Ice Ship: The Epic Voyages of the Polar Adventurer Fram

by Charles W. Johnson

  No wonder they hated the blanched, limp lettuce and anemic canned peas at the store, brought from thousands of miles away on ships or airplanes from places they did not know or love.

  FIGURE 29

  Out for some exercise. From left, Amundsen, Hendriksen, Mogstad, Blessing, and Sverdrup. Fram in background. Note the single, long ski pole, typical of the times (shorter, double poles were used after 1900).

  As a result, all ate well. Not only did they have enough to eat, of the right kinds of food, but also they actually gained weight during the first year of the trip, so that, as he writes in Farthest North, Nansen became a mite concerned: “We looked like fatted pigs; one or two even began to cultivate a double chin, and a corporation.” Indoor living and reduced physical activity, then as now, Arctic or no, could gradually soften the toughest. He and Sverdrup set up an outdoor exercise regime of walking and skiing for everyone, to burn off extra fat.

  The hours after supper were another social opportunity for some, smoking and conversing in the galley, reading in the saloon from the well-stocked library, or later playing cards or making music there. For others, it was a chance to retreat to the comfort of their own bunks, for relaxation, reflection, or writing in their diaries or simply to be alone for a while. By midnight, the lights were out and everyone was in bed, but for the lone night watch who kept awake and alert for what the dogs might sense and warn, and for what the ice might say.

  FIGURE 30

  The men entertained themselves, here with music. Bernhard Nordahl on the organ, Hjalmar Johansen on the accordion, and Henrik Blessing singing. Photograph by Fridtjof Nansen.

  They had not expected polar bears, being winter and so far from the open water of the looser pack ice where seals, the bears’ main prey, would be. But on the night of December 12, they were in for a surprise. While playing cards in the saloon that evening, they heard the dogs raising a ruckus on deck; they thought it was probably a fox, prowling around on the ice. Mogstad investigated but could see nothing, though the dogs kept up, even increased, their agitation. Nansen, feeling sure it must be a bear to rouse the dogs to this degree, went up with Johansen to look, yet they too found nothing. It was the same for Nordahl, who had the watch until relieved by Peder Hendriksen, who found that three dogs were missing, those nearest the starboard gangway. So it was a natural conclusion that all the commotion was over the three who had broken loose and run away into the night.

  In a normal morning routine, Hendriksen and Mogstad fed the remaining dogs and then put them on the ice, but this time Hendriksen grabbed a lantern and the two went out, both unarmed, to investigate. Some way from the ship, they heard the dogs and in the semidarkness saw a bear rushing at them full tilt, surrounded by the snarling pack. The men turned on their heels to run back to the ship, but Hendriksen, wearing clunky wooden shoes, was slower than Mogstad, got separated from him, and slipped, slid, and fell over the icy hummocks. Now and then he looked back, holding up the lantern to the dark. All was quiet, nothing, until on a flat stretch he saw the bear roaring straight at him from the side.

  The bear bowled into him and, growling, bit him on the hip. Hendriksen tried to defend himself with the only “weapon” he had, the lantern. He smashed it on the bear’s head, seeming to stun or confuse him. It was the briefest moment but long enough to save Hendriksen as the bear saw a dog and took off after it, with the rest of the pack in hot pursuit. Mogstad, in the meantime, had made it back to the ship and grabbed his gun. Hendriksen followed a little later, stumbling up the gangway. Mogstad fired away in the dark.

  FIGURE 31

  Nansen’s sketch of Hendriksen’s encounter with a polar bear (described in the text). Nansen was a skillful artist, recording many observations and rendering scenes in pencil, pen, and colored pastels.

  The men below heard Hendriksen screaming and rushed up. There, beneath the gangway, the dogs were at the bear that “lay chewing at a dog just below us at the ship’s side.” Amid the chaos, someone gave Hendriksen his gun and he took aim, but it would not fire because the lubricant in the lock had frozen. Nansen raised his gun but could not remove the choke plugs. Mogstad had shot and missed and was now out of ammunition. Scott-Hansen could not find cartridges in the dark. Theodor Jacobsen went searching for a harpoon when the plugs got stuck in the muzzle of his gun. “Four men, and not one that could shoot, although we could have prodded the bear’s back with our gun-barrels.” Finally, Johansen arrived and wounded it with a single shot, by which time Nansen had cleared his gun and gave the final coup de grâce.

