Before the light faded altogether, I went to the stern of the Nascopie to watch the ship’s wake streaming behind us, just as Ian and I had done that first evening out on the St Lawrence River. There were no little townships drifting by, no comforting lights twinkling along the shore or summer lightning forking above rolling hills. Here was only steely grey, incredibly cold-looking sea surging behind us, tipped with long ribbons of hostile foam, while abeam of us the last of the Button Islands passed, black, jagged and with no redeeming feature. I wondered where those other apprentices who had gathered at Euston station that June morning were now and mourned the loss of my friend. Then the captain altered course slightly and a chill damp wind, probably from the northern ice fields, drove me back to my cabin.
The cabin was above a propeller, and as the ship rose and fell to the motion of the sea, so the shuddering vibration swelled and faded in an uneven rhythm. As by far the most junior person on the ship – for there were no other apprentices or post staff of any kind – it was reasonable to expect that the worst cabin should be allotted to me. Somehow, though, the shuddering noise served to increase my growing conviction that nobody really wanted me in this arctic world and the probability that a home would be found for me at the very last post, only because there was nowhere else left, did nothing for my self-esteem.
Our route between Baffin Island and Greenland was one which had been followed by seamen and navigators for more than three centuries, probing restlessly northward then westward among the islands, searching endlessly for the passage which would take them more easily to the riches of India.
Some people believe that the Vikings reached the shores of Baffin Island twelve hundred years ago, but if they did, the expeditions were not recorded and nothing has been discovered to suggest that they ever lived there. It was not until the idea of a short route through to the orient began to exercise men’s minds that serious exploration of this inhospitable area began.
As far back as 1497 Henry VII of England commissioned John Cabot to search for a passage, and the explorer is thought to have sailed along the Labrador coast. Forty years or so later, Jacques Cartier attempted to succeed where Cabot had failed but found only impenetrable ice. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who felt strongly that the journey was possible, inspired others to try by his writings, but was himself drowned while making the attempt in 1583.
Also in the sixteenth century, John Davis made a study of the strait which separates North America from Greenland and joins Baffin Bay to the Atlantic Ocean, though he did not try to push through to the west. The strait now bears his name, and possibly as a result of his findings, Martin Frobisher, a noted navigator of his day, believed that he could find the elusive passage. He became sidetracked when, turning westward too soon, he entered a deep bay in Southern Baffin Land, which took him nearly three hundred miles inland but ended in a range of steep hills. From this bay Frobisher saw some rocks that glittered in the sun. He thought it was gold, and although his find turned out to be iron pyrites, it did not discourage him from arranging two later expeditions to explore the other arms of the bay. He never did find the gold which he had thought to be there, but he did much useful work mapping the bay which was subsequently named after him.
Henry Hudson considered that the navigators of the sixteenth century had all sailed too far to the north, and to prove his theory decided to aim westward between the mainland and the southern coast of Baffin Island. At the western end of the straits, he came out into a wide sea. His crew, superstitious and apprehensive of some unexpected disaster, did not wish to go any further, but Hudson, confident that he was already in the western ocean, insisted that they continue on his course. The men’s fury when they discovered that he had led them into a wide bay which had no exit was such that they mutinied, and Hudson, together with his son and seven loyal members of his crew, was cast adrift in a small boat to perish in the icy waters of what became known as Hudson Bay.
We had had clear weather for the first two days and the ship, headed now into familiar northern waters, made good speed. The district manager, who was travelling with us and who hated to see anyone unoccupied, took me on as a temporary, very junior office boy, to sort out the files and account books of the posts which had already been visited. The other people still on board were mainly specialists in one line or another, who seemed quite keen to fill in my remaining spare moments with lectures on a variety of subjects. An anthropologist, an archaeologist, an ornithologist, two scientists, a representative of the Canadian government and two R.C.M. policemen were among those I can remember being on board. From some of them I gathered an amount of useful knowledge, but was never quite sure whether my leg was being pulled or not.
The archdeacon, who six months previously had introduced me to the Arctic, was making the rounds of his widely scattered missionaries and obviously felt under some obligation to take me under his wing. I think he had it in mind to give me a warning as to the possible moral dangers that lay ahead of me, but after two quite lengthy sessions, could get no further than giving me a bar of chocolate and some advice as to how to avoid becoming constipated during the winter months, because of the effort needed to visit the outside lavatory on cold draughty days.
The ice fields were not far away from us. Over towards Greenland, visibility ended in a long line of grey fog, behind which, they told me, the ice blocks were grinding their way steadily southward.
On the morning of the fourth day out, we steamed through a bank of fog and came almost immediately into a large field. The massive blocks crunched against the side of the vessel, but the Nascopie pushed them aside. Every now and then we came up against a solid pan which had not broken up into pieces and the captain had to force the ship through by reversing a little way, then rushing back at the ice at top speed. The solid iron bows with the full power of the engines behind them usually sufficed to smash a path through but we made slow speed.
Early in the afternoon, a lookout sighted black objects in the ice ahead of us. Out came the binoculars and the telescopes. ‘Walrus,’ said the more experienced northerners. Two of the passengers, unable to resist the temptation of trying to kill the inoffensive creatures, went below to fetch their rifles, but were restrained by the older hands, who told them that they would be wasting their time and ammunition, for without proper harpoons with which to secure the walrus the bodies would just sink to the bottom of the sea.
Reluctantly the would-be hunters held their fire. We came closer and saw that it was quite a large herd. A huge old bull, seemingly the leader, lifted his head to look round every now and then, obviously checking on the safety of the group. He must have seen us, but as our approach was not particularly noisy, he did not raise the alarm until the ship steamed up to the very point upon which the walrus were resting.
We had a wonderful view of the herd and those who had got their cameras out were well rewarded. The old bull who had been so vigilant during our approach took charge. As the Nascopie ground into the ice not so very far from them, the leader raised his head again to let out the most enormous bellow, so that they all scrambled and fought to get back into the water. The large bulls, with their great ivory tusks sticking downwards from their jaws and their fierce bewhiskered faces, were a fearsome lot. The cows with their young looked less belligerent, but together they made an awful noise, barging and pushing each other along. For a moment, they appeared to be contemplating an attack on the ship, but suddenly swept round to make off down a lane of open water.
About an hour later, as though we had not had our money’s worth for the day, a polar bear, large, grizzled and yellowish against the ice, came out from behind a mound on a small iceberg to stare gravely at us as we passed by. This time our hunters were not to be denied. Three of them rushed down to fetch weapons. By the time they had returned to the deck, the bear had moved off a short distance, wisely having his doubts as to our intentions. The fusillade that followed confirmed his doubts and the animal, now thoroughly alarmed by the noise, raised himself on to his hind legs and dived into the sea, finally disappearing among some nearby ice blocks. He had been wounded though, for we passed a streamer of his blood in a patch of open water. The archdeacon took the marksmen to task for having caused the creature unnecessary suffering.