To the Ends of the Earth
Page 9
As much as they tried to make sense of these sights, the explorers still could not find appropriate words for them: this continuing failure paralleled their inability to conquer this icebound kingdom with ships and sledges. So Nature was doubly victorious. The best most of them could do was fall back on inadequate metaphors and analogies, just as they would rely on inadequate clothing, tools, and know-how as they bored deeper into the unknown. They used classical and literary allusions to evoke what had no parallel. In his account of the first Henry Grinnell-financed search for Franklin and his men, Kane frequently leaned heavily on this sort of hyperbolic analogy. The first iceberg they ran across was “twice as large as Girard College” (a boarding school in Philadelphia co-founded by his father).30 It reminded him of a “great marble monolith, only awaiting the chisel to stand out in peristyle and pediment a floating Parthenon.” On another occasion the horizon “resembled an extended plain, covered with the debris of ruined cities” like ones in ancient Egypt and Greece. When his ship entered Barrow Strait (which separated Canada from Greenland) in early June the crew were dismayed to find it still blocked by ice three feet thick. “Sometimes,” Kane wrote, “a hummock is as complete a jumble of confused tables as if Titans had been emptying rubbish carts of marble upon the floes.” The descriptive accounts written by other polar explorers are larded with references to icebergs as castles, monasteries, cathedrals, and the like. So linking them to earlier, much-admired eras in human history lent a grandiose gloss to the strange apparitions that swam into their ken.
Clements Markham, the leading British advocate for Arctic exploration in the nineteenth century, set an example with his descriptions of the first icebergs he had seen when, as a young midshipman, he had taken part in the search for Franklin: “But it is when a line of icebergs is refracted on the horizon that the polar scenery is converted into a veritable fairy land. Some are raised up into lofty pillars. Again a whole chain of them will assume the appearance of a long bridge or aqueduct, and as quickly change into a succession of beautiful palaces and temples of dazzling whiteness, metamorphosed by the fantastic wand of Nature.”31 In like manner, William H. Gilder, a Union veteran wounded during the defense of Cemetery Ridge, drew upon classical as well as more contemporary parallels to recount his reaction to icebergs during an 1878 overland expedition looking for relics of the Franklin party: “one appeared like a huge circus tent, with an adjoining side-show booth”; another was “a most perfect representation of a cottage by the sea, with gables toward the observer, and chimneys rising at proper intervals along the roofs.” On the ship's opposite side, “a huge monster presented a vast amphitheatre, with innumerable columns sparkling in the sunlight and dazzling the spectator with their intense brilliancy.” One of these “monsters of the deep” was a “perfect counterpart of Newstead Abbey.”32
In part, these melodramatic comparisons bespoke the Romantic sensibility of the mid-nineteenth century. From this perspective, Nature was infused with intimations of lurking danger and terror. Explorers’ imaginations were primed by their literary readings to perceive the polar environment as threatening as well as enchantingly beautiful. And, indeed, danger was ever present: ice could suddenly crack open and swallow a sailor or encase a ship for years; a polar bear could shred a man's face with one swipe of his claws. Like Gothic novels and poems, Arctic and Antarctic expeditions juxtaposed an unsettling reality with visions of decayed splendor. What, under other circumstances, might lessen fears—say, a well-fortified castle or columned facade—only increased them because these images of past civilizations were laden with a sense of foreboding and doom.33
This Gothic temper had been made immensely popular by the young Mary Shelley—herself a voyager into new and unfamiliar territory, needing to gain a foothold in it. Fleeing a repressive England with her poet lover for the warmth and openness of the Continent in 1814, she had instead found an unseasonal chill—first, in the deep snow and ice during their coach's journey south through France, and then in the Swiss Alps; later, in the self-contained egoism of Percy Shelley. These atmospherics were given voice in the tale she composed on the shore of Lake Geneva two years later—Frankenstein. This story presented not only an emotionally cold man of science and his lonely “monstrous” creation, desperate for love, but also a frozen, lifeless Arctic landscape echoing the life-denying sterility of Victor Frankenstein. In Mary Shelley's narrative, Nature was the very antithesis of the benign, consoling presence imagined by Wordsworth—in which humankind could find a sheltering peace and security. In Shelley's visionary North, no such respite was afforded: one ventured into its sterile wastes at one's own peril—and could easily perish there. As more and more expeditions headed to the Arctic looking for the fabled Northwest Passage, for John Franklin, or for the ever-elusive North Pole, their previous faith in human invincibility, divine protection, and Nature's submissiveness was sorely tested. Their attempts to impose their wills on this impassive environment proved futile. Rather than yield, the polar world rebuffed these intruders, cut them off, rendered them immobile and impotent, and thus made evident its superior power. The would-be conquerors were defeated. When the young aspiring naturalist Joseph Hooker happened upon an erupting Mount Erebus near Antarctica in 1840, he found this sight “so surpassing everything that can be conceived and so heightened by the consciousness that we had penetrated to regions far beyond what had been deemed practicable before, that it caused a feeling of awe to steal over us at the contemplation of our comparatively utter insignificance and helplessness.”34 Bitterly disappointed, resigned to never reaching the Open Polar Sea with the Jeannette four decades later, George De Long could only watch helplessly as the ice grew thicker around his trapped vessel at the start of their second Arctic winter and concede that this “icy waste will go on surging to and fro until the last trump [sic] blows.” The immense emptiness of the black sky over him, with its “majestic and awful silence,” only reinforced the fact that he and his men were at the mercy of forces far greater than humans could command, making it painfully clear “how trifling and insignificant he [man] is in comparison with such grand works in nature.”35
However, the explorers did not give up their quests easily. Theirs was a struggle as ancient as Adam and Eve's defiance of God in the Garden of Eden—a refusal to submit, no matter what the consequences. That was why a “Do it now” leader like De Long jotted down Horace's motto Nil desperandum (“Never despair”) so frequently in his journal; why futile Franklin search parties set out with other Latin mantras flapping on their sledges, trudging stoically off like troops on maneuvers; why having eight of his toes amputated as a result of frostbite did not stop Robert Peary from going for the North Pole ten years later; why Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton embraced the lines Tennyson had given to Ulysses: “To strive, to seek / To find / And not to yield.” They all believed the human spirit could prevail. Their unshakable resolve was their last battering ram against an unyielding Nature. If it could not bring them victory, it would at least help them survive.
