Our drum and fife band, of their own accord, played several airs very creditably during our dinner, which was brought to a conclusion by a few short speeches. In the evening dancing was again kept up with great animation; every one appeared cheerful and happy. In no region of the world could this Christmas-day have been spent with more mirth and more genuine fellowship than it was by the little band of explorers, so far removed from all home ties and associations, who were celebrating it that day, in a latitude farther north than man had ever before penetrated.
On reviewing the events of the year we felt we had much to be thankful for. We had succeeded, in spite of many dangers and difficulties, in establishing our ship in winter quarters in a position farther north than even some of the most sanguine had, at one time, dared to hope. The English flag had been displayed, both by sea and by land, in a higher northern latitude than any flag had ever before been seen, and although our prospects of further exploration in a northerly direction were somewhat damped, owing to the land trending west, we knew that there was much to be done during the ensuing year in defining and exploring the coasts to the east and to the west. A wide field of exploration was still before us, and there was much useful work to be done during the ensuing spring in a hitherto unknown region.
Half our winter had passed, and although the long dark night of one hundred and fifty days might, by some unacquainted with the many resources we possessed to while away the time, be considered dull and monotonous, monotony and despondency were unknown on board the good ship “Alert.” We all looked forward with eager hope to the return of the sun, strong in our determination to do our best, and with our appetites for sledging considerably whetted by the initiation we had received during the autumn.
Hitherto we had, with one exception, enjoyed perfect immunity from sickness, and we all thought that if there was no cold weather in the Arctic Regions to produce frost-bites, the appointments of medical officers to the expedition, so far as their professional qualifications were concerned, were undoubted sinecures. The frost-bites had, however, been very severe, and at the end of the year there still remained on the sick list four of the poor fellows who had been attacked during the autumn sledging, three of whom had suffered amputation of the big toe.
Compelled to keep to their beds, the winter to them must have, indeed, been wearisome; but no word of complaint was ever uttered by them, and they appeared as cheerful and in as good spirits as the best of us. Their only distress was the idea of not being allowed, in consequence of their misfortune, to participate in the spring campaign. The sequel, however, proved, although they took no part in the extended sledging operations, how well and how nobly they worked in their brave endeavours to assist and succour their poor, weak, and stricken comrades; but we must not anticipate.
We had hitherto experienced, in comparison with what we had been led to expect, tolerably mild weather, as Arctic winter weather goes; and the cold had not been so severe as we anticipated; -46.5° or 78½° below freezing-point being, up to the end of the year, the minimum temperature registered. This was by no means an uncomfortable temperature, although superficial frost-bites, especially on the noses and cheekbones, were of constant occurrence. Solitary walks were, of course, prohibited; and it was particularly impressed upon every one that, when they were absent from the ship, they were carefully to watch their companions’ faces in order to detect a frost-bite at once, and so be able to restore circulation before permanent injury could be sustained. Face-covers were occasionally worn, but were not in very great favour. They have the disadvantage of freezing to the face, which they also conceal, and so prevent a comrade from seeing and reporting a frost-bite.
In the neighbourhood of our winter quarters there had, up to this time, been a remarkable absence of all animal life. Occasionally the quarter-masters would report that during the night they heard the howling of wolves in the distance, and one night the Eskimo dogs, who were lying curled up in the snow outside the ship, made a sudden rush for the gangway, and evinced great eagerness to get on board. This stampede was attributed to the presence of wolves, but no tracks of these animals had been seen to justify our arriving at such a conclusion. With the exception sometimes of a peculiar, whistling, moaning sound, caused by the rise and fall of the ice with the tide, the stillness of the nights was undisturbed.
We had long been aware that the ice of which this part of the polar sea was composed consisted of huge massive floes, not of a few seasons’ formation, but the creation of ages, real thick-ribbed ice. Except along the west coasts of Banks and Prince Patrick Islands, no such ice had ever before been met with in the Arctic Regions. It therefore became desirable to apply to it a special name by which it might be provisionally known. After some discussion, Captain Nares decided upon calling the frozen sea, on the southern border of which we were wintering, the “Palæocrystic Sea,” the name being derived from the two Greek words παλαιος ancient, and κρυσταλλος ice. This term was used for the great frozen polar sea during the remaining period of our detention on its borders.[1]
Atmospheric phenomena, such as halos and paraselenæ, were by no means uncommon, and occasionally we were astonished by the heavenly bodies behaving, as it appeared to us, in a very eccentric manner. On one occasion the star Aldebaran was reported to be jumping about in a strange way. Such unusual behaviour on the part of a star brought us all up in the cold, and there, sure enough, was Aldebaran doing exactly what was reported, and altogether conducting itself in a very erratic and unstarlike manner. The illusion was caused by the fall of minute, and imperceptible, frozen particles; but it was some time before we could satisfy ourselves that the star was not actually in motion, many of the men remaining to this day unconvinced. One of our Scotch quarter-masters informed me, some time afterwards, that it was a “vara curious star;” and although the laws of refraction were explained to him, he still persisted in his belief that the movement of the star was due to itself, and would not believe in any other explanation.