arctic resources 211 



The Theory of the "Lifeless Frozen North" 



During the times before kerosene and gas, it was of prime impor- 

 tance to both Europe and America that blubber from incredible num- 

 bers of seals, walruses, and whales could be secured, for instance, in 

 the Spitsbergen fishery. Even now certain Norwegian companies 

 are paying dividends on blubber secured from corresponding animals 

 in the Antarctic, while more or less polar ventures both for fish proper 

 and for sea mammals continue to flourish in the northern hemisphere. 



There has been from ancient times a theory of a "lifeless frozen 

 North, " just as there used to be a theory of a boiling sea and a burning 

 land in the middle tropics. The boiling tropics were finally abolished 

 by Prince Henry the Navigator and his successors many centuries 

 ago. The abolition of the lifeless frozen Arctic may be considered 

 to have been started sooner, but it has been completed only within the 

 last decade. In fact, it is only partially completed even now; for 

 a few men of eminence still maintain that there really is a considerable 

 area in the Arctic Sea where animal life is wholly absent (according 

 to some) or present in quantities so small (according to others) that 

 it cannot have commercial value. A few declare outright that there 

 is not enough life in the larger part of the Arctic Sea to support even 

 one or two hunters, no matter how skillful they may be. 



The "lifeless frozen North" theory seems to have had it once that 

 no plant or animal would be found north of the north tip of Scotland. 

 Pytheas would have dealt that creed a fatal blow more than two 

 thousand years ago but for the curious fact that his travel story, which 

 is now considered a marvel of accuracy, was disbelieved by most 

 ancient authorities.^ For then, even more than now, facts had a way of 

 sounding incredible when checked against a firm and ancient belief. 



The next great blow against the "lifeless polar regions" was struck 

 by the Irish when they discovered Iceland sometime before 800 A. D. 

 It appears that they followed the discovery almost immediately by 

 colonization, and certainly they were there when the Norsemen, who 

 had probably heard in Ireland about Iceland, went there first to recon- 

 noiter, shortly after the middle of the ninth century, and later to settle. 



The mythical dead region continued to shrink not only beyond 

 Scotland but also beyond Iceland. For in 11 94 the Icelanders dis- 

 covered Svalbard, which scholars agree must have been one of three 

 places: Spitsbergen, Jan Mayen Island, or the Scoresby Sound district 

 of Greenland. In all three the lifelessness of the sea has been found 

 equally mythical. 



If we consider length and inclemency of winter the Greenland 

 colony (on the southwest coast) was a real inroad into the lifeless 

 North, though it does not seem so by the conventional latitude degrees. 



2 See Fridtjof Nansen: In Northern Mists: Arctic Exploration in Early Times, 2 vols., New York, 

 1911; reference in Vol. 2, pp. 43 ff. 



