During the rest of that day and the whole of that night did the brig
remain fixed on the berg. Early next morning the ice began to move. It
eased off, and the vessel slid gently down the slope on which she had
been forced, and was re-launched safely into the water.
The satisfaction of the crew, on being thus delivered from a position of
much danger, was very great; but they had no sooner escaped from one
peril than they were overtaken by another. A sharp breeze sprang up
from the eastward, and drove them out into the pack, which began to
heave about in a terrible manner under the influence of the wind. Soon
this increased to a gale, and the ice was driven along at great speed by
a strong northerly current.
While this was going on, land was discovered bearing to the northeast.
Here was new danger, for although it was not a lee-shore, still there
was some risk of the vessel being caught among grounded ice-bergs--of
which a few were seen.
The gale increased to such a degree before night that Captain Harvey
began to think of taking shelter under the lee of one of these bergs.
He therefore stood toward one, but before reaching it the vessel
received one or two severe shocks from passing floes. A large berg lay
within half a mile of them. They reached it in safety, and getting
under its lee, lowered a boat and fixed their ice-anchors. Just after
they were fixed, a mass of ice, the size of a ship's long-boat and many
tons in weight, came suddenly up out of the sea with great violence, the
top of it rising above the bulwarks. One corner of it struck the hull
just behind the mainmast, and nearly stove in the bottom of the brig.
This lump was what Arctic voyagers term a "calf." When masses of ice
break off from the bergs far below the surface of the water, they rise
with extreme violence, and ships run great risk of being destroyed by
these calves when they anchor too near to the bergs. Had this calf
struck the _Hope_ a fair blow she must certainly have gone down with all
on board.
They were not yet freed from their troubles, however. In half an hour
the wind shifted a few points, but the stream of the loose ice did not
change. The brig was, therefore, blown right in among the rushing
masses. The three cables that held her were snapped as if they had been
pieces of packthread, and she was whirled out into the pack, where she
drove helplessly, exposed to the fury of the howling storm and the
dangers of the grinding ice. Captain Harvey now felt that he could do
nothing to save his vessel. He believed that if God did not mercifully
put forth His hand to deliver them by a miracle, he and his companions
would certainly perish. In this the captain was wrong. Nothing is
impossible to the Almighty. He can always accomplish his purposes
without the aid of a miracle.
There did, indeed, seem no way of escape; for the driving masses of ice
were grinding each other to powder in nearly every direction, and the
brig only escaped instant destruction by being wedged between two pieces
that held together from some unknown cause. Presently they were carried
down toward a large berg that seemed to be aground, for the loose ice
was passing it swiftly. This was not the case, however. An
undercurrent, far down in the depths of the sea, was acting on this
berg, and preventing it from travelling with the ice that floated with
the stream at the surface. In its passing, the mass of ice that held
them struck one of the projecting tongues beneath the surface, and was
split in two. The brig was at once set free. As they passed they might
almost have leaped upon the berg. Captain Harvey saw and seized his
opportunity.
"Stand by to heave an anchor," he shouted.
Sam Baker, being the strongest man in the ship, sprang to one of the
small ice-anchors that lay on the deck with a line attached to it, and,
lifting it with both hands, stood ready.
The brig passed close to the end of the berg, where the lee-side formed
a long tail of sheltered water. She was almost thrust into this by the
piece of ice from which she had just escaped. She grazed the edge of
the berg as she drove past.
"Heave!" shouted the captain.
Sam Baker swung the anchor round his head as if it had been a feather,
and hurled it far upon the ice. For a few yards it rattled over the
slippery surface; then it caught a lump, but the first strain broke it
off. Just after that it fell into a crack and held on. The brig was
checked, and swung round into the smooth water; but they had to ease off
the line lest it should snap. At last she was brought up, and lay
safely under the shelter of that berg until the storm was over.
Some weeks flew by after this without anything occurring worthy of
particular notice. During this time the _Hope_ made good progress into
the Polar regions, without again suffering severely either from ice or
storm, although much retarded by the thick fogs that prevail in the
Arctic regions. She was indeed almost always surrounded by ice, but it
was sufficiently open to allow of a free passage through it. Many
whales and seals had been seen, also one or two bears, but not in
circumstances in which they could be attacked without occasioning much
delay.
The brief summer had now passed away, and the days began to shorten as
winter approached. Still Captain Harvey hoped to get farther north
before being obliged to search for winter quarters. One morning early
in September, however, he found to his sorrow that pancake-ice was
forming on the sea. When the sea begins to freeze it does so in small
needle-like spikes, which cross and recross each other until they form
thin ice, which the motion of the waves breaks up into flat cakes about
a foot or so across. These, by constantly rubbing against each other,
get worn into a rounded shape. Sailors call this "pancake-ice." It is
the first sign of coming winter. The cakes soon become joined together
as the frost increases.
The place where this occurred was near to those wild cliffs that rise
out of the sea in the channels or straits that lie at the head of
Baffin's Bay. The vessel was now beyond the farthest point of land that
had been discovered at the time of which I am writing, and already one
or two of the headlands had been named by Captain Harvey and marked on
his chart.
"I don't like to see pancake-ice so early in the season," remarked the
captain to Mr Mansell.
"No more do I, sir," answered the mate. "This would be a bad place to
winter in, I fear."
"Land ahead!" was shouted at that moment by the look-out at the
masthead.
"Keep her away two points," said the captain to the man at the helm.
"How does it lie?"
"Right ahead, sir."
"Any ice near it?"
"No; all clear."
The brig was kept a little more out to sea. Soon she came to more open
water, and in the course of four hours was close to the land, which
proved to be a low, barren island, not more than a mile across.
