That evening, they ran out of wood yet again. Nine sailors dragged a sled to the ship, where they began dismantling structures on deck to get wood for the cabin fire. They left the hull and the main decks intact and saw no signs that the ship was on the verge of breaking free anytime soon.
On March 11, the weather was sunny enough to use the astrolabe and take the height of the sun again. Twelve men were still able to stand upright and make the long trek for more wood. But doing so reduced them to a pitiful state, and they begged van Heemskerck for a cup of wine to dull their suffering. They knew nothing but the threat of death, which lay over them daily, could have motivated them to make the long trek outside. The sailors swore that they would have traded all their wages for more wood to burn, if there had been any way to buy it.
Just as they’d come to relish the sight of open water, ice drove in again, and the cold smothered them once more. A blizzard from the northeast dumped a sea of snow over their little hill, with thousands of flakes rustling like living creatures, frightening the men. The sight of the ice encasing everything once more drove them to despair, and temperatures plummeted as far as any they’d endured so far, making the sickest men even more ill. They spent a week pinned in the house growing weaker and weaker, with their wood reserves nearly consumed again. They had no idea what else to do. Daily fire was necessary to stay alive, yet they were too weak to get more wood. They made felt shoes from rough cloth and hoped for the weather to break.
The spring equinox came and went, but it grew no warmer. They’d saved the coal to take aboard with them if they were ever able to leave the island. But it would do dead men no good, they realized. The walls had turned to ice again, and the ceiling froze as well. Some of the crew argued that they should burn a little coal each day. On March 24, they couldn’t go out. They closed up the house once more and put coal on to burn.
They made two trips for wood in fairer weather across the next six days and visited the ship. It lay empty when they investigated it, but it had been entirely taken over by bears, which had wreaked havoc on board. Two of the animals came near the cabin on March 30, but not close enough to cause the sailors trouble. After a time, the creatures wandered back toward the ship. In the distance, the men soon watched ice ramming and plowing over ice, raising huge hills where there had been open water only days before. On April 1, the weather was clear and cold, but they were too weak to trek out to gather harbor driftwood, and decided to burn more coal.
Barents took the height of the sun again, and the men once more tried to “stretch their joints” in a futile attempt to counter their scurvy. They improvised a long club and played a hockey-like game called kolf. While the wind changed directions, all the men healthy enough to walk visited the ship. There, they fed out a cable attached to the bower anchor to keep the ship from floating away if melting ice happened to free it in their absence.
By April 5, however, the run of fair weather ended. Far from breaking free, the ship wallowed in place, encased in more ice than before. The next night, the bad weather wasn’t limited to wind or cold—the air was also wet with mist. A bear was spotted approaching the cabin, and the sailors inside went into their usual response mode, preparing their guns for the moment the animal moved into close range. As the creature bore down on them, they went to shoot. But no guns fired. Their gunpowder was no longer dry. Unaware of its reprieve from death, the bear continued down the rest of the stairs they’d cut in the snowdrift. It now stood entirely in view, coming toward the cabin door as van Heemskerck frantically tried to close it. A plank intended to bar the door sat above the frame, but in panic and fear, the captain held it shut with his body.
Faced with a closed door that was reluctant to open, the bear took its time. Eventually it turned around and went back up the stairs. Relieved, the men settled in for the evening. But two hours later, after night had fallen, they heard its footsteps approaching again. It walked a circle around the cabin, roaring. Trapped, Barents’s men listened in terror. Without guns and in a weakened state, they’d be no match in hand-to-hand combat with a polar bear in daylight, let alone darkness. The animal climbed onto the roof and prowled overhead, striking the chimney until they thought the barrel would shatter. The bear slashed at their makeshift roof, with its planks and stretched sail. As they waited to see if the roof would hold or the bear would come roaring into their shelter, Barents and his men heard the thick canvas of the sail ripping above them.
But no hole appeared where the chimney stood. The roof didn’t give way. No polar bear fell from overhead, swiping claws at them. They endured the animal raging just feet away until, eventually, it left. During the foul weather that continued all the way into the next day, they listened for the bear’s return with guns ready to shoot. Still, the creature didn’t come back. In time they went up to survey the damage on the roof. The sail lay torn and pulled loose from its moorings along the chimney.
The weather remained vile over the next three days and into the fourth, but on April 8, they heard ice drifting out again with the current. Looking out from shore, they saw the sea once more. It resurrected the hope that before too long, they might go home. The foul weather seemed tolerable when it helped to clear ice from the coast, but winds and currents were fickle. April 10 brought all the ice back in again, and the days that followed piled it higher and higher, covering everything in jagged hills.
They fought despondency and dragged the sled for wood again on April 13. They’d made new felt shoes, and though they were tired, they delighted in their new footwear. The shoes served them much better in snow and ice than their wood or leather shoes—and now every man had his own pair.
The next day, they observed the ship from a distance, and saw more ice surrounding it than ever before. It seemed impossible that the ship hadn’t already been crushed. They went to examine it at close range on April 15 and saw to their surprise that it still remained more or less intact. On the way back to the cabin, they caught sight of a bear stalking them, but they made motions with their pikes to defend themselves and the beast skittered away.
