Willem Barentsz: a winter in the Arctic ice

On 4 November 1596, sixteen Dutch sailors saw the sun on the horizon for the last time. They were shut in a small wooden house on an ice-covered island in the far north of the world. Their ship was locked in the sea ice, and almost three months of unbroken night lay ahead. Their leader was Willem Barentsz, and the daily journal of the expedition was kept by his companion Gerrit de Veer.

The northern route to China

In the late sixteenth century, Dutch merchants were looking for a sea route that would run north of Norway and Russia and reach China. The Hakluyt Society published an English translation of De Veer’s book in 1853 and again in 1876. According to it, Barentsz had already made two voyages in this effort, in 1594 and 1595.

Two ships were fitted out at Amsterdam for the third voyage. One was captained by Jacob van Heemskerck, who was also the commercial supervisor, with Barentsz as its chief pilot. The other was captained by Jan Cornelisz Rijp. The ships left Amsterdam on 10 May 1596 and reached the open sea on 18 May.

Bear Island and the geese’s eggs

In June they reached an uninhabited island, where they killed a white bear whose skin was twelve feet long. De Veer writes that this is why they named it Bear Island. On 19 June, at 79 degrees 49 minutes north latitude, they sighted land again. The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica calls it Spitsbergen.

An interesting discovery was made here. In Europe at the time, it was commonly believed that a certain kind of wild goose (the barnacle goose) was born not from eggs but from the fruit of trees leaning over the water. De Veer writes that at about 80 degrees they saw these geese sitting on their eggs. According to the editor of the Hakluyt Society, this observation helped to disprove the old belief.

After this the two ships parted. Barentsz’s ship sailed east towards the long island of Novaya Zemlya.

Trapped in the ice

The ship rounded the northern tip of the island. De Veer writes that on 26 August 1596 they decided to turn back, but the ice drifted in so fast that the ship was hemmed in on every side. That evening they reached the western shore of a bay they had named Ice Haven. In De Veer’s words, they had to spend the whole winter there “in great cold, need, misery and grief”.

In the following days the pressure of the ice lifted the ship four or five feet at the bow, and its planks cracked so loudly that, the sailors said, their hair stood on end. In the end they decided to build a house on land. No trees grew on the island, but they found trees washed up on the shore with their roots. According to De Veer, this wood went into the house and also served as fuel all winter.

The “Safe House”

Twice a day the sailors dragged sledges loaded with wood over the ice. On 23 September their carpenter died. The roof of the house was made from planks torn from the ship’s deck, and by 24 October the whole crew had moved in. The house was later called Het Behouden Huys, meaning the “Safe House”.

The cold was beyond description. De Veer writes that in December ice two fingers thick formed on the walls and sleeping places. The clock froze and stopped, so a twelve-hour sandglass had to be turned again and again to keep track of time. In snowstorms the doors were blocked by ice for days at a time and had to be dug out in turns. From November, bread was rationed: four pounds ten ounces for each man for eight days. The ship’s surgeon set up a steam bath in a large wine cask, which De Veer describes as very good for health. Even so, several sailors fell ill with scurvy, and in January another companion died. White bears kept coming near the house, while the sailors caught white foxes in traps and ate them.

The sun returns early

On 24 January 1597, De Veer and two companions saw the edge of the sun on the horizon. De Veer writes that Barentsz, “a wise and experienced pilot”, did not believe it, because by his reckoning it was about fourteen days too early. Bets were laid, and on 27 January all of them saw the sun in its full circle. According to the editor of the Hakluyt Society, this unexpected observation caused great debate among scholars after the crew’s return.

Home in open boats

Even by June the ship was not free of the ice. The sailors therefore prepared two open boats and dragged them over the ice to the water. Before leaving, Barentsz, who had been ill for some time, wrote a letter describing the voyage and hung it in the chimney of the house. They set out from Novaya Zemlya on the morning of 14 June 1597.

On 20 June a companion, Claes Andries, fell gravely ill. De Veer writes that Barentsz said, “I think I shall not live much longer after him.” He was looking at the chart of the voyage that De Veer had made. Then he put the chart down and said, “Gerrit, give me something to drink”, and died as soon as he had drunk. De Veer and the Hakluyt Society’s list give the date of his death as 20 June, while the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica gives 30 June.

The remaining sailors pressed on south, sometimes dragging the boats over ice and sometimes rowing through open water. At the end of July they met Russian hunters, the first people they had met in thirteen months, according to De Veer. By De Veer’s reckoning, they covered 381 Dutch miles in the open boats. At last, in the Kola peninsula, they were handed a letter signed “Jan Cornelisz Rijp”. He was the companion who had parted from them near Bear Island a year earlier, and he had now come to help. The sailors reached Amsterdam on 1 November 1597, in the same clothes and white fox-skin caps that they had worn in Novaya Zemlya. Twelve of the seventeen men returned alive.

Nearly 275 years later

On 9 September 1871, the Norwegian sailor Elling Carlsen found a collapsed house on the coast of Novaya Zemlya. According to his log, included in the Hakluyt Society’s 1876 edition, the ruins held two copper pots, a gun barrel, a clock, a flute, some tools and clothes. According to the editor, Koolemans Beynen, the Dutch government bought these items. According to the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, they were then kept in The Hague.

Next instalment: Evliya Çelebi: the Seyahatname.