Читать книгу Arctic Obsession - Alexis S. Troubetzkoy - Страница 9
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Eastern Thrusts to Cathay
BY LATE MIDDLE AGES, merchant guilds had come to dominate commerce in most parts of Europe, and in Britain they had developed into a way of life, with most trades being organized — goldsmiths, shoemakers, dyers, stonemasons, bakers, and the like. In 1407, Henry IV approved the formation of a guild to oversee and control overseas trade, particularly in cloth. The Company of Merchant Adventurers, it was popularly called, but its precise name was “Mysterie and Companie of Merchant Adventurers for the Discoverie of Regions, Dominions, Islands, and Places Unknowen.”
The guild flourished and in time it spawned a number of ancillary organizations, including the establishment of the Muscovy Trading Company, the first major English joint-stock company. By its royal charter, the new entity was granted a monopoly of trade between England and Russia, a privilege it enjoyed for 150 years (ceasing operations in 1917 with the Russian Revolution). Impetus for the organization’s formation came from a trio of adventurous entrepreneurs: Richard Chancellor, Sir Hugh Willoughby, and Sebastian Cabot, son of John Cabot, who was the first European to have set foot in North America since the Vikings.
Sebastian Cabot, appointed by the king as “Grand Pilot of England,” held but one searing ambition — to secure the passage to Cathay through the “impassable waters” of northern Russia. He successfully persuaded his fellow merchants to finance an exploratory expedition, and in 1553 three ships were procured, outfitted in Bristol, and launched on their journey: the Bona Esperanza of 120 tons, the 160-ton Edward Bonaventure, and the Bona Confidentia, the smallest of the lot at ninety tons. So confident were they of success in reaching the east, India in particular, that the hulls were coated with lead as protection against infestation of worms, which they understood were common in tropical waters. Commanding the whole was “Admiral of the Fleet” Willoughby on board the Esperanza. A dubious appointment made, we are informed, because he was “preferred above all others, both by reason of his goodly personage (for he was tall of stature) as also for his singular skill in the services of warre.”[1] Height and service as a cavalry officer was all very well and good, but the ships might have been better served had Sir Hugh “taken to the sea” earlier in his career. With a mere three years of sailing experience, his navigation and piloting skills were anything but developed. At his side was a crew of thirty-eight that included a master gunner, a couple of surgeons, and six merchants. Richard Chancellor, the expedition’s chief pilot, was on board the fifty-crew-member Bonaventure, commanded by Stephen Borough.
The sixty-four-year-old Cabot judged himself too aged to join the expedition, which promised to be lengthy and arduous. He did, however, oversee every facet of outfitting and provisioning of the small fleet and he also provided detailed “ordinances, instructions and advertisements of and for the intended voyage to Cathay.” Every aspect of the undertaking was touched upon by the comprehensive orders, including exhortations on personal behaviour. When making contact with the locals of the Far East, for example, Cabot instructed that no native was to be trusted and that every effort had to be made to give the impression that nothing in particular was being sought. He enjoined the expedition’s leaders to treat natives courteously and hospitably, suggesting that they be invited on board and offered beer or wine — a bit of drink was a legitimate bargaining tool. Details of the expedition are vividly related by Richard Hakluyt in a book published in 1599, the remarkable title of which runs 123 words — the short title being, The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation: Made by Sea or Overland to the Most Remote and Furthest Distant Quarters of the Earth. In this singular account, Hakluyt observes that unlike Spanish and Portuguese explorers who were obligated to engage in missionary work, Cabot’s expedition was “not to disclose to any nation the state of our religion, but to pass over in silence, without any declaration of it, seeming to beare with such lawes and rites, as the place hath, when you shall arrive.”[2]
Cabot firmly ordered, however, that prayers be had every morning and every evening on board the ships. Additionally, he directed that there be no swearing, dirty stories, or “ungodly talk to be suffered in the company of any ship, neither dicing, carding, tabling nor other devilish games …” And harking back to his early North American experience with his father, Hakluyt tells us, he gravely warned of certain dangers:
[T]here are people that can swimme in the sea, havens & rivers, naked, having bows and shafts, coveting to draw nigh your ships, which if they shal finde not wel watched, or warded, they wil assault, desirous of the bodies of men, which they covet for meate; if you resist them, they dive, and do well flee, and therefore diligent watch is to be kept both day & night, in some Islands.[3]
Great excitement prevailed as the ships set out to sea from London. As the small fleet passed Greenwich Palace where Edward VI was residing at the time, “the courtiers came running out and the common people flockt together, standing very thicke upon the shoare; the Privie Conssel, they lookt out at the windows of the court, and the rest ranne upto the tops of the towers.” On board the Esperanza, in the strongbox of Willoughby’s cabin, lay letters of recommendation, which His Majesty had graciously provided, introductions to “the Kings, Princes, and other Potentates, inhabiting the Northern parts of the Worlde, towards the mighty Empire of Cathay.”[4] As the vessels passed the palace, gun salutes were exchanged, with everyone on the decks and many ashore resplendent in blue uniforms. By mid-July the ships were off the west coast of Norway, well above the Arctic Circle and in fine weather they made steady progress toward the North Cape.
