FIGURE 89
A contemplative Captain Thorvald Nilsen, with Antarctica in the background. He took the Fram farther than any of the commanders or other captains of the expeditions.
On the journey from the barrier to Buenos Aires, the Fram did a bit of everything a ship can do, from pushing through or circumventing pack ice to dodging icebergs, chugging through unexpected calms by diesel engine, sailing full and by, or running free, and even battling a hurricane. Nilsen described in his diary how the Fram behaved during that hurricane, meeting monster waves barreling in on it and riding high over them, and then dropping into the troughs so vertiginously that it felt as though they were leaving their feet in free fall. The Fram was a marvel, accepting and fending off the monstrous ocean with the same grace as it did the monstrous ice. Was it any wonder, Nilsen asked rhetorically, that one grows to love such a ship?
››› At the end of March, a month and a half after leaving the barrier, the Fram rounded Cape Horn and turned north along the east coast of South America. Unusually for that region and, especially, for that time of year, their passage was easy: fair, sunny weather; light and following winds; and gentle seas. It continued so all the way to Buenos Aires, giving the crew the opportunity to spruce up the ship, and even paint it, before coming back into civilization. On Easter Sunday night, by the light of the moon, Nilsen sounded the depths and used stars to navigate to take the Fram up Rio de la Plata (La Plata River). In the wee hours of Monday morning, they saw the light of the Recalada Lightship, marking the entryway to Buenos Aires, dead ahead. It was the first light they had seen, other than from the heavens or their own lamps, since leaving Madeira seven months ago. When, five hours later outside Buenos Aires, they dropped anchor, it was also for the first time in all those months.
FIGURE 90
The Fram’s three masts carried fore and aft sails for easier handling by a small crew working from deck. The foremast also had a square-rigged yard, shown here, requiring men to climb for furling and unfurling. The ship encountered the extremes of conditions in the Southern Ocean, from the doldrums’ dead calm to a hurricane, tropical heat, and iceberg cold.
The reception in Buenos Aires was not what they expected. The many months without calling in at ports for resupply had drained stores. Food and fuel were running low, sails wearing out, and ropes fraying. There was no money to pay the crew their owed wages. Amundsen had assured Nilsen that everything would be taken care of when they got there, thanks to the patronage of a wealthy Norwegian immigrant there, Don Pedro Christophersen. Christophersen had been excited about the news of the Fram going north again with Amundsen and had offered to supply provisions if and when it stopped off on its way around South America. What Amundsen did not tell Nilsen, however, was that he had not disclosed to Christophersen the secret plan, going south instead of north, for fear he would disapprove and withdraw his offer. Moreover, Amundsen dared not ask for more money from the Norwegian government, Nansen, or other funders back home, for the same reason. Perhaps he just hoped for the best or maybe he thought Nilsen was the man who could get what he needed somehow. Either way, Amundsen, safely out of range, let Nilsen sail blithely into a possible line of fire.
Nilsen hastened off the ship to meet Christophersen and his brother, the Norwegian foreign minister. They told him that Amundsen had made no prior arrangements with them for provisioning, nor had he given Nilsen a letter to give to them so requesting. The Norwegian government had not put any additional money in account for them. Without these, Christophersen and his brother informed Nilsen, there was nothing they could do; there was no money and no supplies. Nilsen was dumbfounded. He must have wondered what went wrong. Had signals been crossed, or was the Fram out of sight, out of mind for Amundsen now that the main event was underway in Antarctica? Was this oceanographic trip a real, legitimate part of the entire expedition or a pretense to appease powers-that-be back home?
The Fram was dead in the water, so to speak. No food came aboard, no fuel, and no materials they needed. The men had no money to spend in town. Nilsen pondered what to do. The oceanographic cruise could be abandoned. They could just sit in port while waiting to return to the barrier. The shore party could not be left on the ice, of course, so the Norwegian government would have to come up with the money by then. The journey to the Arctic could also be abandoned.
