In the Land of White Death: An Epic Story of Survival in the Siberian Arctic by Jon Krakauer, David Roberts, Alison Anderson, Valerian Albanov
blindness. I am afraid we may soon have to strap him to a sledge. Our greatest hope lies in finding the landmass we have been seeking for so long, where we shall be saved from our fears of drifting ever northward.
MAY 21
We managed to bypass the dangerous waters, but at the expenditure of a great deal of sweat! Six or seven of us at a time had to strain hard to get each sledge over myriad ice ridges, crevasses, and holes. The entire way we had to carve a passable route from the pack ice, chipping away with our axes and harpoons. It was a far cry from the smooth, snow-free terrain where we needed only two men to pull each sledge. We were blocked at every stride by unforeseen channels and fissures, and today we covered only four miles. The horizon reveals a water sky. Ahead of us lie numerous open leads too wide to be bridged by a sledge, yet too narrow and choked with ice blocks to be navigable by kayak. The appearance of our surroundings has changed dramatically. No sign of thick pack ice. Everywhere there is fresh, bluish sheet ice between one and nine inches thick. Today it is even mixed with sand and clay.*
* Sand and clay in the ice would signal the presence of nearby land.
When I was with Lunayev today I noticed he was spitting blood. I examined him at once and found that his gums bore the characteristic symptoms of scurvy.
At least I now have a clear idea of what is wrong with him, and there is only one remedy: a lot of physical movement! But I also managed to make him take some quinine. His recovery depends on the strength of his physical resistance and his will to live.
My instruments are in a sorry state. The big compass was broken and quite useless so I threw it out. The small one is hardly any better: The glass is broken and the liquid has seeped out. The magnet stone at the tip of the needle has been damaged by the repeated battering it has received, so now the needle scarcely moves at all. To navigate I have been forced to rely on little more than the sun, my watch, and the miniature compass fitted onto my binoculars. But these minor setbacks would be bearable if we had confidence that we were getting nearer to our destination and could see land. Open, Sesame!
Toward evening, the wind backed to the northeast. Thank God!
MAY 22
The wind has shifted again, and is now blowing from the east-northeast, which is quite bad news since it can force us to drift westward. It has gotten much colder. The terrain, on the whole, is good. Only rarely do we have to cross thin, brittle ice; the underlayer sometimes has a brownish color, which we mistakenly thought was sand or clay. On closer examination we realized it was a pinkish brown algae, which led us to the conclusion that the ice had been near a coastline. Later, this coloring would become more frequent.
The fog finally lifted and the sun came out, but I was unable to calculate the meridian altitude; I could do no more than reckon that we were at latitude 82°38´ north. At midnight I obtained the sun’s altitude and got a latitude of 82°29´, a coordinate which seemed more exact. Without an artificial horizon, and with an overcast sky, I had to be content with these approximate observations. That is not all that is missing. Above all, we lack good sledges . . . and good sledge dogs.
The wind backed again to the northeast and filled our sails. What an interesting picture our little fleet made as it raised its sails! But I can hardly say, as Nansen did, “In the gusts we often went along like feathers.” It was really more like crawling, but the sails did help us a little to haul our loads, and on the whole they did make things easier. We followed our route all day long, and did not see any sign of seals. We observed only an unknown species of seagull.
Gubanov has now also contracted scurvy, his gums bleeding and swollen, so I have decided to use the two invalids as scouts, to keep them on the move. I realized that there had
MAY 21
We managed to bypass the dangerous waters, but at the expenditure of a great deal of sweat! Six or seven of us at a time had to strain hard to get each sledge over myriad ice ridges, crevasses, and holes. The entire way we had to carve a passable route from the pack ice, chipping away with our axes and harpoons. It was a far cry from the smooth, snow-free terrain where we needed only two men to pull each sledge. We were blocked at every stride by unforeseen channels and fissures, and today we covered only four miles. The horizon reveals a water sky. Ahead of us lie numerous open leads too wide to be bridged by a sledge, yet too narrow and choked with ice blocks to be navigable by kayak. The appearance of our surroundings has changed dramatically. No sign of thick pack ice. Everywhere there is fresh, bluish sheet ice between one and nine inches thick. Today it is even mixed with sand and clay.*
* Sand and clay in the ice would signal the presence of nearby land.
When I was with Lunayev today I noticed he was spitting blood. I examined him at once and found that his gums bore the characteristic symptoms of scurvy.
At least I now have a clear idea of what is wrong with him, and there is only one remedy: a lot of physical movement! But I also managed to make him take some quinine. His recovery depends on the strength of his physical resistance and his will to live.
My instruments are in a sorry state. The big compass was broken and quite useless so I threw it out. The small one is hardly any better: The glass is broken and the liquid has seeped out. The magnet stone at the tip of the needle has been damaged by the repeated battering it has received, so now the needle scarcely moves at all. To navigate I have been forced to rely on little more than the sun, my watch, and the miniature compass fitted onto my binoculars. But these minor setbacks would be bearable if we had confidence that we were getting nearer to our destination and could see land. Open, Sesame!
Toward evening, the wind backed to the northeast. Thank God!
MAY 22
The wind has shifted again, and is now blowing from the east-northeast, which is quite bad news since it can force us to drift westward. It has gotten much colder. The terrain, on the whole, is good. Only rarely do we have to cross thin, brittle ice; the underlayer sometimes has a brownish color, which we mistakenly thought was sand or clay. On closer examination we realized it was a pinkish brown algae, which led us to the conclusion that the ice had been near a coastline. Later, this coloring would become more frequent.
The fog finally lifted and the sun came out, but I was unable to calculate the meridian altitude; I could do no more than reckon that we were at latitude 82°38´ north. At midnight I obtained the sun’s altitude and got a latitude of 82°29´, a coordinate which seemed more exact. Without an artificial horizon, and with an overcast sky, I had to be content with these approximate observations. That is not all that is missing. Above all, we lack good sledges . . . and good sledge dogs.
The wind backed again to the northeast and filled our sails. What an interesting picture our little fleet made as it raised its sails! But I can hardly say, as Nansen did, “In the gusts we often went along like feathers.” It was really more like crawling, but the sails did help us a little to haul our loads, and on the whole they did make things easier. We followed our route all day long, and did not see any sign of seals. We observed only an unknown species of seagull.
Gubanov has now also contracted scurvy, his gums bleeding and swollen, so I have decided to use the two invalids as scouts, to keep them on the move. I realized that there had
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