Walking the coastline where ice had shattered against ice, it seemed as if whole towns had been raised from underwater, with fully formed bulwarks and towers on their outskirts. They headed in the direction the bear had come from and found a hole in the ice. It had a narrow entrance, which they approached. Thrusting their blades into the darkness, the crew found no living thing there. One of the men crawled into the opening but he couldn’t bring himself to go far.
On their next visit to the ship, a group of sailors dared to do something they hadn’t tried before. Climbing down from the ship, they walked along the hills and valleys of ice as near as they could to the open water. A small bird swam by. Seeing them, it dove to escape. The men reasoned that if the bird could dive, there must be even more water under the surface. They decided to take it as a good omen.
On April 18, eleven of the fifteen remaining crew members were healthy enough to join an expedition for wood. As they lay in their beds that night, they heard a bear on the roof once more. This time, they plotted offensive maneuvers, taking up weapons and going outside. The noise of their approach frightened the bear. The next day five men took turns in the barrel sauna.
They once again pulled their sled to the driftwood shore on April 20. This time it was loaded with a kettle and their clothing to save the effort of pulling even more heavy wood—not just for cooking but also for laundry—over uneven ice and snow all the way back to the cabin. They built a fire and boiled water along the beach, washing out the crew’s shirts and drying them.
Several days of clear weather followed, including one that brought another bear to the house. They hit it with a shot to the body, sending it fleeing—all of which was observed by a second bear, which decided to give them a wide berth.
In the last days of the month, they took a reading of the sun again, played at ball and kolf, and visited the ship. During April’s final hours, they looked up at the sky at nig
ht and saw the sun descend almost to the horizon then rise again. In the days and months that followed, the sun would always sit in the sky, without any darkness to add to their dread. They’d survived polar night.
It was no small accomplishment. Accounts of future expeditions during polar night would include murder, sailors drinking solvents, and medical staff overdosing on narcotics.3 In 2018, one voyager socked in with a fellow traveler month after month during polar night at the Bellingshausen Russian research station would stab his companion in the chest.
The Dutchmen on Nova Zembla didn’t have the luxury of narcotics to get them through months of darkness. But they’d nonetheless resisted any impulse to assault one another, and in winter’s wake, May 1 turned out to be a good day. The midnight sun illuminated the sky, and the sailors cooked the dregs from their last barrel of salted beef. The barrel had been packed away in the hold of the ship the year before but remained edible. The sailors’ only complaint about the beef was that it was now gone.
With rations thinning and the glory of daylight all around them, their minds began to turn to whether they might soon be able to leave Nova Zembla. Ice had fled the coastline again, but their ship still lay trapped in Ice Harbor. At some point, they would make their move, but the sea would have to coax the vessel closer to freedom to give them any real chance of sailing for home. The captain wanted to wait until the end of June—after the midnight sun had months to blaze its heat over the ice—to try to set out. In the hopes of keeping the crew strong for the work that preparing to leave would entail, van Heemskerck opened the last barrel of salted pork, and began dividing it among the men, with a two-ounce ration—less than a fat handful—given once a day to each man.
The ship had lolled on its side within a rock’s throw of the open water since mid-March, but ice that had driven back in continued to accumulate until that distance had doubled and doubled again. And still more ice charged in to block their freedom. The dream of freeing the ship wasn’t quite lost to them yet, but the greater distance to the open sea meant less of a chance for liberation. Even if they surrendered the ship to Nova Zembla, the long expanse of ice also marked the distance they’d have to drag their two small boats up and down hills and ravines of ice, loaded with as many possessions and provisions as they dared to bring along. All this would have to be accomplished before they could even begin to sail. The weight of the load, the fear of damage to the small boats, and most of all the exhaustion of the scurvy-ridden men stood as depressing obstacles to departure.
Yet they longed to go. The sun began to drift higher in the sky in the evening, shunning the horizon. The sea pressed nearer to shore each day. But on May 7, a storm forced the sailors back into the house, where they grew restive and unhappy, fearing they’d never escape. The next day, they decided to talk to van Heemskerck and argue for departure from the harbor, which seemed it might never be free of ice. They knew they’d be arguing for the captain to move up his departure date by nearly two months and debated who could best present the audacious demand. But their plan faltered when they couldn’t agree on a messenger.
Growing more unhappy by the day, the crew chose William Barents on May 9 to plead their case. Though he was already sick, he resisted their entreaties and calmed them. He heard them out without dismissing their fear. Not yet ready to mutiny, they let themselves be talked down from their demands. The following day proceeded like so many others: the sailors took the height of the sun, and the crew again surveyed the open water.
On May 11, the crew came to Barents once more to ask him to intercede with the captain. This time he said yes.
The men returned to everyday concerns. Days passed, bringing a snowstorm bracketed by afternoons in which the sea became ever more liquid. Still admiring their new felt shoes, they hiked out to the driftwood coast and hauled back a sled filled with wood. But on May 14, their patience began to wear thin. The men reminded Barents of his promise to talk to van Heemskerck.
