The Great White North / The story of polar exploration from the earliest times to the discovery of the pole

by Helen S. Wright

With Nordenskjöld as leader, Lieutenant Palander commander of the ship, and an efficient staff of officers and scientists, which included such men as Lieutenant Horgaard of the Royal Danish Navy, for superintendent of the magnetical and meteorological work, F. R. Kjellman, Ph.D., Docent in Botany in the University of Upsala, and Lieutenant G. Bore, of the Royal Italian Navy, superintendent of the hydrographical work, the Vega sailed from Gothenburg July 4, 1878, in company with her convoy, the Lena. Port Dickson was reached on the morning of August 10, and nine days later Cape Serero or Chelyuskin in 77° 41´ north latitude. Of this, the most northern point of Siberia, Nordenskjöld writes:—

“We had now reached a great goal, which for centuries had been the object of unsuccessful struggles. For the first time a vessel lay at anchor off the northernmost cape of the old world. No wonder then that the occurrence was celebrated by a display of flags and the firing of salutes, and when we returned from our excursion on land, by festivities on board, by wine and toast.”

“The north point of Asia forms a low promontory, which a bay divides into two, the eastern arm projecting a little farther to the north than the western. A ridge of hills with gently sloping sides runs into the land from the eastern point, and appears within sight of the western to reach a height of three hundred metres. Like the plain lying below, the summits of this range were nearly free of snow. Only on the hillsides or in deep furrows excavated by the streams of melted snow, and in dales in the plains, were large white snow-fields to be seen. A low ice-foot still remained at most places along the shore. But no glacier rolled its bluish-white ice-masses down the mountain sides, and no inland lakes, no perpendicular cliffs, no high mountain summits, gave any natural beauty to the landscape, which was the most monotonous and the most desolate I have seen in the High North.”

Foul Bay, on the Coast of Spitzbergen

From “The Voyage of the Vega,” Macmillan & Co., Ltd., London

On the 23d the Vega was again steaming forward among the fields of drift-ice. The difficulties of voyaging through unknown waters overhung with fogs and mists may better be understood by an anecdote described by Nordenskjöld, which illustrates how completely a person may be deceived by size and distance of objects:—

“One can scarcely, without having experienced it,” he writes, “form any idea of the optical illusions, which are produced by mist, in regions where the size of the objects which are visible through fog is not known beforehand, and thus does not give the spectator an idea of the distance. Our estimate of the distance and size in such cases depends wholly on accident. The obscure contours of the fog-concealed objects themselves, besides, are often by the ignorance of the spectator converted into whimsical fantastic forms. During a boat journey in Hinlopen Strait I once intended to row among drift-ice to an island at a distance of some few kilometres. When the boat started, the air was clear, but while we were employed, as best we could, in shooting sea-fowl for dinner, all was wrapt in a thick mist, and that so unexpectedly, that we had not time to take the bearings of the island. This led to a not altogether pleasant row by guess among the pieces of ice that were drifting about in rapid motion in the sound. All exerted themselves as much as possible to get sight of the island, whose beach would afford us a safe resting-place. While thus occupied, a dark border was seen through the mist at the horizon. It was taken for the island which we were bound for, and it was not at first considered remarkable that the dark border rose rapidly, for we thought that the mist was dispersing and in consequence of that more of the land was visible. Soon two white snow-fields that we had not observed before, were seen on both sides of the land, and immediately after this was changed to a sea monster, resembling a walrus-head as large as a mountain. This got life and motion, and finally sank all at once to the head of a common walrus, which lay on a piece of ice in the neighbourhood of the boat; the white tusks formed the snow-fields and the dark brown round head the mountain. Scarce was this illusion gone when one of the men cried out, ‘Land right ahead—high land!’ We now all saw before us a high Alpine region, with mountain peaks and glaciers, but this too sank a moment afterwards all at once to a common ice-border, blackened with earth. In the spring of 1873 Phelander and I with nine men made a sledge journey round Northeast Land. In the course of this journey a great many bears were seen and killed. When a bear was seen while we were dragging our sledge forward, the train commonly stood still, and, not to frighten the bear, all the men concealed themselves behind the sledges, with the exception of the marksman, who, squatting down in some convenient place, waited till his prey should come sufficiently in range to be killed with certainty.

“It happened once during foggy weather on the ice at Wahlenberg Bay that the bear that was expected and had been clearly seen by all of us, instead of approaching with his usual supple zigzag movements, and with his ordinary attempts to nose himself to a sure insight into the fitness of the foreigners for food, just as the marksman took aim, spread out gigantic wings and flew away in the form of a small ivory gull. Another time during the same sledge journey we heard from the tent in which we rested the cook, who was employed outside, cry out, ‘A bear! a great bear! No! a reindeer, a very little reindeer!’ The same instant a well-directed shot was fired, and the bear-reindeer was found to be a very small fox, which thus paid with its life for the honour of having for some moments played the part of a big animal. From these accounts it may be seen how difficult navigation among drift-ice must be in unknown waters.”