We set up our tent near a steep snow-slope, evidently leading down into a broad valley. As it drew on towards evening the fog lifted a little. Right down in front of us spread a broad valley, apparently the continuation of a bay. In the south-south-west there appeared to be sea, and in the north we thought we could also see the water. I thought that the bay in the north-west was Dunder Bay, and that we must have strayed somewhat too far to the west. Our provisions were scarce; there would only be sufficient to last the four of us one day; it was therefore necessary to find the ship without delay. Björling, partly on account of the unfitness of his ski, was thoroughly exhausted and was unable to travel any farther. I therefore determined to leave him in the tent with the sleeping-bags and the remaining stores, and with Erikson and Joakim, unencumbered by impedimenta, to endeavour to reach the ship and thence send to rescue Björling. The way to the ship however was longer than we supposed, for the Lofoten did not lie in the harbour in the inner part of Recherche Bay as I had expected. The bay being ice-packed, the ship lay off Cape Lyell, a circumstance which added a good ten kilometres to our distance.
It was only after nine hours’ unbroken march, tired and hungry indeed, that we reached the Lofoten, and our way would certainly have been longer still had we not, after walking a few hours almost due east, thought we could see water on the horizon, and so were induced to take a more northerly course. After we had followed this direction for a time, Erikson declared he could see a ship in the distance. Our joy was great when I ascertained with the field glass that three masts were visible a long way off to the north. The ice over which we had passed was continuously smooth. Only the last few kilometres nearest the sea were very full of crevasses, generally covered by snow-bridges, which we could cross on our ski without difficulty. Luckily for us the ice on the inner harbour of Recherche Bay was strong enough to bear, so we avoided a long detour.
We continued on the other side of the bay to Cape Lyell over a large glacier, terminated in the north by a precipitous ice-wall, below which begins a wide expanse filled up with moraines and cut up by numerous crevasses. We did not see this precipice at first from above, and were nearly falling over it on our ski, but just managed to pull up at the last moment. After following the edge of the glacier for a good distance to the west, we at last succeeded in finding a place where a snowdrift had built a bridge upon which we could get down. At last we stood on the beach, and only a couple of gunshots off lay the Lofoten. Firing our revolvers and shouting loudly, we aroused the captain’s attention and were soon safe on board. It was six o’clock in the morning of the 19th.
My first care was to send some men back to rescue Björling. Unfortunately it was several hours before any one could start. Klinckowström had gone away in one of the boats with part of the crew to the east side of Recherche Bay, hoping to meet us there. A message was sent off to him immediately, and his boat’s crew were soon on board. Klinckowström offered to go himself with two men to rescue Björling. The three skisters were soon ready for their journey. As they rowed in a light boat to the bottom end of Recherche Bay they shortened the way considerably. Following the west side of the bottom of the glacier between the mountain and the ice, they found ski tracks which they endeavoured to follow right up to the tent. After an absence of about six hours they returned. They had been able to follow the tracks for about a couple of hours or so, but the snow, which had fallen heavily high up among the mountains, had stopped them completely. Under such circumstances nothing remained for them but to turn back with their errand unaccomplished. There was however no very great reason for anxiety, for the sleeping-bags and provisions enough for one man for several days had been left in the tent.
It cleared up again a little on the 20th, so I sent off Joakim, who had been my companion and consequently knew the position of the tent; two men accompanied him. On the morning of the 21st one of them came back with the news that they had certainly found the tent but that Björling had left it. They had found a card with this communication—that “after waiting in vain for one and a half days he had started with all possible speed to the west beach of Recherche Bay.” He had however clearly mistaken Dunder Bay for this, and started in quite the wrong direction, as his tracks plainly showed. Joakim followed up this track while the other two returned on board. I now sent a boat round Cape Lyell to Dunder Bay to meet Björling there. Joakim, after following his track for a distance, had overtaken Björling who was on his way south; he came back then with the boat, and on the afternoon of the 21st we were all together on board again.
The ski expedition thus described shows that the inland ice of West Spitsbergen differs considerably from that of North-East Land as well as of Greenland. It consists in this (at least at the time of year when we undertook our expedition), namely, a perfectly level tract covered with snow without any of the crevasses and mounds which generally make expeditions over glaciers and inland ice so dangerous and difficult. Glacier-rivers, fountains, and glacier-lakes, which are so often met with in Greenland, are here altogether absent. Similar formations are also wanting in North-East Land’s inland ice, but its surface is more uneven; crevasses and channels are very common. This circumstance—viz., the fact that the inland ice of West Spitsbergen seems to be very much easier to traverse than glacier ice in general—gives a certain importance to the plan of measuring an arc of meridian in this district, a proposal which has been suggested several times. A number of triangulation points ought to be established on the mountains, which are surrounded on all sides by the inland ice. This might have been thought to be very difficult, but, far from proving an obstacle, the inland ice forms a capital medium for connecting the points of triangulation. To convey instruments and equipment on proper sledges for some tens of kilometres over this smooth surface would surely be no very severe task.
A few remarks are called for by this pleasant account of a very interesting little expedition. The inland-ice referred to was not any part of an ice-sheet and in no wise resembled the icesheets of Greenland and North-East Land. It was merely the snowfield of Torell Glacier, which consists of two great arms, one coming from the north and reaching to the watershed behind Recherche Bay, the other from the east, where it is limited by the main mountain-backbone of the island, the orographical continuation of the Hornsunds Tinder. The time of the expedition being the month of June, the glaciers and snowfields were still deeply covered with winter snow, which buried the crevasses out of sight. Later on, no doubt, there would be no difference in character between Torell Glacier and the Nordenskiöld and other glaciers explored by us. The same waterlogged snow, the same large lakes, the same deep and broad torrents, must be formed in all the glacial regions of Spitsbergen. Hence it follows that the month of June is specially favourable for expeditions over glaciers in this part of the world, for then the chief impediments to progress have not been formed, the weather is likely to be fair and the surface of the snow to be hard and smooth. Unfortunately it is not till the end of June that, under present steamship arrangements, the island is cheaply accessible. An exploring party desiring to land upon Spitsbergen at the end of May could only do so by coming up in a vessel specially hired to bring them.