Geographical Aspects of The First International Polar Year, 1882-1883

Geographical Aspects of the First International Polar Year, 1882-1883
Author(s): William Barr

Source: Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 73, No. 4 (Dec., 1983), pp.
463-484
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Articles
Geographical Aspects of the First
International Polar Year, 1882-1883
William Barr
Department of Geography, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N OWO
Abstract. 1983 marks the centennial of a milestone event in the history of scientific research
in the polar regions, the First International Polar Year. A total of 14 stations was established in
the polar regions by 12 different nations, along with a number of subsidiary stations. Focusing
primarily on meteorology, geomagnetism, and auroral studies, scientists at these stations car-
ried out a standardized, synchronized program of observations for a full calendar year. In terms
of the geographical spinoff from the project, several of the expeditions made notable contri-
butions in the area of exploration and mapping, particularly the American expedition to Elles-
mere Island and the French expedition to Cabo de Hornos (Cape Horn). The meteorological
program naturally produced a wealth of raw data, which are now of great value as a basis for
comparisons. Although geomorphology was not part of the official program, several of the
scientists made very useful observations, particularly in the area of periglacial forms and pro-
cesses. Concerning the marine environment the Dutch expedition, whose ship was adrift in the
ice of the Kara Sea for the entire year, contributed very valuable observations on the nature
and behavior of sea ice. Its oceanographic contribution was also extremely significant, as was
that of the French expedition to Cabo de Hornos. Scientists from several of the expeditions
also made extensive and valuable pioneer observations of the indigenous peoples in their re-
spective areas. Worthy of particular mention here are studies of the Eskimo of the North Slope
by the American expedition to Point Barrow, of the Inuit of Cumberland Sound by a scientist
with the German expedition to Baffin Island, and of the Yahgan Indians of Tierra del Fuego by
the French expedition to Cabo de Hornos.
Key Words: international scientific co-operation, polar regions.
THE
single aspect
of the First International
Polar Year (1882-83) that caught inter-
national headlines at the time and public
imagination ever since, was undoubtedly the
tragic retreat of Lieutenant Adolphus W.
Greely's American expedition from its station
at Fort Conger on Lady Franklin Bay, Elles-
mere Island. Owing to a tragic sequence of
oversights, errors, miscalculations, and ac-
cidents, Greely and his 24 companions were
condemned to a wintering, totally without
preparation, on the barren, inhospitable
shores of Pim Island in Smith Sound (Fig. 1),
a wintering that only seven of them survived
(Greely 1886).
Two aspects of this disaster tend to have
been overlooked. First, it occurred during the
retreat from Lady Franklin Bay. Greely and his
men had already successfully completed a
two-year program involving a wide range of
scientific observations; the journals, notes,
photographs, and samples were carefully
preserved by the starving men on Pim Island
and all the results were subsequently pub-
lished (Greely 1888). Second, Greely's expe-
dition was only one of 14 similar expeditions
to the Arctic and Antarctic, mounted by 12
different nations. It is the wide scope of this
remarkably ambitious pioneer scientific effort
that has tended to a degree to be eclipsed by
the highly publicized events on Pim Island.
Background and Organization
The origins and organization of the First
International Polar Year have recently been
admirably discussed by Baker (1982), and
hence only an outline of these aspects will be
presented here. It was the brainchild of Lieu-
Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 73(4), 1983, pp. 463-484
? Copyright 1983 by Association of American Geographers
463
464 Barr
KAP MORRIS JE SU ITja
ARCTIC OCEAN LOCKWOO
AXEL
HEIBERG ELLESMERE
ISLAND ISLAND
0 0 ~~~~~~~G R E E N L A N D
KAN GRELN
Figure 1. Area of operations and retreat route of
the American expedition to Ellesmere Island.
tenant Karl Weyprecht of the Austro-Hun-
garian Navy. As co-leader of the Austro-Hun-
garian North Pole Expedition of 1872-74
(Payer 1876), Weyprecht had wintered in the
ice of the Barents Sea aboard Tegetthoff off
the southeast coast of Zemlya Frantsa losifa,
which this expedition discovered. On the
basis of his experiences and of his wide
knowledge of previous polar expeditions,
Weyprecht reached the conclusion that the
time had come for a drastic change of direc-
tion in polar research. Although there were
still major gaps in the map of the Arctic and
especially of the Antarctic, Weyprecht felt
that the era of uncoordinated independent
expeditions aimed primarily at geographical
exploration, but with negligible scientific re-
sults, was over. He particularly denigrated the
fact that polar expeditions were widely re-
garded as a sort of international steeple-
chase, aimed primarily at conferring honor on
the various national flags by breaking the rec-
ord for the highest attained latitude by a few
miles. "Decisive scientific results can only be
attained through a series of synchronous ex-
peditions, whose task it would be to distribute
themselves over the Arctic regions and to ob-
tain one year's series of observations made
according to the same method" (Payer and
Weyprecht 1875, 33). An international coor-
dinating body would ensure an optimal dis-
tribution of the stations and standardization
of measurements. He envisaged the major ef-
fort being directed to meteorology, aurora,
and earth magnetism, as these were the areas
where the greatest gaps in the knowledge of
the polar regions existed (Wild 1882).
The scientific climate was right for a
scheme such as Weyprecht's. His particular
contribution was that through his drive, am-
bition, and connections he was able to bring
his scheme to fruition. The all-important in-
fluence, as well as financial backing, came
from Graf Hans von Wilczek, sponsor of the
Tegetthoff expedition. Weyprecht first aired
his plan at a meeting of the Austro-Hungarian
Academy of Sciences in Vienna in 1875 and
then at the 48th annual meeting of the As-
sociation of German Naturalists and Physi-
cians at Graz in the fall of that year (Heath-
cote and Armitage 1959). Encouraged by the
sympathetic hearings received from these
bodies (and a number of others), Weyprecht
and Wilczek compiled an even more detailed
proposal for presentation to the International
Meteorological Congress scheduled to meet
in Rome in September 1877 but in fact post-
poned until the spring of 1879 because of the
war in the Balkans.
The proposal was very warmly received by
this influential scientific body, which formed
an International Meteorological Commission
with a mandate to convene an International
Polar Conference at Hamburg on 1 October
1879. This first International Polar Confer-
ence was attended by nine delegates from
Denmark, Germany, France, the Netherlands,
Norway, Austro-Hungary, Russia, and
Sweden. Apologies were received from Bel-
gium, Great Britain, Spain, and Portugal for
being unable to send representatives (Baker
1982). The Commission worked out a detailed
program of observations, the major foci to be
meteorology, geomagnetism, and auroral
studies. The period of observation would be
from the fall of 1881 until the fall of 1882, and
it was stipulated that commitments to a min-
imum of eight stations in the Arctic would
have to be received before the program could
proceed (Wild 1882).
A subsequent meeting of the International
Polar Commission was held in Bern in August
1880. Because by this stage definite commit-
ments to participate had been received by
only four countries, namely Austro-Hungary,
Denmark, Norway, and Russia, it was decided
to postpone implementation of the Interna-
tional Polar Year until 1882-83. The third
meeting of the International Polar Commis-
sion took place in St. Petersburg in August
1881, when it was determined that "the inter-
First International Polar Year 465
national Polar stations are to begin their ob-
servations as soon as possible after August
1, 1882, and end them as late as possible be-
fore September 1, 1883" (Heathcote and Ar-
mitage 1959, 9). It also spelled out what ob-
servations should be taken and how: part of
the program was obligatory at all stations,
part was optional.
The Expeditions
Ultimately 14 major stations were occupied,
12 being arranged in a fairly regularly spaced
circumpolar ring in the nothern hemisphere
(Fig. 2) and two being in the southern hemi-
sphere. A total of 12 different countries was
involved.
