The Wondrous Journals of Dr. Wendell Wellington Wiggins

by Lesley M. M. Blume

  That is, until the ice beneath them opened up and the lake swallowed every last Ice-World Daredevil.

  Even the most superior of creatures have their shortcomings: in this case, the one thing the Daredevils seemed to have been unable to do was swim.

  A cold front must have swept in shortly thereafter, for their drowned bodies are perfectly preserved. Soon the lake had frozen over once again, and it has remained thus ever since.

  Mother Wiggins simply knows when I am making my final notes on an expedition, and just as I finished my last scribbles, she appeared before my eyes and wavered above the snow.

  “I suppose now you will say something high and mighty about the dangers of tempting fate,” she said, scowling at me. “That would make you quite a hypocrite, Wendell.”

  “What on earth can you mean, Mother?” I said indignantly. But I had to admit—in my heart—that she was, once again, correct. I am a hypocrite, for like the Ice-World Daredevils, I, too, had tempted fate by scrambling all over that lake to study them. Here I must confess that I have neglected to mention an unfortunate event: as I researched the remains of the Ice-World Daredevils, I trod too heavily on thin ice—and crashed straight down into the icy lake. Luckily Captain Blotski pulled me to safety, but a terrible illness now plagues me: great shivers course through my body; a fever has colored my face a deep scarlet.

  “Listen to that,” said Captain Blotski, who stood nearby, gnawing on a match. “He is talking out loud to his mother, like a crazy. He must be very sick. We must take him back to Buyan.”

  “No!” I cried. “We are so close to the South Pole; let us at least finish our mission. If I have to leave my old bones there, so be it.”

  I did not, however, leave my old bones there. I did, however, reach the South Pole the very next day, and upon our departure, we left some “calling cards” to mark our discovery: some matches from Captain Blotski, and some coffee beans from Gibear. And what did yours truly leave?

  A jar of Gum Tree Wax, of course.

  103. Until now, the first person credited with reaching the South Pole was the Norwegian explorer Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen—sometimes referred to as the last of the Vikings—in 1911. And an English explorer named Robert Falcon Scott subsequently reached it in 1912; he and his crew would perish on the difficult journey back.

  104. A region in northern Russia and home to the coldest town on earth: Oymyakon, with a lowest record temperature of –71.2°C (–96.2°F).

  105. Dr. Wiggins’s sketches indicate that the creatures’ feet resemble today’s ice skates.

  April 1885

  The Arctic Ocean

  In Which I Discover … a Rather Gaseous Northern-Lights Creature

  (Animato Inflatio ab Aquilonius)

  Well, I kicked up quite a fuss, but in the end it made no difference: Captain Blotski and his crew canceled the rest of the Wiggins Antarctic Expedition due to my ill health—which has worsened considerably. Coughs rack my body at every moment; my nose is so red that I could be mistaken for one of the odd creatures I have ferreted out over the years. Captain Blotski informed me that he was taking me home.

  “Yes, yes—all right,” I said. “We can go back to Russia and I can convalesce there. Once I am better, we can kip back to Antarctica and pick up where we left off.”

  “No,” said Captain Blotski. “You must go home to England this time.”

  A moment passed before I could talk. “Oh,” I said. “My condition is not that dreary, is it?”

  He told me that it was indeed.

  One advantage of travel in Antarctica: a choice variety of oceans surrounds the continent. We had sailed in via the mighty Pacific, but several days later, Buyan’s sails billowed with the salty winds of the Atlantic. Up we went along the coast of Africa, and then Europe, until one morning, the coast of Cornwall lined the horizon—my first glimpse of England in twenty-five years.

  Peering over one of Buyan’s rails, I should have felt overjoyed to see that familiar land; after all, my lifelong voyage has been quite a triumph. Who would not like to return to rest on one’s laurels? But I did not feel overjoyed. In fact, I felt despair. “No,” I said out loud.

