Nansen and Johansen start on a Sleighing Expedition.--Reach
Eighty-six Degrees, Fourteen Minutes, North Latitude.--Winter in
Franz Joseph's Land.
March 17, 1895, was a memorable day in the Fram's history, for it was
on that date that Nansen and Johansen set out on the most adventurous
expedition ever undertaken in the polar sea. At the time of leaving
the ship, she was in eighty-four degrees north latitude.
On quitting her they fired a salute on board with all their guns as
a farewell; and, though the lads on the Fram kept their spirits up
bravely, every eye was full of tears, something quite uncommon with
them: and they watched their two adventurous comrades, with their
sleighs and dogs, as they set off toward the Pole, till they were
lost to sight among the hummocks.
The ice was terribly difficult, and they had a wearisome march over
it; and, to make matters worse, a southerly drift set in, driving
them nearly as far back as they advanced. However, they got on pretty
well till reaching eighty-five degrees north latitude, when another
back drift set in, lasting, indeed, without intermission during the
whole of the expedition. The dogs, too, got worn out, and had to
be killed one after the other; while, to add to their discomfort,
their clothes would get frozen so stiff during the day that they had
to thaw them in their sleeping-bags at night with the warmth of their
bodies. Very often they were so tired in the evening that they would
fall asleep with the food in their hands. Their expedition, too,
haunted them in their sleep; and often Nansen would be awakened by
hearing Johansen call out in the night, "Pan!" "Barabbas!" or "The
whole sleigh is going over!" or "Sass-sass," "Prr!" Lappish words to
make the dogs quicken their pace or to halt.
It was sorrowful work to have to kill these faithful animals when they
were worn out. Nansen himself says that he often felt the bitterest
self-reproaches, and confessed that this expedition seemed to destroy
all the better feelings of his nature. But forward they must go,
and forward they went, though their progress was very slow.
It was not long before Nansen became convinced that it would be an
utter impossibility to reach the Pole through such masses of pack-ice
and hummocks as they encountered. The question, therefore, was how
far they should venture toward it before turning their faces southward.
On Monday, April 8, they had reached eighty-six degrees, ten minutes,
north latitude (though it subsequently turned out to be eighty-six
degrees, fourteen minutes, north latitude, that renowned degree
of latitude that became historical when the news of the Nansen
expedition was flashed all over the world), and determined to go on
no farther. So, on the day following, they changed their course to
the south. The going improved a little as they travelled on. As far
as the eye could reach huge masses of ice towered aloft toward the
north, while toward the south the ice became each day more favorable,
a circumstance that cheered them up not a little.
On Sunday, May 5, they were in eighty-four degrees, thirty-one
minutes, north latitude, and on the 17th, in eighty-three degrees,
thirty minutes, north latitude.
They found it very hard work crossing the open channels in the ice; and
what made it harder was that the number of their dogs diminished daily,
one after another having to be killed as food for the survivors. It
was absolutely necessary, however, to reach a latitude where game
could be procured, before their stock of provisions gave out.
On May 19 they came on the tracks of a bear, but did not see the animal
itself. Tracks of foxes they had already seen when in eighty-five
degrees north latitude.
It seemed as if there was no end to these channels which must be
crossed, and of the young ice which made hauling the sleighs such
terribly hard work. Moreover, soon they would have no dogs left to
help them, and they would have to drag the sleighs themselves.
May passed and June set in, and still no end to the channels or
to their excessive hard work, and not a glimpse of land to be
seen yet. Every now and then a narwhal would be seen, or a seal,
heralds, doubtless, that they were approaching the regions of animated
nature. The ice, too, no longer hard and smooth, became regular slush,
so that it clogged on the under surface of their ski, and strained
to the utmost the poor dogs, who could hardly drag their loads after
them. Everything, indeed, seemed against them! Three months had elapsed
since quitting the Fram, and as yet they had met with no change for
the better.
On June 16 Kaifas, Haren, and Suggen were the sole survivors of the
pack, and Nansen and Johansen had to do dogs' work themselves in
dragging the sleighs.
