by Gray, Gordon
The waterfall.
The following morning we anchored right on the middle of Grytviken Harbour, further down the coast. It is a beautiful bay with land on three sides. In front of us the old Norwegian whaling station stood on the shore with the bright, white-painted managers house, now a museum, gleaming in the sun. Derelict whale catchers lay grounded by the factory and the whale meat and blubber reduction plants spread along the shore. Behind the museum we could see the spire of the whalers’ chapel. Behind this and on two sides of the bay, the mountains rose up towards the higher peaks and the blue sky beyond. On the third side beyond the shore, we could see the small whalers’ graveyard where Sir Ernest Shackleton is buried; low hills led the eye away to the far mountains. Shackleton began his Trans–Antarctic Expedition from Grytviken in 1916. He returned again in 1922 with another expedition but died of a heart attack on board his ship. His wife asked that he be buried here, in the whalers’ graveyard, as he loved the place so much.
Grytviken Harbour
Grytviken appeared to have changed a bit since our last visit twenty years before. Along with the wooden store sheds, the old corrugated iron buildings that housed the whale processing factories had all been removed. However, the government had then preserved the huge iron machinery so that visitors could see what the processing plants themselves looked like, without the worry of maintaining a lot of old and decaying buildings. Engraved metal plaques at each site told the visitor what the area was used for and led them onto the next part of the process.
We sailed at lunch time, out across Cumberland Bay and into the Southern Ocean. The captain came on the ship’s tannoy and warned us of a windy night ahead. As we headed south along the east coast, the wind gradually picked up from the south west. The scenery was still spectacular and the sun was still shining. However, as the evening wore on, the sun disappeared and the clouds took over. The last rays of sunlight filtered down through gaps in the clouds and illuminated parts of the snow clad valleys and glaciers as we left South Georgia. In the gloomy twilight we saw out first large iceberg of the trip out in the murk and realised we were really now in the Antarctic. Once we had passed Cooper Island, at the south eastern end of South Georgia, and Cape Disappointment, the southernmost tip, we lost the shelter of the island and felt the full force of the wind and sea. The wind grew and reached severe gale force nine as we headed south-west into the wind and sea. It was a rough, bouncy, crashy, night. We were woken throughout the night by crashes and bangs, as loose items in other cabins let go and flew from shelves and desks to crash to the deck. The ship eased her way south-west and the seas let us know who was the boss. Fram rolled and pitched but without slamming her bows too much so things did not get too uncomfortable. Our cabin was forward and we heard the anchor cables banging and rattling in their pipes. It was still rough the next morning, but the wind started to ease in the afternoon. By 2 p.m. a wet and weak sun broke through and the seas started to moderate, although the odd wave still gave us a smack. The ship was had only been doing 9 or 10 knots all night, so as not to get damaged by the seas, so we were now well behind schedule.
The Antarctic Peninsula
Our first call was to the South Shetland Islands, first sighted in 1819 by Capt. William Smith, a British skipper who had been blown off course while trying to round Cape Horn. They were named South Shetlands, as they lie on a similar southern line of latitude to the northern line of the Shetland Islands off the north of Scotland.
Icy coast of the South Shetlands.
Southern tip of South Georgia.
Our first call in the Antarctic was Half Moon Island in the South Shetland group. It is a small island, about a mile long, in a large bay off Livingstone Island and it is home to thousands of Chinstrap penguins. The day was beautiful, all blue skies and sunshine. We had already enjoyed the fabulous icy scenery of the other islands as we approached Half Moon. The last time we had been here it had been cloudy, cold and dull, but today was perfect. The island was totally snow covered, so the penguins stood out in their smart black suits and white shirts. We walked across the island, up the hills and round the rocky outcrops, following the penguins’ paths as they went about their business. These little fellows, no more than 18 inches high, were totally fearless of humans and regarded us with looks of curiosity rather than fear. They are well named, as the chinstrap marking under their chins make them look exactly as is they are wearing a hat held on by the strap. Having studied us they then got on with nest repairs, or headed back down to the sea. Others waddled their way up the steep and icy slopes back to the colony, carrying small pebbles for nest building.
