Principais conclusões
- While Nansen's ship lay at Tromso at the end of 1896, a paper reported that Dr Nansen and Juel had each had a pocket watch stolen, and that a fish kettle had been taken off the ship as well.
- In June 1896 a paper recorded that fifty-seven pigeons were taken aboard at Tromso, with the balloon ascent planned for 20 July. The expedition's remains came back to this same town thirty-four years later.
- In September 1930, after the Andree find, a paper described telegraph clerks in Tromso cabling column-long telegrams out night and day for a fortnight.
- A geography of Norway published in 1927 records that Tromso and Hammerfest merchants had been fitting out small vessels for Arctic hunting year by year since the early nineteenth century.
You are standing where the ice ships loaded
The quay a whale safari leaves from is a few minutes' walk from where polar expeditions took on their last stores. That is not a marketing line. It is what the archive is full of, and most of it has never made it onto an English-language page.
A geography of Norway printed in 1927 puts the ordinary version first: already at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the merchants of Tromso and Hammerfest had begun fitting out small vessels, year by year, for hunting in the Arctic. [5] Not one heroic voyage. An annual trade, run by shopkeepers.
The book Det gamle Tromso, published in 1936, gives the scale of it in one line: by 1855 the number of vessels home-ported in Tromso had risen to thirty-nine, carrying crews totalling one hundred and ninety-nine men. [6] That is a small town sending two hundred men into the ice every year.
Somebody robbed the Fram
At the very end of 1896 the paper Fremskridt printed a short item about the ship that had just come back from three years locked in the polar pack. While the Fram lay at Tromso, it reported, Dr Nansen and Juel had each had their pocket watch stolen, and a fish kettle had been taken from the ship as well. [1]
There is nothing else to it, and that is exactly why it is worth reading. The most famous ship in Norway ties up at your quay, and the town's contribution to polar history that week is a thief going aboard for the crockery.
Six months earlier, in June 1896, Farsunds Avis had recorded another cargo through this port: fifty-seven pigeons taken aboard at Tromso, with the plan to go up in the balloon on 20 July if the day allowed. [2] The pigeons were the mail system. They were meant to fly the news back.
And thirty-four years later the news came back
The balloon expedition disappeared into the Arctic and stayed missing for a generation. When the remains were finally found in 1930, they came to Tromso.
In September 1930 Osterdalens Arbeiderblad described what that did to the town: night and day, for the last fortnight, the telegraph clerks had been cabling out the column-long telegrams. [3] It is one of the few descriptions anywhere of what a global news story looked like from inside a small Arctic port with one telegraph office.
Arbeidets Rett, a few days earlier, reported the sober end of it. After the remains were brought to the coastal hospital in Tromso the examination began; the organic parts were badly consumed, but the clothes were better preserved. [4] The pigeons had left from here. So did the last of the men who sent them.
The harbour that sent thirty-nine vessels and one hundred and ninety-nine men to the ice in a single year, took delivery of fifty-seven pigeons for a balloon, and cabled the Andree news to the world for a fortnight straight.
The crews were hired here
Polar expeditions did not bring their ice men with them. They came to Tromso and hired them.
In March 1909 the paper Kysten listed part of a party being assembled: from Morgedal came Jorgen Antonsen Stubberud, together with two Arctic hands from Tromso, one of them Helmer Hansen. [8] Hansen went on to stand at the South Pole. On the day that paragraph was printed he was a local man with sea ice on his record.
Amundsen's own account, published in 1930, has the least romantic sentence in polar literature: in Tromso our goods manager Zapffe had gathered everything up, and when we checked our lists all was in order. [7] Every expedition that worked ran on somebody in this town keeping a list.
The port's knowledge was taken seriously in the other direction too. In July 1928, with Amundsen missing, Grimstad Adressetidende reported that Director Krognes and Finn Lovold had drawn up a calculation of how the Latham would have drifted. [9] When the world wanted to know where an aircraft lost in the Arctic had gone, it asked Tromso.
The town this made
A port like that collects people. In August 1928 Agderposten reported the Dutchman van Dyngen arriving at Tromso after five unbroken years on Svalbard. [10] Five years, and then a quay, and a newspaper man waiting.
It collected science as well. A 1936 survey of Finnmark records that in 1928 the aurora investigations were taken over by the newly created aurora observatory in Tromso, and that the Geophysical Institute was renamed at the same time as the weather forecasting service for northern Norway. [11] The northern lights you may see from the deck have been measured from this town for nearly a century.
It collected firsts. A 1933 encyclopedia notes that ski racing is first heard of around 1843, with a race at Tromso, and only afterwards came the Telemark men and Nansen's crossing of Greenland. [14] And in June 1938 Tidens Krav announced the opening of the air route from Bergen to Tromso, to be flown by the Falken. [12] Within four decades the town went from sending sailing sloops to the ice to receiving a scheduled aircraft.
How it felt to arrive
Travel writing of the period is unusually good on Tromso. Akershus Amtstidende in 1938 described the winter passage north: once Tromso and Hammerfest are behind you, the writer says, you must force the Finnmark coast where the whole Arctic Ocean roars in. [13] That is the sea your boat is a small, warm, well-heated corner of.
Det gamle Tromso preserves two visitors' reactions. One, Ruszegger, was frankly irritated that so much German was spoken in the town, and the local editor saw nothing strange about it at all in what he called a German colony. [6] Another left this: full of curiosity I had set foot in Tromso, and with a feeling of loss I left it. [6]
The ordinary traffic went on underneath all of it. In October 1915 the paper Express noted, without comment, that a ship had been right up to the West Ice. [15] That is the ice edge north of Jan Mayen. It was not news. It was the season.
The port, in the record
Early 1800s: the trade begins
Merchants in Tromso and Hammerfest start fitting out small vessels for Arctic hunting, year by year. [5]
1843: a ski race
The first ski racing anyone records in Norway is a race at Tromso. [14]
1855: thirty-nine ships
Vessels home-ported in Tromso reach thirty-nine, with crews of one hundred and ninety-nine men. [6]
June 1896: fifty-seven pigeons
Pigeons are taken aboard at Tromso for the balloon ascent planned for 20 July. [2]
December 1896: the Fram is robbed
Nansen and Juel each lose a pocket watch, and a fish kettle goes off the ship. [1]
1909: hiring ice men
Two Arctic hands from Tromso join a polar party, one of them Helmer Hansen. [8]
1915: up to the West Ice
A ship is reported to have been right up to the ice edge, as an ordinary matter. [15]
1928: the drift calculation
With Amundsen missing, Tromso men calculate where the Latham would have drifted. [9]
1928: five years on Svalbard
The Dutchman van Dyngen lands at Tromso after five unbroken years in the north. [10]
1928: the aurora observatory
A new observatory at Tromso takes over the northern lights work. [11]
September 1930: the telegrams
After the Andree find, clerks cable column-long telegrams out of Tromso night and day for a fortnight. [3]
1938: the aeroplane arrives
The Bergen to Tromso air route opens, flown by the Falken. [12]