On the night of August 2, a violent storm struck that the ships barely managed to ride out. In the mayhem, however, the little fleet became dispersed, never fully to reunite. The Edward Bonaventure made its way to the Danish fortress-settlement of Vardǿ at Norway’s extreme northeast tip, forty-five miles from Russia. Chancellor thought to await the hopeful reappearance of the other two vessels, but after a week of idleness and no sight of the other ships, he moved on. Rounding the Kola Peninsula, he made his way into the White Sea and eventually reached the mouth of the Dvina River, near the settlement of Arkhangelsk. Winter arrives early to those parts, and with the markedly deteriorating weather and the start of ice formation, it was decided to take up winter quarters ashore.
In the meantime, the Bona Esperanza and the Bona Confidentia sailed right by Vardǿ without stopping, and continued east, eventually coming to Novaya Zemlya (Russian: “New Land”). This vast archipelago is an extension of the Ural Mountains and it consists of two major islands and scores of lesser ones, stretching northward over a distance of 375 miles. The islands were familiar to Novgorod hunters as early as the eleventh century, but shortly after Sir Hugh’s efforts, they became known to Western Europeans. For the most part the archipelago is a mountainous place with some peaks reaching heights of 3,500 feet. Over a quarter of the thirty-five thousand square miles of territory is permanently ice-covered. In early days, the attraction of Novaya Zemlya was the abundance of walruses, seals, Arctic fox, and polar bears that inhabited the islands — particularly rich fare for hunters resolute enough to carry on their work in dismal winter days when the furs grew especially thick. The modern reader may be familiar with Novaya Zemlya for the nuclear testing ranges the islands housed during the Cold War. It was here that the Arctic suffered her most grievous incursion ever when in 1961 the Soviets detonated “Tsar Bomba” in a massive fifty-megaton atmospheric blast — the largest, most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated. That detonation was followed twelve years later by an underground blast that recorded 6.97 on the Richter Scale — nearly the same strength of force that devastated San Francisco in 1906. It precipitated an avalanche of 80 million tons of rock that blocked two glacial streams, causing a vast lake to form.
With landfall denied and the Confidentia leaking badly, Willoughby decided to turn about and head back whence they had come. As they approached the shores of the Kola Peninsula, one storm after another battered the small vessels — “very evill weather, as frost, snow and haile, as though it had beene the deepe of winter.” The tired and dispirited Willoughby was simply unprepared to continue battling the hostile elements, and he set his sights on securing a safe anchorage in some sheltered harbor. This he found at Nokujeff Bay, a body of water surrounded by barren land, and here he dropped anchor.
Three scouting parties were sent in different directions to scour the area for signs of native settlements, but all to no avail; they returned “without finding of people, or any similitude of habitation.” Days shortened, bitter cold set in, and before long the thick snow of early winter blanketed the ships’ decks.
At the time the gallant little fleet had set out from London, three months earlier in the balm of England’s late summer, no thought had been given to the possibility of becoming ice-locked or of having to winter in the Arctic. Little did they know. The expedition’s chronicler drew a pathetic picture of what unfolded next:
… the days became shorter and shorter, and after 25th of November our voyagers saw no more of the sun even at mid-day. No one was aware of any means of guarding against the cold, and, indeed nothing had been brought for the purpose; for at that time they had no idea in England what a winter in Russia, or in the northern regions in general, was; moreover, the country surrounding Nokujeff Bay was quite bare of wood, so that at that spot were frozen to death, with Sir Hugh Willoughby, the strong crews of both vessels, consisting of sixty-five men. Most of them may have commenced their eternal sleep during the night of more than a month’s duration, from the 25th of November to the 29th of December. But from a signature of Willoughby, it is certain that he was still alive at the end of January, 1554.
Probably before his decease he was even several times rejoiced by a sight of the sun at mid-day; but what a sense of horror it shone upon! Two frozen-up vessels full of stiffened corpses, and only partly discernable through the snow which had drifted over them, towards which the looks of the remaining unhappy voyagers, now but half live, were involuntarily turned, as, hopeless, and deprived even of the comforts of religion, there were despairingly awaiting the same fate.[5]
In the early summer, Russian fishermen came across the two ghostly vessels, and they reported finding Sir Hugh “congealed and frozen to death,” sitting in his cabin making an entry into his journal. Others of the crew, seemingly like a tableau in a wax museum, were described as being frozen with plates in hand or spoons to the mouth, with one man standing opening his locker and “others in various postures like statues.”
Willoughby had elected to winter on board the frozen-in ships; Chancellor chose to establish quarters ashore. It is argued that had Willoughby wintered in snow houses within a protected space he might have survived, whereas others contend that Sir Hugh and his sixty-five companions were doomed from the start, whatever the shelter. As one historian has it, the expedition’s leader suffered from “want of skill and inconstancy of purpose that had led him into difficulties; want of adaptability made the difficulties fatal.” Chancellor’s chronicler concludes, with characteristic British understatement, “One must say they were men worth of a better fate.”[6]
Chancellor and the crew of the Edward Bonaventure fared better than their ill-fated companions on the sister ships. Archangelsk at the time had grown into a substantial Russian settlement, and on his arrival to the area the inhabitants, who were awed by the great size of the English ship, met him with curiosity, warmth, and above all, with reverence. Chancellor seized the moment and in a lordly fashion greeted the awed visitors warmly — taking “them up in all loving sort from the ground.” When news of the Englishman’s landing eventually reached Moscow, the exotic visitor was invited to visit the capital as an honoured guest, so great an impression he had created. Within a few weeks of coming ashore, Chancellor had subtly morphed from an unlucky mariner into a figure of highest consequence — His Majesty’s unofficial envoy to the court of Tsar Ivan IV, “The Terrible.”
