ROUND ABOUT
THE NORTH POLE
[Illustration: "DONE UP"]
Frontispiece
ROUND ABOUT
THE NORTH POLE
BY W. J. GORDON
WITH WOODCUTS AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
BY EDWARD WHYMPER
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET
1907
_Printed in Great Britain_
PREFACE
Among the many books about the Polar regions there is none quite like
this, dealing with the gradual progress of exploration towards the north
along the different areas of advance within the Arctic Circle.
The subject is always interesting, for few regions have been the scene
of more persistent effort and exciting adventure and unexpected gains
from the unknown, particularly in the earlier days when the endeavour to
find the northern passages to the east and west led to the beginning of
our foreign trade.
It is often asked, "What is the use of further Arctic discovery?" No one
knows. Nor did any one know the use of most discoveries before they were
made.
When Eric landed in Greenland he was not in search of cryolite for
aluminium. When Cabral sailed to Porto Seguro he knew nothing of the
incandescent gas-mantle. When Oersted looped the live wire round the
magnetic needle he was not bent on founding electrical engineering. And
when Linnæus noticed the sleep of plants he had no intention of
providing a substitute for a clock in high latitudes where, though the
sunshine is continuous during the summer, the plants within the Circle
sleep as in the night time, their sleeping leaves telling the traveller
that midnight is at hand.
Men have made up their minds to reach the Pole, and thither they will
go. What they will find when they get there may not promise to be much,
but what they have found round about it has been enough to influence
considerably the history of the world.
W. J. G.
_July, 1907._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
SPITSBERGEN 1
CHAPTER II
SPITSBERGEN (_continued_) 24
CHAPTER III
NOVAYA ZEMLYA 49
CHAPTER IV
FRANZ JOSEF LAND 64
CHAPTER V
CAPE CHELYUSKIN 84
CHAPTER VI
THE LENA DELTA 106
CHAPTER VII
BERING STRAIT 127
CHAPTER VIII
THE AMERICAN MAINLAND 146
CHAPTER IX
THE PARRY ISLANDS 170
CHAPTER X
BOOTHIA 190
CHAPTER XI
BAFFIN BAY 215
CHAPTER XII
SMITH SOUND 235
CHAPTER XIII
GREENLAND 259
INDEX 287
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"DONE UP" _Frontispiece_
From Nansen's _First Crossing of Greenland_
(Longmans)
TO FACE PAGE
THE SUMMIT OF ORAEFA 2
From a photograph
COLUMBUS 4
From the portrait at Versailles
SAMOYEDS AND THEIR DWELLINGS 10
From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans)
FRANZ JOSEF FIORD 14
From a drawing by Lieutenant Julius Payer
WHALERS AMONG ICEBERGS 30
From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans)
SIR JOHN FRANKLIN 34
From _Le Tour du Monde_, 1860 (Hachette)
TRACK OF H.M.S. "DOROTHEA" AND "TRENT" 36
From _A Voyage of Discovery towards the North Pole,
performed in His Majesty's Ships "Dorothea" and
"Trent," under the command of Capt. David Buchan,
R.N., 1818_, by Capt. F. W. Beechey, R.N., F.R.S.
(Richard Bentley, 1843.)
PARRY CAMPED ON THE ICE 40
From Captain Parry's _Narrative_, 1828 (Murray)
PARRY'S BOATS AMONG THE HUMMOCKS 42
From Captain Parry's _Narrative_, 1828 (Murray)
HOW OUR SHIP STUCK FAST IN THE ICE 50
From _A True Description_, by Gerrit de Veer
(Hakluyt Society, 1853)
HOW WE NEARLY GOT INTO TROUBLE WITH THE SEA-HORSES 56
From _A True Description_, by Gerrit de Veer
(Hakluyt Society, 1853)
ADOLF ERIK NORDENSKIÖLD 90
From a photograph
FRIDTJOF NANSEN 96
With autograph. From a photograph supplied by
himself
REINDEER 112
By permission. From _Short Stalks_, by Edward
Buxton (Stanford)
SAMOYED MAN 114
From Seebohm's _Siberia in Asia_ (Murray)
OSTIAK MAN 116
From Seebohm's _Siberia in Asia_ (Murray)
THE FACE OF THE FUR SEAL 130
From _The Seal Islands of Alaska_, by Henry W.
Elliott (Washington, 1881)
THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS 132
From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans). From an
original Sketch by Frederick Whymper
DRIVING THE FUR SEAL 134
From _The Seal Islands of Alaska_, by Henry W.
Elliott (Washington, 1881)
FUR SEALS AT SEA 136
From _The Seal Islands of Alaska_, by Henry W.
