Chapter III.
Fridtjof Nansen Accepts a Position in the Bergen Museum.—Crosses the Mountains in the Winter.—Prepares Himself for the Doctor’s Degree.
The very same day that Nansen set foot on land after his return from this expedition he was offered the Conservatorship of the Bergen[1] Museum by Professor Collett. Old Danielsen, the chief physician, a man of iron capacity for work, and who had attained great renown in his profession, wanted to place a new man in charge. Nansen promptly accepted the offer, but asked first to be allowed to visit a sister in Denmark. But a telegram from Danielsen, “Nansen must come at once,” compelled him, though with no little regret, to give up his projected visit.
The meeting of these two men was as if two clouds heavily laden with electricity had come in contact, producing a spark that blazed over the northern sky. That spark resulted in the famous Greenland expedition.
Danielsen was one of those who held that a youth possessed of health, strength, and good abilities should be able to unravel almost anything and everything in this world, and in Fridtjof Nansen he found such an one. So these two worked together assiduously; for both were alike enthusiastic in the cause of science, both possessed the same strong faith in its advancement. And Danielsen, the clear-headed scientist, after being associated with his colleague for some few years, entertained such firm confidence in his powers and capabilities, that a short time before the expedition to the North Pole set out, he wrote in a letter:—
“Fridtjof Nansen will as surely return crowned with success from the North Pole as it is I who am writing these lines—such is an old man’s prophecy!”
The old scientist, who felt his end was drawing near, sent him before his death an anticipatory letter of greeting when the expedition should happily be over.
Nansen devoted himself to the study of science with the same indomitable energy that characterized all of his achievements.
Hour by hour he would sit over his microscope, month after month devote himself to the pursuit of knowledge. Yet every now and then, when he felt he must go out to get some fresh air, he would buckle on his ski, and dash along over the mountain or through the forest till the snow spurted up in clouds behind him. Thus he spent several years in Bergen.
But one fine day, chancing to read in the papers that Nordenskjöld had returned from his expedition to Greenland, and had said that the interior of the country was a boundless plain of ice and snow, it flashed on his mind that here was a field of work for him. Yes—he would cross Greenland on ski! and he at once set to work to prepare a plan for the expedition. But such an adventurous task, in which life would be at stake, must not be undertaken till he himself had become a proficient in that branch of science which he had selected as his special study. So he remains yet some more years in Bergen, after which he spends twelve months in Naples, working hard at the subjects in which he subsequently took his doctor’s degree in 1888.
Those years of expectation in Bergen were busy years. Every now and then he would become homesick. In winter time he would go by the railway from Bergen to Voss,[2] thence on ski over the mountains to Christiania, down the Stalheim road,[2] with its sinuous twists and bends, on through Nærödal, noted for its earth slips, on by the swift Lerdals river fretting and fuming on one side, and a perpendicular mountain wall on the other. And here he would sit to rest in that narrow gorge where avalanches are of constant occurrence. Let them come! he must rest awhile and eat. A solitary wayfarer hurries by on his sleigh as fast as his horse will go. “Take care!” shouts the traveller as he passes by; and Nansen looks up, gathers his things together, and proceeds on his journey through the valley. It was Sauekilen, the most dangerous spot in Lerdals, where he was resting. Then the night falls, the moon shines brightly overhead, and the creaking sound of his footsteps follows him over the desert waste, and his dark-blue shadow stays close beside him. And he, the man possessed of ineffable pride and indomitable resolution, feels how utterly insignificant he is in that lonely wilderness of snow—naught but an insect under the powerful microscope of the starlit sky, for the far-seeing eye of the Almighty is piercing through his inmost soul. Here it avails not to seek to hide aught from that gaze. So he pours out his thoughts to Him who alone has the right to search them. That midnight pilgrimage over the snowy waste was like a divine service on ski; and it was as an invigorated man, weary though he was in body, that he knocked at the door of a peasant’s cabin, while its astonished inmates looked out in amazement, and the old housewife cried out, “Nay! in Jesus’ name, are there folk on the fjeld[3] so late in the night? Nay! is it you? Suppose you are always so late on the road!”
