The Ocean and Its Wonders

by R. M. Ballantyne

A very remarkable drift of this kind is recorded by Captain McClintock of the Fox, which is worthy of being noticed here, as illustrative of the subject we are now considering and also as showing in a remarkable manner the awful dangers to which navigators may be exposed by the disruption of the pack in spring, and the wonderful, almost miraculous, manner in which they are delivered from imminent destruction.

In attempting to cross Baffin’s Bay, by penetrating what is called the “middle ice,” the Fox was beset, and finally frozen in for the winter; and here, although their voyage may be said to have just commenced, they were destined to spend many months in helpless inactivity and comparative peril and privation. Their little vessel lay in the centre of a field of ice of immense extent; so large, indeed, that they could not venture to undertake a journey to ascertain its limits. Yet this field slowly and steadily descended Baffin’s Bay during the whole winter, and passed over no fewer than 1385 statute miles in the space of 242 days, during which period the Fox was firmly embedded in it!

It is with difficulty the mind can form any adequate conception of the position of those voyagers;—unable to move from their icy bed, yet constantly drifting over miles and miles of ocean; uncertain as to the where or the when of their deliverance from the pack; exposed to the terrible dangers of disrupting ice, and surrounded by the depressing gloom of the long arctic night.

At length deliverance came; but it came surrounded by terrors. In February, McClintock writes thus: “Daylight reveals to us evidences of vast ice-movements having taken place during the dark months, when we fancied all was still and quiet; and we now see how greatly we have been favoured, what innumerable chances of destruction we have unconsciously escaped. A few days ago, the ice suddenly cracked within ten yards of the ship, and gave her such a smart shock that every one rushed on deck with astonishing alacrity. One of these sudden disruptions occurred between me and the ship, when I was returning from the iceberg. The sun was just setting as I found myself cut off... At length I reached a place where the jagged edges of the floes met; so crossed, and got safely on board.”

Again, in March, he says, “Last night the ice closed, shutting up our lane; but its opposite sides continued for several hours to move vast each other, rubbing off all projections, crushing and forcing out of the water masses four feet thick. Although one hundred and twenty yards distant, this pressure shook the ship and cracked the intervening ice.”

Soon after that, a heavy gale burst upon them from the south-east, encircling them with snow-drift so dense that they could neither hear nor see what was going on twenty yards off. At night the ship became suddenly detached from her wintry bed, and heeled over to the storm, inducing them to believe that the whole pack had been broken in, and was pressing against them. This was not the case. A large mass of ice had protected them; but at a distance of about fifty yards, ice of four and a half feet thick had been crushed to atoms. Soon after, the protecting mass yielded, and the Fox received a nip which lifted her stern about a foot, while occasional groaning from her sturdy little hull replied to the wild surgings of the ice without.

But all this was as nothing compared with the scene of desperate turmoil and confusion which took place when the ice finally broke up, and a gale raised a fearful swell; so that the Fox found herself surrounded by huge masses, which tossed and ground against each other furiously, and any two of which pieces could have crushed in her sides as if she had been made of walnut shell. Gradually the pack opened out, and the vessel, by aid of wind and steam, was mercifully delivered from her dangerous position.

Before passing from the subject of risk to navigators to the consideration of other forms and aspects of polar ice, let us take a glance at an effectual case of nipping. There have been many partial and severe nips, the descriptions of which are all more or less graphic; but few ships have come so suddenly to the end of their career as did the Breadalbane, a small vessel that was used as a transport ship to the expedition in search of Sir John Franklin in 1852. One who was on board when it occurred thus describes it:—

Sunday, August 21st.—About ten minutes past four, the ice passing the ship awoke me, and the door of my cabin, from the pressure, opened. I hurriedly put on my clothes, and on getting on deck found some hands on the ice endeavouring to save the boats; but the latter were instantly crushed to pieces. They little thought, when using their efforts to save the boats, that the ship was in so perilous a situation.

I went forward to hail the Phoenix (another ship that was fortunately near) for men to save the boats; and whilst doing so, the ropes by which we were secured parted, and a heavy nip took us, making every timber creak, and the ship tremble all over. I looked in the main hold, and saw the beams giving way. I hailed those on the ice, and told them of our critical situation, they not for one moment suspecting it. I then rushed to my cabin, hauled out my portmanteau on deck, and roared like a bull to those in their beds to jump out and save their lives. The startling effect on them might be more easily imagined than described. On reaching the deck, those on the ice called out to me to jump over the side, that the ship was going over. I left my portmanteau, and jumped over the side on the loose ice, and with difficulty, and with the assistance of those on the ice, succeeded in getting on the unbroken part, with the loss of the slippers I had on when quitting the vessel, with wet feet, etcetera. The cold was little thought of at the exciting moment—life, not property, being the object to be saved.