Fast in the Ice: Adventures in the Polar Regions

“It’s not likely that we shall move out of this for some hours. What say you, lads, to a game of football?”

The proposal was received with a loud cheer. The ball had been prepared by the sail-maker, in expectation of some such opportunity as this. It was at once tossed over the side; those men who were not already on the field scrambled out of the brig, and the entire crew went leaping and yelling over the ice with the wild delight of schoolboys let loose for an unexpected holiday.

They were in the middle of the game when a loud shout came from the brig, and the captain’s voice was heard singing out:

“All hands ahoy! come aboard. Look alive!”

Instantly the men turned, and there was a general race toward the brig, which lay nearly a quarter of a mile distant from them.

In summer, changes in the motions of the ice take place in the most unexpected manner. Currents in the ocean are, no doubt, the chief cause of these; the action of winds has also something to do with them. One of these changes was now taking place. Almost before the men got on board the ice had separated, and long canals of water were seen opening up here and there. Soon after that a light breeze sprang up, the ice-anchors were taken aboard, the sails trimmed, and soon the Hope was again making her way slowly but steadily to the north.

Chapter Four
Difficulties, Troubles, And Dangers

For some hours the brig proceeded onward with a freshening breeze, winding and turning in order to avoid the lumps of ice. Many of the smaller pieces were not worth turning out of the way of, the mere weight of the vessel being sufficient to push them aside.

Up to this time they had succeeded in steering clear of everything without getting a thump; but they got one at last, which astonished those among the crew who had not been in the ice before. The captain, Gregory, and Dicey were seated in the cabin at the time taking tea. Ned Dawkins, the steward, an active little man, was bringing in a tea-pot with a second supply of tea. In his left hand he carried a tray of biscuit. The captain sat at the head of the table, Dicey at the foot, and the doctor at the side.

Suddenly a tremendous shock was felt! The captain’s cup of tea leaped away from him and flooded the centre of the table. The doctor’s cup was empty; he seized the table with both hands and remained steady; but Dicey’s cup happened to be at his lips at the moment, and was quite full. The effect on him was unfortunate. He was thrown violently on his back, and the tea poured over his face and drenched his hair as he lay sprawling on the floor. The steward saved himself by dropping the bread-tray and grasping the handle of the cabin door. So violent was the shock that the ship’s bell was set a-ringing.

“Beg pardon, gentlemen,” cried the first mate, looking down the skylight. “I forgot to warn you. The ice is getting rather thick around us, and I had to charge a lump of it.”

“It’s all very well to beg pardon,” said the captain, “but that won’t mend my crockery!”

“Or dry my head,” growled Mr Dicey; “it’s as bad as if I’d been dipped overboard, it is.”

Before Mr Dicey’s grumbling remarks were finished all three of them had reached the deck. The wind had freshened considerably, and the brig was rushing in a somewhat alarming manner among the floes. It required the most careful attention to prevent her striking heavily.

“If it goes on like this, we shall have to reduce sail,” observed the captain. “See, there is a neck of ice ahead that will stop us.”

This seemed to be probable, for the lane of water along which they were steering was, just ahead of them, stopped by a neck of ice that connected two floe-pieces. The water beyond was pretty free from ice, but this neck or mass seemed so thick that it became a question whether they should venture to charge it or shorten sail.

“Stand by the fore- and main-topsail braces!” shouted the captain.

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“Now, Mr Mansell,” said he, with a smile, “we have come to our first real difficulty. What do you advise; shall we back the topsails, or try what our little Hope is made of, and charge the enemy?”

“Charge!” answered the mate.

“Just so,” said the captain, hastening to the bow to direct the steersman. “Port your helm.”

“Steady.”

The brig was now about fifty yards from the neck of ice, tearing through the water like a race-horse. In another moment she was up to it and struck it fair in the middle. The stout little vessel quivered to her keel under the shock, but she did not recoil. She split the mass into fragments, and, bearing down all before her, sailed like a conqueror into the clear water beyond.

