“And then I remember that when the Fram at last bursts from her bonds of ice, and turns her prow towards Norway, I shall not be with her. A farewell imparts to everything in life its own tinge of sadness, like the crimson rays of the sun, when the day, good or bad, sinks in tears below the horizon.
“Hundreds of times my eye wanders to the map hanging there on the wall, and each time a chill creeps over me. The distance before us seems so long, and the obstacles in our path may be many; but then again the feeling comes that we are bound to pull through: it cannot be otherwise; everything is too carefully prepared to fail now, and meanwhile the southeast wind is whistling above us, and we are continually drifting northward nearer our goal. When I go up on deck and step out into the night with its glittering starry vault and the flaring aurora borealis, then all these thoughts recede, and I must, as ever, pause on the threshold of this sanctuary—this dark, deep, silent space, this infinite temple of nature, in which the soul seeks to find its origin. Toiling ant, what matters it whether you reach your goal with your fir-needle or not? Everything disappears none the less in the ocean of eternity, in the great Nirvana; and as time rolls on our names are forgotten, our deeds pass into oblivion, and our lives flit by like the traces of a cloud, and vanish like the mist dispelled by the warm rays of the sun. Our time is but a fleeting shadow, hurrying us on to the end—so it is ordained; and having reached that end, none ever retraces his steps.
“Two of us will soon be journeying farther through this immense waste, into greater solitudes and deeper stillness.
“Wednesday, January 30th. To-day the great event has happened, that the windmill is again at work for the first time after its long rest. In spite of the cold and the darkness, Amundsen had got the cog-wheels into order, and now it is running as smoothly and steadily as gutta-percha.”
A Whist Party in the Saloon. February 15, 1895
Blessing Scott Hansen Sverdrup
(From a photograph)
We have now constant northeast winds, and we again bore northward. On Sunday, February 3d, we were at 83° 43′. The time for our departure approached, and the preparations were carried on with great activity. The sledges were completed, and I tried them under various conditions. I have alluded to the fact that we made maple guards to put under the fixed nickel-plated runners. The idea of this was to strengthen both the sledges and the runners, so that they would at the beginning of the journey, when the loads were heavy, be less liable to breakage from the jolting to which they would probably be exposed. Later on, when the load got lighter, we might, if we thought fit, easily remove them. These guards were also to serve another purpose. I had an idea that, in view of the low temperature we had during the winter, and on the dry drift-snow which then covered the ice-floes, metal would glide less easily than smooth wood, especially if the latter were well rubbed with rich tar and stearine. By February 8th one of the sledges with wooden guard-runners was finished, so that we could make experiments in this direction, and we then found that it was considerably easier to haul than a similar sledge running on the nickel-plate, though the load on each was exactly the same. The difference was so great that we found that it was at least half as hard again to draw a sledge on the nickel runners as on the tarred maple runners.
Our new ash sledges were now nearly finished and weighed 30 pounds without the guard-runners. “Everybody is hard at work. Sverdrup is sewing bags or bolsters to put on the sledges as beds for the kayaks to rest on. To this end the bags are to be made up to fit the bottoms of the boats. Johansen with one or two other men are stuffing the bags with pemmican, which has to be warmed, beaten, and kneaded in order to give it the right form for making a good bed for our precious boats. When these square, flat bags are carried out into the cold they freeze as hard as stone, and keep their form well. Blessing is sitting up in the work-room, copying the photographs of which I have no prints. Hansen is working out a map of our route so far, and copying out his observations for us, etc., etc. In short, there is hardly a man on board who does not feel that the moment for departure approaches; perhaps the galley is the only place where everything goes on in the usual way under the management of Lars. Our position yesterday was 83° 32.1′ north latitude and 102° 28′ east longitude, so we are southward again; but never mind, what do a couple of miles more or less matter to us?