Digging out the “Fram.” March, 1895
Upon the “great hummock,” which had been formed by the violent ice-pressure on January 27, 1894, we had established our depot on the slope looking towards the ship. The depot consisted of piled-up tin boxes, containing provisions and other necessaries, and formed six or seven small mounds covered with sail-cloth. Moreover, our snow-shoes and sledges were stored there. Half-way between the vessel and the great hummock lay the petroleum launch, which, when the new channel or rift had opened right under her, had to be drawn a little way farther out on to the ice. Finally, there was our forge. This was situated about 30 yards off, a little abaft the port quarter, and was hewn out in the slope of the above-mentioned pressure-ridge, the roof being made of a quantity of spars over which blocks of ice were piled, with a layer of snow on the top, all frozen together so as to form a compact mass. A tarpaulin served in place of a door.
The first and most pressing work which we had to take in hand was to remove part of the high-pressure ridge on the port side. I was afraid that if the ice-pressure continued the vessel might be forced down instead of upward while she had so high a ridge of ice resting against the whole of her port side. The work was commenced by all hands on March 19th. We had five sledges, and a box on each, and each worked by two men. There were two parties at work simultaneously with one sledge each—forward, and two parties aft—working towards each other, while the fifth party, of two men with one sledge, were cutting a passage 13 feet wide right up to the middle of the vessel. The layer of ice which was in this way removed from all along the vessel’s side reached to double the height of a man, except in the central passage, where it had previously been removed to a depth of about three yards, partly in view of possible ice-pressure against this, the lowest part of the hull, and partly in order to clear the gangway, by which the dogs passed to and from the vessel.
The carting away of ice commenced on the 19th and concluded on March 27th. The whole of the pressure-ridge on the port side was removed down to such a depth that two and a half planks of the ship’s ice-skin were free. All the time while this work was going on the weather was fairly cold, the temperature down to -38° and -40°C. (-36.4° and -40° Fahr.). However, all passed off well and successfully, except that Scott-Hansen was unfortunate enough to have one of his big toes frozen.
The doctor and I were together at the same sledge. My diary says: “He always suspected me of being out of temper, and I him.” As a matter of fact, it is my habit to dislike talking when I am busy with any work, while the reverse is the case with the doctor. As, according to my custom, I kept silence, the doctor believed that I was in a bad humor, and in the same way I fancied that he was in the sulks, because he abstained from chatting. But the misunderstanding was soon cleared up, and we laughed heartily at it.
As Dr. Nansen’s and Johansen’s departure afforded an opportunity for a more comfortable redistribution of quarters, I moved into Nansen’s cabin, after having packed in cases the effects he left behind, and stowed them away in the forehold. Jacobsen, the mate, who was formerly quartered with four of the crew in the large cabin on the port side, had my cabin allotted to him; and in the starboard cabin, where four men had been quartered, there were now only three. The workroom, too, was restored to its former honor and dignity. The lamp-glasses of the oil-stove there had got broken in the course of the year. Amundsen now replaced these with chimneys of tin, and fitted thin sheets of mica over the peep-holes. The stove having thus been repaired, the workroom became the busiest and most comfortable compartment in the whole vessel.
After the various operations of shifting and putting in order the things on board and in the depot, our next care was to insure easy and convenient access to the vessel by constructing a proper gangway aft, consisting of two spars with packing-case planks nailed between them and a rope hand-rail attached.
When all this was done we set to work at the long and manifold preparations of every kind for a sledge journey southward, in the event (which, as a matter of fact, none of us considered likely) of our being obliged to abandon the Fram. We constructed sledges and kayaks, sewed bags for our stores, selected and weighed out provisions and other necessaries, etc., etc. This work kept us busy for a long time.
The “Fram” when Dug Out of the Pressure-mound at the End of March, 1895