On November 23, accompanied by two of the merchants voyaging with him, Chancellor set off by sleigh to Moscow, a distance of 625 miles. Twelve days later, he arrived at the capital and the small party was received by the tsar, who gave them a warm reception and graciously accepted the open letter — credentials, as it were — that Edward VI had supplied to each of the three ships, a message written in many languages:
We have permitted the honourable and brave Hugh Willoughby, and others of our faithful and dear servants who accompany him, to proceed to regions previously unknown, in order to seek such things as We stand in need of, as well as to take to them from our country such things as they require.[7]
Ivan was delighted with the Englishmen and with their opportune visit to his capital. Russia at the time had not yet extended its empire to the shores of the Black Sea, and the Baltic Sea was firmly closed to Russian shipping for that “window to the West” was under the disputed control of two hostile powers: the Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Swedish Empire. The very presence in Moscow of the tsar’s distinguished and genial English guest, however, demonstrated that an open sea route to the west was available to Russia through the Arctic. Furthermore, the Muscovy Company gave every indication of being an ideal trading partner. Ivan was well pleased and he sent Chancellor back to England with promised trade privileges. Thus rooted a long history of Anglo–Russian trade and friendship.
Chancellor, alas, did not survive long enough to enjoy the fruits of his initiatives. In 1556, as a follow-up to his initial trip to Russia, he undertook a second such voyage, and accompanying him on the return home was the tsar’s first ambassador to England. It was a rough passage and as they neared the Scottish coast, an “outrageous tempest” struck the ship. The vessel was driven ashore and Chancellor, hauling the Russian onto a lifeboat, barely managed to escape the condemned ship. He successfully got the envoy ashore, but in the process the boat was swamped and he perished along with much of the crew.
Chancellor’s groundwork in Russia resulted in a period of intense activity for the Muscovy Trading Company and notable successes were achieved, particularly in the Arctic fur trade. These developments did not escape the covetous eyes of the Dutch, who within the decade formed the Dutch White Sea Trading Company, the purpose of which, as the name indicates, was to do business in that region. In 1565, the firm charged Oliver Brunel to establish a trading post at Archangelsk, and to develop his country’s presence in the Arctic. This resourceful and quick-witted individual wasted little time in getting on with it. Within months he had charmed his way into the local society and in the process mastered its language, thus enabling him to deal directly and more advantageously with the hunters. No small-time apparatchik was he — now a growing threat to the hitherto virtual trade monopoly enjoyed by the Muscovy Company. The enraged English managed craftily to persuade Archangelsk officials that the Dutchman was a spy, and the authorities reacted by arresting and imprisoning him. Brunel eventually gained parole, and exiting from jail he fell into the waiting arms of the enterprising Strogonoff family, a Russian merchant clique that eventually came to control Siberia’s entire fur industry — the country’s nineteenth-century Astors. Brunel mustered all his persuasive skills and convinced his benefactors to bypass the British by directing the fur trade of the greater White Sea area through the Dutch. A coup of no small significance.
Successful as he was in matters of trade, Brunel was driven by the burning ambition of laying bare the Northeast Passage, a cause that shaped his life for the following two decades. In those years under a succession of sponsors — the Strogonoffs, Dutch merchants, the Danish King, English fur barons — he undertook five expeditions into the Russian Arctic, one of which was by land to the Ob River in central Siberia, the first European to reach those parts. And then, on his final journey in 1584, he and his ship vanished mysteriously without a trace, never to be seen or heard from again — victim of the Arctic’s beguiling song.
Brunel’s early success on the White Sea, however, and his subsequent thrusts into the frozen east served to enflame further Dutch interest in the elusive eastern passage. The most renowned of the country’s ensuing explorers was “the prudent, skillful, brave and experienced [Willem] Barents — the most distinguished martyr to Arctic investigation,” who, at the close of the sixteenth century, undertook three successive journeys into the northeast. The first two expeditions returned home with nothing more than colourful tales of adventures in the frozen North, but the report of the third journey stands high in the literature of Arctic survival. As one nineteenth-century historian put it, Barents was the first European “to winter amid the horrors of the Polar cold; deprived of every comfort which could have ameliorated the sojourn; dependent even for vital warmth on the fires which are kindled in indomitable heart; and uncheered from the beginning to the end by the sight of, or intercourse with, any human visitors …”[8] It’s a tale that is vividly recorded by Gerrit de Veer, one of the seventeen-man crew who survived the ordeal.
The first of Barents’s journeys took place in 1594. Four ships put out to sea from Zealand on Denmark’s shores, he on board the Mercury and his partner, Corneilius Nai, on board the Swan. After a month’s sail they reached the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, where the group split up. Nai set course with two ships for the archipelago’s southern tip with the goal of securing the passage to Cathay from that direction, while Barents moved north to do the same on the opposite end. Nai successfully navigated through the southern strait and after working his way through the ice packs he reached a vast expanse of open water. “We met with no more ice, nor any sign of it,” the record for August 9 tells us, “… only a spacious open sea with a swell such as oceans have everywhere, and a great depth, for which we could not touch ground with the lead …”[9] There was no doubting it: they had at long last pried open the coveted northern door to Cathay — success at last. One can imagine the euphoria that must have descended on the ships’ crews … and the foaming tankards that no doubt were raised to celebrate their victory. With mission accomplished and the season rapidly advancing, Nai found no need for continuing farther east, and he ordered a turnabout and a course for home. Little did the poor man know that the “spacious open sea” with swells and depths were in no way a key to any doorway; it was an illusion, a mirage of sorts. Had he sailed east a few more days into the Kara Sea, he would have encountered the same irresolute ice barrier that would stymie more than one future traveller.