Seeing the Fram just sitting idle in the harbor day after day must have gotten to Christophersen. In a display of support for Amundsen and his grand scheme, he came forth to cover all expenses for the Fram while in Buenos Aires and provided everything it needed for the oceanographic trip. His gesture was, of course, a great relief to Nilsen and the crew. Soon the loading began and the men could leave the ship for a change of scene in town.
On June 8, the Fram departed, amply loaded and carrying ten men of the original crew, four new men hired on (three Norwegians and a Norwegian-speaking German) to make up for those left in Antarctica, and twenty live sheep and a large flock of chickens for later eating. Unfortunately, they also had unwanted stowaways that boarded in Buenos Aires: great swarms of flies that accompanied them out to sea; moths that ate into their woolens; influenza viruses that leveled several men; and, most repugnant and persistent of all, rats—the scourge of sailors—to plague them for months, despite trapping, shooting, securing sources of food, and when they returned to Buenos Aires, taking on a vigilante cat.
Fridtjof Nansen had written a letter to Nilsen, and this was waiting for him in Buenos Aires. It was an encouragement for their scientific work to come and assurance that it, rather than the adventure itself, would be the real Fram legacy. In the letter he also seemed to be taking a swipe at Amundsen, who perhaps believed the mission otherwise. For Nilsen and the crew, his words must have been heartening after all that had happened, to have a little light shine on them instead of being left in the dark.
Nilsen designed a route across the southern Atlantic to the coast of Africa, but with shortcut contingencies should they fall behind schedule, to make it back to Buenos Aires for resupply, and then to Antarctica at the appointed time. The weather and seas were kind to them, in blessed respite from the more demanding conditions they had experienced further south and from the uncertainty they faced in Buenos Aires. The northwest trades took them almost all the way to Africa; the southeast trades brought them back, and the latter were so fair and steady that they did not have to turn on the engine for a month. On the way east they reached a milestone: the distance the Fram had traveled since it left Christiania was the equivalent of once around the world (about twenty-five thousand miles). On the way back they passed a landmark 1,200 miles off the coast of Africa: the remote island of St. Helena, where Napoleon died in exile.
At one-hundred-nautical-mile intervals, oceanographers Alexander Kutschin and Hjalmar Gjertsen did their work, assisted by the crew: plumbing the deep, collecting water and temperatures at various depths (using the eponymous Nansen Bottles, which were actually brass cylinders invented for and deployed on his Arctic expedition) and netting plankton samples. By the time they returned to Buenos Aires on September 1, almost three months after they left, they had covered eight thousand miles and taken nearly one thousand samples for analysis back home. They had done good work, Nansen would say later, though it would go largely unnoticed by the public, whose eyes were focused on Antarctica.
His work done, oceanographer Kutschin left the ship to go home, as did the veteran engineer Jacob Nødtvedt, calling it a day after so many years and so many miles aboard the Fram. One of the interim sailors, too, signed off, leaving a crew of eleven to make the journey back to the barrier.
The ship left Buenos Aires on October 5, reloaded through the good graces of Christophersen once again, including again live animals, this time sheep and pigs. On Christmas day, after coming across the first icebergs the day before, they shut the engine down and assembled for a special dinner that the cook had spent a week preparing, with roast fresh pork, drinks, and musical accompaniment by
Andreas Beck on violin, Knut Sundbeck on mandolin, and Nilsen on flute. Cigars and presents were enjoyed all around after dinner, followed by accordion music from Ludvig Hansen and dancing by the lively Gjertsen and Martin Rønne. Then, Cinderella-like, the magic ended. In Nilsen’s deadpan words, “At ten o’clock it was all over, the engine was started again, one watch went to bed and the other on deck; Olsen cleaned out the pigsty, as usual at this time of night. That finished Christmas for this year.”5
On January 8, after slow and grinding passage through pack ice, snow, and cold, they arrived at the barrier but had to stand off because of the weather. Two days later, the Fram came in close again, and nimble Gjertsen, at his own request, set out on skis across the remaining pack to the barrier and Framheim, to find out what had happened over the last eleven months.
25 ›RESCUE OR REBELLION?
