Most touching was the interest and sympathy with which these poor fisher-folk and peasants greeted us. It often set me wondering. I felt they followed us with fervent eagerness. I remember one day—it was north in Helgeland—an old woman was standing waving and waving to us on a bare crag. Her cottage lay some distance inland. “I wonder if it can really be us she is waving to,” I said to the pilot, who was standing beside me. “You may be sure it is,” was the answer. “But how can she know who we are?” “Oh! they know all about the Fram up here, in every cabin, and they will be on the lookout for you as you come back, I can tell you,” he answered. Aye, truly, it is a responsible task we are undertaking, when the whole nation are with us like this. What if the thing should turn out a huge disappointment!
In the evening I would sit and look around—lonely huts lay scattered here and there on points and islets. Here the Norwegian people wear out their lives in the struggle with the rocks, in the struggle with the sea; and it is this people that is sending us out into the great hazardous unknown; the very folk who stand there in their fishing-boats and look wonderingly after the Fram as she slowly and heavily steams along on her northward course. Many of them wave their sou’-westers and shout “Hurrah!” Others have barely time to gape at us in wonderment. In on the point are a troop of women waving and shouting; outside a few boats with ladies in light summer-dresses, and gentlemen at the oars entertaining them with small-talk as they wave their parasols and pocket-handkerchiefs. Yes; it is they who are sending us out. It is not a cheering thought. Not one of them, probably, knows what they are paying their money for. Maybe they have heard it is a glorious enterprise; but why? To what end? Are we not defrauding them? But their eyes are riveted on the ship, and perhaps there dawns before their minds a momentary vision of a new and inconceivable world, with aspirations after a something of which they know naught.... And here on board are men who are leaving wife and children behind them. How sad has been the separation! what longing, what yearning, await them in the coming years! And it is not for profit they do it. For honor and glory then? These may be scant enough. It is the same thirst for achievement, the same craving to get beyond the limits of the known, which inspired this people in the Saga times that is stirring in them again to-day. In spite of all our toil for subsistence, in spite of all our “peasant politics,” sheer utilitarianism is perhaps not so dominant among us, after all.
As time was precious I did not, as originally intended, put in at Trondhjem, but stopped at Beian, where Sverdrup joined us. Here Professor Brögger also came on board, to accompany us as far as Tromsö.
Here, too, our doctor received three monstrous chests with the medicine supply, a gift from Apothecary Bruun, of Trondhjem.
Otto Sverdrup
(From a photograph taken in 1895)
And so on towards the north, along the lovely coast of Nordland. We stopped at one or two places to take dried fish on board as provision for the dogs. Past Torghatten, the Seven Sisters, and Hestemanden; past Lovunen and Trænen, far out yonder in the sea; past Lofoten and all the other lovely places—each bold gigantic form wilder and more beautiful than the last. It is unique—a fairyland—a land of dreams. We felt afraid to go on too fast, for fear of missing something.
On July 12th we arrived at Tromsö, where we were to take in coal and other things, such as reindeer cloaks, “komager” (a sort of Lapp moccasin), Finn shoes, “senne” grass, dried reindeer flesh, etc., etc., all of which had been procured by that indefatigable friend of the expedition, Advocate Mack. Tromsö gave us a cold reception—a northwesterly gale, with driving snow and sleet. Mountains, plains, and house-roofs were all covered with snow down to the water’s edge. It was the very bitterest July day I ever experienced. The people there said they could not remember such a July. Perhaps they were afraid the place would come into disrepute, for in a town where they hold snow-shoe races on Midsummer Day one may be prepared for anything in the way of weather.
In Tromsö the next day a new member of the expedition was engaged, Bernt Bentzen—a stout fellow to look at. He originally intended accompanying us only as far as Yugor Strait, but as a matter of fact he went the whole voyage with us, and proved a great acquisition, being not only a capital seaman, but a cheerful and amusing comrade.