Elliott (Washington, 1881)
THE PARKA OF THE ALASKAN INNUITS 138
From Whymper's _Alaska_ (Sampson Low)
THE FROZEN YUKON 140
From Whymper's _Alaska_ (Sampson Low)
ASCENDING THE YUKON 142
From Whymper's _Alaska_ (Sampson Low)
MOOSE-HUNTING ON THE YUKON 144
From Whymper's _Alaska_ (Sampson Low)
MAHLEMUT MAN 146
From Whymper's _Alaska_ (Sampson Low)
WINTER TRAVELLING ON THE GREAT SLAVE LAKE 150
From Franklin's _Journey to the Polar Sea_, 1819-22
(Murray, 1823)
CROSSING POINT LAKE 152
From Franklin's _Journey to the Polar Sea, 1819-22_
(Murray, 1823)
KUTCHIN INDIANS 154
From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans). From an
original sketch by Frederick Whymper
PREPARING AN ENCAMPMENT ON THE BARREN GROUNDS 156
From Franklin's _Journey to the Polar Sea, 1819-22_
(Murray, 1823)
SIR JOHN RICHARDSON 158
With autograph, from a letter in the possession of
Edward Whymper
BACK'S JOURNEY DOWN THE GREAT FISH RIVER 160
From Back's _Arctic Land Expedition to the mouth of
the Great Fish River in the years 1833, 1834, and
1835_ (Murray, 1836)
SIR WILLIAM EDWARD PARRY 170
With autograph, from a letter in the possession of
Edward Whymper
SIR JOHN BARROW 178
With autograph
H.M.S. "HECLA" AND "GRIPER" IN WINTER HARBOUR 180
From _A Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west
Passage_, by Capt. Parry (Murray, 1821)
PARRY'S DISCOVERIES ON HIS FIRST VOYAGE 182
From _A Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west
Passage_, by Captain Parry (Murray, 1821)
AN IGLOOLIK ESKIMO CARRYING HIS KAYAK 190
From Parry's _Second Voyage_ (Murray, 1824)
PARRY'S FARTHEST ON HIS THIRD VOYAGE 192
From Parry's _Third Voyage_ (Murray, 1826)
THE "VICTORY" 194
From Sir J. Ross's _Arctic Expedition, 1829-33_
(Webster, 1835)
NORTH HENDON 196
From Sir J. Ross's _Arctic Expedition, 1829-33_
(Webster, 1835)
ESKIMO LISTENING AT A SEAL-HOLE 198
From Parry's _Second Voyage_ (Murray, 1824)
H.M.S. "TERROR" LIFTED BY ICE 202
From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans)
FRACTURED STERN-POST OF H.M.S. "TERROR" 204
From Capt. Back's _Narrative, 1838_ (Murray)
THE "FOX" ESCAPING FROM THE PACK 208
From M'Clintock's _Voyage of the "Fox"_
THE "FOX" ON A ROCK 210
From M'Clintock's _Voyage of the "Fox"_
DISCOVERY OF THE CAIRN 212
From M'Clintock's _Voyage of the "Fox"_
SIR MARTIN FROBISHER 216
From _The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher_
(Hakluyt Society, 1867)
ESKIMO AWAITING A SEAL 222
From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans)
A GREENLANDER IN HIS KAYAK 224
From _Le Tour du Monde_, 1868 (Hachette)
BAFFIN BAY IN 1819 232
From _A Voyage of Discovery_, by Capt. John Ross
(Longmans, 1819)
DR. E. K. KANE 234
From the Frontispiece to Kane's _Arctic
Explorations_, 1856
KALUTUNAH 236
From _Le Tour du Monde_, 1868 (Hachette)
THE EAST COAST OF SMITH SOUND 238
From Hayes' _Open Polar Sea_ (Sampson Low)
DR. I. I. HAYES 240
By permission, from Hayes' _Open Polar Sea_
THE SHORES OF KENNEDY CHANNEL 242
From Hayes' _Open Polar Sea_
TYNDALL GLACIER 244
From Hayes' _Open Polar Sea_
A SEAL IN DANGER 246
From Parry's _Second Voyage for the Discovery of a
North-west Passage_ (Murray, 1824)
SIR GEORGE NARES 248
From a photograph
SLEDGES USED BY SIR LEOPOLD M'CLINTOCK AND SIR GEORGE 254
NARES
(In the collection of Edward Whymper)
BISHOP PAUL EGEDE 258
From the Frontispiece to _Efterretninger om
Grönland_ (Copenhagen)
GREENLANDERS 260
From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans)
ON LEVEL GROUND 262
Nansen's _First Crossing of Greenland_ (Longmans)
THE ALLAN LINER "SARDINIAN" AMONG ICEBERGS 264
From a photograph
THE "GERMANIA" IN THE ICE 266
From _Le Tour du Monde_, 1874 (Hachette)
THE REGION ROUND MOUNT PETERMANN 268
From a drawing by Lieutenant Julius Payer
THE LAST DAYS OF THE "HANSA" 270
From _Le Tour du Monde_, 1874 (Hachette)
ROBERT E. PEARY 280
With autograph, from a letter in the possession of
Edward Whymper From _Nearest the Pole_, by
Commander Peary. By permission of Hutchinson and
Co.
SECTIONAL MAPS
1. SPITSBERGEN 12
2. CAPE CHELYUSKIN 84
3. THE LENA DELTA 106
4. BERING STRAIT 128
5. THE PARRY ISLANDS 174
6. GREENLAND 272
ROUND ABOUT
THE NORTH POLE
CHAPTER I
SPITSBERGEN
Iceland—Greenland—America—Sebastian Cabot—Robert Thorne—The
North-east Passage—Willoughby—Chancellor—Borough—The North Cape
rounded—The White Sea reached—The First Arctic Search
Expedition—Pet and Jackman—Brunel—Cornelis Nai—Barents reaches 77°
20´—Second voyage of Nai—The Samoyeds—Rijp, Jacob Van Heemskerck
and Barents—Bear Island discovered—Spitsbergen discovered—The
Dutch reach 79° 49´—Stephen Bennet—Welden—Jonas Poole—Henry Hudson
reaches 80° 23´—Poole starts the British whaling trade—Baffin's
voyages to Spitsbergen—Pellham winters at Green Harbour.