That evening we entered the amazing bay of Deception Island. It is an active, but flooded, volcano. It last erupted in 1969. From seaward it looks like any other small island, but on the eastern side of the rim of the volcano there is a narrow gap where the ring is broken and the sea is able to flood the volcano. The Fram passed through a gap between high rocky cliffs that form the narrow 200-yard-wide entrance, called Neptune’s Bellows. Once through, the whole bowl of the volcano opened out before us. We saw that the island was no more than a huge ring of rock around a totally flooded volcano. The warm volcanic water meant it remains ice free and the sheltered location made it an ideal harbour. It was used as a whaling station from 1904 to 1931.
Fram now headed south down the Gerlache Straight, but poor weather dogged us. Snow storms and strong winds broke up the local pack ice and drove the loose ice into bays and beaches, which in turn prevented us getting ashore. We could barely see the entrance to the narrow, ice-choked Le Maire Channel, never mind sail through it. A call at Paradise Bay was postponed and alternative places such a Cuverville Island were also eliminated from the plans. However, we did manage a visit to Port Lockroy, a former British research station during the Second World War. It is on Goudier Island, just off Wiencke Island. Even here, Fram had to anchor close to the shore for shelter so that the polar cirkel boats could be used.
Glacier front in Paradise Bay.
The snow and ice on the island was still thick and the expedition crew had to cut steps up over the ice from the sea to enable us to get ashore. The station is perched at the top of a small rise and has its flagstaff with the Union Flag flying. It has now been restored and is a fascinating insight into the living conditions and life as an Antarctic scientist of yesteryear. There were the bunk rooms, a workshop and a galley, still with old food tins, sauce bottles and everyday items on the shelves. Today it is open in the summer months as a post office, souvenir shop and museum and run by four charming and enthusiastic young ladies, who are all passionate about the Antarctic and friendly towards visitors. Port Lockroy is also home to a colony of gentoo penguins, who cluster around the station buildings as if waiting for an invitation to come in for a warming cup of tea. When we visited, however, a full gale was blowing and the penguins remained hunkered down in the snow. Life in Antarctica carries on regardless though, and we watched one pair of busy penguins mating as the snow flurries whirled around them in a gale of wind.
The following day, our last in the peninsula, we tried again to land at Paradise Bay, supposedly one of the most beautiful bays on the peninsula. However, loose ice along the shore prevented any landings and the frequent snow storms howling down the bay cut the visibility to zero. The ship waited to see if things would improve. They did, but only a bit – just enough for the captain to say that we could launch the boats. So instead of a landing, those of us that wanted to put on big, bright-red, one-piece polar suits and took rides around the bay in the polarcirkel boats. As we motored through the snow, between the bergy bits, the Fram often vanished behind ice floes or was lost in snow showers, only to re-emerge, solid and safe across the bay. We motored close to the glacier front and felt the silent majesty of the place. Even in a snow storm the light shone through the ice of the glacier and threw out beautiful blues and greens from deep within. This was as close as we had been this trip to mainland Antarctica and unless the weather impr
oved it would be as close as we ever got.
Fram in Niko Harbour.
Fram in Antarctica.
‘Sooty’ (light-mantled sooty albatross).
Once we were all safely back on board the captain decided to have one more try to get us ashore and we headed for Neko Harbour, a short sail through a narrow passage from Paradise Bay. Neko Harbour is a deep inlet that cuts across the peninsula to within about 25 miles of the Weddell Sea on the East side. Neko Harbour is also named after a whaling ship that was moored here in the early 1900s. As we entered the bay, the weather changed. The wind died and we found ourselves in the most beautiful, silent and calm Antarctic scene. The clouds eased away, blue sky appeared, the sun emerged and we were treated to the most beautiful Antarctic views that we had seen all trip. White mountains stretched away into the distance, glistening glaciers and shimmering snowfields stretched right around the bay and loose, broken ice sparkled on the surface of the sea. Fram stopped just off a small gentoo colony and we finally got ashore onto mainland Antarctica.
