CHAPTER XVIII

A RESIDENT OF THE ARCTIC ZONE

ON alighting from the ship I took a deep breath of the fishy atmosphere and proceeded up the street lugging my two bags. I was now three hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, and the island town of Tromso was buried in eight feet of snow. I had walked barely ten yards when my feet flew out from under me and I came down with a fearful thud. My two grips fell from my hands and slid about on the slippery snow of the packed street like drops of quicksilver. I gathered my meagre belongings together and started again. Ten yards more--and I fell in the same undignified manner. I thought the eight thousand inhabitants of Tromso were gazing at me, as the crowds on the sidewalks congregated to see the drunken foreigner perform. I tried again to make some progress, but it seemed impossible for me to keep my equilibrium. I nearly became discouraged. A waxed floor is a ploughed field compared to the winter smoothness of a Tromso street.

I found Turner in his room at the Grand Hotel and we were very glad to see one another, for we had not seen each other for four years. To meet up here in the frozen north made a reunion of two Americans especially cordial.

A Mr. Gilson of Pennsylvania, superintendent of the Arctic Coal Company, was Turner's roommate, and, with my advent, the foreign population of Tromso was raised to three. This scarcity of aliens made us conspicuous members of the community and a great source of curiosity. We three comprised the American staff of the company; and we all lived at the Grand Hotel. The hotel was a three-story frame building buried up to the window sills of the first floor in snow. It was conducted on purely Norwegian lines.

The average inhabitant of Tromso lives on an incessant diet of fish and boiled potatoes, with an occasional piece of cheese or canned "salt horse." Breakfast is almost an unknown meal, and when it does take place it is seldom held earlier than ten o'clock. Dinner follows at two-thirty in the afternoon and supper at nine in the evening. This is a most distressing schedule when one wishes to keep office hours and accomplish some work during the day. By a special arrangement with the proprietor of the hotel we were able to have our breakfast served in our rooms each morning at half-past eight. Cheese and bread being the usual diet, we could not expect any great variety of food at this meal. On their arrival several months ago, Turner had expressed a wish for soft boiled eggs and Gilson for fried eggs, and these, accompanied with bread and coffee, had been the menu of the initial meal of the day ever since. When I arrived there must have been great confusion in the kitchen among the cooks and waiters to determine what odd notions I might have about eating. However, without consulting me, the maid appeared on my first morning with one soft boiled egg and one fried egg, and this was my assortment for breakfast every day of my month's stay in the hotel.

Bath-tubs seem to be a rarity in Norway, and the town of Tromso had the distinction of possessing one bath house. Our hotel and all private houses, with few exceptions, did not contain a tub. To add to this scarcity, the one bath house only opened its doors to bathers on one day of the week. We American residents were three of its most regular patrons. Bathing in a wash-basin is an unsatisfactory process as well as an extremely awkward one. However, we were forced to this means of cleansing ourselves during the interval that the bath-tubs of the village reposed behind closed doors.

The morning after my arrival I reported for work at the company's office. I was at first assigned to arranging and card indexing a tangled pile of machinery catalogues and supply hand-books. I next prepared a systematic card index of all the articles of merchandise that the company had purchased during the previous years of its existence. I finally became sufficiently familiar with the business to assist in the buying of the food and mining supplies for the summer season at the mine.

The office was a crowded little space on the ground floor of a frame building on the main street of Tromso, and consisted of three small rooms. In addition to the three Americans the staff included a chief clerk and an office boy. The chief clerk was a Norwegian who had served as an American soldier in the Philippines and who spoke excellent English. He was an invaluable man and acted as the channel through which all business of the office was transacted, for the Americans, not knowing Norwegian, had to have him translate all letters and contracts and interpret all conversations. The office boy was a young native who had acquired a fair smattering of English. Although an industrious lad he was frequently drawn from his work in amazement at what he considered the outlandish and freakish mannerisms of the Americans.

The office was busy buying supplies for the summer and coming winter seasons at the mine on Spitzbergen, making contracts for the sale of coal, chartering ships and hiring men as miners and labourers.

