Arctic enthusiasm is an intermittent fever, returning in almost
epidemic form after intervals of normal indifference. Twelve years ago
there was a wide-spread outbreak, but for the last ten years the
symptoms have never been so severe as to result in a great expedition.
If all goes well this summer there will be a renewed paroxysm; no less
than three new ventures northward being sent out by different routes
to converge on the pole.
It is refreshing, in this prosaic time, to recognize the power of pure
sentiment in the quest for glory. Polar research is a survival, or
rather an evolution, of knight-errantry, and our Childe Rolands
challenge the "Dark Tower of the North" as dauntlessly as ever their
forbears wound slug-horn at gate of enchanted castle. The "woe of
years" invests the quest with elements which redeem failure from
disgrace; but whoever succeeds in overcoming the difficulties that
have baffled all the "lost adventurers" will make the world ring with
his fame as it never rang before. We commonplace human beings are as
quick to see and prompt to appreciate heroic daring, perseverance, and
valor as ever were the dames of mythic Camelot; and the race for the
pole will be watched by the world with generous sympathy.
Incidentally the fresh Arctic journeys must secure much scientific
information, but that aspect of them appeals to the few. It is as a
display of the grandest powers of man in conflict with the tyranny of
his surroundings that Arctic travel appeals directly to the heart.
Since McClure, in 1850, forced the north-west passage from Bering
Strait to Baffin Bay, and Nordenskjold, in 1878, squeezed the "Vega"
through, between ice and land, from the North Cape to the Pacific, the
futility of the golden dreams of the greedy old merchants who tried to
reach the wealth of the Orient by short cuts through the ice has been
demonstrated. Although no money is likely to be made out of the
Arctic, we want information thence which it is almost impossible to
get; and the almost impossible is dear to every valiant heart.
We know a good deal about the state of matters near the poles, but yet
not enough to let us understand all the phenomena of our own lands. In
this respect, however, the South Pole is the most promising field, for
its surroundings probably conceal the mainspring of the great system
of winds which do the work of the air on every land and sea. Dr.
Nansen has promised to go there after returning from the North, and
solving its simpler problems. The chilly distinction of being the
coldest part of the earth is probably due to the northern parts of
Eastern Siberia, and not to the North Pole. The "magnetic pole," where
the needle hangs vertically, has been found in the Arctic archipelago
north of America, and in many ways scientific observations there are
worth more than at the North Pole itself.
We know that, if attained, the North Pole would probably be like
any other part of the Arctic regions, presenting a landscape of ice
and snow, perhaps with black rock showing here and there, containing
fossils of a former age of heat, perhaps broken by pools or lanes of
open water. The pole has no physical mark any more than the top of a
spinning coin has, and the pole is not even a fixed point; like
the end of the axis of the spinning coin, it moves a little to and
fro on the circumference. If the geographical point were reached, the
pole-star would be seen shining almost vertically overhead,
describing a tiny circle around the actual zenith; and all the
other stars of the northern half of the sky would appear slowly
wheeling in horizontal circles, never rising, never setting, and each
completing its circuit in the space of twenty-three hours and
fifty-six minutes. In summer the sun would appear similarly, never
far above the horizon, but circling for more than half the year in a
spiral, winding upward until about 25 deg. above the horizon, and winding
downward again until lost to view. The periods of daylight and
darkness at the poles do not last exactly six months each, as little
geography books are prone to assert. Such little books ignore the
atmosphere for the sake of simplicity, but the air-shell that
shuts in our globe bends the rays of light, so that the sun appears
before his theoretical rising, and remains in sight after his
theoretical setting. At the pole, in fact, the single "half-yearly
day" is a week longer than the one "half-yearly night."
At the North Pole there is only one direction--south. One could go
south in as many ways as there are points on the compass card, but
every one of these ways is south; east and west have vanished. The
hour of the day at the pole is a paradoxical conception, for that
point is the meeting place of every meridian, and the time of all
holds good, so that it is always any hour one cares to mention.