In the meantime, Barents was making his way up the coast, pressing ever more north. One highlight of that passage seems to have been their stumbling upon a herd of walrus — some two hundred of them. Knowledge of these “wonderfull strong sea monsters”[10] was already had, but now they came face to face with these “sea-horses … with two teeth sticking out of their mouths, one on each side, each being about halfe an elle long [fourteen inches].” We are told of a close encounter with one such animal, which, having “cast her young ones before her into the water,” attacked their ship’s boat … “the sea-horse almost stricken her teeth into the sterne of the boate, thinking to overthrow it.” The crew barely managed to ward it off with oars and “the great cry that the men made.”
Barents’s expedition proved inconclusive and on the whole uneventful. The vessels completed the passage to the most northerly point of Novaya Zemlya, where they were battered by a strong gale and where their progess was barred by thick ice packs. Unable to proceed farther and with the exhausted crews in a mutinous mood, there was no alternative but to return home. Whatever disappointment Barents may have suffered for his part of the venture, certain satisfaction was taken in the charting of much of the archipelago’s coastlines. All in all, he regarded the expedition as a glorious success — his partner travelling in the south, after all, had uncovered the elusive passage to the Far East, in the words of one contemporary, “a very broad claim.”
In the earlier part of the voyage, as the ships followed the Siberian coastline eastward, they made first European contact with “the strange people called ‘Samoyeds.’” Word of the existence of these primitive “wilde men” had already filtered to Europeans. Their culture was based entirely on reindeer — draught animals were reindeer; boats were of reindeer hide; their semi-underground homes were covered by reindeer hides; parkas were of reindeer (with the skin on the outside); their gloves and hoods also of reindeer, and their crudely carved idols were of reindeer skulls and bones. The other news of these people was not good: it was said that they engaged in cannibalism. One staggering Russian report of 1560 tells of a feast offered a visiting merchant in which a roasted child was the centrepiece. The same report asserted that should the merchant have died among them his body would also have been eaten — small wonder that the literal translation of Samoyed is “self-eater.” Barents’s chronicler makes only passing comment on the exchanges that took place between the Dutch and these singular natives. Today the descendents of the Samoyeds are called Nenets. In the 1870s the Russian government forcibly relocated some of them to Novaya Zemlya in a successful effort to wrest claim of the land from Norway.
Word of Barents’s success spread quickly through Holland. Prince Maurice, son of King William I, was particularly encouraged by the fruits of the initiatives and he became filled with “the most exaggerated hopes.” In his enthusiasm he caused a fresh expedition to be mounted which he, himself, helped to finance. Barents was awarded the title, “Chief Pilot of the States-General and Conductor” and urged to prepare promptly for a return to Siberia, this time with an enlarged fleet … and hopes assured.
Bathed in optimism and good cheer, six ships set sail in June 1595, heavily loaded with an array of goods for trade with the peoples of Cathay. They were accompanied by a seventh vessel, which was to return home to report on the expedition’s progress after it had rounded the Taymyr Peninsula, the massive body of land that serves as the Arctic Ocean’s east–west divide in that part of the globe.
In nearing 75°N the ships came across an unfamiliar island sided by high cliffs rising from the sea. An exploratory party was sent ashore to search out the place and as the men moved inland they were ambushed by a polar bear. The animal had snuck up stealthily behind them and grabbed a hapless sailor by the neck. The victim’s panicked companions ran for their lives, but shortly thereafter turned back “either to save the man or else to drive the beare from the body.”[11] As the group approached the animal with pikes and oars they were horrified to find the animal “devouring the man … the beare bit his head in sunder and sucked out his blood.” The feasting animal spotted the approaching party and charged. Again, the sailors scattered, but as they ran, one of them was caught by the enraged beast and killed by a single blow of a massive paw. From the deck of one of the nearby ships, the unfolding drama had been observed and boats were quickly lowered with reinforcements. The well-armed party engaged the “cruell, fierce and ravenous beast;” and after a frantic struggle managed to kill it without further casualty. Barents gave the name of Bear Island to the place where this fatal encounter occurred.
At this point it might be appropriate briefly to digress by putting Barents aside, and make a few introductory remarks on the polar bear in general. It is after all the iconic animal of the Arctic Ocean and sub-Arctic regions, and, given the rapidity of environmental changes, anxiety exists as to its future. The polar bear is the world’s largest land predator, reaching heights of as much as ten feet and weights of 1,500 pounds. Its preferred world, however, is the ice packs and the open waters where seals flourish, its principal source of food. Land becomes attractive in the absence of seals, and it is on land also that the female bear passes through her final stages of gestation and where, after burrowing into the permafrost, she delivers her newborns.