The United States mounted two expedi-
tions, both organized by and responsible to
the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, United
States Army. Both operated for two years:
they were established in the summer of 1881
and had already completed a full year of ob-
servations when the International Polar Year
began. The first of these, led by First Lieu-
tenant P. Henry Ray, Eighth Infantry, estab-
lished itself at Point Barrow, Alaska, and in-
volved seven scientists and observers with a
support staff of three (Ray 1885). The loading
of the schooner Leo, which arrived to evac-
uate the party in August 1883, repeatedly had
to be interrupted when pack ice drove against
the coast, causing the evacuation to be rather
rushed. Otherwise, both the establishment
and evacuation proceeded fairly easily. This
was certainly not the case with the other
American expedition, which was established
at Lady Franklin Bay, Ellesmere Island. This
expedition, led by Lieutenant Adolphus W.
Greely, Fifth Cavalry, and consisting of 25
men, including 2 Greenlanders from the
Upernavik area, became the victim of a tragic
set of circumstances, probably the most crit-
ical of which was the sinking of the relief ship
Proteus, crushed by ice in Kane Basin when
she was on her way north to evacuate the
expedition in the summer of 1883 (Greely
1886). The outcome was that Greely and his
men retreated south by their own efforts to
Pim Island, where they settled into primitive
winter quarters, with only a miserable reserve
of rations, in October 1883. When a rescue
vessel finally reached them the following
10 soo I
CANADA
~~I2~~~ ob
~~~RUSSIA
NOD
GREENLAN
KA ARAU
THR
D
Figure 2. Distribution of stations of the First In-
ternational Polar Year in the northern hemisphere.
June only seven men were still alive, of whom
one died during the return voyage.
The British contribution was an extremely
modest, workman-like affair. A party of four
men from the Royal Artillery led by Captain
Henry P. Dawson, operating under the aus-
pices of the Royal Society of London with
some financial and organizational help from
the Royal Society of Canada, established a
station at the Hudson's Bay Company's post
at Fort Rae on Great Slave Lake (Dawson
1886), midway between the present town of
Yellowknife and the village of Rae-Edzo. The
Hudson's Bay Company provided both ac-
commodation and logistical support. One is
struck by two features of this modest British
contribution. First, official confirmation of
British involvement in the International Polar
Year was not forthcoming until the remark-
ably late date of 3 April 1882 (Mittheilungen
der Internationalen Polar-Commission
1882a). Thus, despite a long tradition of
polar exploration, Britain was far from being
in the forefront of the operation. Second, it is
striking that the expedition was mounted by
the Royal Artillery and not by the Royal Navy.
One can only surmise that after the expense
and effort of the Franklin searches, followed
by the relatively high loss of life during the
Nares expedition of 1875-76, during which
four men had died of scurvy and exposure
(Nares 1878), the Admiralty had decided to
withdraw from further polar endeavors.
The third expedition to the Canadian North
was a German expedition to Kingua (Clear-
466 Barr
water) Fiord on Baffin Island. Apart from its
leader, Dr. W. Giese, it consisted of a further
six scientists and a support staff of six (Neu-
mayer 1891; Barr and Tolley 1982). The Ger-
mans had a relatively trouble-free voyage to
Baffin Island, but at the end of their sojourn
their relief ship Germania was unable to
reach Clearwater Fiord because of ice. Giese
and his men therefore had to make their way
to Kekerten, where the ship was lying, aboard
an American whaling schooner.
On the other side of Davis Straits the
Danish expedition, sponsored by the Danish
Meteorological Institute, established itself at
Godthaab (Paulsen 1893; Ryder 1885). It was
a relatively modest affair, consisting of only
six men, including the leader, Professor
Adam Paulsen. As with several of the Scan-
dinavian stations, Paulsen and his men en-
joyed the advantages of being located in a
well-established settlement; hence the oper-
ation had much less of the atmosphere of an
"expedition" than many of the others. Cer-
tainly the hazards they faced were consider-
ably less.
The next station to the east was the Aus-
trian establishment on Jan Mayen, manned by
the Austro-Hungarian Navy but financed by
Graf Wilczek. One presumes that Weyprecht
had intended to lead this expedition himself,
but unfortunately he had died of tuberculosis
on 29 March 1881. His replacement as expe-
dition leader was Lieutenant Emil von Wohl-
gemuth; the total expedition complement
was six officers/scientists and eight seamen.
It is a revealing comment on ice conditions
in 1882 that the expedition steamer Pola
spent more than two weeks in early June
trying to force her way through the ice to her
island destination. Only after a return to
Troms0 to refuel was Pola finally able to
reach it on 13 July (Wohigemuth 1886; Cha-
vanne 1884).
Swedish participation in the First Interna-
tional Polar Year involved an expedition
mounted by the Royal Swedish Academy of
Sciences and dispatched to Svalbard. It was
led by Professor Nils G. Ekholm and con-
sisted (apart from himself) of five scientists,
with a support staff of six (Ekholm 1887). The
intended site for the station was Mossel-
bugta, near the entrance to Wijdefjorden at
the extreme northern tip of Spitsbergen,
where the buildings erected by Nordenskiold
during his attempt at the Pole in 1872-73
(Kjellman 1875) were known to be still in ex-
cellent condition. But the Swedish naval ves-
sels Urd and Verdandi carrying the expedition
were blocked by ice off Amsterdam0ya at the
northwestern tip of Spitsbergen and Ekholm
was obliged to settle for a more southerly lo-
cation. Fortunately another abandoned but
well-equipped set of buildings was available,
recently built by a mining company, on the
north shore of Isfjorden at Kapp Thordsen.
As in the case of the Danish operation, the
Norwegian "expedition" was located in a
well-established community and even had ac-
cess to a telegraph station. The location was
the village of Bossekop on Altafjorden in
Finnmark (Steen 1887), where the "expedi-
tion" occupied a solidly built Norwegian farm
house (Fig. 3). The party, led by Dr. Aksel S.
Steen, consisted of only five men. As with the
station at Godthaab, the atmosphere was
much more that of a research station in a
fairly isolated community than that of a polar
expedition.
The same remarks apply to the Finnish sta-
tion, located in the village of SodankylA in
Finnish Lappland (Lemstrom and Biese 1886)
and organized by the Central Meteorological
Institute of the Society of Sciences of Finland.
It too was a modest operation, involving
simply seven scientists/observers, including
the leader, Dr. S. Lemstrom. Even with these
limited numbers, however, some of the team
moved north to an auxiliary station at the vil-
lage of Kultala for part of the winter. There,
apart from the normal range of observations,
a special program of auroral experiments was
mounted. In order to continue and expand on
the auroral studies begun the previous winter
the expedition was continued through the
winter of 1883-84.
Within Russia the Imperial Russian Geo-
graphical Society was responsible for the or-
ganization of two expeditions. The first to be
organized, of necessity given the logistics in-
volved, was dispatched to the Lena Delta
(Bunge 1895; Jurgens 1885). When it left St.
Petersburg on 16 December 1881 it consisted
of only five men, all recruited from the Im-
perial Russian Navy: leader Lieutenant N. Jur-
gens, his assistant, A. Eigner, medical doctor
and naturalist Dr. A. Bunge, and two seamen.
The early start was necessitated by the for-
midable journey they faced. After a long
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journey by train and sledge via Irkutsk, by 3
May 1882 the party had reached Kachuga on
the Lena, from where they drifted downriver
on clumsy raft-like boats to the delta (Fig. 4).
During a gale on 27 July, all four of their craft
were driven ashore and swamped near the
head of the delta. All the vessels were re-
floated, but many of the supplies had been
spoiled by water and the magnetic variation
instruments had suffered particularly. The
station was finally erected near the south end
of Ostrov Sagastyr', on the seaward edge of
the delta. In the spring it was decided to ex-
tend the period of observation for a further
year. This was perhaps not such a great hard-
ship as might appear, for a Yakut settlement
was nearby. There was a steady, if irregular
stream of visitors, and mail was delivered
once per month in winter and erratically in
summer.
