Round About the North Pole

by W. J. Gordon

Out in the Resolution in 1806 he saw from his crow's nest, in which he often spent a dozen hours at a stretch, that below the ice-blink—the white line in the sky which betokens the presence of ice—there was a blue-grey streak denoting open water, and that the motion of the sea around the ship must be due to a swell, which could only come from open water to the northward. On the 13th of May he started for this. By sawing the ice, hammering at it, dropping his boats on to it from the bow, sallying the ship—that is, rolling her by running the crew backwards and forwards across her deck—and, in fact, using every means he could think of, he passed the barrier in the eightieth parallel, and, on the 24th of June, attained 81° 30´, the farthest north ever reached by a sailing vessel in these seas. On that day there was not a ship within three hundred and fifty miles of the Resolution. The bold venture proved a thorough success; in thirty-two days he filled up with twenty-four whales, two seals, two walruses, and a narwhal—one of the most profitable of his thirty voyages.

In this voyage the chief officer was his son, William Scoresby the younger, whose Arctic Regions is the best book ever written on the northern seas. Sent by his father to Edinburgh University where he studied almost every branch of natural and physical science, he was thoroughly equipped for his task, and his practical experience as a whaling captain and trained observer stood him in such stead that his book is still the basis of all scientific Polar research. His description of the Spitsbergen coast as seen from a ship is as faithful to-day as when he wrote it. "Spitsbergen and its islands, with some other countries within the Arctic Circle, exhibit a kind of scenery which is altogether novel. The principal objects which strike the eye are innumerable mountainous peaks, ridges, precipices, or needles, rising immediately out of the sea to an elevation of 3000 or 4000 feet, the colour of which, at a moderate distance, appears to be blackish shades of brown, green, grey and purple; snow or ice, in striæ or patches, occupying the various clefts and hollows in the sides of the hills, capping some of the mountain summits, and filling with extended beds the most considerable valleys; and ice of the glacier form, occurring at intervals all along the coast, in particular situations as already described, in prodigious accumulations. The glistening or vitreous appearance of the icy precipices; the purity, whiteness, and beauty of the sloping expanse formed by their snowy surfaces; the gloomy shade presented by the adjoining or intermixed mountains and rocks, perpetually covered with a mourning veil of black lichens, with the sudden transitions into a robe of purest white, where patches or beds of snow occur, present a variety and extent of contrast altogether peculiar; which, when enlightened by the occasional ethereal brilliancy of the Polar sky, and harmonised in its serenity with the calmness of the ocean, constitute a picture both novel and magnificent. There is, indeed, a kind of majesty, not to be conveyed in words, in these extraordinary accumulations of snow and ice in the valleys, and in the rocks above rocks and peaks above peaks, in the mountain groups, seen rising above the ordinary elevation of the clouds, and terminating occasionally in crests of snow, especially when you approach the shore under the shelter of the impenetrable density of a summer fog; in which case the fog sometimes disperses like the drawing of a curtain, when the strong contrast of light and shade, heightened by a cloudless atmosphere and powerful sun, bursts on the senses in a brilliant exhibition resembling the production of magic."

In 1818 there went out the first British expedition prepared to winter in the north. The vessels were two whalers bought into the navy, the Dorothea and Trent, the first under the command of David Buchan, the other under that of John Franklin. Neither officer had been in the Arctic region before, but Buchan had done excellent service in surveying Newfoundland, and Franklin had been marked for special duty owing to his work in Australian seas under his cousin, Matthew Flinders, and for the manner in which on his way home he had acted as signal officer to Nathaniel Dance in that ever-memorable victory off the Straits of Malacca, when the Indiamen defeated and pursued a French fleet under Admiral Linois. Dance's report gave Franklin a further chance of distinction, for it led to his appointment to the Bellerophon, whose signal officer he was during the battle of Trafalgar.

They were instructed to proceed to the North Pole, thence to continue on to Bering Strait direct, or by the best route they could find, to make their way to the Sandwich Islands or New Albion, and thence to come back through Bering Strait eastward, keeping in sight and approaching the coast of America whenever the position of the ice permitted them so to do. A nice little programme. But they started too early in a bad season; they did not get so far north as Phipps; they made accurate surveys and other observations; in exploration they did little; and they had many adventures.

As they ranged along the western side of Spitsbergen the weather was severe. The snow fell in heavy showers, and several tons' weight of ice accumulated about the sides of the Trent, and formed a complete casing to the planks, which received an additional layer at each plunge of the vessel. So great, indeed, was the accumulation about the bows, that they were obliged to cut it away repeatedly with axes to relieve the bowsprit from the enormous weight that was attached to it: and the ropes were so thickly covered with ice that it was necessary to beat them with large sticks to keep them in a state of readiness. In the gale the ships parted company, but they met again at the rendezvous in Magdalena Bay.

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN

Later on, off Cloven Cliff, there was a walrus fight begun by the seamen and continued by the walruses when they found themselves more at home in the water than on the ice. They rose in numbers about the boats, rushing at them, snorting with rage, endeavouring to upset them or stave them in by hooking their tusks on the gunwales, or butting at them with their heads. "It was the opinion of our people," says Beechey, "that in this assault the walruses were led on by one animal in particular, a much larger and more formidable beast than any of the others; and they directed their efforts more particularly towards him, but he withstood all the blows of their tomahawks without flinching, and his tough hide resisted the entry of the whale lances, which were, unfortunately, not very sharp, and soon bent double. The herd was so numerous, and their attacks so incessant, that there was not time to load a musket, which, indeed, was the only effectual mode of seriously injuring them. The purser, fortunately, had his gun loaded, and the whole now being nearly exhausted with chopping and sticking at their assailants, he snatched it up, and, thrusting the muzzle down the throat of the leader, fired into him. The wound proved mortal, and the animal fell back amongst his companions, who immediately desisted from their attack, assembled round him, and in a moment quitted the boat, swimming away as hard as they could with their leader, whom they actually bore up with their tusks and assiduously preserved from sinking."

On one occasion Franklin and Beechey, when out in a boat together, witnessed the launch of an iceberg. They had approached the end of a glacier and were trying to search into the recess of a deep cavern at its foot when they heard a report as if of a cannon, and, turning to the quarter whence it proceeded, perceived an immense piece of the front of the cliff of ice gliding down from a height of two hundred feet at least into the sea, and dispersing the water in every direction, accompanied by a loud grinding noise, and followed by a quantity of water, which, lodged in the fissures, made its escape in numberless small cataracts over the front of the glacier. They kept the boat's head in the direction of the sea and thus escaped disaster, for the disturbance occasioned by the plunge of this enormous fragment caused a succession of rollers, which swept over the surface of the bay, making its shores resound as it travelled along it, and at a distance of four miles was so considerable that it became necessary to right the Dorothea, which was then careening, by instantly releasing the tackles which confined her. The piece that had been disengaged wholly disappeared under water, and nothing was seen but a violent boiling of the sea and a shooting up of clouds of spray like that which occurs at the foot of a great cataract. After a short time it reappeared, raising its head full a hundred feet above the surface, with water pouring down from all parts of it; and then, labouring as if doubtful which way it should fall, it rolled over, and, after rocking about for some minutes, became settled. It was nearly a quarter of a mile round and floated sixty feet out of the water, and making a fair allowance for its inequalities, was computed to weigh 421,600 tons.