Chapter VII
The Spring and Summer of 1894
So came the season which we at home call spring, the season of joy and budding life, when Nature awakens after her long winter sleep. But there it brought no change; day after day we had to gaze over the same white lifeless mass, the same white boundless ice-plains. Still we wavered between despondency, idle longing, and eager energy, shifting with the winds as we drift forward to our goal or are driven back from it. As before, I continued to brood upon the possibilities of the future and of our drift. One day I would think that everything was going on as we hoped and anticipated. Thus on April 17th I was convinced that there must be a current through the unknown polar basin, as we were unmistakably drifting northward. The midday observation gave 80° 20′ northeast; that is, 9′ since the day before yesterday. Strange! A north wind of four whole days took us to the south, while twenty-four hours of this scanty wind drifts us 9′ northward. This is remarkable; it looks as if we were done with drifting southward. And when, in addition to this, I take into consideration the striking warmth of the water deep down, it seems to me that things are really looking brighter. The reasoning runs as follows: The temperature of the water in the East Greenland current, even on the surface, is nowhere over zero (the mean temperature for the year), and appears generally to be -1° C. (30.2° Fahr.), even in 70° north latitude. In this latitude the temperature steadily falls as you get below the surface; nowhere at a greater depth than 100 fathoms is it above -1° C., and generally from -1.5° (29.3° Fahr.) to -1.7° C. (28.94° Fahr.) right to the bottom. Moreover, the bottom temperature of the whole sea north of the 60th degree of latitude is under -1° C., a strip along the Norwegian coast and between Norway and Spitzbergen alone excepted, but here the temperature is over -1° C., from 86 fathoms (160 metres) downward, and 135 fathoms (250 metres) the temperature is already +0.55° C. (32.99° Fahr.), and that, too, be it remarked, north of the 80th degree of latitude, and in a sea surrounding the pole of maximum cold.
This warm water can hardly come from the Arctic Sea itself, while the current issuing thence towards the south has a general temperature of about -1.5° C. It can hardly be anything other than the Gulf Stream that finds its way hither, and replaces the water which in its upper layers flows towards the north, forming the sources of the East Greenland polar current. All this seems to chime in with my previous assumptions, and supports the theory on which this expedition was planned. And when, in addition to this, one bears in mind that the winds seem, as anticipated, to be as a rule southeasterly, as was, moreover, the case at the international station at Sagastyr (by the Lena mouth), our prospects do not appear to be unfavorable.
Frequently, moreover, I thought I could detect unmistakable symptoms of a steadily flowing northwesterly current under the ice, and then, of course, my spirits rose; but at other times, when the drift again bore southward—and that was often—my doubts would return, and it seemed as if there was no prospect of getting through within any reasonable time. Truly such drifting in the ice is extremely trying to the mind; but there is one virtue it fosters, and that is patience. The whole expedition was in reality one long course of training in this useful virtue.
Our progress as the spring advanced grew somewhat better than it had been during the winter, but on the whole it was always the same sort of crab-like locomotion; for each time we made a long stretch to the north, a longer period of reaction was sure to follow. It was, in the opinion of one of our number, who was somewhat of a politician, a constant struggle between the Left and Right, between Progressionists and Recessionists. After a period of Left wind and a glorious drift northward, as a matter of course the “Radical Right” took the helm, and we remained lying in dead-water or drifted backward, thereby putting Amundsen into a very bad temper. It was a remarkable fact that during the whole time the Fram’s bow turned towards the south, generally S. ¼ W., and shifted but very little during the whole drift. As I say on May 14th: “She went backward towards her goal in the north, with her nose ever turned to the south. It is as though she shrank from increasing her distance from the world; as though she were longing for southern shores, while some invisible power is drawing her on towards the unknown. Can it be an ill omen, this backward advance towards the interior of the Polar Sea? I cannot think it; even the crab ultimately reaches its goal.”
A statement of our latitude and longitude on different days will best indicate the general course of our drift:
May 1st, 80° 46′ N. lat.; May 4th, 80° 50′; May 6th, 80° 49′; May 8th, 80° 55′ N. lat., 129° 58′ E. long.; May 12th, 80° 52′ N. lat.; May 15th, 129° 20′ E. long.; May 21st, 81° 20′ N. lat., 125° 45′ E. long.; May 23d, 81° 26′ N. lat.; May 27th, 81° 31′; June 2d, 81° 31′ N. lat., 121° 47′ E. long.; June 13th, 81° 46′; June 18th, 81° 52′. Up to this we had made fairly satisfactory progress towards the north, but now came the reaction: June 24th, 81° 42′; July 1st, 81° 33′; July 10th, 81° 20′; July 14th, 81° 32′; July 18th, 81° 26′; July 31st, 81° 2′ N. lat., 126° 5′ 5″ E. long.; August 8th, 81° 8′; August 14th, 81° 5′ N. lat., 127° 38′ E. long.; August 26th, 81° 1′; September 5th, 81° 14′ N. lat., 123° 36′ E. long.
After this we began once more to drift northward, but not very fast.