“Friday, March 29th. We are grinding on, but very slowly. The ice is only tolerable, and not what I expected from the beginning. There are often great ridges of piled-up ice of dismal aspect, which take up a great deal of time, as one must go on ahead to find a way, and, as a rule, make a greater or less detour to get over them. In addition, the dogs are growing rather slow and slack, and it is almost impossible to get them on. And then this endless disentangling of the hauling-ropes, with their infernal twists and knots, which get worse and worse to undo! The dogs jump over and in between one another incessantly, and no sooner has one carefully cleared the hauling-ropes than they are twisted into a veritable skein again. Then one of the sledges is stopped by a block of ice. The dogs howl impatiently to follow their companions in front; then one bites through a trace and starts off on his own account, perhaps followed by one or two others, and these must be caught and the traces knotted; there is no time to splice them properly, nor would it be a very congenial task in this cold. So we go on when the ice is uneven, and every hour and a half, at least, have to stop and disentangle the traces.
“We started yesterday about half-past eight in the morning, and stopped about five in the afternoon. After dinner the northeasterly wind, which we have had the whole time, suddenly became stronger, and the sky overcast. We welcomed it with joy, for we saw in it the sign of a probable change of weather and an end to this perpetual cold and brightness. I do not think we deceived ourselves either. Yesterday evening the temperature had risen to -29.2° Fahr. (-34° C.), and we had the best night in the bag we have had for a long time. Just now, as I am getting the breakfast ready, I see that it is clear again, and the sun is shining through the tent wall.
“The ice we are now travelling over seems, on the whole, to be old; but sometimes we come across tracts, of considerable width, of uneven new ice, which must have been pressed up a considerable time. I cannot account for it in any other way than by supposing it to be ice from great open pools which must have formed here at one time. We have traversed pools of this description, with level ice on them, several times.” That day I took a meridian observation, which, however, did not make us farther north than 85° 30′. I could not understand this; thought that we must be in latitude 86°, and, therefore, supposed there must be something wrong with the observation.
“Saturday, March 30th. Yesterday was Tycho Brahe’s day. At first we found much uneven ice, and had to strike a devious route to get through it, so that our day’s march did not amount to much, although we kept at it a long time. At the end of it, however, and after considerable toil, we found ourselves on splendid flat ice, more level than it had been for a long time. At last, then, we had come on some more of the good old kind, and could not complain of some rubble and snow-drifts here and there; but then we were stopped by some ugly pressure-ridges of the worst kind, formed by the packing of enormous blocks. The last ridge was the worst of all, and before it yawned a crack in the thick ice about 12 feet deep. When the first sledge was going over all the dogs fell in and had to be hauled up again. One of them—‘Klapperslangen’—slipped his harness and ran away. As the next sledge was going over it fell in bodily, but happily was not smashed to atoms, as it might have been. We had to unload it entirely in order to get it up again, and then reload, all of which took up a great deal of time. Then, too, the dogs had to be thrown down and dragged up on the other side. With the third sledge we managed better, and after we had gone a little way farther the runaway dog came back. At last we reached a camping-ground, pitched our tent, and found that the thermometer showed -45.4° Fahr. (-43° C.). Disentangling dog-traces in this temperature with one’s bare, frost-bitten, almost skinless hands is desperate work. But finally we were in our dear bag, with the ‘Primus’ singing cozily, when, to crown our misfortunes, I discovered that it would not burn. I examined it everywhere, but could find nothing wrong. Johansen had to turn out and go and fetch the tools and a reserve burner while I studied the cooker. At last I discovered that some ice had got in under the lid, and this had caused a leakage. Finally we got it to light, and at 5 o’clock in the morning the pea-soup was ready, and very good it was. At three in the afternoon I was up again cooking. Thank Heaven, it is warm and comfortable in the bag, or this sort of life would be intolerable!
A Night Camp on the Journey North
“Sunday, March 31st. Yesterday, at last, came the long-wished-for change of weather, with southerly wind and rising temperature. Early this morning the thermometer showed -22° Fahr. (-30° C.), regular summer weather, in fact. It was, therefore, with lightened hearts that we set off over good ice and with the wind at our backs. On we went at a very fair pace, and everything was going well, when a lane suddenly opened just in front of the first sledge. We managed to get this over by the skin of our teeth; but just as we were going to cross the lane again after the other sledges, a large piece of ice broke under Johansen, and he fell in, wetting both legs—a deplorable incident. While the lane was gradually opening more and more, I went up and down it to find a way over, but without success. Here we were, with one man and a sledge on one side, two sledges and a wet man on the other, with an ever-widening lane between. The kayaks could not be launched, as, through the frequent capsizing of the sledges, they had got holes in them, and for the time being were useless. This was a cheerful prospect for the night, I on one side with the tent, Johansen, probably frozen stiff, on the other. At last, after a long detour, I found a way over; and the sledges were conveyed across. It was out of the question, however, to attempt to go on, as Johansen’s nether extremities were a mass of ice and his overalls so torn that extensive repairs were necessary.”
