Due North; or, Glimpses of Scandinavia and Russia

by Maturin M. Ballou

To meet the temporary exigency caused by continuous daylight, as to whether one meant day or night time in giving the figure on the dial, the passengers adopted an ingenious mode of counting the hours. Thus after twelve o'clock midday the count went on thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen o'clock, until midnight, which was twenty-four o'clock. This is a mode of designation adopted in both China and Italy.

Tromsöe is situated in latitude 69° 38' north, upon a small but pleasant island, though it is rather low compared with the surrounding islands and the nearest main-land, but clothed when we saw it, in July, to the very highest point with exquisite verdure. It is a gay and thrifty little place built upon a slope, studded here and there with attractive villas amid the trees; but the business portion of the town is quite compact, and lies closely about the shore. It is the largest and most important settlement in northern Norway, being the capital of Norwegian Lapland, and having about six thousand inhabitants. It rises to the dignity of a cathedral, and is the seat of a bishopric. In the Market Place is a substantial Town Hall, and a neat though small Roman Catholic church. There is also here an excellent Museum, principally of Arctic curiosities and objects relating to the history of the Lapps and Finlanders, with a fair zoölogical department, also possessing a fine collection of Alpine minerals. There are several schools, one of which is designed to prepare teachers for their special occupation, somewhat after the style of our Normal Schools. It must be admitted, however, that the lower order of the people here are both ignorant and superstitious; still, the conclusion was that Tromsöe is one of the most interesting spots selected as a popular centre within the Arctic Circle. Both to the north and south of the town snow-clad mountains shut off distant views. During the winter months there are only four hours of daylight here out of each twenty-four,—that is, from about ten o'clock A. M. until two o'clock P. M.; but the long winter nights are made comparatively light by the glowing and constant splendor of the Aurora Borealis. The pride of Tromsöe is its cathedral, which contains some really fine wood-carving; but the structure is small and has no architectural merit. Though regular services are held here on the Sabbath, that is about the only apparent observation of the day by the people. Games and out-door sports are played in the very churchyard, and balls and parties are given in the evening of the Lord's Day; evidently they do not belong to that class of people who think Sunday is a sponge with which to wipe out the sins of the week. The streets are ornamented by the mountain-ash, birch-trees, and the wild cherry, ranged uniformly on either side of the broad thoroughfares. In one place it was noticed that a miniature park had been begun by the planting of numerous young trees. The birches in this neighborhood are of a grandly developed species, the handsomest indeed which we remember to have seen anywhere. Just outside the town there was observed a field golden with buttercups, making it difficult to realize that we were in Arctic regions. A pink-blooming heather also carpeted other small fields; and here for a moment we were agreeably surprised at beholding a tiny cloud of butterflies, so abundant in the warm sunshine and presenting such transparency of color, as to suggest the idea that some rainbow had been shattered and was floating in myriad particles on the buoyant air. The short-lived summer perhaps makes flowers all the more prized and the more carefully tended. In the rudest quarters a few pet plants were seen, whose arrangement and nurture showed womanly care and tenderness. Every window in the humble dwellings had its living screen of drooping many-colored fuchsias, geraniums, forget-me-nots, and monthly roses. The ivy is especially prized here, and is picturesquely trained to hang gracefully about the architraves of the windows. The fragrant sweet-pea, with its combined snow-white and peach-blossom hues, was often mingled prettily with the dark green of the ivy, the climbing propensities of each making them fitting companions. In one or two windows was seen the brilliant flowering bignonia (Trumpet-vine), and an abundance of soft green, rose-scented geraniums. Surely there must be an innate sense of refinement among the people of these frost-imbued regions, whatever their seeming, when they are actuated by such delicate appreciations. "They are useless rubbish," said a complaining husband to his hard-working wife, referring to her little store of flowers. "Useless!" replied the true woman, "how dare you be wiser than God?"

Vegetation within the Arctic Circle is possessed of an individual vitality which seems to be independent of atmospheric influence. Plants seem to have thawed a little space about them before the snow quite disappeared, and to have peeped forth from their frost-surrounded bed in the full vigor of life, while the grass springs up so suddenly that its growth must have been well started under cover of the snow. One of the most interesting subjects of study to the traveller on the journey northward is to mark his progress by the products of the forest. The trees will prove, if intelligently observed, as definite in regard to fixing his position as an astronomical observation could do. From the region of the date and the palm we come to that of the fig and the olive, thence to the orange, the almond, and the myrtle. Succeeding these we find the walnut, the poplar, and the lime; and again there comes the region of the elm, the oak, and the sycamore. These will be succeeded by the larch, the fir, the pine, the birch, and their companions. After this point we look for no change of species, but a diminution in size of these last enumerated. The variety of trees is of course the result of altitude as well as of latitude, since there are mountain regions in southern Europe, as well as in America, where one may pass in a few hours from the region of the olive to that of the stunted pine or fir.

