The Land of Desolation, being a personal narrative of adventures in Greenland

Front matter

Frontispiece.) THE ' PANTHER ' AMOXG THE ICEBERGi THE LAND OF DESOLATION BEING A. PERSONAL NARRATIVE 01 ADVENTURE IN GREENLAND BY ISAAC J. HAYES, M.D. AUTHOR OF 'THE OPEN POLAR SEA ' ETC. LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, LOW, & SEARLE CROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STREET 1871 AH rights reserved LONDON: PRINTED BY JPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AST) PARLIAMENT STREET ctcprcgcntcb. An Artist in search of the picturesque. An Assistant given to caricature. A Photographer, called ' Colonel.' Another, who was ' Major.' A Professor who made collections. A Prince who enjoyed himself. A great Hunter. A roaring, tearing tar of a Captain. A Mate with an enquiring tarn of mind. A Sagaman who made history. A Parson. The Belle of a Ball in seal-skin pantaloons. Other Ladies in the same condition. Also a Boat's Crew.

Parliamentarians who smelted fishy. Others equally agreeable. The northernmost White Man and his family. Numerous Governors. Officers and Sailors unlimited. A Eaven. An Antiquarian. A Witch. A Doctor. Two Enemies called ' Cook ' and ' Steward. A Cabin-boy who woke up once. Ladies from Denmark. A great many other People. Dogs, Polar Bears, and other Animals. A Devil's Thumb.

Preface

. The following pages are a record of a visit, to Greenland, made in the summer of 1869, with a small party of friends, in the steam-yacht of Mr. William Bradford, whose widely-celebrated pictures of Arctic scenery have received such deserved commendation ; for, whether we consider the difficulties of the subject which that artist has undertaken, or the unusual exposures and hazards he has encountered, his success has been commensurate with his zeal, talent, and unflagging energy. Since Mr. Bradford was desirous only of obtaining materials for his easel, the voyage was a leisurely one, being mostly near the coast, where halts were from time to time made at such places as presented special attrac tions to the painter. The summer was therefore devoted to the study of the picturesque rather than to the scientific ; yet numerous opportunities were afforded in the latter direction, especially with respect to observing the formation of Greenland glaciers and icebergs — subjects which have not hitherto received much attention.

PREFACE.

. Facihties never before enjoyed by Americans were also obtained for visiting the site of the colonies of the ancient Northmen, who occupied that country from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries, and whose restless love of adventure led them even so far from their native homes as our own shores, at least five hundred years before the renowned voyage of Columbus. Our range of the Greenland coast was more than a thousand miles, terminating a good way beyond the last outpost of civilisation on the globe, in the midst of the much dreaded ' ice-pack ' of Melville Bay. CONTENTS. PART THE FIRST. RUINS. CHAPTER ,.AGE I. Ice and Breakers ...... 1 II. Free from Danger ... .4 III. A hopeful Town in a hopeless Place . .11 IV. Eric the Bed . , . . . .22 V. ' The Arctic Six ' . . . . . .28 VI. Up the Fiord in an Oomiax . . . .34 VII.

The Euins of Eeicsfiord . . . .45 VIII. The Northmen in Greenland . . . .51 IX. The Northmen in America . . . .57 X. The Last Man . . . . . .63 XI. A Disconsolate Loter . . . . .73 CONTENTS. X PAGE chapter XII. The Church at Julianashaab . • .79 CO XIII. A Greenland Parliament . • 95 XIV. A Greenland Ball . . • ■ • PART THE SECOND. PALACES OF NATURE. I. Ice and Snow ...... 107 II. Glaciers and Icebergs . . . . .112 III. The Solitary Hut of Petee Motzfeldt . . 120 IV. The Glacier . . . . . .129 V. Crossing the Glacier . . . . .134 VI. Speculations . . . . . .145 VII. Measurements of Glaciers . . . .149 VIII. The Birth of an Iceberg . . . .152 IX. A Narrow Escape . . . . .156 X. Icebergs Critically Examined . . . .164 XI. Man versus Musquitoes . . . . .175 XII. A Picnic on the Glacier . . . . .179 XIII.