In addition to an exceptional sense of smell, the polar bear possesses a remarkable ability to hunt out its next meal by stealth; it approaches a target seemingly cloaked by invisibility, so well does its white coat blend with the terrain. It then usually seizes the victim’s head and crushes the skull with powerful jaws, the strength of which is capable of killing a mature walrus or a beluga whale. Although seals are undeniably the dietary preference, the bear’s tastes are remarkably eclectic with reindeer, rodents, birds, and shellfish acceptable substitutes. (In the garbage dumps of Churchill, Manitoba, bears have been observed ingesting Styrofoam, plastics, and a car battery.)
In bygone days, native bear hunters were handsomely rewarded for their successes for every part of the felled animal found use: food for nourishment, fur for trousers and footwear, sinews for thread, fat for lamp oil, bones for tools, and the heart and gallbladders for their medicinal qualities. Only the highly toxic liver was discarded. So valued and revered were the beasts that in certain societies — the Chukchi of eastern Siberia, for example — that they took on religious significance and their skulls and body parts were used in shamanistic rituals.
Today’s polar bears have fallen mightily from their lofty pedestals, and they are viewed in diverse terms — as tourist attractions for the curious, as parents of cuddly cubs, as the dream quarry of recreational hunters, and as scavengers of garbage dumps or unwelcomed, dangerous interlopers. The impact of global warming is proving calamitous for these noble animals and the possibility of extinction hovers ominously, as will be explored more fully in the final chapters.
Returning now to Barents. His expedition continued east from Bear Island and eventually arrived at Novaya Zemlya. He rounded the southern tip at the point where Nai was pleased to make his “very broad claim,” but, alas, he found no sign of the “spacious, open sea.” The Kara Sea was frozen solid, a smooth sheet of thick ice that made further passage impossible. The disappointment must have been palpable, but with the season advancing rapidly and a restless crew clamoring for a return home, there was no option but to do so.
Despite frustration at having failed to confirm a gateway to the East, the undaunted Barents once more lobbied Dutch authorities for funds to launch yet another exploration. The Estates General, however, had had enough and it balked at acquiescing to the explorer’s demands. It did, however, post a reward of 25,000 guilders to any association or individual who would successfully navigate the Northern Sea Passage. Even before that announcement was formally made, the steadfast Town Council of Amsterdam took up the challenge and, raising 12,000 guilders, they outfitted two small vessels. This time the practical precaution was taken to engage only bachelor seamen, so that “they might not be diswaded by means of their wives and children to leave off the voyage.”[12] Overall charge of the enterprise was given over to Barents with Jacob van Heemskirk commanding one ship and Jan Rijp the other.
A map “closely agreeing with Barents’ own original Map, 1598,” which depicts the explorer’s third voyage into the Arctic.
Taken from J.I. Pontani, Rerum et Urbis Amstelodamensium Historia. Amsterdam. 1611.
Setting out on May 18, 1596, the vessels reached the Shetlands within a fortnight and by early June they were well above the Arctic Circle with course set for east. Excitement was had when the ships came across a floating carcass of a massive whale that “stouncke monsterously,” and later even more was generated when an enormous polar bear was spotted swimming across the bows of the lead vessel, which the sailors chased and hunted down. On June 17 they reached 79°49' N, arriving to a snow-covered land, which they initially assumed to be part of Greenland, but quickly realized otherwise. A landing party was sent ashore to explore the place, and it was richly rewarded by the discovery of countless bird nests, from which hundreds of eggs were harvested for the ships’ larders. During that brief foray, a plaque bearing the Dutch coat of arms was ceremoniously erected and the new land claimed in the name of King Willliam I. They named the place “Spitzbergen” (sharp mountain), as it is known today.
At this point a serious disagreement took place between Rijp and Heemskirk as to the direction to be taken next. In those days it was commonly believed that water did not freeze at a distance from land — even in the highest latitudes — a belief that persisted well into the nineteenth century. Rijp therefore insisted on a return due north while Heemskirk argued for a sail northeast toward Novaya Zemlya for another try via the islands’ north. Barents sided with Heemskirk. Since both parties held firm in their stubborn convictions it was decided to split up — one to pursue a course due north, the other to head for Novaya Zemlya.
The record of Rijp’s further sail is incomplete. Suffice to say that his tiny vessel did press on and in following Greenland’s coastline north it eventually became obstructed by dense ice floes that made further progress impossible. Weary and disheartened, he returned home with little to show for his efforts. Of Barents’s voyage, on the other hand, much is known thanks to de Veer, the diarist. His writings provide one of the more compelling tales of Arctic winter survival — the first such by Europeans.
Proceeding northeast as argued, Barents arrived at Novaya Zemlya and followed its coast to the northern tip at Mys Zhelaniya (Russian, meaning Cape Desire). The promontory was rounded and the vessel continued to parallel the coastline, which, to universal disappointment, was found to be unfolding in a southerly direction, rather than eastward. Contrary to expectations, furthermore, the Kara Sea was cluttered with formidable ice packs. The weather initially was “mistie, melancholy and snowie,” but then strong northeasterly winds developed that grew into gale force. Not only was the ship being systematically driven toward the rocky shore, but the ice was being pushed in the same direction. Heemstrick had his hands full trying to forcefully twist and dodge the menacing floes. Some sixty miles south of Mys Zhelaniya, ice and wind conditions deteriorated further, so much so that it was decided to find refuge in some coastal haven and wait out the fierce weather. The unabating east wind made it impossible for the ship to retrace its route A hurried search for suitable harbourage along the unpromising coastline brought the little vessel to a place they called “Ice Haven.” It was August 26, late in the season, and they were at 70°45' N.