“Well done the Hope!” said the captain, as he walked aft, while a cheer burst from the men.

“I think she ought to be called the Good Hope ever after this,” said Tom Gregory. “If she cuts her way through everything as easily as she has cut through that neck of ice, we shall reach the North Pole itself before winter.”

“If we reach the North Pole at all,” observed Mr Dicey, “I’ll climb up to the top of it and stand on my head, I will!”

The second mate evidently had no expectation of reaching that mysterious pole, which men have so long and so often tried to find, in vain.

“Heavy ice ahead, sir,” shouted Mr Mansell, who was at the masthead with a telescope.

“Where away?”

“On the weather bow, sir, the pack seems open enough to push through, but the large bergs are numerous.”

The Hope was now indeed getting into the heart of those icy regions where ships are in constant danger from the floating masses that come down with the ocean-currents from the far north. In sailing along she was often obliged to run with great violence against lumps so large that they caused her whole frame to tremble, stout though it was. “Shall we smash the lump, or will it stave in our bows?” was a question that frequently ran in the captain’s mind. Sometimes ice closed round her and squeezed the sides so that her beams cracked. At other times, when a large field was holding her fast, the smaller pieces would grind and rasp against her as they went past, until the crew fancied the whole of the outer sheathing of planks had been scraped off. Often she had to press close to ice-bergs of great size, and more than once a lump as large as a good-sized house fell off the ice-fields and plunged into the sea close to her side, causing her to rock violently on the waves that were raised by it.

Indeed the bergs are dangerous neighbours, not only from this cause, but also on account of their turning upside down at times, and even falling to pieces, so that Captain Harvey always kept well out of their way when he could; but this was not always possible. The little brig had a narrow escape one day from the falling of a berg.

It was a short time after that day on which they had the game of football. They passed in safety through the floes and bergs that had been seen that evening, and got into open water beyond, where they made made good progress before falling in with ice; but at last they came to a part of Baffin’s Bay where a great deal of ice is always found. Here the pack surrounded them, and compelled them to pass close to a berg which was the largest they had fallen in with up to that time. It was jagged in form, and high rather than broad. Great peaks rose up from it like the mountain tops of some wild highland region. It was several hundred yards off the weather-beam when the brig passed, but it towered so high over the masts that it seemed to be much nearer than it was. There was no apparent motion in this berg, and the waves beat and rolled upon its base just as they do on the shore of an island. In fact it was as like an island as possible, or, rather, like a mountain planted in the sea, only it was white instead of green. There were cracks and rents and caverns in it, just as there are on a rugged mountain side, all of which were of a beautiful blue colour. There were also slopes and crags and precipices, down which the water of the melted ice constantly flowed in wild torrents. Many of these were equal to small rivulets, and some of the waterfalls were beautiful. The berg could not have measured less than a mile round the base, and it was probably two hundred feet high. It is well known that floating ice sinks deep, and that there is about eight or ten times as much of it below as there is above water. The reader may therefore form some idea of what an enormous mass of ice this berg was.

The crew of the Hope observed, in passing, that lumps were continually falling from the cliffs into the sea. The berg was evidently in a very rotten and dangerous state, and the captain ran the brig as close to the pack on the other side as possible, in order to keep out of its way. Just as this was done, some great rents occurred, and suddenly a mass of ice larger than the brig fell from the top of a cliff into the sea. No danger flowed from this, but the mass thus thrown off was so large as to destroy the balance of the berg, and, to the horror of the sailors, the huge mountain began to roll over. Fortunately it fell in a direction away from the brig. Had it rolled toward her, no human power could have saved our voyagers. The mighty mass went over with a wild hollow roar, and new peaks and cliffs rose out of the sea, as the old ones disappeared, with great cataracts of uplifted brine pouring furiously down their sides.