Congratulations were in order as this was a highlight of the trip, standing on the Antarctic mainland. We spent the afternoon enjoying snow, the scenery and watching the gentoos.
Entrance to Niko Harbour.
Then it was time to go. The ship had to leave for Ushuaia or we would all miss our flights home. It was a beautiful evening as we sailed out of Neko Harbour. Glorious sunshine, a few clouds, bergy bits floating and glistening in the sun and the ice clad mountains, some shaded by the clouds, others spot lit by the sun. A couple of whales were blowing not far off the ship’s port side. Our second visit to this fantastic place was almost over and it blessed us with a lovely evening as we sailed up the Gerlache Strait. As Fram headed north for Drake’s Passage, we spent the evening sitting in the observation lounge watching the sun set on the mountains of the Antarctic Peninsula. It was a sad evening as we realised that it was unlikely that we would ever be back here again.
Our final day at sea was flat, calm and sunny. Sooty albatrosses flew around the ship and we could see Cape Horn in the far distance to the west. Later, a brisk breeze brought a short snow shower, which covered the decks in snow – surely it was King Neptune’s farewell to us before we disembarked the next day in Ushuaia.
Chapter 13
Akademic Ioffe and the Northwest Passage
Early Exploration – A brief history.
In John Collier’s painting, The Last Voyage of Henry Hudson, the heavily bearded Hudson sits in the stern seat of an open boat, his staring eyes tired, desperate and searching. His young son sits at his feet looking up for help as Hudson holds his hand. A sailor lies alongside his son and stares blankly at the bottom of the boat as he clutches an animal skin to his chest for warmth. In the background is a desolate snow-clad mountain and floating icebergs; the icy emptiness of the Arctic surrounds them in a situation from which there is no escape. The painting, in the Victorian Romantic mood, portrays Hudson just after he had been cast adrift by his mutinous crew in June 1611, in the bay which now bears his name. He was on an expedition to search for the Northwest Passage. Together with seven loyal crewmen and his son, they were left for dead and were never seen again.
They would not be the last to vanish in the search for the Northwest Passage. Over the centuries many men lost their lives through starvation, disease and scurvy while either looking for the passage, or looking for those that had gone before and vanished. Such tales of horror add to the mystery and fascination of the polar regions and the Northwest Passage has more such tales than its due. Many of these tales, from both sea and land expeditions, tell of shipwreck and survival, of murder, starvation and even cannibalism. It is a region that has attracted brave men searching for glory and the Orient, and even braver men risking their lives searching for compatriots who have been lost in the white wilderness. It was here, in the Canadian Arctic, that Hudson, Frobisher, Davis, Baffin, John Ross, John Franklin, William Edward Parry and James Clark Ross, all found fame.
An early attempt to find a sea route round the top of America was made by John Cabot in 1497, under the orders of King Henry VII. However, the first real attempt at discovering a northern sea route to the orient was made in 1576 by Martin Frobisher, a Yorkshire man and contemporary of Sir Francis Drake. With Spain and Portugal ruling the seas and the route to the Orient around Africa in those days, another route was needed. Frobisher sailed in a tiny 30-ton bark called the Gabriel with two other ships. His voyages, to what is now Baffin Island and Newfoundland, were an attempt to find a route around the top of America, which in those days was thought to be a thin island and not a broad continent.
In 1588 John Davis set out on the first of three voyages with two 35-ton ships, the Sunneshine and the Mooneshine, with crews of thirty-five and nineteen. They managed to sail up the west coast of Greenland and along the south east coast of Baffin Island, but found no evidence of any route to the west.