Would Framheim still exist? Who would be there, all of them, or just Adolf Henrik Lindstrøm, who was to stay behind to tend the place alone? Or no one at all? Had they made it to the pole? These questions must have been swirling through Hjalmar Gjertsen’s head as he tried to find his way, as the Fram had come in to a different place along the Great Ice Barrier. Finally, he came onto familiar territory, from which he knew he would be able to see Framheim. He skied faster in anticipation.
His heart sank. Framheim was gone. Instead, there was only a “pile of rubble” covered with snow. What happened? Had the barrier cracked open and swallowed it? Had a storm crushed it and covered it with snow? Was anyone still alive inside? As he approached, tentatively, he saw someone emerge from the pile and recognized immediately that it was clean-shaven Lindstrøm. At Gjertsen’s cry, Lindstrøm looked up, startled at first by this heavily bearded stranger coming toward him, but then quickly realized who it was. After the thrill of reunion had calmed, Lindstrøm explained that, yes, he was alone but, no, Framheim had not been destroyed. Quite the contrary, it was intact but completely buried in snow, which helped keep it warm inside. Lindstrøm, like a majordomo, showed him around the grand hotel, the cozy, heated living space and the annex of rooms they had dug into the ice that was a protected warren for work and storage beneath the surface.
As Gjertsen settled in, Lindstrøm told him the stories, the good and the bad of what had happened over the year.
Everyone was still out, as Gjertsen could see, and due back soon. But not all had gone to the pole; there had been a change of plan. Roald Amundsen and four others had left in October toward the south, but three—Kristian Prestrud, Hjalmar Johansen, and Jørgen Stubberud—had gone instead to the unmapped territory to the north and east, King Edward VII Land. It seemed a strange and obscure place to go, when the pole alone had been their goal, never a word about King Edward Land. No doubt Gjertsen was surprised and asked why, and Lindstrøm must have told him it was the Boss’s idea, because of what had happened.
FIGURE 91
Framheim in winter. Snow and ice completely buried the wooden building, and the men dug a warren of workrooms and passageways beneath it. The tents are for the dogs and supplies.
››› Everything had gone well for months after the Fram left, exactly according to plan. In the summer they immediately began setting out depots of food, fuel, and emergency supplies for the return journey. From these, stores would be relayed later, after winter, to new depots further south, as close to the pole as they could get. The depots were critical. There had to be enough to sustain men and dogs on the eight-hundred-mile trip back; they had to be at close enough intervals in case treacherous weather made travel tough or delayed it; and they had to be visible a long way off. Amundsen’s plan was to set a depot at every latitude degree (sixty-nine miles) in a straight line toward the pole, housed in tall igloos with flags planted atop. There were no plundering polar bears or Arctic foxes to worry about here, only the vastness of the barrier making things disappear in whiteness or in storms. As an added guide to keep the sledgers on track between depots, they set cairns and pennants along the way.
By the time they had to stop for winter, in April, they had set out three big depots, at 80°, 81°, and 82° south latitude (Framheim was at 78.5°), as far as halfway down the barrier toward the high, untrod mountain range they would have to cross on the continent itself. A final fourth trip carried yet more food and supplies to the closest one, including (most importantly, as time would prove) a ton of fresh frozen meat from seals they had killed near Framheim and the edge of the barrier. They were off to a good start even before they started.
They passed the winter well, too, all the long, dark, cold months of it. As in all other previous expeditions of the Fram, winter was not just a time to get through but one for intense planning and preparation—every detail, every eventuality, and every possibility. The work, equally intense and careful, was to ensure the plan would go as flawlessly as possible. Nothing was left to chance. Many contingencies were in place in case something went wrong. It was Amundsen’s way, as it had been Fridtjof Nansen’s and Otto Sverdrup’s before him. In these environments, with no margin for error, it was the only way.
FIGURE 92
Adolf Henrik Lindstrøm, master cook, world traveler, and cheerful man. Lindstrøm was on the second and third expeditions, as well as on Amundsen’s Gjøa expedition through the Northwest Passage. Even in this support role, he was the first man to circumnavigate the North American continent. Here, at Framheim in Antarctica, he is serving up his famous hotcakes, with that beaming face.