The decision to establish a second Russian
station, on Novaya Zemlya, was taken at a rel-
atively late date, hence the entire organiza-
tion and equipping of the expedition suffered
from being rushed (Lents 1891; Krivosheya
1886). The expedition consisted of the leader,
Lieutenant K. P. Andreyev, two other scien-
tists, a student, and four seamen. Traveling
by the steamer Chizhov, which provided a
regular service for the hunters, trappers, and
fishermen of Novaya Zemlya, the expedition
reached its base at Malyye Karmakuly in Zaliv
Mollera on the west coast of the south island
on 4 August 1882. It had been given permis-
sion to use the buildings of a refuge station
for shipwrecked hunters and fishermen built
by the Russian government in 1878. Here too
the station was located near a native settle-
ment, in this case the people being Nentsi.
On the other hand, this was the only expedi-
tion (apart from Greely's) that suffered oc-
casionally from serious food shortages,
owing to the hurried organization, and it was
heavily reliant on hunting throughout the year.
According to the program of the Interna-
tional Polar Year, a third station was to have
been located in the Russian Arctic, that of the
Dutch expedition, sponsored by the Royal
Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences and led
by Dr. Maurits Snellen (Snellen 1886; Snellen
and Ekama 1910). Apart from Snellen himself,
the personnel consisted of four scientists and
a support staff numbering five men. The ex-
pedition sailed from Amsterdam on 5 July
1882 aboard the Norwegian ship Varna,
bound for Ostrov Dikson at the mouth of the
468 Barr
oh;
00b;
~~~~~~~~~~~~' __
Figure 4. The craft in which the Russian expedition to Ostrov Sagatyr' drifted down the Lena
(Bunge 1895).
Yenisey. But Varna did not reach her desti-
nation: having spent the entire month of Au-
gust in vain attempts at forcing her way
through each of the entrances to the Kara Sea
in turn (namely Matochkin Shar, Karskiye
Vorota, and Yugorskiy Shar), she finally be-
came jammed in the ice and with it drifted
ignominously through Karskiye Vorota.
Shortly afterward, following a period of free
sailing, Varna joined forces with
Dijmphna,
carrying a Danish expedition led by Lieu-
tenant A. Hovgaard, bound for Mys Chelyu-
skina (Hovgaard 1884). Beset in the ice, the
two ships slowly drifted northward along the
coast of Poluostrov Yamal (Fig. 5), but for-
tunately, in mid-April 1883 the drift direction
changed to southwesterly. On 3 November
and again on Christmas Eve both ships were
subjected to severe ice pressures and Varna
was badly damaged. Although she stayed
afloat supported by the ice until 24 July 1883,
from Christmas onward the Dutch personnel
and Varna's Norwegian crew lived aboard
Dijmphna and worked in a hut they built on
the ice. On 1 August Snellen and his men,
accompanied by Varna's crew, set off across
the ice toward Ostrov Vaygach, hauling boats
on sledges. Their landfall three weeks later
was a small island off the northern tip of Os-
trov Vaygach. From there they sailed south to
Khabarovo, where they made contact with the
ships Louise and Nordenskiold, which took
them back to Norway.
Of the two stations in the southern hemi-
sphere, one, on South Georgia, was mounted
by Germany. Led by Dr. K. Schrader, it con-
sisted of seven scientists and a support staff
of four. Having traveled to Montevideo by
mail steamer, the party there transferred to
the German naval corvette Moltke, which
took it to South Georgia (Schrader 1891). The
island was first sighted on 12 August 1882,
and on the 20th Moltke anchored in Royal
Bay on the northeast coast, where the station
was erected (Fig. 6). In addition to the normal
array of buildings, an observatory with a re-
volving dome was built to observe the transit
of Venus on 6 December 1882, this being an
important secondary task of the expedition
(Headland 1982). Owing to the relatively low
latitude of this station (540 31'S, 360 04'W),
temperatures for the most part were mod-
Fi rst International Polar Year 469
l * 52' A_56. 60 64
682
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4-
Oc~IN
SHAR
MALYY~E. ......
KARMAKULY
KARA SEA
72
Z ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~~~~~-~,4/17
-4/.
......V/ 7 , POLUOSTROV
'--1/3/83
Y MA
BARENTS SEA 8/2
KABAROVO
e
1~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~W
..4..........I
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; g
~~~~~~* POSITION WHERE VARNA SANK 6
68?VA ----- VARNA'S ICE DRIFT 72
68
0 50 100 Km.
......
RETREAT ROUTE
52 56 60 64?
68
Figure 5. Route of Varna's drift in the Kara Sea, 1882-83.
^>-? ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~. *
... .
M,.
Figure 6. The German station at
Royal Bay,
South
Georgia, showing
the area
surveyed
and
mapped by
the expedition (Schrader 1891).
470 Barr
erate; however, frequent fierce westerly gales
presented major problems for making obser-
vations and for daily living.
The other expedition to the southern hemi-
sphere, the French expedition to Cabo de
Hornos, was in many ways the most ambi-
tious of the entire program. Sponsored by the
French Navy and led by Commander Louis-
Ferdinand Martial, the expedition consisted
of two components (Martial 1888). The shore
party, which established its station at Bahia
Orange on the east coast of Peninsula Hardy
on Isla de Hoste, some 70 km northwest of
Cabo de Hornos, was led by Lieutenant E.-J.-
L. Courcelle-Seneuil. Under his command
were five scientists/observers and a support
staff of 15 seamen. In addition, the ship Ro-
manche, which took the party to Cabo de
Hornos and back stayed in those waters for
the entire year; she was engaged mainly in
surveying the labyrinth of islands south of the
Canal Beagle. Commanded by Commander
Martial, she carried an additional six officers
and 111 petty officers and seamen. The
French expedition, therefore, was by far the
largest of the First International Polar Year.
As with the German station on South
Georgia, the station at Bahia Orange was
scheduled to observe the transit of Venus. Al-
though the weather was not perfect for the
event, the scientists were able to obtain some
very satisfactory observations. The tempera-
tures were not particularly low, but
throughout the year the sensible climate was
probably the worst of any of the stations: the
expedition account is an endless litany of
gales, rain, sleet, and snow with persistent
heavy overcasts and minimal sunshine.
In addition to the 14 major expeditions,
there were several auxiliary expeditions. Rec-
ognizing that there was a major gap in the
network of weather stations on the Labrador
coast, especially as an estimated 15 percent
of all depressions moving out into the Atlantic
from North America crossed that coast, the
German Polar Commission decided to mount
an auxiliary expedition to Labrador. It con-
sisted of one man, Dr. K. R. Koch, who trav-
eled from London aboard the mission ship of
the Herrnhuter Brudergemeinde, Harmony
(Koch 1891). On reaching Labrador, still trav-
eling aboard Harmony, he distributed
weather screens and instruments to the mis-
sions at Hopedale, Zoar, Okak, Hebron, and
Rama, at each point giving the missionaries
a crash course in weather observing. The
missionaries continued to take the observa-
tions of second-order weather stations
throughout the winter while Koch located
himself at Nain, where he was occupied with
a comprehensive range of meteorological
and auroral studies.
Another one-man auxiliary expedition,
mounted by Sophus Tromholt, formed an off-
shoot of the Norwegian station at Bossekop.
His special focus was auroral studies, and his
observation site was at Kautokeino, some
150 km south of Bossekop (Tromholt 1885).
Tromholt visited the station at Bossekop both
going and coming and greatly appreciated
the assistance and company provided by the
local Lapps.
In the southern hemisphere were two sites
that might be classed as supplementary ob-
serving stations. One was at Port Stanley in
the Falkland Islands, where Captain
1. H. M. D. Seemann, agent for the Hamburg
steamship company "Kosmos," was provided
with instruments by the South Georgia ex-
pedition and maintained a second-order sta-
tion during the year (Schrader 1891). In sim-
ilar fashion Commander Martial of Romanche
presented the Reverend Thomas Bridges at
the missionary station at Ushuaia on Canal
Beagle, some 85 km north of Bahia Orange,
with a set of instruments (Martial 1888). With
these, Reverend Bridges maintained a
second-order meteorological station for the
duration of the expedition.