Spitzbergen is entirely frozen in eight months of the year, and the mine had an open season, or time when the coal could be shipped out, of four months. It was necessary to have a winter crew and a summer crew. The winter men, who numbered about one hundred, were now on the island and were out of touch with the world, with the exception of communication by means of a wireless station operated by the Norwegian government. This crew did nothing but mine, and the coal was placed in a stock pile alongside of the wharf. A new force of two hundred men was taken to the mine at the opening of the summer season and the huge task of shipping out the coal mined during the winter was undertaken.

The company chartered all its eight boats with the exception of one, the _William D. Munroe_, which it owned. This ship was in dry-dock undergoing a thorough and expensive overhauling under the numerous and many unnecessary instructions from officials and inspectors of the Norwegian government. The company chartered the other seven tramp steamers at the rate of one hundred and twenty-five dollars a day, procuring them through ship brokers in London and Newcastle.

The coal mined was bituminous with a low percentage of ash and was considered exceptionally good fuel for steamers. The demand for it much exceeded the supply, the production at this time being only twenty-five thousand tons a year, and there was a good market for it at five and six dollars a ton delivered. The larger part of the output was sold to Norwegian steamship companies, most of it being consigned to Christiania, Christiansund, Bergen and Trondhjem. Several cargoes were despatched to Archangel, on the White Sea, for a Russian concern.

Aside from business I found much time to devote to the social life of Tromso. On the second evening after my arrival I received an invitation to attend a _ski_-ing party of young men and women. It was the plan to _ski_ over the hills of the island back of Tromso to a small cabin about five miles distant, and there cook a meal over a log fire. I knew nothing about _ski_-ing and had never seen a pair of _ski_. When one of my Norwegian acquaintances offered to lend me a pair I was puzzled to know how any one could get over the snow with such fence rails strapped to his feet. I was perfectly willing to learn. I donned the two unfamiliar slats and, assisted by two pretty Norwegian women, who did not understand English, started out on the five-mile trip to the cabin. Ten miles was a long distance for a novice. The party numbered about twenty boys and girls, and they were soon far in the lead while my two female aides tussled with me in the rear. We proceeded smoothly enough (the arms of the two girls around my waist and mine, of course, around theirs) until we came to the first hill. This incline looked about a thousand miles long and almost vertically steep. My escorts were expert at the sport, but they did not have sufficient strength to prevent my causing a catastrophe. We started down the hill and in a few seconds were going at the speed of an express train. I never expected to reach the bottom in anything approaching a dignified position. About fifty yards of such travelling was all I could stand, and then the spill took place. I wasn't man enough to fall by myself, but had to drag the poor girls down with me. The three of us rolled down the hill together and landed, half buried in the snow, in the most undignified pile I ever was in. The party ahead returned to untangle and dig us out. It was a most intimate affair. One young woman was almost completely concealed, being half submerged in the snow, while I was so irregularly sprawled out on top of her that she had no possible means of being resurrected until I was removed. I, in turn, was pinned down--for the other young woman had one of her nether limbs so securely entwined around my neck that I felt roped to the earth. She, at the same time, was struggling in a vain effort to dislodge one of her _ski_ from the snow where it had penetrated several feet. The three of us were securely anchored, and if we had tried to attain our relative positions by a deliberate plan we could not have been so successful.

With the assistance of the rest of the party we were finally unravelled. I arose only to repeat the performance, not with the same resultant intimacy and proximity as in my first experience, however, for the young women arranged to keep at a certain distance and I was allowed to navigate by myself. My courage was not much slackened by the first unhappy incident, for I tackled each hill as it came, although I knew that I should come to grief in the shape of a tangled mass at the bottom. I made a jolly good fool of myself, I know, and at each attempt swept everything before me, dragging down Norwegian widows, massage artists, fishermen's daughters--and all within arms' reach as I swooped by. This performance continued until we arrived at the cabin.