Bound foe the Arctic Circle , . .184 CONTENTS. XI PART THE THIRD. UNDER THE MIDNIGHT SUN. chapter page I. Across the Arctic Circle .... 191 II. Beyond Civilisation ..... 212 III. Ice-Navigation ...... 222 IV. Hunting by Steam ...... 232 V. Among the Ice-fields of Melville Bay . . . 250 VI. The Last White Man . . . . .256 VII. The Fiord of Auxpadlartok .... 265 Vin. Upeenavlk . . . . . . .273 IX. Disco Island . . . . . .283 X. Jacobshavn ...... 294 XL A Week in Godhavn . . . . .303 ILLUSTRATIONS. The ' Panther ' among the Icebergs , , Frontispiece PAGB View of Julian ashaab . . . . .to face 1 2 The Oomiax and Crew . . . . , .29 View of the Old Noese Ruins . . . .to face 47 Ground -plan of Buins . . . . . „ 49 concordia at the plcnic . . , . .74 A Greenland Parliament in Session . . . .86 Concoedia Dressed for the Ball . , .to face 101 The Glacier of Sehmitsialik . . . . , 131 Crossing the Crevasse on an Ice-bridge . . 140 Map of the Glacier ......

Hi Front View of the Gl.vciee .... to face 145 Vertical Section of Glacier . . . . .147 The Kryolite Mine at Ivixtut, Aesut Fiord . . to face 184 The Peak of Kresarsoak . . , . „ 197 Entering the Fiord . . . . . .199 The Lumme of the Arctic Sea . . . . .201 Shooting Lumme ....... 203 Esac ......... 206 Esac's Hut . . . . . . .to face 207 The Governoe and Family . . . . .211 View of Upebnayik and Kresarsoak . . .to face ILLUSTRATIONS. XIV PAGE Eider-ducks ....•■• 2 ' The Polak Bear t0 fMe 224 Seals 22S The Devil's Thumb . . . . • .231 The ' Panther ' after the Beaks . . . .to face 234 The Captain after the Bear . . . » 245 Moored to a Floe in Melville Bay . . „ 253 The Iceberg Castle . . . . . „ 254 We steam away from the Midnight Sun . . „ 257 The most Northern House on the Globe . . ,, 258 Jensen and his Family .... . „ 259 An Arctic Witch ....... 263 We go through an Iceberg to call on Philip . . . 266 Philip, the Hunter, and his Sons . . . to face 267 The Baven . . . . . . . .271 Hans and his Family ...... 277 The Great Auk ....... 292 Iceberg in Jacobshavn Fiord . . . . .301

Part I

' Out upon time ! it will leave no more Of the things to come than the things before ! Out upon time ! who for ever will leave But enough of the past for the future to grieve O'er that which hath been, and o'er that which must be ; What we have seen our sons shall see — Remnants of things that have passed away, Fragments of stone, reared by creatures of clay.' Byron's Siege of Corinth. PART THE FIRST. R UINS.

Chapter I. Ice And Breakers

On a gloomy night in the month of July, 1585, the ship ' Sunshine,' of fifty tons, ' fitted out,' as the old chronicles inform us, ' by divers opulent merchants of London, for the discovery of a north-west passage, came, in a thick and heavy mist, to a place where there was a mighty roaring as of waves dashing on a rocky shore.' The captain of this ship was brave old John Davis, who, when he had dis covered his perilous situation, put off in a boat, and thereby discovered that his ship was ' embayed in fields and hills of ice, the crashing together of which made the fearful sounds that he had heard.' The ship drifted helplessly through the night, and when the morning dawned, ' the people saw the tops of mountains white with snow, and of a sugar-loaf shape, standing above the clouds ; while at their base the land was deformed and rocky, and the shore was everywhere beset with ice, which made such irksome noise that the land was called " The Land of Desolation."' B On a gloomy night in the month of July, 1869, the ship ' Panther,' of three hundred and fifty tons, fitted out for a summer voyage by a party in pursuit of pleasure, came in like manner, through a thick and heavy mist, to a place where there was a mighty roaring as of waves dashing on a rocky shore.