Unpunctuality is hence impossible--but the question grows complex, and
its practical solution concerns few.
No one needs to go to the pole to discover all that makes that
point different from any other point of the surface. But the whole
polar regions are full of unknown things, which every Arctic
explorer of the right stamp looks forward to finding. And the reward
he looks forward to most is the approval of the few who understand and
love knowledge for its own sake, rather than the noisy applause of
the crowd who would cheer him, after all, much as they cheer a
winning prize-fighter, or race-horse, or political candidate.
The difficulties that make the quest of the pole so arduous have been
discovered by slow degrees. It is marvellous how soon nearly the full
limits of northward attainment were reached. In 1596 Barents
discovered Spitzbergen in about 78 deg. north; in 1770 Hudson reached
80 deg.; in 1827 Parry, by sledging on the ice when his ship became fast,
succeeded in touching 82 deg. 45'. Since then all the enormous resources
of modern science--steam, electricity, preserved foods and the
experience of centuries--have only enabled forty miles of additional
poleward advance to be made.
The accompanying map gives a fair idea of the form of the Arctic
regions, and remembering that the circle marked 80 deg. is distant seven
hundred miles from the pole, the reader can realize the distances
involved. The Arctic Basin, occupied by the Arctic Sea, is ringed in
by land; the northern coasts of America, Europe, and Asia, forming a
roughly circular boundary broken by three well-marked channels
communicating with the ocean. Bering Strait between America and Asia
is the narrowest, Baffin Bay between America and Greenland is wider,
branching into a number of ice-blocked sounds to the westward, and
tapering off into Smith Sound in the north-east. The widest channel
of the three lies between Greenland and Europe, and this is bisected
just south of 80 deg. North by the island group of Spitzbergen.
The whole region is one of severe cold, and the sea is frozen for
the greater part of the year, land and water becoming almost
indistinguishable, but for the incessant movement and drift of the
sea-ice. In summer the sea-ice breaks up into floes which may drift
away southward and melt, or be driven by the wind against the
shores of continents or islands, leaving lanes of open water which
a shift of wind may change and close in an hour. Icebergs launched
from the glaciers of the land also drift with tide, current, and
wind through the more or less open water. Possibly at some times the
pack may open and a clear waterway run through to the pole, and old
whalers tell of many a year when they believed that a few days'
steaming would carry them to the end of the world, if they could have
seized the opportunity. At other times, routes traversed in safety
time after time may be effectively closed for years, and all advance
barred. Food in the form of seals or walrus in the open water,
reindeer, musk ox, polar bears or birds on the land, may often be
procured, but these sources cannot be relied upon. Advance northward
may be made by water in a ship, or by dog-sledge, or on foot, over
the frozen snow or ice. Each method has grave drawbacks. Advance by
sea is stopped when the young ice forms in autumn, and land advance
is hampered by the long Arctic night which enforces months of
inaction, more trying to health and spirits than the severest
exertion.
Smith Sound has been the channel by which most recent Arctic explorers
have pushed north. Thus Markham reached latitude 83 deg. 20' North, in
1876, and in 1882 Lockwood got four miles farther north, coming nearer
the pole than any other man. From his farthest point an express train
could cover the intervening distance in ten hours, but the best ice
traveller would require months, even if the way were smooth. This
route has been by common consent abandoned, at least for advance by
water. No high latitude has been reached from Bering Strait nor along
the east coast of Greenland. For ships the most open way to the north
lies to the west of Spitzbergen, as Parry found two generations ago.
Neither of the two projected expeditions from Europe is, however,
intended to take this route. Mr. Jackson means to advance over the ice
in sledges, trusting that Franz-Josef Land stretches northward to the
immediate neighborhood of the pole. Doctor Nansen also founds his plan
on a theory, but his is so novel, and involves a plan of action so
different from all previously attempted, that it must be considered in
detail.