That night the winds grew more forceful and so pressed the ice packs in the shallow cove that Barents’s vessel became tightly pinned. The relentless pressure of the floes increased alarmingly, and, in the somewhat fanciful 1857 words of the Dutchman de Peyster, the vessel, like a child’s toy, was “raised up to the top of the constantly-increasing ice-elevation, as if by the scientific application of machinery …” [T]he “cabined, cribbed and confined” crew was overwhelmed by “the thundering crashes of the icebergs outside their frail bark … with a din as if a whole mountain of marble had been blown up by some internal explosive force.” And the cracking and groaning of the ship, itself, “was so dreadful … that the crew were terrified lest their ship should fall in pieces with every throe, which seemed to rock it from deck to keel.”
The precariousness of their situation became abundantly clear, so much so that Barents ordered most of the ship’s cargo be taken ashore, with just enough left on board should the ship survive. In the days that followed, the wind died down and hopes were raised that the ice might retreat. But that was not to be, and after the brief respite the bluster resumed, causing the ice to squeeze and smash the trapped vessel even more. From the shore, the crew watched the unfolding spectacle with horror, making “all the hairs of our heads to rise upright with fear.”
Days passed with the weather vacillating from fair and sunny to cold and snowy, all the while the badly scarred ship remaining firmly locked in an icy grip. On September 5, a scouting party sent out into the island’s treeless interior returned with welcome news that not only had a vast deposit of driftwood been discovered but also a source of fresh water. By the 11th the stark reality was accepted that the group would be forced “in great cold, poverty, misery and grief to stay all that winter.” In preparation for the grim prospect, it was decided to begin without delay the construction of a suitable shelter ashore, “to keep us therein as well as we could, and so to commit ourselves unto the tuition of God.”
Parties were sent inland to scout out the most suitable place “to raise our house, and yet we had not much stuff to make it with … there grew no trees nor any other thing in that country convenient to build it with.” They did, however, receive “unexpected comfort” in locating another large deposit of driftwood and that “wood served us not only to build our house, but also to burne and serve us all winter; otherwise without doubt we had died there miserably with extreme cold.”
De Veer’s diary is an interesting read for the telling vignettes he offers on the day-by-day existence of the stranded party. His September 13 entry, for example, read: “It was a calm but very misty weather, so that we could do nothing because it was dangerous for us to go inland, because we could not see the bears; and yet they could smell better than they see.” And then the laconic entry for the 23rd in its entirety — and here one might well ask, what manner of men were these? “We fetched more wood to build our house, which we did twice a day, but it grew to be misty and still weather again, the wind blowing east and east-northeast. That day our carpenter (being of Purmecaet)[13] died as we came aboard about evening.” And then, the totality of the following day’s entry: “We buried him under the sieges [shale] in the cleft of a hill, hard by the water, for we could not dig up the earth by reason of the great frost and cold; and that day we went twice with our sleds to fetch wood.” Void of emotion, almost heartless in delivery.
The construction work was wrought with difficulties, despite the abundance of driftwood and quantities of planks scavenged from the ship. The undertaking had now to be done without the professional oversight of the deceased carpenter. Extreme cold hindered rapid progress — “it froze so hard that as we put a nail in our mouths, there would ice hang there on when we took it out again, and made the blood flow.” Work on particularly misty days had to be suspended for fear of marauding bears that seemed constantly about. For the hauling of wood, a sled had been fabricated from some planks taken from the stranded ship. The distance from the driftwood quarry to the site was four miles and bears were periodically encountered on the long haul. Once a particularly threatening beast suddenly appeared and the frightened men panicked. Heenskirk’s level-headedness and power of command saved the situation. He ordered the men to form a tight circle, threatening to kill anyone who ran, and, by uproariously shouting and waving arms, they intimidated the animal sufficiently to scare it away.
In 1596, William Barents’s third expedition in search of the Northeast Passage became ice-locked off Novaya Zemlya. A contemporary sketch shows “the exact manner of house wherein we wintered.”
It took nearly a month to complete construction, and on October 24 the sixteen men moved into their new quarters. The building measured thirty-two feet by twenty, constructed of driftwood and ship’s planking; with the roof covered by slate gathered from nearby. As the men were making the final run with the sled carrying supplies from the stranded ship to their new quarters, they were attacked by three bears. While Heemskirk and de Veer fought the beasts with halberds, the remainder of the party ran for the ship. The distracted animals paused long enough for the men to make a goodly head start, but quickly gave chase. The sailors made it safely to the vessel and a lively battle ensued with the animals, soon joined by Heemskirk and de Veer. The sole means of defence at hand was the two halberds and an abundance of fireplace logs that were hurled at the marauders, “and every time we threw they ran after them, as a dog [might] do at a stone cast at him.” The struggle came to an abrupt close by a well-placed halberd blow on one animal’s delicate snout. The pained bear ran off with the other two closely behind. “We thanked God that we were so well delivered from them.”
With the passing of time, the bears seemed to have migrated out of the region and, in their wake, white fox appeared in large numbers. One such animal was killed with a hatchet, skinned, and roasted on a spit. It was found to taste like a rabbit, and “its skin served us for a good defense [against the cold].” The lamps at the dinner table were fuelled by melted bear fat and outside the shelter lay the frozen carcasses of beasts that had been hunted earlier.
