Our Winter Hut. December 31, 1895
(By Lars Jorde, from a photograph)
“And this is Christmas-day! There are family dinners going on at home. I can see the dignified old father standing smiling and happy in the doorway to welcome children and grandchildren. Out-of-doors the snow is falling softly and silently in big flakes; the young folk come rushing in fresh and rosy, stamp the snow off their feet in the passage, shake their things and hang them up, and then enter the drawing-room, where the fire is crackling comfortably and cozily in the stove, and they can see the snowflakes falling outside and covering the Christmas corn-sheaf. A delicious smell of roasting comes from the kitchen, and in the dining-room the long table is laid for a good, old-fashioned dinner with good old wine. How nice and comfortable everything is! One might fall ill with longing to be home. But wait, wait; when summer comes....
“Oh, the road to the stars is both long and difficult!
“Tuesday, December 31st. And this year too is vanishing. It has been strange, but, after all, it has perhaps not been so bad.
“They are ringing out the old year now at home. Our church-bell is the icy wind howling over glacier and snow-field, howling fiercely as it whirls the drifting snow on high in cloud after cloud, and sweeps it down upon us from the crest of the mountain up yonder. Far in up the fjord you can see the clouds of snow chasing one another over the ice in front of the gusts of wind, and the snow-dust glittering in the moonlight. And the full moon sails silent and still out of one year into another. She shines alike upon the good and the evil, nor does she notice the wants and yearnings of the new year. Solitary, forsaken, hundreds of miles from all that one holds dear; but the thoughts flit restlessly to and fro on their silent paths. Once more a leaf is turned in the book of eternity, a new blank page is opened, and no one knows what will be written on it.”
1 This supposition is extremely doubtful.
2 It proved later that this must be Crown Prince Rudolf Land.
3 In reality we were probably farther from it than before.
4 We saw more and more of these remarkable birds the farther we went.
5 As a rule, we crossed the lanes in this manner; we placed the sledges, with the kayaks on, side by side, lashed them together, stiffened them by running the snow-shoes across under the straps, which also steadied them, and then launched them as they were, with the sledges lashed underneath. When across, we had only to haul them up on the other side.
6 The first island I called “Eva’s Island,” the second “Liv’s Island,” and the little one we were then on “Adelaide’s Island.” The fourth island south of us had, perhaps, already been seen by Payer, and named by him “Freeden Island.” The whole group of islands I named “Hvidtenland” (White Land).
7 Icebergs of considerable size have been described as having been seen off Franz Josef Land, but I can only say with reference to this that during the whole of our voyage through this archipelago we saw nothing of the kind. The one mentioned here was the biggest of all those we came across, and they were, compared with the Greenland icebergs, quite insignificant masses of glacier-ice.
8 I have called it granite in my diary, but it was in reality a very coarse-grained basalt. The specimens I took have unfortunately been lost.
9 “Houen’s Island.”
10 “Torup’s Island.”
11 This color is owing to a beautiful minute red alga, which grows on the snow (generally Spaerella nivalis). There were also some yellowish-green patches in this snow, which must certainly be attributed to another species of alga.
12 It proved later to be Crown Prince Rudolf’s Land.
13 Off Brögger’s Foreland.
14 Clements Markham’s Foreland.
15 Helland’s Foreland.
16 On Helland’s Foreland.
17 I took specimens of the different rock formations, lichens, etc., that we came across; but in the course of the winter the collection was stolen by the foxes, and I thus brought little home from the tracts north of our winter hut.
18 As this promontory is probably the land Jackson saw farthest north in the spring of 1895, it has no name upon my map. It is otherwise with the islands outside, which he did not notice. They are only indicated approximately (as Geelmuyden Island and Alexander’s Island), as I am not certain of either their number or their exact situation.
19 These three islands, whose bearings we were subsequently enabled to take, and which we could see from our winter hut, are probably the land which Jackson saw and took to be “King Oscar Land.” In consequence of his having seen them from only one point (his Cape Fisher), due south, in 81°, he has placed them 40′ too far north, in 82°), having overestimated their distance. (See his map in the Geographical Journal, Vol. VII., No. 6, December, 1896, London.)
20 Called Steinen on the map.
21 I now thought I could safely conclude that we were on the west coast of Franz Josef Land, and were at this moment a little north of Leigh Smith’s most northwesterly point, Cape Lofley, which should lie a little south of 81° north latitude, while our observation that day made us about 81° 19′ north latitude.
22 Ice which is frozen fast to the bottom, and is therefore often left lying like an icy base along the shore even after the sea is free from ice. On account of the warm water which comes from the land, an open channel is often formed between this ice-base and the shore.
23 It was a registering thermometer, which was also used as a sling-thermometer.
24 It often blew very fresh there under the mountain. Another time, one of my snow-shoes, which was stuck into the snowdrift beside the hut, was broken short off by the wind. It was a strong piece of maple.
25 Christmas-eve and New-year’s-eve were the only occasions on which we allowed ourselves to take any of the provisions which we were keeping for our journey southward.