Even this did not encompass the full scope
of the First International Polar Year. In re-
sponse to an appeal from Professor Wild as
President of the International Polar Commis-
sion, dated 20 December 1881 and circulated
to as many meteorological-magnetic obser-
vatories as possible (Mittheilungen der Inter-
nationalen Polar-Commission 1882b), 35 ob-
servatories at relatively low latitudes, ranging
from Bombay to Havana and from San Diego
to Tashkent, participated in the meteorolog-
ical and magnetic programs of the Interna-
tional Polar Year. In addition, the directors of
both the Russian telegraph system and of the
Austro-Hungarian telegraph systems made
available certain telegraph lines within their
systems at specific times for the purpose of
earth-current measurements. Finally the Me-
teorological Council of the Royal Society un-
dertook a synoptic study of the weather of the
North Atlantic during the year, based on re-
turns from ships' captains, while the Germans
attempted a similar project in the South At-
lantic.
Geographical Exploration and Mapping
Despite Weyprecht's views on the limited
importance of purely geographical explora-
tion and mapping, a very substantial area of
the earth's surface at both poles remained to-
tally unexplored. In the north this held true
for the entire Central Arctic Basin and for
substantial land areas around its periphery,
most notably the majority of the Queen Eliz-
abeth Islands, almost the whole of northern
and northeastern Greenland, and the entire
archipelago of Severnaya Zemlya. Hence, al-
though this was not a major focus in most
cases, there was still plenty of scope for geo-
graphical exploration by expeditions located
around the margins of this vast lacuna. And
stations farther south still had ample scope
for filling in some of the fine detail on the
maps. However, it is clear that opportunity as
well as motivation must have been the lim-
iting factor in many cases; given the ex-
tremely full schedule of magnetic and mete-
orological observations, it was physically im-
possible for some of the smaller expeditions
to indulge in exploration work, no matter how
attractive the surrounding area may have ap-
peared.
In terms of putting new territory on the map
for the first time, Greely's expedition to Fort
Conger was probably preeminent. In this case
exploration and discovery definitely repre-
sented one of the main foci of the expedition
(the planning of which, it should be remem-
bered, was largely complete long before it
was decided that it should be integrated into
the program of the International Polar Year).
In his general instructions to Greely, dated 17
June 1881, W. B. Hazen, the Chief Signals Of-
ficer, made very specific stipulations on the
topic (Greely 1886, xii):
The sledging parties will generally work in the
interests of exploration and discovery. The work
to be done by them should be marked by all care
and fidelity. The outlines of coasts entered on
charts will be such only as have been seen by
the party. Every favorable opportunity will be im-
proved by the sledging parties to determine ac-
curately the geographical position of all their
camps, and to obtain the bearing therefrom of
all distant cliffs, mountains, islands, etc.
The British expedition led by Nares had
made some very impressive sledge expedi-
tions in 1875-76, but nonetheless Greely's
party was able to put a remarkable amount of
new land on the map. Admittedly, Dr. Pavy's
trip in March-April 1882 "for the purpose of
discovering whether land exists to the north-
ward of Cape Joseph Henry" (Greely 1888,
165) was less than successful, not because
he failed to find land in this part of the Arctic
Basin, but because he was stopped by open
water and rugged ice while still only a few
kilometers off the Ellesmere Island coast.
Other expeditions were much more suc-
cessful. That same spring a party led by Lieu-
tenant Lockwood explored the north coast of
Greenland as far east as Lockwood 0, some
200 km beyond Beaumont's farthest point. In-
cidentally, he also set a new highest-north
record of 830 24', beating Markham's farthest
by about 6 km. Meanwhile, on the first re-
corded extensive foray into the interior of
Ellesmere Island Lieutenant Greely dis-
covered Lake Hazen and the United States
Range, and in May 1883 a party led by Lieu-
tenant Lockwood reached the head of Greely
Fiord, having completed the first recorded
crossing of Ellesmere Island (Fig. 1).
The other expedition involving a major ex-
ploration component was the French expe-
dition to Bahia Orange. It enjoyed the advan-
tage that the ship Romanche was attached to
the project for the entire year. Although much
of the area had been explored and charted
previously, especially by Fitzroy in Beagle
fifty years earlier (Fitzroy 1839), Captain Mar-
tial in Romanche was still able to make major
contributions. In a series of cruises
throughout the year he surveyed, mapped,
and sounded east to Isla de los Estados
(Staten Island), west to Peninsula Brecknock,
and north to Punta Arenas and the eastern
entrance to Estrecho de Magallanes (Fig. 7).
His surveys focused especially on the area
south of Canal Beagle, and here he was the
first to explore the intricacies of Seno Aho
Nuevo. Throughout the rest of the area cov-
ered, however, he added enormously to the
detail on the charts, and his account (Martial
1888) contains a wealth of information con-
cerning anchorages, hazards, current and
tides.
-4
. . . . . ..
..
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.... ...... .. ..i t... . ....
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~~~arn~~~~~~~a ~~~~~%RtD~~~~~~~~O~~~~AtE
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GTE SEDGE LETEIGEE EFELI.
AI.Z. ..L. U...A.....N
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S RUB~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~1t V
Figure 7. Th map of theCabo de Horos (Cape Hon) area prouced by theFrench expeition on th
basis of Romanche's surveys (Martial
1888).~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.. ..... .. .........
Of the other expeditions, the Russian ex-
pedition to Ostrov Sagastyr' probably ranks
next in terms of its exploration achievements,
with particular reference to its surveys of the
Lena delta, even whose shape and size were
not known accurately previously, let alone the
details of its maze of channels. In a number
of impressive trips by dog sledge, boat, rein-
deer sledge, and riding reindeer Lieutenant
JUrgens and especially Dr. Bunge criss-
crossed the delta, producing accurate sur-
veys of all the distributaries and channels
they followed and expanding the area of the
delta enormously, especially to the northwest
(JU rgens 1885; Bunge 1895).
The other Russian expedition can also
claim some achievements in the area of ex-
ploration. In April-May of 1883 the expedi-
tion doctor, Dr. Grinevetskiy made the first
recorded crossing of the south island of No-
vaya Zemlya (Grinevetskiy 1883). But it is sig-
nificant that his attempt was prompted by the
arrival at Malyye Karmakuly of a Nenets
hunter/trapper who had just crossed from the
Kara Sea coast. Grinevetskiy then hired him
to guide him on his return trip-a not uncom-
mon theme in the history of "exploration."
Another exploring and surveying achieve-
ment that is noteworthy for its comprehen-
siveness and elegance, if not its magnitude,
was the work of the Austrians on Jan Mayen.
On the basis of surveys made on foot and by
boat in the spring of 1883, Wohlgemuth and
his men surveyed the entire island and pro-
duced a very elegant map at a scale of
1:100,000. While the station was being estab-
lished in August 1882, a party of five led by
Graf Josef Palffy (who made the round trip
aboard Pola but did not winter) attempted the
first ascent of the volcanic cone of Beeren-
berg, which dominates the island (WohIge-
muth 1886); the peak rises to 2277 m and, not
surprisingly, the party was forced to turn back
at 1570 m after a very creditable effort.
The exploration achievements of the
German expedition to South Georgia were
similar (Schrader 1891). In the course of sev-
eral boat trips and overland trips the German
scientists thoroughly explored the coast,
mountains, and glaciers around Royal Bay
(Fig. 6) and produced a handsome map at a
scale of 1:50,000. Sixteen of the place names
bestowed by the expedition have since been
officially adopted, and a further five derived
from the expedition have been added (Head-
land 1982).