October 28: “Three of our men went to the place where we had set the bear upright and there stood frozen, thinking to pull out her teeth. But it was clean covered over with snow. And while they were there it began to snow so fast, that they were glad to come home as fast as they could. But the snow beat so sore upon them that they could hardly see their way, and had almost lost their way.”
November 4: “It was calm weather, but then we saw the sun no more, for it was no longer about the horizon. Then our surgeon made a bath for us to bathe in, of a wine pipe,[14] wherein we entered one after the other, and it did us much good and was a great means of our health.” By mid-November the clock ceased ticking and all sense of time was lost; was it day or was it night? Dark inside, dark outside. Men crawling out of their bunks “to make water” outdoors could not discern “whether the light they saw was the light of day or of the moon.”
By then, they became conscious of the diminishing supply of bread — “we shared our bread amongst us, each man having four pounds and ten ounces for his allowance in eight days … whereas before we ate it up in five or six days.” Traps set for fox proved effective and the animals became an important food source, that and plentiful fish. The store of beer was also a concern for not only was the supply lessening, but the stuff “was for the most part wholly without strength, so that it had no flavor at all.” Wine was rationed — “every man had two glasses a day, but commonly our drink was water which we melted out of the snow.”
As for successive weather notations of late November and early December : “foule weather,” “faire weather,” “darke weather,” “still weather,” “indifferent weather,” but for the most part it was “foule,” with a continuous blow of east winds. It was “so cold that when we washed our sheets and wrung them, they froze so stiff that, although we laid them by a great fire, the side that lay next to the fire thawed, but the other side was hard frozen.” Boots turned “as hard as horns upon our feet, and within they were white froze.” Indoor it was not only dark, but the quarters were smoke-filled for lack of sufficient draw by the primitive chimney. And it was bitterly cold — “we could hardly sit by the fire because of the smoke, and therefore stayed in our cabins [bunks]. We heated stones which we put in our cabins to warm our feet, for both the cold and the smoke were insupportable.” Sleep often proved impossible because of the thunderous cracking of ice in the nearby sea.
At one time the cold became so bitter that they decided to burn some coal brought from the ship. The satisfying intensity of the fire “cast a great heat” and the men gathered happily about the table. Soon, however, poisonous fumes overcame one of them and the others found themselves developing nausea and headaches. The nearly asphyxiated man was hustled out-of-doors, had vinegar sprinkled on his face, and in the cold, bracing air he soon came around. Barents “gave every one of us a little wine to comfort our hearts.”
By mid-December the checking of fox traps became a grim task because of the excessive cold and wind for “if we stayed too long there arose blisters upon our faces and our ears.” The plentiful fox provided not only sustenance, but their skins were fashioned into snowsuits. Christmas Day came and went as any other day with no mention of the occasion — “it was foule weather with a northwest wind.” It had been snowing steadily and the house had become literally snowed in. On the 28th one of the men thought to explore the outdoors, but to do so he had first to pry open the frozen door and then dig a passage through the wall of blocking snow. “He found it so bad weather that he stayed not long and told us that the snow lay higher than our house.”
New Years’ Day, 1597. A ration of wine for every man, sipped sparingly for the depleting stock. “We were in fear that it would still be long before we should get out from thence.” The cold and wind were so bad that days passed without anyone venturing outside — “in four or five days we durst not put our heads out of doores,” writes de Veer. Little wonder at the uncertainty of days: with no clock or view of the outside world, how could the incarcerated crew determine a day’s beginning or end? Finally, to check the wind, a pike was thrust through the chimney opening “with a little cloth or feather upon it,” but the improvised vane froze instantly and proved useless.
And so the days and weeks dragged into April. During that time food stores diminished, especially store of bread, which was a cause for alarm. Men weakened as illnesses of one sort or another seemed constantly to plague them with one death being recorded. The appearance of scurvy was particularly concerning — these pioneer Arctic explorers had not yet learned that fresh bear meat was an effective counteragent. The gathering of wood became a task beyond endurance, for in the passing of time the search had to be made farther afield. The valued fox population petered out and the bears reappeared. A particularly close call was had when one threatened entry into the house through the chimney — it was killed.
The days eventually grew longer and the sun’s rays not only warmed the spirits of the closeted men, but brought about changes to the stark Arctic landscape. Where before there was only rugged ice on the nearby sea, now more and more open water became visible. Barents’s broken ship, however, continued in its firm ice-bound captivity. The inspections that had been carried out periodically during the winter had long revealed that the vessel was probably beyond repair, and now the accumulated frozen waters within the hold confirmed the worst: the ship would never sail again. All hopes of the despairing men to return home appeared to have vanished and only miraculous intervention by the Almighty could save them.