Much of the work took place in separate ice chambers below, away from the living and dining spaces of the house itself and in temperatures near freezing so the walls and ceiling would not melt or food spoil; in dim light, they kept busy during the clock-defined “day.” In one, Olav Bjaaland made, or continually improved, skis for both humans and the sledges. In another, Stubberud dealt with anything requiring carpentry or construction. Helmer Hanssen and Oscar Wisting were at Martin Rønne’s old sewing machine continually, making clothes and camping equipment. Sverre Hassel looked after supplies and fabricated leather whips and harnesses for use on the dogs. Prestrud and Johansen had the painstaking, critical task of weighing, packaging, and boxing food rations for both men and dogs, for all the trips and depots. Amundsen kept an eye on things and kept them moving, while Lindstrøm was always busy preparing food for such a crowd, serving it, or cleaning up afterward. Framheim was very much like the ship, its namesake.
By late winter Amundsen was anxious to get going. The sun was just beginning to peek above the horizon, giving light but no warmth. It was bitter cold, down to sixty below at night, too cold, said some of the men, to begin such a journey. Amundsen, however, counted on a warm spell coming, as other explorers had experienced this time of year. Such was the reason he gave to them, though in reality he probably wanted to get a jump on Robert Falcon Scott, not knowing his schedule or capabilities with the motor sledges. Amundsen was the Boss, so on September 8 they headed out, everyone but Lindstrøm.
After four punishing days of cold travel and colder nights, with men and dogs not fully hardened to such conditions and beginning to suffer from frostbite (four dogs died), Amundsen decided to abort the journey when they reached the 80° depot. There they unloaded their supplies and, in the morning of September 15, headed back. They camped that night, continuing early the next morning. Oddly, and uncharacteristically, they did not stay all together but spread out in pairs according to their speed, as if in a race for home. By four in the afternoon the next day, they began arriving at Framheim, first Hanssen (with frostbitten feet) and Wisting with Amundsen (as leader he did not drive a team of his own but rotated among the others). Two hours later in came Bjaaland and then, within thirty minutes, Hassel and Stubberud, both with frostbitten feet. There was no sign of Prestrud and Johansen. As Amundsen stated in his diary, “They have a tent and sleeping bags so they won’t have to worry.”6 Evidently, he was not worried about them, either, though it was in the minus forties outside, as Johansen was one of the best sledgers. He finished
writing his notes for the day and went to bed at nine.
FIGURE 93
Hjalmar Johansen in his “cave” workroom, dug into the ice below Framheim. He is carefully weighing, packaging, and boxing the food to be taken by the men to the pole, a critical job. He lost respect for Amundsen, had a falling-out with him, and was dismissed from the expedition. His life after was not a happy one.
When Amundsen awoke in the morning, Prestrud and Johansen were there, having arrived at half-past midnight. Prestrud had severely frostbitten feet; Johansen was furious. At breakfast, the Boss asked them why they had taken so long. For Johansen, that was the last straw. He exploded, hurling his anger at Amundsen in front of everyone.
The facts seemed clear. Prestrud had fallen far behind. Johansen, at first speeding out and even passing Hassel, stopped for him to catch up. He waited hours in the cold until finally Prestrud arrived, strength failing, barely able to move on his frozen feet. Johansen helped him back to Framheim and in the process probably saved his life. Behind the facts, the answer to why Amundsen acted the way he did depended on who was asked.
Johansen, the wizened polar veteran and the man who had spent fifteen months on the Arctic ice alone with Nansen, considered what Amundsen did an unforgivable, even immoral, act of a expeditionary leader. Amundsen had forsaken his men. He had gone off ahead of the pack instead of staying back to make sure everyone was all right. It was as if the captain of a troubled ship was first off to safety, leaving the crew behind.
Ice Ship: The Epic Voyages of the Polar Adventurer Fram Page 27
