Icebound

by Andrea Pitzer

  Some of the sailors walked to open water the following day carrying guns loaded with shot and killed thirteen birds. Riding drift ice to pick up the creatures, the hunters brought them back to the fast ice to dress. Though the weather turned nasty on July 8, they managed to cook the birds and sat on their frozen ledge eating their princely feast.

  On July 9, the ice began to move out on the current again, making an opening on the shore side of their ice ledge. The captain took some men to reclaim the packet and the trunk they’d left out to drain, and the sailors packed them into the scute. But to keep from being mired in another collapse, they’d pulled the boats far from the edge of their iceberg, and the crew had to drag the boats a thousand feet or more just to get to a point where they could be lowered into the water. A year into scurvy with only twelve men remaining out of the original seventeen who’d gone ashore on Nova Zembla, the haul was excruciating.

  They eventually set out with an east wind, but they saw the route wasn’t yet clear enough to sail. Late in the day, they were forced to turn back to the fast ice. Another attempt followed the next morning, as they cautiously rowed their way through a maze of moving blocks. But once the original danger was past, another obstacle arose. They emerged to see two large plains of ice directly ahead of them come together, watching in disappointment as the path between them closed. The icebergs were too vast to row around, and they had no choice but to climb again onto the ice and draw their boats up. Once up, they dragged the vessels two hundred fifty feet or more to cross one plain and get back into the water.

  After they descended once more into the sea, the boats slipped between two new moving fields of ice. As they followed the course between them, the icebergs began to converge. The gap between the boat and the wall of ice on each side grew smaller and smaller. They realized they would soon be crushed. Hoping to outrun death, they pulled out the oars and rowed as hard as they could.

  The boats shot through the tunnel before it slammed shut, bringing the sailors up sharp with the west wind in their teeth. They had survived, but could now do nothing except let themselves be pushed back toward the shore and find firm ice to drag their boats up to and sit on until the wind and water invited them back.

  The morning of July 11, they were still camped out on their ledge when a bear rose out of the water and ran toward them. Three men quickly got their muskets and prepared to shoot, all firing at thirty paces, all hitting, stopping the animal in its tracks. It dropped into the water, where it floated, senseless. Fat ran from the holes they had made in its body, blooming like oil on the water.

  They had traded the cycle of shoveling snow and finding wood that had dominated their overwintering on Nova Zembla for an endless loop of shooting bears, dragging boats, and consigning themselves to the choking ice as they got weaker and weaker. Occasional meals of birds kept them going for the time being, but they wondered how much longer they could last. A piece of drift ice carried sailors over to the bear’s corpse, and they dragged it back with them. Measuring its girth at eight feet, they smashed its teeth in. The gesture, transcending any actual need for protection, had become a ritual.

  As the weather cleared, three sailors went to explore an island they’d spotted the day before. Once ashore, they saw more land to the west, and recognized it as Cross Island. Walking over fast ice between the two islands, the crew looked for any indication that Russians had been there that summer. No signs of human life were apparent, but the sailors found seventy burrow-duck eggs. Unable to carry so much fragile treasure in his hands, one sailor removed his pants and knotted the legs at the bottom. The men then loaded the eggs into the pants, which were hoisted gingerly between two of the sailors on the way back to the boats, while the third carried the musket, in case of bears.

  Their roundabout walking route covered twenty-four miles in all. Twelve hours had passed before they returned egg-laden and partially unclothed to join their shipmates—who’d feared they were dead. Stranded for the time being on the ice, the sailors feasted, with enough eggs for every man to have several. The captain let them finish the last of the common wine, and they had three large servings each. They were still two thousand miles from home.

  They spent the next four days hemmed in by ice, going ashore to get wood and look for interesting stones. On the third day, three men made their way to the island nearest them, shot a burrow-duck, and carried it back to share.

