And now they all set to work in earnest about the necessary preparations, such as making sleighs, kayaks, exercising the dogs, and weighing out provisions, etc.
Meanwhile winter dragged on its weary way. Another Christmas came, finding them in latitude, eighty-three degrees, and ice pressures were increasing daily. The New Year of 1895 was ushered in with wind, and was dark and dreary in the extreme. On Jan. 3, the famous ice-pressure occurred, that exposed the Fram to the severest strain any ship ever encountered, and lived.
At 8 A.M. on the morning of the 3d of January Nansen was awakened by the familiar sound of an approaching pressure. On going up on deck he was not a little surprised to see a huge pressure-ridge scarcely thirty paces away from the Fram, with deep cracks reaching almost to the ship itself. All loose articles were at once stowed away on board. At noon the pressure began again, and the dreaded ridge came nearer and nearer. In the afternoon preparations were made to abandon the ship, the sleighs and kayaks being placed ready on deck. At supper-time it began crunching again, and Nordahl came below to say that they had better go up on deck at once. The dogs, too, had to be let loose, for the water stood high in their kennels.
During the night the ice remained comparatively quiet, but next morning the pressure began again. The huge ridge was now only a few feet from the ship.
At 6.30 Jan. 5 Nansen was awakened by Sverdrup telling him that the ridge had now reached the ship, and was level with the rails. All hands at once rushed on deck; but nothing further occurred that day till late in the evening, when the climax came. At eight P.M. the crunching and thundering was worse than ever; masses of ice and snow dashed over the tent and rails amidships. Every one set to work to save what he could. Indeed, the crashing and thundering made them think doomsday had come; and all the while the crew were rushing about here and there, carrying sacks and bags, the dogs howling, and masses of ice pouring in every moment. Yet they worked away with a will till everything was put in a place of safety.
When the pressure finally was over, the Fram’s port-side was completely buried in the ice-mound; only the top of the tent being visible. But she had stood the trial—passed through it gloriously; for she came out of it all uninjured, without even a crack. There she lay as sound as ever, but with a mound of ice over her, higher indeed than the second ratline of her fore-shrouds, and six feet above the rails.
Chapter IX.
Nansen and Johansen start on a Sleighing Expedition.—Reach Eighty-six Degrees, Fourteen Minutes, North Latitude.—Winter in Franz Joseph’s Land.
March 17, 1895, was a memorable day in the Fram’s history, for it was on that date that Nansen and Johansen set out on the most adventurous expedition ever undertaken in the polar sea. At the time of leaving the ship, she was in eighty-four degrees north latitude.