The captain of this ship was John Bartlett, who, when he had discovered his perilous situation, put off in a boat, and returned with the knowledge that the 'Panther,' like the 'Sunshine' of old, was embayed in 'fields and hills of ice,' the crashing together of which made the fearful sounds that he had heard ; and then, when the morning dawned, ' the people saw the tops of mountains white with snow, and of a sugar-loaf shape, standing above the clouds ; while at their base the land was deformed and rocky,' and the shore was everywhere beset with ice, which made such ' irksome noise,' that the people knew their ship had drifted to the self-same spot where the ' Sunshine ' had drifted nearly three hundred years before, and that the land before them was Davis's ' Land of Desolation.' A mysterious land to them, and one around which clung many marvellous associations.

Its legends had been the wonder of their boyhood ; its grandeur was now their admiration. They had heard of it as a land of fable ; tradition had peopled it with dwarfs and giants ; history recorded that a race of men once occupied it whose fleets of ships traversed the waters in which their own vessel was now so grievously beset, bearing mer chandise to hamlets of peace and plenty. Their eyes naturally sought a spot whereon to locate the home of this ancient people ; but nothing could they discover save sterile rocks and desert wastes of ice. They saw dark cliffs which rose threateningly above them abruptly from ICE AND BREAKERS. 3 the sea, and beyond these their eye wandered away into the interior, which the snows of centuries had converted into a vast plain of desolate whiteness. Returning from this limitless perspective, the eye fell upon the troubled waters.

There were no signs of bfe anywhere : desolation frowned on every side. Yet the spectacle was sublime ; and, as if to render that sublimity the more complete, there was added soon an aspect of the terrible. This came in the form of a gale of wind, which speedily rose to a tempest. Rain, hail, and snow swept down upon the ship, and every distant object was hidden except when the storm-curtain was occasionally rent asunder, and a mountain peak was exposed, with the clouds breaking against its sides. The creaking and groaning ice was around them everywhere, and an occasional iceberg of enormous magnitude broke through the gloom, and, while moving on through the angry and troubled waters, received with cold indifference the fierce lashings of the sea. H

Chapter II. Free From Danger

I was a passenger on board the 'Panther,' and shared with my companions the emotions which the Land of Desolation first inspired. Under ordinary circumstances, there can be no more comfortable situation on board a ship than that of passen ger. You are not expected to know any thing, and, if wise, you will not want to know any thing. You are con tent to trust to the captain, who is presumed to be quite competent to look to the safety of his ship, and therefore to your own. So far as human ingenuity can possibly be exercised to escape danger, his, you are sure, will be, and you trust to him as to a superior being — at least you know he has all the interest at stake that you have, and something more ; for the handling of a ship in a storm is like the manoeuvring of troops on the field of battle ; success brings glory to the commander, and the acquisition of it is perhaps all the more precious that it is not shared with anybody.

In our case there was a still further motive to confidence. Our captain owned one-half the ship, which was a Newfoundland screw-steamer, and was built unusually strong. Besides this, we had confidence in his judgment, which was the next best thing to confidence in his caution ; and then, to crown all, he was a thoroughly FREE FROM DANGER. good fellow. To quote the gentleman who devoted him self to the duties of sagaman for the cruise, ' A roaring, tearing, jolly tar was he, as ever boxed the compass on the sea.' During the eight days occupied in coming over from St. John's, we had all conceived a high opinion of his qualities. He might be sometimes a little rash and venturesome, but rashness, as everybody knows, is a safer quabty than timidity ; and we bore in recollection the old saying, 'Nothing venture, nothing have.' We might, perhaps, have found a little fault with him at first for having run us in so close to the Land of Desolation without halting for daylight and better weather ; but then we all knew that to ' heave to ' was something which the captain had a great horror of, and he spoke of heaving to with such constant disrespect that the people generally had conceived the idea that it was a pecubarly terrible thing to indulge in.