In Alaska the Americans at Point Barrow
stuck fairly close to home, but in March-April
1883 Lieutenant Ray, traveling by dogteam
with an Eskimo family, made an excursion in-
land up the Meade River to within sight of the
Brooks Range. This is the first documented
penetration of the interior of the North Slope.
Lieutenant Ray's assessment of the area is as
follows: "It is very doubtful if this vast stretch
of country contains anything that will ever
render it of any commercial value to the
world" (Ray 1885, 48). Prudhoe Bay lies only
some 300 km to the east!
At Kapp Thordsen on Svalbard the Swedes
made no major exploring trips. However,
Lieutenant Stjernspetz, traveling by boat, did
survey and map the Dicksonfjorden area, as
well as the immediate vicinity of Kapp
Thordsen (Stjernspetz 1891). The Germans
on Baffin Island also stuck fairly close to their
base on Clearwater Fiord, although they did
make two minor survey trips, one to the head
of the fiord and another to its mouth in the
spring of 1883 (Neumayer 1891). The other
expeditions, because of lack of manpower
(e.g., the British contingent at Fort Rae) be-
cause of their location in a well-explored and
even long-settled area (e.g., the Norwegians
at Bossekop or the Danes at Godthaab) or
because of a combination of these factors,
made no significant contributions toward ex-
ploraton or mapping.
Meteorology
Of the three major foci of the First Inter-
national Polar Year only one, the meteorolog-
ical program, falls properly within the realm
of geography. Observations at all stations
were synchronized by adopting a standard
time, namely that of Gbttingen. Only one sta-
tion, the Norwegian station at Bossekop, was
within reach of a telegraph station; hence in
every other case time keeping was based on
regular, precise astronomical observations.
All the stations carried out an identical
range of "obligatory" observations. Every
hour atmospheric pressure and temperature,
relative humidity, water vapor tension, and
wind speed and direction were recorded.
Every four hours cloud amount and type, di-
474 Barr
rection of cloud movement, and type of pre-
cipitation (if any) were observed. Total hours
of sunshine and amount of precipitation were
recorded daily. Soil temperatures were also
measured every four hours: the number of
sensors and their depths were variable. Thus
the French at Bahia Orange took only two
measurements, at depths of 15 and 30 cm; the
Austrians on Jan Mayen at seven depths
down to 1.56 m.
In at least three cases satellite weather sta-
tions were set up in order to combat the
problem of a local topography that produced
a distorted picture of the wind regime. At the
German station on Clearwater Fiord it was
suspected that the deep narrow valley at
whose mouth the station lay would influence
wind readings; hence a flagstaff was erected
on a rocky hilltop some 200 m higher, im-
mediately west of the station (Neumayer
1891; Barr and Tolley 1982). Flying from the
staff was a long pennant, visible from the sta-
tion, which could be viewed with a telescope
to determine the wind direction. A screen
containing barometer, thermometer, and hy-
grometer was fastened to the base of the
staff; these were read daily by one of the off-
duty scientists.
At Kapp Thordsen Dr. Ekholm of the
Swedish expedition anticipated a similar
problem, as the station was masked by high
hills on the north side. The solution was to
erect an anemometer and a wind vane on a
summit some 500 m northwest of the station
and 175 m above it. In a somewhat more so-
phisticated arrangement than that used by
the Germans, these instruments were linked
by electric cables to the station and regis-
tered on dials within the station building (Ek-
holm 1887). The Americans at Fort Conger
operated a similar remote-reading satellite
station on Dutch Island 2.5 km south of the
main station (Greely 1888).
The types of optional observations carried
out by the various expeditions are well illus-
trated by those pursued by the French party
at Bahia Orange. These included studies of
lapse rates (with a second station at 430 m),
atmospheric electricity, evaporation rates,
and solar radiation (Lephay 1885). Lephay's
experiments in this last area are of particular
interest, as they were especially novel and
imaginative. For his measurements he con-
structed a pyro-heliometer on the outward
voyage. It took the form of a low, brass, water-
filled cylinder, one face of which was coated
with lamp-black. A thermometer bulb was in-
serted into the water through a hole in the
opposite face of the cylinder. The blackened
surface was set perpendicular to the sun's
rays and the thermometer recorded the
heating and cooling of the water. From a wide
range of readings Lephay was able to calcu-
late the "solar constant" which he measured
at 2.172 langleys per minute.
To place the observing program in per-
spective one has to remember the small num-
bers of men involved at many stations (e.g.,
only four at Fort Rae) and the large number
of man-hours simultaneously absorbed by
the auroral and magnetic programs. The
latter was particularly demanding on the
"term days," designated as the 1st and 15th
of every month, when the magnetic variation
instruments had to be read every five minutes
for 23 hours and every 20 seconds for the
final hour of the day. In the light of this de-
manding schedule one can only be impressed
by the vast array of meteorological data that
was collected, especially in view of the fact
that eight of the stations in the northern
hemisphere were north of the Arctic Circle
(and the remainder fairly close to it) and
therefore experienced extended periods of
continuous darkness of varying lengths, with
all the attendant difficulties, particularly in
view of the lamps available at the time.
One of the Russian observers at Malyye
Karmakuly, Krivosheya (1886) has discussed
at some length the practical problems and
even dangers associated with taking an ob-
servation at night with a severe gale blowing
and in blinding drifting snow: the distorted
temperature readings that would result when
thermometers were coated with ice, which
could not be removed by hand without com-
promising the accuracy of the reading; or the
problems of anemometers being incapaci-
tated by frozen bearings or even having cups
blown off. Krivosheya accused Andreyev, the
station leader, of knowingly permitting and
even encouraging "fabricated" data to ap-
pear on the record sheets when for a number
of reasons no legitimate data were available.
All of this adds a strong note of realism to
this particular account and helps enormously
to span the intervening century.
Although the data collected represent the
results of a splendid effort by a (generally)
devoted group of scientists and observers,
one has to agree with Vize (1932) that the
value of those data is really rather limited: the
spacing of the stations was simply too wide
to permit the compilation of an overall picture
of atmospheric dynamics during the year. On
the other hand they do represent a start. For
one year at least we have a complete array of
data for a series of polar sites for which no
data were previously available. The final re-
ports of the various expeditions present all
the raw data of the hourly observations plus
some syntheses of monthly means, maxima,
and minima, in some cases graphically.
Though one year's data clearly possess sta-
tistical limitations, they provide at least some
inkling of weather conditions a century ago
and, if handled with caution, might be used
as the basis for some comparative studies
with the present situation.
One of the more impressive analyses to
emerge from the International Polar Year was
Koch's study, made during his winter at Nain,
of the sequence of events associated with the
passage of a depression across the Labrador
coast. The study was based on readings taken
every half hour during a number of storms
(Koch 1891). Koch reported that the approach
of such a winter storm was usually preceded
by parhelia or halos around sun or moon;
then a veil of cirrus would move in from the
south or southwest. The pressure would
begin to drop rapidly, often by 2 mm of mer-
cury or more per hour. The temperature
would rise dramatically, sometimes by as
much as 300C over the course of a day, and
often approaching the freezing point. Com-
monly a calm would prevail on the front side
of a low, with heavy snowfall; but usually an
east wind would rise, strengthening and
veering to southeast or south as the pressure
dropped. This would continue until the ba-
rometer reached its minimum, to be followed
by a calm for an hour or two. As the pressure
began to rise a strong westerly wind would
spring up, quickly strengthening to gale force
with gusts that shook the building. The tem-
perature meanwhile would plummet, while
the air was so filled with whirling ice needles
that it was impossible to tell whether it was
snowing or just blowing snow.
Considerable progress had been made in
synoptic-statistical studies a decade earlier
by Ley (1872) and by Loomis (1874), yet
neither of them could match this description
by Koch of the sequence of events during the
passage of a winter cyclone. Indeed it could
scarcely be bettered.
