A polar bear attack on one of Barents’s crew members during his second expedition into Arctic waters. His frightened colleagues reacted at first by running away, but soon returned and found the animal “devouring the man … the beare bit his head in sunder and sucked out his blood.”
Consider also the likes of the Dutchman, Willem Barents, “the most distinguished martyr to Arctic investigation,” who more than two centuries before Franklin set out no less determinedly in the opposite direction, to uncover the Northeast Passage. And like Sir John, he too made three journeys, on the last of which his small vessel became decisively ice-bound. The crushing packs continued to press, and eventually the vessel was heaved up like a toy and broken beyond repair. Barents and his tiny crew came ashore and with no small effort constructed a shelter from material of the wrecked ship. They thus become the first Europeans to pass an entire Arctic winter — long, dark days in constant fear of intruding polar bears. Once, the horrified crew witnessed such a beast attacking and killing one of their numbers and then gorging itself on brain matter that spilled from the split skull. Some of the crew returned home to tell the tale of the incredible adventures, but others, Barents included, forfeited their lives in futile missions.
One of the most compelling tales of man’s resourcefulness and endurance in the Arctic is that of the four Pomori hunters who in 1741 found themselves accidental castaways on one of the Arctic’s most inhospitable islands, in Spitzbergen. For six years they managed to survive in isolation on what little they happened to have carried originally: the clothes on their backs, a musket and twelve rounds of ammunition, a knife, an axe, a small tea kettle, a tinderbox, twenty pounds of flour, and a pouch of tobacco. That and later, a hunk of driftwood which had washed ashore — providentially, with a spike driven through. What sort of men were these, and what force was within them that allowed for survival?
Franklin, Barents, and Kennan: three among scores of others who over the centuries answered the call of the North. These valiants came from England, Russia, United States, and Denmark, from Norway, Sweden, and Canada, from Germany, Italy, and Hungary. Most were spurred on in search of fame and fortune while others, by hopes of discovery or simply through a sense of adventure. However one might view them, they were all outsiders not belonging to the Arctic, interlopers really. These Europeans form one of two stout threads that are woven into the fabric of Arctic history. The other thread finds its strength in the scattering of indigenous peoples who arrived to those far northlands centuries before any European and settled there — the Inuit of Canada and Greenland, Aleuts of Alaska, Yakut and Chukchi of Siberia or Lapps of Scandinavia, to name but a few. It was their homeland that suffered European incursion, but it was they who ultimately showed many of the outsiders how to cope with those inhospitable environs. These were the children of the Arctic Siren, who smiled benevolently upon them. Two distinctive threads that share a commonality — their histories are equally framed in display of courage and stubbornness, in conquest and failure, and in death and survival.
So, for starters, how to define the region known as the Arctic? Where does it begin and end and what exactly is the North Pole, the so-called “top of the world”? Simply put, the pole is that point on the surface of the northern hemisphere through which passes the tilted axis of earth’s rotation. This geographic North Pole is not to be confused with the magnetic North Pole, the globe’s constantly-moving point where the earth’s magnetic field tips vertically downward and from which the compass finds its bearing.
Strictly speaking, anyone laying claim to having stood at the pole is in error for, as we have seen, such person was positioned some four kilometeres above it, on the ice-covered ocean surface. Of the world’s five oceans, the Arctic is the smallest, yet in linear terms from one shore to the opposite, distances exceed 3100 miles. The nearest landfall from the pole is the obscure island of Kaffeklubben 440 miles away, off the coast of Greenland. Had the same claimant been challenged to point east or west, he would have been unable to do so, for at the pole all directions point south. Had the adventurer looked directly above at the night sky, he would have found the most telling celestial body in the northern hemisphere, Polaris, or the North Star. From ancient times, astronomers and navigators took their bearings from this apparently stationary star, around which the night sky seems to revolve. The star is also known as “the Great Bear,” and the word for bear in Greek is arktos — hence, “arctic”.
The circumpolar region with the Arctic Circle. The irregular dotted line indicates the approximate treeline.
Map by Cameron McLeod Jones.
The term “arctic” has two commonly used, varied definitions, neither of which is 100 percent satisfactory. The neatest, less amorphous demarcation has it in terms of earth–sun relationship: the Arctic Circle at latitude 66°33' N is the clearly drawn boundary. Here on one day of the year (about June 21) the sun does not set, and on one day of the year (about December 21), it does not rise — the summer and winter solstices. The second definition is rooted in terms of climate and vegetation. The Arctic is delineated by the irregular and shifting 50ºF July isotherm — the line closely corresponding to the northern limit of tree growth: to the south, taiga and low-lying trees, and to the north, the treeless tundra. By accepting the latter definition, it must be appreciated that much of what is called “the sub-Arctic” falls within these parameters. This book’s purview is framed by that second definition, for within the broader bounds are found the majority of the Arctic’s indigenous population, which today is being dramatically affected by climatic change. The canvas before us therefore is sizeable and broad brushstrokes are required to come to terms with it.
Amid false hopes and mirages, early explorers competed as much for glory and kudos as for discovery and territorial claim. But for today’s explorers and entrepreneurs the mirages are a thing of the past — scientific and technological advances have written an end to them with unsettling rapidity. Pressures wrought by climate change and environmental concerns, the dogged quest for fresh sources of energy and political jockeying of nations for strategic positioning have brought fresh realities to the North. The principals in the continuing rivalry are the five prime Arctic nations: Russia, Canada, United States, Norway, and Denmark — all taken up in the whirlwind of transformation of which the greater public generally is imperfectly informed.
Beneath the Arctic landscape lies a vast wealth of hidden treasures — gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, uranium, cobalt, titanium, and platinum. But it is oil and gas that attracts most attention. Estimates of the region’s oil reserves are wild, with some figures running as high as 40 percent of the world’s total. If such is the case, the Arctic’s potential eclipses those of Saudi Arabia and Iran combined. The challenges of exploration and extraction are one thing, getting it all to the markets is quite another matter. But with global warming and the retreat of the ice caps, the promise of an open shipping channel is an eminent reality. An ice-free Northwest Passage will not only permit the transport of Arctic riches to the markets, but would unlock a trans-polar route for east–west shipping, cutting some sailing times by 40 percent or more. Not surprising, therefore, that interest today in that distant reach of our planet is as great as ever; the place that “God had secreted all for himself” is being ruthlessly penetrated. My hope for this volume is that it will stimulate a greater appreciation for this wondrous and fragile part of our world. As a friend adroitly put it, “The Arctic today is tomorrow’s hot spot.”
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Some years ago I was invited to join a group of businessmen flying to Resolute, Canada’s second-most northern