SAILING THE SEVEN SEAS 



637 



sealing fleet had returned from their sea- 

 son's work in the north and were tied up 

 in the harbor awaiting the return of an- 

 other season. 



Hammer f est, at about 72 degrees north 

 latitude, is the most northerly city of 

 Europe, and the winters are so long and 

 cold that very little vegetation can survive. 

 The people are very proud of the small 

 group of birch trees growing in the valley 

 back of the town, the only trees for miles 

 around. 



While wandering over the hills viewing 

 the sun at midnight, we found numerous 

 violets and other flowers growing among 

 the rocks. The principal fuel is dried 

 peat, which is burned in small stoves spe- 

 cially constructed for this purpose. 



The houses are small frame buildings, 

 often thatched with turf, and most of the 

 homes have numerous indoor plants and 

 flowers, which serve to cheer up the long 

 winter months when the sun has disap- 

 peared or shines for only a few hours at 

 a time. 



A FINNISH BATH 



At Hammer f est we enjoyed the un- 

 usual experience of a Finnish bath. One 

 or two of the houses in town are specially 

 constructed for this purpose. 



Built into the wall in the bathroom is 

 a stove made of large stones, which forms 

 a homemade furnace. The fire in the 

 stove heats the stones very hot, and when 

 water is thrown upon them the room is 

 soon filled with steam. As the bath pro- 

 gresses and the bathers, three or four be- 

 ing taken care of by one attendant, be- 

 come warmed up, more and more water 

 is thrown upon the hot stones. 



A series of shelves in one end of the 

 room enables the bather to increase the 

 degree of heat by climbing up nearer and 

 nearer the ceiling, until on the top shelf 

 he may suffocate if he raises his head too 

 high. Next he is scoured and scrubbed 

 down with vegetable sponges and 

 pounded with bundles of switches, which 

 are wielded with no gentle hand, until he 

 finally is ready to leave the steam-room. 



Then, after several buckets of increas- 

 ingly colder water have been thrown upon 

 him, he is treated at last to a shower of 

 ice-cold water direct from the glacier 

 back of the village. 



It was almost a "finish'' bath. 



Sailing from Hammer f est on July 25, 

 we little dreamed of the war clouds which 

 were already gathering over Europe. We 

 were intending to sail eastward into the 

 Kara Sea beyond Novaya Zemlya, but 

 after rounding North Cape we were 

 headed off by a northeast wind. 



SPITSBERGEN, A LAND OF PERPETUAL 

 SNOW AND ICE 



As time was short, it was decided to 

 push north as far as possible, up into the 

 "Whaler's Bight," west of Spitsbergen, a 

 triangular area with the small angle to 

 the north, kept open for a few months 

 during the summer by a branch of the 

 warm North Atlantic Drift. 



On July 30 we were becalmed in sight 

 of Bear Island, and the next day we 

 sighted our first ice. About two hours 

 after sailing through a group of "growl- 

 ers," or small detached icebergs, we met 

 the solid pack which had drifted down 

 out of Stor Fjord, around South Cape of 

 Spitsbergen, and extended 30 miles west- 

 ward. It was necessary to tack back to 

 the south again for 10 miles to avoid this 

 ice. 



On returning again to the northward 

 we cleared the pack and had great hopes 

 of reaching 80 degrees north before the 

 ice should compel a return. Sailing along 

 the coast of Spitsbergen, with its lofty 

 needle peaks clothed to the summit with 

 a perpetual mantle of white, the 50-mile- 

 wide valleys filled with glaciers flowing 

 into the sea and blocking the bays and 

 harbors with huge icebergs, was an im- 

 pressive experience. 



About 4 o'clock in the morning a south- 

 erly gale began to blow, threatening to 

 force us into the solid polar ice pack or to 

 block our return to the south. 



Visions of being compelled to winter in 

 this desolate place with our limited sup- 

 plies and light equipment began to stare 

 us in the face. We realized our danger 

 and at once turned about and began our 

 five-days' struggle to force our way 

 southward against the teeth of the gale. 



We had reached within sight of 80 de- 

 grees north, within 600 miles of the North 

 Pole, just off Danes Island, the island 

 from which Andree started on his ill- 

 fated balloon expedition across the North 

 Pole in 1897. 



With our engine running and fore-and- 



