Due North or Glimpses of Scandinavia and Russia by Maturin Murray Ballou (best books to read for self improvement TXT) 📖

was truly overpowering. The hardy fishermen work nearly all winter at their rough occupation, braving the tempestuous Northern ocean in frail undecked boats, which to an inexperienced eye seem utterly unfit for such exposed service. The harvest-time to the cod-fishers here is from January to the middle of April. Casualties are of course frequent, but we were told that they are not remarkably so. Winter fishing on the banks of Newfoundland is believed to be the annual cause of more fatalities than are experienced among the Lofoden fishermen. Sometimes this region is visited by terrible hurricanes, as was the case in 1848, on which occasion five hundred fishermen were swept into eternity in one hour. Their boats are built of Norway spruce or pine, and are very light, scarcely more seaworthy than a Swampscott dory. Each has a single, portable mast which carries one square sail. The crew of a boat generally consists of six men. These live when on shore in little log-huts, each containing a score or more of bunks ranged along the sides one above another. The men come hither, as has been intimated, from all parts of the North, and return home at the close of the fishing season.

It should be made clear to the reader's mind that these matchless islands off the northwest coast of Norway consist of two divisions,--the Lofoden and Vesteraalen isles. The Vestfjord separates the former from the main-land and the Ofotenfjord; and a prolongation of the Vestfjord separates the latter from Norway proper. These two groups are separated from each other by the Raftsund. All the islands on the west of this boundary belong to the Lofoden, and those on the east and north to the Vesteraalen group. The total length of all these islands is about a hundred and thirty miles, and the area is computed at fifteen hundred and sixty square miles. These estimates, we were informed, had lately been very nearly corroborated by actual government survey. The population of the islands will not vary much from twenty thousand. The entire occupation of the people is fishing, curing the fish, and shipping them southward. Some of the shrewdest persons engaged in this business accumulate moderate fortunes in a few years, when they naturally seek some more genial home upon the main-land. The large islands contain rivers and lakes of considerable size, but the growth of trees in this high latitude is sparse, and when found they are universally dwarfed. There is, however, as the product of the brief summer season, an abundance of fresh green vegetation, which is fostered by the humidity of the atmosphere. Still the prevailing aspect is that of towering, jagged rocks. Though the winters are long, they are comparatively mild, so much so that the salt water does not freeze in or about the group at any time of the year. As to the scenery, the Lofodens must be admitted to surpass in true sublimity and grandeur anything of their nature to be found in southern Europe. There is ample evidence showing that in long past ages these islands were much more extensive than at present, and that they were once covered with abundant vegetation. But violent convulsions in the mean time must have rent them asunder, submerging some entirely, and elevating others into their present irregular shapes.

In pursuing her course towards the North Cape, the steamer for a distance of twenty miles and more glides through a strait remarkable for its picturesqueness and unique beauty, which is called the Raftsund. Here the shore is studded by the tiny red cabins of the fishermen, surrounded by green low-growing foliage, the earth-covered roofs of the huts often spread with purple heather-bloom, mingled about the eaves with moss of intensely verdant hue. The high slopes of the hills are covered with Alpine moss, and the upper cliffs with snow, whose yielding tears, persuaded by the warm sun, feed opalescent cascades; while below and all about the ship are the deep dark waters of the Polar Sea. Neither the majestic Alps, the glowing Pyrenees, nor the commanding Apennines ever impressed us like these wild, wrinkled, rock-bound mountains in their virgin mantles of frost. The sensation when gazing in wonder upon the far-away Himalayas, the loftiest range on the earth, was perhaps more overpowering; but the nearness to these abrupt cliffs, volcanic islands, mountains, and glaciers in boreal regions made it seem more like Wonderland. The traveller looks heavenward from the deck of the steamer to see the apex of the steep walls, stern, massive, and immovable, which line the fjords, lost in the blue sky, or wreathed in gauzy mantles of mist-clouds, as he may have looked upward from the deep, green valley of the Yosemite at the lofty crowns of Mount Starr King, El Capitan, or Sentinel Dome. On again approaching the main-land the varying panorama is similarly impressive, though differing in kind. It will be remembered that the coast of Norway extends three hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, projecting itself boldly into the Polar Sea, and that two hundred miles and more of this distance is north of the Lofoden Island group. Now and then reaches of country are passed affording striking and beautiful landscape effects, where valleys open towards the sea, affording views sometimes capped by glaciers high up towards the overhanging sky, where they form immense level fields of dazzling ice embracing hundreds of square miles. The enjoyment of a trip along the coast is largely dependent upon the condition of the weather, which is frequently very disagreeable. In this respect the author was greatly favored. The absence of fog and mist was remarkable, while the water most of the time was as smooth as a pleasure pond. With a heavy, rolling sea and stormy weather, the trip northward from Bodoee, and especially among the Lofodens, would be anything but enjoyable. Sometimes fancy led us to gaze lazily over the bulwarks into the mirroring sea for long distances, where mountains, gorges, foaming torrents, and sheer precipices were even more sharply depicted than when gazing directly at them. A feeling of loneliness is sure to creep over the solitary traveller at such times, a longing for some congenial companion with whom to share all this glowing experience. "Joy was born a twin." Fulness of appreciation and delight can be reached only by being shared.