Glaciology
Another area of the physical environment
investigated (although not in any great depth)
by two expeditions that had the opportunity
to do so, was glaciology. Both the Austrians
on Jan Mayen (Wohigemuth 1886) and the
Germans on South Georgia (Schrader 1891)
made some attempts at measuring surface
flow velocities. The Austrians made measure-
ments over the course of the year on four gla-
ciers on Jan Mayen and determined that their
respective velocities varied between 0.0 and
6.25 m per day. On South Georgia measure-
ments of the velocity of the Ross Glacier were
made from 7 February until 10 July 1883. Two
surveyed boulders on the glacier surface
were found to be moving at rates of 0.344 and
0.416 m per day.
Geomorphology
In general, geomorphology was an area
that tended to be neglected by the scientists
of the International Polar Year. Those expe-
dition reports that do include a discussion of
geology (e.g., those from the French station
at Bahia Orange and from the German station
on Baffin Island) tend to focus almost exclu-
sively on petrography. Indeed, some of the
most interesting observations on the geo-
morphology of the various areas visited are
to be found in almost casual comments
hidden in the various accounts.
An excellent example is provided by some
remarks by Dr. Koch, who, during his visit to
Rama on the Labrador coast, climbed a
mountain 785 m high behind the mission.
Very striking was the enormous degree of shat-
tering displayed by the rocks of the summit on
which I stood. While the mountains and hills far-
ther south around Nain, Hoffenthal [Hopedale]
etc. all displayed rounded domes and smoothed
faces, here one encounters only shattered, frost-
riven rocks, similar to those on the highest sum-
mits of the Alps. Somewhat lower, towards the
valley, however, indisputable traces of glacier
476 Barr
activity are again displayed, although they are
not present with the same degree of clarity as in
the more southerly parts of Labrador. When
climbing Johannes [a mountain 700-800 m high]
near Hebron I noticed something similar; the
lower areas and the mid-altitudes displayed here,
as everywhere else, roche moutonn6e forms. By
contrast there was nothing clearly of this sort to
be seen on the summit dome of Johannes
(c 725 m). Hence, as is quite natural, it seems
that the higher elevations, above 600-700 m,
were not covered by ice, and that in this moun-
tain area east of Ungava Bay only local glaciers
existed (Koch 1891, 158).
Some 80 years later this striking difference
between the lower and upper slopes of the
Torngat Mountains, whereby the upper
slopes mantled with extensive felsenmeer de-
bris are separated from the glacially
smoothed bedrock outcrops of the lower
slopes by lateral moraines, kame terraces,
and in many places a distinct trim-line, be-
came the subject of intensive investigation by
a number of geomorphologists, especially
Ives (1958, 1960). Their conclusions basically
confirm Koch's deductions.
In a similar manner, during his travels
around the Lena delta, Dr. Bunge made a
number of extremely astute observations,
particularly with regard to the various peri-
glacial phenomena so typical of that delta.
For example Bunge (1895, 35) stated:
The tundra everywhere in the delta appears to
be divided into a large number of irregular poly-
gons of varying sizes; the sides of these poly-
gons are higher than their centers. Between the
sides of two adjacent polygons runs a narrow
furrow which serves as a runway for lemmings
and young ducklings. This furrow coincides with
a crack penetrating deep into the earth and filled
with ice. Due to the fact that water is constantly
penetrating into these cracks and freezing there,
they become steadily wider. . . . Loud cracks
from the ground, especially in the fall when the
cold is intensifying, indicate that the formation
of these cracks is constantly continuing.
In this accurate, if sketchy, description of
tundra polygons, Bunge anticipated by al-
most 80 years the conclusions as to their or-
igin so elegantly and convincingly researched
by Lachenbruch (1962).
On another occasion, on the exposed
mainland coast just south of Mys Bykovskiy
(near Tiksi), Bunge described a typical ex-
ample of rapid coastal retreat caused by
thermal abrasion of cliffs developed in ice-
rich sediments containing massive ground-
ice bodies. He described clearly the heaps of
ice-rubble lying on the beach below, the
product of the undercutting and collapse of
blocks isolated by differential melting of ice
wedges. It is evident, however, that he did not
examine these blocks carefully, for he in-
sisted that although they looked like blocks
of ice they were in fact simply blocks of min-
eral material with the remnants of wedge ice
clinging to every face.
Equally interesting are Bunge's (1895) de-
scription and discussion of the pingos (bul-
gun'yaki), which are such a prominent feature
of the southwestern corner of the Lena delta.
He writes:
Here in the western part of the delta, especially
near Turakh, they are very common and consid-
erably eased the task of surveying my route. They
are earthen or sandy hills, lying totally isolated
and rising surprisingly high above the tundra;
they are covered by a somewhat different vege-
tation from their surroundings. The height of
Orto-Toebe bulgun'yak, although not very ac-
curately measured, was 70 feet 9 inches. It is of
particular interest in that it displays a profile,
thanks to which one can see the interior struc-
ture of the bulgun'yak. A river flowing right at
the foot of the hill is progressively eroding it.
Thanks to this profile one can see that the ice
here is formed just as on the slopes of Tumys-
Bykova [the coastal exposure discussed above,
W.B.], only on a much smaller scale. The bulk of
the hill consists of sand which lies in beds dip-
ping from south-southeast to north-northwest.
Towards the northwest similarly stratified earth
masses abut onto the sand. The sand here does
not contain any organic remains which one can
distinguish with the naked eye, as is generally
true of the enormous masses of sand lying in the
delta.... The origin of the bulgan'yaki may be
explained in various ways. It seems most likely
to me that they are the remnants of larger ele-
vations the bulk of which has been removed by
water over the course of time. This suggestion
appears to be confirmed by the vegetation oc-
curring here; [on the bulgun'yak] I saw a Poten-
tilla which I found [elsewhere] only on the hill
ranges of the northwestern part of the delta and
at Tumys-Bykova, and one species of Pedicularis
which is not encountered at all in the area sur-
rounding the bulgun'yaki. Their peculiar struc-
ture and the presence of freshwater algae con-
tained in the earth [above the sands] force one,
without any doubt, to recognize that they were
actually deposited in water (Bunge 1895, 64).
Here again Bunge's description of the form
is strikingly accurate and detailed, but his ex-
planation of process falls short. The fact that
he failed to recognize the exposed ice as part
of a massive ice-body, but again assumed it
to be a veneer of ice, helps to explain his mis-
take. These are in all probability "closed-
system" pingos, identical to those of the Tuk-
toyaktuk Peninsula near the Mackenzie delta.
Like them, they are almost certainly the
product of permafrost encroachment into the
talik located beneath a lake, following the
drainage of the lake, as has been thoroughly
researched by Mackay (1962, 1972b, 1973)
and to a lesser degree by Muller (1959).
Phytogeography
Trained botanists accompanied several of
the expeditions and in other cases perceptive
observers made useful collections and ob-
servations; hence the contribution of the In-
ternational Polar Year in terms of phytogeog-
raphy is considerable. For example Ambronn
(1890) wrote an extremely thorough article on
the tundra vegetation around the German sta-
tion at Clearwater Fiord, stressing environ-
mental controls and responses and recording
some very detailed measurements of annual
growth rates (shoot length and diameter) of
a whole range of species. In a similar general
discussion of the vegetation of South
Georgia, Will (1890) has written probably the
most comprehensive early account of the tus-
sock-grass (Poa flabellata) community so typ-
ical of the subantarctic islands.
