With ski & sledge over Arctic glaciers

by Sir William Martin Conway

June 15th, 1890.—At six o’clock in the evening we landed by boat at the foot of Rotges Mount at a spot where a small valley gave access to the mountain above. We imagined that on the other side of this mountain we should meet with the smooth inland ice and that it would extend all the way along to Bell Sound. After taking a hurried farewell of our comrades, we buckled on our ski, put our knapsacks on our backs, and commenced our course up the little valley. When we reached its highest point, however, we found that it was connected with another valley which led down to Horn Sound. We were therefore obliged to climb the face of the mountain on the north side of the valley, which was extremely laborious, because the snow was frozen so hard that we could not use our ski on the steep slope. One of us went in front and stamped holes for the feet in the hard crust—tough work in which we constantly relieved each other. The rest followed in his steps. At midnight we had mounted a ridge, uniting two summits, and here we rested for an hour. The temperature of the air was 28° Fahrenheit and the altitude 994 feet above sea-level.

We continued on the 16th in a northerly direction, but were obliged to stop again after a few hundred steps, because a thick mist shrouded the whole landscape. When, after a little while, this cleared off, we hurried up and descended the other side of the ridge towards a huge glacier. Down this we made good speed and in a short time were close to the smooth snow-slopes. The mountains in this district are built up of the so-called Hekla-Hook strata—hard slates, quartz, and dolomite. The mountains which belong to this system always possess much more precipitous and wilder outlines than those which are built up of the softer rocks belonging to newer formations. Many of the former are probably extremely hard or perhaps impossible to climb; for example, Hornsunds Tind. This is probably the case with many of the steep-pointed peaks around the wide expanse of snow over which we travelled. They gave the landscape a wild and desolate beauty.

In the north, on the other side of the glacier, lay another mountain range with several lofty summits. In the west a heavy bank of fog obscured the view the whole time. Probably the sea would be visible in this direction in fine weather. Sometimes the fog-bank was driven up the glacier by the wind, and enwrapped us so completely that we were obliged to retreat for a time. In the east numerous summits were visible, and the glaciers in this direction did not appear to be connected with the inland ice. The snow-mantle which covered the glacier-ice was perfectly smooth; there was not even a spot to break the dazzling whiteness, not the smallest unevenness on which the eye could find a resting-place. This accounted for one under-rating the distances in this district more than usual, as happened to us in the case of the mountain on the southern (? northern) side, because we thought we only had before us a snow-covered sloping valley, not worth thinking about, which from its depth could not possibly take more than half an hour to traverse. In reality it was only after several hours’ walking that we gained the summit of the opposite ridge.

It was long after midday on the 16th when we reached that summit. The height above the sea at the spot where we crossed was only 2215 feet, but on the east and west were several considerable heights. We attempted to scale one of these which lay nearest to us on the east, so as to obtain an uninterrupted view over the country; but, after we had with great difficulty dug a few hundred steps in the hard surface and crept up so far, it was found impossible to go any farther. We were then 2457 feet above sea level and could easily recognise again from this point the highest point of Hornsunds Tind. The mountains to the west of us seemed to be of considerable height and also easy to ascend. In the north the snow-covered ridge on which we were fell almost precipitously down to a considerable glacier. We were therefore obliged to make a little to the west before we could begin our descent.

Even here the slope was steep and covered with a crust, hard and shining like ice, so that our advance became pretty dangerous to our necks, and ended in our losing our balance and rolling down the slope at top speed without being able to stop. After we had happily reached level ground, collected ourselves, and gathered together our widely scattered baggage, we set forward over the glacier. It sloped gently downwards and promised a connection with the wide field of inland ice in the north-west. A little further down the glacier the outlook became more extended. We had now only a few kilometres left to the inland ice proper,[20] which spread out before us like a level white sheet bounded in the distance by blue peaks. Late in the evening we put up the tent and rested a few hours at the edge of the glacier. After a long search we were lucky enough to discover water on a slope. It was the first water we had seen since leaving the coast. As it was so early in the year we found neither pools nor runlets on the surface of the glacier. Our supply of spirits was rather scanty and only sufficed for warming up our food, not for melting the snow; hence, while travelling over glaciers and the inland ice we suffered much from thirst, and were often compelled to eat snow, which is said to lower the strength considerably.

On June 16th we rose at 11 P.M., and began our journey over the inland ice proper. The temperature of the air was 31° F. The weather was lovely, not a cloud was visible in the sky, and the atmosphere was wonderfully clear. We first passed a number of mighty moraines, which were heaped up where the smaller glacier joined the inland ice. At the very brink of the latter flowed a small brook. The surface of the inland ice itself was perfectly even, covered with fairly hard frozen old snow. No crevasses could be distinguished along the whole of our route, and only in a few places did slight hollows betray the existence of such.

We first went toward some high mountains which rose out of the ice some kilometres distant. They formed the spurs of a range of mountains, running north and south, which continued up to the end of the mountains at Cape Ahlstrand, east of Recherche Bay. In the west, along a width of more than ten kilometres, the inland ice opened into the sea (it bears the name of Torell Glacier). In the east the horizon was bounded by the inland ice. To the north-west it extended, shut in between two mountain chains, unbroken to Recherche Bay, to whose large glacier it joins on. That was the way we took.

After some hours’ journey, in the early morning of the 17th we reached the foot of the mountain mentioned above, which forms the southern point of the eastern range of mountains. At the foot of the mountain we found several small watercourses, and therefore chose this place for a halt. A large number of fallen blocks at the mountain’s foot afforded a strange sight. The part of the inland ice from the east here joined that from the north. A bank of gravel, which stretched like a black streak towards the west, probably formed the middle of the moraine. The height above the sea at this point was 358 feet.[21]

After some hours’ rest we continued north-west over the inland ice, which was smooth in all directions and free from crevasses. We had already been a long time out on the endless white plain when, at nine o’clock in the morning, we pitched the tent to get a little sleep. The height of our resting-place above the sea was 1011 feet. We had walked by night because, notwithstanding that the temperature does not rise above 39° F. in the shade, the heat when the sun was high was quite unbearable. After midday signs of a change of weather appeared, and heavy clouds began to rise behind the mountain summits. We hastily got up again, but after a few hours’ walking we were enveloped in a dense mist. We continued, however, for some hours, steering our course by a pocket compass which we had brought with us. On the night of the 18th we stopped because we feared to make our way among the northern coast mountains, which could not be very far distant from us now. All the spirits were finished, and our store of provisions was by no means abundant.

Next day (19th) we tried to advance toward the coast in spite of the fog, which had lifted at intervals and given place to a heavy snowstorm, a terrible hindrance to our progress. The snow was very wet and fastened in large lumps on Björling’s ski, which were not covered with sealskin. Our ski, too, which had been stripped of part of their skin-covering by the hard snow-crust, slid very heavily. Björling preferred to go on foot and carry his ski on his back, but he found this pretty hard work. We soon noticed that we were already quite amongst the mountains and, after searching about for a long time in the fog for a way forward, we finally came to a halt, recognising the necessity of waiting until it lifted somewhat.