THE START
"So travel I north to the gloomy abode
That the sun never shines on--
There is no day."
It was midsummer day. A dull, gloomy day; and with it came the
inevitable leave-taking. The door closed behind me. For the last time
I left my home and went alone down the garden to the beach, where the
Fram's little petroleum launch pitilessly awaited me. Behind me lay
all I held dear in life. And what before me? How many years would
pass ere I should see it all again? What would I not have given at
that moment to be able to turn back; but up at the window little Liv
was sitting clapping her hands. Happy child, little do you know what
life is--how strangely mingled and how full of change. Like an arrow
the little boat sped over Lysaker Bay, bearing me on the first stage
of a journey on which life itself, if not more, was staked.
At last everything was in readiness. The hour had arrived towards
which the persevering labor of years had been incessantly bent, and
with it the feeling that, everything being provided and completed,
responsibility might be thrown aside and the weary brain at last
find rest. The Fram lies yonder at Pepperviken, impatiently panting
and waiting for the signal, when the launch comes puffing past Dyna
and runs alongside. The deck is closely packed with people come
to bid a last farewell, and now all must leave the ship. Then the
Fram weighs anchor, and, heavily laden and moving slowly, makes the
tour of the little creek. The quays are black with crowds of people
waving their hats and handkerchiefs. But silently and quietly the Fram
heads towards the fjord, steers slowly past Bygdö and Dyna out on her
unknown path, while little nimble craft, steamers, and pleasure-boats
swarm around her. Peaceful and snug lay the villas along the shore
behind their veils of foliage, just as they ever seemed of old. Ah,
"fair is the woodland slope, and never did it look fairer!" Long,
long, will it be before we shall plough these well-known waters again.
And now a last farewell to home. Yonder it lies on the point--the
fjord sparkling in front, pine and fir woods around, a little smiling
meadow-land and long wood-clad ridges behind. Through the glass one
could descry a summer-clad figure by the bench under the fir-tree....
It was the darkest hour of the whole journey.
And now out into the fjord. It was rainy weather, and a feeling
of melancholy seemed to brood over the familiar landscape with all
its memories.
It was not until noon next day (June 25th) that the Fram glided into
the bay by Rækvik, Archer's shipyard, near Laurvik, where her cradle
stood, and where many a golden dream had been dreamt of her victorious
career. Here we were to take the two long-boats on board and have
them set up on their davits, and there were several other things to
be shipped. It took the whole day and a good part of the next before
all was completed. About three o'clock on the 26th we bade farewell
to Rækvik and made a bend into Laurvik Bay, in order to stand out to
sea by Frederiksværn. Archer himself had to take the wheel and steer
his child this last bit before leaving the ship. And then came the
farewell hand-shake; but few words were spoken, and they got into
the boat, he, my brothers, and a friend, while the Fram glided ahead
with her heavy motion, and the bonds that united us were severed. It
was sad and strange to see this last relic of home in that little
skiff on the wide blue surface, Anker's cutter behind, and Laurvik
farther in the distance. I almost think a tear glittered on that fine
old face as he stood erect in the boat and shouted a farewell to us
and to the Fram. Do you think he does not love the vessel? That he
believes in her I know well. So we gave him the first salute from
the Fram's guns--a worthier inauguration they could not well have had.
Full speed ahead, and in the calm, bright summer weather, while the
setting sun shed his beams over the land, the Fram stood out towards
the blue sea, to get its first roll in the long, heaving swell. They
stood up in the boat and watched us for long.