The staple commodities of Tromsöe are Lapps, reindeer, and midnight sun. The universal occupation is that of fishing for cod, sharks, and whales, to which may be added the curing or drying of the first and the "trying out" of the latter, supplemented by the treatment of cods' livers. From this place vessels are fitted out for Polar expeditions, which creates a certain amount of local business in the ship chandlery line. French, German, English, Russian, and Danish flags were observed floating from the shipping in the harbor, which presented a scene of considerable activity for so small a port. Some of these vessels were fitting for the capture of seals and walruses among the ice-fields of the Polar Sea, and also on the coast of Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. A small propeller was seen lying in the stream fitted with a forecastle gun, from whence to fire a lance at whales,—a species of big fishing which is profitably pursued here. A huge carcass of this leviathan was stranded on the opposite side of the harbor from where we were moored, and it is hardly necessary to add that its decaying condition rendered the atmosphere extremely offensive. As we lay at anchor little row-boats, with high bows and sterns, flitted about the bay like sea-birds on the wing, and rode as lightly on the surface of the water. These were often "manned" by a couple of sturdy, bronzed women, who rowed with great precision and stout arms, their eyes and faces glowing with animation. These boats, of the same model as that thousand-year old Viking ship at Christiania, seemed to set very low in the water amidship, but yet were remarkable for their buoyancy, sharp bows and sterns, and the ease with which they were propelled. The tall wooden fish-packing houses which line the wharves suggest the prevailing industry of the place. A long, low white building upon the hill-side also showed that the manufacture of rope and cordage is a prominent industry of the locality.

The Lapps in their quaint and picturesque costumes surrounded the newly arrived steamer in their boats, offering furs, carved horn implements, moccasons, walrus-teeth, and the like for sale. These wares are of the rudest type, and of no possible use to civilized people; but they are curious, and serve as mementos of the traveller's visit to these northern latitudes. In the town there are several stores where goods, manufactured by the better class of Lapps, can be had of a finer quality than is offered by these itinerants, who are very ready to pass off inferior articles upon strangers. Their drinking-cups, platters, and dishes generally are made of the wood of the birch. Spoons and forks are formed of the horns and bones of the reindeer. In the fancy line they make some curious bracelets from the roots of the birch-tree. These Lapps are very shrewd in trade, and are not without plenty of low cunning hidden behind their brown, withered, and expressionless faces.

On the main-land near by, as we were told, there are some singular relics of antiquity, such as a series of large stones uniformly arranged in circles, and high cairns of stone containing in their centres one or more square chambers. At one place in this district there is a remarkable mound of reindeer's horns and human bones, mingled with those of unknown species of animals. It is believed that here, centuries ago, the Lapps sacrificed both animals and human beings to their Pagan deities. There are also some deep earth and rock caves found in the same vicinity, which contain many human bones with others of huge animals, which have excited great interest among scientists. In the neighborhood of Tromsöe, and especially still farther north, large numbers of eider-duck are found, so abundant that no reliable estimate can be made of their number. The eggs are largely used by the natives for food, the nests being also regularly robbed of the down, while the birds with patient resignation continue for a considerable period to lay eggs and to renew the soft lining of their nests. The birds themselves are protected by law, no one being permitted to injure them. The male bird is white and black, the female is brown. In size they are larger than our domestic ducks. Landing almost anywhere in this sparsely inhabited region along the coast, but more particularly upon the islands, one finds the eider-ducks upon their low accessible nests built of marine plants among the rocks, and during incubation the birds are quite as tame as barn-yard fowls. The down of these birds forms a considerable source of income to many persons who make a business of gathering it. It has always a fixed value, and is worth, we were told, in Tromsöe, ten dollars per pound when ready for market. The waste in preparing it for use is large, requiring four pounds of the crude article as it comes from the nest to make one pound of the cleansed, merchantable down. Each nest during the breeding season produces about a quarter of a pound of the uncleansed article. When thoroughly prepared, it is so firm and yet so elastic that the quantity which can be pressed between the two hands will suffice to properly stuff a bed-quilt. It is customary for a Norsk lover to present his betrothed with one of these quilts previous to espousal, the contents of which he is presumed to have gathered with his own hands. A peculiarity of eider-down, as we were informed, is that if picked by hand from the breast of the dead bird it has no elasticity whatever. The natural color is a pale-brown. Many of the localities resorted to by the birds for breeding purposes are claimed by certain parties, who erect a cross or some other special mark thereon to signify that such preserves are not to be poached upon. The birds, like the people, get their living mostly by fishing, and are attracted hither as much by the abundance of their natural food as by the isolation of their breeding haunts.

