Alfred Wegener

by Mott T. Greene

  These tensions are exacerbated by the discovery of arrogance, cowardice, or just clumsiness and lack of stamina in a colleague. All of this devolves to the expedition leader, who is confidant to all injured parties, arbitrator of disputes, and a triage officer in the intellectual as well as physical realm. The realities are quite stark: polar travel, like Alpine mountaineering, is a mecca for those who would “test” themselves, and a gladiator’s arena for those whose tests must involve the conquest of other men in the process. Under these circumstances, it is little wonder that Wegener sought the solace of his cabin in the Krabbe and spent his time at sea, going from village to village, looking for hay.

  Returning from his various trips on 29 August (the hay was now acquired, and Loewe was taking Greenlanders home on the Krabbe), Wegener hiked up to Scheideck with Holzapfel to see how the work was going. He was enormously encouraged, as only “odds and ends” were left at the foot of the glacier and most of the contents of the intermediate depots had now been transferred close to the top; in spite of deterioration of the road on the moraine, they were able to repair it and keep the pony caravans coming. The ponies were now pastured at Grünau, a broad, flat grassy area just on the north side of the moraine. Things had improved without him. Wegener had said to Loewe in July, “I have the impression that the work would go better … if I were not here at all.”56 This had turned out to be the case, at least in August; without Wegener’s ceaseless “encouragement,” they could find their own speed and take charge of their own work. This is what Wegener had wanted; he had only to leave it alone for it to happen.

  “When we arrived at Scheideck,” Wegener wrote on 29 August, “we suddenly heard the hum of a motor. This was music to our ears! We stood rooted to the spot and listened reverently until the trial run was over. Twice more this music of the spheres resounded, and each time I was so struck by it that I stood still and listened till the engine was switched off. I had a feeling that a dream was coming true.”57 Schif had finally managed, with the help of his mechanics, to mount the aircraft engines on the propeller sleds and test the motors. This was already three weeks since the arrival of the propeller sleds at the top of the glacier, but Wegener could not contain his pleasure, in spite of the lost time.

  I am proud of the motor sledges, as their use in conjunction with dog sledges marks an important advance in polar exploration. We have certainly hit the mark with all our means of transport. The Icelandic ponies have also stood their first real test here with us.… Ponies on the glacier, dog sledges and motor sledges on the ice cap, this is the correct choice. Now we began at once a new epoch in polar exploration. Everything that we wish to try and can try must be tested thoroughly. What we are doing here points the way at once for future Antarctic exploration. How wonderful that it should fall to us to make this pioneering step; nay, in view of the many air disasters that have occurred in Polar Regions, I may say the redeeming step.58

  That day, Wegener got his first ride on one of the propeller sleds in Greenland. He wrote in his diary that night, “Now the dream has really come true today I traveled on the inland ice comfortably sitting in a closed cabin and smoking my pipe.”59 He had missed the departure of the next sledge party for Eismitte, but at the 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) depot the propeller sleds caught up with Sorge, Wölcken, Jülg, and nine Greenlanders, twelve sleds in all. Wegener, who had been away and had not supervised the preparation or the loading of these sleds, or even the planning of this trip other than its approximate date, was not pleased. “Sorge’s attempt to pack as much as he possibly can onto this trip goes too far, he has used up all the dogs.” Now there were only two Greenlanders and five dogs left, not enough for the work still to be accomplished—one more thing for Wegener to worry about.60

  The next few days, up until about the fifth or sixth of September, were a period of experimentation and fine-tuning of the engines, and Wegener had a chance to make another motor sled trip, as Schif, Kelbl, and Kraus worked with both propeller sleds to move as much fuel as possible to a depot 10 kilometers from Scheideck, past the worst of the crevasses.