We bore along the coast in good weather, past Christiansand. The
next evening, June 27th, we were off the Naze. I sat up and chatted
with Scott-Hansen till late in the night. He acted as captain on
the trip from Christiania to Trondhjem, where Sverdrup was to join,
after having accompanied his family to Steenkiær. As we sat there
in the chart-house and let the hours slip by while we pushed on in
the ever-increasing swell, all at once a sea burst open the door and
poured in. We rushed out on deck. The ship rolled like a log, the
seas broke in over the rails on both sides, and one by one up came
all the crew. I feared most lest the slender davits which supported
the long-boats should give way, and the boats themselves should go
overboard, perhaps carrying away with them a lot of the rigging. Then
twenty-five empty paraffin casks which were lashed on deck broke loose,
washed backward and forward, and gradually filled with water; so that
the outlook was not altogether agreeable. But it was worst of all when
the piles of reserve timber, spars, and planks began the same dance,
and threatened to break the props under the boats. It was an anxious
hour. Sea-sick, I stood on the bridge, occupying myself in alternately
making libations to Neptune and trembling for the safety of the boats
and the men, who were trying to make snug what they could forward on
deck. I often saw only a hotch-potch of sea, drifting planks, arms,
legs, and empty barrels. Now a green sea poured over us and knocked
a man off his legs so that the water deluged him; now I saw the lads
jumping over hurtling spars and barrels, so as not to get their feet
crushed between them. There was not a dry thread on them. Juell, who
lay asleep in the "Grand Hotel," as we called one of the long-boats,
awoke to hear the sea roaring under him like a cataract. I met him
at the cabin door as he came running down. It was no longer safe
there, he thought; best to save one's rags--he had a bundle under
his arm. Then he set off forward to secure his sea-chest, which
was floating about on the fore-deck, and dragged it hurriedly aft,
while one heavy sea after another swept over him. Once the Fram
buried her bows and shipped a sea over the forecastle. There was
one fellow clinging to the anchor-davits over the frothing water. It
was poor Juell again. We were hard put to it to secure our goods and
chattels. We had to throw all our good paraffin casks overboard, and
one prime timber balk after another went the same way, while I stood
and watched them sadly as they floated off. The rest of the deck cargo
was shifted aft on to the half-deck. I am afraid the shares in the
expedition stood rather low at this moment. Then all at once, when
things were about at their worst with us, we sighted a bark looming
out of the fog ahead. There it lay with royals and all sails set, as
snugly and peacefully as if nothing were the matter, rocking gently
on the sea. It made one feel almost savage to look at it. Visions of
the Flying Dutchman and other devilry flashed through my mind.
Terrible disaster in the cook's galley! Mogstad goes in and sees the
whole wall sprinkled over with dark-red stains--rushes off to Nordahl,
and says he believes Juell has shot himself through despair at the
insufferable heat he complains so about. "Great revolver disaster on
board the Fram!..." On close inspection, however, the stains appeared
to proceed from a box of chocolate that had upset in the cupboard.
Owing to the fog we dared not go too near land, so kept out to sea,
till at last, towards morning, the fog lifted somewhat, and the pilot
found his bearings between Farsund and Hummerdus. We put into Lister
Fjord, intending to anchor there and get into better sea trim; but as
the weather improved we went on our way. It was not till the afternoon
that we steered into Ekersund, owing to thick weather and a stiff
breeze, and anchored in Hovland's Bay, where our pilot, Hovland, [18]
lived. Next morning the boat davits, etc., were put in good working
order. The Fram, however, was too heavily laden to be at all easy
in a seaway; but this we could not alter. What we had we must keep,
and if we only got everything on deck shipshape and properly lashed,
the sea could not do us much harm, however rough it might be; for we
knew well enough that ship and rigging would hold out.
It was late in the evening of the last day of June when we rounded
Kvarven and stood in for Bergen in the gloom of the sullen night. Next
morning when I came on deck Vågen lay clear and bright in the sun,
all the ships being gayly decked out with bunting from topmost to
deck. The sun was holding high festival in the sky--Ulriken, Flöiren,
and Lövstakken sparkled and glittered, and greeted me as of old. It
is a marvellous place, that old Hanseatic town!
In the evening I was to give a lecture, but arrived half an hour too
late. For just as I was dressing to go a number of bills poured in,
and if I was to leave the town as a solvent man I must needs pay them,
and so the public perforce had to wait. But the worst of it was that
the saloon was full of those everlastingly inquisitive tourists. I
could hear a whole company of them besieging my cabin door while I was
dressing, declaring "they must shake hands with the doctor!" [19] One
of them actually peeped in through the ventilator at me, my secretary
told me afterwards. A nice sight she must have seen, the lovely
creature! Report says she drew her head back very quickly. Indeed,
at every place where we put in we were looked on somewhat as wild
animals in a menagerie. For they peeped unceremoniously at us in our
berths as if we had been bears and lions in a den, and we could hear
them loudly disputing among themselves as to who was who, and whether
those nearest and dearest to us whose portraits hung on the walls could
be called pretty or not. When I had finished my toilette I opened the
door cautiously and made a rush through the gaping company. "There
he is--there he is!" [20] they called to each other as they tumbled
up the steps after me. It was no use; I was on the quay and in the
carriage long before they had reached the deck.