The story of the lands within the Arctic Circle is a record of the brave
deeds of healthy men. This would seem to be true were we to take the
story, if we could, back to the days when man followed the retreat of
the glaciers, as he may in turn have to retreat before them, such a
condition of things being not beyond the range of probability though it
may be remote. For the boundaries of the frozen north are not dependent
on a line of latitude, and have never been the same from period to
period, or even from year to year. In some cases they have changed
considerably within the Christian era, and it is evident that the ice is
not eternal. The fossils declare that the climate round the North Pole
has varied greatly, and must in comparatively recent ages have been
comfortably warm, so genial indeed that some people would have us
believe that men came from there in their last distribution. Not,
however, with such migrants from the far north do we concern ourselves,
but with those who have endeavoured to get there in historical times by
different lines of approach, as we follow the circle round from east to
west and note the record of each section by itself.
Who was the first to sail to the northern seas we know not. Suffice it
for us that in 875 Ingolf the jarl, from Norway, refusing to live under
the sway of Harold Haarfager, sighted Mount Oraefa. As he neared the
coast, overboard went the carved wood; and where the wood drifted ashore
he founded Reikjavik. But he was not the first in Iceland, for the Irish
monastery had been there for years when he arrived, though the monks
retired to their old country when they found the Norsemen had come to
stay.
Then the Icelander Gunnbiörn, driven westward in a gale, sighted the
strange land he called White Shirt from its snowfields, which Eric the
Red, following a long time afterwards, more happily renamed. "What shall
we call the land?" he was asked. "Call it Green Land," replied Eric.
"But it is not always green!" "It matters not: give it a good name and
people will come to it!"
[Illustration: THE SUMMIT OF ORAEFA]
From a photo
Then the Norsemen worked further south. In 986 Bjarni sighted what we
now call America, and in 1000 came the voyage of Leif Ericson, who, on
his way down the mainland, landing again and again, gave the names to
Helluland, Markland, Vinland—in short, the Viking discovery of the New
World.
Greenland, like the eastern coast of the continent, was duly colonised,
its two chief settlements being one just round Cape Farewell, the other
further north on the same coast. In those days the island, or chain of
islands beneath an ice-cap, as many think it is, would appear to have
had a milder climate than it has now. The colonies throve, their
population becoming numerous enough to require a series of seventeen
bishops, the last one dying about 1540, to superintend their spiritual
welfare. But the Eskimos, in their migration from Asia across the Arctic
islands, arrived in the country before the middle of the fourteenth
century and gradually drove the Norsemen downwards, the northern colony
coming to an end in 1342 owing to the enemy attacking during a
visitation of the Black Death.
Meanwhile Iceland, which touches the Arctic Circle in its northernmost
point, and extends but half as far south of it as Greenland, increased
in prosperity as a sort of aristocratic republic, and produced more
vernacular literature than any country in Europe, in which, as might be
expected, the story of Greenland and the American colonies was kept so
well to the fore that it became as familiar among the people as a
nursery tale. Thither, from Bristol, in February, 1477, went Columbus;
and thence it was he returned to seek a patron for his western voyage
across the Atlantic.
The first voyage of Columbus in 1492 gave a great stimulus to maritime
discovery, and many were the projects for searching the seas for a new
route to the east. Of these the most important was that submitted to
Henry VII by John Cabot, of Bristol. Much has been written, on slender
and confusing evidence, as to the share in its success due to him and to
his son, the more famous Sebastian; and, to be brief, we cannot do
better than follow Anderson, who, in his _Origin of Commerce_,
ingeniously evades the difficulty by speaking, commercially, of "Cabot
and Sons." The Bristol firm, then, in 1497 despatched their ship
_Matthew_ to the westward and discovered and took possession of Labrador
and the islands and peninsulas in the mouth of the St. Lawrence, the
district being at first known as the New Found Land, a name afterwards
restricted to the largest island. And they had their reward, as shown in
the Privy Purse accounts of Henry VII, where an entry of the 10th
August, 1497, appears—"To hym that found the new isle, £10." Surely not
an excessive honorarium for the finding of a continent.
In 1498 another voyage of the same ship by way of Iceland, in which some
attempt seems to have been made to colonise the newly discovered
territories, resulted in the discovery of Hudson Strait and a visit to
Labrador, judging by the finding of the deer in herds, the white bears,
and the Eskimos who are not known to have ever crossed into the island
of Newfoundland. This was not the only English vessel to appear in these
parts at that time, for in the same year the Privy Purse accounts record
a gift of £30 to Thomas Bradley and Launcelot Thirkill for going to the
New Isle, adding that Launcelot had already received £20 "as preste" for
his ship going there.