  On July 16, a bear stalked them from the land side of their iceberg, so invisible against the snow that they didn’t see her until the last minute. One sailor shot and hit her, but she ran away. The next day, the men were fretting about being delayed from setting out for so long and decided to go over to the close island to look for open water. Halfway there, they ran into the bear they’d shot the previous day.

  As they approached, the creature made off, but one of the sailors followed and drove the pointed shaft of the boat hook he was carrying into the bear’s body. The animal reared onto its hind legs, and the sailor tried to spear it again. Instead, the creature smashed the boat hook to pieces. The sailor fell down backward, and the bear turned toward him. The other two sailors came closer, and shot the animal in the torso, driving it down off its hind legs until it could barely move. They fired again then struck the teeth from its jaw.

  The following day, three sailors went back to the island to hunt for a navigable route. It had been one year since they’d first caught sight of Nova Zembla on their voyage. At that time, they’d been looking northward in search of open water. Now they looked south, hoping to leave the ice entirely behind. From the highest vantage point, plenty of open sea was visible away from the coast. But the distance seemed so great, they worried it would be impossible to drag their boats that far.

  When they returned and debated the idea with the whole company, the crew decided that they would try. They rowed toward the ice barrier, hosted the boats up onto the ice, emptied them, dragged the vessels almost half a mile to the other side of the ice, and then came back to carry their belongings across. Midway through, their strength nearly gave out. But they told themselves it might be the last time they’d need to move the boats this way, and they pressed on.

  By the evening of July 18, they’d gotten the boats loaded and back into open water. They set out once more, but soon struck ice again. Only a day after they hoped they’d crossed the final ice blockage of their voyage, they once more found themselves hoisting their vessels out of the water. From atop their ledge, they could see Cross Island, now just four miles away. The next morning, seven men went ashore and climbed up to look out from its heights. To the west, they saw open water everywhere. The sailors hurried back to the boats with the good news, bringing a hundred eggs with them for good measure. Cooking their eggs quickly, they convinced themselves that maybe they could carry their boats one more time.

  They dragged the vessels some five hundred feet and put them in the water. Suddenly, a gale rose up, quickly carrying them past and away from Cross Island. Forty-eight miles later, they passed Capo Negro, and by the evening of July 20, they’d gone another thirty-two miles and reached Admiralty Island. Hundreds of walruses lay out on an iceberg. The men took the boats in close and drove the animals from the ice into the water. Accustomed to their dominance over most Arctic life, the walruses swam toward the men, surrounding their boats. The creatures began making noises and seemed as if they might attack. In small boats, the bedraggled sailors could be easily overturned or sunk by a concerted effort from even one of the two-thousand-pound walruses. The crews and their boats were saved only by a strong wind, which let them flee from the fight they’d nearly provoked.

  On July 22, they traveled a bracing sixty-eight miles without ice. They’d made such good time that the captain let his men go ashore in search of eggs. They came up empty-handed, but back at sea later in the day, they spotted a high cliff filled from top to bottom with birds nesting in crevices. The sailors killed twenty-two birds with rocks, and a nimble shipmate gathered fifteen e
ggs from nests before the captain urged the men back into the boats to take advantage of the steady breeze that still blew. After fair progress, they came to yet another cliff filled with birds and killed well over a hundred using stones and their bare hands.

  Returning to the boats, the men in de Veer’s craft found a strong, northwesterly wind had risen, and ice began crowding in. They tried to avoid the current as best they could, but they were pulled in with the smaller blocks and towering slabs of ice. Once caught in the flow, they saw open water closer to shore, and made their way toward it, finding the going easy again.

  Thinking at first that de Veer’s crew had gotten in trouble with the ice, van Heemskerck waited. But seeing that his mates had free sailing, he tacked to follow behind them. They eventually came to a good harbor where they could safely land and get wood for a fire to cook their catch.

  They remained socked in without good sailing weather for three days, trying to take the sun’s height with the astrolabe and searching for more eggs or valuable stones. On July 26, when the north wind held and the skies cleared, they finally set out again. But the going was hard. They had to sail sixteen miles offshore just to round a cape, borrowing the wind when they could and otherwise leaning into their oars. They cleared the point of the cape just after midnight and headed back toward land.

