Life as an early Arctic explorer

The Arctic was one of the last places on earth to be explored, and during the “Age of Discovery” which began in the early 1500s, was also one of the most valuable. Thousands of people came to this previously unexplored area for many reasons, but during the early years, they were dangerously unprepared for the dangers of the Arctic.

What exactly is the Arctic?

The Arctic is the area within the Arctic Circle, which is a line of latitude that sits approximately 66°33′ North of the equator. Everything north of this line is within the Arctic Circle and is often referred to simply as The Arctic. There are seven countries located within the Arctic Circle which are Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Canada, the US but only with the state of Alaska, and Denmark but only with its overseas territory of Greenland.

(The route of the Northwest Passage, abandoned as a major route due to its dangers and the completion of the Panama and Suez canals)

Why did people go to the Arctic Circle?

There were three main reasons people came to the Arctic, with the first being a series of attempts to find something called the Northwest Passage. This was a route from Europe and the east coast of America, across the north of Canada towards southeast Asia, which was believed to be quicker than sailing around the southern point of Africa. The other two reasons were skins and blubber, with whale blubber being increasingly valuable as technology increased because it was used as early machine oil.

Life on an early Arctic voyage

Assuming the ship in question left England and headed towards the North Pole, for the first six weeks to two months there would be nothing to do but general ship duties and waiting. The weather would gradually get a little colder each day and snow would slowly start to replace the rain until eventually small chunks of ice would float past. Then you see it, a huge sheet of ice so big it covers everything north of your path for as far as the eye can see, and you realize you’re finally here and it’s time to begin your duties.

When it came to trying to find the Northwest Passage, it was simply a lot of sailing in a very cold place, and they wouldn’t leave the ship unless something happened. As for the whaling and seal hunting parties, this was much more dangerous and involved a very different style of living.

(Whaling, the number one reason people went to the Arctic during the 18th and 19th centuries)

Life on an Arctic Whale hunt

Laying in your hammock on the lower deck, you hear a bell ring from above, followed by the cry of “Whale Ahoy”. Quickly putting on your thick cotton trousers and several wool jumpers you climb the steps to the top deck to find the crew launching two of the smaller row boats by lowering them down the sides. You watch as several members climb down rope ladders and push away from the ship with their ores, quickly rowing in the direction of the whales who keep breaking the surface for air.

As one of the whales rises, a sailor throws a harpoon into its side and makes sure the other end of the rope is securely attached to the boat. As the whale loses energy from towing the boat, other sailors are able to harpoon the creature and eventually it tires enough for a killing blow to be dealt. The whale is dragged back over to the ship and you watch the sailors remove their harpoons and tie the animal to the side of the ship before putting their row boats back on deck.

(The method of removing the strips of blubber from the whale, dangerous to say the least)

Now it’s your turn to get to work, and as the hunters were out at sea, you were busy preparing the scaffolding that will be placed on the side of the ship for the harvesting process. A walkway is built off the side off the ship above the whale and you climb onto the planks with a cutting tool on the end of a 10-foot-long staff. Long slices are made along the whale so strips can be cut off and attached to a hook which pulls the long strips of blubber onto the deck. You spend hours rolling the whale around in the water and cutting strips off until finally there’s nothing left but meat and bones. The carcass is untied and dumped into the water, apart from a chunk one of the other sailors cut off for his supper that night, and everyone gets to work on the blubber.

This part is smelly and means hours of cutting blubber into small enough chunks so it can be rendered into oil, a process which involves simply heating the fat so all the liquid runs off which is then put into barrels. From early morning until early evening, you have been standing on the deck and over the water, stabbing away at a whale, and then cutting up several tons of fat, but it’s now the end of the day, and the captain has ordered the anchor to be dropped for the night, so its time to get a quick splash wash in some seawater and tuck into some dried beans and salt pork you began soaking earlier in the day.

Food on an Arctic voyage

The rations on board the ship would be the same as any standard voyage at the time, but they had the advantage of being able to acquire food on the job. Rations such as salt pork, hardtack, dried peas, beans, grain, and later on canned food would have been the most common. Fresh meat from whales and seals would provide as much food as they wanted, but meat from arctic sea mammals has a very short time it’s safe to eat due to the huge amounts of oxygen stored in the blood which makes it go off quicker. One thing the early explorers found is that it’s deadly to eat the liver of polar bears because of the huge amount of Vitamin A stored in them. One pound in weight of polar bear liver is enough to kill a human from hypervitaminosis, and many other arctic mammals have a dangerously high vitamin A content in their livers, primarily huskies, wolves, and penguins.

(Hardtack, also known as ship’s biscuits was the most common sailor ration of all time, but it had to be soaked before eating)

Staying warm in the Arctic

The earliest explorer clothing consisted of nothing more than thick versions of standard winter clothing. Thick wool jumpers were worn under coats made of tightly stitched cotton or linen treated in somekind of oil to make it as waterproof as possible. Leather wasn’t very popular as it would freeze and become too stiff to move in, unlike the treated animal skins that were worked to be both flexible and warm. Heavy pea coats and down jackets were common, and thick soles boots with an inner layer of wool were a must, but all of this clothing was nothing more than guesswork.

(no one knows how to stay warm like the locals do, but this style of clothing was never worn by the crews of European Arctic whalers)

They should have made clothing out of caribou skins and listened to the Innuit tribes who lived there, but instead, everyone wanted to do it their way. Wool was recognized as being a warm and insulating material, but people didn’t know how easily Arctic wind would go through it, and when it gets wet it becomes very heavy, taking a long time to dry out, leading many people to a chilly end something as simple as a waterproof outer layer could have saved them from.