With regard to the Bahia Orange area the
official report of the French expedition con-
tains an entire volume (Mission scientifique a
Cap Horn 1882-1883 1889) on various spe-
cialized aspects of the botany. Taken as a
whole, it is a remarkable pioneer compen-
dium of information on the phytogeography
of this raw, damp, gale-swept area. At the
other end of the Americas, despite his com-
ment that "the botanical collection of the
Lady Franklin Bay Expedition was made
under many disadvantages, as there was no
officer able to identify more than half a dozen
species of Arctic plants" (Greely 1888, Vol. 2,
p. 11), Greely managed to accumulate a col-
lection of more than 60 species, which he
somehow managed to retain throughout the
ordeal on Pim Island. Of particular interest
are his comments on the early dates of
blooming around Lady Franklin Bay; for ex-
ample, Saxifraga oppositifolia was found in
full bloom on 1 June 1882, and some 20 spe-
cies were in bloom by 21 June. These com-
ments have since been substantiated by later
scientists, who have confirmed that the
growing period is unusually long and the
summer temperatures unusually high for the lat-
itude in the Lady Franklin Bay-Lake Hazen area.
Sea Ice Studies
Because the majority of the expeditions
traveled to their destinations by sea, it is not
surprising that many of them contributed ob-
servations (varying in detail) on sea ice con-
ditions. For example, Lieutenant Ray and his
men at Point Barrow were able to observe the
vagaries of the sea ice off that coast almost
throughout their two-year sojourn. The ex-
pedition's departure had to be rushed be-
cause of ice packing in against the coast. As
proof of the hazards this could entail, the sta-
tion provided a refuge to the crew of the
whaling ship North Star (Captain Owen) out
of New Bedford, after it was crushed
nearby in June 1882 (Ray 1885).
The experiences of the Greely expedition
added a great deal to knowledge of ice con-
ditions in Smith Sound/Kane Basin, but it is
also true that those ice conditions contrib-
uted to the disaster the expedition experi-
enced. Unusually open ice conditions, which
permitted Proteus to push north without dif-
ficulty to her destination at Lady Franklin Bay
in the summer of 1881, must have lulled
Greely into a false sense of security with re-
gard to summer ice conditions in these wa-
ters. The next two summers were probably
more typical, resulting in Neptune being un-
able to get beyond Pim Island in 1882 and
leading to Proteus being crushed in Kane
Basin in the summer of 1883. Furthermore,
later that fall, the very heavy but mobile pack
ice in Kane Basin/Smith Sound prevented
Greely and his party from reaching a depot
on the Greenland coast or the assistance of
the Eskimos at Etah, and thus condemned
them to their agony of starvation on Pim Island.
Without any doubt, however, the Dutch ex-
pedition was able to make the most thorough
scientific observations on the nature and be-
havior of ice. There had of course been nu-
merous previous examples of drifts by explo-
ration vessels beset in the ice. Terror under
Captain George Back in Foxe Channel and
Hudson Strait in 1835-36 (Back 1838); Ad-
478 Barr
Vance and Rescue in 1850-51 in Wellington
Channel, Lancaster Sound, and Baffin Bay
(Kane 1854); Fox under Captain McClintock
in Baffin Bay (1857-58) (McClintock 1859);
Hansa in the East Greenland Current in 1869-
70 (Koldewey 1874); Tegetthoff in the
northern Barents Sea in 1872-74 (Payer
1876); and Jeannette in the seas north of
Eastern Siberia (De Long 1884) immediately
come to mind. Many of these ships carried
scientists, and the accounts of all contain ex-
tremely valuable data on sea ice and its be-
havior. What distinguishes the Varna expe-
dition is the fact that, like Nansen's drift
aboard Fram across the Arctic Basin (Nansen
1897), it was primarily a scientific expedition
and the detail and precision of the sea ice
observations reflect this distinction.
The drift of the ship with the ice, deter-
mined as frequently as possible by Lieutenant
Lamie from celestial observations, provided
very useful data on the pattern of ice drift in
the Kara Sea during that particular winter
(Fig. 6). An analysis was also made (Van Ev-
erdingen 1910) of the relationship between
ice-drift velocity and direction and wind ve-
locity and direction. For almost the entire pe-
riod of the drift a close correlation between
wind velocity and ice drift velocity was estab-
lished, with the direction of drift deviating by
various amounts to the right of the wind di-
rection. The striking exception in each case
came in April 1883, when the drift direction
changed so dramatically from south-north to
northeast-southwest. Van Everdingen as-
cribed this change to the influence of a cur-
rent bearing the discharge of the Ob' and
Yenisey westward past the tip of Poluostrov
Yamal.
Whatever the cause of this change in the
drift direction, its occurrence was extremely
fortunate for the members of the Dutch and
Danish expeditions, as the new drift direction
carried them back toward Karskiye Vorota
and eventual safety. Exactly thirty years later
another expedition was not so fortunate: Svya-
taya Anna, the ship Lieutenant G. L. Brusilov
was planning to take through the Northeast
Passage, became jammed in the ice west of
Poluostrov Yamal in October 1912 (Barr 1975,
1978). As with Varna, she began drifting
north, but in her case there was no dramatic
change in drift direction. She continued her
northward drift through the winter of 1912-
13, the summer of 1913, and then the fol-
lowing winter. By then she had entered the
Arctic Basin and had begun to swing west,
north of Zemlya Frantsa losifa. Here in the
spring of 1914, 11 of her crew, led by the
second-in-command V. 1. Al'banov, left the
ship to sledge south to Zemlya Frantsa losifa.
Of this group two men survived. To this day
the fate of the ship and the 10 people who
stayed aboard her is unknown.
Apart from the ice drift studies, careful ob-
servations were also made aboard Varna of
initial ice formation, fracturing, and rafting
and the behavior of pressure ridges. Ice thick-
nesses were also measured regularly: for ex-
ample, it was found that the maximum thick-
ness attained by unrafted one-year ice was
1.77 m (Snellen and Ekama 1910). The prog-
ress of ablation from the ice surface in spring
and summer was also carefully recorded. This
was dramatically demonstrated by the relative
elevation of the hut (Fig. 8), to the extent that
stairs and banisters had to be built in order
to reach the door. By the end of the melt, 1.14
m of ice had ablated from the surface in the
vicinity of the hut.
Oceanography
Forty-six profiles of water temperature and
density were compiled during Varna's drift,
extending from surface to sea bed (Snellen
and Ekama 1910). The maximum depth
reached was 227 m, but the average varied
between 90 and 150 m. Perhaps the most in-
triguing aspect of water temperatures was the
occurrence of negative temperatures at the
sea bed throughout the year, varying between
-0.8 and -1.8oC. Although no comment was
made on this phenomenon by the Dutch sci-
entists, this in fact provides clear proof of the
occurrence of submarine permafrost
throughout this area of the Kara Sea. It is in-
teresting to note that the concept of subma-
rine permafrost has begun to be discussed by
scientists only within the past 25 years (e.g.,
Baranov 1959); it is noteworthy, too, that Bar-
anov's map of permafrost distribution under
the Arctic seas does not indicate it as occur-
ring beneath the Kara Sea. In North America
the earliest discussions of submarine per-
mafrost are even more recent (e.g., Shearer
et al. 1971; Mackay 1972a, 1972b). But in
.~~
Figure 8. The hut built
by
the Dutch expedition on the sea ice at the
height of the melt season. Note
effects of differential ablation
(Snellen 1886).
point of fact it was first recorded, although
not recognized, by the men of the Varna ex-
pedition a century ago.
The contribution made to oceanography by
the Dutch expedition was surpassed only by
that of the French expedition to Cabo de
Hornos. As previously mentioned, the expe-
dition ship Romanche devoted the entire year
to survey and oceanographic work amidst the
reefs, channels, and fiords of the Tierra del
Fuego area, but especially the area south of
Canal Beagle (Martial 1888). Apart from basic
survey and sounding data, Martial and his
men accumulated a vast array of data on
water temperatures, salinities, currents, and
tides. Theirs was a major addition to the
knowledge of this little-known area. Nor did
Romanche's oceanographic work end when
she left the waters of Tierra del Fuego. Her
program of soundings was continued on the
homeward voyage. On 11 October 1883,
using almost every available cable and line on
board, Martial managed to plumb the depths
of the Romanche Trench, a slot-like cleft cut-
ting the Mid-Atlantic Ridge almost exactly on
the Equator to the northwest of Ascension.