It seemed, therefore, that we were all right, and must necessarily escape shipwreck, even when the peril appeared greatest — when, for instance, we found ourselves threatened with an island rock on the one side, and an island of ice on the other, in a sea white with foam, and breaking everywhere so wildly that the cap tain's trumpet-voice could scarce be heard above the tumult. The worst of it was, we did not know within fifty miles of where we were. ' There,' said the captain, triumph antly, with his outspread hand upon the chart of Baffin's Bay, covering at least ten thousand square miles of land and sea, ' There's where we are ! ' It was certain, at all events, that we had drifted within a line of skerries, for the waves broke on all sides, and where the rocks did not keep us from going, the ice did.

We had made the land with the intention of seeking a modern fishing-station of Danes and Esquimaux, which we knew to lie somewhere on that part of the coast ; but where we could not even guess. As well seek charity in a bigot as hunt for a harbour in such weather, on a coast where there are neither lighthouses nor pilots. Yet we knew that human beings might be started somewhere if we only could free ourselves from our un comfortable predicament, and the storm only would hold up. But it would not and did not until after we had, without exactly knowing how it came about, at length found ourselves in the open sea, and had given the Land of Desolation a wide berth. The weather clearing finally, the ' Panther ' was pointed for a promising opening in the belt of ice which beset the shore ; and now, without much risk or difficulty, we got behind a cluster of islands not far from the mainland, and a good way to the south of where we had been so much troubled.

Here there was no ice at all, and we began to look up the fishing-town. First of all the signal-gun was fired, and the ' Panther ' whistled her loudest. This woke the echoes, and started some sea-gulls, but nothing more. Then we crept cautiously along, passing island after island, the ' Panther ' whistbng constantly and the guns firing occasionally. Presently we saw something dark moving upon the water, which appeared to have the body of a beast, and the head and shoulders of a man. It might be a marine centaur ! who could tell ? In fact, we rather expected to see some such monsters long before ; and if the sea had been alive with them, we would not have been, I think, much surprised. ' Hi ! hi ! ' was the first greeting of this strange-looking FREE FROM DANGER. creature, with a voice that sounded very human ; ' Hi ! hi ! ' and afterwards he shouted, ' Me Julianashaab pilot ! ' an announcement which greatly delighted us, even if the pilot did come in such very questionable shape.

He was not long in arriving alongside, and then, after getting the bight of a rope under each end of him, we hauled him in on deck, whereupon the head and shoulders speedily shook themselves out from the body, and our marine centaur stood forth with the proper complement of legs to show his affinity to man. To see a pilot shed himself thus is not to increase one's confidence in him. And then his looks were by no means prepossessing. A broad face that was all cheeks, except what was mouth, with the least speck of a nose, and nothing to mention in the way of eyes, might be a curious study for a naturalist, but was hardly the sort of thing one seems to stand in need of when he seeks a harbour along a very ugly coast. And then his body was all covered with hair, and was all wet, as if he had just risen from the bottom of the sea.

Besides, he smelt fishy. Yet this was clearly the best we could do if we ever meant to get into port, and, disregarding his unprerjos sessing appearance, the captain called him aft and ordered him to point out Julianashaab. ' Eh, tyma ! ' he answered ; and off he started for the bridge, and off soon started the ' Panther ' under his direction. Julianashaab we found to be no easy port to make, even with a marine centaur for a pilot. The ' Panther ' was twisted and turned about so much among the islands, and our pilot spoke so strangely, and made so many strange gestures, that he fairly turned the captain's head. The captain would indeed hardly believe that we were going anywhere at all, but were, on the contrary, whirling about for the temporary amusement of this creature whom we had fished up out of salt water.

