Ice with Everything E-Book

H.W. Tilman

• Herausgeber: Vertebrate Digital
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

'For most men, as Epicurus has remarked, rest is stagnation and activity madness. Mad or not, the activity that I have been pursuing for the last twenty years takes the form of voyages to remote, mountainous regions.' H.W. 'Bill' Tilman's fourteenth book describes three more of those voyages, 'the first comparatively humdrum, the second totally disastrous, and the third exceedingly troublesome'. The first voyage describes Tilman's 1971 attempt to reach East Greenland's remote and ice-bound Scoresby Sound. The largest fjord system in the world was named after the father of Whitby whaling captain, William Scoresby, who first charted the coastline in 1822. Scoresby's two-volume Account of the Arctic Regions provided much of the historical inspiration for Tilman's northern voyages and fuelled his fascination with Scoresby Sound and the unclimbed mountains at its head. Tilman's first attempt to reach the fjord had already cost him his first boat, Mischief, in 1968. The following year, a 'polite mutiny' aboard Sea Breeze had forced him to turn back within sight of the entrance, so with a good crew aboard in 1971, it was particularly frustrating for Tilman to find the fjord blocked once more, this time by impenetrable sea ice at the entrance. Refusing to give up, Tilman's obsession with Scoresby Sound continued in 1972 when a series of unfortunate events led to the loss of Sea Breeze, crushed between a rock and an ice floe. Safely back home in Wales, the inevitable search for a new boat began. 'One cannot buy a biggish boat as if buying a piece of soap. The act is almost as irrevocable as marriage and should be given as much thought.' The 1902 pilot cutter Baroque, was acquired and after not inconsiderable expense, proved equal to the challenge. Tilman's first troublesome voyage aboard her to West Greenland in 1973 completes this collection.

Leseprobe

ICE WITH EVERYTHING

H. W. TILMAN

ICE WITH EVERYTHING

H. W. TILMAN

– Contents –

Foreword – Trevor RobertsonChapter I – To the FaeroesChapter II – The Faeroes and IcelandChapter III – To the NorthChapter IV – Angmagssalik and HomewardsChapter V – 1972: A Change of PlanChapter VI – North from IcelandChapter VII – Prelude to DisasterChapter VIII – Wreck of ‘Sea Breeze’Chapter IX – ‘Baroque’Chapter X – Fitting Out and CrewChapter XI – Early SetbacksChapter XII – To GreenlandChapter XIII – North to IgdlorssuitChapter XIV – To the MountainsChapter XV – Umanak and HomewardsThe Author’s Boats and VoyagesTowards Ellesmere Island with Tilman – Alex RamsayH. W. TilmanPhotographs and Maps

– Foreword –

Trevor Robertson

ALTHOUGH TILMAN SPENT LONGER TRAVELLING to the high latitudes in small vessels than he did trekking and climbing in central Asia, he seems never to have developed the same affection for the Arctic landscape or its people as he did for the Himalayas. Perhaps this was because he knew central Asia in all its seasons and moods, something he never achieved in the Arctic. All his voyages to the high latitudes were made in summer, which in both the Arctic and Antarctica is no more than a short interlude between winters. In the polar regions winter is the dominant season; without knowing the area in winter, no real appreciation of it is possible.

Tilman knew his brief summer trips gave him a biased view of the place and considered wintering in Greenland. He twice mentions the possibility in his books, once in Mischief in Greenland after his first voyage to Greenland and again in In Mischief’s Wake when describing Mischief’s last voyage. Tilman achieved so much in his life that it is unreasonable to wish he had done more, but the world is poorer for not having a description by a writer of his calibre of a winter spent in a small vessel frozen in a remote bay for the winter.

Then and now, a small vessel is the only effective way to see a place like Greenland or Antarctica. To see the full round of the seasons, the same boat frozen in the ice makes a good winter camp. Having transported its crew and all they need to the winter site, it provides them with shelter for the winter then carries them and all their gear away again when the ice melts. Compared to a hut or even a tent ashore, its impact is minimal.

All that is required is a stout vessel with systems that can be kept working in the cold. There is no need for a large vessel or one specially built and fitted out for such a venture. Iron Bark, my thirty-five-foot steel gaff cutter and a vessel of no particular distinction, has spent a winter in the ice of Antarctica and two winters frozen in Greenland; Mischief could certainly have done the same. I imagine that if Tilman had decided to spend a winter in the Arctic ice in one of his pilot cutters, it would have been in a remote bay rather than near a settlement. The logistics of this are not much more complex than for a long ocean passage. Mischief could easily carry enough food for her crew for eight or ten months of winter and enough fuel for cooking and melting drinking water, if not for heating.

In Patagonia Tilman arranged for fuel to be delivered to a predetermined depot and he could have done something similar if he had wanted heating oil for a winter in Greenland. Even if this was not possible, spending a winter in an unheated boat with an insulating cover of snow is not particularly difficult, certainly easier than it was for the Inuit, who until recently spent their winters in relative comfort in snow houses heated by nothing more than a stone lamp burning seal oil. A small vessel with a snow cover is quite habitable when heated by a nothing more than couple of candles and the intermittent use of the cooking stove. How habitable depends on the boat, but the interior temperature will probably rise above freezing once the cooker and candles have been lit for the breakfast, and stay there for most of the day. I spent a winter in Antarctica on Iron Bark with only enough oil to run the heater for eight hours per week. Although it was seldom comfortable, the lack of heating was no great hardship.