The Lapps are to be seen by scores in the streets of Tromsöe. They are small in stature, being generally under five feet, with high cheek-bones, snub-noses, oblique Mongolian eyes, big mouths, large ill-formed heads, faces preternaturally aged, hair like meadow hay, and very scanty beards. Such is a photograph of the ancient race that once ruled the whole of Scandinavia. By taking a short trip inland one comes upon their summer encampment, formed of a few crude huts, outside of which they generally live except in the winter months. A Lapp sleeps wherever fatigue or drunkenness overcomes him, preferring the ground, but often lying on the snow. He rises in the morning refreshed from an exposure by which nearly any civilized human being would expect to incur lasting if not fatal injury. They are the gypsies of the North, and occupy a very low place in the social scale, certainly no higher than that of the Penobscot Indians of Maine. Their faculties are of a restricted order, and missionary efforts among them have never yet yielded any satisfactory results. Unlike our western Indians they are of a peaceful nature, neither treacherous nor revengeful, but yet having many of the grosser failings of civilized life. They are greedy, avaricious, very dirty, and passionately fond of alcoholic drinks, but we were told that serious crimes were very rare among them. No people could be more superstitious, as they believe that the caves of the half-inaccessible mountains about them are peopled by giants and evil spirits. They still retain some of their half-pagan rites, such as the use of magical drums and tom-toms for conjuring purposes, and to frighten away or to propitiate supposed devils, malicious diseases, and so on. The most advanced of the race are those who inhabit northern Norway. The Swedish Lapps are considered as coming next, while those under Russian dominion are thought to be the lowest.

An old navigator named Scrahthrift, while making a voyage of discovery northward, more than three centuries ago, wrote about the Lapps as follows: "They are a wild people, which neither know God nor yet good order; and these people live in tents made of deerskins, and they have no certain habitations, but continue in herds by companies of one hundred or two hundred. They are a people of small stature and are clothed in deerskins, and drink nothing but water, and eat no bread, but flesh all raw." They may have drunk nothing but water three hundred years ago, but they drink alcohol enough in this nineteenth century to make up for all former abstemiousness. Scrahthrift wrote in 1556, and gave the first account to the English-speaking world of this peculiar race whom modern ethnologists class with the Samoyedes of Siberia and the Esquimaux, the three forming what is called the Hyperborean Race. The word Samoyedes signifies "swamp-dwellers," and Esquimau means "eater of raw flesh."

The Lapps are natural nomads, their wealth consisting solely in their herds of reindeer, to procure sustenance for which necessitates frequent changes of locality. A Laplander is rich, provided he owns enough of these animals to support himself and family. A herd that can afford thirty full-grown deer for slaughter annually, and say ten more to be sold or bartered, makes a family of a dozen persons comfortably well off. But to sustain such a draft upon his resources, a Lapp must own at least two hundred and fifty head. There is also a waste account to be considered. Not a few are destroyed annually by wolves and bears, notwithstanding the usual precautions against such casualties, while in very severe winters numbers are sure to die of starvation. They live almost entirely on the so-called reindeer moss; but this failing them, they eat the young twigs of the trees. When the snow covers the ground to a depth of not more than three or four feet, these intelligent creatures dig holes in order to reach the moss, and guided by some strong instinct they rarely fail to do so in just the right place. The Lapps themselves would be entirely at a loss for any indication where to seek the animal's food when it is covered by the deep snow.

What the camel is to the Arab of the desert, the reindeer is to the Laplander. Though found here in a wild state, they are not common, and are very shy sometimes occupying partially inaccessible islands near the main-land, swimming back and forth as necessity may demand. The domestic deer is smaller than those that remain in a state of nature, and is said to live only half as long. When properly broken to harness, they carry lashed to their backs a hundred and thirty pounds, or drag upon the snow, when harnessed to a sledge, two hundred and fifty pounds, travelling ten miles an hour, for several consecutive hours, without apparent fatigue. Some of the thread prepared by the Lapp women from the sinews of the reindeer was shown to us, being as fine as the best sewing-silk, and much stronger than any silk thread made by modern methods.