Soon we were all refreshed by coffee and sandwiches which the girls prepared and we sat around the big log fire singing and smoking. Everybody smoked, women and all, for it is a common thing for the fair sex to use cigarettes in Norway. I dreaded to see the time approach for us to depart, for I knew that our return home would be a repetition of our eventful journey to the cabin. It was two o'clock in the morning and the sun was rising on the distant horizon--and I thought I might show signs of improvement when assisted by daylight. We started back, the leaders of the party very judiciously selecting a course which was not so hilly and which portended a more peaceful journey. It is a rather simple matter to glide along on the level, and the way we returned didn't prove nearly so disastrous as the way we came. I managed to conduct myself fairly well, for the time being.

When we reached the edge of the town, where the hard packed road which led down hill to the main street begins, we all took off our _ski_ and converted them into small sleds by sitting on them and riding into the village. I decided to try this new method. We all strung out at intervals of about twenty feet and started from the summit on a mile shoot into the heart of the town. I managed to begin all right. I had only gone a few yards, however, when the _ski_ beneath me became unmanageable and I could not steer them. We had all acquired a terrific speed. I was sandwiched in between two young women, one sliding a few feet in front of me and the other several paces in the rear, I reached a curve in the road! I lost my _ski_ and continued sliding down the cold and hard road on the seat of my trousers. The next minute over I turned and grabbed the first object with which I came in contact. It was the girl behind me who had overtaken me. I clung to her like a leech and the two of us rolled over for several yards and finally landed in a heap on the side of the road. Another intimate pile. She had lost her _ski_; her skirts were clustered around her neck; my hat had disappeared--and we lay in the gutter like two pairs of scissors. My feminine associate had her feet extended towards the summit of the hill and mine were pointing towards the town below. We unwound. I got up and assisted her to her feet. We walked the rest of the way to the village.

To be the cause of so much human wreckage was enough to discourage me. However, I made up my mind to persist, for _ski_-ing was the only outdoor sport in this part of the world. One of the young women condoled with me when she learned that _ski_-ing was not in vogue in my country, for she thought it was a pity that we had no outdoor sports. During two-thirds of the year there is not a wheeled vehicle to be seen in Tromso, all transportation being conducted on sleds and the majority of the inhabitants spending much of their time on _ski_. Even the five-year-olds are expert at this method of locomotion. I, therefore, decided to learn, in spite of all my reverses, and in a few weeks became so proficient that I welcomed hills and often complained because they were not steep enough.

The company bought a house on the hill and we three Americans moved out of the hotel into a home of our own. Norwegian houses are often arranged in a most inconvenient manner. The second floor seldom contains a hallway, and in order to go from one bed room to another, it is necessary to pass through the private apartment of another member of the household. Very frequently the maid's room is situated in one end of the house, and in order to reach her bed-chamber she has to walk through all the bedrooms. Between all rooms there is a sort of sill about two inches high running the width of the opening upon which the door swings. One would think that the occupants of such houses would become accustomed to these obstructions and learn to step over them. But this is not the case, for Norwegians are continually falling over the sills. On one occasion an officer in the Norwegian army, who had just completed a call on us, was making his ceremonious and prolonged farewell. With each deep bow he would step back towards the door. He receded until he toppled over backwards on one of these senseless sills. The poor chap gathered himself together and left without saying a word. He was the most embarrassed man I ever saw.

Our house was destitute of furniture, and, as there was not much of a line of this commodity in town, we spent many evenings as carpenters and painters, making tables, beds and chairs with lumber we purchased from a local merchant. Now that we were in our own home we re-arranged our mode of living by changing our hours of eating and sleeping. We adopted a menu which conformed more nearly to what Americans usually eat. We also did a little entertaining. We decorated the walls of our house with pictures we cut from the covers of American magazines and hung up curtains which we imported from England.

The most elaborate social function I had the pleasure of attending was a house dance given at the home of one of the doctors of the town. My two American friends and I arrived at the party at about nine o'clock. The other guests were all present. As we entered the host and hostess were introducing each one in turn to the others who were lined up in a row at one end of the room. It is the custom to address a man by prefixing his vocation to his name, and this manner of designating each one was used during the introductions. Engineer Hansen, Coppersmith Johnsen and Fisherman Olsen were all introduced in this way. The three Americans were simply addressed as "Mister."

It was remarkable to notice the number of people who could speak good English in Tromso. A few of them had acquired their knowledge by visits to England, but the majority had learned the language in the schools of the town. I met one woman who had never been south of the Arctic Circle who spoke English almost perfectly. There were a number at the doctor's dance who spoke the language fluently.

