Fast in the Ice: Adventures in the Polar Regions Page 5

  CHAPTER FIVE.

  A GALE--NARROW ESCAPES--SIGNS OF WINTER--SET FAST.

  During the rest of that day and the whole of that night did the brigremain fixed on the berg. Early next morning the ice began to move. Iteased off, and the vessel slid gently down the slope on which she hadbeen forced, and was re-launched safely into the water.

  The satisfaction of the crew, on being thus delivered from a position ofmuch danger, was very great; but they had no sooner escaped from oneperil than they were overtaken by another. A sharp breeze sprang upfrom the eastward, and drove them out into the pack, which began toheave about in a terrible manner under the influence of the wind. Soonthis increased to a gale, and the ice was driven along at great speed bya strong northerly current.

  While this was going on, land was discovered bearing to the northeast.Here was new danger, for although it was not a lee-shore, still therewas some risk of the vessel being caught among grounded ice-bergs--ofwhich a few were seen.

  The gale increased to such a degree before night that Captain Harveybegan to think of taking shelter under the lee of one of these bergs.He therefore stood toward one, but before reaching it the vesselreceived one or two severe shocks from passing floes. A large berg laywithin half a mile of them. They reached it in safety, and gettingunder its lee, lowered a boat and fixed their ice-anchors. Just afterthey were fixed, a mass of ice, the size of a ship's long-boat and manytons in weight, came suddenly up out of the sea with great violence, thetop of it rising above the bulwarks. One corner of it struck the hulljust behind the mainmast, and nearly stove in the bottom of the brig.

  This lump was what Arctic voyagers term a "calf." When masses of icebreak off from the bergs far below the surface of the water, they risewith extreme violence, and ships run great risk of being destroyed bythese calves when they anchor too near to the bergs. Had this calfstruck the _Hope_ a fair blow she must certainly have gone down with allon board.

  They were not yet freed from their troubles, however. In half an hourthe wind shifted a few points, but the stream of the loose ice did notchange. The brig was, therefore, blown right in among the rushingmasses. The three cables that held her were snapped as if they had beenpieces of packthread, and she was whirled out into the pack, where shedrove helplessly, exposed to the fury of the howling storm and thedangers of the grinding ice. Captain Harvey now felt that he could donothing to save his vessel. He believed that if God did not mercifullyput forth His hand to deliver them by a miracle, he and his companionswould certainly perish. In this the captain was wrong. Nothing isimpossible to the Almighty. He can always accomplish his purposeswithout the aid of a miracle.

  There did, indeed, seem no way of escape; for the driving masses of icewere grinding each other to powder in nearly every direction, and thebrig only escaped instant destruction by being wedged between two piecesthat held together from some unknown cause. Presently they were carrieddown toward a large berg that seemed to be aground, for the loose icewas passing it swiftly. This was not the case, however. Anundercurrent, far down in the depths of the sea, was acting on thisberg, and preventing it from travelling with the ice that floated withthe stream at the surface. In its passing, the mass of ice that heldthem struck one of the projecting tongues beneath the surface, and wassplit in two. The brig was at once set free. As they passed they mightalmost have leaped upon the berg. Captain Harvey saw and seized hisopportunity.

  "Stand by to heave an anchor," he shouted.

  Sam Baker, being the strongest man in the ship, sprang to one of thesmall ice-anchors that lay on the deck with a line attached to it, and,lifting it with both hands, stood ready.

  The brig passed close to the end of the berg, where the lee-side formeda long tail of sheltered water. She was almost thrust into this by thepiece of ice from which she had just escaped. She grazed the edge ofthe berg as she drove past.

  "Heave!" shouted the captain.

  Sam Baker swung the anchor round his head as if it had been a feather,and hurled it far upon the ice. For a few yards it rattled over theslippery surface; then it caught a lump, but the first strain broke itoff. Just after that it fell into a crack and held on. The brig waschecked, and swung round into the smooth water; but they had to ease offthe line lest it should snap. At last she was brought up, and laysafely under the shelter of that berg until the storm was over.

