Round About the North Pole

by W. J. Gordon

While the house was building, and as long as the sun was above the horizon, there was much trouble with the bears, whose daily visits were always productive of excitement. On the 26th of October, for instance, the day after all the crew first slept in the house, when the men had loaded the last sledge and stood in the track-ropes ready to draw it to the house, Van Heemskerck caught sight of three coming towards them from behind the ship. The men jumped out of the track-ropes, and as fortunately two halberds lay upon the sledge, Van Heemskerck took one and De Veer the other, while the rest ran to the ship, "and as they ran one of them fell into a crevice in the ice, which grieved us much, for we thought the bears would have run unto him to devour him," but they made straight after the others instead. "Meantime we and the man that fell into the cleft of ice took our advantage and got into the ship on the other side; which the bears perceiving, they came fiercely towards us that had no arms to defend us withal but only the two halberds, gave them work to do by throwing billets of firewood and other things at them, and every time we threw they ran after them as a dog does at a stone that has been cast at him. Meantime we sent a man down into the caboose to strike fire and another to fetch pikes; but we could get no fire, and so we had no means to shoot"—their firearms being matchlocks. "At the last as the bears came fiercely upon us we struck one of them with a halberd on the snout, wherewith she gave back when she felt herself hurt and went away, which the other two, that were not so large as she, perceiving, ran away."

When the bears had gone and the long night set in, their place was taken by the white foxes, many of these being caught in traps and furnishing skins for clothes and flesh for meat—"not unlike that of the rabbit"—that was "as grateful as venison." The 19th of November was a great day. A chest of linen was opened and divided among the men for shirts, "for they had need of them." Next day they washed their shirts, having evidently made the new ones in a hurry, and, says De Veer, "it was so cold that when we had washed and wrung them they presently froze so stiff (out of the warm water) that although we laid them by a great fire the side that lay next the fire thawed, but the other side was hard frozen, so that we should sooner have torn them in sunder than have opened them, whereby we were forced to put them into the boiling water again to thaw them, it was so exceeding cold."

On the 3rd of December and the two following days it was so cold that as the men lay in their bunks they could hear the ice cracking in the sea two miles away, and thought that icebergs were breaking on each other; and as they had not so great a fire as usual owing to the smoke "it froze so sore within the house that the walls and the roof thereof were frozen two fingers thick with ice, even in the bunks in which we lay. All those three days while we could not go out by reason of the foul weather we set up the sandglass of twelve hours, and when it was run out we set it up again, still watching it lest we should miss our time. For the cold was so great that our clock was frozen and would not go, although we hung more weight on it than before."

The snow fell until it was so deep round the house that on Christmas Day they heard foxes running over the roof; and the last day of the year was so cold that "the fire almost cast no heat, for as we put our feet to the fire we burnt our hose before we could feel the heat, so that we had work enough to do to patch our hose." On the 4th of January, "to know where the wind blew we thrust a half pike out of the chimney with a little cloth or feather upon it; but we had to look at it immediately the wind caught it, for as soon as we thrust it out it was frozen as hard as a piece of wood and could not go about or stir with the wind, so that we said to one another how fearfully cold it must be out of doors."

Next day, being Twelfth Eve, on which foreigners, according to the old practice, hold the festivities now customary in England on the following day, the men asked Van Heemskerck that they might enjoy themselves, "and so that night we made merry and drank to the three kings. And therewith we had two pounds of meal, which we had taken to make paste for the cartridges wherewith, of which we now made pancakes with oil, and to every man a white biscuit, which we sopped in wine. And so supposing that we were in our own country and amongst our friends it comforted us as well as if we had made a great banquet in our own house. And we also distributed tickets, and our gunner was king of Nova Zembla, which is at least eight hundred miles long and lieth between two seas."

In time the sun reappeared—as also the bears—and the rigours of the winter relaxing, the men, on the 9th of May, applied to Barents asking him to speak to Van Heemskerck with a view to preparing for departure. This, after two other appeals, he did on the 15th of May, Van Heemskerck's answer being that, if the ship were not free by the end of the month, he would get ready to go away in the boats. The two boats, or, to be exact, the boat and the herring skute, were then repaired and made suitable for a long sea voyage, and on the 13th of June were in proper condition with all their stores ready. Then Van Heemskerck, "seeing that it was open water and a good west wind, came back to the house again, and there he spake unto Willem Barents (that had been long sick) and showed him that he thought it good (seeing it was a fit time) to go from thence, and they then resolved jointly with the ship's company to take the boat and the skute down to the water side, and in the name of God to begin our voyage to sail from Nova Zembla. Then Willem Barents wrote a letter, which he put into a powder flask and hanged it up in the chimney, showing how we came out of Holland to sail to the kingdom of China, and what had happened to us." Then Barents was taken down to the shore on a sledge and put into one boat, the other sick man, Andriesz, being placed in the other, and "with a west-north-west wind and an indifferent open water" they set sail on a voyage of over fifteen hundred miles among the ice, over the ice, and through the sea.

Barents, though they little suspected it, had but a few days to live. As they passed the northernmost cape of Novaya Zemlya, "Gerrit," he said to De Veer, "if we are near the Ice Point, just lift me up again. I must see that point once more." They were amongst the ice floes again; soon they had to make fast to one; and then they became shut in and forced to stay there. Next day their only means of safety lay in hauling their boats up on to a floe, taking the sick men out on to the ice and putting the clothes and other things under them; but after mending the boats, which had been much bruised and crushed, they drifted into a little open water and got afloat. On the 20th of June, about eight in the morning it became evident that Andriesz was nearing his end. "Methinks," said Barents, in the other boat, when he heard of it, "with me too it will not last long." But still his companions did not realise how ill he was, and talked on unconcernedly. Then he looked at the little chart which De Veer had made of the voyage. Putting it down, he said, "Gerrit, give me something to drink." And no sooner did he drink than he suddenly died. Thus passed away their chief guide and only pilot, than whom none better ever sailed the northern seas.

HOW WE NEARLY GOT INTO TROUBLE WITH THE SEA-HORSES

Working their way down the west coast of the long island, putting in every now and then in search of birds and eggs, constantly in peril from the floating ice and the bears, they slowly came south. When passing Admiralty Peninsula they had to deal with a danger of their own causing. They sighted about two hundred walruses upon one of the floes. Sailing close to them they drove them off, "which," says De Veer, "had almost cost us dear, for they, being mighty strong sea monsters, swam towards us round about our boats with a great noise as if they would have devoured us; but we escaped from them by reason that we had a good gale of wind, yet it was not wisely done of us to waken sleeping wolves."