The fact is, Julianashaab is some twenty miles from the sea, on the bank of a very long and tortuous frith or fiord, which is studded with islands. Difficult of access at all times, it is peculiarly so in July, for then the ice from the Spitzbergen side of Greenland comes drifting down with the great polar current, a branch of which sweeps around Cape Farewell into Davis's Strait and Baffin's Bay, and proceeds north for a while before it is deflected to the westward to join the ice-incumbered stream that chills the region of Labrador, and bathes the coast of America even to the Floridas. Cape Farewell is in latitude 59° 49', and Julianashaab lies some eighty miles to the north and west of it ; that is to say, in latitude 60° 44', or 5° 48' south of the Arctic circle. It is not, therefore, much nearer the North Pole than St. Petersburg, Russia, though in a very different climate.

It was fortunate that we secured even this strange pilot when we did, else we should have lain outside all the night ; for there was a night, even although it was scarce deserving the name. When one can plainly see to read by the light of the sun as late as ten o'clock p.m., there is not much of a night to boast of. There was a faint twi light even at midnight, and to this was added the light of the moon, which threw its brightness on the summits of the snow-clad mountains, and trailed its silvery splendours away over the rippled waters of the fiord. The scene as we passed on was most impressive. There is indeed in a still arctic night, whether in the winter or summer, a sublimity which one does not feel in a FREE FROM DANGER. night elsewhere. We passed through many groups of icebergs, and in the moonlight their shapes, at all times full of strange suggestions, were converted into objects of the most fantastic description.

The faces and forms of men and beasts were fashioned there in the light and shadow of the night, occasionally with wonderful distinct ness. As we passed on, we were sometimes in the cold shelter of a cliff, while the icebergs before us glittered in a full blaze of light, as if they were mammoth gems ; again we would pass so near a berg that it seemed but awaiting an opportunity to topple over upon and over whelm us ; and all the while no sounds disturbed the air but the monotonous pulsations of the steamer and the hollow gurgle of the waves of her making as they broke ■within the icy caves. At length our pilot told us we were approaching our destination, and as the bght of day began to replace the brightness of the moon, he whirled the 'Panther' into a little bight, and a few rude habitations, a flag-staff, and the belfry of a little mission church, appeared before us on a dark rocky hill-side. ' Julianashaab !' said our pilot, pointing to it with as much pride and satisfaction as if he were overlooking the finest city of the world.

Poor man, he knew no better I He bttle dreamed how miserable was his lot to be only a Julianashaaber, and dwell in peace ! For this was indeed his home. He had gone down the fiord hunting seals and to gather the eggs of wildfowl upon the islands, and when he saw the 'Panther' he had just begun his work. Down went the anchor with its usual rush and rattle, and immediately the rocks were alive with people, who, aroused from their peaceful slumbers by the strange noise, sallied forth as suddenly as the witches from Kirk Allo way. Looking forward to a closer scrutiny of them when the day had fully come, we sought our bunks, and, ex hausted with the excitement of the night and the con stant exposure of the past few days, we turned in to sleep the sleep of weariness. A HOPEFUL TOWN IN A HOPELESS PLACE.

Chapter III

A HOPEFUL TOWN IN A HOPELESS PLACE. This ' Land of Desolation,' to which we had come, is the Greenland of history and of the present time. All the southern part of it, as far up as the sixty-first degree of latitude, is called the ' District of Julianashaab,' and the town of Julianashaab is its capital. This town is one of the most flourishing in the whole country. It is, perhaps, the most pleasantly situated of all of them, and, standing in a region full of historic and legendary interest, it pre sents a good type of Greenland bfe, past and present, and it is well worth looking at. Being the residence of the governor of the ' district,' something of additional importance is attached to it on that account. Country squires who come up to London ; backwoodsmen casting their curious eyes about them in Washington ; children on a holiday excursion to a neighbouring village, are not seized with greater wonder at what they behold, than is the hunter from some remote station of the Jubanashaab District, when, after having braved the dangers of flood and field, he finds himself ob serving the latest fashions, and learning how the world moves generally in the town of Julianashaab.