Amid such scenes as we have described rises the enormous Svartisen glacier, its ice and snow defying the power of the sun. This glacier is many miles in length and nearly as wide as it is long, covering a plateau four thousand feet above the level of the sea. The dimensions given the author upon the spot were so mammoth that he hesitates to record them; but it is by far the most extensive one he has ever seen. Sulitelma, the highest mountain in Lapland, six thousand feet above the sea, crowned by a shroud of eternal snow, comes into view, though it is nearly fifty miles inland. The snow-level about this latitude of 69 deg. north is five hundred feet above that of the sea, below which, wherever the earth can find a foothold on the rocks, all is delightfully green,--a tender delicate green, such as marks the early spring foliage of New England, or the leaves of the young locust. The heat of the brief summer sun is intense, and insect life thrives marvellously in common with the more welcome vegetation. Birch and willow trees seem best adapted to withstand the rigor of these regions, and they thrive in the warm season with a vitality and beauty of effect which is heightened by the ever-present contrast. Every hour of the voyage seemed burdened with novelty, and ceaseless vigilance possessed every faculty. A transparent haze at mid-day or midnight lay like a golden veil over land and sea; objects even at a short distance presented a shadowy and an unreal aspect. The rough and barren islands which we passed in our midnight course often exhibited one side glorified with gorgeous roseate hues, while casting sombre and mysterious shadows behind them, which produced a strangely weird effect, half of delight, half of awe, while the long superb trail of sunlight crept towards us from the horizon.

The attractions of Norway to the artist are many, and in a great measure they are unique, especially in the immediate vicinity of the west coast. No two of the many abrupt elevations resemble each other, all are erratic; some like Alpine cathedrals seemingly rear their fretted spires far heavenward, where they echo the hoarse anthems played by the winters' storms. One would think that Nature in a wayward mood had tried her hand sportively at architecture, sculpture, and castle-building,--constructing now a high monumental column or a mounted warrior, and now a Gothic fane amid, regions strange, lonely, and savage. There are grand mountains and glaciers in Switzerland, but they do not rise directly out of the ocean as they do here in Scandinavia; and as to the scenery afforded by the innumerable fjords winding inland, amid forests, cliffs, and impetuous waterfalls, nowhere else can these be seen save on this remarkable coast. Like rivers, and yet so unlike them in width, depth, and placidity, with their broad mouths guarded by clustering islands, one can find nothing in Nature more grand, solemn, and impressive than a Norwegian fjord. Now and again the shores are lined for brief distances by the greenest of green pastures, dotted with little red houses and groups of domestic animals, forming bits of verdant foreground backed by dark gorges. Down precipitous cliffs leap cascades, which are fed by ice-fields hidden in the lofty mountains so close at hand. These are not merely pretty spouts like many a little Swiss device, but grand, plunging, restless torrents, conveying heavy volumes of foaming water. An artist's eye would revel in the twilight glory of carmine, orange, and indigo which floods the atmosphere and the sea amid such scenery as we have faintly depicted.


CHAPTER VIII.


Birds of the Arctic Regions. -- Effect of Continuous Daylight. -- Town of Tromsoee. -- The Aurora Borealis. -- Love of Flowers. -- The Growth of Trees. -- Butterflies. -- Home Flowers. -- Trees. -- Shooting Whales with Cannon. -- Pre-Historic Relics. -- About Laplanders. -- Eider Ducks. -- A Norsk Wedding Present. -- Gypsies of the North. -- Pagan Rites. -- The Use of the Reindeer. -- Domestic Life of the Lapps. -- Marriage Ceremony. -- A Gypsy Queen. -- Lapp Babies. -- Graceful Acknowledgment.


We have said nothing about the feathered tribes of Norway, though all along this coast, which is so eaten and corroded by the action of the sea, the birds are nearly as numerous as the fishes. They are far more abundant than the author has ever seen them in any other part of the world. Many islands, beginning at the Lofodens and reaching to the extreme end of the peninsula, are solely occupied by them as breeding places. Their numbers are beyond calculation; one might as well try to get at the aggregate number of flies in a given space in midsummer. They consist of petrels, swans, geese, pelicans, grebes, auks, gulls, and divers; these last are more particularly of the duck family, of which there are over thirty distinct species in and about this immediate region. Curlews, wandering albatrosses, ptarmigans, cormorants, and ospreys were also observed, besides some birds of beautiful plumage whose names were unknown to us. Throughout all Scandinavia the many lakes, so numerous as to be unknown by name, also abound with water-fowl of nearly every description habitual to the North. These inland regions afford an abundance of the white grouse, which may be called the national bird of Norway, where it so much abounds. The author has nowhere seen such fine specimens of this