[Illustration: COLUMBUS]
It is evident that the fisheries were found to be worth working, for no
less than fifty Spanish, French, and Portuguese ships were engaged in
them in 1517, the year of Sebastian Cabot's disputed voyage to Hudson
Bay. Ten years afterwards Robert Thorne, of Bristol, wrote to the King,
mentioning this voyage and suggesting three sea routes to Cathay—by the
north-west, as Sebastian had attempted, by the north over the Pole, and
by the north-east—and, in 1547, when Sebastian returned to England for
good, after his long service with Spain, he again, as the first Governor
of the Company of Merchant Adventurers, took up this Cathay question,
which had frequently been raised, and fitted out, as a commencement, an
expedition to the north-east.
The ships were built at Bristol specially for the purpose, and they were
sheathed with lead, the first so treated in this country. This sheathing
of ships was not the only innovation we owe to the most scientific
seaman of his time, for in his famous ordinances for the voyage many
excellent new things are enjoined, including the keeping of a log and
journal, which date from this expedition. There were three vessels, the
_Bona Esperanza_, of one hundred and twenty tons, Captain Sir Hugh
Willoughby; the _Edward Bonaventure_, one hundred and sixty tons,
Captain Richard Chancellor; and the _Bona Confidentia_, ninety tons,
Captain Durfourth. In Chancellor's ship, as master, was the best
navigator of the fleet, whose monumental brass in Chatham Church is
noteworthy for its epitaph: "Here lieth buried the bodie of Steven
Borough, who departed this life ye xij day of July in ye yere of our
Lord 1584, and was borne at Northam in Devonshire ye xxv^{th} of Septemb.
1525. He in his life time discouered Moscouia, by the Northerne sea
passage to St. Nicholas, in the yere 1553. At his setting foorth of
England he was accompanied with two other shippes, Sir Hugh Willobie
being Admirell of the fleete, who, with all the company of ye said two
shippes, were frozen to death in Lappia ye same winter. After his
discouerie of Roosia, and ye Coastes thereto adioyninge—to wit, Lappia,
Nova Zemla, and the Countrie of Samoyeda, etc.: he frequented ye trade
to St. Nicholas yearlie, as chief pilot for ye voyage, until he was
chosen of one of ye foure principall Masters in ordinarie of ye Queen's
Mat^{ties} royall Nauy, where in he continued in charge of sundrie sea
services till time of his death."
The ships left in May, but did not remain long together. On the 2nd of
August Willoughby and Durfourth separated from Chancellor in a storm off
the Lofodens, and after devious courses, that might have led anywhere,
were frozen in on the coast of Lapland, where they wintered and died, as
did all the men with them. Chancellor, having waited at the rendezvous
in vain, crossed the Arctic Circle, rounded the North Cape—so named by
Borough—and found his way into the White Sea. While his ship was in
winter quarters near where Archangel now is, he made a sledge journey to
the Czar at Moscow, which led to the formation of the Muscovy Company
and the beginning of England's Russian trade; and through his meeting
there with the Persian Ambassador came about the mission of Anthony
Jenkinson to the Shah, which opened up for us the Persian trade. Never
was a voyage more successful. With it began the foreign commerce of this
country, and from it dates the rise of our mercantile marine.
In 1556 Borough, in the _Searchthrift_, persevered further east, and,
passing between Novaya Zemlya and Waigatz Island, through the strait
that bears his name spelt differently, entered the Kara Sea. Next year
in the same ship he was given the command of the first Arctic Search
Expedition, its object being to discover what had become of Willoughby.
Of one ship, the _Confidentia_, he obtained news in an interview with a
man who had bought her sails, but the full story of the disastrous end
of the voyage remained a mystery until the Russians found the ships and
bodies and Willoughby's journal, and took the ships round to the Dwina.
Then for the first time did people realise what it meant to battle with
an Arctic winter without preparation, and many were those who withdrew
their interest in the frozen north, preferring tropical dangers to the
possibility of such accumulating miseries as the journal records in due
order in its matter-of-fact way, its last entry being the terribly
suggestive—"Unknowen and most wonderful wild beasts assembling in
fearful numbers about the ships."
With Stephen Borough in the Chancellor voyage was Arthur Pet—or Pett, a
name not unknown in the navy—who, after two centuries, has become
notable again through a strange discovery. In search of the much-desired
passage by the north-east he sailed from Harwich on the 31st of May,
1580, in the _George_, of forty tons, accompanied by Charles Jackman, in
the _William_, of twenty tons. His orders were to avoid the open sea and
keep the coast in sight all the way out on the starboard side, and
William Borough—Stephen's brother, afterwards Comptroller of the
Navy—gave him certain instructions and notes.
Arranging with Jackman, whose little vessel sailed badly, to wait for
him at Waigatz, Pet went ahead and endeavoured to pass through Burrough
Strait, but meeting with trouble from the ice, missed the passage, and
working round Waigatz to the south, entered the Kara Sea through Yugor
Strait, or as it used to be called after him, Pet Strait. Coasting
eastward with the mainland in sight, he was, as might be expected, much
hampered by the heavy pack. On being joined by the little _William_ he
made for the northward, seeking a way to the east, but the "more and
thicker was the ice so that they could go no further," and, after
talking the matter over on the 28th of July, Pet and Jackman reluctantly
decided to return to Waigatz and there decide on what should be done.