  Along with their joy that the sleds were working, and as they were learning to operate the engines, they made some unpleasant and troubling discoveries. It turned out that the propeller sledges could make almost no headway when facing a strong headwind, and when the wind blew, it generally blew from the center of the ice toward the coast—meaning a headwind. Moreover, the sleds got stuck in deep snow and drifts all too easily, and in any combination of snow and wind they could not pull loads even up moderate slopes. They learned to zigzag, almost as if tacking, to get up the slopes at a walking pace. When they stopped, the skids immediately froze to the ice and had to be pried up with crowbars.

  Polar Bear (Eisbar), one of the two propeller sleds, here operational on its first trip inland. The sleds worked well on flat and even ground but could not pull up slopes or against strong wind. This put the supply plan for the Mid-Ice Station far behind schedule. Photo courtesy of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Bremerhaven.

  The sleds also used much more fuel than they had imagined, running only for about six hours per tank of fuel. This meant they would have to recalculate both the time schedule and the means of getting to Eismitte, as they would have to depot fuel at much closer intervals and then leapfrog their depots forward just to get to the 200-kilometer station.61 It was fortunate for them that the route was so well marked, because visibility was often poor in the moving sleds. Wegener had established a protocol that a tall wand with a black flag be set up every half kilometer, and at every fifth kilometer a snow tower with a much larger black banner on it, stretched around four poles.

  On 5 September they managed a trip 85 kilometers (53 miles) inland, and here there was good news. Once they were more than 48 kilometers (30 miles) inland, the ground became flat, making it easier for the sleds, and they also discovered that they had not overestimated the effective load, which really would be a half ton. Over the next seven days, the sleds covered more than 800 kilometers (500 miles). They established all the fuel depots for the trip to Eismitte, and at the 200-kilometer depot they took a ton of fuel oil and stove oil, the prefabricated hut (in sections) for the Eismitte station, and another 1,200 kilograms (2,646 pounds) of supplies, instruments, and food.62

  Back at Scheideck, the winter snow had already begun. On 1 September they had a storm of sticky wet snow that made moving about, as Wegener put it, feel like a fly must feel walking on a sheet of flypaper.63 More snow fell the next day, about 20 centimeters (8 inches) in all.64 Just as Wegener needed to focus more than ever (“it will be 1 October before we get everything to the Mid-Ice Station, and even then only by the skin of our teeth”), he had news that the Disko had arrived in Umanak and would leave in a few weeks: they would lose the two remaining Icelanders and Kurt Shif, leaving Kraus and Kelbl to handle the propeller sleds on their own.65

  Then, to his consternation, Wegener discovered he would have guests. Jens Daugard-Jensen (1871–1938), director of administration for Greenland, whose help Wegener had depended on repeatedly for this expedition, had made the trip to see how the expedition was going, and he was to be accompanied by Peter Freuchen and the Danish archaeologist Helge Larsen.66 As glad as he would be to see Freuchen, this would all be lost time. The scientific sled trip that Loewe and Weiken had planned to make a short distance inland to do some glaciology would now have to “be stripped of its purely scientific character, and turned into another piece of the transport.”67 He informed them of this on 4 September.

  On 8 September he was still entranced by the propeller sleds; at one point they had taken him over the ice (with the wind at their backs, and going downhill on perfectly smooth ice and snow ground) at almost 70 kilometers per hour (43 miles per hour).68 Yet it was increasingly apparent that the number of misfortunes these machines suffered and the delays endured in repairing them, along with their inability to perform in deep snow or strong wind, made it unfeasible for them to dependably supply the Mi
d-Ice Station with the necessary food and fuel before travel of any kind became absolutely impossible—sometime around the middle of October.

  From Crisis to Catastrophe—September 1930

  “What now?” Wegener had already written on 6 September. “The catastrophe has arrived.”69 Kraus might not be able to overwinter in the middle of the ice, and Georgi and Sorge would therefore have to do without radio contact, as neither of them knew Morse code, nor could they operate the radio efficiently. Wegener would have to abandon the attempt to deliver any inessentials, perhaps not even taking the prefabricated hut intended for Eismitte. Wegener decided that he would have to organize a fourth dogsled trip to carry food and fuel all the way to the middle of the ice.70

  He was no longer sure that Georgi and Sorge would be able to overwinter, and he might have to pick them up and bring them back.

