THE TRANS-POLAR DRIFT.
NANSEN AND THE VOYAGE OF THE _FRAM_
Fridtjof Nansen, our foremost living Arctic worthy, a devoted
scientific enquirer and a profound student of Arctic history, had
always taken a broad view of the Arctic problem, mainly with reference
to currents and ocean depths. But the discovery of articles on the
coast of Greenland which had drifted westward from the wreck of the
_Jeanette_ off the Liakhov Islands, first gave him the idea of his
great enterprise[157]. Nansen conceived the project of forcing a vessel
into the pack on the Siberian side, and being drifted across the polar
ocean. From most Arctic experts the idea received no encouragement
whatsoever, but I had a full belief, based on careful study, in the
successful issue of such an expedition[158].
Every article of equipment down to the minutest detail was Nansen’s
own conception. Originality has always been a marked feature of his
character. The matter of first importance then, in his projected
enterprise, was the building of a special vessel to come out uninjured
after the long Arctic drift. In Mr Colin Archer of Laurvik Nansen
found a constructor, careful and resourceful as himself, with long
experience in boat and ship-building. The son of a Scotch boat-builder
who had settled in Norway early in the last century, Colin Archer was
brought up to the craft, and he was the very man to turn Nansen’s ideas
into realities. The result was the _Fram_. The main points were great
strength, and sides constructed in such a manner that the ship would
readily rise during ice pressure. She was also to have large carrying
capacity, her beam being nearly a third of her length[159]. She was
provided with a triple-expansion engine, and her rig was that of a
three-masted fore-and-aft schooner. But the main object of Nansen and
Colin Archer was that “she should slip like an eel out of the embraces
of the ice.”
Nansen’s friend, Baron von Toll, went to the New Siberia Islands in
May 1893, and established a depôt of a month’s provisions at the house
he built in 1886 on the coast of Kotelnoi Island. Dogs were to be
stationed at Khabarova in Pett Strait.
The crew of the _Fram_ numbered 13 including the commander. Sverdrup,
the companion of Nansen on the inland ice of Greenland, was the master;
Sigurd Scott Hansen, a first lieutenant in the navy, went as navigator
and scientific observer; Dr Blessing was surgeon.
In July 1893, the _Fram_ sailed from Norway on this great and novel
enterprise, and on the 29th of that month the dogs were taken on board
at Khabarova. Nansen crossed the Kara Sea, and proceeded along the
coast of Siberia, discovering several small islands. On September 8th,
Cape Chelyuskin was rounded. On the 16th a northern course was shaped,
a little to the west of the new Siberian Islands, and for some days
good progress was made. It was not until the 25th of September that the
_Fram_ was finally frozen in and the famous drift began. Scott Hansen
took astronomical observations every second day, and a snow house was
built on the floe for magnetic observations. Deep sea soundings, with
temperatures at various depths, were periodically taken.
In October 1893 the first great pressure was experienced. The ice was
piling up around the _Fram_, tossing itself into lofty ridges, and
breaking against her sides. In January 1894 matters looked so serious
that preparations were made to abandon the ship, but she withstood and
rose to any pressure, thus fully confirming the correctness of Colin
Archer’s structural plan.
The drift during the first year, from September 1893 to September 1894,
was 189 miles in a northerly direction, from 78° N. to 82° N. In the
second winter Nansen resolved to leave the ship with one companion,
make an attempt to reach the Pole, and return by Franz Josef Land and
Spitsbergen. Sverdrup was to complete the voyage. Nansen selected
Frederik Hjalmar Johansen, a native of Skien, then aged 28, as his
companion. He took 28 dogs, intending to feed them on each other.
His sledges--which were too narrow--were the same pattern as on the
Greenland journey, the runners 3⅙ in. wide and slightly convex,
covered with a thin plate of German silver, and with loose well-tarred
guard-runners of maple underneath the metal ones[160]. Two kayaks
were carried on the sledges, as open lanes of water were sure to be
encountered. His clothing was woollen, his shoes made of the skin of
the hind leg of a reindeer filled with “senegraes” or sedge (_Carex
arenaria_). Leather Lapp boots were used for warmer weather. The tent
was square at the base, ending in a point with a central pole, and had
a canvas floor. The double sleeping-bags were of reindeer skin.
