CHAPTER I
KLAAS BILLEN BAY
In the morning of July 9, 1897, Mr. E. J. Garwood and I, along with a small cargo of tourists, were delivered by the steamship Lofoten on the shore of Advent Bay, Spitsbergen, just ten days after leaving London. Our party was completed by two men of Vesteraalen, Edward Nielsen and Svensen by name. We had arranged to be met at Advent Bay by the small steamer Kvik, which was coming up to cruise about the Spitsbergen coast during the summer. It was annoying to learn that, though she left Tromsö a few days before us, she had not come in. Probably she had been obliged to put back for shelter from the heavy weather. We had no option, therefore, but to pitch our tents and wait.
Companions were not lacking. By our camp sprang up the tents of Herr Ekstam, the Swedish botanist, and of a Norwegian sportsman; further on was a large green tent flying a German flag. There were half-a-dozen hunters’ sloops at anchor in the bay, whilst the tourist inn was alive with hurrying men, amongst them Bensen and jovial Peter Hendriksen of the Fram’s crew. There was plenty for us to do with our baggage, which had all to be unpacked and recombined, some to stay here till we should return for it, the rest to go with us on our first expedition in search of the inland ice. It was a lovely day for this open-air work—a real piece of good-fortune, for nothing is so injurious to baggage as to become well soaked in detail within and without at the very start of a journey. White clouds patched the blue sky and scattered their shadows over the brilliantly green water of Ice Fjord. The snowy ranges beyond were distinct and detailed as though quite near at hand. The air was mild and delightful, and the day was gone before it seemed well begun. Towards evening a gale sprang up and made the tents boom and strain; but we cared not at all, rejoicing rather in the evidence of being once more free from the incumbent protection of walls and roofs.
THE “EXPRES” IN ADVENT BAY.
A wretched morning followed, with drizzle and damp, too painfully reminiscent of last year’s weather in the region of bogs. We had nothing to do but to sit inactive and bored, waiting for our steamer which did not come. But, though the Kvik was missing, there appeared through the mist our old friend the Expres, which last year carried us over a thousand miles round Spitsbergen’s coasts and about its bays. She was chartered for this season by a German party of sportsmen, Dr. Lerner, Herr G. Meisenbach, and another. They came to see us, and, on hearing of our wretched plight, most kindly offered to take us to Klaas Billen Bay and tow our boat over. We jumped at the chance, and an hour later were comfortably on board, with our men and baggage in our whaleboat behind.
Little more than two hours’ steaming brought us to anchor in Skans Bay, a small sheltered inlet cut out of the plateau-mass of Cape Thordsen. We landed at once on the low west shore, where a spit of shingle separates a small lagoon from the bay. Here we left the men to pitch their tent, and set forth inland over the foot of the hill-slope. Garwood presently began breaking stones, so I wandered on alone and was soon out of sight. The surroundings would probably strike an unsympathetic eye as dreary. To me they were delightful, though heavy clouds did hang on the tops of the bluffs and all was grey or purple in the solemnity of dim light and utter solitude. Presently came a bold waterfall on the west, where a towering gateway opens upon a secret corrie in the lap of the hills, a place well known to fulmar petrels, who nest hereabouts in great numbers and were swooping to and fro in their bold flight before the cliffs; known, too, to the foxes, to judge by their many tracks. On I tramped over the level valley floor, picking my way amongst boggy places, leaping or wading the channels as they came. All the common arctic flowers were in full bloom, though sparsely scattered about, for this is not one of Spitsbergen’s fertile places.