Their way back was difficult. They became shut in so that "they could
not stir, labouring only to defend the ice as it came upon them." For
one day they were clear of it, but next day, the 16th of August, they
were encumbered again, though they got out of the trouble by sailing
between the ice and the shore, which was a new experience. In this way
they just scraped through Pet Strait, and bore away in the open sea to
Kolguiev, both vessels grounding for a time on the sands to the south of
that island. On the 22nd of August, two days afterwards, the _William_
parted from the _George_ in a dense fog, while Pet brought his ship home
and dropped anchor at Ratcliff on Boxing Day.
The Dutch had for some time been trying to outstrip the English on this
route to the far east. In 1565 they had settled at Kola, and about
thirteen years afterwards had established the factory at the mouth of
the Dwina on the site of Nova Kholmogory, generally known as Archangel.
In 1584 Olivier Brunel, their energetic emissary in Russia, sailed on
the first Dutch Arctic discovery expedition. He tried in vain to pass
through Pet Strait, and the ship, with a valuable cargo of furs and
mica, was wrecked on its homeward voyage at the mouth of the Petchora.
Ten years elapsed, and then there sailed from the Texel the expedition
of Cornelis Nai, in which the _Mercury_, of Amsterdam, was commanded by
Willem Barents. Barents—really Barentszoon, the son of Bernard—sighted
Novaya Zemlya, with which his name was to be thenceforth associated, on
the 4th of July, and coasting along its mighty cliffs, peopled with
their myriad seabirds, passed Cape Nassau ten days later. Thence
reaching 77° 20´, and thus improving on John Davis's record for the
highest north, he struggled through the ice to the Orange Islands and
back, some twenty-five miles, during which he tacked eighty-one times
and thereby sailed some seventeen hundred geographical miles. Failing to
proceed further, he came south, and off Pet Strait—named by the Dutchmen
Nassau Strait—fell in with the other two ships returning from their
unsuccessful attempt to cross the Kara Sea.
Next year a fleet of seven vessels under Nai left the Mars Diep on
another endeavour to get through to China. One of the two chief
commissioners on board was the famous Van Linschoten, who had been on
the previous voyage, and the chief pilot was Barents, who was in the
_Winthont_ (Greyhound) with Jacob van Heemskerck as supercargo. Arriving
at Pet Strait they found it so blocked with ice that no passage was
possible, and Barents, in search of information, went ashore on the
mainland south of the strait and made friends—in a way—with the
Samoyeds, whose appearance, as described by Gerrit de Veer, was "like
that of wild men," dressed as they were in deerskins from head to foot,
those of importance wearing caps of coloured cloth lined with fur; for
the most part short of stature, with broad flat faces, small eyes, and
bow legs; their hair worn long, plaited, and hanging down their backs.
They were evidently suspicious of the Dutchmen, who did their best to be
friendly. The chief had placed sentinels all round to see what the
new-comers were about and note everything that was bought and sold. One
of the sentinels was offered a biscuit, which "he with great thanks took
and ate, and while he ate it he still looked diligently about him on all
sides, watching what was done." Their reindeer sledges were kept
ready—"that run so swiftly with one or two men in them that our horses
were not able to follow them." They were unacquainted with firearms,
and, when a musket was fired to impress them, "ran and leapt like
madmen," but calmed down as soon as they saw there was no malicious
intention, to wonder much more, however, when the man with the gun aimed
at a flat stone he placed as a mark, and, fortunately, hit and broke it.
The meeting ended satisfactorily; "after that we took our leaves one of
the other with great friendship on both sides, and when we were in our
pinnace we all put off our hats and bowed to them, sounding our trumpet;
they in their manner saluting us also, and then went to their sledges
again."
[Illustration: SAMOYEDS AND THEIR DWELLINGS]
Barents was by no means convinced that the strait was impassable, and
held out against the opinion of the others for some days, but with the
firm ice stretching round in all directions he had to give in, and on
the 15th of September the fleet began the voyage home. Much had been
expected, and the result was so conspicuous a failure that the States
General abandoned any further attempt at a north-east passage on their
own account, but decided to offer a reward to any private expedition
that proved successful. Whereupon the authorities and merchants of
Amsterdam fitted out two vessels for a third voyage, giving the command
of one to Jan Corneliszoon Rijp, and that of the other to Jacob van
Heemskerck, with Barents as chief pilot.
The ships left the Dutch coast on the 18th of May. Four days afterwards
they were off the Shetlands, going north-east. On the 9th of June they
discovered an island, on which they landed. Here they saw a prodigious
white bear, which they went after in a boat, intending to slip a noose
over her neck, but when they were near her she looked so strong that
their courage failed, and they returned to the ships to fetch more men,
and what seems to have been quite an armoury of "muskets, harquebusses,
halberds and hatchets." Accompanied by another boat they attacked this
formidable beast for over two hours, one of them getting an axe into her
back, with which she swam away until she was caught and had her head
split open by another blow from an axe. From this remarkable bear, whose
skin, we are told, was twelve feet long, the island was named Bear
Island.
Continuing northwards they sighted, on the 19th of June, Spitsbergen,
which they supposed to be Greenland—an error that led to much
confusion—and on the 21st of June they landed and had another trying
time with a bear, whose skin proved to be thirteen feet long. On one
island of the cluster they found the eggs of the barnacle goose,
_Bernicla leucopsis_, whose nesting ground was up to then unknown, and
on others they saw reindeer, for in this land "there groweth leaves and
grass." Returning to Bear Island after attaining 79° 49´, some hundred
and seventy miles higher north than in 1594, Rijp departed for the north
again, and, failing to get beyond Bird Cape, went home to Holland by way
of Kola; and to Kola he came back the year afterwards.