  “What do you mean, no?” asked Captain Blotski. “Are you talking like a madman to your mother again?”

  “I mean, dear sir, that I am not going home just yet,” I declared. And the moment I said this, strength began to return to my limbs. “My mission is not over, for there is one place I have yet to investigate: the North Pole.”

  Captain Blotski told me that I was out of my mind. “There is not even land at the North Pole, only ice, like Wiggins Berg,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, but we managed to uncover a great deal of important history on that iceberg, did we not?” I countered.

  Still, the captain refused. Clearly the situation called for a different strategy.

  “You are right, Captain Blotski,” said I, trying to look as woeful as possible. “I am indeed ill, and when I look in the mirror, I see a man who has aged beyond his years.106 But if I am to depart this world shortly, I hope that you will grant me one wish before I go. I have always longed to see the Northern Lights. Would you deny an old explorer this one final opportunity?” I bowed my head solemnly here for added effect.

  An hour later, Buyan turned away from its course to England, and headed back out to sea. Our destination?

  The Arctic Ocean.

  Soon our ship rushed into icy waters once again; the anchor was lowered.

  Now, almost everyone has heard of the Northern Lights,107 in which colors streak up from the horizon into the night sky, as though a strange, ethereal sun were about to rise. Shimmering greens, bright reds, violent purples—these hues billow in the air overhead: this is surely what it looks like when one reaches heaven’s gates. On the first night of our foray into the Arctic waters, we lay back on Buyan’s decks and watched the spectacle.

  “What are they?” asked one of the sailors, his face bathed with pale green light. “I think that they are spirits dancing up there.” Captain Blotski replied that “God is setting fire to the sky with his magic matches.” I smiled. The Northern Lights have slightly more scientific origins than that: they are believed to result from oxygen and nitrogen emissions in the air. But I did not want to say so and ruin things for everyone. Just then, another sailor pointed over the side of the deck.

  “The lights are coming from that iceberg over there,” he said.

  We all looked. Sure enough, quite a bit of the light appeared to shoot from a solitary ice mass. I peered intently at that berg for hours, until the sun began to rise.

  “I know what you are thinking,” said Captain Blotski. “And the answer is no.”

  “It shall be my last mission before I retire,” I promised.

  Buyan headed for the iceberg.

  What we found there: artic hares—absolute gaggles of them. I shoveled snow and investigated ice and generally nosed around—and uncovered nothing but more snow and ice and more hares. Even Gibear looked bored; he lay down and snoozed, his heat-conducting coppery coat glinting in the sunshine.

  “Dr. Wiggins, I think the mission is over,” said Captain Blotski, fishing a match from his pocket to light a cigarette. The moment he ran it along his flint, the match practically exploded; all the colors of the Northern Lights shot out of the little stick into the air.

  We tried the experiment again, with the same results. The closer we held the match to the ground, the brighter the colors flared. I declared that the mission was not over yet. Six hours later and ten feet deep into the ice, we uncovered the most astounding discovery: the rump of some sort of frozen prehistoric creature, planted facedown in the ground.

  And frankly I am quite embarrassed to record the following integral information: this rump appeared to be, well, passing gas, as though the creature to whom this rump belonged had just devoured an enormous portion of beans.

  “This is a highly flammable area,” I cried. “No more lighting matche
s or lanterns whatsoever!”

  I shan’t fib: the smell was rather overwhelming. The sailors covered their noses with cloth; Captain Blotski—despite his so-called iron stomach—had to go back to the ship. Further excavation revealed that the rump-owning gaseous creature resembled a great walrus.

