The First Landing on Wrangel Island | Page 2

odd phenomena for which the high latitudes are so remarkable. On July 30, the fine weather continuing, everybody was correspondingly elate and merry when both Herald and Wrangel islands were sighted from the "cro'-nest" and, as they were neared, apparently free from ice. This illusion, however, was soon dispelled. On approaching the land strong tide rips were encountered, and finally the ice, the drift of which was shown by the drop of a lead-line to be west-northwest. We steamed through about fifteen miles of this ice before being stopped, less than half a mile from the southeast end of the island by the fixed ice, to which the ship was secured with a kedge. We got off, and after considerable climbing and scrambling up and down immense hummocks, and jumping a number of crevices, finally set foot on the land we had been so long trying to reach. Our advent created a great commotion among the myriads of birds that frequent the ledges and cliffs, and the intrusion caused them to whirl about in a motley cloud and scream at each other in ceaseless uproar. A few minutes sufficed to survey the situation, before attempting to ascend at a spot that seemed scarcely to afford footing for a goat. Near the foot of the cliffs were seen on the one hand several detached pinnacles of sombre-looking weather-worn granite that had withstood the vigor of many Arctic winters; on the other hand a seemingly inaccessible wall, vividly recalling the eastern face of the Rock of Gibraltar. This sight, strange and weird beyond description, did not fail to awaken odd thoughts and emotions, far removed as we were from all human intercourse, amid solitude and desolation, and for a moment the mind absorbed a dash of the local coloring. Selecting what was believed to be the most favorable spot to ascend the cliff, two of our party in making the attempt would occasionally detach large bowlders, which came bounding, down like a bombardment.
The attempt was abandoned after climbing a few hundred feet. In company with several others, I tried what seemed to be a more practicable way--a gully filled with snow--up which we had gone scarcely a hundred feet when it, too, had to be abandoned. In the meantime the skin boat had been brought over the ice, and one of the men pointing out another place where he thought we might ascend, it was the work of but a few minutes to cross a bit of open water which led to the foot of a steep snowbank, somewhat discolored from the gravel brought down by melting snow. Without despairing, and being in that frame of mind prepared to incur danger to a reasonable extent for the sake of knowledge, we climbed several hundred feet over the snow and ice, having to cut steps with an axe that we had brought along, before reaching the top. The latter stage of this proceeding was like scrambling over the dome of the Washington Capitol with a great yawning cliff below, and was well calculated to try the nerve of any one except a competent mountaineer or a sailor accustomed to a doddering mast. A ravine was next reached, through which tumbled with loud noise and wild confusion, over broken rocks and amid some scant lichens and mosses, a stream of pure water, which had hollowed out a shaft or funnel, forming a glacier mill or moulin. It was over the roof of this tunnel that we had passed, and it caused an awesome feeling to come over one to see the water leap down its mouth to an unseen depth with a loud rumbling noise. After a tiresome ascent of the ravine, this hitherto inaccessible island, like a standing challenge of Nature inviting the muscular and ambitious, was at last climbed to the very summit; and it may be remarked, with pardonable vanity, that the feat was never done before. The view revealed from the top of the island was a veritable apocalypse. There was something unique about the desolate grandeur of the novel surroundings that would cause a man of the Sir Charles Coldstream type to say there "is something in it," and the most hackneyed man of the world would acknowledge a new sensation. It was midnight, and the sun shone with gleaming splendor over all this waste of ice and sea and granite; on one hand Wrangel Island appeared in well-defined outline, on the other an open sea extended northward as far as we were able to make out by the aid of strong glasses. From our position about the middle of the island the two extreme points of Wrangel island bore southwest and west-by-south respectively. In shape, Herald island is something like a boot with a depression at the instep,