But a turn for the better set in. On the 22d, as they were rowing
the kayaks over some open water, they were fortunate enough to shoot
a large seal. Its flesh lasted them a good while, and indeed proved a
great godsend, though they did set fire to the tent while frying blood
pancakes in blubber--a mere trifle, however, on such an expedition
as theirs! They soon mended it with one of the sleigh sails, and the
blood pancakes were voted to be delicious. On the 24th Nansen shot
another seal, an event duly celebrated with great festivity; viz.,
a supper of chocolate and blubber.
On June 30 Nansen discovered, to his great chagrin, that they had
advanced no farther south than they were a month ago, and it began
to dawn upon him that in all probability they would have to winter
up there--a pleasant prospect, forsooth! Their stock of provisions
was nearly exhausted, and only three dogs left.
On July 6 they shot three bears, so that all anxiety as regards food
was happily at end for the time; though the prospect of reaching home
that year, at least, was infinitesimally small.
On Tuesday, July 23, they finally broke up "Longing Camp," as they
termed their quarters, and devoted all their energies to their
journey homeward.
The next day they saw land for the first time. Through the telescope
its hazy outline could be discerned; but it took them a fortnight
to reach it, and when they did reach it, they were so exhausted that
they had to lie up several days.
During this time Johansen was nearly killed by a bear. Nansen tells
the story:--
"After some very hard work we at last reached an open channel in the
ice which we had to cross in our kayaks. I had just got mine ready,
and was holding it to prevent its sliding down into the water,
when I heard a scuffle going on behind me; and Johansen, who was
dragging his sleigh, called out, 'Get your gun!' I looked round, and
saw a huge bear dash at him, and knock him down on his back. I made
a grab at my gun, which was in its case on the foredeck; but at the
same moment my kayak unfortunately slipped down into the water. My
first impulse was to jump in after it, and shoot from the deck; but
it was too risky a venture to attempt, so I set to work to haul it
up on the ice again as quickly as I could. But it was so heavy that
I had to kneel down on one knee, pulling and hauling and struggling
to get hold of the gun, without even time to turn around and see what
was going on behind me. Presently I heard Johansen say very calmly,
'If you don't look sharp, it will be too late.' Look sharp! I should
think I did look sharp! At last I got hold of the butt-end of the
gun, drew it out of its case, whipped round in a sitting posture,
and cocked one of the barrels which was loaded with shot. Meanwhile
the bear stood there scarcely a yard away from me, and was on the
point of doing for Kaifas. I had no time to cock the other barrel,
so I gave it the whole charge of shot behind the ear, and the brute
fell dead between us.
"The bear must have followed on our tracks like a cat, and hiding
behind blocks of ice, have slunk after us while we were busy clearing
the loose ice away in the channel, with our backs turned toward it. We
could see by its tracks that it had wormed its way on its stomach over
a ridge in our rear, under cover of an ice-mound in close proximity
to Johansen's kayak.
"While Johansen, without of course suspecting anything, or even looking
behind him, was stooping down to lay hold of the hauling-rope, he got
a glimpse of some animal lying in a crouching posture at the stern of
the kayak. He thought at first it was only the dog Suggen; but before
he had time to notice how large it was, he received a blow over the
right ear that made him 'silly,' and over he went on his back. He now
tried to defend himself the best he could with his bare fists, and with
one hand gripped the brute by the throat, never once relaxing his hold.
"Just as the bear was about to bite him on the head, he uttered those
memorable words, 'Look sharp!' The bear kept watching me intently,
wondering no doubt what I was up to, when all at once it happily caught
sight of one of the dogs, and immediately turned toward it. Johansen
now let go his hold of the brute's throat, and wriggled himself away,
while the bear gave poor Suggen a smack with his paw that made him
howl as he used to do when he got a thrashing. Kaifas, too, got a
smack on the nose. Meanwhile Johansen had got on his feet, and just
as I fired had got hold of his gun, which was sticking up out of
the hole in the kayak. The only damage done was that the bear had
scraped a little of the grime and dirt off Johansen's right cheek,
so that he goes with a white stripe on it now, besides a scratch on
one hand. Kaifas, too, had his nose scratched."
On reaching land they had to shoot Kaifas and Suggen, the sole
survivors of their twenty-six faithful companions. It was a hard
task. Johansen took Nansen's dog Kaifas in a leash behind a hummock,
while Nansen did the same with Johansen's Suggen. Their two guns went
off simultaneously, and the two men stood friendless, alone in the
desert of ice. They did not say many words to each other on meeting.