Apart from its danger, this was an awful sight. Those who witnessed it could only gaze in solemn silence. Even the most careless among them must have been forced to recognise the might and majesty of God in the event, as well as His mercy in having led them to the right side of the berg at such a dangerous moment.

But the scene had not yet closed. For some time the ice mountain rocked grandly to and fro, raising a considerable swell on the sea, which, all round, was covered with the foam caused by this tremendous commotion. In a few minutes several rents took place, sounding like the reports of great guns. Rotten as it was, the berg could not stand the shock of its change of position, for it had turned fairly upside down. Crack after crack took place, with deafening reports. Lumps of all sizes fell from its sides. Then there was a roar, long continued like thunder; a moment after, the whole berg sank down in ruins, and, with a mighty crash, fell flat upon the sea!

The Hope was beyond the reach of danger, but she rose and sank on the swell, caused by the ruin of this berg, for some time after.

It was on the afternoon of the same day that the brig received her first really severe “nip” from the ice.

She had got deep into the pack, and was surrounded on all sides by large bergs, some of these being high, like the one that has just been described, others low and flat but of great extent. One, not far off, was two miles long, and its glittering walls rose about fifteen feet above the sea. The sky was brighter than usual at the time. This was owing to one of those strange appearances which one sees more of in the Arctic regions than in any other part of the world. The sun shone with unclouded splendour, and around it there were three mock suns almost as bright as the sun itself, one on each side and one directly above it. Learned men call these bright spots parhelia. Sailors call them sun-dogs. They were connected together with a ring of light which entirely encircled the sun, but the lower edge of it was partly lost on the horizon.

Although this was the first time that these mock suns had been seen by Gregory and some others of the crew of the Hope, little attention was paid to them at the time, because of the dangerous position into which the brig had been forced. The pack had again closed all around her, obliging her to take shelter in the lee of a small berg, which, from its shape, did not seem likely to be a dangerous protector.

There was a small bay in the berg. Into this the brig was warped, and for some time she lay safely here. It was just large enough to hold her, and a long tongue of ice, projecting from the foot of it, kept off the pressure of the sea-ice. Nevertheless a look of anxiety rested on the captain’s face after the ice-anchors had been made fast.

“You don’t seem to like our position, captain,” said young Gregory, who had been watching the doings of the men and now and then lent them a hand.

“I don’t, Tom. The pack is closing tight up, and this berg may prove an enemy instead of a friend, if it forces into our harbour here. Let us hear what our mate thinks of it. What say you, Mr Mansell, shall we hold on here, or warp out and take our chance in the pack?”

“Better hold on, sir,” answered the mate gravely. “The pack is beginning to grind; we should get a tight embrace, I fear, if we went out. Here we may do well enough; but everything depends on that tongue.”

He looked as he spoke toward the point of ice which extended in front of the brig’s stern, and guarded the harbour from the outer ice in that direction. The tongue was not a large one, and it was doubtful whether it could stand the pressure that was increasing every minute.

The pack was indeed beginning to “grind,” as the mate had said, for, while they were looking at it, the edges of two floes came together with a crash about fifty yards from the berg. They ground together for a moment with a harsh growling sound, and then the two edges were suddenly forced up to a height of about fifteen or twenty feet. Next moment they fell on the closed-up ice, and lay there in a mound, or hummock, of broken masses.

“That’s how a ’ummuck is formed, Dr Gregory,” said Mr Dicey, looking uncommonly wise. “You’ll see more things here in five minutes, by means of your own eyes, than ye could learn from books in a year. There’s nothin’ like seein’. Seein’ is believin’, you know. I wouldn’t give an ounce of experience for a ton of hearsay.”

“Come, Mr Dicey, don’t run down book-learning,” said Gregory. “If a man only knew about things that he had seen, he would know very little.”

Before the second mate could reply the captain shouted to the men to “Bear a hand with the ice-poles.” The whole crew answered to the call, and each man, seizing a long pole, stood ready for action.