  Searching the ice later, they found two of the missing dogs, dead, mauled, and partially devoured. The bear had come on board via the gangway, pulled the first dog from its chain, and dragged it away from the ship to eat it; it then came back twice for the next courses, while all this time the men played cards below. The third dog, however, had escaped and stole back to the ship two days later, hungry, tired, and ready to be fed. The loss of two dogs was a matter of concern, as there were now only twenty-seven. As if aware of their plight or as a show of beneficence, Nansen’s dog Kvik, the only one he had brought from home, gave birth to thirteen puppies the very next day (thirteen pups on December 13, for thirteen men, must surely mean good luck).

  FIGURE 32

  Relaxing in the saloon. A likely promotional photo for Ringnes Brewing Company, a major sponsor of the expedition and donor of the prominently displayed beer. Backs to camera are Hjalmar Johansen (left) and Sigurd Scott-Hansen (right); facing are Henrik Blessing (left) and Otto Sverdrup (right). Photograph by Fridtjof Nansen.

  Having been chastened by the incident of the bear coming on board without their awareness, much less their permission, by their ill-preparedness for such a close call, and by what had happened to Hendriksen, the men from then on carried their guns, affixed with bayonets, whenever they went outside venturing.

  They passed the first Christmas–New Year’s holiday week in a festive and somewhat slothful way, eating specially prepared meals till they could eat no more; smoking cigars and cigarettes produced for this occasion; drinking beer and special “toddies”; giving speeches; and reading aloud poems or sections from a new edition of Blessing’s “official” newspaper. There were even presents for each man, bought and boxed by Scott-Hansen’s mother and fiancée and given to him in Tromsø for distribution at this time.

  FIGURE 33A

  Smoke break! This and three to follow are likely staged to show the men smoking in various situations, as an advertisement for the tobacco-company sponsors of the expedition. Here Nansen pauses to rest with his pipe, June 16, 1894. Some of the Fram’s rigging is used as clotheslines for drying polar bear, Arctic fox, and (unfortunate) sledge dog skins, for later use as bedding and clothing.

  FIGURE 33B

  The Fram’s three officers on the poop deck, from left Scott-Hansen, Nansen, and Sverdrup.

  FIGURE 33C

  On the poop deck, from left, Scott-Hansen, Blessing, Sverdrup, Juell, Johansen, and Pettersen (behind helm). Photograph by Fridtjof Nansen.

  FIGURE 33D

  Pipes and cards on February 15, 1895, from left, Blessing, Scott-Hansen, and Sverdrup. Photograph by Fridtjof Nansen.

  For the past two months, after the month of wandering about during “ice-in,” the Fram’s track had trended generally north, the “good” direction, but progress was in agonizing fits and starts. Sometimes they stalled, and sometimes they crept the wrong way, south. Nonetheless, they had almost reached 80° north. Despite a problematic advance toward their goal, the men’s spirits were good, helped along no doubt by the season’s celebrations and indulgences. Nansen himself was, unexpectedly, expansive and cheerful, and a newfound contentment elbowed aside, for the time being at least, most dour thoughts or doleful lamentations. “Add now to this good cheer our strongly built, safe house, our comfortable saloon,” he wrote in his diary and in Farthest North, “constant gaiety, card-playing, and books in any quantity . . . and then a good sound sleep—what more could o
ne wish?” In another entry, “I seem . . . to grow younger. This quiet, regular life suits me remarkably well . . . I am almost ashamed of the life we lead, with none of those darkly painted sufferings of the long winter night which are indispensable to the properly exciting Arctic experience. We shall have nothing to write about when we get home.”

  By now, too, they had grown accustomed to the sometimes-horrific noises coming from the ice. They had become almost complacent when the titanic pressures caused the ship to creak and groan and move, so confident were they in the ship and its ability to withstand them. They had grown used to the cold, which now dipped to minus forty.

