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Updated: May 24, 2025
They were discussing the morrow, which logically led to a consideration of the ice-pack, among other things, and thence to Cap'n Barney Hodge's ill luck. "Take a hard and early winter," old Bill Darragh, the dean of the boatmen, was saying, "then a thaw in the middle o' December, and then a friz-up, and ye git conditions that ain't propitious, as ye may say, fur towboatmen nur fur us, neither."
But rejoicings over the breaking-up of the ice were brief; in four-and- twenty hours the island was hemmed in on every side by the ice-pack, so that there was not a speck of open water to be seen. And then the snow began. "We really thought it was time to begin work on the land," said the people; but they could put up with the cold there was still time enough.
After the Fram had been caught in the ice-pack, Nansen and his companion, Johansen, started toward the north pole with dog sledges. They reached latitude 86° 14'; finding that the ice was drifting southward, they made for Franz Josef Land, where they spent the winter, and then started for Spitzbergen.
There were many pessimistic prophets to see the Princess May off. From skipper to cook not a man aboard her was familiar with the coast, or could recognize a single landmark or headland either on the Newfoundland coast or on The Labrador. They were going into rugged, fog-clogged seas. They might encounter an ice-pack, and the sea was always strewn with menacing icebergs.
At times the little vessels were lifted clear out of the sea, their sides torn with the fierce blows of the ice-pack, their seams strained and leaking. All night they looked for instant death.
The men who survived him determined to continue his work, and the next summer two fought their way northward a few miles beyond the point attained by Hall. But after this achievement the ship was caught in the ice-pack, and for two months drifted about, helpless in that unrelenting grasp.
They were all going mad; were, in fact, three parts crazed already, all except the Gaffer. And the Gaffer relied on him as his right-hand man. One glimpse of the returning sun one glimpse only might save them yet. He gazed out over the frozen hills, and northward across the ice-pack. A few streaks of pale violet the ghost of the Aurora fronted the moon. He could see for miles.
When they got back to the ship it was dinner-time, and both were snow-blind. The black steward carried them down and seated them at table, but it was quite half an hour before they could see. Although the ship was now kept well away from the ice-pack, they could often see vessels far in through frozen ice, but busy, busy at their terrible work.
The fog had lifted, for it was now nearly noon, and although some rain still fell, the eye could see the broken ice-pack seamed with channels, and scarred with pools of varying size, for at least eight miles in any direction. Regnar started, turned to his companion, and seizing his shoulder with convulsive energy, pointed to the east.
It was thought that the ice-pack always lay pressed up against the Siberian coast, rendering it impossible to get past; parts had been already sailed along and stretches of coasts were known, but to voyage all the way to the Behring Strait was out of the question. Now Nordenskiöld reasoned that the ice must begin to drift in summer, and leave an open channel close to the land.
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