“Our sailmakers, Sverdrup and Amundsen, have to-day finished covering the first double kayak with sail-cloth. Fully equipped, it weighs 30.5 kilos. (60 lbs.). I think it will prove a first-rate contrivance. Sverdrup and I tried it on a pool. It carried us splendidly, and was so stiff that even sitting on the deck we could handle it quite comfortably. It will easily carry two men with full equipment for 100 days. A handier or more practical craft for regions like this I cannot well imagine.
“Sunday, August 5th. 81° 7′ north latitude.
“‘I can’t forget the sparkling fjord
When the church boat rows in the morning.’
“Brilliant summer weather. I bathe in the sun and dream I am at home either on the high mountains or—heaven knows why—on the fjords of the west coast. The same white fleecy clouds in the clear blue summer sky; heaven arches itself overhead like a perfect dome, there is nothing to bar one’s way, and the soul rises up unfettered beneath it. What matters it that the world below is different—the ice no longer single glittering glaciers, but spread out on every hand? Is it not these same fleecy clouds far away in the blue expanse that the eye looks for at home on a bright summer day? Sailing on these, fancy steers its course to the land of wistful longing. And it is just at these glittering glaciers in the distance that we direct our longing gaze. Why should not a summer day be as lovely here? Ah, yes! it is lovely, pure as a dream, without desire, without sin; a poem of clear white sunbeams refracted in the cool crystal blue of the ice. How unutterably delightful does not this world appear to us on some stifling summer day at home?
“Have rested and ‘kept Sunday.’ I could not remain in the whole day, so took a trip over the ice. Progress is easy except for the lanes.
“Hansen practised kayak-paddling this afternoon on the pool around the ship, from which several channels diverge over the ice; but he was not content with paddling round in them, but must, of course, make an experiment in capsizing and recovering himself as the Eskimos do. It ended by his not coming up again, losing his paddle, remaining head downward in the water, and beating about with his hands till the kayak filled, and he got a cold bath from top to toe. Nordahl, who was standing by on the ice to help him, at last found it necessary to go in after him and raise him up on an even keel again, to the great amusement of us others.
“One can notice that it is summer. This evening a game of cards is being played on deck, with ‘Peik’s’[14] big pot for a card-table. One could almost think it was an August evening at home; only the toddy is wanting, but the pipes and cigars we have.
“Sunday, August 12th. We had a shooting competition in the forenoon.
“A glorious evening. I took a stroll over the ice among the lanes and hummocks. It was so wonderfully calm and still. Not a sound to be heard but the drip, drip of water from a block of ice, and the dull sound of a snow-slip from some hummock in the distance. The sun is low down in the north, and overhead is the pale blue dome of heaven, with gold-edged clouds. The profound peace of the Arctic solitudes. My thoughts fly free and far. If one could only give utterance to all that stirs one’s soul on such an evening as this! What an incomprehensible power one’s surroundings have over one!