With ski & sledge over Arctic glaciers

by Sir William Martin Conway

The inn contained a merry party, just returned in the Kvik from a visit to Lomme Bay, Wahlenburg’s Bay, and Wijde Bay. They were full of pleasant talk and recent reminiscences of walrus, seal, and reindeer hunting. With their help our camp was soon pitched and our goods landed. More than three hours could not be spared to slumber, for, at 7.30 A.M. on the 23rd, the tourist steamer Lofoten came in from Norway, bringing mails. With her came perfect sunshine and delightful warmth. Not, indeed, that there was any time for mere pleasure. I had a solar observation to take, the baggage to overhaul, and a mail to despatch, whilst all was to be prepared for sailing next day in the Kvik for Kings Bay. There was no hitch.

In due course Advent Bay was again left behind, and we were on our way down Ice Fjord, once more with a few companions. Among them were the Swedish botanist, Herr Ekstam, and Mr. Baldwin, who was in Greenland with Lieut. Peary. Ekstam was to be left at Coles Bay, which I was thus enabled to visit. It is a dreary place, with a great extent of bogflat at its head, stretching far inland up a wide, desolate valley. At the end appears to be a pass to Low Sound. There are several similar valleys extending westward, one more uninviting than another. I suppose the bog near the bay is “Coles Park, a good place for venison, well known to Thomas Ayers,” as Pelham says, writing in 1631. Coal having in recent years been found in the bay, the name has been confused from Coles to Coal.

In the smallest hours of the morning of the 25th the Kvik entered Foreland Sound. I have traversed this waterway from end to end on four separate occasions without experiencing clear weather. This time there was the usual cloud-roof, but it was high, so that we became in some degree acquainted with the remarkably fine scenery of the passage. The mountain tops were covered, but the glaciers were disclosed, and it is the glaciers that give to the sound its distinctive character. At first they are only on the east coast, a series draining the mountains north of the Dead Man. When these come to an end there follows a dull front of bare slopes as far as the opening of St. John’s Bay, the Osborne’s Inlet of the early charts. The southern quarter of the Foreland, if the Saddle Mountain at its south cape be excepted, consists of a plain, almost absolutely flat, and raised but a few feet above sea-level. It may be called Flatland. I have been told that Russian trappers used to frequent it; but there does not appear to be any published account whatever of a landing on it. No more featureless or uniform expanse can be conceived. It covers an area of fifty square miles, according to the chart, which, however, is most inaccurate hereabouts. This plain is indicated by nature as the place for laying out a base whenever Spitsbergen shall be used for the measurement of a meridian arc. North of Flatland comes a well-defined mountain group containing fine peaks. It is bounded by a deep depression running from Peter Winter’s Bay in a south-west direction, right across the Foreland to the ocean. Peter Winter’s Bay is well to the north of St. John’s Bay, though marked south of it on the chart. It is indicated correctly enough by Giles and Reps on the remarkable Dutch chart published after 1707 by Gerard van Keulen. There it is named Zeehonde Bay, whilst a secluded anchorage in its north coast, just within the entrance, bears the designation Pieter Winter’s Baaytje. North of Peter Winter’s and St. John’s bays the glaciers follow one another in quick succession on both shores. On the east there are eight of them between St. John’s and English bays, whereof the two biggest, at the north and south ends, reach the sea. The opposite coast of the Foreland is an almost continuous glacier-front backed by a wall of snowy peaks.[6] The shallow place which stopped Barents and renders the channel impassable, except by small vessels, is off this glacier-front. The Expres used to run over it and bump if she felt inclined. The Kvik was navigated more gingerly, so that the passage over the Bar occupied a couple of hours, soundings being diligently taken all the time.

At the head of English Bay is a great glacier, flowing from the south-east and receiving many tributaries, noted later on. North of it come prominent hills with a wide lowland stretched before them, ending in a flat point named Quade Hook—that is, “the Evil Cape.” Rounding this cape, we slipped into Kings Bay and steered for its head, across the whole breadth of which was the great front of the Kings Glacier awaiting its first explorers. Clouds hung low down, and there was no distant view inland, not so much indeed as we had seen the previous year. We afterward came to know it well, so for clearness’ sake I may take the liberty of brushing the clouds away and describing the general arrangement of the hills and glaciers, with which the reader is invited to make closer acquaintance in the following pages.

KINGS BAY GLACIER.

