“This is, indeed, a strange time for me; I feel as if I were preparing for a summer trip and the spring were already here, yet it is still midwinter, and the conditions of the summer trip may be somewhat ambiguous. The ice keeps quiet; the cracking in it and in the Fram is due only to the cold. I have during the last few days again read Payer’s account of his sledge expedition northward through Austria Sound. It is not very encouraging. The very land he describes as the realm of Death, where he thinks he and his companions would inevitably have perished had they not recovered the vessel, is the place to which we look for salvation; that is the region we hope to reach when our provisions have come to an end. It may seem reckless, but nevertheless I cannot imagine that it is so. I cannot help believing that a land which even in April teems with bears, auks, and black guillemots, and where seals are basking on the ice, must be a Canaan, ‘flowing with milk and honey,’ for two men who have good rifles and good eyes; it must surely yield food enough not only for the needs of the moment, but also provisions for the journey onward to Spitzbergen. Sometimes, however, the thought will present itself that it may be very difficult to get the food when it is most sorely needed; but these are only passing moments. We must remember Carlyle’s words: ‘A man shall and must be valiant; he must march forward, and quit himself like a man—trusting imperturbably in the appointment and choice of the Upper Powers.’ I have not, it is true, any ‘Upper Powers’; it would probably be well to have them in such a case, but we nevertheless are starting, and the time approaches rapidly; four weeks or a little more soon pass by, and then farewell to this snug nest, which has been our home for eighteen months, and we go out into the darkness and cold, out into the still more unknown:
“‘Out yonder ’tis dark,
But onward we must,
Over the dewy wet mountains,
Ride through the land of the ice-troll;
We shall both be saved,
Or the ice-troll’s hand
Shall clutch us both.’”
On January 23d I write: “The dawn has grown so much that there was a visible light from it on the ice, and for the first time this year I saw the crimson glow of the sun low down in the dawn.” We now took soundings with the lead before I was to leave the vessel; we found 1876 fathoms (3450 metres). I then made some snow-shoes down in the hold; it was important to have them smooth, tough, and light, on which one could make good headway; “they shall be well rubbed with tar, stearine, and tallow, and there shall be speed in them; then it is only a question of using one’s legs, and I have no doubt that can be managed.
“Tuesday, January 29th. Latitude yesterday, 83° 30′. (Some days ago we had been so far north as 83° 40′, but had again drifted southward.) The light keeps on steadily increasing, and by noon it almost seems to be broad daylight. I believe I could read the title of a book out in the open if the print were large and clear. I take a stroll every morning, greeting the dawning day, before I go down into the hold to my work at the snowshoes and equipment. My mind is filled with a peculiar sensation, which I cannot clearly define; there is certainly an exulting feeling of triumph, deep in the soul, a feeling that all one’s dreams are about to be realized with the rising sun, which steers northward across the ice-bound waters. But while I am busy in these familiar surroundings a wave of sadness sometimes comes over me; it is like bidding farewell to a dear friend and to a home which has long afforded me a sheltering roof. At one blow all this and my dear comrades are to be left behind forever; never again shall I tread this snow-clad deck, never again creep under this tent, never hear the laughter ring in this familiar saloon, never again sit in this friendly circle.