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IN NORTHERN MISTS
IN NORTHERN MISTS
IN NORTHERN MISTS ARCTIC EXPLORATION IN EARLY TIMES BY FRIDTJOF NANSEN G.C.V.O., D.Sc., D.C.L., Ph.D., PROFESSOR OF OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CHRISTIANIA, ETC. TRANSLATED BY ARTHUR G. CHATER ILLUSTRATED VOLUME ONE LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN: MCMXI PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE & COMPANY LTD AT THE BALLANTYNE PRESS TAVISTOCK STREET COVENT GARDEN LONDON...
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PREFACE
PREFACE
This book owes its existence in the first instance to a rash promise made some years ago to my friend Dr. J. Scott Keltie, of London, that I would try, when time permitted, to contribute a volume on the history of arctic voyages to his series of books on geographical exploration. The subject was an attractive one; I thought I was fairly familiar with it, and did not expect the book to take a very long time when once I made a start with it. On account of other studies it was a long while before I
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
In the beginning the world appeared to mankind like a fairy tale; everything that lay beyond the circle of familiar experience was a shifting cloudland of the fancy, a playground for all the fabled beings of mythology; but in the farthest distance, towards the west and north, was the region of darkness and mists, where sea, land and sky were merged into a congealed mass—and at the end of all gaped the immeasurable mouth of the abyss, the awful void of space. Out of this fairy world, in course of
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
ANTIQUITY, BEFORE PYTHEAS The learned world of early antiquity had nothing but a vague premonition of the North. Along the routes of traffic commercial relations were established at a very early time with the northern lands. At first these ran perhaps along the rivers of Russia and Eastern Germany to the Baltic, afterwards along the rivers of Central Europe as well. But the information which reached the Mediterranean peoples by these routes had to go through many intermediaries with various lang
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
PYTHEAS OF MASSALIA THE VOYAGE TO THULE Among all the vague and fabulous ideas about the North that prevailed in antiquity, the name of Pytheas stands out as the only one who gives us a firmer foothold. By his extraordinary voyage (or voyages ?) this eminent astronomer and geographer, of the Phocæan colony of Massalia (now Marseilles), contributed a knowledge of the northern countries based upon personal experience, and set his mark more or less upon all that was known of the farthest north for
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
ANTIQUITY, AFTER PYTHEAS There was a long interval after the time of Pytheas before the world’s knowledge of the North was again added to, so far as we can judge from the literature that has come down to us. The mist in which for a moment he showed a ray of light settled down again. That no other known traveller can have penetrated into these northern regions during the next two or three centuries appears from the unwillingness of Polybius and Strabo to believe in Pytheas, and from the fact that
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES Thus it came about that the geographical knowledge of later antiquity shows nothing but a gradual decline from the heights which the Greeks had early reached, and from which they had surveyed the earth, the universe and their problems with an intellectual superiority that inclines one to doubt the progress of mankind. The early Middle Ages show an even greater decline. Rome, in spite of all, had formed a sort of scientific centre, which was lost to Western Europe by the fal
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
THE AWAKENING OF MEDIÆVAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE NORTH KING ALFRED, OTTAR, ADAM OF BREMEN In the ninth century the increasingly frequent Viking raids, Charlemagne’s wars and conquests in the North, and the labours of Christian missionaries, brought about an increase of intercourse, both warlike and peaceful, between southern Europe and the people of the Scandinavian North. The latter had gradually come to play a certain part on the world’s stage, and their enterprises began to belong to history. Their
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
FINNS, SKRIDFINNS (LAPPS), AND THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF SCANDINAVIA Before we proceed to the Norwegians’ great contributions to the exploration of the northern regions, we shall attempt to collect and survey what is known, and what may possibly be concluded, about the most northern people of Europe, the Finns, and the earliest settlement of Scandinavia. The Finns are mentioned, as we have seen ( p. 113 ), for the first time in literature by Tacitus, who calls them “Fenni,” and describes them as e
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
THE VOYAGES OF THE NORSEMEN: DISCOVERY OF ICELAND AND GREENLAND SHIPBUILDING The discovery of the Faroes and Iceland by the Celts and the Irish monks, and their settlement there, give evidence of a high degree of intrepidity; since their fragile boats were not adapted to long voyages in the open sea, to say nothing of carrying cargoes and keeping up any regular communication. Nor did they, in fact, make any further progress; and neither the Irish nor the Celts of the British Isles as a whole eve
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
VOYAGES TO THE UNINHABITED PARTS OF GREENLAND IN THE MIDDLE AGES THE EAST COAST OF GREENLAND In an old chorography, copied by Björn Jónsson under the name of “Gronlandiæ vetus chorographia” [275] (in his “Grönlands Annaler”), there is mention of the Western Settlement and of the districts to the north of it. After naming the fjords in the Eastern Settlement it proceeds: “Then it is six days’ rowing, six men in a six-oared boat, to the Western Settlement (then the fjords are enumerated), [276] th
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
WINELAND THE GOOD, THE FORTUNATE ISLES, AND THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA Icelandic literature contains many remarkable statements about countries to the south-west or south of the Greenland settlements. They are called: “Helluland” (i.e., slate- or stone-land), “Markland” (i.e., wood-land), “Furðustrandir” (i.e., marvel-strands), and “Vínland” (also written “Vindland” or “Vinland”). Yet another, which lay to the west of Ireland, was called “Hvítramanna-land” (i.e., the white men’s land). Even if cer
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IN NORTHERN MISTS
IN NORTHERN MISTS
IN NORTHERN MISTS ARCTIC EXPLORATION IN EARLY TIMES BY FRIDTJOF NANSEN G.C.V.O., D.Sc., D.C.L., Ph.D., PROFESSOR OF OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CHRISTIANIA, ETC. TRANSLATED BY ARTHUR G. CHATER ILLUSTRATED VOLUME TWO LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN: MCMXI PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE & COMPANY LTD AT THE BALLANTYNE PRESS TAVISTOCK STREET COVENT GARDEN LONDON CONTENTS From an Icelandic MS., fourteenth century...