At 8 o'clock there was a great banquet, many fine speeches, good fare
and excellent wine, pretty ladies, music, and dancing till far into
the night.
Next morning at 11 o'clock--it was Sunday--in bright, sunshiny weather,
we stood northward over Bergen Fjord, many friends accompanying us. It
was a lovely, never-to-be-forgotten summer day. In Herlö Fjord, right
out by the skerries, they parted from us, amid wavings of hats and
pocket-handkerchiefs; we could see the little harbor boat for a long
while with its black cloud of smoke on the sparkling surface of the
water. Outside, the sea rolled in the hazy sunlight; and within lay the
flat Mangerland, full of memories for me of zoological investigations
in fair weather and foul, years and years ago. Here it was that one of
Norway's most famous naturalists, a lonely pastor far removed from
the outer world, made his great discoveries. Here I myself first
groped my way along the narrow path of zoological research.
It was a wondrous evening. The lingering flush of vanished day
suffused the northern sky, while the moon hung large and round over
the mountains behind us. Ahead lay Alden and Kinn, like a fairyland
rising up from the sea. Tired as I was, I could not seek my berth;
I must drink in all this loveliness in deep refreshing draughts. It
was like balm to the soul after all the turmoil and friction with
crowds of strangers.
So we went on our way, mostly in fair weather, occasionally in fog
and rain, through sounds and between islands, northward along the
coast of Norway. A glorious land--I wonder if another fairway like
this is to be found the whole world over? Those never-to-be-forgotten
mornings, when nature wakens to life, wreaths of mist glittering like
silver over the mountains, their tops soaring above the mist like
islands of the sea! Then the day gleaming over the dazzling white
snow-peaks! And the evenings, and the sunsets with the pale moon
overhead, white mountains and islands lay hushed and dreamlike as a
youthful longing! Here and there past homely little havens with houses
around them set in smiling green trees! Ah! those snug homes in the lee
of the skerries awake a longing for life and warmth in the breast. You
may shrug your shoulders as much as you like at the beauties of nature,
but it is a fine thing for a people to have a fair land, be it never so
poor. Never did this seem clearer to me than now when I was leaving it.
Every now and then a hurrah from land--at one time from a troop of
children, at another from grown-up people, but mostly from wondering
peasants who gaze long at the strange-looking ship and muse over its
enigmatic destination. And men and women on board sloops and ten-oared
boats stand up in their red shirts that glow in the sunlight, and rest
on their oars to look at us. Steamboats crowded with people came out
from the towns we passed to greet us, and bid us God-speed on our way
with music, songs, and cannon salutes. The great tourist steamboats
dipped flags to us and fired salutes, and the smaller craft did the
same. It is embarrassing and oppressive to be the object of homage like
this before anything has been accomplished. There is an old saying:
"At eve the day shall be praised,
The wife when she is burnt,
The sword when tried,
The woman when married,
The ice when passed over,
Ale when drunk."
Most touching was the interest and sympathy with which these poor
fisher-folk and peasants greeted us. It often set me wondering. I
felt they followed us with fervent eagerness. I remember one day--it
was north in Helgeland--an old woman was standing waving and waving
to us on a bare crag. Her cottage lay some distance inland. "I wonder
if it can really be us she is waving to," I said to the pilot, who was
standing beside me. "You may be sure it is," was the answer. "But how
can she know who we are?" "Oh! they know all about the Fram up here,
in every cabin, and they will be on the lookout for you as you come
back, I can tell you," he answered. Aye, truly, it is a responsible
task we are undertaking, when the whole nation are with us like
this. What if the thing should turn out a huge disappointment!
In the evening I would sit and look around--lonely huts lay scattered
here and there on points and islets. Here the Norwegian people wear
out their lives in the struggle with the rocks, in the struggle
with the sea; and it is this people that is sending us out into
the great hazardous unknown; the very folk who stand there in their
fishing-boats and look wonderingly after the Fram as she slowly and
heavily steams along on her northward course. Many of them wave their
sou'-westers and shout "Hurrah!" Others have barely time to gape at
us in wonderment. In on the point are a troop of women waving and
shouting; outside a few boats with ladies in light summer-dresses,
and gentlemen at the oars entertaining them with small-talk as they
wave their parasols and pocket-handkerchiefs. Yes; it is they who
are sending us out. It is not a cheering thought. Not one of them,
probably, knows what they are paying their money for. Maybe they
have heard it is a glorious enterprise; but why? To what end? Are
we not defrauding them? But their eyes are riveted on the ship,
and perhaps there dawns before their minds a momentary vision of a
new and inconceivable world, with aspirations after a something of
which they know naught.... And here on board are men who are leaving
wife and children behind them. How sad has been the separation! what
longing, what yearning, await them in the coming years! And it is not
for profit they do it. For honor and glory then? These may be scant
enough. It is the same thirst for achievement, the same craving to
get beyond the limits of the known, which inspired this people in
the Saga times that is stirring in them again to-day. In spite of
all our toil for subsistence, in spite of all our "peasant politics,"
sheer utilitarianism is perhaps not so dominant among us, after all.
