Expedition of the Alert to 



in climbing about the rigging and to impress the crew with the idea 

 that we were old hands at it. 



But in spite of the occasional tedium of our monotonous life there 

 was much to interest one who had never been in arctic regions before. 

 At times one would be impressed with the supernatural tinge which 

 the surroundings would give. Every thing seemed odd and the world 

 upside down and chaos come again, where nothing was to be seen but 

 ice — ice everywhere except where the black rocks of Resolution Island 

 broke the surface. On the evening of June 21, the longest day of the 

 year, I remained a long time on deck. It was bright, clear and cold, 

 the thermometer at eight i>. si. registering thirty-one degrees. In that 

 region the variation of the magnetic needle is very great, being greatly 

 west of true north. Sunset occurred about ten p. m. on that evening. 

 It was difficult almost to convince myself, knowing the time of night, 

 that 1 was not dreaming. And, strangest of all, the sun was setting 

 about north by compass. It was a weird, eerie, impressive scene. It 

 almost seemed that the sun had strayed so far from its course that it 

 would wander off into some infinitude of space and never return. 

 Soon after it disappeared behind the ice, as if conquered by obstinate 

 frigidity, the still arctic twilight shed its pale light about. Clouds, 

 like a funeral pall, hung over the grave of the extinct sun. Solemn, 

 mysterious, gigantic icebergs moved slowly along, carried onward by 

 hidden currents which were powerless on the surface. This ghostly 

 procession passed in review while our little ship lay motionless in icy 

 fetters. Resolution Island, black, forbidding, looked like the evil 

 genius of this strange scene. Later on the moon rose and filtered pale, 

 flickering rays through the clouds which, mixed with the peculiar 

 arctic glow, made the most singular and supernatural light I have 



Long after midnight — or what would have been midnight in this 

 latitude — I went helow and turned in to my berth, which was just below 

 the water line. Until I fell asleep, I could hear the ice grating along 

 the ship's side, with an ominous sound. Then would come a loud rap, 

 as if some ghostly and restless denizen of these weird regions resented 

 sleep on the part of mortals. Again, as we were caught in a tight ice 

 nip, the old ship's timbers would groan as if in mortal agony. We 

 seemed beset on all sides by unseen enemies. Away from the ship's 

 deck, not a living creature was to be seen. It seemed 