  Taking in their sails, they rowed through massive shards of ice near shore all the next day, until they came to a broad stream flowing out from the land. They guessed (correctly) at this point that they were near Kostin Shar and wondered (incorrectly) if the water might flow all the way through to the sea on the eastern side of Nova Zembla.

  They’d long since left behind terrain familiar to any of them, but they made good progress as they sailed. Van Heemskerck drove ahead of them at one point, before halting to rejoin forces and look for birds, which, unfortunately, were nowhere to be found.

  July 28 brought fair weather again, and they continued to sail near shore, stopping not far from Mealhaven, where Barents’s men had found buried sacks of grain on his first expedition north. They saw two ships near the point, and some men moving along the shore. They hadn’t yet traveled the full length of Nova Zembla, but they’d rediscovered humanity.

  Along with their delight at the presence of other people, they felt a parallel anxiety. It was obvious that between them, the two ships carried a minimum of scores of men—far more dangerous company than a dozen sick sailors in two ramshackle boats. And the castaways couldn’t determine the nationality of their new neighbors, which meant they had no idea whether they’d be met with greetings or violence.

  Consigned to their fate, they rowed hard against the wind and headed to land to find out. The men along the coast left their work and, unarmed, came to meet the Dutch boats. Van Heemskerck, de Veer, and all the sailors who could still walk climbed out to greet the strangers.

  They were met with shock and pity. The sailors were Russians. Some had been near Vaigach Strait two years before, and recalled Barents’s second expedition to the region. They’d seen the seven-ship convoy in all its glory and boarded one of the vessels. Those who’d been present then recognized van Heemskerck and de Veer.

  Gone was the fleet. Gone were the proud Dutchmen on the cusp of sailing to China. Now they stood before the Russians in abject misery, consumed by scurvy. Approaching them with concern, the Russians delicately asked, Korabl?, the Russian word for ship. They had no Russian interpreter, but de Veer and van Heemskerck nonetheless knew the word. They tried to make signs to show that the ship had been trapped by the ice. The Russian reply was a phrase the Dutchmen recognized: “Korabl propal?” Yes, acknowledged van Heemskerck, the ship was lost.

  Conversation was limited, but recalling the wine they’d drunk together before, the Russians asked what the Dutchmen were drinking now. One of the Dutchmen went to get water from their stores in the scute. The Russians tasted it and shook their heads, indicating that it was a sorry thing, indeed, to be reduced to drinking that. Hoping to learn of any other cures for scurvy, van Heemskerck moved closer to show them his mouth, with its loose teeth and diseased gums. They mistook the gesture for a display of hunger, and one of the Russians brought out food to share. He offered them an eight-pound loaf of rye bread and some birds. In return, the Dutchmen offered most of the last of the captain’s tiny reserve of wine and half a dozen ship’s biscuits—which some of the crew had grown too sick to eat.

  The Russians invited them back to camp to sit by the fire, where the Dutchmen cooked biscuit porridge, looking for both sustenance and warmth. Across thirteen months, these Dutchmen had seen more bears than people, and even the population of their small human outpost had dwindled over time. Though they remained far from their own corner of the world, they were still astounded to have rejoined the company of the living.

  On July 29, the Russians organized their provisions and equipment to leave. Before setting sail, they dug up barrels of whale oil on the beach and loaded them into their ships. Seeing their newfound friends heading toward Vaigach Island but unclear of their final destination, the Dutchmen followed them. Bad visibility and the need to stay close to land meant that the scute and the rowboat soon fell behind. They turned to their planned route and watched the map, sailing between two islands until ice blocked their way once more. They turned around, working their way back to the islands for refuge.

  The next day brought torrential rain and storms, delaying any possibility for departure. The sailors stretched their sails over the boats and huddled inside, but the makeshift tent failed to keep them dry. Unaccustomed to planning for rain, they had nothing else with which to protect themselves.

