situated, for it was our first journey in those parts. We only knew the trail would take us there could we follow it. All at once a light burst forth, seemingly not a hundred yards above our heads, that lit up that trail like a search-light and threw our shadows black upon the snow. There was nothing faint and fluorescent about that aurora; it burned and gleamed like magnesium wire. And by its light we were able to see our path distinctly and to make good time along it, until in a mile or two we were gladdened by the sight of the candle shining in the window of the road-house and were safe for the night.

Now, one does not really know that this was an aurora at all, save that there was nothing else it could have been. It was a phenomenon altogether apart from the one first described; not occupying the vault of heaven, streaming from horizon to zenith; not remote and majestic.

There was really little opportunity to observe it at all; one's eyes were fixed upon the trail it illumined, anxious not to set foot to the right or left. Save for an occasional glance upward, we saw only its reflected light upon the white expanse beneath. It was simply a streak of light right above our heads, holding steadily in position, though fluctuating a little in strength--a light to light us home, that is what it was to us. And it was the most surprising and opportune example of what has been referred to here as the _local_ aurora that eight winters have afforded. The most opportune but not the most beautiful; the next to be described, though of the local order, was the most striking and beautiful manifestation of the Northern Lights the writer has ever seen.

It was that rare and lovely thing--a coloured aurora--all of one rich deep tint.

[Sidenote: A RED AURORA]

It was on the 11th of March, 1907, on the Chandalar River, a day's march above the gap by which that stream enters the Yukon Flats and five days north of Fort Yukon. A new "strike" had been made on the Chandalar, and a new town, "Caro," established;--abandoned since. All day long we had been troubled and hindered by overflow water on the ice, saturating the snow, an unpleasant feature for which this stream is noted; and when night fell and we thought we ought to be approaching the town, it seemed yet unaccountably far off. At last, in the darkness, we came to a creek that we decided must surely be Flat Creek, near the mouth of which the new settlement stood; and at the same time we came to overflow water so deep that it covered both ice and snow and looked dangerous. So the dogs were halted while the Indian boy went ahead cautiously to see if the town were not just around the bend, and the writer sat down, tired, on the sled. While sitting there, all at once, from the top of the mountainous bluff that marked the mouth of the creek, a clear red light sprang up and spread out across the sky, dyeing the snow and gleaming in the water, lighting up all the river valley from mountain to mountain with a most beautiful carmine of the utmost intensity and depth. In wave after wave it came, growing brighter and brighter, as though some gigantic hand on that mountain top were flinging out the liquid radiance into the night. There was no suggestion of any other colour, it was all pure carmine, and it seemed to acc.u.mulate in mid-air until all the landscape was bathed in its effulgence. And then it gradually died away.

The native boy was gone just half an hour. It began about five minutes after he left and ended about five minutes before he returned, so that its whole duration was twenty minutes. There had been no aurora at all before; there was nothing after, for his quest had been fruitless, and, since we would not venture that water in the dark, we made our camp on the bank and were thus two hours or more yet in the open. The boy had stopped to look at it himself, "long time," as he said, and declared it was the only red aurora he had ever seen in his twenty odd years' life.

It was a very rare and beautiful sight, and it was hard to resist that impression of a gigantic hand flinging liquid red fire from the mountain top into the sky. Its source seemed no higher than the mountain top--seemed to be the mountain top itself--and its extent seemed confined within the river valley.

[Sidenote: A GRAND GENERAL DISPLAY]

There is only one other that shall be described, although there are many mentioned with more or less particularity in the diaries of these travels. And this last one is of the character of the first and not at all of the second and third, for it was on the grand scale, filling all the heavens, a phenomenon, one is convinced, of an order distinct and different from the local, near-at-hand kind. There was exceptionally good opportunity for observing this display, since it occurred during an all-night journey, the night of the 6th of April, 1912, with brilliant starlight but no moon while we were hastening to reach Eagle for Easter.

We had made a new traverse from the Tanana to the Yukon, through two hundred miles of uninhabited country, and had missed the head of the creek that would have taken us to the latter river in thirty miles, dropping into one that meandered for upward of a hundred before it discharged into the great river. It was one o'clock on Good Friday morning when we reached a road-house on the Yukon eighty miles from Eagle. The only chance to keep the appointment was to travel all the two remaining nights. So we cached almost all our load at the road-house, for we should retrace our steps when Eagle was visited, and thus were able to travel fast.

Both nights were marked by fine auroral displays, so extensive and of such apparent height as to give the impression that they must be visible over large areas of the earth. Both continued all night long and were of the same general description, but the second night's display was emphasised in its main features and elaborated in its detail, and was the more striking and notable and worthy of description.

It began by an exquisite and delicate weaving of fine, fluorescent filaments of light in and out among the stars, until at times a perfect network was formed, like lace amidst diamonds, first in one quarter of the heavens, then in another, then stretching and weaving its web right across the sky. The Yukon runs roughly north and south in these reaches, and the general trend of the whole display was parallel with the river's course. For an hour or more the ceaseless extension and looping of these infinitely elastic threads of light went on, with constant variation in their brilliance but no change in their form and never an instant's cessation of motion.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photo by Paul Schultz.

THE SUN DOGS.]