In 1603, following the Dutch, came Stephen Bennet to call Bear Island
Cherie Island, after his patron, and find the walruses in thousands and
the birds in millions. A rocky tableland of mountain limestone and
carboniferous sandstone, with the usual fossils in unusual numbers and a
few coal seams in between; the ravines faced and floored with fragments
of every dimension and shape, split off by the frost and weathered by
wind and rain: a grey, grassless, monotonous country, except along the
coast, where the guano from the vast numbers of seabirds has coated the
crannies and ledges of the cliffs, that tower up perhaps four hundred
feet from the water, with a thin layer of soil in which the scurvy-grass
and a few other plants thrive amazingly, though the island's complete
flora contains but forty species—such is Bear Island, the stepping-stone
to Spitsbergen, of which Jonas Poole took possession in 1609 for the
Muscovy Company.
[Illustration: SPITSBERGEN]
Lying east of the influence of the Gulf Stream, the range of temperature
is of the widest. Often the island is unapproachable owing to the ice,
sometimes it is even now as hot as Welden found it in 1608, when, in
June, "the pitch did run down the ship's sides, and that side of the
masts that was to the sun-ward was so hot that the tar did fry out of it
as though it had boiled." That was a great year for Welden, for he
killed a thousand walruses in less than seven hours and took a young one
home with him, "where the king and many honourable personages beheld it
with admiration, the like whereof had never before been seen alive in
England."
Poole did much useful work in these seas, but is now little heard of,
most of the surviving interest in such matters being concentrated on
Henry Hudson, who was in the same service at the same time. Hudson was,
perhaps, a grandson of Alderman Henry Hudson, one of the founders of the
Muscovy Company, but nothing is really known of him beyond his being a
captain in the Muscovy Company, who, on the 19th of April, 1607, took
the sacrament at St. Ethelburga's, in Bishopsgate Street, with his son
and crew "and the rest of the parishioners." That he was a parishioner
may be true, but that all the ten members of the crew were so is
unlikely. Anyhow, they were outward bound for Japan and China by way of
the North Pole, and sailed from Gravesend on the 1st of May.
Where he went is not clear in detail, as his latitudes are seldom
correct and his longitudes are not recorded. He sighted Greenland north
of Iceland, and, shouldered off by the ice barrier, left it somewhere
about Franz Josef Fjord, working easterly by the edge of the ice to
Spitsbergen. Here he sailed round Prince Charles's Foreland and went
north, passing Hakluyt Headland, which he named, reaching on the 13th of
July, 80° 23´, "by observation." He saw many whales, but found his way
blocked by ice; and after many attempts, assuring himself that there was
no passage hereabouts to the north, sailed southwards for Bear Island.
On leaving this he seems to have gone west, possibly to the coast of
Greenland again, for on his way home he lighted upon Hudson's Touches,
now known as Jan Mayen Island, the principal cape of which bears the
name of Hudson's Point—which may be either Hudson's or Rudston's (after
the Rudston mentioned in Baffin's fourth voyage)—while another is known
as Young's Foreland, perhaps after the James Young who was the first in
the ship to sight the coast of Greenland on the outward journey. He
dropped anchor in the Thames on the 15th of September all well. He had
not crossed the Pole, nor did he find Spitsbergen stretching up to 82°,
as he said, its most northerly point being miles further south; but he
had gone beyond Van Heemskerck's furthest north and found a fishing
ground for whales and walruses which proved of great commercial value.
[Illustration: FRANZ JOSEF FIORD]
In 1610, Poole, finding that he could not land on Bear Island owing to
the ice, stood away to the north-west, reached Spitsbergen, and worked
along the western side to Hakluyt Headland, where the ice barred further
advance. On his way up and down the coast he gave many of the capes and
bays the names they still bear, and generally did so well that on his
return he was put in the place of Hudson, who had left the service two
years before, and made a sort of special commissioner by the Muscovy
Company "for certain years upon a stipend certain" to make further
discoveries round Spitsbergen and to ascertain whether there was an open
sea further northward than had already been found. In addition to
searching for the open polar sea, he was to convoy the _Mary Margaret_,
in which were six Biscayners "expert in the killing of the whale," to
Bear Island, and thence to Whale Bay in Spitsbergen. In short, Poole was
to start the British whaling trade, the _Mary Margaret_ being the first
British vessel to be employed in that lucrative but hazardous
occupation; and she was under the command of Thomas Edge, whose name is
borne by Edge's Island.