  When it is revealed to the masses, I fear that this discovery shall make me unpopular—for people have had very romantic theories about the origins of the Northern Lights for centuries. They likely will not be pleased to learn that the phenomenon comes not from celestial beings in the sky, but from the behind of a lumpy animal frozen in an iceberg for millions of years. But my mission is to learn truth and spread truth—not to spare the feelings of mankind. Here is the story of the Gaseous Northern-Lights Creature, as per its remains:

  This creature appears to have had ghastly indigestion. Its frozen stomach was riddled with lesions, showing extreme sensitivity: perhaps the animal was quite tense and had an ancient version of nervousness-induced ulcers. Everything it ate apparently set off a terrible attack of gas. Salmon would have had the gentlest effect, while harder-to-digest penguins would have caused gases that swirled miles up into the stratosphere.

  This condition undoubtedly made the Gaseous Northern-Lights Creature deeply unpopular. It appears that it held in his gas all day (perhaps out of shame) and would let it out only in great gusts at night, when it thought none of the other prehistoric Arctic creatures could see it. Needless to say, these gases are responsible for the glorious effects in the Arctic sky. The beast’s body still gives off whiffs of that gas today, millions of years after its death; it is still so potent that it sears through the ice that encases it.

  Like with so many great creators over the centuries, this creature’s artistry was most certainly not appreciated while it was alive. But once it died and snow and ice covered up its body, future generations of animals forgot the source of the magnificent lights in the sky each night, and called them great shows of beauty. In fact, the Northern Lights became the pride of the land, and thus they remain.

  Shall we never learn to appreciate creative geniuses while they are still alive?108

  I made my final notes on the creature, and packed away my journal and pencils. “It is time,” I told Captain Blotski.

  He nodded solemnly, and set Buyan’s course for England.

  The moon did not rise that night; millions of pale stars glittered in the black sky above. Comforting noises wafted up from below the deck, where the crew played cards and Captain Blotski sang a Russian folk song. Gibear and I sat on the prow of the ship together, watching the waves. Finally, I turned to him and spoke.

  “We have had quite an adventure together, have we not, my darling friend?” I said, stroking his fur. “And now it is time for us to go home.” Gibear stared at me silently.

  “You shall like Shropshire,” I told him. “There are plenty of cows around to keep you company—and chickens as well. You will rule the roost.”

  I tried to smile at him, but found instead that tears were rolling down my face. For suddenly I had the feeling that Gibear would not be coming with me to Shropshire, and that this evening might just mark the final moments of our hallowed thirty-five-year friendship.

  A gentle golden glow began to surround Gibear’s little body. This light grew brighter and brighter until I had to cover my eyes. When I uncovered them, the golden light had floated up into the air, high above the ship, and then higher yet—until it became a star in the sky.

  Just like that, my beloved pet was gone, in the way that a sweet dream fades when morning’s sunlight streams in through the curtains.

  For the first time in my life, I had no scientific explanation for the phenomenon. And I did not want one.

  All I knew was that my journey had truly come to an end.

  106. At the time, Dr. Wiggins was fifty-five years old—but a lifetime of exhausting travel and hardscrabble living had likely made him look and feel far older. Even without the hard living, Dr. Wiggins would have been considered relatively elderly in his day: in 1900, the average global human life span was a mere thirty-one years, and below fifty even in the world’s richest countries. Twentieth-century medicine extended life expectancies in some countries by decades: for instance, the life expectancy for a British man today is seventy-seven years.

  107. Sometimes they are referred to as the aurora borealis, named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek god of the north wind, Boreas.

  108. Sadly, the answer appears to be no. Some of the greatest creative marvels of modern history, including Shakespeare, Mozart, and van Gogh, died paupers; in each case, their genius was not acknowledged properly until years after their deaths.

  Christmas 1885

  Shropshire, England

  I Reflect on My Journey

  A stranger in a strange land: that is how I expected to feel.

  But instead, comfort wraps itself around me, even as I lie here in my bed, still sick with the illness I acquired at the South Pole. This land has changed not a whit since my boyhood: the gentle snowy hills, the Christmas sleighs covered in holly, smoke rising from chimneys above warm fires in cottage hearths.