Along the coast of the land they discovered there was open water,
of which they availed themselves, first lashing their kayaks together
so that they formed in fact a double kayak.
They rowed for several days, and were fortunate enough to shoot a
walrus; but they had no idea what land it was, or where they were.
One evening, however, the channel closed up, and no more open water was
to be found. But on Aug. 13 it opened up again, and they were able to
push on. After twenty-four hours it closed once more, and they had to
drag the kayaks on the sleigh overland. On the evening of Aug. 18 they
reached one of the islands they had been steering for, and for the
first time for two years had bare earth under their feet. Here they
revelled in "the joys of country life,"--now jumping over the rocks,
or gathering moss and specimens of the flora, etc.,--and hoisted the
Norwegian flag.
In its summer dress this northern land seemed to them to be a perfect
paradise; plenty of seals, sea-birds, flowers, and mud--and in front
the blue sea.
They were, therefore, loath to leave it, but onward they must proceed,
if they wished to reach home that autumn. But fate willed it otherwise.
They soon encountered ice again--nothing but ice--bare ice as far
as the eye could reach. After waiting a considerable time, they once
more had open water, of which they took advantage by hoisting a sail;
but at the end of twenty-four hours their course was again blocked--a
block that decided their future movements materially; for they were
compelled to winter there!
It may readily be supposed that this was not only a terrible
disappointment, but a severe trial to our two arctic navigators. After
all their labor and exertion, after reaching open water, and buoying
themselves up, with the hope that their struggles would soon be over,
to find that hope shattered, and their plans rendered abortive,
and that they must perforce be imprisoned in the ice for months,
was enough to make them lose heart altogether. But when once they
realized their position, they acted like men, and set to work to
build a stone hut, on the roof and floor of which they stretched
bear hides. They succeeded in shooting several walruses, the blubber
of which provided them with fuel, so that they might have been in a
worse plight than they were. Still, it was not altogether pleasant to
have to lie in a stone hut during a polar winter, with the thermometer
down to -40 Fahrenheit, without any other food than bears' flesh and
blubber. Indeed, it required the constitution of a giant to endure it,
and unyielding determination not to lose heart altogether.
By working for a week, they finished the walls of their abode, and
after getting the roof on, moved into it. They made a great heap of
blubber of the walruses they shot outside the hut, covering it over
with walrus hides. This was their fuel store. It served of course
to attract bears, which was an advantage; and many a one paid the
penalty of his appetite by being shot. At first they found it very
uncomfortable at night, so they both slept in one sleeping-bag, and
thus kept tolerably warm. But the climax of their joy was building in
the roof a chimney of ice to let out the smoke of their fire. They
had no other materials to make it out of. It answered capitally,
however, having only one drawback; viz., that it readily melted. But
there was no lack of ice for making another.
Their cuisine was simple in the extreme, and strangely enough they
never got tired of their food. Whatever came to hand, flesh or blubber,
they ate readily, and sometimes, when a longing for fatty food, as
was often the case, came over them, they would fish pieces of blubber
out of the lamps, and eat them with great relish. They called these
burnt pieces biscuits; and "if there had only been a little sugar
sprinkled on them, they would have tasted deliciously," they said.
During the course of this winter the foxes proved very
troublesome. They gnawed holes in the roof, stole instruments,
wire, harpoons, and a thermometer. Luckily they had a spare one,
so that the register of the temperature did not suffer. They were
principally white foxes that visited them; but occasionally they saw
the blue fox, and would dearly have liked to shoot some specimens of
that beautiful animal, only that they feared their ammunition would
not hold out. They shot their last bear on Oct. 21, after which they
saw no more till the following spring.
It was a long, tedious winter; the weather generally very boisterous,
with drifting snowstorms. But every now and then fine weather
would set in, when the stars would shine with great brilliancy, and
wondrously beautiful displays of the aurora borealis would lighten
up the whole scene.
Another Christmas Eve arrived, the third they had spent in the polar
regions; but this was the dreariest and gloomiest of them all. However,
they determined to celebrate it, which they did by reversing their
shirts. Then they ate fish-meal with train-oil instead of butter,
and for a second course toasted bread and blubber. On Christmas
morning they treated themselves to chocolate and bread.