The beginning was so promising that in 1613, two years afterwards, a
fleet of seven vessels went out to take part in the fishery and clear
away the foreigners who had come to share in the good fortune; the
company claiming the islands on the ground of their purely imaginary
discovery by Willoughby, the Dutch resting their claim on the real
discovery by Van Heemskerck. In this fleet as chief pilot was William
Baffin—his second recorded voyage. By him, who as usual kept his eyes
open, we have the first description of the Spitsbergen glaciers. He was
at the time—the 29th of July—in Green Harbour in Ice Fjord. "One thing
more I observed," he says, "in this harbour which I have thought good
also to set down. Purposing on a time to walk towards the mountains, I,
and two more of my company, ascended up a long plain hill, as we
supposed it to be; but having gone a while upon it, we perceived it to
be ice. Notwithstanding we proceeded higher up, about the length of half
a mile, and as we went saw many deep rifts or gutters on the land of
ice, which were cracked down through to the ground, or, at the least, an
exceeding great depth; as we might well perceive by hearing the snow
water run below, as it does oftentimes in a brook whose current is
somewhat opposed with little stones. But for better satisfaction I brake
down some pieces of ice with a staff I had in my hand, which in their
falling made a noise on each side much like to a piece of glass thrown
down the well within Dover Castle, whereby we did estimate the thickness
or height of this ice to be thirty fathoms. This huge ice, in my
opinion, is nothing but snow, which from time to time has for the most
part been driven off the mountains; and so continuing and increasing all
the time of winter (which may be counted three-quarters of the year)
cannot possibly be consumed with the thaw of so short a summer, but is
only a little dissolved to moisture, whereby it becomes more compact,
and with the quick succeeding frost is congealed to a firm ice."
Next year he was out again in the _Thomasine_, one of a fleet of
thirteen vessels, and in endeavouring to pass to the north-east, reached
Wijde Bay, where at the point of the beach at the entrance he "set up a
cross and nailed a sixpence thereon with the king's arms," probably the
neatest property mark in history. Thence he went on to the entrance to
Hinlopen Strait, completing the journey along the north of the main
island. It was on this voyage that he endeavoured to find his longitudes
by observing the moon, for Baffin was the first who attempted to take a
lunar at sea.
Year by year the fishery increased, and the whale fishers multiplied as
if the sea were a goldfield, the monopoly being respected until 1618,
when the Dutch, who had all along prospered more than the rest, proved
too strong for the English, and a compromise was arrived at by which the
different harbours were allotted to the different nations for the
processes necessary in the preparation of the whale products for
shipment. But it was purely a summer industry. There was no colony, and
it did not seem as though there would be one, for no man willing to
winter in the place could be found. Vainly were rewards offered to those
who would venture. In the north was the ever-present barrier of ice,
more distant some years than others, but always there to come south and
hold the islands in its grip when the fishery was over, and those who
came early and those who stayed late saw enough of the wintry landscape
to make them doubt if life were possible under such conditions.
Then the idea, not new to Englishmen, that colonies should be started by
criminals, was acted upon, and the Muscovy Company procured the reprieve
of a batch of prisoners under sentence of death and landed them in
Spitsbergen under promise of a free pardon, a handsome reward, and full
provisions and suitable clothes if they would remain there for a
continuous twelve months. But, as the ship that brought them was
preparing to return to London, "they conceived such a horror and inward
fear in their hearts" that they besought the captain to take them back
that they might be hanged rather than perish amid such desolation; and
the captain "being a pitiful and a merciful gentleman, would not by
force constrain them to stay," and brought them home again, when the
company—who could do no less—procured them a pardon. One captain—of a
different disposition—had left nine men behind him, all of whom perished
miserably; and another, in 1630, left eight others, apparently through
causes beyond his control, whose adventure was to form one of the most
interesting episodes in Arctic story.
It was on the 15th of August in that year that the _Salutation_ sent
Edward Pellham and his seven companions ashore to kill reindeer for the
ship's provisions on her voyage home. Taking with them two dogs, a
snap-hance, two lances, and a tinder-box, they landed near Black Point,
between Green Harbour and Bell Sound, and, "laying fourteen tall and
nimble deer along," camped for the night. During the night the weather
changed and brought in the ice between the shore and the ship, and in
the morning the ship had gone. The boat's crew made for Green Harbour,
thinking she would put in there to pick them up, but she failed to
appear, being due to leave the country in three days, and after a
fruitless attempt to catch her at Bell Sound, they eventually took up
their quarters there on the 3rd of September.
Here was one of the so-called tents of the whale-fishers. "This," says
Pellham, "which we call the tent, was a kind of house built of timber
and boards very substantially, and covered with Flemish tiles, by the
men of which nation it had in the time of their trading thither been
built. Four-score foot long it is and in breadth fifty. The use of it
was for the coopers, employed for the service of the company, to work,
lodge, and live in, all the while they make casks for the putting up of
the train oil." As this was too large for their comfort, they very
sensibly built another within it. "Taking down another lesser tent
therefore (built for the landmen hard by the other, wherein they lay
whilst they made their oil), from thence we fetched our materials. That
tent furnished us with one hundred and fifty deal boards, besides posts
or stanchions and rafters. From three chimneys of the furnaces wherein
they used to boil their oil, we brought a thousand bricks: there also
found we three hogsheads of very fine lime, of which stuff we also
fetched another hogshead from Bottle Cove, on the other side of the
sound, some three leagues distant. Mingling this lime with the sand of
the sea-shore, we made very excellent good morter for the laying of our
bricks: falling to work thereon, the weather was so extreme cold as that
we were fain to make two fires to keep our morter from freezing. William
Fakely and myself, undertaking the masonry, began to raise a wall of one
brick thickness against the inner planks of the side of the tent. Whilst
we were laying of these bricks, the rest of our company were otherwise
employed every one of them: some in taking them down, others in making
of them clean and in bringing them in baskets into the tent. Some in
making morter, and hewing of boards to build the other side withal, and
two others all the while in flaying of our venison. And thus, having
built the two outermost sides of the tent with bricks and morter, and
our bricks now almost spent, we were enforced to build the two other
sides with boards; and that in this manner. First we nailed our deal
boards on one side of the post or stanchion to the thickness of one
foot: and on the other side in like manner: and so filling up the hollow
place with sand, it became so tight and warm as not the least breath of
air could possibly annoy us. Our chimney's vent was into the greater
tent, being the breadth of one deal board and four foot long. The length
of this our tent was twenty foot and the breadth sixteen; the height
ten; our ceiling being deal boards five or six times double, the middle
of one joining so close to the shut of the other that no wind could
possibly get between. As for our door, besides our making it so close as
possibly it could shut; we lined it moreover with a bed that we found
lying there, which came over both the opening and the shutting of it. As
for windows, we made none at all, so that our light we brought in
through the greater tent, by removing two or three tiles in the eaves,
which light came to us through the vent of our chimney. Our next work
was to set up four cabins, billeting ourselves two and two in a cabin.