  The situation in which the expedition finds itself, in the face of the failure of these motor sleds is simply intolerable. We cannot recall the crew from the [Central] Station! That would be a catastrophe for the entire program. We must, no matter what the cost, put together a supply journey with sledges of such dimensions, that all the essentials for the overwintering can be carried by dogsleds alone. No matter what the cost. That is easily said! Where will we get the sleds? We need 15! Where will we get the men, and do all of this when time is so short? This is the biggest and most fatal crisis that the expedition will have to undergo.71

  After the arrival and departure of his guests between 10 and 12 September (he was able to arrange a motor sled trip for Freuchen), Wegener turned all his attention to his new catastrophe, the failure to supply Eismitte in time to go into winter quarters when he had planned. He would now have to break two of the three rules he had many times repeated to Herdemerten, Weiken, and the others: (1) no more than three major sledge trips to the central part of the ice, and (2) no new travel after mid-September and absolutely no travel after 1 October.72 He could observe the third rule he had made—that the propeller sledges were an experiment and were not to be depended on—only by breaking the other two.73

  Rueful Alfred Wegener facing the camera amid the catastrophic (his characterization) supply difficulties of September 1930, with winter closing in and insufficient food and fuel at the Mid-Ice Station. Photo courtesy of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Bremerhaven.

  There was now very little time, and drivers and new dogs—as many as 130—needed to be found for this trip. Most of the young Greenlanders were on their way to Eismitte with Sorge’s group, and they were not expected back until 20 September at the earliest. All the lightweight Nansen sleds were gone, and that meant using heavy Greenland sleds intended not for snow but for sea-ice travel; these could be exchanged with the lighter sleds being used by the third party on the way, if the parties crossed paths.74

  On the seventeenth, the propeller sleds, fully loaded, left for Eismitte with Schif, Kelbl, Kraus, and Lissey. They were carrying only essential food and fuel, and Wegener intended for the fourth dogsled group to leave as soon as possible thereafter. At almost the same time, Weiken and Vigfus took six ponies with their sleds and transported most of the loads intended for the fourth dogsled journey to a depot 15 kilometers (9 miles) inland, so that the dogs would not have to pull heavy sleds over the sharp, late-summer ice of the crevasse zone and risk badly cutting their feet.75

  On the eighteenth, with preparations well under way, Wegener told Loewe and Weiken that he had decided he would lead the fourth sledge journey. He saw that a number of decisions would have to be made at every point along the way and at Eismitte itself—decisions that were his responsibility. Moreover, he knew that it would be difficult to keep the Greenlanders going, as they did not like being on the Inland Ice, were suspicious of the size of the loads they would be pulling, and all thought that it was too late in the year for such a trip (they were right). Wegener’s Danish, in any case, would be an important tool in convincing them to keep going during the inevitable negotiations en route. Wegener announced that he, Loewe, and thirteen Greenlanders, with fifteen sleds in all, would leave as soon as possible; Weiken would assume command of the expedition at the West Station.76