Early in the age of polar exploration, commanders had come to realize that the greatest threat to a party's well-being was having nothing to do for months at a time, particularly once the sun had dipped below the horizon, curtailing sledge excursions into the surrounding territory. Monotony and boredom sapped morale and made crews despondent. For military men, order and discipline were the keys to endurance: rituals like morning calisthenics on deck or wind sprints around the ship preserved a patina of normalcy in an exceedingly abnormal existence, kept the men fit, busy, and under control. Mens sana in corpore sano. Following a daily schedule also reinforced the notion that ship life near the poles could be as routine and predictable as in the Mediterranean. Doing the same things at the same times reminded crews that human-imposed patterns could be maintained where the diurnal rhythm of night and day no longer demarcated the passage of time. On board the Hecla, William Parry quickly instituted just such an inflexible schedule: all hands were awakened at 5:
45 a.m.; after dressing, they scrubbed the deck with stones and sand until eight, when breakfast was served; afterward, inspections were held on the quarterdeck; the sailors went for a walk on shore until noon, whenever the weather was fair: otherwise, they ran on the decks; in the late afternoon, the men once again cleaned the decks and stood inspection; it was only after supper that they were permitted “free time” to play cards, read books, or make music; lamps were turned out promptly at 9 p.m.
But an unvarying schedule only compounded the ennui and tedium of being stuck in the ice. So wise commanders sought to enliven shipboard life by mounting frivolous entertainments—musical performances, theatrical skits, and masquerades. Even a pious William Parry recognized the need for light-hearted diversions on the Hecla during the winter of 1819: “I had dread [sic] the want of employment as one of the worst evils that was likely to befal [sic] us.”36 To boost morale, he had the men put on a raucous and lavishly costumed staging of David Garrick's farce Miss in Her Teens—a production that occupied the crew for some weeks and created the comic relief he had hoped for. But such a distraction had only an ephemeral benefit. Idleness was a chronic problem, and thus had to be constantly warded off, like scurvy. So festive meals and celebrations for all manner of holidays were regularly held to punctuate the otherwise uneventful weeks and months.
The civilian “scientists” (a term that was not then in use) who accompanied polar expeditions had other tasks to carry out, which did help them pass the time. But their daily work had more intrinsic value than the sailors’: they were observing, measuring, and recording environmental conditions and collecting samples of polar animals, plants, fish, and minerals to add to human knowledge. Their routines were seen as a way of understanding and thereby subjugating Nature. Being beset by ice did not stop them from carrying out this work. The scientists could continue to believe that they were fulfilling a central purpose of Arctic and Antarctic exploration—namely, to show that the “civilizing” impact of Western civilization was unstoppable, sustainable even under the most adverse of conditions.37 Unlike the passive oneness with the natural world extolled by Romantic poets, these midcentury “naturalists” sought to wrest away its secrets for humanity's benefit—a rational probing that Wordsworth, for one, found reprehensible:
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—
We murder to dissect.38
Literally this was the case near the poles, with penguins, seals, polar bears, walruses, and birds routinely stabbed or shot to death so that they could be more carefully studied. Most explorers were not sentimentalists, easily upset by killing other creatures, but in this innocent environment, violent assault on trusting and unsuspecting animals could seem cruel and barbaric, as when frolicking polar bear cubs were shot at point-blank range. During the Southern Cross expedition, Louis Bernacchi was appalled at the carnage he saw take place one day: to him, it seemed “truly a horrible intrusion slaughtering those harmless seals sleeping upon the ice under the peaceful silence of the blue Atlantic sky and dyeing the dazzling immaculate white of the ice-floe with glaring crimson pools of blood.”39 Still, this had to go on. Explorers might aspire to set new Farthest North records and enjoy occasional spiritual communion with the polar world, but their quotidian job was to serve science, and science was a stern taskmaster. To honor the mandate of the governments and patrons who had paid for them to go there, expeditions faithfully amassed knowledge about the climate, terrain, marine life, atmospheric pressure, water depth and currents, magnetism, and celestial bodies. This mission gained stature in the wake of an 1895 international conference that committed the major European powers to just such a scientific purpose. Nationalism also elevated the role of scientists: their discoveries were considered as prestigious and valuable as geographical conquest in enhancing their countries’ stature. Scientists could also become national heroes.