  Some weeks flew by after this without anything occurring worthy ofparticular notice. During this time the _Hope_ made good progress intothe Polar regions, without again suffering severely either from ice orstorm, although much retarded by the thick fogs that prevail in theArctic regions. She was indeed almost always surrounded by ice, but itwas sufficiently open to allow of a free passage through it. Manywhales and seals had been seen, also one or two bears, but not incircumstances in which they could be attacked without occasioning muchdelay.

  The brief summer had now passed away, and the days began to shorten aswinter approached. Still Captain Harvey hoped to get farther northbefore being obliged to search for winter quarters. One morning earlyin September, however, he found to his sorrow that pancake-ice wasforming on the sea. When the sea begins to freeze it does so in smallneedle-like spikes, which cross and recross each other until they formthin ice, which the motion of the waves breaks up into flat cakes abouta foot or so across. These, by constantly rubbing against each other,get worn into a rounded shape. Sailors call this "pancake-ice." It isthe first sign of coming winter. The cakes soon become joined togetheras the frost increases.

  The place where this occurred was near to those wild cliffs that riseout of the sea in the channels or straits that lie at the head ofBaffin's Bay. The vessel was now beyond the farthest point of land thathad been discovered at the time of which I am writing, and already oneor two of the headlands had been named by Captain Harvey and marked onhis chart.

  "I don't like to see pancake-ice so early in the season," remarked thecaptain to Mr Mansell.

  "No more do I, sir," answered the mate. "This would be a bad place towinter in, I fear."

  "Land ahead!" was shouted at that moment by the look-out at themasthead.

  "Keep her away two points," said the captain to the man at the helm."How does it lie?"

  "Right ahead, sir."

  "Any ice near it?"

  "No; all clear."

  The brig was kept a little more out to sea. Soon she came to more openwater, and in the course of four hours was close to the land, whichproved to be a low, barren island, not more than a mile across.

  Here the wind died away altogether, and a sharp frost set in. Thepancakes became joined together, and on the following morning, when ourfriend Gregory came on deck, he found that the whole ocean was coveredwith ice! It did not, indeed, look very like ice, because, being sothin, it did not prevent the usual swell from rolling over the sea. Alight breeze was blowing, and the brig cut her way through it for sometime; but the breeze soon died away, leaving her becalmed within aquarter of a mile of the island.

  For some time the voyagers hoped that a thaw would take place, or thatwind would break up the ice. But they were disappointed. This was thefirst touch of the cold hand of winter, and the last day of the _Hope's_advance northward.

  Seeing this, Captain Harvey set energetically to work to cut his wayinto winter quarters, for it would not do to remain all winter in theexposed position in which his vessel then lay. On his right was theisland, already referred to, about a quarter of a mile off. Beyondthis, about five miles distant, were the high steep cliffs of thewestern coast of Greenland. Everywhere else lay the open sea, coveredhere and there with floes and bergs, and coated with new ice.

  This ice became so thick in the course of another night that the mencould walk on it without danger. By means of saws and chisels made forthe purpose, they cut a passage toward the island, and finally mooredthe brig in a small bay which was sheltered on all sides except theeast. This, being the land side, required no protection. They namedt
he place "Refuge Harbour."

  Everyone was now full of activity. The voyagers had reached the spotwhere they knew they were destined to spend the winter and much had tobe done before they could consider themselves in a fit state to facethat terrible season.

  Winter in the Polar regions extends over eight months of the year--fromSeptember to May. But so much of ice and snow remains there all thesummer that winter can scarcely be said to quit those regions at all.

  It is difficult to imagine what the Arctic winter is. We cannotproperly understand the tremendous difficulties and sufferings that menwho go to the Polar seas have to fight against. Let the reader think ofthe following facts, and see if he does not draw his chair closer to thefire and feel thankful that he has not been born an Eskimo, and is notan Arctic seaman!

