Through the first Antarctic night, 1898-1899

by Frederick Albert Cook

The Sand-like Drift Snow.

The weather, the ice, and the general life and surroundings have been so monotonous for the past month, that I have found little of interest to tabulate. The general health of the crew is improving. They no longer have an anxious, dejected aspect, and their spirits are rising. In clear weather they sing, and dance, and speak in happy, cheerful tones. The ship is being prepared for sea, which is a matter of considerable work. Being imprisoned in the grasp of the pack for these many months has made the locality like a small village. Outhouses, sledges, sounding machines, and many other things are strewn on the pack. Aboard, the fixtures have all been more or less disarranged, so that everything must be restored and refitted for the new voyage. We have filled the water-tanks with snow. By burning seal blubber and coal in our condenser, we are able to melt snow and bring the resulting water to a boiling point very quickly; this is poured over the snow in the tanks. This method is very satisfactory, for in this way we are able to make several hundred gallons of water daily. I believe, however, that a jet of steam directed into the tanks would do the work much more quickly and with greater economy; but to make the necessary alterations for this is, with our equipment, quite impossible.

Could there be a more melancholy, a more maddening, or a more hopeless region than this? We are passing rapidly into the polar summer, the time when, in other zones, all Nature smiles;—even the sister zone, the arctic, has striking attractive features at this time. The birds fill the air with music, new animals make their appearance, and on land even flowers and mosquitos serve to make life interesting; but here, in this icy antarctic wilderness, the charm of Nature is dead. We see the sun so seldom that it is, indeed, a surprise when its unobstructed rays fall upon the frosted whiteness. Though it sweeps more than half of the horizon daily, we get only the cold blue light which is filtered through a constant haze of icy clouds. An occasional sunburst for a few moments each day and a clear sky once fortnightly is our average. Storms, tempests, and steady howling winds with snow, are our constant lot, and these come from all points of the compass. There is no inspiring solitude, no rest, no cheerful outlook; the sea is imprisoned under a restless and irregular mass of storm-driven ice. The sky is always cloudy and dirty; the air is always wet, cold, and agitated; under such circumstances the human mind assumes a like attitude.

The Tabular Iceberg, the Largest Berg within the Horizon of the Belgica’s Drift. It is about 200 Feet High, and a Half-mile Long.

For two days we have had a fierce gale veering from south-east to south-west; an excellent direction to send us north at a rapid pace, which is a pleasant consolation for the ill-effects on the spirits and on the personal comfort. The storm is, of its kind, the worst I have ever seen. The wind is strong, but one could hardly call it a tempest; it brings with it, however, all the elements of misery which follow a tempest. The air is so loaded with very fine snow-crystals that its action upon the face is something of the nature of emery paper. This snow is blown in gusts and constant streams, which scrape and rasp all projections, and bury every declivity, while the snowy surface is cut into small ridges which we call cestrugi; and around the Belgica it is deposited to such an extent that nothing but the masts are visible. A very strange accompaniment is a perfectly cloudless blue sky at the zenith, while all along the horizon there is an opaque circle of icy haze, which is tinged with the most delicate hues of red, blue, and yellow. One can nowhere see more than 100 metres, yet this haze seems far off. It is, of course, the driven snow which causes this phenomenon, and also a nearly constant parhelia; but the fact that the sky above is perfectly clear proves that the obscurity is very low on the ice, perhaps not more than ten metres, for the topmasts of the ship are visible above it, and now and then the tops of icebergs also appear. The picturesque effect of this hurling, seething confusion of icy crystals is far beyond my power to paint in words. It is a picture at once full of incomprehensible grandeur, indescribable discomfort, and irresistible attractiveness. But who will tabulate this with enthusiasm when snow is being driven down your neck, into your eyes, ears, and almost into the pores of your skin, while your boots, your mittens, and every opening or fold of clothing are filled with snow at a temperature of -20° C.? Who will paint the colours, or sing the joys of Nature, when the wind pipes the notes of a buzz-saw, and will not permit you to stoop without helping you to a somersault?

The Commandant gave us a new programme yesterday for the summer campaign but we do not now regard programmes seriously. We think more of the many little things which cause life to fall and drift and settle into our boots, like the snow around us. Indeed, there are but few things greatly interesting, except the character of our food, the prosecution of our special work, and the prospect of our release from the iron grasp of the rigid pack.

I have heard of a deaf man who once said that life was of value to him only because of “reading, eating, drinking, and the prospect of death.” This sentiment in a modified form would, I am certain, be the confession of many, if not most, of our party, during every stormy period. The modification is, perhaps, only in the last word, and this we would change to “the prospect of an early return to the inner world and to renewed social conditions.” The storms are so numerous and close that a tempest is nearly always on the horizon. If it is not so, as was the case a week ago, the air about the Belgica rings with happy voices and musical sounds. But there is always something to make hilarity short-lived. If it is not the weather it is a frozen batch of skins, a garment hopelessly torn which needs mending, a watch to repair, a boot to mend, a camera to alter, or any one of a thousand discomforts and distractions about the ship which send the soul to the verge of desperation. To-night I have stockings to darn, to-morrow pantaloons to mend, and all of next week carpenter-work, mending and making sledges, sewing sails, dressing skins, and taking photos in a temperature -22° C.—all of this is far from pleasant, but it contains a lesson. It teaches us how much of the drudgery of life is done uncomplainingly by mothers, sisters, wives, and other members of the family circle. It makes us feel the importance of feminine existence, causes us to see the ups and downs, the ponds and eddies, the rapids and cataracts of the humdrum side of life which man ordinarily escapes.

November 16.—The winter night, with its death-dealing blackness, has passed; the spring, with its awful storms and gray monotony has followed, and the summer, with its continuous noonday splendour, commences to-day. At least it ought to, if our estimated position is correct. We have, however, had no observations in a week, and are not, in consequence, able to fix our exact position, and the persistent cloudiness of the sky is such that we cannot determine whether the sun is above or below the horizon at midnight.