There is a tendency on the part of most writers on the subject of Polar
Regions--especially compilers--to dwell disproportionately on the gloomy
side of the picture; insomuch that readers are led, not to over-estimate
the grand and the terrible aspects of the polar oceans, but to
under-estimate the sweet and the beautiful influences that at certain
periods reign there.
We quarrel not with authors for dwelling on the tremendous and the
awful. Too much cannot be said on these points; but while they do not
by any means paint the dark side of their picture too black, they fail
to touch in the lights with sufficient brilliancy. We have had some
personal experience of the arctic regions, and have found it extremely
difficult to get many persons--even educated men and women--to
understand that there _is_ a summer there, though a short one; that in
many places it is an uncommonly hot and excessively brilliant summer;
and that the sun, as if to make amends for its prolonged absence in
winter, shines all night as well as all day, blazing on the crystal
icebergs and pure snow (which _never_ disappear from those seas) with a
degree of splendour that renders the far north transcendently beautiful
and pre-eminently attractive.
We admit freely that the prevailing character of arctic seas, during the
greater part of the year, is dark, gloomy, forbidding. But this is the
very reason why their brief but cheering smiles should be brought
prominently into the foreground, and, if they cannot in justice be dwelt
on long, at least be touched upon with emphasis.
Why, in some of our cyclopaedia accounts of the realms of "thick-ribbed
ice," so much prominence is given to "the horrors and wide desolation of
the scene," and so much graphic power is expended in working up the
reader's imagination to a conception of the dreadful dangers and the
appalling terrors that await the madman who should dare to venture
within the arctic circle, that persons who have not been there might
well be tempted to shrink in affright from the very contemplation of a
region in which there does not appear to be one redeeming quality.
We repeat, that we do not think the one side of the picture has been too
darkly painted,--but the other side has been painted too slightly.
At the same time, we would caution our readers against jumping to the
opposite extreme. The dark side of the picture is in reality out of all
proportion to the light. And we do not hesitate to state our confirmed
opinion, that the arctic regions are more interesting to read about than
pleasant to dwell in.
Having, then, defended the lights, let us commence our investigations
with the shadows.
Those oceans lying within the arctic circle exhibit phenomena so grand,
so wonderful, and so varied, that they claim distinct and separate
treatment from the ocean as a whole. Here the extreme cold acts with
such power, and produces such extraordinary results, that it is
difficult to find words or similes by which to convey a just conception
of nature's aspects to the general reader.
During nearly two-thirds of the year the arctic regions are under the
absolute dominion of winter; and for many weeks of that bitter season
they are shrouded with the mantle of a dark, sunless night. The entire
ocean is locked in the embrace of a covering of ice many feet thick, so
that its liquid aspect is thoroughly removed; and, owing to ice-masses
scattered over its surface, together with mounds of drifted snow, it
bears a much stronger resemblance to the land than to the sea. Gales of
wind sometimes sweep over those frozen plains in bitter fury, hurling
the snow into the air in vast eddying masses, and threatening
destruction to any living creature that may chance to be exposed to
them--not so much from their violence, however, as from the intense cold
of the atmosphere which is put in motion. But in regard to gales,
although there are no lack of them, they are neither so fierce nor so
frequent as are those of the torrid zone.
It might be supposed that in such a climate animal life could scarcely
exist; but such is not the case. The inhabitants of part of the arctic
regions, named Esquimaux (more correctly Eskimos, with the accent on the
last syllable), are a stout, hardy, healthy race and the polar bears,
foxes, wolves, seals, musk-oxen, walruses, etcetera, that dwell there,
seem to enjoy their existence just as much as do the animals of more
favoured and warmer climes.
During the short but hot summer of the arctic regions, the immense
masses of ice formed in winter are by no means cleared away. A great
part of the heat of early summer (there is no season there that merits
the name of spring) is spent in breaking up the solid crust of ice on
the sea, a large proportion of which is carried south by the currents
that flow to the equator, and melted long before they reach the
temperate zones. But a considerable quantity of broken ice-masses get
locked in narrow places or stranded on shallows; and although they
undergo the process of melting the whole summer, they are not much
diminished ere the returning frost stops the process and locks them in
the new ice of a succeeding winter.
Thus there is no period of the year in which large quantities of ice may
not be seen floating about in the arctic seas.
This fact it is that enables us to speak appropriately of the _scenery_
of the Arctic Ocean. And assuredly this scenery of the ice is
exceedingly and strikingly beautiful. The imagination cannot conceive
the dazzling effect of a bright summer day in those regions, when the
ocean is clear as glass, and ice-humps and ice-mountains of every shape
and size are glittering in the sun's rays with intense brilliancy, while
the delicate whiteness of these floating islands, and the magical
atmospheric illusions by which they are frequently surrounded, render
the scene pre-eminently fairy-like.
All the navigators who have penetrated into the arctic seas speak with
enthusiasm of the splendour of floating ice-masses. They take the most
curious and fantastic shapes; sometimes appearing like great cities of
white marble, with domes and towers and spires in profusion; sometimes
looming huge and grand like fortresses, and many of them with their
summits overhanging so much as to suggest the idea that they are about
to fall. This indeed, they often do, adding to the grandeur of the
scene, and not a little to the danger, should ships chance to be in the
neighbourhood.
The atmospheric illusions, before mentioned, are the result of different
temperatures existing within a few miles of each other, and which are
caused by the presence of large bodies of ice. The effect of this is to
cause the ice-masses on the horizon to appear as if floating in the air,
and to distort them into all sorts of shapes, even turning them upside
down, and thus affording to an innovative mind a most ample and
attractive field wherein to expatiate.
To ascertain the causes of facts and effects so curious must be
interesting to all who have inquiring minds. We will, therefore,
attempt to describe and account for arctic phenomena in the following
chapters as simply as may be.