The tongue to which I have referred more than once had broken off, and the ice was rushing in. The bay was full in a minute, and although the men used their ice-poles actively, and worked with a will, they could not shove the pieces past them. The Hope was driven bow on to the berg. Then there was a strain, a terrible creaking and groaning of the timbers, as if the good little vessel were complaining of the pressure. All at once there was a loud crack, the bow of the brig lifted a little, and she was forced violently up the sloping side of the berg. Twice this happened, and then she remained stationary—high and dry out of the water!

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 brig remain fixed on the berg. Early next morning the ice began to move. It eased off, and the vessel slid gently down the slope on which she had been forced, and was re-launched safely into the water.

The satisfaction of the crew, on being thus delivered from a position of much danger, was very great; but they had no sooner escaped from one peril than they were overtaken by another. A sharp breeze sprang up from the eastward, and drove them out into the pack, which began to heave about in a terrible manner under the influence of the wind. Soon this increased to a gale, and the ice was driven along at great speed by a 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 there was some risk of the vessel being caught among grounded ice-bergs—of which a few were seen.

The gale increased to such a degree before night that Captain Harvey began to think of taking shelter under the lee of one of these bergs. He therefore stood toward one, but before reaching it the vessel received one or two severe shocks from passing floes. A large berg lay within half a mile of them. They reached it in safety, and getting under its lee, lowered a boat and fixed their ice-anchors. Just after they were fixed, a mass of ice, the size of a ship’s long-boat and many tons in weight, came suddenly up out of the sea with great violence, the top of it rising above the bulwarks. One corner of it struck the hull just behind the mainmast, and nearly stove in the bottom of the brig.

This lump was what Arctic voyagers term a “calf.” When masses of ice break off from the bergs far below the surface of the water, they rise with extreme violence, and ships run great risk of being destroyed by these calves when they anchor too near to the bergs. Had this calf struck the Hope a fair blow she must certainly have gone down with all on board.

They were not yet freed from their troubles, however. In half an hour the wind shifted a few points, but the stream of the loose ice did not change. The brig was, therefore, blown right in among the rushing masses. The three cables that held her were snapped as if they had been pieces of packthread, and she was whirled out into the pack, where she drove helplessly, exposed to the fury of the howling storm and the dangers of the grinding ice. Captain Harvey now felt that he could do nothing to save his vessel. He believed that if God did not mercifully put forth His hand to deliver them by a miracle, he and his companions would certainly perish. In this the captain was wrong. Nothing is impossible to the Almighty. He can always accomplish his purposes without the aid of a miracle.

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

“Stand by to heave an anchor,” he shouted.

Sam Baker, being the strongest man in the ship, sprang to one of the small 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 formed a long tail of sheltered water. She was almost thrust into this by the piece of ice from which she had just escaped. She grazed the edge of the 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 the slippery surface; then it caught a lump, but the first strain broke it off. Just after that it fell into a crack and held on. The brig was checked, and swung round into the smooth water; but they had to ease off the line lest it should snap. At last she was brought up, and lay safely under the shelter of that berg until the storm was over.

Some weeks flew by after this without anything occurring worthy of particular notice. During this time the Hope made good progress into the Polar regions, without again suffering severely either from ice or storm, although much retarded by the thick fogs that prevail in the Arctic regions. She was indeed almost always surrounded by ice, but it was sufficiently open to allow of a free passage through it. Many whales and seals had been seen, also one or two bears, but not in circumstances in which they could be attacked without occasioning much delay.

The brief summer had now passed away, and the days began to shorten as winter approached. Still Captain Harvey hoped to get farther north before being obliged to search for winter quarters. One morning early in September, however, he found to his sorrow that pancake-ice was forming on the sea. When the sea begins to freeze it does so in small needle-like spikes, which cross and recross each other until they form thin ice, which the motion of the waves breaks up into flat cakes about a foot or so across. These, by constantly rubbing against each other, get worn into a rounded shape. Sailors call this “pancake-ice.” It is the first sign of coming winter. The cakes soon become joined together as the frost increases.

