“We had kept company quite long enough with the old, now broken-up floe, so worked ourselves a little way astern after dinner, as the ice was beginning to draw together. Towards evening the pressure began again in earnest, and was especially bad round the remains of our old floe, so that I believe we may congratulate ourselves on having left it. It is evident that the pressure here stands in connection with, is perhaps caused by, the tidal wave. It occurs with the greatest regularity. The ice slackens twice and packs twice in 24 hours. The pressure has happened about 4, 5, and 6 o’clock in the morning, and almost at exactly the same hour in the afternoon, and in between we have always lain for some part of the time in open water. The very great pressure just now is probably due to the spring-tide; we had new moon on the 9th, which was the first day of the pressure. Then it was just after mid-day when we noticed it, but it has been later every day, and now it is at 8 P.M.”
The theory of the ice-pressure being caused to a considerable extent by the tidal wave has been advanced repeatedly by Arctic explorers. During the Fram’s drifting we had better opportunity than most of them to study this phenomenon, and our experience seems to leave no doubt that over a wide region the tide produces movement and pressure of the ice. It occurs especially at the time of the spring-tides, and more at new moon than at full moon. During the intervening periods there was, as a rule, little or no trace of pressure. But these tidal pressures did not occur during the whole time of our drifting. We noticed them especially the first autumn, while we were in the neighborhood of the open sea north of Siberia, and the last year, when the Fram was drawing near the open Atlantic Ocean; they were less noticeable while we were in the polar basin. Pressure occurs here more irregularly, and is mainly caused by the wind driving the ice. When one pictures to one’s self these enormous ice-masses, drifting in a certain direction, suddenly meeting hinderances—for example, ice-masses drifting from the opposite direction, owing to a change of wind in some more or less distant quarter—it is easy to understand the tremendous pressure that must result.
Such an ice conflict is undeniably a stupendous spectacle. One feels one’s self to be in the presence of titanic forces, and it is easy to understand how timid souls may be overawed and feel as if nothing could stand before it. For when the packing begins in earnest it seems as though there could be no spot on the earth’s surface left unshaken. First you hear a sound like the thundering rumbling of an earthquake far away on the great waste; then you hear it in several places, always coming nearer and nearer. The silent ice world re-echoes with thunders; nature’s giants are awakening to the battle. The ice cracks on every side of you, and begins to pile itself up; and all of a sudden you too find yourself in the midst of the struggle. There are howlings and thunderings round you; you feel the ice trembling, and hear it rumbling under your feet; there is no peace anywhere. In the semi-darkness you can see it piling and tossing itself up into high ridges nearer and nearer you—floes 10, 12, 15 feet thick, broken, and flung on the top of each other as if they were feather-weights. They are quite near you now, and you jump away to save your life. But the ice splits in front of you, a black gulf opens, and water streams up. You turn in another direction, but there through the dark you can just see a new ridge of moving ice-blocks coming towards you. You try another direction, but there it is the same. All round there is thundering and roaring, as of some enormous waterfall, with explosions like cannon salvoes. Still nearer you it comes. The floe you are standing on gets smaller and smaller; water pours over it; there can be no escape except by scrambling over the rolling ice-blocks to get to the other side of the pack. But now the disturbance begins to calm down. The noise passes on, and is lost by degrees in the distance.
This is what goes on away there in the north month after month and year after year. The ice is split and piled up into mounds, which extend in every direction. If one could get a bird’s-eye view of the ice-fields, they would seem to be cut up into squares or meshes by a network of these packed ridges, or pressure-dikes, as we called them, because they reminded us so much of snow-covered stone dikes at home, such as, in many parts of the country, are used to enclose fields. At first sight these pressure-ridges appeared to be scattered about in all possible directions, but on closer inspection I was sure that I discovered certain directions which they tended to take, and especially that they were apt to run at right angles to the course of the pressure which produced them. In the accounts of Arctic expeditions one often reads descriptions of pressure-ridges or pressure-hummocks as high as 50 feet. These are fairy tales. The authors of such fantastic descriptions cannot have taken the trouble to measure. During the whole period of our drifting and of our travels over the ice-fields in the far north I only once saw a hummock of a greater height than 23 feet. Unfortunately, I had not the opportunity of measuring this one, but I believe I may say with certainty that it was very nearly 30 feet high. All the highest blocks I measured—and they were many—had a height of 18 to 23 feet; and I can maintain with certainty that the packing of sea ice to a height of over 25 feet is a very rare exception.[4]
“Saturday, October 14th. To-day we have got on the rudder; the engine is pretty well in order, and we are clear to start north when the ice opens to-morrow morning. It is still slackening and packing quite regularly twice a day, so that we can calculate on it beforehand. To-day we had the same open channel to the north, and beyond it open sea as far as our view extended. What can this mean? This evening the pressure has been pretty violent. The floes were packed up against the Fram on the port side, and were once or twice on the point of toppling over the rail. The ice, however, broke below; they tumbled back again, and had to go under us after all. It is not thick ice, and cannot do much damage; but the force is something enormous. On the masses come incessantly without a pause; they look irresistible; but slowly and surely they are crushed against the Fram’s sides. Now (8.30 P.M.) the pressure has at last stopped. Clear evening, sparkling stars, and flaming northern lights.”
