Chapter II.
Youthful Excursions.—Studies.—Goes on a Sealing Expedition to the Arctic Sea.—Hunts Ice-bear.
There is hardly a boy in Christiania or its neighborhood who is fond of sport that does not know Nordmarken, and you may hear many and many a one speak of its lakes, the deafening roar of its cascades, of the mysterious silence of its endless forest tracts, and the refreshing odor of the pine-trees. You may hear, too, how the speckled trout have been lured out of some deep pool, the hare been hunted among the purple mountain ridges, or the capercailzie approached with noiseless footsteps when in early spring the cock bird is wooing his mate; or again, of expeditions on ski over the boundless tracts of snow in the crisp winter air beneath the feathery snowladen trees of the forest.
In the days of Nansen’s boyhood it was very different from what it is now. Then the spell of enchantment that ever lies over an unknown and unexplored region brooded over it—a feeling engendered by Asbjörnsen’s[1] well-known tales.
It was as if old Asbjörnsen himself, the fairy-tale king, was trudging along rod in hand by the side of some hidden stream—he who alone knew how to find his way through the pathless forest to the dark waters of some remote lake. And it was but once in a while that the most venturesome lads, enticed by the tales he had devoured in that favorite story-book, dared pry into the secrets of that enchanted land. Only a few of the rising generation then had the courage and the hardihood to penetrate into those wilds whence they returned with faces beaming with joy, and with reinvigorated health and strength. But now the whole Norwegian youth do the same thing.
Among the few who in those days ventured there were the Nansen boys. They had the pluck, the hardiness, and yearning after adventure that Nordmarken demanded. They were not afraid of lying out in the forest during a pouring wet summer night, neither were they particular as to whether they had to fast for a day or two.
Fridtjof Nansen was about eleven years old when, in company with his brother Alexander, he paid his first independent visit to it. Two of their friends were living in Sörkedal,[2] so they determined to go and see them—for the forest looked so attractive that they could not resist the temptation. For once they started off without asking leave. They knew their way as far as Bogstad,[3] but after that had to ask the road to Sörkedal. Arriving at their destination, they passed the day in playing games, and in fishing in the river.
But it was not altogether an enjoyable visit, for conscience pricked, and as they set out for home late in the evening, their hearts sank. Their father was a strict disciplinarian, and a thrashing rose up before them, and what was even worse than that, mother might be grieved, and that was something they could not endure to think of.
On reaching home they found its inmates had not gone to bed, though it was late in the night. Of course they had been searching for the truants, and their hearts, which a moment before had been very low down, now jumped up into their throats, for they could see mother coming toward them.
“Is that you, boys?” she asked.
“Now for it,” they thought.
“Where have you been?” asked their mother.
Yes, they had been to Sörkedal, and they looked up at her half afraid of what would happen next. Then they saw that her eyes were filled with tears.
“You are strange boys!” she murmured; and that was all she said. But those words made the hearts of the young culprits turn cold and hot by turns, and they there and then registered a vow that they would never do anything again to cause mother pain, but would always try to please her—a resolution they kept, as far as was possible, their whole lives through.
Subsequently they had leave given them to go to Sörkedal, and wherever else they wanted. But they had to go on their own responsibility, and look out for themselves as best they could. But Fridtjof never forgot the lesson he had learned on that first expedition to Nordmarken. Who can tell whether his mother’s tearful face, and her gentle words, “You are strange boys!” have not appeared to him in wakeful hours, and been the means of preventing many a venturesome deed being rashly undertaken, many a headstrong idea from becoming defiant.
This at all events is certain,—Nansen when a man always knew how to turn aside in a spirit of self-denial when the boundary line between prudence and rashness had been reached. And for this it may be safely said he had to thank his father and mother.
Those who are in the habit of going about in forests are pretty sure to meet with some wonderful old fellow who knows where the best fish lie in the river, and the favorite haunts of game in the woods. Such a one was an old man named Ola Knub, whose acquaintance Nansen made in the Nordmarken forest. His wife used to come to Store Fröen with baskets of huckleberries, strawberries, cranberries, etc., and it was through her Fridtjof got to know him. Often they would set off on an expedition, rod in hand, and coffee kettle on their back, and be away for days together. They would fish for trout from early morning till late at night, sleeping on a plank bed in some wood-cutter’s hut, after partaking of a supper of trout broiled in the ashes, and black coffee.