  The last day of July brought clearer skies, however, and they took the opportunity to row from their island to one nearby where they’d seen two crosses. It had looked as if traders had visited, but any who’d come through were already gone. The men decided to go ashore and once there noticed something strange and startling in the pale landscape. Spoon-wort, a kind of grass, grew in vast quantities there. They hadn’t seen a fruit or vegetable in more than a year, but quickly set to work eating the grass.

  Spoon-wort, a low, creeping plant with round leaves, would later earn the nickname “scurvy grass.” Common in parts of the Arctic for centuries, it contains large quantities of vitamin C. Nearly a century after Barents sailed, an Englishman would write a whole book in praise of scurvy grass—with descriptions of countless different internal and external uses for the plant. In time, it would become a popular treatment for scurvy internationally. The spoon-wort on Nova Zembla may even have been planted there by Russian traders for just this purpose. But however it made its way onto the island, van Heemskerck and his men saw it as a gift from God and believed that they’d been drawn there for the express purpose of finding it. On some level, they understood what they needed, pulling it out of the ground and eating it by the handful.

  That morning, they’d been almost too weak to row their boats, but as they digested the grass, they began to feel better immediately. The sea, however, went wild again, threatening their boats so directly that they had to row them to the other side of the island for protection. When they got the scute and rowboat back to shore, they found more spoon-wort and continued eating. Some of the men who’d been unable to tolerate the ship’s biscuit soon found they could eat it again.

  But the remaining biscuit didn’t last long. And though the worst symptoms of scurvy began to diminish, hunger took hold. They had a little bread, but it was moldy. A few of the men had the last of their cheese that they’d saved. There was nothing else left to eat.

  On August 3, after three days with the spoon-wort, they decided to leave Nova Zembla behind and strike out for the Russian coastline, for fear they’d starve where they sat. They set out in the morning with a northwest wind, but soon ran into their nemesis, as frozen walls surrounded them once more. After being certain that they’d freed themselves for the last time days before, they were devastated all over again.

 
; Without a wind they couldn’t sail, and so they had to make their excruciating way through the maze of ice by rowing. After hours of work, they slipped into the open sea. All the ice seemed to have vanished. They covered some eighty miles, and began to keep a watch for the mainland.

  Instead they were met by ice, and a fierce cold returned. They’d imagined themselves leaving behind the most bitter elements of their journey—cold, impassable seas, and hunger—only to face them all at once after they’d come to think themselves safe. The scute could navigate, but the rowboat had more trouble, and couldn’t find a way around the farthest point of ice. De Veer and his mates in the rowboat could see open water in the distance, but to get to it, they’d have to pass through the barrier of ice. Chief among their problems was finding a place to enter.

  When they finally managed to slip into the ice belt, the route became a little clearer. They rowed themselves along the inside track in their misery of exertion, until they saw van Heemskerck round the ice from the far side of the current. As he came back toward them, de Veer’s boat broke free from the ice, and they reunited, each halting success bringing them a little closer to home.

  On August 4, they caught a good wind and rode it almost due south. As the sun crawled to its highest point for the day, they looked out and saw the coast of Russia. In their open boats, they’d sailed some one hundred twenty miles off the coast of Nova Zembla, and seven hundred miles from their cabin at Ice Harbor. The land was low and bare, and seemed as if it would be prone to flooding, but for the time being it was above water. They dragged their boats up onto the shore—the same connected earth that, if they could follow it far enough, would run right to their doorsteps in the Netherlands.

  But the land they stood on still lay far from home. The men spotted a Russian boat, which they set sail to approach. As they moved alongside, sailors on the ship came above deck to talk to them. The Dutchmen cried out “Candinaes! Candinaes!” using their bastardized pronunciation to ask if they’d reached the cape they knew lay on the east side of the White Sea—a cape known to the Russians as Kanin Nos. Hearing the Russians’ answer, they realized with dismay that their boats sat some two hundred miles farther east than they’d hoped.