Let him, then, return with me to the mouth of the bay, and, standing there, face to the east, with Quade Hook on his right hand. He will be looking straight up the bay. On his left hand will be Mitra Hook, so named from the pointed mitre peak which Scoresby climbed. This exit to the sea between Mitra and Quade hooks is common to both Kings and Cross bays, which are divided from one another by a rectangular mountain mass. Cross Bay is unknown to me. It is said to be one of the finest bays in Spitsbergen. The mountains on either side of it are steep, and magnificent glaciers fall into its head, one of them ending in the finest ice-cliff in this part of the world. Cross Bay runs in to the north, Kings Bay to the east. Kings Bay is broad at first, with low, flat coasts, beyond which mountains rise to a moderate height. Farther in, the sides approach somewhat, where there is a low cape to the south with Coal Haven and some islands just round the corner, whilst on the north is the protruding hilly mass of Blomstrand’s Mound, five or six hundred feet high, with a cove at each end of it (Blomstrand’s Harbour to the west, Deer Bay to the east), and in each cove a glacier ending in the sea. It is not till this narrower place has been traversed that the splendour of Kings Bay is fully beheld. Within, the bay is a circle about six miles in diameter, ringed around with an almost continuous series of glaciers, whereof only those on the south are cut off from the sea by a belt of low-lying ground. Scattered about the inner bay are Lovén’s Islands, some of which we shall presently visit. On the south the mountains are of bold and pointed form. They are the watershed between Kings and English bays. On the north, however, is a far more noble group, culminating in two peaks that resemble the Dom and Täschhorn of Zermatt. These peaks are small, of course, but they look no whit less fine than their Alpine fellows, and no one acquainted with the Alps would guess them to be smaller than peaks of the great range. From and about these mountains flow magnificent glaciers, whose upper ramifications were too complicated to be sketched on the map from so distant an inspection. The remainder of the view, the whole eastward end of the bay, is occupied by the face of a single mighty glacier, splendid beyond exaggeration. It is no smooth expanse of ice, but a splintered and broken torrent, which submerges islands of rock and flows over or about them with tortuous and tormented sweep. A few miles in, this glacier divides, just as Cross and Kings bays divide, the wider constituent being the Crowns Glacier, coming from the north, the other the King’s Highway, up which you go to the south-east. Between them is the mountain mass, whereof the famous Three Crowns are the most remarkable, though not the highest peaks. Of course there are plenty of minor tributary glaciers, as the reader will learn soon enough; one only need be mentioned. It runs into the midst of the Crowns group and divides it in half, separating the Three Crowns on the north from the Pretender and the Two Queens on the south. Up this glacier lies the shortest route across the land from Kings to Ekman bay. If the reader has comprehended so dull a geographical description, he can understand our general line of route in exploring this most beautiful and interesting region, which seems to be intended by Nature for the arctic “Playground of Europe.”

Advancing up the bay in the Kvik, we could see little of the wonderful panorama. Clouds hid the Crowns and all but the bases of the nearer hills. As our intention was to make our way inland, we required to be put ashore at the best point for climbing on to the glacier. We headed, therefore, for the middle of the face, where an island of rock rises partly out of the sea, partly through the ice. It soon became apparent that this would not do, for the glacier all round it was broken into such a chaos of seracs as to be absolutely untraversable in any direction. One could only land at the north or south angle of the bay. The north angle might have suited, but the slopes behind it seemed steep to drag sledges up; we therefore chose the south. I am not sure that we chose right. The inner part of the bay was dotted over with floating masses of ice fallen from the glacier. They became more numerous the farther we advanced. At last the skipper said he could not venture on, so our boat was lowered and the baggage stowed into it. After bidding adieu to our friends and arranging with the captain to call for us at midnight, August 11-12, we rowed away.

It was high tide, so there were no falls taking place from the long glacier-front, which was fortunate, seeing that we had to pass pretty close under it. The cliff was even finer than that of the Nordenskiöld Glacier, because it was more splintered. At 5 P.M. we came ashore on the end of a fan of stone and mud débris, laid down by a stream just in front of the left foot of Kings Glacier. The glacier ends on this fan with a curving moraine-covered slope, by which access could be attained to a relatively smooth surface leading inwards in the direction we desired to take. The boat was hauled up, the baggage dragged and carried about a hundred yards inland to the nearest suitable camping-ground. Necessary arrangements occupied the remainder of the day. The sun bursting through the cloud-roof illuminated the glacier-front with fine splashes of light, manifesting its blue caverns and silver spires. Thundering falls of ice presently set in and followed one another in rapid succession, now near at hand, now far away. A big iceberg was stranded on the shore just off our point, and a number of fulmars settled down upon it and went to sleep. Amidst such surroundings there was always plenty of entertainment, besides that delightful expectation of the unknown and unforeseen which is said to have bedevilled Ulysses.