Toward the end of May, when the birch and the oak began to bud, and the timber floats had gone down the river, they would start on such an expedition, taking with them a goodly supply of bread and butter, and perhaps the stump of a sausage.
It took them generally quite five hours to reach their destination, but once arrived there they would immediately set to work with rod and line, and fish up to midnight, when they would crawl into some charcoal-burner’s hut for a few hours’ sleep, or as was often the case, sleep out in the open, resting their backs against a tree, and then at daybreak would be off again, to the river. For time was precious, and they had to make the best use they could of the hours between Saturday evening and Monday morning, when they must be in school.
When autumn set in, and hare-hunting began, they would often be on foot for twenty-four hours together without any food at all. As the boys grew older, they would follow the chase in winter on ski, often, indeed, almost to the detriment of their health. Once when they had been hare-hunting for a whole fortnight, they found their provision-bag was empty, and as they would not touch the hares they had killed, they had to subsist as best they could on potatoes only.
In this way Fridtjof grew up to be exceptionally hardy. When, as it often happened, his companions got worn out, he would suggest their going to some spot a long distance off. It seemed to be a special point of honor with him to bid defiance to fatigue. On one occasion, after one of these winter excursions to Nordmarken, he set off alone without any provisions in his knapsack to a place twenty-five kilometres (fifteen and a half miles) distant, for none of his companions dared accompany him. On arriving at the place where he was bound, he almost ate its inmates out of house and home.
On another occasion, on a long expedition on ski with some of his comrades, all of whom had brought a plentiful supply of food with them in their knapsacks, Fridtjof had nothing. When they halted to take some necessary refreshment, he unbuttoned his jacket and pulled out some pancakes from his pocket, quite warm from the heat of his body. “Here, you fellows,” he said, “won’t you have some pancakes?” But pancakes, his friends thought, might be nice things in general, yet pancakes kept hot in that way were not appetizing, and so they refused his proffered hospitality.
“You are a lot of geese! there’s jam on them too,” he said, as he eagerly devoured the lot.
Even as a boy Fridtjof was impressed with the idea that hardiness and powers of endurance were qualifications absolutely essential for the life he was bent on leading; so he made it his great aim to be able to bear everything, and to require as little as was possible.
If there were things others found impracticable, he would at once set to work and attempt them. And when once he had taken a matter in hand, he would never rest till he had gone through with it, even though his life might be at stake. For instance, he and his brother once set out to climb the Svartdal’s peak in Jotunheim.[4] People usually made the ascent from the rear side of the mountain; but this was not difficult enough for him. He would climb it from the front, a route no one had ever attempted; and he did it.
Up under Svartdal’s peak there was a glacier that they must cross, bounded on its farther side by a precipice extending perpendicularly down into the valley below. His brother relates, “I had turned giddy, so Fridtjof let me have his staff. Then he set off over the ice; but instead of going with the utmost caution, advancing foot by foot at a time, as he now would do, off went my brother as hard as he could—his foot slipped, and he commenced to slide down the glacier. I saw that he turned pale, for in a few seconds more he would be hurled over the abyss, and be crushed to pieces on the rocks below. He saw his danger, however, just in the nick of time, and managed to arrest his progress by digging his heels into the snow. Never shall I forget that moment; neither shall I forget when we arrived at the tourist’s cabin how he borrowed a pair of trousers belonging to the club’s corpulent secretary—for they completely swallowed him up. His own garment, be it stated, had lost an essential part by the excessive friction caused by his slide down the glacier.”
Such were the foolhardy exploits Fridtjof would indulge in as a boy; but when he arrived at manhood he would never risk his life in any undertaking that was not worth a life’s venture.
When nineteen he entered the university, and in the following year passed his second examination;[5] and now arose the question what was he to be? As yet the idea of the future career which has rendered his name famous had not occurred to his mind, so we see him hesitating over which of the many roads that lay before him to adopt. He applied to have his name put down for admission as cadet in the military school, but quickly withdrew the application. Next he began the study of medicine, after which all his time was devoted to a special study of zoölogy. In 1882 he sought the advice of Professor Collet as to the best method of following up this branch of science, and the professor’s reply was that he had better go on a sealing-expedition to the Arctic seas. Nansen took a week to reflect on this advice before finally deciding; and on March 11 we see him on board the sealer Viking, steering out of Arendal harbor to the Arctic ocean—the ocean that subsequently was to mark an epoch in his life, and become the scene of his memorable exploit.
Nansen at nineteen.