“Taming” Nature by breaching its defenses and fathoming its mysteries gave proof of the limitless capabilities of humanity. As his fellow Norwegian Nansen would say of Roald Amundsen's bid to “discover” the South Pole, this was to be a “victory of human mind over the dominion and powers of Nature; a deed that lifts us above the grey monotony of daily life; a view over shining plains with lofty mountains against the cold blue sky, and lands covered by ice sheets of inconceivable extent; a vision of long vanished glacial times; the triumph of living over the stiffened realm of death. There is a ring of steeled purposeful human will—through icy frosts, snowstorms and death.”40 From a scientific point of view, knowledge about the Arctic and Antarctic could also advance commercial objectives. Learning about how sea currents flowed and when ice melted could benefit fishing and mining interests, if not improve trade with the other side of the world. The largely unexplored polar regions were regarded as one big laboratory, full of many precious secrets. For this reason, polar-bound vessels carried in their holds sophisticated instruments for gauging everything from the speed of the Arctic wind to the positions of the magnetic poles. Icebound parties set up makeshift observatories near their vessels and went to great pains to accurately record measurements—under appalling conditions, and with what strikes us today as an obsessional and unnecessary diligence. This devotion to data collecting bespeaks a nineteenth-century belief in the importance of numbers as ends in themselves. This notion grew out of the scientific positivism developed by the French philosopher Auguste Comte, who argued that genuine knowledge could only be found in the “minute particulars” of sensory experience.41 In 1834 the Statistical Society of London—a trailblazer in its field—had been established to further this purpose by gathering “all facts illustrative of the present condition and prospects of society, especially as it exists in the British Dominions.”42 This organization declined to interpret any of the reams of figures it compiled, lest it become entangled in social-policy issues. The facts could speak for themselves. Subsequently, an enormous amount of information was compiled by numerous bodies on a host of social, economic, demographic, geographical, and scientific topics, but a lack of number-crunching tools and causal theories prevented much sense being made of these masses of figures. Still, such analytical limitations did not lead the polar explorers—or, at least, the scientists in their parties—to question the importance of what they were measuring and sampling. On the contrary, the absence of any higher rationale made performing these scientific tasks as thoroughly as possible even more important.
So they pursued this goal with tremendous dedication and diligence. When William Parry set out on the Hecla in 1819, accompanied by HMS Griper, to look for the Northwest Passage, he brought along two astronomical clocks, eleven chronometers, one transit instrument, one portable observatory, one repeating circle, two dipping needles, one instrument for “magnetic force,” one variation transit, one variation needle, four compasses, one dip vector, four barometers, two altitude instruments, one “theodolite,” two anglometers,” one circular protractor, three artificial horizons, one hydrometer, one water bottle, fourteen thermometers, and two electrometers.43 As the two Royal Navy vessels probed the Arctic coastline, officers made daily recordings of such meteorological data as air temperature, surface water temperature, barometric pressure, and wind direction, as well as of longitudinal and latitudinal positions (confirming that the latter did not correlate with changes in temperature), the dipping of a magnetic needle, compass bearings, and more arcane phenomena such as how much the weight of various woods changed after being submerged for various periods of time. All of this information was diligently transcribed in tables published in the appendix of Parry's journal, as if they summarized the justification for his two-year-long journey (although becoming the first ship to reach 110 degrees west longitude was what earned him and his crew a parliamentary prize of £5 thousand).
Such painstaking record-keeping was a hallmark of polar explorations during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
even though it entailed great personal hardship and risk. For example, during the two winters that George Back and his men spent at Fort Reliance on Great Slave Lake, they maintained a strict schedule for measuring the temperature—with four outdoor thermometers—hourly, from six in the morning to midnight. In the middle of the night, when outdoor temperatures reached minus seventy degrees, the ink in Back's pen froze inside their primitive quarters. All game fled from the surrounding wilderness, forcing his party to subsist on fish and putrid meat scraps given them by local indigenous peoples.44 And this party's suffering on behalf of science seemed like a minor inconvenience compared to what Elisha Kane and his men had to put up with when they wintered on Littleton Island in 1853–54. In total darkness, and with many of them bedridden with scurvy, they still succeeded in observing an eclipse of Saturn and then of Mars and attempted to carry out magnetic observations in a shack that was “an ice-house of the coldest imaginable description”—made more inhospitable by the lack of insulating snow. This shed was located some one hundred yards from their vessel, and one of the four officers had to trudge there and back twice a day, without any light to illuminate the path, to record temperature, currents, wind direction, and barometric pressure. In mid-January the temperature inside fell to 99 degrees below the freezing point of water, turning ether and other gases into solids. Observing the movements of the stars and planets had to be done outside, where it was even colder—as low as minus 75 degrees.45