Nansen’s cooking apparatus was rather complicated. Petroleum was found
to generate more heat than spirit in comparison with the weight, 4
gallons lasting 100 days with two hot meals a day. The lamp, called
a “Primus,” was of German silver with lid and cap of aluminium, and
heated two boilers and a vessel for melting snow. For food there was a
sort of pemmican, fish flour, dried boiled potatoes, pea soup, butter,
chocolate, and biscuit. This was no improvement on M’Clintock’s scale
of diet.
Starting on the 14th March, 1895, the ship being in 84° N., there was
good travelling for the first week. But on the 29th ridges of hummocks
commenced, and there was trouble with the sledges, which capsized, and
holes were torn in the kayaks. The travelling got worse and worse,
with ridge after ridge of hummocks, and occasional lanes of water
only covered with thin ice. After 26 days Nansen, who had reached a
latitude of 86° 28′ N., had to turn south and make for the land. It
was very hard work, the dogs were much reduced both in numbers and in
strength, and in May the travellers came to soft snow up to the knees.
In June there was water on the floes, the lanes were opening, and the
five surviving dogs were nearly starving. On the 5th June they halted
for the very necessary business of repairing the kayaks. The open water
stopped all progress with sledges and they were now obliged to launch
the kayaks with the sledges on them. Two dogs only were left.
Land was at length sighted on the 24th July, the Hoidtenland group,
as Nansen named it, consisting of Eva, Liv, and Adelaide Isles, all
covered with glaciers. These little islets are specially interesting,
because Ross’s roseate gull (_Rhodostethia rosea_) was here found to be
numerous, and the group appeared to be their breeding place.
Proceeding on their perilous voyage, Nansen and Johansen found that
they could make safer and quicker progress by securing the kayaks
together. On August 28th they reached an island in the Franz Josef
group, where they resolved to winter. They built a hut, and having
managed to shoot some walrus, they made lamps in which to burn the
oil. But they were in a very precarious position, and suffered great
hardships, remaining in these wretched winter quarters from August 1895
to May 1896.
On May 17th, 1896, the voyage was continued with kayaks lashed and a
sail set. They were stopped twice by gales of wind. Then there was
very nearly a fatal disaster. The two men were busy on shore, when
Johansen suddenly cried out that the kayaks were adrift. It was too
true, and their loss would be certain death. They were lashed together
and drifting along. Nansen plunged into the ice-cold water with his
clothes on. He swam to them but was nearly exhausted before he could
get a hold. At last he tumbled on to them, stiff and half-frozen, and
in paddling them back to the shore he coolly took his gun and shot two
little auks. He was, however, more dead than alive and it was long
before Johansen, using all possible means, could recover him. In the
end of June they again patched the kayaks, and were starting on the
perilous voyage to Spitsbergen, when they had the extraordinary good
fortune to be found by Jackson. They received most cordial hospitality,
and embarked in Jackson’s relief ship for Norway, which they reached
safely in August 1896.
Meanwhile the drift of the _Fram_ had been ably continued by Captain
Sverdrup, with deep-sea soundings and temperatures. On the 17th August
1895 the vessel sustained another severe nip, but rose to it easily.
One more winter, that of 1895–96, was passed, and on May 7th 1896
Sverdrup found that the _Fram_ was in 83° 45′ N., and 12° 50′ E.,
with Spitsbergen to the south. He determined to force his way into
open water, and in 28 days he had worked the ship through 180 miles
of closely-packed ice, reaching the navigable sea to the north of
Spitsbergen and sighting land after 1041 days.
The _Fram_ arrived off Danes Island, where my friend Arnold Pike,
who has all the makings, with opportunities, of a first-rate Arctic
explorer, had built a house, wintering there in 1888–89. In 1897 he
cruised east of Spitsbergen and landed on the Wiche Islands. His house
in Danes Gat was used by the ill-fated Andrée when he was preparing to
start in his balloon, and Sverdrup and his companions found the latter
there with the steamer _Virgo_. But the season was not favourable, and
Andrée returned to Sweden. In 1897 he was again at Pike’s house, and
on July 11th ascended with two companions in the balloon _Eagle_. They
were never more heard of.