  They set out on the morning of the twenty-first, and only a few miles out on the ice cap they encountered Wölcken, Jülg, and the Greenlanders from the third sledge journey. The returning party reported that they had met the propeller sleds at the 200-kilometer halfway depot, and that these sleds were preparing to go on to Eismitte. This was wonderful news! They also carried a letter from Georgi and Sorge in which they provided a list of the amount of food and fuel that they had, as well as their estimates of how many men could live for how many months with that amount of food and fuel—separate estimates for two men and three men. If three men were to overwinter, additional cases of food and fuel would be needed. They went on to say, “The fact that we don’t have the propeller sleds puts us in a new and dangerous position. We both have come to an understanding that in case the propeller sleds cannot bring the Firnhaus [the prefabricated tent house of Wegener’s design, weighing 500 kilograms (1,102 pounds)] we would still remain and overwinter if by 20 October we had received.… [what follows is a short list of items, petrol and ice bore some dynamite and cable several boxes marked with their name, seismometer tent, skis a tent, and a few other items] … If,” the letter continued, “we don’t have these items by 20 October here or have not heard anything from you otherwise, we will on that day depart with hand sleds.” They hoped, they said in closing, each day to see the propeller sleds, “whereby all these problems will be solved.”77

  Wegener immediately dispatched sleds back to Kamarajuk to obtain the items on Georgi and Sorge’s list which they had not brought with them. It was a reasonably short list, and the items, other than the extra petrol (which they already had planned to take with them), were not especially heavy. Wegener had the additional items in hand late on the twenty-second, and they started up again, heading inland. On this first day they covered almost 17 kilometers (10.5 miles). Of course, the sleds were not yet loaded and were easy for the dogs to pull.

  On the next day, 23 September, they reached the 40-kilometer (25-mile) point and realized that they were too heavily laden; Wegener decided therefore to off-load everything not absolutely necessary. The next morning, as they awoke, they saw two tents and one motor sledge camped a mile or so ahead of them, and they learned that the sleds had met terrible weather and deep snow at the 200-kilometer depot. Though they might be only one day from Eismitte, they could not make the sleds go forward, and eventually they had to give up and turn around. All four men were now in one sled, having abandoned the other one at kilometer 50 (mile 31.5). They would try to make it back to Scheideck in the remaining propeller sled and then come back and tow both of the motorized sleds in with dogsleds.78 At this point, one of the Greenlanders traveling with Wegener decided to quit then and there and left with the motor sled party for the coast.

  Bad weather—headwinds and heavy snow—now plagued them for three days, and on the twenty-eighth all of the Greenlanders came to Wegener and Loewe’s tent. They wanted to go home. They were cold, they did not have enough clothes, and they could see that the dogs could not pull even these loads in the soft snow. Loewe said that he could see their point, and the majority of them could not be dissuaded by money or argument. Eventually, Wegener talked four of the Greenlanders into going on, with an increase in pay.79

  Before the eight Greenlanders left to return to the coast, Wegener sat down and wrote a letter to Weiken (the same letter quoted as the epigraph to this chapter). In it Wegener gave instructions for paying the Greenlanders who were coming out with the letter, and he said that he did not know whether Sorge and Georgi would be able to stay or would have to come back out with them. He said that he wanted the station manned through the winter, and that Georgi and Sorge had agreed to stay even without the hut. Then came the part about it being “a matter of life and death.” Wegener was convinced that he had to go on and e
ither meet Georgi and Sorge coming back or get there before they left, as he was sure they would die trying to haul sledges—they would certainly freeze to death.80

  So they pushed on, and it took them eight days to cover a little less than 80 kilometers (50 miles). On 6 October, 151 kilometers (94 miles) from the coast, the remaining Greenlanders refused to go on. Wegener therefore wrote another letter to Weiken, with more instructions about paying the men coming out this time, and he told him that in the event that Sorge and Georgi did not want to stay on, he and Loewe would replace them and overwinter, even with a minimal scientific program reduced to some basic meteorology. He asked for a relief party to be sent to the 62-kilometer (38.5-mile) depot, leaving around 10 November and planning to stay until at least 1 December. Wegener told Weiken that he calculated that they had enough rations to keep going as long as they made 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) per day. Whoever came back from Eismitte, there would be three returning, as in the meantime Wegener had talked the youngest of his Greenlanders, Rasmus Villumsen (age twenty-two) from Uvkusigssat, into going the rest of the way with them. Rasmus would certainly come out with whichever two men made the return journey.81