The next day, the crew tried to restore their deteriorating bodies by walking, running, and playing kolf. Meanwhile, Barents shared the crew’s wish for an immediate departure with the captain. Van Heemskerck agreed to leave before the end of June. But he didn’t give them everything they wanted. They’d watch and wait for the two weeks remaining in May to see if the ship broke free or could be freed from the ice. If they could take their belongings back to a ship floating upright in the water, they’d set out as soon as possible. If not, they’d begin to modify their two smaller craft and make preparations to sail more than a thousand miles in open boats with no shelter from the elements.
CHAPTER NINE Escape
For months, they’d endured in an in-between state—half dead and half alive—joining a long line of castaways whose deaths might pass unnoticed. Their former expedition mates and the ship they’d parted ways with back at Spitsbergen might be in the same situation or worse. But now the Nova Zemblan castaways could at least look toward their departure.
As they contemplated a return voyage, they knew they’d be going from misery to misery. Which castaways in prior centuries had found a way to return home on their own from uninhabited distant regions nearly a year after they were stranded? What they hoped to do seemed unprecedented. And yet they were happy that van Heemskerck was willing to leave earlier than planned, even as they fretted that the captain’s compromise might still lead to unnecessary delay. The ship sat firmly in its block of ice, offering no hint of thaw. The small boats in their current state would never survive the kind of voyage the crew was contemplating—they’d take weeks of work to be ready for the trip. If they waited until the end of May to make a decision about abandoning the ship, they might end up stuck on Nova Zembla well into June.
The smaller boat of the two vessels would be particularly vulnerable. Wood and tools lay at hand to saw the boat in half and lengthen it, to help make it more seaworthy on any long voyage. But reengineering the boat was only the first challenge. Their crews would also have to somehow get it from the cabin to the sea. And dragging even a small boat to open water over the jagged hills and crevices in the ice would be a herculean task. Making the boat longer and heavier would only render the whole effort more grueling.
Three days of good weather set the men counting the hours until they’d sail for home. They visited the ship and hiked directly to the sea from the cabin, looking for the best path for hauling their boats into the water. The last barrel of salted pork was emptied about the same time the clear skies vanished on May 20.
As conditions packed ice back in along the coast, the crew spoke out once more, telling van Heemskerck at noon that if they hoped to leave at all, they’d better begin the hard work that would have to be finished before setting sail. Van Heemskerck answered that he valued his own life as dearly as any of them valued theirs, but the decision as to which craft they’d take would wait until the end of May. He urged them in the meantime to begin getting themselves ready and to take care of personal chores like patching clothes and repairing tools.
The next day they began to prepare in earnest. On May 22, with wood supplies low, they broke down part of the front porch and threw it on the fire. The next morning, they set out to boil water near the shore once more and do their laundry. By the twenty-fourth, enough ice had returned that very little of the sea lay visible. Barents again took the measure of the sun. Six days remained until the end of the month.
Under fair skies, the wind carried more ice in the next day, and on May 27, bitter weather did the same, heaping blocks and slabs in piles. Hearing doom colliding and accumulating in the harbor, the crew made their point more urgently, telling the captain it was past time to begin preparations. Van Heemskerck finally agreed.
With no way to free it, the ship that had carried them from Amsterdam now belonged to the sea. They’d have to take the things that they needed from it, and ready their two small boats to make a voyage that as far as they knew had only been navigated once in recorded history—by Barents, in a much larger v
essel. The crew walked out to the ship and began poring over its treasures. They pulled down part of the rigging to take with them, and the old foresail as well. They’d need it to make sails for the small boats.
The morning of May 29, the sailors set out to find the scute, the single-sailed, flat-bottomed boat—the larger of the two they hoped to use. They planned to drag it to the house to start work on it. But heading to where it had been sitting since before winter set in, they didn’t see it at first. The boat sat buried deep under months of snow. Digging it out exhausted them. Once it had been excavated, they stood looking at it and realized that they were too weak to move it to the house. The vision of the vast work that lay ahead of them if they were to have any hope of getting home struck them, and they lost heart.
The captain told them that if they wanted to go home, they’d have to rise up and do more than seemed possible. Otherwise, they could stay there as citizens of Nova Zembla and make their graves on the island. They were sorely disappointed by their failure, because they wanted to work, but found themselves unable to coax their bodies into complying. They hadn’t caught a fox in more than three months; their scurvy was now advancing unchecked. Van Heemskerck and the sailors left the scute in the snow and trudged back to their shelter empty-handed.
Back at the cabin in the afternoon, they rallied a little, and decided to inspect the rowboat that already lay near the cabin. Once it had been turned right side up, they went to work and began building up the gunwales along the sides of the ship, to better fend off waves at sea. As they focused on their work, one sailor looked up and saw a polar bear coming at them.
They scurried to the cabin, where they took up their positions. The sailors with long guns moved to cover each of the three doors of the front porch, and a fourth shooter with a musket climbed up to man the chimney like a sniper. The bear moved toward the cabin more aggressively than any they’d seen before, heading right for the step at one of the doors. But the man armed with an arquebus at that entrance was turned toward another doorway and didn’t see the polar bear approaching. It barreled closer, almost close enough to touch him.
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