  The only significant difference: Mother Wiggins is now long gone. But of course she (still!) manages to be with me, popping into my mind at all hours and making comments and fussing about. My leather-bound journals now sit in a stack next to my bed: six books filled with discoveries and adventures, the pages wavy from the rains of the Amazon and gritty with the sands of the Sahara. Soon I will put them into a chest and have them sent off to the Royal Paleozoological Society.

  People are fond of saying that everything one truly needs to know in life can be learned within the confines of one’s own garden. There may be a bit of truth to that. After all, did I really learn anything from the world’s ancient creatures that Mother Wiggins did not learn from observing daily life in our little village? How many times did she emerge like a ghost to shed light on the commonsense lessons to be gleaned from the Brittle Bones, and the Gossip Peacocks, and the Thunder Vulcusts? When I finally publish my discoveries, will I be able to enlighten the masses any more than she could have?

  However, as I reflect on my expedition—from the thick jungles of South America to the mountains of China to the frozen tundra of Antarctica—I argue that we are often blind to the wisdom of our backyard. The keys to understanding human nature may be right under our noses, but sometimes it takes a great journey around the world—and through time—to be able to see clearly and appreciate those lessons.

  Pessimists will no doubt consider my life’s mission a waste of time. “Human beings and all of the earth’s creatures have shown themselves to be stubbornly resistant to heeding the lessons of the past,” they will say. “Each generation appears to need to learn harsh realities all over again on its own, no matter how stark the warnings of history have been.”

  On one hand, they are right. Like most of the ancient species I have discovered, contemporary Homo sapiens are often their own worst enemies, carrying and sowing the seeds of their own problems and destruction. On the other hand, at this late hour in my own life, I do not despair that humans are beyond saving. Our species can be selfish, greedy, bellicose, and shortsighted. But at the same time, Nature has made us endlessly creative, curious, often generous, and daring.

  And any species with these gifts should have more than a fighting chance at survival and betterment—if only it would look to the past as a guide to the future.

  One final note, this time about my much-beloved pet, Gibear. Oh, how I desperately miss him! As I feel the glow of a cheerful hearth fire and watch the snow fall outside, I continue to puzzle over what sort of creature he actually was.

  Now, let me say for the record: I do not believe in magic, and I do not believe in spells. Everything can be explained in scientific terms, if one looks hard enough.

  Or almost everything.

  When it comes to Gibear, I believe that I encountered not an e
arthly creature, but instead a spirit. Not a ghost or anything as far-fetched as that—but a spirit made up of the best attributes Nature has to offer. He embodied the spirit of adventure and optimism, resourcefulness and loyalty.

  In other words, the qualities to which all men and creatures ought to aspire.

  And thus I conclude my study of the most curious, fascinating, sometimes gruesome, and seemingly impossible creatures that roamed the world before us. May it enlighten, amuse, appall, and guide its readers for generations to come.

  The End

  Concluding Remarks

  by Dr. Harriet J. Knickerbocker

  Thus we complete our adventure around the globe with Dr. Wiggins. How sad I feel for the century of people who did not get to experience this journey and its lessons or meet the extraordinary creatures detailed in these pages.

  And now it is time for me to reveal why the journals disappeared for so long.

  Dr. Wiggins passed away of complications from pneumonia shortly after writing his final journal entry on Christmas Day 1885. Before he died, however, he had wrapped the journals in wax paper and placed them in a waterproof and fireproof chest. Careful instructions were left for the manuscript to be delivered directly to the Royal Paleozoological Society by messenger. On New Year’s Day 1886, a messenger traveling by horse and carriage began his snowy journey to London, toting the precious cargo.

  Somewhere along the way, he disappeared.

  The case flummoxed authorities for years. Had the messenger been robbed on the road and murdered? No body was ever found, and since no one then knew the importance of Dr. Wiggins’s works, the police could conceive of no motive. As far as they were concerned, the messenger carried only worthless piles of papers, scribbled out by an addled old eccentric. Whatever had happened, the messenger was never heard from again. The case was closed and forgotten, as was Dr. Wiggins.