A little Arctic history from 1917

Johan Runne, who was the skipper of the SS “Lysningen”, chose to go to the Vesterisen, while I, who was the captain of the SS “Haugen”, chose to go early to the Danish Strait.

The first days of May we left Ålesund and set course for 68 degrees NB. When we entered under the ice we went west along the ice edge and looked for catch and possible wreckage of the sunken sealers. We then continued west and were just down on 62 degrees N. Br. But no wreckage was to be seen. We went north again. We saw catch in the ice off Løvørna on 64 degrees N. Br. We tried to get in to the catch, but it was no use, the ice pack was too dense and the ice drifts west and the catch will lie back and seek north. We lie here and move and pitch, and wait for the ice conditions to improve. When it turns out after a while that the ice conditions are the same, and more ships have arrived, we decide to go north. When we came off Kap Dan or on 65 degrees N. Br., we met the SS "Aarvak" which was coming from home. There is a gap in the ice, straight through the ice from the edge. All the ships go full speed through the gap.

There were some animals there and they were almost caught in the flight. The storm came again and all the ships are sailing out to sea again. I go over to "Aarvak" and praise skipper Vebjørn Landmark. I find out how the catch and ice conditions were to the east, and he finds out how they were to the west. We decide not to go out to sea, but to lie still. The storm came and the ice gathered together, so we are stuck with the boom. The second day the fog lifts. There is a lot of fog everywhere and we can barely see the tops of the mainsails on the ships out to sea. They are lying low, no catch to be seen. There was a little bit of a twist, but we were not injured.

The days pass with various ship work. 

– This doesn't look good, says Vebjørn Landmark. We have three animals on the keel and "Aarvak" had a few more. If we get ashore with this, we can probably pack up our clothes and go ashore for good.

The guys ask if I think we'll catch fish this year. Yes, of course we'll catch fish, I said, there's no doubt about it.

After observing the sun and taking a bearing on the mountain peaks in Greenland, we drifted westward. One day we saw a large bowhead whale come out through the ice, it dived and came up through the ice at regular intervals. It came up through the ice floes with its head above the ice and it was like seeing a large house with a ridge breaking between the ice floes. The roar was heard for a long way. When it passed the ships, I took my rifle and emptied three magazines into its skull. But it didn't care. It went up and down until it disappeared into the sea. When we had been drifting and lying still for 12 days, the shutter was released on the SW. In the binoculars I saw a catch on 8V. It was so far away that it looked like brown peaks. I called out to Vebjørn and asked if he saw it. – I'm not sure, he said, because my binoculars are not that good.

We are tracking the catch in the SW and the fog is coming back. The pressure on the ice is giving up and we start moving forward with the ships a little at a time and eventually we hit the catch, and it is a big catch. We keep at it night and day.

We are off Løvørna and are a little short of a full load. We go off the edge and drive north a little. There we hit another catch, and continue until we are finished. We stop and blubber off and flatten the loose catch and fill the backs with coal. The ship is now so loaded that the deck is almost completely under water. I go over to "Aarvak" and praise Vebjørn. He says they are a little short of a full load and I ask if we should wait for them.

 – No, just go and say hello at home, and say we'll be back soon.

We barely made it out, heading east in thick fog. In a bay we found a bottlenose that had recently died. We took it on its side and flayed it, with axes and shovels. Then we hauled the carcass on deck, and there were 20 barrels of blubber on it.

We continued east and met all the ships that were lying and backing off the edge. They boasted and wanted to know where we had caught our catch, and I told them.

English destroyers lay guard over us between Cape North and the ice edge. We went on NBr. 67 gr. 30 and set course for Halten lighthouse. On this course we encountered no fighters in the sea.

When we arrived at Brandal, they had heard from Ålesund ships that had returned home without a catch, that there was a blockade across the entire Strait and that the "Haugen" and "Aarvak" were stuck far inside the ice.

Then he said to Peter S. Brandal: – Leave me alone, I'll say, that "Aarvak" and "Haugen" are the ones taking the load this year! 

And so it went. There were two ships that got their cargo in the Danish Strait in 1917, they were the "Haugen" and the "Aarvak". I must say, it was a bold move to get stuck and drift through the pack ice. We certainly didn't catch our catch while we were asleep.