The place where this occurred was near to those wild cliffs that rise out of the sea in the channels or straits that lie at the head of Baffin’s Bay. The vessel was now beyond the farthest point of land that had been discovered at the time of which I am writing, and already one or two of the headlands had been named by Captain Harvey and marked on his chart.

“I don’t like to see pancake-ice so early in the season,” remarked the captain to Mr Mansell.

“No more do I, sir,” answered the mate. “This would be a bad place to winter in, I fear.”

“Land ahead!” was shouted at that moment by the look-out at the masthead.

“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 open water, and in the course of four hours was close to the land, which proved to be a low, barren island, not more than a mile across.

Here the wind died away altogether, and a sharp frost set in. The pancakes became joined together, and on the following morning, when our friend Gregory came on deck, he found that the whole ocean was covered with ice! It did not, indeed, look very like ice, because, being so thin, it did not prevent the usual swell from rolling over the sea. A light breeze was blowing, and the brig cut her way through it for some time; but the breeze soon died away, leaving her becalmed within a quarter of a mile of the island.

For some time the voyagers hoped that a thaw would take place, or that wind would break up the ice. But they were disappointed. This was the first 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 way into winter quarters, for it would not do to remain all winter in the exposed position in which his vessel then lay. On his right was the island, already referred to, about a quarter of a mile off. Beyond this, about five miles distant, were the high steep cliffs of the western coast of Greenland. Everywhere else lay the open sea, covered here and there with floes and bergs, and coated with new ice.

This ice became so thick in the course of another night that the men could walk on it without danger. By means of saws and chisels made for the purpose, they cut a passage toward the island, and finally moored the brig in a small bay which was sheltered on all sides except the east. This, being the land side, required no protection. They named the place “Refuge Harbour.”

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

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

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

Winter within the Arctic circle, as I have said, is fully eight months long. 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 of ten 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 eight winter months, and there is not much during the remaining five. In summer there is perpetual sunlight, all night as well as all day, for about two months—for many weeks the sun never descends below the horizon. It is seen every day and every night sweeping a complete circle in the bright blue sky. Having been so free of his light in summer, the sun seems to think he has a right to absent himself in winter, for the three months of darkness that I have spoken of are not months of partial but of total darkness—as far, at least, as the sun is concerned. The moon and stars and the “Northern Lights” do, indeed, give their light when the fogs and clouds will allow them; but no one will say that these make up for the absence of the sun.

Then the frost is so intense that everything freezes solid except pure spirits of wine. Unless you have studied the thermometer you cannot understand the intensity of this frost; but for the sake of those who do know something about extreme cold, I give here a few facts that were noted down during the winter that my story tells of.

On the 10th of September these ice-bound voyagers had eighteen degrees of frost, and the darkness had advanced on them so rapidly that it was dark about ten at night. By the 1st of October the ice round the brig was a foot and a half thick. Up to this time they had shot white hares on the island, and the hunting parties that crossed the ice to the mainland shot deer and musk oxen, and caught white foxes in traps. Gulls and other birds, too, had continued to fly around them; but most of these went away to seek warmer regions farther south. Walrus and seals did not leave so soon. They remained as long as there was any open water out at sea. The last birds that left them, (and the first that returned in spring) were the “snow-birds”—little creatures about the size of a sparrow, almost white, with a few brown feathers here and there. The last of these fled from the darkening winter on the 7th of November, and did not return until the 1st of the following May. When they left it was dark almost all day. The thermometer could scarcely be read at noon, and the stars were visible during the day. From this time forward thick darkness set in, and the cold became intense. The thermometer fell below zero, and after that they never saw it above that point for months together—20 degrees, 30 degrees, and 40 degrees below 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 fifty yards ahead, and on the 15th the fingers could not be counted a foot from the eyes. The thermometer stood at 40 degrees below zero.