July 24, 180 Icebergs

July 24—A clear, fine sunset at nine, and Goodsir examining ‘mollusca,’ in the microscope. He is in ecstasies about a bag full of blubber-like stuff, which he has just hauled up in a net, and which turns out to be whales’ food and other animals. It is all part of Sir John’s instructions on the necessity of observing everything from flea to whale in the unknown regions we are to visit. This afternoon, seven or eight large grampuses came shooting past us to the southwest, which Mister Goodsir declared delightful animals. Last evening a shoal of porpoises bounded about the bows of the vessel as she plunged into the sea, and a bird called a mullimauk, a sort of peterel, wheeled over us. The Arctic folk say the bird, when seen in open water, is a sign of approaching ice. We need no such indicators. Today I counted 180 icebergs within sight of the masthead, and yet they are widely spaced and as long as a secure watch is kept, pose no threat.

It is but a month since I saw my first iceberg, a poor snowy one about six or eight miles off as I recall, but now I am quite accustomed to them. Before making their acquaintance, I had fancied them to be large transparent lumps or rocks of ice, but that is not at all the case; they are mostly like huge masses of pure snow, furrowed with caverns and dark ravines. They come from the glaciers which break off from Greenland’s mountains. We should see them no more as soon as we enter Lancaster Sound.

Sir John told us at dinner of a tight spot he was in with Buchan at Spitzbergen in 1818. 

“We were in a bay, at the foot of a large glacier,” he said. “Our attention was all on mapping the rugged coastline. All of a sudden, we heard a mighty crack. Upon looking up we observed a huge piece of ice sliding down the face of the glacier. It fell some two hundred feet and crashed into the water in front of us, sending up much foam and spray and almost swamping the boat. The ice disappeared for several minutes before bobbing back up to a height of some 100 feet. Water was cascading down its sides as it rolled over and commenced to drift out to sea. I estimated the weight of ice at near 500,000 tons and, certainly, the noise of the crash must have been heard upwards of four miles away.”

The natural phenomena at these latitudes are quite extraordinary. The light is quite sharp, making distant things appear much closer than they actually are. There is also a phenomenon, called ‘ice-blink’ by Reid, which is the reflection of the sunset and ice on clouds which is truly quite striking, resembling nothing so much as a large town on fire some twenty miles off. Sometimes the clouds move off, like a blanket being withdrawn and leaving an orange-coloured arch below a well-defined dark, clear, cold horizon. I do not think I have ever smelled air as crisp as this. Every odour, from the tang of the sea to the rather more pungent fragrance below decks, seems exaggerated and I find myself more aware of my surroundings than I have ever been (with the exception of the thrill of entering a military engagement). I suppose that since our senses are our only windows to the world, any change in what is perceived will alter our temper. Certainly in this world where sight and sound and smell are heightened I feel unusually alert.