“We spent New-year’s-eve cozily, with a cloudberry punch-bowl, pipes, and cigarettes. Needless to say, there was an abundance of cakes and the like, and we spoke of the old and the new year and days to come. Some selections were played on the organ and violin. Thus midnight arrived. Blessing produced from his apparently inexhaustible store a bottle of genuine ‘linje akkevit’ (line eau-de-vie), and in this Norwegian liquor we drank the old year out and the new year in. Of course there was many a thought that would obtrude itself at the change of the year, being the second which we had seen on board the Fram, and also, in all probability, the last that we should all spend together. Naturally enough, one thanked one’s comrades, individually and collectively, for all kindness and good-fellowship. Hardly one of us had thought, perhaps, that the time would pass so well up here. Sverdrup expressed the wish that the journey which Johansen and I were about to make in the coming year might be fortunate and bring success in all respects. And then we drank to the health and well-being in the coming year of those who were to remain behind on board the Fram. It so happened that just now at the turn of the year we stood on the verge of an entirely new world. The wind which whistled up in the rigging overhead was not only wafting us on to unknown regions, but also up into higher latitudes than any human foot had ever trod. We felt that this year, which was just commencing, would bring the culminating-point of the expedition, when it would bear its richest fruits. Would that this year might prove a good year for those on board the Fram; that the Fram might go ahead, fulfilling her task as she has hitherto done; and in that case none of us could doubt that those on board would also prove equal to the task intrusted to them.
“New-year’s-day was ushered in with the same wind, the same stars, and the same darkness as before. Even at noon one cannot see the slightest glimmer of twilight in the south. Yesterday I thought I could trace something of the kind; it extended like a faint gleam of light over the sky, but it was yellowish-white, and stretched too high up; hence I am rather inclined to think that it was an aurora borealis. Again to-day the sky looks lighter near the edge, but this can scarcely be anything except the gleam of the aurora borealis, which extends all round the sky, a little above the fog-banks on the horizon, and which is strongest at the edge. Exactly similar lights may be observed at other times in other parts of the horizon. The air was particularly clear yesterday, but the horizon is always somewhat foggy or hazy. During the night we had an uncommonly strong aurora borealis; wavy streamers were darting in rapid twists over the southern sky, their rays reaching to the zenith, and beyond it there was to be seen for a time a band in the form of a gorgeous corona, casting a reflection like moonshine across the ice. The sky had lit up its torch in honor of the new year—a fairy dance of darting streamers in the depth of night. I cannot help often thinking that this contrast might be taken as typical of the Northman’s character and destiny. In the midst of this gloomy, silent nature, with all its numbing cold, we have all these shooting, glittering, quivering rays of light. Do they not typify our impetuous ‘spring-dances,’ our wild mountain melodies, the auroral gleams in our souls, the rushing, surging, spiritual forces behind the mantle of ice? There is a dawning life in the slumbering night, if it could only reach beyond the icy desert, out over the world.
“Thus 1895 comes in:
“‘Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud;
Turn thy wild wheel thro’ sunshine, storm, and cloud;
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.
“‘Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands;
Frown and we frown, the lords of our own hands;
For man is man and master of his fate.’
“Thursday, January 3d. A day of unrest, a changeful life, notwithstanding all its monotony. But yesterday we were full of plans for the future, and to-day how easily might we have been left on the ice without a roof over our heads! At half-past four, in the morning a fresh rush of ice set in in the lane aft, and at five it commenced in the lane on our port side. About 8 o’clock I awoke, and heard the crunching and crackling of the ice, as if ice-pressure were setting in. A slight trembling was felt throughout the Fram, and I heard the roar outside. When I came out I was not a little surprised to find a large pressure-ridge all along the channel on the port side scarcely thirty paces from the Fram; the cracks on this side extended to quite eighteen paces from us. All loose articles that were lying on the ice on this side were stowed away on board; the boards and planks which, during the summer, had supported the meteorological hut and the screen for the same were chopped up, as we could not afford to lose any materials; but the line, which had been left out in the sounding-hole with the bag-net attached to it, was caught in the pressure. Just after I had come on board again shortly before noon the ice suddenly began to press on again. I went out to have a look; it was again in the lane on the port side; there was a strong pressure, and the ridge was gradually approaching. A little later on Sverdrup went up on deck, but soon after came below and told us that the ridge was quickly bearing down on us, and a few hands were required to come up and help to load the sledge with the sounding apparatus, and bring it round to the starboard side of the Fram, as the ice had cracked close by it. The ridge began to come alarmingly near, and, should it be upon us before the Fram had broken loose from the ice, matters might become very unpleasant. The vessel had now a greater list to the port side than ever.