It was with wondrously mixed feelings that he turned his gaze toward the north as he stood on the deck that March morning. Behind him lay the beloved home of his childhood and youth. The first rays of the rising sun were shining over the silent forests whither the woodcock and other birds of passage would soon be journeying from southern climes, and the capercailzie beginning his amorous manœuvres on the sombre pine tops, while the whole woodland would speedily be flooded with the songs of its feathered denizens.
And there before him was the sea, the wondrous sea, where he would behold wrecked vessels drifting along in the raging tempest, with flocks of stormy petrels in attendance—and beyond, the Polar sea, that fairy region, was pictured in his dreams. Yes, he could see it in his spirit—could see the mighty icebergs, with their crests sparkling in the sunlight in thousands of varied forms and hues, and between these the boundless tracts of ice extending as far as the eye could reach in one level unbroken plain. When this dream became reality, how did he meet it?
Flat, drifting floes of ice, rocked up and down in the blue-green sea, alike in sunshine and in fog, in storm and calm. One monotonous infinity of ice to struggle through, floe after floe rising up like white-clad ghosts from the murky sea, gliding by with a soughing, rippling murmur to vanish from sight, or to dash against the ship’s sides till masts and hull quivered; and then when morning broke, a faint, mysterious light, a hollow murmur in the air, like the roar of distant surge, far away to the north.
This was the Arctic sea! this the drift ice! They were soon in the midst of it. The sea-gulls circled about, and the snow-bunting whirled around the floes of ice on which the new-fallen snow lay and glittered.
A gale set in; then it blew a hurricane; and the Viking groaned like a wounded whale, quivering as if in the agonies of death from the fierce blows on her sides. At last they approached the scene of their exertions, and the excitement of the impending chase for seals drove out every other feeling from the mind, and every one was wondering “were there many seals this year? would the weather be propitious?”
One forenoon “a sail to leeward” was reported by the man in the crow’s-nest, and all hands were called up on deck, every stitch of canvas spread, and all the available steam-power used to overtake the stranger.
There were two ships; one of them being Nordenskjöld’s famous Vega, now converted into a sealer. Nansen took his hat off to her; and it may well be that this strange encounter imbued his mind with a yearning to accomplish some exploit of a similar perilous nature and world-wide renown as that of the famed Vega expedition. It is a significant fact that the Vega was the first ship Nansen met with in the Arctic sea—a fact that forces itself upon the mind with all the might of a historic moment, with all the fateful force of destiny. It addresses us like one of those many accidental occurrences that seem as if they had a purpose—occurrences that every man who is on the alert and mindful of his future career will meet once at least if not oftener on his journey through life. Such things are beyond our finite comprehension. Some people may term them “the finger of God,” others the new, higher, unknown laws of nature; it may be these names signify but one and the same thing.
That year the Viking did not meet with great success among the seals, for the season was rather too advanced by the time she reached the sealing-grounds. But all the more did Nansen get to learn about the Arctic sea; and of the immense waste of waters of that free, lonely ocean, his inmost being drank in refreshing draughts.
On May 2, Spitzbergen was sighted, and on the 25th they were off the coast of Iceland, where Nansen for a while planted his foot once more on firm land. But their stay there was short, and soon they were off to sea again, and in among the seals. And now the continual report of guns sounded all around; the crew singing and shouting; flaying seals and boiling the blubber—a life forsooth of busy activity.
Toward the end of June the Viking got frozen in off the East Greenland coast, where she lay imprisoned a whole month, unfortunately during the best of the sealing season; a loss, indeed, to the owners, but a gain for Nansen, who now for the first time in his life got his full enjoyment in the chase of the polar bear.
During all these days of their imprisonment in the ice there was one incessant chase after bears,—looking out for bears from the crow’s-nest, racing after bears over the ice, resulting in loss of life to a goodly number of those huge denizens of the Polar regions.
“Bear on the weather bow!” “Bear to leeward! all hands turn out!” were the cries from morning till night; and many a time did Nansen jump up from his berth but half dressed, and away over the ice to get a shot.
Toward evening one day in July Nansen was sitting up in the crow’s-nest, making a sketch of the Greenland coast. On deck one of the crew, nicknamed Balloon, was keeping watch, and just as our artist was engrossed with his pencil, he heard Balloon shouting at the top of his voice, “Bear ahead!” In an instant Nansen sprang up, threw his painting-materials down on the deck below, quickly following the same himself down the rigging. But alas! by the time he had reached the deck and seized his rifle, the bear had disappeared.