On New Year's Day, 1896, there were -41 deg. of cold (Fahrenheit),
and all Nansen's finger-tips were frost-bitten. Out there on that
dreary headland their thoughts wandered away to their home, where
they pictured to themselves all the Christmas joy and festivity that
would be taking place, the flakes of snow falling gently out-of-doors,
and the happy faces of their dear ones within.
"The road to the stars is long and heavy!"
Nansen and Johansen slept during the greater part of that long
winter. Sometimes, like bears in their winter quarters, they would
sleep for twenty-four hours at a stretch, when there was nothing
particular to be done. Spring, however, returned at last, and the
birds began to reappear on their northerly flight. The polar bears,
too, revisited their hut, so they got plenty of fresh meat. The first
bear they killed acted very daringly. Johansen was on the point of
going out of the hut one day, when he started back, crying out,
"There's a bear just outside!" Snatching up his gun, he put his
head out of the door of the hut, but instantly withdrew it. "It
is close by, and means coming in." Then he put his gun out again,
and fired. The shot took effect, and the wounded beast made off for
some rocky ground. After a long pursuit Nansen came up with it,
and shot it in a snowdrift. It rolled over and over like a ball,
and fell dead close to his feet. Its flesh lasted them six weeks.
On May 19 they broke up their winter camp, and proceeded over the ice
in a southerly direction, meeting with long stretches of level young
ice, making also good use of their sail, and finally reached open
water on Friday, June 12. They now lashed the two kayaks together,
forming a double kayak, and set out to sea with a favorable breeze,
feeling not a little elated; and in the evening lay to at the edge
of the ice to rest, having first moored the kayaks with a rope, and
then got up on a hummock to reconnoitre. Presently Johansen was heard
to shout out, "The kayaks are adrift!" Down they both of them rushed
as fast as they could.
"Here, take my watch!" cried Nansen, handing it to Johansen, while
he divested himself of his outer garments, and jumped into the water.
Meanwhile the kayaks had drifted a considerable distance. It was
absolutely necessary to overtake them, for their loss meant--death.
But we will let Nansen tell the story:--
"When I got tired, I turned over on my back, and then I could see
Johansen walking incessantly to and fro on the ice. Poor fellow! he
could not stand still; he felt it was so dreadful to be unable to do
anything. Moreover, he did not entertain, he told me, much hope of my
being able to reach them. However, it would not have mended matters
had he jumped in after me. They were the worst minutes, he said,
he had ever passed in all his life.
"But when I turned over again and began swimming once more, I saw that
I was perceptibly gaining on the kayaks, and this made me redouble
my exertions. My limbs, however, were now becoming so numb and stiff
that I felt I couldn't go on much longer. But I wasn't far off the
kayaks now; if I could only manage to hold out a little longer, we
were saved--and on I went. My strokes kept getting shorter and feebler
every instant, but still I was gaining, and hoped to be able to come
up with them. At last I got hold of a ski that lay athwart the bows,
and clutched onto the kayaks. We were saved! but when I tried to get
aboard, my limbs were so cold and stiff that I couldn't manage it. For
a moment I feared it was too late after all, and that although I had
got thus far, I should never be able to get on board. So I waited a
moment to rest, and after a great deal of difficulty, succeeded in
getting one leg up on the edge of the sleigh that was lying on the
deck, and so got on board, but so exhausted that I found it hard work
to use the paddle."
When Nansen at last got the kayaks back to the edge of the ice,
he changed his wet clothes, and was put to bed on the ice, that is
to say, in the sleeping-bag, by Johansen, who threw a sail over him,
and made him some warm drink, which soon restored the circulation. But
when he told Johansen to go and fetch the two auks he had shot as he
was rowing the kayaks back, the latter burst out laughing, and said,
"I thought you had gone clean mad when you shot."
On Monday, June 15, Nansen's life was a second time in jeopardy. They
were rowing after walruses, when one of the creatures bobbed up close
by Nansen's kayak, and stuck its tusks through the side. Nansen hit
it over the head with the paddle, whereon the brute let go his hold
and disappeared.
But the kayak very nearly foundered, and was only hauled up on the
ice as it was on the point of sinking.
This was the last perilous adventure on this marvellous expedition.