I think this will suffice to give an idea of the nature of this coast. Its belt of skerries, though it certainly cannot be classed with the Norwegian one, is yet of the kind that it would be difficult to find except off glacier-formed coasts. This tends to strengthen the opinion I had formed of there having been a glacial period in the earlier history of this part of the world also. Of the coast itself, we unfortunately saw too little at any distance from which we could get an accurate idea of its formation and nature. We could not keep near land, partly because of the thick weather, and partly because of the number of islands. The little I did see was enough to give me the conviction that the actual coast line differs essentially from the one we know from maps; it is much more winding and indented than it is shown to be. I even several times thought that I saw the openings into deep fjords, and more than once the suspicion occurred to me that this was a typical fjord country we were sailing past, in spite of the hills being comparatively low and rounded. In this supposition I was to be confirmed by our experiences farther north.
Our record of August 27th reads as follows: “Steamed among a variety of small islands and islets. Thick fog in the morning. At 12 noon we saw a small island right ahead, and therefore changed our course and went north. We were soon close to the ice, and after 3 in the afternoon held northeast along its edge. Sighted land when the fog cleared a little, and were about a mile off it at 7 P.M.”
It was the same striated, rounded land, covered with clay and large and small stones strewn over moss and grass flats. Before us we saw points and headlands, with islands outside, and sounds and fjords between; but it was all locked up in ice, and we could not see far for the fog. There was that strange Arctic hush and misty light over everything—that grayish-white light caused by the reflection from the ice being cast high into the air against masses of vapor, the dark land offering a wonderful contrast. We were not sure whether this was the land near Taimur Sound or that by Cape Palander, but were agreed that in any case it would be best to hold a northerly course, so as to keep clear of Almquist’s Islands, which Nordenskiöld marks on his map as lying off Taimur Island. If we shaped our course for one watch north, or north to west, we should be safe after that, and be able again to hold farther east. But we miscalculated, after all. At midnight we turned northeastward, and at 4 A.M. (August 28th) land appeared out of the fog about half a mile off. It seemed to Sverdrup, who was on deck, the highest that we had seen since we left Norway. He consequently took it to be the mainland, and wished to keep well outside of it, but was obliged to turn from this course because of ice. We held to the W.S.W., and it was not till 9 A.M. that we rounded the western point of a large island and could steer north again. East of us were many islands or points with solid ice between them, and we followed the edge of the ice. All the morning we went north along the land against a strong current. There seemed to be no end to this land. Its discrepancy with every known map grew more and more remarkable, and I was in no slight dilemma. We had for long been far to the north of the most northern island indicated by Nordenskiöld.[2] My diary this day tells of great uncertainty. “This land (or these islands, or whatever it is) goes confoundedly far north. If it is a group of islands they are tolerably large ones. It has often the appearance of connected land, with fjords and points; but the weather is too thick for us to get a proper view. ... Can this that we are now coasting along be the Taimur’s Island of the Russian maps (or more precisely, Lapteff’s map), and is it separated from the mainland by the broad strait indicated by him, while Nordenskiöld’s Taimur Island is what Lapteff has mapped as a projecting tongue of land? This supposition would explain everything, and our observations would also fit in with it. Is it possible that Nordenskiöld found this strait, and took it for Taimur Strait, while in reality it was a new one; and that he saw Almquist’s Islands, but had no suspicion that Taimur Island lay to the outside of them? The difficulty about this explanation is that the Russian maps mark no islands round Taimur Island. It is inconceivable that any one should have travelled all about here in sledges without seeing all these small islands that lie scattered around.[3]
“In the afternoon the water-gauge of the boiler got choked up; we had to stop to have it repaired, and therefore made fast to the edge of the ice. We spent the time in taking in drinking-water. We found a pool on the ice, so small that we thought it would only do to begin with; but it evidently had a “subterranean” communication with other fresh-water ponds on the floe. To our astonishment it proved inexhaustible, however much we scooped. In the evening we stood in to the head of an ice bay, which opened out opposite the most northern island we then had in sight. There was no passage beyond. The broken drift-ice lay packed so close in on the unbroken land-ice that it was impossible to tell where the one ended and the other began. We could see islands still farther to the northeast. From the atmosphere it seemed as if there might also be open water in that direction. To the north it all looked very close, but to the west there was an open waterway as far as one could see from the masthead. I was in some doubt as to what should be done. There was an open channel for a short way up past the north point of the nearest island, but farther to the east the ice seemed to be close. It might be possible to force our way through there, but it was just as likely that we should be frozen in; so I thought it most judicious to go back and make another attempt between these islands and that mainland which I had some difficulty in believing that Sverdrup had seen in the morning.
“Thursday, August 20th. Still foggy weather. New islands were observed on the way back. Sverdrup’s high land did not come to much. It turned out to be an island, and that a low one. It is wonderful the way things loom up in the fog. This reminded me of the story of the pilot at home in the Dröbak Channel. He suddenly saw land right in front, and gave the order, ‘Full speed astern!’ Then they approached carefully and found that it was half a baling-can floating in the water.”
After passing a great number of new islands we got into open water off Taimur Island, and steamed in still weather through the sound to the northeast. At 5 in the afternoon I saw from the crow’s-nest thick ice ahead, which blocked farther progress. It stretched from Taimur Island right across to the islands south of it. On the ice bearded seals (Phoca barbata) were to be seen in all directions, and we saw one walrus. We approached the ice to make fast to it, but the Fram had got into dead-water, and made hardly any way, in spite of the engine going full pressure. It was such slow work that I thought I would row ahead to shoot seal. In the meantime the Fram advanced slowly to the edge of the ice with her machinery still going at full speed.
Bernt Bentzen
(From a photograph taken in December, 1893)
For the moment we had simply to give up all thoughts of getting on. It was most likely, indeed, that only a few miles of solid ice lay between us and the probably open Taimur Sea; but to break through this ice was an impossibility. It was too thick, and there were no openings in it. Nordenskiöld had steamed through here earlier in the year (August 18, 1878) without the slightest hinderance,[4] and here, perhaps, our hopes, for this year at any rate, were to be wrecked. It was not possible that the ice should melt before winter set in in earnest. The only thing to save us would be a proper storm from the southwest. Our other slight hope lay in the possibility that Nordenskiöld’s Taimur Sound farther south might be open, and that we might manage to get the Fram through there, in spite of Nordenskiöld having said distinctly “that it is too shallow to allow of the passage of vessels of any size.”