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CHAPTER IX[continued]
CHAPTER IX[continued]
WINELAND THE GOOD, THE FORTUNATE ISLES, AND THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA A confirmation of the identity of Wineland and the Insulæ Fortunatæ, which in classical legend lay to the west of Africa, occurs in the Icelandic geography (in MSS. of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries) which may partly be the work of Abbot Nikulás of Thverá (ob. 1159) (although perhaps not the part here quoted), where we read: “South of Greenland is ‘Helluland,’ next to it is ‘Markland,’ and then it is not far to ‘Vínland
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
ESKIMO AND SKRÆLING Of all the races of the earth that of the Eskimo is the one that has established itself farthest north. His world is that of sea-ice and cold, for which nature had not intended human beings. In his slow, stubborn fight against the powers of winter he has learnt better than any other how to turn these to account, and in these regions, along the ice-bound shores, he developed his peculiar culture, with its ingenious appliances, long before the beginning of history. As men of th
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
THE DECLINE OF THE NORSE SETTLEMENTS IN GREENLAND The Eastern and Western Settlements in Greenland seem, as we have said, to have grown rapidly immediately after the discovery of the country and the first settlement there. Their flourishing period was in the eleventh, twelfth, and part of the thirteenth centuries; but in the fourteenth they seem to have declined rapidly; notices of them become briefer and briefer, until they cease altogether after 1410, and in the course of the following hundred
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
EXPEDITIONS OF THE NORWEGIANS TO THE WHITE SEA, VOYAGES IN THE POLAR SEA, WHALING AND SEALING EXPEDITIONS TO THE WHITE SEA Even if Ottar was perhaps not the first Norwegian to reach the White Sea, his voyage is in any case a remarkable exploring expedition, whereby both the North Cape and the White Sea became known, even in the literature of Europe, nearly seven hundred years before Richard Chancellor reached the Dvina in the ship “Edward Buonaventura” in 1553, from which time the discovery of t
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
THE NORTH IN MAPS AND GEOGRAPHICAL WORKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES At the beginning of the Middle Ages and down to the fifteenth century the cartography of the Greeks, which had reached its summit in the work of Ptolemy, was entirely unknown in Europe; while the early Greek conceptions (those of the Ionian school) of the disc of the earth or “œcumene” as a circle (called by the Romans “orbis terrarum,” the circle of the earth) round the Mediterranean—and externally surrounded by the universal ocean—had
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
JOHN CABOT AND THE ENGLISH DISCOVERY OF NORTH AMERICA Over the cloud-bridge of illusion lies the path of human progress. The greatest achievements in history have been brought about more by the aid of ideas than of truth. Religious illusions have ennobled the rude masses and raised them to higher forms of society; in the domain of science intuition and hypothesis have led to fresh victories, as also in geographical exploration; there too illusions, like a fata Morgana, have impelled men forward
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
THE PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES IN THE NORTH-WEST VOYAGES OF THE BROTHERS CORTE-REAL The Portuguese, who in the fifteenth century were the most enterprising of seafaring peoples as regards discoveries, had, as already stated, made various attempts to find new countries out in the ocean to the west of the Azores, from which islands the majority of the expeditions proceeded. It was therefore to be expected that the important discoveries of Columbus should encourage them to fresh attempts of this kind;
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CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
If we would discover how a watercourse is formed, from the very first bog-streams up in the mountain, we must follow a multitude of tiny rills, receiving one fresh stream after another from every side, running together into burns, which grow and grow and form little rivers, till we come to the end of the wooded hillside and are suddenly face to face with the great river in the valley below. A similar task confronts him who endeavours to explore the first trickling rivulets of human knowledge; he
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LIST OF THE MORE IMPORTANT WORKS REFERRED TO
LIST OF THE MORE IMPORTANT WORKS REFERRED TO
1876 ADAM of Bremen: Adami Gesta Hamburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum ex recensione Lappenbergii. Editio altera. “Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum.” Hannoverae, 1876. 1862 ADAM of Bremen: Om Menigheden i Norden o. s. v. Overs. af P. W. Christensen. Copenhagen, 1862. 1893 ADAMS von Bremen Hamburgische Kirchengeschichte. Übers. von J. C. W. Laurent. 2. Aufl. Leipzig, 1893. 1839 AELIANUS (Claudius): Varia. “Vermischte Nachrichten,” Werke, Bd. I, übers. von Ephorus Dr. Wunderlich. “Griech. Prosaiker in ne
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