So much, therefore, for its social and political importance. They call it a colony, and its governor, or director, is the colonibestyrere, which is to say, the steerer of it. There are eleven other colonibestyreres in the country, one for each of the other eleven ' districts,' which extend northward one above the other from Julianashaab to the very confines of the habitable globe. The northernmost is Upernavik, beyond which there are no Christian people, or people of any kind living on the earth, except a few skin-clad savages. And, strange enough, this most northern place of Christian occupation bears a name which signifies ' the summer place,' derived from Upernak, or, as it might be better spelt Oopernak, the native Esquimaux word for summer. Jubanashaab, on the other hand, expresses a compb ment to royalty.

It was founded nearly a hundred years ago, at which time a king sat on the Danish throne who had a queen named Juliana. So, in honour of her ma jesty, they called this hopeful place the haab of Juliana, which is to say, in English, Julia's Hope. I could but wonder if all the expectations that the name bespeaks were ever realised ; for if so, the founders of it must have been extremely modest. I was especially impressed with this feeling when I landed next morning, on a visit to the governor's house, and was greeted there by the principal part of the population. Not a soul of them had, I believe, ever gone to bed after our arrival ; but, on tbe contrary, had remained as they began — gazing at the ' Panther ' all the morning. When they first saw signs of activity on board, they ex pressed their delight in a very hilarious fashion ; calling to each other, laughing, and running about from place to place, singly and in flocks, in a manner to indicate a very lively state of feeling.

The little huts from which they emerged were scarcely distinguishable from the rocks themselves, and the people appeared to be coming out of VIEW OF JULJANASHAAB. {To face p. 12.) the earth, and dropping into it again like prairie-dogs. Great was the rush when I got in my boat and started for the landing-place. Here they formed themselves in two lines, a hundred or more of them — men, women, and children — all talking or laughing, and all much delighted. Some pointed with their fingers ; others remarked the singular performances of my tailor ; others said, properly enough, what an odd-looking thing a round-topped hat was ; and they all stood their ground while I marched be tween the two files, not one of them willing to forego for a moment the gratification of the passion of curiosity, which it is pleasant to know that arctic frosts can no more destroy than civilisation unseat from its prying stool.

To see yourself gazed at by so many persons, even al though they may be half-savage, is an embarrassing cir cumstance ; and I should no doubt have felt bashful about running the gauntlet of their eyes had not another sense than that of sight claimed its legitimate right of precedence, and with such remarkable energy, too, that all minor emotions were impossible. Accordingly, I made my way through the crowd without any delay whatever, and, in fact, with a speed not at all calculated to give that opportunity for close examination which is always desirable to a traveller. The fact is, like the pilot we bad picked up, they smelt fishy, and, had I not been most positively informed otherwise, I should have written the inhabitants of Julianashaab down as amphibious creatures of a fishy nature. And it would have been no very unnatural mistake either — not so bad, at least, as Sir John Mandeville's imagining boles of cotton to be woolly hens.

To explain all this, it is needful only to observe that, this Hope of Juliana being nothing but a fishing-town, the people are all fishermen, and therefore everything smells of fish exceedingly. The odour extended every where ; the wharf and rocks were strewn with fish, and the air seemed charged with fish that had evaporated. I became in a little while saturated thoroughly ; so much so, indeed, that I felt myself hardened sufficiently to ap proach and examine the people more carefully than I had done at first. They proved to be of many shades of colour, from the tawny hue of the native Esquimaux (Greenlanders they call them here) to the almost pure Caucasian complexion with transparent skin and rosy cheeks. Of this latter class was one girl especially, who stood apart from the rest as if she were superior to them, and yet could not wholly restrain her curiosity.

Her hair, which was auburn, was very abundant, and had been arranged with much care. A red silk handkerchief was tied about the forehead, and ribbons without stint fluttered from the knob of hair which stood up on the crown of her head. The labours of her toilet had evidently been performed with the greatest nicety. Her boots were as red as her handkerchief and quite as spotless ; her trowsers were of the choicest and most shining seal-skin, neatly ornamented with needle work and beads. Then her jacket, which was of some bright colour to match, looked very jaunty. It met the trowsers at the hips, where it was trimmed with a broad band of eider-down. About the neck there was a collar of the same material, and the beads upon the breast and around the wrists, where there was more eider-down, were quite dazzling.