  It was, perhaps, this incongruous ease of living and sense of unassailable security that Nansen in his complexity rebelled against internally even as he took pride in the justification of his foresight and preparation. There was another thing: though he had always touted the expedition as one of scientific inquiry and not for finding a point on a map, he had lately been acknowledging, as they staggered closer to the pole, a vain desire for outright discoveries of his own, without a scientific justification.

  Could it be that he began to feel he were being cheated of the adventure he had envisioned and expected, that his life there had become too ordinary, that as explorer he could achieve fame and admiration greater than that of scientist, and that he was simply getting bored and tired of the company he was keeping, or they of him? These are possible deep-seated reasons for why he began toying with the idea of leaving it all behind—ship, men, and comfort—and setting out on the ice to be the first to reach the North Pole.

  5 ›DRIFTING

  During the more leisurely and poignant first Christmas season away, the crew’s thoughts had often turned to home, remembering a landscape so alive compared to the one they lived in now. They felt regret and longing for what had been left behind, always couched in the uncertainty about what lay ahead. Such feelings can be powerful at times of long separation and might even be critical for the will to press on in the face of danger, even if the memories are somewhat self-delusional or invented. The Fram was indeed a metaphorical vessel as well as an actual one, carrying souls on journeys not just in time and space but also internally, toward or away from exploration of their unknowns.

  Hjalmar Johansen wrote often in his diary of the terrible pangs of being absent from his girlfriend and home and of his desire to get back, but his life there had been anything but smooth. He had bounced from job to job, was always in need of money, and had struggled in his intimate relationships. He had hounded, almost begged, Fridtjof Nansen to take him on the Fram, which was his way of escaping what he could not manage on his own and entering, ironically, a safer place for him; and, like the others along, he thought of returning to fame, glory, and big financial reward. Nansen, too, expressed deep yearning for his wife Eva and the familiar surroundings and activities of his native land, overlooking, subconsciously or otherwise, demands of marriage and difficulty settling into the calm domesticity he professed to crave. Otto Sverdrup recorded similar feelings about what he was missing while embedded in this world of ice and icy water; nonetheless, he would spend seven years on the Fram, and years before and after that on other ships in Arctic regions, away from home, wife, and child.

  Some, especially veteran sailors such as Anton Amundsen, Theodor Jacobsen, Bernhard Nordahl, Adolf Juell, and Peder Hendriksen, used to long tours of duty on ships and extended time away from home, seemed accepting of the deprivations, regarding them as part of the understanding when they came aboard. Those with significant problems at home, whether with alcohol, a marriage, a job, or lack of money, might have welcomed, in full realization or subconsciously, the voyage as an escape from trouble and temptation, and willingly traded their anxiety and guilt for the bleakness they found themselves in. Some, like Hendriksen and Lars Pettersen, even seemed happy with boyish eagerness, relishing the hard work, the unfettered and rough male companionship, and distance from the restrictive conventions or trivialities of civilization.

  FIGURE 34

  Where did the sun go? From left, Johansen measuring, Nansen recording, and Scott-Hansen observing the total eclipse of the sun, April 6, 1894. Note the low angle of the telescope, as the sun is not far up in the spring sky.

  The Fram had taken them to where they all had wanted to be, for one reason or another, with all the risks and dangers, and with the excitement of discovery, but also with the inevitable sadness, remorse, and soul-searching. It was all part of the understood bargain when they signed on. Who can say for sure, anyway, why anyone goes away to sea in ships, or into the ice, except to satisfy a need, to fulfill a certain kind of longing?

  ››› By mid-January 1894, they were at 79°19’ north latitude. Three months later, in the midst of the evanescent Arctic spring, they were at latitude 80°20’ north, a mere seventy miles gained in roughly the right northerly direction, but more west than they had hoped, taking them even further away from a trajectory over the pole. Nansen’s mood, and probably to varying degrees that of the entire crew, swung with the compass: when the ship drifted north and east, especially in a direct, unwavering line of good distance, he was cheerful and optimistic; when it was otherwise, he fell into his chasm of despondency and pessimism.

