The Last Secrets: The Final Mysteries of Exploration

by John Buchan

For among Polar explorers are many men who must be universally regarded as heroes. No training was more rigorous and dangerous, no work has ever called for more endurance, resource, and courage. A nation which is without its heroes is in a sad plight; a nation which has them and ignores their example can only be looked upon with pity. The spirit of high adventure is one that no country can afford to neglect.

The history of geographical discovery is, in its initial stages, almost solely one of conquest. Men, either for their own or their country's profit—and sometimes for both—went out in search of unknown lands because they wanted to trade with them. Pytheas, who has been described as "one of the most intrepid explorers the world has ever seen," was the first man to bring news of the Arctic regions to the civilized world. He did not pretend to have visited them, but in or about 330 B.C. he set out from Marseilles and journeyed north. During this voyage, which must have lasted for several years, he visited Britain, and then, proceeding to the most northerly point of the British Isles, he heard of an Arctic land called Thule, which at one time of the year enjoyed perpetual day, and at another had to endure perpetual night.

With a leap over a few hundred years we come to Ptolemy, whose influence on geography was almost paramount from the second century to comparatively modern times. No one is more dangerous than a bad cartographer, or more valuable than a good one; but although Ptolemy made many mistakes, he also did such splendid work that it is quite easy to forget them. To him we owe the names of latitude and longitude, and it has been well said of him that he held the extraordinary "distinction of being the greatest authority on astronomy and geography for over fifteen hundred years." Ptolemy's work may have required to be corrected and amplified, but, at least, he gave the world something which was worthy of correction.

In the eighth and ninth centuries the Norsemen became terrors in Europe. "Harold of the fair hair" reigned from 860 to 930 A.D., and these seventy years formed a period of great adventure. During Harold's reign the Norsemen colonized Iceland, and in 983 Erik the Red founded a colony in Greenland, which flourished until the Norwegians ceased to take an interest in it.

Not until the fifteenth century did English seamen begin to turn their attention to the North. They were more or less forced to do so. Portugal and Spain were all-powerful in the East and West, and so England began earnestly to think of discovering a way to Cathay and the Spice Islands by a northern route. But if we were a little slow in beginning to pay attention to the Arctic regions, we have every cause to be satisfied with our work after we had once begun it. The fifteenth century saw considerable activity as regards Scandinavia, but it was not until 1505 that a charter was granted to the Company of Merchant Adventurers, and from that year we can date our real interest in Arctic discovery.

It is well, perhaps, to bear in mind, while thinking of Polar exploration, that there is a marked difference between the two Polar regions. The Arctic is an ocean surrounded by continental lands; the Antarctic is a continental land surrounded by oceans.

In 1553 Sir Hugh Willoughby set out to try and find a north-east passage to the Indies. On this voyage—in which Willoughby lost his life—Novaya Zemlya was discovered, and Richard Chancellor, who took part in the expedition, reached Archangel; and then, travelling overland to Moscow, was received graciously by Ivan the Terrible, the Tsar of Russia. This visit was of importance, because it helped to establish trade between England and Russia.

Competition to find a route northwards to China and the Indies had by this time become acute in Europe, and many bold navigators set out from England. Among the sailors who were maintaining her high record on the seas Sir Martin Frobisher deserves especially to be mentioned. In 1576 he set out, cheered doubtless by knowing that Queen Elizabeth had "good liking of their doings," to find a north-west passage. On three occasions Frobisher voyaged northwards, and he reached Greenland and discovered the strait that was named after him. "He is not worthy," Sir Humphrey Gilbert wrote in the latter part of the sixteenth century, "to live at all who, for fear of danger or death, shunneth his country's service or his own honour, since death is inevitable, and the fame of virtue immortal." Most assuredly our Elizabethan sailors did not shun their "country's service," and Elizabeth herself was the first to appreciate and encourage their enterprise.

In 1585 yet another distinguished explorer, John Davis, embarked upon his career, and during his voyages he made discoveries that "converted the Arctic regions from a confused myth into a defined area." He found several passages towards the west, and thus strengthened the hope of finding a north-west passage; and he also reached "the farthest north," 72° 12' N., some eleven hundred miles from the geographical North Pole.

As yet no one had turned his thoughts to the North Pole itself, but it may truly be said that Davis and men of his calibre were already beginning to prepare the way for the time when it would be reached. For his discoveries, like those of many of the earlier explorers, were both important in themselves and also acted as a guide and incentive to those who followed. In the meantime, Davis had obtained the record for the "farthest north," a record which Great Britain, with the exception of a very few years, continued to hold until 1882.