Here the wind died away altogether, and a sharp frost set in. The
pancakes became joined together, and on the following morning, when our
friend Gregory came on deck, he found that the whole ocean was covered
with ice! It did not, indeed, look very like ice, because, being so
thin, it did not prevent the usual swell from rolling over the sea. A
light breeze was blowing, and the brig cut her way through it for some
time; but the breeze soon died away, leaving her becalmed within a
quarter of a mile of the island.
For some time the voyagers hoped that a thaw would take place, or that
wind would break up the ice. But they were disappointed. This was the
first touch of the cold hand of winter, and the last day of the _Hope's_
advance northward.
Seeing this, Captain Harvey set energetically to work to cut his way
into winter quarters, for it would not do to remain all winter in the
exposed position in which his vessel then lay. On his right was the
island, already referred to, about a quarter of a mile off. Beyond
this, about five miles distant, were the high steep cliffs of the
western coast of Greenland. Everywhere else lay the open sea, covered
here and there with floes and bergs, and coated with new ice.
This ice became so thick in the course of another night that the men
could walk on it without danger. By means of saws and chisels made for
the purpose, they cut a passage toward the island, and finally moored
the brig in a small bay which was sheltered on all sides except the
east. This, being the land side, required no protection. They named
the place "Refuge Harbour."
Everyone was now full of activity. The voyagers had reached the spot
where they knew they were destined to spend the winter and much had to
be done before they could consider themselves in a fit state to face
that terrible season.
Winter in the Polar regions extends over eight months of the year--from
September to May. But so much of ice and snow remains there all the
summer that winter can scarcely be said to quit those regions at all.
It is difficult to imagine what the Arctic winter is. We cannot
properly understand the tremendous difficulties and sufferings that men
who go to the Polar seas have to fight against. Let the reader think of
the following facts, and see if he does not draw his chair closer to the
fire and feel thankful that he has not been born an Eskimo, and is not
an Arctic seaman!
Winter within the Arctic circle, as I have said, is fully eight months
long. During that time the land is covered with snow many feet deep,
and the sea with ice of all degrees of thickness--from vast fields of
ten or fifteen feet thick to bergs the size of islands and mountains--
all frozen into one solid mass.
There is no sunlight there, night or day, for three out of these eight
winter months, and there is not much during the remaining five. In
summer there is perpetual sunlight, all night as well as all day, for
about two months--for many weeks the sun never descends below the
horizon. It is seen every day and every night sweeping a complete
circle in the bright blue sky. Having been so free of his light in
summer, the sun seems to think he has a right to absent himself in
winter, for the three months of darkness that I have spoken of are not
months of _partial_ but of _total_ darkness--as far, at least, as the
sun is concerned. The moon and stars and the "Northern Lights" do,
indeed, give their light when the fogs and clouds will allow them; but
no one will say that these make up for the absence of the sun.
Then the frost is so intense that everything freezes solid except pure
spirits of wine. Unless you have studied the thermometer you cannot
understand the intensity of this frost; but for the sake of those who do
know something about extreme cold, I give here a few facts that were
noted down during the winter that my story tells of.
On the 10th of September these ice-bound voyagers had eighteen degrees
of frost, and the darkness had advanced on them so rapidly that it was
dark about ten at night. By the 1st of October the ice round the brig
was a foot and a half thick. Up to this time they had shot white hares
on the island, and the hunting parties that crossed the ice to the
mainland shot deer and musk oxen, and caught white foxes in traps.
Gulls and other birds, too, had continued to fly around them; but most
of these went away to seek warmer regions farther south. Walrus and
seals did not leave so soon. They remained as long as there was any
open water out at sea. The last birds that left them, (and the first
that returned in spring) were the "snow-birds"--little creatures about
the size of a sparrow, almost white, with a few brown feathers here and
there. The last of these fled from the darkening winter on the 7th of
November, and did not return until the 1st of the following May. When
they left it was dark almost all day. The thermometer could scarcely be
read at noon, and the stars were visible during the day. From this time
forward thick darkness set in, and the cold became intense. The
thermometer fell _below_ zero, and after that they never saw it _above_
that point for months together--20 degrees, 30 degrees, and 40 degrees
below were common temperatures. The ice around them was ten feet thick.
On the 1st of December noon was so dark that they could not see fifty
yards ahead, and on the 15th the fingers could not be counted a foot
from the eyes. The thermometer stood at 40 degrees below zero.
The darkness could not now become greater, but the cold still continued
to grow more intense. It almost doubled in severity. In January it
fell to 67 degrees below zero! So great was this cold that the men felt
impelled to breathe gradually. The breath issued from their mouths in
white clouds of steam and instantly settled on their beards and whiskers
in hoar-frost. In the cabin of the _Hope_ they had the utmost
difficulty in keeping themselves moderately warm at this time.
Things had now reached their worst, and by slow degrees matters began to
mend. On the 22nd of January the first faint sign of returning day
appeared--just a blue glimmer on the horizon. By the middle of February
the light tipped the tops of the mountains on shore, and the highest
peaks of the ice-bergs on the sea, and on the 1st of March it bathed the
deck of the _Hope_. Then the long-imprisoned crew began to feel that
spring was really coming. But there was little heat in the sun's rays
at first, and it was not till the month of May that the ice out at sea
broke up and summer could be said to have begun.
During all this long winter--during all these wonderful changes, our
Arctic voyagers had a hard fight in order to keep themselves alive.
Their life was a constant struggle. They had to fight the bears and the
walrus; to resist the cold and the darkness; to guard against treachery
from the natives; and to suffer pains, sickness, and trials, such as
seldom fall to the lot of men in ordinary climates.
How they did and suffered all this I shall try to show in the following
pages. In attempting this I shall make occasional extracts from the
journal of our friend Tom Gregory, for Tom kept his journal regularly,
and was careful to note down only what he heard and saw.