I had finished writing my diary, gone to bed, and was lying reading, in The Origin of Species, about the struggle for existence, when I heard the dogs out on the ice making more noise than usual. I called into the saloon that some one ought to go up and see if it was bears they were barking at. Hansen went, and came back immediately, saying that he believed he had seen some large animal out in the dark. “Go and shoot it, then.” That he was quite ready to do, and went up again at once, accompanied by some of the others. A shot went off on deck above my head, then another; shot followed shot, nine in all. Johansen and Henriksen rushed down for more cartridges, and declared that the creature was shot, it was roaring so horribly; but so far they had only indistinctly seen a large grayish-white mass out there in the dark, moving about among the dogs. Now they were going on to the ice after it. Four of them set off, and not far away they really did find a dead bear, with marks of two shots. It was a young one. The old one must be at hand, and the dogs were still barking loudly. Now they all felt sure that they had seen two together, and that the other also must be badly wounded. Johansen and Henriksen heard it groaning in the distance when they were out on the ice again afterwards to fetch a knife they had left lying where the dead one had lain. The creature had been dragged on board and skinned at once, before it had time to stiffen in the cold.
“Sunday, October 15th. To our surprise, the ice did not slacken away much during last night after the violent pressure; and, what was worse, there was no indication of slackening in the morning, now that we were quite ready to go. Slight signs of it showed themselves a little later, upon which I gave orders to get up steam; and while this was being done I took a stroll on the ice, to look for traces of yesterday evening. I found tracks not only of the bear that had been killed and of a larger one that might be the mother, but of a third, which must have been badly wounded, as it had sometimes dragged itself on its hind quarters, and had left a broad track of blood. After following the traces for a good way and discovering that I had no weapon to despatch the animal with but my own fists, I thought it would be as well to return to the ship to get a gun and companions who would help to drag the bear back. I had also some small hope that in the meantime the ice might have slackened, so that, in place of going after game, we might go north with the Fram. But no such luck! So I put on my snow-shoes and set off after our bear, some of the dogs with me, and one or two men following. At some distance we came to the place where it had spent the night—poor beast, a ghastly night! Here I also saw tracks of the mother. One shudders to think of her watching over her poor young one, which must have had its back shot through. Soon we came up to the cripple, dragging itself away from us over the ice as best it could. Seeing no other way of escape, it threw itself into a small water opening and dived time after time. While we were putting a noose on a rope the dogs rushed round the hole as if they had gone mad, and it was difficult to keep them from jumping into the water after the bear. At last we were ready, and the next time the creature came up it got a noose round one paw and a ball in the head. While the others drew it to the ship, I followed the mother’s tracks for some way, but could not find her. I had soon to turn back to see if there was no prospect of moving the Fram; but I found that the ice had packed together again a little at the very time when we could generally calculate on its slackening. In the afternoon Hansen and I went off once more after the bear. We saw, as I expected, that she had come back, and had followed her daughter’s funeral procession for some way, but then she had gone off east, and as it grew dark we lost her tracks in some newly packed ice. We have only one matter for regret in connection with this bear episode, and that is the disappearance of two dogs—‘Narrifas’ and ‘Fox.’ Probably they went off in terror on the first appearance of the three bears. They may have been hurt, but I have seen nothing to suggest this. The ice is quiet this evening also, only a little pressure about 7 o’clock.
“Monday, October 16th. Ice quiet and close. Observations on the 12th placed us in 78° 5′ north latitude. Steadily southward. This is almost depressing. The two runaways returned this morning.
“Tuesday, October 17th. Continuous movement in the ice. It slackened a little again during the night; some way off to starboard there was a large opening. Shortly after midnight there was strong pressure, and between 11 and 12 A.M. came a tremendous squeeze; since then it has slackened again a little.
“Wednesday, October 18th. When the meteorologist, Johansen, was on deck this morning reading the thermometers, he noticed that the dogs, which are now tied up on board, were barking loudly down at something on the ice. He bent over the rail astern, near the rudder, and saw the back of a bear below him, close in at the ship’s side. Off he went for a gun, and the animal fell with a couple of shots. We saw afterwards by its tracks that it had inspected all the heaps of sweepings round the ship.