First appearance of the sun
“Friday, February 16th. Hurrah! A meridian observation to-day shows 80° 1′ north latitude, so that we have come a few minutes north since last Friday, and that in spite of constant northerly winds since Monday. There is something very singular about this. Is it, as I have thought all along from the appearance of the clouds and the haziness of the air, that there has been south wind in the south, preventing the drift of the ice that way, or have we at last come under the influence of a current? That shove we got to the south lately in the face of southerly winds was a remarkable thing, and so is our remaining where we are now in spite of the northerly ones. It would seem that new powers of some kind must be at work. “To-day another noteworthy thing happened, which was that about midday we saw the sun, or, to be more correct, an image of the sun, for it was only a mirage. A peculiar impression was produced by the sight of that glowing fire lit just above the outermost edge of the ice. According to the enthusiastic descriptions given by many Arctic travellers of the first appearance of this god of life after the long winter night, the impression ought to be one of jubilant excitement; but it was not so in my case. We had not expected to see it for some days yet, so that my feeling was rather one of pain, of disappointment, that we must have drifted farther south than we thought. So it was with pleasure I soon discovered that it could not be the sun itself. The mirage was at first like a flattened-out glowing red streak of fire on the horizon; later there were two streaks, the one above the other, with a dark space between; and from the main-top I could see four, or even five, such horizontal lines directly over one another, and all of equal length; as if one could only imagine a square dull-red sun with horizontal dark streaks across it. An astronomical observation we took in the afternoon showed that the sun must in reality have been 2° 22′ below the horizon at noon; we cannot expect to see its disk above the ice before Tuesday at the earliest: it depends on the refraction, which is very strong in this cold air. All the same, we had a small sun-festival this evening, on the occasion of the appearance of its image—a treat of figs, bananas, raisins, almonds, and gingerbread.
“Sunday, February 18th. I went eastward yesterday on snow-shoes, and found a good snow-shoeing and driving road out to the flats that lie in that direction. There is a pretty bad bit first, with hummocks and pressure-ridges, and then you come out on these great wide plains, which seem to extend for miles and miles to the north, east, and southeast. To-day I drove out there with eight dogs; the driving goes capitally now; some of the others followed on snow-shoes. Still northerly wind. This is slow work; but anyhow we are having clear, bright weather. Yes, it is all very well—we snow-shoe, sledge, read both for instruction and amusement, write, take observations, play cards, chat, smoke, play chess, eat and drink; but all the same it is an execrable life in the long-run, this—at least, so it seems to me at times. When I look at the picture of our beautiful home in the evening light, with my wife standing in the garden, I feel as if it were impossible that this could go on much longer. But only the merciless fates know when we shall stand there together again, feeling all life’s sweetness as we look out over the smiling fjord, and ... Taking everything into calculation, if I am to be perfectly honest, I think this is a wretched state of matters. We are now in about 80° north latitude, in September we were in 79°; that is, let us say, one degree for five months. If we go on at this rate we shall be at the Pole in forty-five, or say fifty, months, and in ninety or one hundred months at 80° north latitude on the other side of it, with probably some prospect of getting out of the ice and home in a month or two more. At best, if things go on as they are doing now, we shall be home in eight years. I remember Brogger writing before I left, when I was planting small bushes and trees in the garden for future generations, that no one knew what length of shadows these trees would cast by the time I came back. Well, they are lying under the winter snow now, but in spring they will shoot and grow again—how often? Oh! at times this inactivity crushes one’s very soul; one’s life seems as dark as the winter night outside; there is sunlight upon no part of it except the past and the far, far distant future. I feel as if I must break through this deadness, this inertia, and find some outlet for my energies. Can’t something happen? Could not a hurricane come and tear up this ice, and set it rolling in high waves like the open sea? Welcome danger, if it only brings us the chance of fighting for our lives—only lets us move onward! The miserable thing is to be inactive onlookers, not to be able to lift a hand to help ourselves forward. It wants ten times more strength of mind to sit still and trust in your theories and let nature work them out without your being able so much as to lay one stick across another to help, than it does to trust in working them out by your own energy—that is nothing when you have a pair of strong arms. Here I sit, whining like an old woman. Did I not know all this before I started? Things have not gone worse than I expected, but, on the contrary, rather better. Where is now the serene hopefulness that spread itself in the daylight and the sun? Where are those proud imaginings now that mounted like young eagles towards the brightness of the future? Like broken-winged, wet crows they leave the sunlit sea, and hide themselves in the misty marshes of despondency. Perhaps it will all come back again with the south wind; but, no—I must go and rummage up one of the old philosophers again.
“There is a little pressure this evening, and an observation just taken seems to indicate a drift of 3′ south.
“11 P.M. Pressure in the opening astern. The ice is cracking and squeezing against the ship, making it shake.
“Monday, February 19th. Once more it may be said that the night is darkest just before the dawn. Wind began to blow from the south to-day, and has reached a velocity of 13 feet per second. We did some ice-boring this morning, and found that the ice to port is 5 feet 11–⅝ inches (1.875 metres) thick, with a layer of about 1½ inches of snow over it. The ice forward was 6 feet 7½ inches (2.08 metres) thick, but a couple of inches of this was snow. This cannot be called much growth for quite a month, when one thinks that the temperature has been down to 58° Fahr. below zero.
“Both to-day and yesterday we have seen the mirage of the sun again; to-day it was high above the horizon, and almost seemed to assume a round, disk-like form. Some of the others maintain that they have seen the upper edge of the sun itself; Peter and Bentzen, that they have seen at least half of the disk, and Juell and Hansen declare that the whole of it was above the horizon. I am afraid it is so long since they saw it that they have forgotten what it is like.
“Tuesday, February 20th. Great sun festival to-day without any sun. We felt certain we should see it, but there were clouds on the horizon. However, we were not going to be cheated out of our festival; we can hold another on the occasion of really seeing it for the first time. We began with a grand rifle practice in the morning; then there was a dinner of three or four courses and ‘Fram wine,’ otherwise lime-juice, coffee afterwards with ‘Fram cake.’ In the evening pineapple, cake, figs, bananas, and sweets. We go off to bed feeling that we have over-eaten ourselves, while half a gale from the S.E. is blowing us northward. The mill has been going to-day, and though the real sun did not come to the festival, our saloon sun lighted up our table both at dinner and supper. Great face-washing in honor of the day. The way we are laying on flesh is getting serious. Several of us are like prize pigs, and the bulge of cook Juell’s cheeks, not to mention another part of his body, is quite alarming. I saw him in profile to-day, and wondered how he would ever manage to carry such a corporation over the ice if we should have to turn out one of these fine days. Must begin to think of a course of short rations now.
“Wednesday, February 21st. The south wind continues. Took up the bag-nets to-day which were put out the day before yesterday. In the upper one, which hung near the surface, there were chiefly amphipoda; in Murray’s net, which hung at about 50 fathoms’ depth, there was a variety of small crustacea and other small animals shining with such a strong phosphorescence that the contents of the net looked like glowing embers as I emptied them out in the cook’s galley by lamplight. To my astonishment the net-line pointed northwest, though from the wind there ought to be a good northerly drift. To clear this matter up I let the net down in the afternoon, and as soon as it got a little way under the ice the line pointed northwest again, and continued to do so the whole afternoon. How is this phenomenon to be explained? Can we, after all, be in a current moving northwest? Let us hope that the future will prove such to be the case. We can reckon on two points of variation in the compass, and in that case the current would make due N.N.W. There seems to be strong movement in the ice. It has opened and formed channels in several places.