The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 meant that Britain ruled the sea routes – this enabled the British to sail around the Cape of Good Hope to India and the Orient and so, for the moment, exploration for the Northwest Passage was no longer relevant. However, the commercial pressures between rival trading companies soon reignited the need for a faster route to the Far East and the search for the Northwest Passage resumed. The Muscovy Company, founded to trade with Russia, employed a Capt. Henry Hudson. Hudson and his 80-ton ship Half Moon set out in 1609 and explored the areas now known as Maine, Virginia and New York, discovering the Hudson River. In his next voyage in the Discovery, Hudson discovered Hudson’s Bay and sailed to the southernmost part where they overwintered. After some strange decision-making and questionable leadership by Hudson, the Discovery found herself beset for the winter in James Bay, at the very southern tip of Hudson Bay. By the following spring, once the ice had released them, the crew had had enough and mutinied. Hudson was cast adrift and left. Further voyages in 1610–1616 by Button and Baffin all explored the eastern approaches and Baffin Bay, but all failed to find the Northwest Passage.
Over the next two hundred years others tried and failed either by sea or by land to find the mythical Northwest Passage. By the 1800 some openly doubted the existence of the passage and that if it existed, then it had no viable use as ships had to over winter in the Arctic and consequently lost any time advantage that the shorter route might offer. One such doubter was William Scoresby, a whaling captain from Whitby who had extensively surveyed the northern seas. He advised the Admiralty of his views but was ignored as they did not tie in with the Admiralty’s ideas or aspirations. However, when in 1815 the whalers reported that the ice had receded in the polar seas, the First Secretary of the Admiralty, John Barrow, seized on the news, as he had a need to find useful work for the Royal Navy after the defeat of Napoleon. He planned and sent numerous expeditions north and west all with an aim of finding a sea route to the Orient. Increasingly though this was combined with scientific work, mainly in the field of electromagnetics and the earth’s magnetic field.
In the early 1800s one expedition, led by John Ross, sailed into Lancaster Sound, but when he saw his route ahead blocked by what he decided was a chain of mountains, he decided that Lancaster Sound was just an inlet and turned for home. At the time a number of his officers disagreed with him, believing that the mountains were a polar mirage. They also disagreed with his decision to turn for home and felt that he should have pressed on to the west.
One of Ross’s officers was William Edward Parry, and it was he who later proved that the mountains were a polar mirage and Lancaster Sound continued on through the Arctic. This discovery brought lasting shame on Ross. Parry sailed west through Lancaster Sound to reach Melville Island at 112-degrees-west before being stopped by the ice and forced to overwinter there in Winter Harbour. At about the same time John Franklin had been sent out overland by Barrow to explore the northern tracts of Canada, with the aim of sailing down the rivers to the Arctic Ocean and to discover the Northwest Pas
sage. He led two such expeditions even though the first one nearly killed them all, but he mapped large tracts of the Arctic coast line.
Parry sailed again in 1824, exploring an offshoot to Lancaster Sound, the Prince Regent Inlet. Although not successful in discovering the passage, he did leave a large stock of supplies at Fury Beach which was to save the lives of many who followed later. John Ross returned to the area in 1829 in the Victory, a small 185-ton paddle steamer.
The Franklin expedition of 1845 is perhaps the climax of the search for the Northwest Passage. It was the biggest polar expedition ever mounted, with stores to last five years, but it vanished, along with two ships, Erebus and Terror, and all 129 men, into the icy depths of the Arctic (the wreck of one of the ships was later discovered by a Canadian expedition on 7 September 2014). Franklin’s expedition was mounted by the Admiralty to further the science of magnetism, which at that time was a major science, as well as to find the Northwest Passage. The North Magnetic Pole had been found by James Clark Ross in 1831 at 70 N 96 W, and there was a strong scientific need to map, measure and better understand how the earth’s magnetic fields and poles worked, as it was vital to navigation at that time. After Franklin’s expedition vanished a number of search expeditions were mounted. Those who searched for Franklin also discovered and mapped vast tracts of the arctic seas and islands. They found fame and their names are repeated as place names throughout the Arctic; names like John Rae, Robert McClure and Francis Leopold McClintock.