Of Cold and Ice

"A Woman's Winter on Spitsbergen" by Martha Phillips Gilson, National Geographic Magazine, August, 1928: While paging through this issue, I saw the title and thought, "Oh, good!  An article on Germany, my ancestors' home."  Wrong!  Spitsbergen is an island 360 miles north of Norway, very close to the North Pole.

Visiting Spitsbergen does not hold the slightest appeal for this southern girl (got my daddy's Tennessee blood!).  But I had never heard of it so I wanted to find out why anyone would choose to live there.

Mrs. Gilson was very excited about staying in Spitsbergen: "The stories of the Eskimos living in their ice huts and burning whale oil and wearing furs all through the long winter months had always interested me; but they sounded more like fairy stories than accounts of real life.  Now, here was my chance to equal, or even out do, the Eskimos" (p. 227).

Together with her husband, Mrs. Gilson left Norway on a small boat one August third.  The first three days "were terrible. . . we entered the ice pack and had to lay to for a few hours.  I dressed and went on deck.  All around us, as far as the eye could see was ice - large, flat cakes and huge icebergs.  Many of the latter were beautiful and of fantastic shapes.  Some looked like medieval castles, others had great, deep-blue caverns" (p. 229).

When they arrived at Spitsbergen, the sight was not as pleasant: "We were struck by the barrenness of the land.  The mountains were only that wonderful blue at a distance; close up they were brown, with not a sign of vegetation - just brown rock, with here and there a touch of snow.  It was 10 o'clock at night and the sun was shining brightly" (p 230).

Mrs. Gilson was, indeed, an adventurer.  She was only 20 years old at the time, "had never been so far away from home before, I had not known the man to whom I was now married eight months ago. It was all very strange,  Even Nature was strange, with her 24 hours of daylight.  But youth is adaptable and I soon began to feel as if I had always lived on Spitsbergen" (p. 233).

Other than hunting or fishing, the only industry on the island was coal mining.  The mine was worked all year. Coal was stored in a large pile near the harbor for shipment the next summer.  Approximately 250 people lived on the island permanently. Mrs. Gilson does not mention her husband's occupation.

It is COLD there!  "Frost is always found in the ground two feet below the surface, and in places where the sun does not reach snow stays on the ground the year around" (p. 235).

Life in Spitsbergen during the winter was very hard; there were no luxuries available. There was "no sun at all by the first of October - just twilight - and a very depressing light it was, hard on the nerves.  One looked in vain for a sunrise that would not come for several months" (p. 241).

"The wind is the worst feature on Spitsbergen.  A still, cold day, with the temperature fifty degrees Fahrenheit below zero, is not so dangerous as a windy day with a much higher temperature.  When it is around thirty degrees below (zero) and the wind blowing, look out for frostbite!" (p. 241).

Mrs. Gilson reported, "The northern lights were magnificent.  We saw them first early in November.  They were like a giant handful of different-colored chiffon scarfs being shaken across the sky.  As each one changed shape and position, it changed color" (p. 241).

The winter was very hard on all residents of the island.  Apparently the natives were used to a simple diet, but our young married couple "suffered more from the lack of green things to eat than we did from the cold.  We had a few old copies of an American weekly magazine and I would fairly weep over the colored advertisements for oranges, celery, salads, and so forth" (p. 241).

Usually, the last boat had to leave the island before October first.  The first boat Mrs. Gilson saw came into the dock on July 21st.  However, another boat had arrived "at the ice edge, 40 miles from camp on June 8.  The men came over the ice on skis, bringing with them the mailags, some apples, eggs, and candy.  It was a day to be remembered! . . .The eggs were the first we had seen in a year.  I could not eat fast enough!" (p. 246).

Mrs. Gilson "was planning to leave for Norway on a coal boat about the first of August.  As the time drew near, I found myself spending more and more hours out of doors. . .I promised myself that I would return to Spitsbergen if ever the opportunity presented itself.  The "call of the cold" was in my blood" (p. 246).

The closest I've come to the Cold North these days is watching "Ice Road Truckers" (Alaska) on TV.  The northern lights do seem beautiful and intriguing.  My late mom and dad enjoyed traveling on many cruises in the Mediterranean, Caribbean, to Hawaii and Alaska.  One time I asked mom which was her favorite cruise.  She wistfully replied "Alaska.  The scenery is unequaled."  Perhaps sometime I'll venture there. . .