“A pretty sort of fellow to sit up in the crow’s-nest and not see a bear squatting just in front of the bows!” said the captain tauntingly.
But a day or two afterward Nansen fully retrieved his reputation. It was his last bear-hunt on the expedition, and this is what occurred:—
He and the captain and one of the sailors set out after a monstrous bear. The beast, however, was shy, and beat a speedy retreat. All three sprang after it. But as Nansen was jumping over an open place in the ice, he fell plump into the sea. His first thought on finding himself in the water was his rifle, which he flung upon the ice. But it slipped off again into the water, so Nansen had to dive after it. Next time he managed to throw it some distance across the ice, and then clambered up himself, of course wet through to the skin. But his cartridges, which were water-tight ones, were all right, and soon he rejoined his companions in pursuit, and outstripped them. In a little while he saw the bear making for a hummock, and made straight for him; on coming up to closer quarters the beast turned sharp round and dropped into the water, but not before Nansen was able to put a bullet into him. On reaching the edge of the ice, he could see no trace of the animal. Yes—there was something white yonder, a little below the surface, for the bear had dived. Presently he saw the animal pop its head up just in front of him, and a moment after its paws were on the edge of the floe, on which, with a fierce and angry growl, the huge beast managed to drag himself up. Nansen now fired again, and had the satisfaction of seeing the bear drop back dead into the water, where he had to hold it by the ears to prevent it sinking, till his companions came up, when they were able to haul it up on the ice.
The captain now bade Nansen return to the ship as quickly as he could to change his clothes; but on his road thither he met with some others of the crew in pursuit of a couple of bears. The temptation was too strong for him, so he joined them. He was fortunate enough to shoot one of the bears that they had wounded, and then started after bear number two, which was leisurely devouring the carcass of a seal some little distance off. On coming up with it he fired. The bear reeled and fell backwards into the water, but speedily coming up again, made off for a large hummock, under cover of which it hoped to be able to sneak off.
But Nansen was not far behind. It was an exciting chase. First over a wide space of open water, then across some firm ice; the bear dashed along for dear life, and now the iron muscles, hardened by his exploits on the Huseby hills and his Nordmarken experiences, stood his pursuer in good stead. Following on the blood-stained track, he ran as fast as his legs could carry him. Now the bear, now Nansen, seemed to be getting the advantage. Whenever a broad opening in the ice or a pool of clear water came in their way, they swam across it; bear first, Nansen a good second—and so it went on mile after mile. Presently, however, Nansen thought his competitor in the race began to slacken speed, and to turn and twist in his course, as if seeking for some friendly shelter; and coming up within a reasonable distance he gave him two bullets, one lodging in the chest, the other behind the ear, when to his great joy the bear lay dead at his feet. Nansen at once set to work to skin the brute with a penknife—rather a tedious operation with such an instrument. Presently one of the sailors came up, and off they started for the ship with the skin, on their road meeting a man whom the captain had thoughtfully despatched with a supply of bread and meat, without which, indeed, as is well known, a hero, especially when ravenously hungry, is a nobody.
In all, nineteen bears were bagged during this time.
Soon after this bear-hunt the Viking set out for home, and great was the joy of all on board when the coast of “old Norway,” with its lofty mountain ridges, was seen towering up over the sea. This expedition of the Viking was termed by the sailors, “Nansen’s cruise,”—an exceptional reminiscence, a monolith in the midst of the ice!
“Ay, he was a chap after bears!” said one of the sailors afterward; “just as much under the water as over it, when he was after bears. I told him that he was going to injure his health that way; but he only laughed, and pointing to his woollen jersey said, ‘I do not feel cold.’”
To Fridtjof Nansen this Arctic expedition became the turning-point of his life. The dream of the mighty ocean never left him; it was ever before his eyes with all its inexplicable riddles.
Here was something to do—something that people called impossible. He would test it. Some years, however, must elapse before that dream should become reality. Nansen must first be a man. Everything that tended to retard his progress must be removed or shattered to pieces—all that would promote it, improved upon and set in order.
[1] P. C. Asbjörnsen (pron. Asbyurnsen) together with Jörgen (pron. Yurgen) Moe collected the popular and fairy tales of Norway.
[2] Sörkedal, a valley about eight miles to the north of Christiania.
[3] Bogstad, a baronial manor about five miles north of Christiania.
[4] Jotunheim, the giant’s world, a group of mountains in the centre of southern Norway.
[5] Second examination, graduating as a bachelor of arts.