As time was precious I did not, as originally intended, put in at
Trondhjem, but stopped at Beian, where Sverdrup joined us. Here
Professor Brögger also came on board, to accompany us as far as Tromsö.
Here, too, our doctor received three monstrous chests with the medicine
supply, a gift from Apothecary Bruun, of Trondhjem.
And so on towards the north, along the lovely coast of Nordland. We
stopped at one or two places to take dried fish on board as provision
for the dogs. Past Torghatten, the Seven Sisters, and Hestemanden; past
Lovunen and Trænen, far out yonder in the sea; past Lofoten and all the
other lovely places--each bold gigantic form wilder and more beautiful
than the last. It is unique--a fairyland--a land of dreams. We felt
afraid to go on too fast, for fear of missing something.
On July 12th we arrived at Tromsö, where we were to take in coal and
other things, such as reindeer cloaks, "komager" (a sort of Lapp
moccasin), Finn shoes, "senne" grass, dried reindeer flesh, etc.,
etc., all of which had been procured by that indefatigable friend
of the expedition, Advocate Mack. Tromsö gave us a cold reception--a
northwesterly gale, with driving snow and sleet. Mountains, plains,
and house-roofs were all covered with snow down to the water's edge. It
was the very bitterest July day I ever experienced. The people there
said they could not remember such a July. Perhaps they were afraid
the place would come into disrepute, for in a town where they hold
snow-shoe races on Midsummer Day one may be prepared for anything in
the way of weather.
In Tromsö the next day a new member of the expedition was engaged,
Bernt Bentzen--a stout fellow to look at. He originally intended
accompanying us only as far as Yugor Strait, but as a matter of fact
he went the whole voyage with us, and proved a great acquisition,
being not only a capital seaman, but a cheerful and amusing comrade.
After a stay of two days we again set out. On the night of the 16th,
east of the North Cape or Magerö, we met with such a nasty sea,
and shipped so much water on deck, that we put into Kjöllefjord to
adjust our cargo better by shifting the coal and making a few other
changes. We worked at this the whole of two days, and made everything
clear for the voyage to Novaya Zemlya. I had at first thought of taking
on board a fresh supply of coal at Vardö, but as we were already deeply
laden, and the Urania was to meet us at Yugor Strait with coal, we
thought it best to be contented with what we had already got on board,
as we might expect bad weather in crossing the White Sea and Barents
Sea. At ten o'clock in the evening we weighed anchor, and reached Vardö
next evening, where we met with a magnificent reception. There was a
band of music on the pier, the fjord teemed with boats, flags waved
on every hand, and salutes were fired. The people had been waiting
for us ever since the previous evening, we were told--some of them,
indeed, coming from Vadsö--and they had seized the opportunity to
get up a subscription to provide a big drum for the town band, the
"North Pole." And here we were entertained at a sumptuous banquet,
with speeches, and champagne flowing in streams, ere we bade Norway
our last farewell.
The last thing that had now to be done for the Fram was to have her
bottom cleaned of mussels and weeds, so that she might be able to
make the best speed possible. This work was done by divers, who were
readily placed at our service by the local inspector of the Government
Harbor Department.
But our own bodies also claimed one last civilized feast of
purification before entering on a life of savagery. The bath-house
of the town is a small timber building. The bath-room itself is low,
and provided with shelves where you lie down and are parboiled with
hot steam, which is constantly kept up by water being thrown on the
glowing hot stones of an awful oven, worthy of hell itself; while all
the time young quæn (lasses) flog you with birch twigs. After that
you are rubbed down, washed, and dried delightfully--everything being
well managed, clean, and comfortable. I wonder whether old Father
Mahomet has set up a bath like this in his paradise.