  FIGURE 35

  Sounding the Arctic Ocean. It might take many men many hours to plumb the unexpected great depths, often over ten thousand feet down. Extra cables and lines would often need to be spliced on. Photograph by Fridtjof Nansen.

  Even the Fram itself seemed torn with this antipodean conflict, as Nansen the philosopher wrote in Farthest North, “She went backwards towards her goal in the north, with her nose ever turned to the south. It is as though she shrank from increasing her distance from the world; as though she were longing for southern shores, while some invisible power is drawing her on towards the unknown.” More and more he leaned toward his idea of leaving the ship for a run at the North Pole. Though his conscience tugged at him for thinking so, this vainglory of going against the real mission of the expedition, he found ways to justify it. “It might almost be called,” he proffered with almost willing self-deception in his diary, “an easy expedition for two men.”

  As spring yielded to summer, and the ice pack loosened, Nansen, in his growing eagerness for the sledge trip, went out on forays to test ice conditions. Yet life and work went on as usual, moods or no, geographical progress or not, repairing the worn, making the new, and preparing for the next day, season, or eventuality. The scientific observations continued also, two of which were leading to new revelations or dispelling old myths: first, the consistently and extremely deep soundings contradicted the theory that Arctic Sea was shallow, an assumption coming from the equally mythological continent at the pole; and second, that the ice pack was not of the great thickness of fifty or sixty or more feet that some explorers had claimed but more in the range of twenty feet, rarely up to thirty (though it could be pushed up in pressure ridges to much greater heights). Discovered, too, was that the sea was not of uniform temperature, or gradually changing temperature, its whole way down but was in distinct thick bands or layers of the same temperature (today called “thermoclines”), generally cold near the surface, then alternating warmer with colder, until near the bottom where it warmed again. Within these layers there was almost no variation from season to season.

  With the warming of summer weather, the ice around the ship melted enough to form a freshwater “lake.” From the aft davits, one of the boats was lowered and the crew began sailing around the lake, good practice for what might be in store down the line and a welcome new kind of recreation. The fun did not last long. After a few days the lake disappeared, its fresh water draining into the sea through a hole in the ice, as if a bathtub plug had been pulled. As spring and summer sped on, new lakes and lanes would appear near the ship, giving tantalizing but never actual avenues to where the Fram might be able to steal extra distance north.

  Unexpected as they were, birds, too, appeared, ap
parently for the food that suddenly became available at these openings: kittiwakes, other species of gulls, fulmars, skuas, a black guillemot, and even a snow bunting. Later, in August, Nansen reported killing several Ross’s (or Arctic rose) gulls, “a rare and mysterious inhabitant of the unknown north”9 that he had long wished to see. His evident delight at the killing, which might appall us today, was not macho chest-thumping but rather excitement in being able to secure unusual specimens for science in an age when no other means of documentation were available and when the concept of conservation of rarity was very different. It was akin to John James Audubon, earlier in the century, shooting the very models for his art, birds he no doubt loved and admired, in order to record and preserve their beauty for all time.

  Nansen chafed at the lack of progress over spring and summer (because of advances undone by retreats, they were virtually at the same place at the end of August as they were at the beginning of May) and at the increasing likelihood that they would not drift over the pole. His preoccupation with the sledge trip grew—as a much-needed change of scene and boost of activity—as well as his feeling that he could get back home that year even if the Fram did not. He expressed concern over the dogs, upon which rested any possible chance of success. Several of the puppies, the hoped-for resupply of a pack reduced by vicious fighting and the bear attack, had recently died of a strange disease, marked by fits, convulsions, and paralysis. While others were busy building two-man kayaks, craft that could be easily hauled across the ice to open water in case the ship had to be abandoned, Nansen rather secretively and excitedly worked on a single one for his own anticipated trip. He ordered everyone out on the ice to participate in regular ski and sledge trips, as training and exercise for men and dogs, and good cover for his own preparation. Up to this point, only Sverdrup knew what he had in mind.