Great as the anguish no doubt was, Dutch willpower and resourcefulness ultimately prevailed: the men determined to hazard an escape on the ship’s whaleboat and the tiny yawl. To do nothing was certain death; a try, however challenging and unlikely, offered a modicum of hope. In anticipation that the sea would open completely in the coming weeks, they set to work refurbishing and supplying the two small boats. The highest quality of seamanship would be required with every man having to be totally alert and pulling his weight. But then, an unexpected turn: as preparations were nearing completion, the work party was attacked by bears. Not without difficulty, one animal was killed and the other scurried away. A fire was kindled and the hungry men indulged in fresh roasted meat with three of them unknowingly consuming the liver, the toxic bit of the carcass which under no circumstances was ever to be consumed — within hours they fell gravely ill. Worrisome days passed with the three being ministered to as well as circumstances permitted. Thankfully, they recovered, “for which we gave God thanks,” writes de Veer, “for if as then we had lost these three men, it was a hundred to one we should never have gotten away, because we should have had too few men to draw and lift at our need.”
While the men worked on the boats, Barents was ashore, prone on his back suffering from advanced scurvy and a helpless invalid. On June 14 the sea opened sufficiently and with the vessels fully loaded, he and another sufferer were carried by stretcher to the shoreline and gently placed on board, one in each boat. They then sailed away, “committing ourselves to the will and mercie of God, with a west north-west wind and an endifferent open water, we set saile and put to sea.” Left behind was the lovingly constructed house that had sheltered them during that dark, savage winter. A letter written by Barents was nailed on the chimney relating the tale of the expedition’s adventures and survival and signed by every member of the crew. The document told “how we came out of Holland to saile to the kingdom of China, and what had happened unto us being there on land, with all our crosses, that if any man chanced to come thither, they might know what happened unto us and how we had been forced in our extremity to make that house and had dwelt 10 monthes therein.” The two tiny crafts put out to sea and headed north. Their plan was to round Mys Zhelaniya, proceed south, hugging Novaya Zemlya’s west shore and make contact with Russians or Samoyeds on the mainland coast.
On the third day out they found themselves in a narrow channel with thick ice buffeting them about. With action of the floes growing increasingly rough and threatening to the insubstantial hulls, Heemskirk gave orders for the vessels to be hauled out of the water onto a large stable floe. Supplies were unloaded, the sick men laid out on piles of clothing, and the boats were duly dragged to safety. From time to time faults in the ice opened and a number of containers disappeared into the sea, including casks of bread, trunks of clothing, and the boxed astrolabe.[15] One sharp-eyed sailor, however, managed to grab hold of the ship’s moneybox just in the nick of time as it was about to be swallowed up — Dutch blood spoke.
Repairs were carried out on the hulls, “much bruised and crushed with the racking of the ice.” On the third day of their self-imposed idleness as they awaited the clearing of a passage, Barents suffered his last and died. His body was gently lowered into the water. “The death of Willem Barents put us in no small discomfort, as being the chief guide and only pilot on whom we reposed ourselves next under God …” writes de Veer. Shortly after the leader’s death, the other critically ill man also died.
On the 22nd, the waters cleared sufficiently for the boats to move on and after a few days more sail through ice, contrary winds, and then fog the two vessels managed to clear Novaya Zemlya and eventually reached Siberia where they were greeted by native fishermen. After days of rest and with strength renewed, they continued their two-hundred-mile passage, rounded the Kola Peninsula and arrived safely to a Lapland fishing village. The Russians received them with every sort of hospitality, taking them into their homes and offering them dry clothing. “We ate our bellies full which in long time we had not.” Then in early September, eleven weeks after setting out, they came across by pure serendipity their colleague from whom they separated in Spitzbergen on the outbound passage. The survivors reached Holland on November 1, eleven months after leaving.
Reflecting on this remarkable tale of endurance and survival, one stands in awe at the Dutchmen’s force of character. Imagine setting out on a sixty-foot wooden boat into unknown and uncharted reaches of the high Arctic, provisioned and equipped with four-hundred-year old technology. Imagine standing on a barren, bear-infested island in bitter cold and snow and watching your vessel being heaved up by ice and broken. Then, with little likelihood of rescue, being cloistered for over half a year with seventeen others, freezing in a gloomy, acrid shelter inexpertly constructed of planks and driftwood (your share of the floor space is forty square feet). And in that isolation: sickness and death, pitiable diet, dangerous bears, extreme monotony, and a profound sense of isolation and abandonment. One wonders at the mould from which these early Arctic intrepids were formed — exceptional people they were. Eighteen men had been drawn by the beguiling song of the Arctic Siren. Twelve returned home, six became enveloped in her deadly embrace.
Notes
1. Jeannette Mirsky, To the Arctic! (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 26.
2. G.B. Parks, Richard Hakluyt and the English Voyages, Publication #10 (New York: American Geographical Society, 1928), 56.
3. Richard Vaughan, The Arctic: A History (Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing, 1994), 56.
4. Ibid., 27.
5. J. Hamel, England and Russia:Comprising the Voyages of Tradescant the Elder and Others (London: Frank Cass &Co. Ltd., 1965), 87.
6. L.H. Neatby, Discovery in Russian and Siberian Waters (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1973), 10.
7. J. Hamel, 100.
8. J. Watts De Peyster, The Dutch at the North Pole and the Dutch in Main (New York: New York Historical Society, 1857), 10.
9. Richard Vaughan, 60.
10. Gerrit De Veer, The Three Voyages of William Barents to the Arctic (London: The Hakluyt Society, 1876), 25.
11. Ibid., 63.
12. L.H. Neatby, 22.
13. A small town north of Amsterdam.
14. A large wine cask capable of holding 150 gallons.
15. An astrolabe is a primitive instrument used in determining latitudes, in bygone days essential for navigation.
