From July 27th till August 2d it was slow and tiresome work. By August 2d we had not got beyond 81° 26′ north latitude. At the same time we had been carried some distance eastward—namely, to 13° 41′ east longitude.
On Monday, August 3d, we made about 2 miles to the southwest, but had to remain moored in impossible waters till the 8th, when it slackened so much around the vessel that we were able to proceed again at 9 A.M. However, we had only made about 6 miles, when we were stopped by a long, narrow strait. We tried blasting with ordinary gunpowder, and later with gun-cotton, and time after time we steamed full speed against the smaller floes that blocked the strait, but without effect. These floes, as a rule, are not so small and innocent as they appear. They consist generally of the fragments of old, thick, and very tough pressure-ridges which have been broken up. When these pieces get free, they sink deep below the surface of the water, leaving only a comparatively insignificant part of them discernible, while the lower parts may be very large. It was precisely this description of floe that blocked the channel against us. They were so tough that it was useless to try to break them with the stem of the vessel, although we repeatedly made at them with full speed. We could plainly see how the tough old ice bent and rose up at the shock without breaking. The blasting of such floes was frequently impracticable, as they were of such a thickness that we were unable to lay the mine under them. And even if we succeeded in blowing up one of these floes we gained little or nothing, as the channel was too narrow to allow the pieces to float astern, and they were too heavy and thick to be forced beneath the solid edge of ice.
Occasionally it happened that old, thick ice suddenly emerged from beneath the water in a channel or opening which we were just about to pass into, thus blocking up the passage before us. On one of these occasions the Fram received a blow in the ribs that hardly any other vessel would have withstood. As we were passing through an open channel I saw from the crow’s-nest one end of a large submerged floe appearing above the edge of the solid ice, and I immediately gave orders to steer clear so as to pass round it. But at the very moment when we reckoned to clear it the floe was released, and came to the surface with such a rush that the spray rose high into the air and struck the Fram at the fore-rigging on the starboard side with such tremendous force that the ship lurched violently and fell about 10 points out of her course, until she ran up against some small floes. When the monster floe emerged it lifted a huge mass of water and sent it like a roaring cataract out into the channel.
Something similar happened when we occasionally touched a drifting hummock that was just on the point of rolling over, owing to the quicker melting of the ice below the water-line. The slightest push would be enough to capsize the hummock and turn it over in such a violent way that the sea around us would become as agitated as during a storm.
Flaying Walruses
(By Otto Sinding, from a photograph)
On August 9th we worked the whole day clearing the channel, but only made slight headway. On the 10th the work was continued, and in the course of the forenoon we finally succeeded in getting through. During the rest of the day we also made some headway to the south until the ice became impassable, and we were compelled to make fast at 10 P.M., having made about 2 miles.
On account of the fog we were unable to take any observation until the 9th, when we found ourselves in 81° 48′ north latitude, the last latitude observation we made in the drift-ice.
On Tuesday, the 11th, we again proceeded southward by dint of arduous labor in clearing floes and brash, which often blocked our way. At 7.30 P.M. we had to make fast in a narrow strait, until, in the course of the night, we cleared the obstacles away and were able to proceed to the southwest. Progress was, however, slow, and on the morning of August 12th we were stopped by a very awkward floe. We tried to blast it away, but while we were at work on this the ice tightened up quickly, and left the vessel imprisoned between two big floes. In the course of a couple of hours it slackened again in a S.W. direction, and we steamed off in comparatively fair channels until 12.30 P.M., when a floe stopped our farther progress. We had made 9½ miles in about five hours this forenoon. Some thin ice now appeared, and from the crow’s-nest we could see, when the fog cleared off a little for a few moments, several large channels running in a southerly direction both east and west of our position. Besides, we noticed an increase in the number of birds and small seals, and we also saw an occasional bearded seal—all evidences that we could not be very far from the open water.