“Wednesday, March 25th. There is the same dark water-sky behind the promontory in the southwest, stretching thence westward almost to the extreme west. It has been there all through this mild weather, with southwesterly wind, from the very beginning of the month. There seems to be always open water there, for no sooner is the sky overcast than the reflection of water appears in that quarter.

Plate XIV

Ice near the Fram, 4th July 1894. Pastel Sketch.

“Thursday, April 2d. As I awoke at about eight this evening (our morning happened to fall in the evening to-day), we heard an animal rustling about outside and gnawing at something. We did not take much notice of it, thinking it was a fox, busy as usual with some meat up on the roof; and if it did seem to be making rather more noise than we had of late been accustomed to hear from foxes, yet it was scarcely noise enough to come from a bear. We did not take into consideration that the snow was not so cold and crackling now as it had been earlier in the winter. When Johansen went out to read the thermometer, he saw that it was a bear that had been there. It had gone round the hut, but had evidently not liked all the bears’ carcasses, and had not ventured past them up to the walrus blubber on the roof. At the opening of the passage and the chimney it had sniffed hard, doubtless enjoying the delicious scent of burnt blubber and live human flesh. Then it had dragged a walrus hide that was lying outside a little way off and scraped the blubber off it. It had come from the ice obliquely up the hill following the scent, had then followed our footsteps from the hut to the place where we get salt-water, and had thence gone farther out over the ice until it had got scent of the walrus carcasses out there, and was going towards them when Johansen caught sight of it. There it set to work to gnaw. As my gun was not fit to use at the moment, I took Johansen’s and went alone. The bear was so busy gnawing and tearing pieces off the carcass that I could get close up to it from behind without troubling about cover. Wishing to try how near I could get, I went on, and it was not until I was so near that I could almost touch it with the muzzle of my gun that it heard my steps, so busy had it been. It started round, gazed defiantly and astonished at me, and I saluted it with a charge right in its face. It threw up its head, sneezed, and blew blood out over the snow as it turned round again and galloped away. I was going to load again, but the cartridge jammed, and it was only by using my knife that I got it out. While I was doing this the bear had bethought himself, stopped, turned towards me, and snorted angrily, as he made up his mind to set upon me. He then went up on to a piece of ice close by, placed himself in an attitude of defence, and stretched out his neck towards me, while the blood poured from his mouth and nostrils. The ball had gone right through his head, but without touching the brain. At last I had put another cartridge in, but had to give him five shots before I finally killed him. At each shot he fell, but got up again. I was not accustomed to the sights on Johansen’s gun, and shot rather too high with it. At last I grew angry, rushed up to him, and finished him off.”

We were beginning to be well supplied with blubber and meat for the journey south, and were now busy fitting ourselves out. And there was a great deal to be done. We had to begin to make ourselves new clothes out of our blankets; our wind clothes had to be patched and mended; our “komager” had to be soled, and we had to make socks and gloves out of bearskin. Then we had to make a light, good sleeping-bag of bearskin. All this would take time; and from this time we worked industriously at our needle from early morning till late at night. Our hut was suddenly transformed into a busy tailor’s and shoemaker’s workroom, where we sat side by side in the sleeping-bag upon the stone bed, and sewed and sewed and thought about the home-coming. We got thread by unravelling the cotton canvas of some provision bags. It need hardly be said that we were always talking about the prospects for our journey, and we found great comfort in the persistence of the dark sky in the southwest, which indicated much open water in that direction. I consequently thought we should have good use for our kayaks on the journey to Spitzbergen. I mention this open water several times in my journal. For instance, on April 12th: “Open water from the promontory in the southwest, northward as far as we can see.” By this I mean, of course, that there was dark air over the whole horizon in this direction, showing clearly that there was open water there. This could not really surprise us; indeed, we ought to have been prepared for it, since Payer had found open water in the middle of April at a more northerly point on the west coast of Crown Prince Rudolf Land; and this had been continually in my thoughts all through the winter.

Another thing which made us believe in the close vicinity of the sea was that we were daily visited by ivory-gulls and fulmars (Procellaria glacialis), sometimes skuas also. We saw the first ivory-gulls on March 12th; throughout April they became more and more numerous, and soon we had plenty, both of them and of the burgomasters (Larus glaucus), sitting on our roof and round the hut, and drumming and pecking at the bones and remains of bears they found there. During the winter the continual gnawing of the foxes at the meat up there had entertained us, and reminded us that we were not quite forsaken by living things; when half asleep we could often imagine that we were in our beds at home and heard the rats and mice holding their revels in the attic above us. With the coming of daylight the foxes vanished. They now found plenty of little auks up in the clefts of the mountains, and had no longer to depend on our stone-hard frozen bear-meat. But now we had the drumming of the gulls instead; but they did not call up the same illusions, and, when we had them on the roof just over our heads, were often very tiresome, and even disturbed our sleep, so that we had to knock on the roof or go out and frighten them away, which, however, had the desired effect only for a few minutes.

On the 18th of April, while I was at work on some solar-time observations, I happened to look up, and was surprised to see a bear standing just opposite to me down on the ice by the shore. It must have been standing there a long time, wondering what I was about. I ran to the hut for a gun, but when I returned it took to its heels, and I was not eager to follow it.

“Sunday, April 19th. I was awakened at 7 o’clock this morning by the heavy steps of a bear outside. I wakened Johansen, who struck a light, and I got on my trousers and ‘komager’ and crept out with loaded gun. During the night a great deal of snow had, as usual, drifted over the skin that covered the opening, and was difficult to break through. At last, by kicking with all my might from below, I managed to knock the snow off, and put my head out into the daylight, which was quite dazzling after the darkness down in the hut. I saw nothing, but knew that the bear must be standing just behind the hut. Then I heard a snorting and blowing, and off went the brute in a clumsy bear’s gallop up the slope. I did not know whether to shoot or not, and, to tell the truth, I had little inclination for bear-skinning in this bitter weather; but half at random I sent a shot after it, which of course missed, and I was not sorry. I did not shoot again; the one shot was enough to frighten it, and keep it from coming again for the present; we did not want it, if only it would leave our things in peace. At the cleft to the north it looked back, and then went on. As usual it had come against the wind, and must have scented us far west upon the ice. It had made several tacks to leeward to us, had been at the entrance of the hut, where it had left a visiting-card, and had then gone straight to a mound at the back of us, where there is some walrus blubber, surrounded on all sides by bears’ carcasses. These had no terrors for it. The bearskin which covered it, it had dragged a long way, but fortunately it had not succeeded in getting anything eaten before I came.

“Sunday, May 3d. When Johansen came in this morning he said he had seen a bear out on the ice; it was coming in. He went out a little later to look for it, but did not see it; it had probably gone into the bay to the north. We expected a visit from it, however, as the wind was that way; and as we sat later in the day, sewing as hard as we could sew, we heard heavy footsteps on the snow outside. They stopped, went backward and forward a little, and then something was drawn along, and all was quiet. Johansen crept cautiously out with his gun. When he put his head out of the hole, and his eyes had recovered from the first dazzling effects of the daylight, he saw the bear standing gnawing at a bearskin. A bullet through the head killed it on the spot It was a lean little animal, but worth taking, inasmuch as it saved us the trouble of thawing up carcasses in order to cut provisions for our journey off them. Frozen stiff as they now are, we cannot cut them up outside in the cold, but have to bring them into the hut and soften them in the warmth before we can cut anything off them and this takes time. Two bears were here on a visit last night, but they turned back again at the sledge, which is stuck up on end in the moraine to the west of us, to serve as a stand for our thermometer.”