After every one was thoroughly introduced, folding doors were opened, and on tables in the adjoining room stood the most sumptuous supper any man ever saw. The food was served in buffet fashion, and each one was requested to help himself to the endless variety of eatables spread before us. Chicken, fish, sandwiches, salads, cakes and fruits were piled on this table in such abundance that it looked like the assemblage of a dozen Christmas dinners. Liquid cheer was so plentiful that one almost believed all the booze in town was concentrated in this one room. Every conceivable form of liquor was on exhibition, and it would be a most fastidious drinker who could not find something to suit his taste. Beer, several kinds of wine, punch, whiskey and even gin were arrayed before us like the choice liquors in a millionaire brewer's cellar.

The sight of this bountiful feast nearly paralysed me. I at first thought it was a dream, and it took several minutes before I was aware that it was real food and drink. To come up from the steerage to such a grand meal as this was nothing short of a miracle. I dived in and--with the rest of the guests--ate heartily.

The Norwegians confine themselves to square dances, somewhat similar to the Lancers, and to the waltz. This last dance is very much like the American step, with much more of a hop to it and a larger interval between the man and his partner. I insisted on teaching several of the women to two-step. They were very pleased with it, but had difficulty in becoming accustomed to such proximity to their partner. One woman became very fond of this near feature, but insisted on my resuming a distant position as we passed her husband, who was seated at one end of the room. Those who didn't care to dance played cards and smoked. The dainty way in which the women handled their cigarettes killed any prejudice I had nourished about the feminine use of tobacco.

One meal during an evening is evidently not considered sufficient in Norway, for at four in the morning the same folding doors were opened and another array of refreshments lay spread before us. The second assortment was by no means the scraps of the previous meal. It was an entirely new lot of a different variety, and consisted of pudding, cake and coffee. All the participants had danced so diligently that they had acquired new appetites, and the food was all consumed as though it were the only lot of refreshments served at the party. This second feast was the customary conclusion of Tromso social functions. Farewells followed, and the guests departed. We Americans arrived home at six o'clock, changed our clothes, concluded that it was useless to go to bed and went directly to the office for the day's work. The dancing party was a great success, and I could easily have imagined it a New York affair instead of an Arctic Zone function.

It was now only a couple of weeks before the company's boat, _Munroe_, was scheduled to make its initial trip to the mine on Spitzbergen. The office staff had an immense amount of work to dispose of in this time. Men from all parts of Norway were slowly drifting into Tromso to sign contracts for summer employment. Supplies were being rushed in. A new propeller shaft for the _Munroe_ was _en route_ from England. Cabin fixtures were being installed and many matters were being adjusted to comply with the maritime regulations of the Norwegian government before the ship would be permitted to leave port.

The last week several American engineers and their wives began to arrive. Turner had made arrangements for these experienced men, and they had signed contracts with the company for a period of two years. A score of English miners, who had been engaged through a British labour bureau, also arrived.

With the influx of Norwegian miners and labourers the streets of Tromso were thronged with drunken, fishy and rough-looking men, and the sailing of the _Munroe_ for the far North was the most discussed topic in town.

Two days before the scheduled time for her departure the _Munroe_ was launched from the dry-dock and crews were kept busy loading her with supplies of provisions and other merchandise. Twenty men were put to work building bunks in the hatchways for the miners, and the final touches were rushed to completion.

At midnight on the 25th of May everything was ready. About one hundred Norwegian peasants filed up the gangway and boarded the ship. They were the most forlorn set of adults I ever saw. I should have said one hundred drunks--for I don't believe that there was one entirely sober man among them. Some were completely out as the result of a week's intoxication and had to be packed aboard like sacks of bran. Fifty were conducted from the town jail by several policemen, assisted by Superintendent Gilson and myself. They had been locked up on account of disorderly conduct and had been in prison awaiting the departure of the _Munroe_.

At four o'clock in the morning every one was aboard, and the little ship, loaded to her water line and carrying a hundred helpless inebriates, turned her bow towards the North Pole and started on her way.