Not until September 23d did the state of the ice permit us to carry out our intention of fetching back the things from the great hummock. The surface was that day excellent for sledges with German-silver runners; wooden runners, on the other hand, went rather heavily. We had also done some road-making here and there, so that the conveyance of the goods went on easily and rapidly. We brought back to the ship, in all, thirty-six boxes of dog biscuits, and four barrels of petroleum. Next day we brought all that was left, and stacked it on the ice close to the ship.
Plate XVI.
An Auroral Crown, December 1894. Pencil Sketch.
On September 16th Scott-Hansen and Nordahl set about preparations for building a proper house for their magnetic observations. Their building material consisted of great blocks of new ice, which they piled upon sledges and drove with the aid of the dogs to the site they had chosen. Except for one or two trial trips which Scott-Hansen had previously made with the dogs, this was the first time they had been employed as draught-animals. They drew well, and the carting went excellently. The house was built entirely of hewn blocks of ice, which were ranged above each other with an inward slant, so that when finished it formed a compact circular dome of ice, in form and appearance not unlike a Finn tent. A covered passage of ice led into the house, with a wooden flap for a door.
When this observatory was finished, Scott-Hansen gave a house-warming, the hut being magnificently decorated for the occasion. It was furnished with a sofa, and with arm-chairs covered with bear and reindeer skins. The pedestal in the middle of the floor, on which the magnetic instruments were to be established, was covered with a flag, and an ice-floe served as a table. On the table stood a lamp with a red shade, and along the walls were fixed a number of red paper lanterns. The effect was quite festal, and we all sat round the room in the highest of spirits. Our amiable host addressed little humorous speeches to every one. Pettersen expressed the wish that this might be the last ice-hut Scott-Hansen should build on this trip, and that we might all be home again this time next autumn, and “none the worse for it all.” Pettersen’s artless little address was received with frantic enthusiasm.
For the rest, Pettersen had just about this time entered upon a new office, having from September 10th onward undertaken the whole charge of Juell’s former domain, the galley, a department to which he gave his whole heart, and in which his performances denoted entire satisfaction to every one. The only branch of the culinary art with which he would have nothing to do was the baking of Christmas cakes. This Juell himself had to attend to when the time came.
When winter set in we built ourselves a new smithy in the place of the one which drifted off on July 27th. It was constructed on the pressure-ridge where the boats and part of the stores from the great hummock had been placed. Its plan was very much like that of the former smithy. We first hollowed out a cavity of sufficient size in the pressure-ridge, and then roofed it over with blocks of ice and snow.
As the year waned, and the winter night impended, all the sea animals and birds of passage which had swarmed around us and awakened our longings during the short summer deserted us one by one. They set off for the south, towards sunshine and light and hospitable shores, while we lay there in the ice and darkness for yet another winter. On September 6th we saw the last narwhals gambolling in the lanes around the ship, and a few days later the last flock of skuas (Lestris parasiticus) took their departure. The sun moves quickly in these latitudes from the first day that he peers over the horizon in the south till he circles round the heavens all day and all night; but still quicker do his movements seem when he is on the downward path in autumn. Before you know where you are he has disappeared, and the crushing darkness of the Arctic night surrounds you once more.
On September 12th we should have seen the midnight sun for the last time if it had been clear; and no later than October 8th we caught the last glimpse of the sun’s rim at midday. Thus we plunged into the longest Arctic night any human beings have yet lived through, in about 85° north latitude. Henceforth there was nothing that could for a moment be called daylight, and by October 26th there was scarcely any perceptible difference between day and night.