International Weekly Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science - Volume 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850

by Various

Early one morning in the month of November—the long night still lasting—the six sledges took their departure. The adventurers had every day exercised themselves with the dogs for some hours, and were pretty proficient. Sakalar drove the first team, Kolina the second, and Ivan the third. The Kolimak men came afterward. They took their way along the snow toward the mouth of the Tchouktcha river. The first day's journey brought them to the extreme limits of vegetation, after which they entered on a vast and interminable plain of snow, along which the nartas moved rapidly. But the second day. in the afternoon, a storm came on. The snow fell in clouds, the wind blew with a bitterness of cold as searching to the form of man as the hot blast of the desert, and the dogs appeared inclined to halt. But Sakalar kept on his way toward a hillock in the distance, where the guides spoke of a hut of refuge. But before a dozen yards could be crossed, the sledge of Kolina was overturned, and a halt became necessary.

Ivan was the first to raise his fair companion from the ground; and then with much difficulty—their hands, despite all the clothes, being half-frozen—they again put the nartas in condition to proceed. Sakalar had not stopped, but was seen in the distance unharnessing his sledge, and then poking about in a huge heap of snow. He was searching for the hut, which had been completely buried in the drift. In a few minutes the whole six were at work, despite the blast, while the dogs were scratching holes for themselves in the soft snow, within which they soon lay snug, their noses only out of the hole, while over this the sagacious brutes put the tip of their long bushy tails.

At the end of an hour well employed, the hut was freed inside from snow, and a fire of stunted bushes with a few logs lit in the middle. Here the whole party cowered, almost choked with the thick smoke, which, however, was less painful than the blast from the icy sea. The smoke escaped with difficulty, because the roof was still covered with firm snow, and the door was merely a hole to crawl through. At last, however, they got the fire to the state of red embers, and succeeded in obtaining a plentiful supply of tea and food: after which their limbs being less stiff, they fed the dogs.

While they were attending to the dogs, the storm abated, and was followed by a magnificent aurora borealis. It rose in the north, a sort of semi-arch of light; and then across the heavens, in almost every direction, darted columns of a luminous character. The light was as bright as that of the moon in its full. There were jets of lurid red light in some places, which disappeared and came again; while there being a dead calm after the storm, the adventurers heard a kind of rustling sound in the distance, faint and almost imperceptible, and yet believed to be the rush of the air in the sphere of the phenomenon. A few minutes more and all had disappeared.

After a hearty meal, the wanderers launched into the usual topics of conversation in those regions. Sakalar was not a boaster, but the young men from Nijnei-Kolimsk were possessed of the usual characteristics of hunters and fishermen. They told with considerable vigor and effect long stories of their adventures, most exaggerated—and when not impossible, most improbable—of bears killed in hand to hand combat, of hundreds of deer slain in the crossing of a river, and of multitudinous heaps of fish drawn in one cast of a seine: and then, wrapped in their thick clothes and every one's feet to the fire, the whole party soon slept. Ivan and Kolina, however, held whispered converse together for a little while, but fatigue soon overcame even them.

The next day they advanced still farther toward the pole, and on the evening of the third camped within a few yards of the great Frozen Sea. There it lay before them, scarcely distinguishable from the land. As they looked upon it from a lofty eminence, it was hard to believe that that was a sea before them. There was snow on the sea and snow on the land: there were mountains on both, and huge drifts, and here and there vast polinas—a space of soft, watery ice, which resembled the lakes of Siberia. All was bitter, cold, sterile, bleak, and chilling to the eye, which vainly sought a relief. The prospect of a journey over this desolate plain, intersected in every direction by ridges of mountain icebergs, full of crevices, with soft salt ice here and there, was dolorous indeed; and yet the heart of Ivan quaked not. He had now what he sought in view; he knew there was land beyond, and riches, and fame.

A rude tent, with snow piled round the edge to keep it firm, was erected. It needed to be strongly pitched, for in these regions the blast is more quick and sudden than in any place perhaps in the known world, pouring down along the fields of ice with terrible force direct from the unknown caverns of the northern pole. Within the tent, which was of double reindeer-skin, a fire was lit; while behind a huge rock, and under cover of the sledges, lay the dogs. As usual, after a hearty meal, and hot tea—drunk perfectly scalding—the party retired to rest. About midnight all were awoke by a sense of oppression and stifling heat. Sakalar rose, and by the light of the remaining embers scrambled to the door. It was choked up by snow. The hunter immediately began to shovel it from the narrow hole through which they entered or left the hut, and then groped his way out. The snow was falling so thick and fast that the traveling yourte was completely buried, and the wind being—directly opposite to the door, the snow had drifted round and concealed the aperture.

The dogs now began to howl fearfully. This was too serious a warning to be disdained. They smelt the savage bear of the icy seas, which in turn had been attracted to them by its sense of smelling. Scarcely had the sagacious animals given tongue, when Sakalar, through the thick-falling snow and amid the gloom, saw a dull heavy mass rolling directly toward the tent. He leveled his gun, and fired, after which he seized a heavy steel wood-axe, and stood ready. The animal had at first halted, but next minute he came on growling furiously. Ivan and Kolina now both fired, when the animal turned and ran. But the dogs were now round him, and Sakalar behind them. One tremendous blow of his axe finished the huge beast, and there he lay in the snow. The dogs then abandoned him, refusing to eat fresh bear's meat, though, when frozen, they gladly enough accept it.

The party again sought rest, after lighting an oil-lamp with a thick wick, which, in default of the fire, diffused a tolerable amount of warmth in a small place occupied by six people. But they did not sleep; for though one of the bears was killed, the second of the almost invariable couple was probably near, and the idea of such vicinity was anything but agreeable. These huge quadrupeds have been often known to enter a hut and stifle all its inhabitants. The night was therefore far from refreshing, and at an earlier hour than usual all were on foot. Every morning the same routine was followed: hot tea, without sugar or milk, was swallowed to warm the body; then a meal, which took the place of dinner, was cooked and devoured; then the dogs were fed, and then the sledges, which had been inclined on one side, were placed horizontally. This was always done to water their keel, to use a nautical phrase; for this water freezing they glided along all the faster. A portion of the now hard-frozen bear was given to the dogs, and the rest placed on the sledges, after the skin had been secured toward making a new covering at night.