Even still more arduous was the return journey that same winter. The people in the last house on the eastern side of the mountain, in bidding him “God speed,” entreat him to go cautiously, for the road over the fjeld is well nigh impassable in winter, they say. Not a man in the whole district would follow him, they add. Nansen promises them to be very careful, as he sets off in the moonlight at three o’clock in the morning. Soon he reaches the wild desert, and the glittering snow blushes like a golden sea in the beams of the rising sun. Presently he reaches Myrstölen.[4] The houseman is away from home, and the women-folk moan and weep on learning the road he means to take. On resuming his journey he shortly comes to a cross-road. Shall it be Aurland or Vosse skavlen?[5] He chooses the latter route across the snow plateau, for it is the path the wild reindeer follow. On he skims over the crisp surface enveloped in the cloud of snow-dust his ski stir up, for the wind is behind him. But now he loses his way, falls down among the clefts and fissures, toils along step by step, and at last has to turn back and retrace his steps. There ought to be a sæter[6] somewhere about there, but it seems as if it had been spirited away. A pitchy darkness sets in; for the stars have disappeared one by one, and the night is of a coal-black hue, and Fridtjof has to make his bed on the snow-covered plateau, under the protecting shelter of a bowlder, his faithful dog by his side, his knapsack for a pillow, while the night wind howls over the waste.
Again, at three in the morning, he resumes his journey, only again to lose his way, and burying himself in the snow, determines to wait for daybreak. Dawn came over the mountain-tops in a sea of rosy light, while the dark shadows of night fled to their hiding-places in the deep valleys below—a proclamation of eternity, where nature was the preacher and nature the listener, the voice of God speaking to himself.
At broad daylight he sees Vosse skavlen close at hand, and thither he drags his weary, stiffened limbs; but on reaching the summit he drinks “skaal[7] to the fjeld,” a frozen orange, the last he has, being his beverage. Before the sun sets again, Fridtjof has crossed that mountain height, as King Sverre[8] did of yore—an achievement performed by those two alone!
Fridtjof Nansen’s father died in 1885, and it was largely consideration for his aged parent’s failing health during the last few years that delayed Nansen’s setting out on his Greenland expedition. The letters that passed between father and son during this period strikingly evince the tender relationship existing between them. On receipt of the tidings of his father’s last illness he hurried off at a moment’s notice, never resting on his long homeward journey, inexpressibly grieved at arriving too late to see him alive.
Then, after a year’s sojourn in Naples, where he met the genial and energetic Professor Dohrn, the founder of the biological station[9] in that city, having no further ties to hinder him, he enters heart and soul into the tasks he has set himself to accomplish,—to take his degree as doctor of philosophy, and to make preparation for his expedition to Greenland, both of which tasks he accomplished in the same year with credit. For he not only made himself a name as a profound researcher in the realms of science, but at the same time equipped an expedition that was soon destined to excite universal attention, not in the north alone, but throughout the length and breadth of Europe.
[1] Bergen, the metropolis of western Norway, the second largest city in Norway.
[2] Voss, a country district of western Norway, connected with Bergen by railway. Stalheim road, a piece of road winding in a slow decline down a steep hill, famous for the beauty of its scenery and the engineering skill with which it has been built. Nærödal and Lerdals river must be passed on the way from Bergen to Christiania.
[3] Fjeld (pron. fyell), mountain.
[4] Myrstölen, the last house on the eastern side of the mountain inhabited the whole year through.
[5] Aurland and Vosse skavlen, alternative routes across the mountains from Christiania to Bergen.
[6] Sæter, mountain hut, used by graziers during the summer months.
[7] Skaal, your health.
[8] King Sverre, King of Norway 1177 to 1202.
[9] An institution where animal life is studied.