The depth recorded was 7,370 m (Baker
1982); its official depth is now 7,684 m.
Human Geography
Definitely the major emphasis of the First
International Polar Year was on various as-
pects of the physical environment; nonethe-
less, some of the expeditions made signifi-
cant contributions in the realms of anthro-
pology and human geography. In two cases
trained ethnographers were included among
the expedition personnel, and these two sci-
entists made extremely valuable pioneer
studies of two widely differing indigenous
groups.
At Point Barrow J. Murdoch (1892) made a
thorough study of the Eskimo among whom
he and his companions lived and worked for
two years. The result is the first detailed pic-
ture of the people of the North Slope, the ref-
erence base line for all later studies. Despite
a heavy emphasis on the material culture,
Murdoch also investigated everything from
hunting methods to social life, music, and
methods of government. The result is one of
the most important and earliest studies of any
Eskimo group.
In the case of the French expedition to
Bahia Orange, the anthropological observer
was the medical doctor, Dr. Hyades. Along
with J. Deniker, he produced a monumental,
superbly illustrated work on the Yahgan In-
dians, the sea-oriented aborigines of the is-
lands south of Tierra del Fuego (Hyades and
Deniker 1891). There is an extraordinarily
heavy stress in their report on physical an-
thropology, particularly anatomical and phys-
iological details, but an extensive section is
devoted to life styles, hunting, fishing (Fig. 9),
and the impact of civilization. The authors
also reported at length on the Yahgan lan-
guage and included an extensive vocabulary.
480 Barr
Figure 9. Hyades' photo of a Yahgan Indian about
to hurl his fish spear (Hyades and Deniker 1891).
It should be noted, however, that the Rev-
erend Bridges of Ushuaia provided vital as-
sistance to Hyades in his ethnographic and
linguistic studies. Particularly in that there is
now only a handful of Yahgans of mixed
blood surviving, mainly on Isla Navarino, this
early and thorough study of this people is ex-
tremely valuable.
Although none of the other expeditions in-
cluded full-time ethnographers among its
personnel, in several cases perceptive, well-
informed scientists were able to make ex-
tremely valuable pioneer studies. The prime
example is the study by H. Abbes, an observer
at the German station on Clearwater Fiord, of
the Inuit of Cumberland Sound (Abbes 1884,
1890). As far as is known, this was the first
time Abbes had encountered Inuit, and one
suspects that he had had some ethnographic
training; his observations on hunting tech-
niques, life-styles, and attitudes are amaz-
ingly detailed and perceptive, as are his
sketches (Fig. 10). Thus far, Franz Boas has
generally been acclaimed as the pioneer re-
searcher studying the Inuit of the Eastern Ca-
nadian Arctic, on the basis of various articles
and reports (e.g., Boas 1887, 1888). But Boas
Figure 10. Abbes' sketches of a selection of harpoons and lances used by the Inuit of Cumberland
Sound (Abbes 1890).
arrived in the Arctic on board Germania in
1883, when she was on her way to evacuate
Abbes and his companions. Thus Abbes's
studies predate those of Boas by one year.
Thanks to Dr. Robert Koch (1891), we have
also been provided with some fascinating
early insights into the status, lifestyle, and
problems of the Inuit of the Labrador coast.
He discussed in detail their annual cycle of
seal hunting, caribou hunting, char fishing,
and cod jigging and also the very important
influence the missionaries had exerted on
this segment of the Inuit population, whether
expressed in terms of their achievement of
almost complete literacy or of the inculcation
of a passion for instrumental music, which
still survives and flourishes. Koch stressed in
particular that the numbers of the Labrador
Inuit were declining drastically owing to in-
fectious diseases, and especially to an alarm-
ingly high rate of infant mortality. He seri-
ously predicted that the extinction of this
group of Inuit was imminent, a prediction that
fortunately was far off the mark.
Both Russian expeditions also contributed
very useful data on the peoples of their re-
spective areas, although these observations
were not made by trained ethnographers or
geographers. In the expedition to Novaya
Zemlya, the observer was Krivosheya, a stu-
dent of zoology (Krivosheya 1886). The indig-
enous people with whom he came in contact
were Nentsy, but it is interesting to note that
they had been resident on the island for only
a short time. Krivosheya reported the total
population of Novaya Zemlya to be only 40
people, all of whom had arrived within the
previous 11 years. Most (six families) had
come with Lieutenant Ye. A. Tyagin, when he
established the refuge station at Malyye Kar-
nakuly in 1878. Indeed this population rep-
resented the outcome of a deliberate govern-
ment policy of relocation of Nentsy on Novaya
Zemlya to buttress Russian claims to sover-
eignty in the face of inroads by Norwegian
hunters and trappers. Most of the Nenets set-
tlers were reindeer herders from the
Bol'shezemel'skaya Tundra (east of the Pe-
chora), who had adjusted to hunting and
trapping for a livelihood. Krivosheya's obser-
vations on modes of travel, types of clothing,
hunting techniques, and a wealth of other
topics provide a very useful insight into this
relocated Nenets group at a crucial stage in
its history.
In the case of the expedition to the Lena
delta the observations on the indigenous
people were contributed mainly by Bunge
(1895). Two groups were involved here, the
Yakuts and the original Evenk inhabitants.
Bunge stressed, however, that with intermar-
riage and the adoption of the Yakut language
by the Evenki the distinctions between them
had already become extremely blurred. But
as a general rule the Yakuts were more sed-
entary, traveled by dog sledge, and de-
pended on hunting, trapping, and fishing.
The Evenki, by contrast, were much more mo-
bile and almost without exception were no-
madic reindeer herders. Even though the
Russians had first reached the Lena delta
some 250 years previously, it still represented
an extremely remote corner of the Empire
and Bunge's comments were of great value
to both scientists and administrators in St.
Petersburg. His observations of the drastic
impacts, both cultural and economic, of the
Russians on both native groups are particu-
larly informative and were tragically under-
lined by the smallpox epidemic that swept
down the Lena in the fall of 1883, wiping out
entire camps and settlements. By enforcing a
strict policy of isolation, Dr. Bunge was able
to save the population of Tumat, the Yakut
village near the station, but few other com-
munities were so fortunate.
Conclusion
There can be no doubt that the widely pub-
licized rescue expedition sent to investigate
the fate of Greely's party, and even more so
the news of the tragic wintering by Greely and
his men on Pim Island, overshadowed the
events and achievements of all the other ex-
peditions of the First International Polar Year.
Although each expedition published a final
report, these documents are written in four
different languages, and popular accounts
and specialized scientific articles originating
from the expeditions raise this total to at least
six. As a result of this combination of factors,
the full scope of the First International Polar
Year has tended to be almost completely
overlooked. From the viewpoint of the geog-
rapher alone, even a cursory examination of
its achievements, such as this article, reveals
a rich source of basic information on the
polar regions, with respect to meteorology in
482
Barr
particular, but also in terms of exploration
and survey, geomorphology, phytogeog-
raphy, sea ice studies, physical oceanog-
raphy, and human geography. Thus far these
resources have remained largely untapped.
Acknowledgments
The research on which this article is based was
made possible by the granting of a sabbatical leave
by the University of Saskatchewan. I am also deeply
indebted to the staffs of the Arctic Institute of North
America, University of Calgary, and of the Depart-
ment of Geography and the Baker Library, both of
Dartmouth College, for their warm hospitality and
unstinting assistance. My sincere thanks are also
due to Walter Kupsch, University of Saskatchewan,
and to Mrs. Bente West of Norwich, Vermont, for
their generous help in translating from Dutch and
Danish sources respectively. Finally, I wish to thank
Trevor Lloyd of Ottawa for his help in locating ob-
scure Danish sources, and Brenton Barr of the Uni-
versity of Calgary for similar help with some of the
Russian materials.
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