  Winter within the Arctic circle, as I have said, is fully eight monthslong. During that time the land is covered with snow many feet deep,and the sea with ice of all degrees of thickness--from vast fields often or fifteen feet thick to bergs the size of islands and mountains--all frozen into one solid mass.

  There is no sunlight there, night or day, for three out of these eightwinter months, and there is not much during the remaining five. Insummer there is perpetual sunlight, all night as well as all day, forabout two months--for many weeks the sun never descends below thehorizon. It is seen every day and every night sweeping a completecircle in the bright blue sky. Having been so free of his light insummer, the sun seems to think he has a right to absent himself inwinter, for the three months of darkness that I have spoken of are notmonths of _partial_ but of _total_ darkness--as far, at least, as thesun is concerned. The moon and stars and the "Northern Lights" do,indeed, give their light when the fogs and clouds will allow them; butno one will say that these make up for the absence of the sun.

  Then the frost is so intense that everything freezes solid except purespirits of wine. Unless you have studied the thermometer you cannotunderstand the intensity of this frost; but for the sake of those who doknow something about extreme cold, I give here a few facts that werenoted down during the winter that my story tells of.

  On the 10th of September these ice-bound voyagers had eighteen degreesof frost, and the darkness had advanced on them so rapidly that it wasdark about ten at night. By the 1st of October the ice round the brigwas a foot and a half thick. Up to this time they had shot white hareson the island, and the hunting parties that crossed the ice to themainland shot deer and musk oxen, and caught white foxes in traps.Gulls and other birds, too, had continued to fly around them; but mostof these went away to seek warmer regions farther south. Walrus andseals did not leave so soon. They remained as long as there was anyopen water out at sea. The last birds that left them, (and the firstthat returned in spring) were the "snow-birds"--little creatures aboutthe size of a sparrow, almost white, with a few brown feathers here andthere. The last of these fled from the darkening winter on the 7th ofNovember, and did not return until the 1st of the following May. Whenthey left it was dark almost all day. The thermometer could scarcely beread at noon, and the stars were visible during the day. From this timeforward thick darkness set in, and the cold became intense. Thethermometer fell _below_ zero, and after that they never saw it _above_that point for months together--20 degrees, 30 degrees, and 40 degreesbelow were common temperatures. The ice around them was ten feet thick.On the 1st of December noon was so dark that they could not see fiftyyards ahead, and on the 15th the fingers could not be counted a footfrom the eyes. The thermometer stood at 40 degrees below zero.

  The darkness could not now become greater, but the cold still continuedto grow more intense. It almost doubled in severity. In January itfell to 67 degrees below zero! So great was this cold that the men feltimpelled to breathe gradually. The breath issued from their mouths inwhite clouds of steam and instantly settled on their beards and whiskersin hoar-frost. In the cabin of the _Hope_ they had the utmostdifficulty in keeping themselves moderately warm at this time.

  Things had now reached their worst, and by slow degrees matters began tomend. On the 22nd of January the first faint sign of returning dayappeared--just a blue glimmer on the horizon. By the middle of Februarythe light tipped the tops of the mountains on shore, and the highestpeaks of the ice-bergs on the sea, and on the 1st of March it bathed thedeck of the _Hope_. Then the long-imprisoned crew began to feel thatspring was really coming. But there was little heat in the sun's raysat first, and it was not till the month of May that the ice out at seabroke up and summer could be said to have begun.

  During all this long winter--during all these wonderful changes, ourArctic voyagers had a hard fight in order to keep themselves alive.Their life was a constant struggle. They had to fight the bears and thewalrus; to resist the cold and the darkness; to guard against treacheryfrom the natives; and to suffer pains, sickness, and trials, such asseldom fall to the lot of men in ordinary climates.

  How they did and suffered all this I shall try to show in the followingpages. In attempting this I shall make occasional extracts from thejournal of our friend Tom Gregory, for Tom kept his journal regularly,and was careful to note down only what he heard and saw.