Our beds were the deer skins dried, which we found to be extraordinary
warm, and a very comfortable kind of lodging to us in our distress."
For fuel they knocked to pieces seven old boats left ashore by the
ships, storing the wood over the beams of the tent so as to make a sort
of floor protecting the interior from snow driven in under the tiles,
and, in addition, they broke up a number of empty casks. To make the
wood last as long as possible they hit upon a device for keeping the
fire in—"when we raked up our fire at night, with a good quantity of
ashes and of embers, we put into the midst of it a piece of elm wood,
where, after it had lain sixteen hours, we at our opening of it found
great store of fire upon it, whereupon we made a common practice of it
ever after: it never went out in eight months together, or thereabouts."
Upon the 12th of September a small quantity of drift ice came into the
sound, on a piece of which they found two walruses asleep, when "William
Fakely being ready with his harping iron, heaved it so strongly into the
old one that he quite disturbed her of her rest: after which, she,
receiving five or six thrusts with our lances, fell into a sounder sleep
of death." The young one, refusing to leave her mother, was also killed;
and a week afterwards another walrus fell a victim; but even with these
the store of provisions was inadequate. To make the food last, they put
themselves on an allowance of one good meal a day, except on Wednesdays
and Fridays which were fasting days devoted to whale sundries—"a very
loathsome meat," says Pellham, in brackets—later on, for four days in
the week they fed upon "the unsavoury and mouldy fritters, and the other
three we feasted it with bear and venison." "But," continues the
narrative, "as if it were not enough for us to want meat, we now began
to want light also; all our meals proved suppers now, for little light
could we see; even the glorious sun (as if unwilling to behold our
miseries) masking his lovely face from us, under the sable veil of
coal-black night."But they were equal to the emergency. "At the
beginning of this darksome, irksome time, we sought some means of
preserving light amongst us; finding therefore a piece of sheet lead
over a seam of one of the coolers, that we ripped off and made three
lamps of it, which, maintaining with oil that we found in the coopers'
tent, and rope-yarn serving us instead of candle-wicks, we kept them
continually burning."
Cheerful and resourceful as they were, their fits of depression were not
infrequent. "Our extremities being so many, made us sometimes in
impatient speeches to break forth against the causers of our miseries;
but then again, our consciences telling us of our own evil deservings,
we took it either for a punishment upon us for our former wicked lives;
or else for an example of God's mercy in our wonderful deliverance:
humbling ourselves therefore, under the mighty hand of God, we cast down
ourselves before him in prayer, two or three times a day, which course
we constantly held all the time of our misery."
Their prospects got worse, but they never lost a little hope. "The new
year now began: as the days began to lengthen, so the cold began to
strengthen; which cold came at last to that extremity, as that it would
raise blisters on our flesh, as if we had been burnt with fire, and if
we touched iron at any time it would stick to our fingers like
bird-lime: sometimes if we went but out of doors to fetch in a little
water, the cold would nip us in such a sort that it made us as sore as
if we had been beaten in some cruel manner."
Provisions were running low; the men began to talk of famine, and the
outlook became daily gloomier until the 3rd of February. "This proved a
marvellous cold day; yet a fair and clear one; about the middle whereof,
all clouds now quite dispersed and night's sable curtain drawn, Aurora
with her golden face smiled once again upon us, at her rising out of her
bed; for now the glorious sun with his glittering beams began to gild
the highest tops of the lofty mountains. The brightness of the sun and
the whiteness of the snow, both together, were such as that it was able
to revive even a dying spirit. But to make a new addition to our new
joy, we might perceive two bears (a she one with her cub) now coming
towards our tent; whereupon we, straight arming ourselves with our
lances, issued out of the tent to await her coming. She soon cast her
greedy eyes upon us, and with full hopes of devouring us she made the
more haste unto us; but with our hearty lances we gave her such a
welcome as that she fell down and biting the very snow for anger."
Then more bears came to be eaten; then the birds began to arrive, and
the foxes to come out of their winter earths to be trapped to the number
of fifty; then the reindeer returned; and then, on the 25th May, two
ships of Hull came into the sound from which a boat's crew landing
unperceived came close up to the tent and shouted "Hey!" And Ayers, the
only man at the moment in the outer tent, shouted "Ho!"—and Pellham and
his shipmates had proved it to be possible to live through a winter in
Spitsbergen.