The potential for crew problems when living in a cold, dark vessel through the winter is considerable. Antarctic bases expend a great deal of effort screening numerous applicants for a few winter positions and still have a significant failure rate, and this is in living conditions that are palatial compared to a small vessel frozen in a remote bay. Although the discomfort of a winter in the high Arctic would not have bothered Tilman, his erratic crew selection methods may have caused him problems. At times he had trouble keeping the crew motivated and disciplined for a few months at a stretch on an ocean passage in relatively benign latitudes. The stress of a long winter’s night would certainly have been too much for some of his crews, while others would have thrived on the challenge.

Despite this, having company through a polar winter makes it easier to get through the long night. I have spent two winters alone in the high latitudes, one in Antarctica and the other in Greenland, and each time found the winter’s night (eighty days in the case of my solitary Greenland winter) hard on the mind. In comparison, the winter that Annie Hill and I spent frozen into a remote bay on Greenland’s west coast in latitude 73°N passed pleasantly, and not only because the food was better and the bunk warmer. While I doubt if the long night would have bothered Tilman, with or without company, one wonders how his crew would have fared. The darkness depresses many people, even those brought up with it. Greenland has the highest suicide rate in the world, chiefly among young men; food for thought if planning such a venture.

The simple, robust equipment on Tilman’s pilot cutters would have worked well through an Arctic winter. Without deliberately attempting to emulate him, indeed without any knowledge of his methods, most of Iron Bark’s equipment is identical to Tilman’s, an example of convergent evolution. Paraffin (kerosene) stoves work at temperatures that butane or propane do not. They can be kept running with a basic stock of spare parts and burn a compact, portable fuel. Even now, there is nowhere in Greenland to refill a propane bottle, but paraffin is readily available. Candles are a more reliable source of light than electricity, with the bonus of providing a little heat and early warning of inadequate ventilation as they dim and gutter long before the oxygen level falls to that critical for humans. Frills such as pressurised water systems that Tilman would never have contemplated for a summer voyage become entirely irrelevant when everything freezes.

For the rest, living on a small vessel in winter requires a little fortitude and considerable patience. The alcohol for preheating the stove itself needs preheating before it will burn, pens will not write and toothpaste does not squeeze from its tube until warmed in an inner pocket, liquid detergent freezes and rum is a slushy solid. None of this would have bothered Tilman, but it may have been a problem for some of his crews.

Advancing age sometimes requires changing methods, if not objectives, and perhaps Tilman’s later voyages may have been happier and achieved more in a smaller vessel. Instead of persisting with pilot cutters after the loss of Sea Breeze, it may have been better if he had replaced her with something smaller. By that time Tilman was not making long traverses or climbs that required an extended absence from the mothership. A vessel that could carry three people and be managed by one for a day or two while the climbing party was ashore would have served his purposes and been easier to crew, sail and maintain.

Given Tilman’s preference for older wooden working vessels, a Falmouth quay punt or a small ex-fishing vessel would have been obvious candidates. Such vessels were at that time cheap to buy and run, seaworthy, capable of withstanding hard usage and required minimal mechanical equipment—all important considerations for a vessel in Tilman’s hands. As an example, Pauline and Tim Carr have done splendid things in the Falmouth quay punt Curlew, sailing and climbing in both winter and summer in South Georgia and on the Antarctic Peninsula. A similar vessel could have carried Tilman, another climber and a ship-keeper to all the places that Baroque sailed, as well as being able to spend a winter in Greenland’s ice if Tilman had chosen to do so.

But all that is impertinent speculation when applied to someone with Bill Tilman’s accomplishments. He lived a full life and left us a legacy of fifteen magnificent books, more than enough for one person.

Trevor Robertson

Iron Bark

2015

– CHAPTER I –

TO THE FAEROES

FOR MOST MEN, as Epicurus has remarked, rest is stagnation and activity madness. Mad or not, the activity that I have been pursuing for the last twenty years takes the form of voyages to remote, mountainous regions. In more recent years this has invariably meant a summer voyage to the Arctic, either to the west or east coast of Greenland. By now such voyages have become a habit, and a worse habit is that of writing about them. In these pages are descriptions of the three most recent voyages, those of 1971, 1972 and 1973, the first comparatively humdrum, the second totally disastrous, and the third exceedingly troublesome.

Upon her return from the 1970 voyage to south-west Greenland had been hauled out in order that the hull could be examined. The ice she had encountered, besides inflicting some deep scars, had started one or two planks, yet considering that throughout the two months spent upon the coast she had never been out of sight of ice and had spent five days in the pack moored to a floe, she had got off lightly. The defects having been put right, she received her annual coat of antifouling and went back into the water for the winter. , by the way, is a Bristol Channel pilot cutter built in 1899, length 49 ft., beam 14ft. 4in., drawing 7ft. 6in., and of about thirty-three tons T.M. A boat built in 1899 may seem on the old side for such voyages, but I have a liking for craft of traditional lines and rig and a foolish liking for doing things the hard way, for apart from her engine is much as she was when a working boat. Nothing, of course, could be more untraditional than an engine, but to be without one on the Greenland coast is a grievous handicap. Apart from ice or skerries upon which a sailing vessel becalmed might drift helplessly, there is the matter of making progress. In the fjords winds are light and fitful so that without an engine one might spend days drifting about unable to reach one’s goal or even to reach an anchorage. Pilot cutters are necessarily old, for none were built after about 1910, but they are eminently suitable for these voyages—ample stowage space, sturdily built, and able sea-boats—qualities that had been impressed upon me in the years from 1954 to 1968 when I had been the happy owner of , a pilot cutter built in 1906.