From Job to Job around the World

by Alfred C. B. Fletcher

There was no time to lose, and once the ship was made fast two men were detailed to proceed to the mine and notify the winter superintendent of our arrival. The hundred and fifty men were getting their belongings together for their march to the camp. In a short time one could see this small army of men creeping like a huge caterpillar over the twenty-mile stretch of ice to the mine. Superintendent Gilson and I remained with the ship, making preparations for the unloading of the cargo and awaiting the arrival of the sleds from the camp.

We couldn't resist the temptation, and towards evening we went hunting. From the deck of the ship we landed a goodly bag of reaper for our evening meal. We would shoot into the black mass of these trim little ducks that clustered about the boat, and with each shot the innocent creatures would momentarily flutter and then close up the gap. Every time we fired we killed half-a-dozen birds and shortly we had a sufficient number to feed the ship's crew. It was like slaying little babes, and as soon as we had enough for dinner we stopped the heartless slaughter.

There are no barbers on Spitzbergen. Seated on a stool on the stern of the ship I allowed Superintendent Gilson to shingle my rustry locks with a pair of clippers provided by the company. I didn't realise how intensely cold it was until the sharp currents of the Arctic began to circulate around my ears in the paths made by the moving hand of the superintendent. One complete run of the clippers up the back of my head was all I could stand at one time, and in I would run to warm myself by the stove in the mess-room. In a minute I would return to let the work continue, only to speed back to the stove again. Dinner was on the table and the little mess-room could not be turned into a barber-shop. After half an hour the job was finished. It was Gilson's first attempt at anything in the tonsorial line. On gazing into the mirror to inspect the work I concluded that he should have been a winding stair-maker. The most skilled mechanic could not have made a more perfect set of steps.

In the morning half-a-dozen sleds drawn by horses could be seen making their way towards the ship. Occasionally one of the horses would step on a soft or melted spot in the ice and sink in for several feet. Finally one of the poor animals disappeared beneath the ice and was completely submerged in the freezing water. After a twenty-minute struggle, aided by its team-mate which had been hitched in such a manner as to render assistance, the brave beast was brought to the surface of the ice.

The sleds reached the ship and the place became a scene of great activity, discharging the cargo and loading it again for transportation across the ice to the mine.

Gilson and I left the work in charge of the captain and about noon set out across the ice to the camp. Gilson went in the lead a few paces to select the way and avoid the soft and treacherous-looking water holes. Distance on the ice was very deceiving. We had walked for two hours, and the mountains seemed to be as far away as ever. We proceeded on for two hours more and still our destination seemed no nearer. However, we knew we were making progress, for the Munroe, in the rear, looked like a small row boat and became smaller and smaller as we continued until she disappeared from view. We tramped on over this vast expanse of ice. At eight o'clock in the evening we reached the shore. We walked over the hill about a mile, and in a few minutes were in the little camp. Turner and the other members of the American staff had arrived the day before and had prepared a big dinner for us. Gilson and I sat down at the table in the little cottage which served as headquarters for the Americans, and ate one of the finest meals of our lives. Roast reindeer, killed by a member of the camp the day before, made a great filling for two hungry and frozen men.

The Spitzbergen archipelago is another "No-Man's Land." It belongs to no country. The Arctic Coal Company, incorporated under the laws of Massachusetts, owns about forty-five thousand acres on the island of West Spitzbergen, which it acquired by staking out claims and which it holds by the moral protection of the United States. A British company has several thousand acres of coal lands on the same island which it abandoned a number of years ago. There is a marble quarry on the east coast operated by an English concern. At Green Harbour, near the entrance of Ice Fjord, the Norwegian government conducts a wireless plant, and near by there is a Swedish whaling station. There are no native inhabitants of Spitzbergen, and its population, numbering about three hundred and fifty in the summer season and two hundred in the winter, is made up of those engaged at the several places I have enumerated.

The islands of Spitzbergen are coveted by the three Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Russia is also desirous of adding them to her vast domain. Each year a council, made up of representatives from each of these nations, meets in Stockholm, Christiania or Copenhagen and discusses ways and means to settle the question of their disposal. Nothing definite has ever been accomplished, and without the approval of Great Britain and America, whose properties make them big factors, the problem bids fair to remain undecided for some time. As a result of this situation Spitzbergen does not possess a local government of any kind. It is a land where might is right. There are no laws, no police and no means to enforce order. Manager Turner was the ruler and executive in our part of the island, and any regulations that existed had been instituted by him.

Eight months of the year the islands are entirely frozen in; their steep mountains are covered with snow, their valleys filled with immense glaciers and their interior is one endless waste of ice. During the summer months the fjords and bays of the southern part are freed of ice, the mountains shed their white mantles and the hillsides burst forth with the bloom of millions of little wild flowers of many varieties, which, with the abundant fresh green grass, present a most beautiful picture. I once read a booklet descriptive of Spitzbergen in which the trees were stated to be only two inches high. This is literally true. None of the vegetation attains a greater height than two inches, but it is doubtful whether these miniature plants should be dignified to the extent of being called trees.