The _Fram_ arrived in Norway a few days after Nansen, and the whole
party were once more united, and were welcomed with unbounded
enthusiasm by their countrymen at Christiania.
The drift of the _Fram_, with its continuous scientific observations,
worked out exactly as Nansen hoped and expected. The results threw new
light on the whole Arctic problem. Nansen lifted the veil, and his
expedition was the most important in modern times. It was discovered
that there was a deep ocean to the north of Spitsbergen and Franz Josef
Land, extending beyond the Pole, and the whole of the vast annual
harvest of ice which drifts south between Spitsbergen and Greenland
comes from the north of the _Fram’s_ track. Nansen fixed the position
of the Siberian continental shelf and found that beyond it there was an
ocean with a depth of 2000 fathoms, which is covered with a continual
breaking and shifting expanse of drift ice. The most striking result of
the deep-sea soundings was that while the surface water was very cold,
there was warmer water in the depths.
The results of the expedition were published in six folio volumes,
containing reports on the biology by Professors Collett and Sars, the
geology of Franz Josef Land, and the bathymetrical, astronomical,
meteorological, and magnetic observations. The most valuable and
interesting papers are those by Nansen himself on the bathymetrical
features of the polar seas, and on the continental shelves.
At the great meeting in February 1897 in the Albert Hall Nansen
received a memorable welcome from his English friends. The late King
Edward, then Prince of Wales, who was present, suggested to me that,
though the popular reception had been a great success, he thought that
there should also be a meeting to discuss the scientific results of
Nansen’s expedition. Acting on this advice I called such a meeting and
the result was the best discussion I have ever heard at any meeting
of the Geographical Society. It appeared to me, as I stated at the
time, that the light thrown upon the Arctic problem by Nansen not
only extended our knowledge positively, but had the effect of piecing
together what appeared before to be fragmentary, and of making detached
pieces fit into their proper places and form a consistent whole.
Nansen continued the work in which he took the deepest interest--the
bathymetrical features of the Norwegian Sea, his chief aim being the
greatest attainable accuracy in the construction of instruments and
the working out of results[161]. In 1914 he accompanied a Russian
expedition through the Kara Sea to the Yenisei, and went by land across
Siberia as far as Vladivostok. The result was a most interesting
narrative, but it is the appendix which will prove most valuable
to polar students and navigators. He here gives a list of all the
Kara Sea expeditions from Stephen Burrough in 1556 to the date at
which he wrote, with the results of their voyages; and then, with the
information derived both from books and from his own experience, he
explains the causes of the prevalence of obstructive ice and of its
absence. His conclusion is that steamers should very rarely fail to get
through the ice of the Kara Sea[162].
The great literary achievement of Fridtjof Nansen was the publication
of the valuable work entitled _In Northern Mists--Arctic Exploration in
Early Times_ (1911). It is a monumental work, entailing an incredible
amount of careful research, and the materials are put together and
presented with the skill and judgment of a master hand. In his deeply
interesting introduction, Nansen answers the question “What were
they seeking in the ice and cold,” by a quotation from the old Norse
chronicle, the _King’s Mirror_:--
If you wish to know what men seek in this land, or why men journey
thither in so great danger of their lives, then it is the threefold
nature of man that draws him thither. One part of him is emulation
and desire of fame, for it is a man’s nature to go where there is
likelihood of great danger, and to make himself famous thereby.
Another part is the desire of knowledge, for it is man’s nature
to wish to know and see those parts of which he has heard, and to
find out whether they are as it was told him or not. The third part
is the desire of gain, seeing that men seek after riches in every
place where they learn that profit is to be had, even though there
is great danger in it.
Nansen himself puts it more tersely yet scarcely less impressively.
“From first to last the history of polar exploration is a single mighty
manifestation of the power of the unknown over the mind of man.”