From Pole to Pole: A Book for Young People

by Sven Anders Hedin

Things now began to look better—three bears all at once! Then the first walrus came to the surface again, and while he was being skinned another came to look on and had to join him. It was disgusting work to flay the huge brutes. Both the men had their worn clothes smeared with train-oil and blood, so that they were soaked right through. Ivory and glaucous gulls, noisy and greedy, collected from far and near and picked up all the offal. They would soon fly south, the sea would be covered with ice, and the Polar night would be so dismal and silent.

It took a week to get the new hut ready. The shoulder blade of a walrus fastened to a ski served as spade. A walrus tusk tied to a broken ski staff made an excellent hoe. Then they raised the walls of the hut, and inside they dug into the ground and made a sort of couch for both of them, which they covered with bearskin. After two more walruses had been shot they had plenty of roofing material, which they laid over the trunk of driftwood. A bear came, indeed, and pulled down everything, but it cost him dear, and afterwards the roof was strengthened with a weight of stones. To make a draught through the open fireplace they set up on the roof a chimney of ice. Then they moved into the new hut, which was to be their abode through the long winter.

On October 15 they saw the sun for the last time. The bears vanished, and did not return till the next spring. But foxes were left, and they were extremely inquisitive and thievish. They stole their sail thread and steel wire, their harpoon and line, and it was quite impossible to find the stolen goods again. What they wanted with a thermometer which lay outside it is hard to conceive, for it must have been all the same to the foxes how many degrees of temperature there were in their earths. All winter they were up on the roof pattering, growling, howling, and quarrelling. There was a pleasant rattling up above, and the two men really would not have been without their fox company.

One can hardly say that the days passed slowly, for the whole winter was, of course, one long night. It was so silent and empty, and an oppressive, solemn stillness reigned during the calm night. Sometimes the aurora blazed in a mysterious crown in the sky, at other times so dark, and the stars glittered with inconceivable brilliance. The weather, however, was seldom calm. Usually the wind howled round the bare rocks lashed by millions of storms since the earliest times, and snow swished outside and built up walls close around the hut.

The endlessly long night passed slowly on. The men ate and slept, and walked up and down in the darkness to stretch their limbs. Then came Christmas with its old memories. They clean up, sweep and brush, and take up a foot's depth of frozen refuse from the floor of the hut. They rummage for some of the last good things from the Fram, and then Nansen lies listening and fancies he hears the church bells at home.

In the midst of the winter night comes New Year's Day, when it is so cold that they can only lie down and sleep, and look out of their sleeping-bag only to eat. Sometimes they do not put out their noses for twenty hours on end, but lie dosing just like bears in their lairs.

On the last day of February the sun at last appears again. He is heartily welcome, and he is accompanied by some morning birds, Little Auks. The two men are frightened of each other when daylight shines on them, as their hair and beards have grown so long. They have not washed for a year or more, and are as black in the face as negroes. Nansen, who is usually extremely fair, has now jet-black hair. They may be excused for not bathing at a temperature of-40°.

The first bear has come. Here he is scratching at the hut and wanting to get in; there is such a good smell from inside. A bullet meets him on the way. And as he runs off up a steep slope he gets another, and comes rolling down in wild bounces like a football. They lived on him for six weeks.

While the days grew lighter they worked at a new outfit. They made trousers out of their blankets. Shoes were patched, rope was cut out of walrus hide, new runners were put on the sledges, the provisions were packed, and on May 19 they left their cabin and marched farther south-west.

Time after time they had to rest on account of snowstorms. They had thrown away the tent, and instead they crept in between the sledges covered with the sail. Once Nansen came down when on skis, and would have been drowned if Johansen had not helped him up in time. The snow lying on this ice was soaked with water. They had always to keep their eyes open and look for firm ice. The provisions came to an end, but the sea swarmed with walruses. Sometimes the animals were so bold that Nansen could go up to them and take photographs. When a fine brute had been shot the others still lay quiet, and only by hitting them with their alpenstocks could the travellers get rid of them. Then the animals would waddle off in single file and plunge head first into the water, which seemed to boil up around them.