Within a ten-months’ period during 1954 and 1955, the writer was fortunate enough to make quick trips to both the Arctic and the Antarctic regions. The opportunity has thus been afforded for a brief, comparative summary of the major features of these two widely differing regions. It should be emphasized that the observations in this report represent conditions observed during a limited period of time, that only conditions which occurred during that particular year are cited, and that these may not be altogether typical of either region.
Areas Visited
From July, 1954, to September, 1954, a cruise was made on the Icebreaker U.S.S. Burton Island (AGB-1) from Kodiak, Alaska, around Point Barrow, through the Beaufort Sea to Prince of Wales Strait, Melville Sound, McClure Strait, and as far as seventy-five degrees north at Bridport Inlet, Melville Island. The return was via the same route including Collinson Inlet, Victoria Island, and an extra run up the western coast of Banks Island. From December, 1954, to April, 1955, a cruise on the icebreaker U.S .S. Atka (AGB-3) was taken which carried the observer to the Ross Sea from New Zealand, around Cape Colbeck through Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas, Brans- field Strait, down the Weddell Sea to Coats Land. From here, the Weddell Sea was penetrated westward along Coats Land for approximately a hundred miles to as far south as about 72°30'S. The return passage was made along the Princess Martha Coast of Queen Maud Land as far as the ice tongue extending from shore at the zero meridian and then north to South Georgia.
In each cruise the polar latitudes reached were approximately the same, namely 75° north and 78° south. Both cruises were made during the summer season for each region.
General Impressions
The portion of the Canadian Arctic visited gave the impression of being a generally “friendly” region; there were large areas of bare land, many flowers in bloom, land mammals were noted here and there, and there was almost no snow, either on the land or on the ice. The ship was close to civilization and should disaster overtake her, there would have been no doubt of a speedy rescue either by ship or by air. The Antarctic, on the other hand, appeared even before commencing the cruise to be a “desolate” area, far remote from civilization, where there would be little chance of rescue, practically no escape from a sinking ship, and scant possibility of survival should the party be forced to take to the land. These earlier impressions were fully substantiated on the first glimpse of the Antarctic region. Abandon-ship drills lacked completely the feeling of reality, because one glance at the broken floes and inhospitable land was enough to make everyone feel that the last thing to be done was to leave the ship at any cost. There were no bare land areas; no vegetation, no land mammals, and survival for any length of time would be dependent entirely upon what opportunity was available for landing ships’ stores. On the other hand, it was strongly impressed upon the observer how quickly the Antarctic was reached from New Zealand and how quickly the ship was able to get out of it on the Atlantic side of the continent, essentially only one week in either case. In summary, it might be said that while the Arctic, as this observer saw it in the summer time, seemed a delightful picnic area, in the Antarctic, things were “played for keeps,” with no holds barred, and no mercy shown the unfortunate. The Antarctic is no place to take a summer cruise ship for tourists bent upon thrills!
The Water Areas
In the Arctic, no rough weather in open water was experienced and, except for periods of fog, the ship was usually within sight of land. The ship was undoubtedly most fortunate in the Antarctic in both her approach and departure and while in open water, in that she was never inconvenienced by the terrible storms often encountered in these areas. There was, however, the almost constant expectancy of running into such weather and in regions where the only lee to be expected would be behind icebergs or running into the pack to escape from heavy seas. Icebergs, even to a powerful icebreaker, are not the best things to get behind and to the old sailing ships were, of course, often a real peril because of limited maneuverability under sail.
Land Areas
As noted previously, the islands of the Canadian Arctic offered an always present escape from the sea. One had the confident expectancy of being able to reach land and to survive there for some time in case of disaster to the ship. They presented an easily accessible refuge which was at no time available in the Antarctic. As one ship’s officer jokingly expressed it, “If this abandon ship call turns out to be not a drill, don’t call me; I’m getting into my bunk and ride her down, there’s no chance out there”! The only bare land areas seen during the 3600 mile run from the Ross Sea to Coats Land were sheer cliffs in the Bransfield Strait area and at such islands as Deception and Peter I. No rock specimens were collected in Antarctica by the geologist on this expedition.
The Ice
In the Arctic no ice of a sufficiently serious nature to hinder forward movement of the ship was encountered until McClure Strait was reached, with the possible exception of a little hard going off the Jones Islands in the Beaufort Sea. In Melville Sound to the north and east of Victoria Island, the ice was easily penetrated with a minimum of ramming. Making westward into McClure Strait and later along the eastern coast of Melville Island, very hard, thick, and consolidated pack was encountered which forced the ship to back up and ram for hours at a time and in several instances made a change of course advisable. Usually a wait of a few hours caused a marked change in ice conditions, and leads opened which had been closed tight before. Heavy fog along the Melville Island Coast caused the ship to withdraw because poor visibility made it impossible to determine a feasible course. There was no question about it, the ice in McClure Strait was tough, twelve to fifteen feet thick and usually consolidated, but it was the general opinion of those who knew ice conditions that, given time, Burton Island could have penetrated easily to Mould Bay, through McClure Strait from the east, or from the western coast of Banks Island.
Little or no snow was observed at any time on the Arctic ice pack, which was usually heavily puddled and consisted of a large percentage of polar ice; rotten floes were the exception in McClure Strait and at most other areas except along the pack edges. Pressure ridges were frequent and hard to break through, but leads and polynyas were also abundant and the rule rather than the exception. Rafted and hummocked ice was not often encountered. Ice conditions changed overnight for no apparent reason; ice movement was caused by changing conditions in the areas of the polar sea or remote regions of Melville Sound. Floes were solid, of fairly large extent, and one could get out of them at almost any place where there was any coverage at all. Pools of fresh water were frequent and were utilized by the ship in two instances to supplement the evaporators’ capacity to produce water for drinking. Expanses of shelf ice face, such as the great Ross Ice Barrier, were never encountered in the Arctic.
The general impressions given by the ice met with in the Antarctic are that the pack was easier to penetrate, less consolidated, except along the shore areas from Cape Colbeck to Thurston Peninsula, and that it consisted of smaller floes. There were few places where one would have cared to step out on the ice for coring or observations in the ice met with. One’s first impression of the Antarctic ice pack was that it was universally covered with snow. This was true in all areas visited during the entire cruise. True, blue polar ice was almost never seen. Ice in the Ross Sea approach was very rotten and offered no resistance to passage of the ice-breaker; the ice from Cape Colbeck eastward became increasingly harder and more difficult to penetrate. This condition became aggravated the closer the ship tried to get to the coastal areas. While it is true that Atka’s orders explicitly forbid the ship to become involved in heavy ice, nevertheless, in general, it is safe to say that the ice encountered was in no place as difficult as that met with in McClure Strait. This is borne out by the engine room reports which show that in only one instance was heeling resorted to during the entire cruise. This was to the north of Cape Colbeck on the first attempt to round the cape to get into Sulzberger Bay. On January 19 a stretch of heavy, thick ice was passed through after much ramming and heeling, and eventually waiting for several hours for changing conditions. It was here that the starboard screw was damaged by the loss of one entire blade, which made further attempts at penetrating heavy pack inadvisable. In the Weddell Sea, the pack was generally skirted to the east and north where possible, but here the ice was very unpredictable and observations from the bridge could not determine whether the ice ahead was solid or rotten. Along the shores of Coats Land the waters were practically ice free.
The most striking feature of the Antarctic ice pack, aside from the universal presence of considerable snow coverage, was the almost continuous, and often concentrated, presence of icebergs of all sizes and shapes. Tabular bergs were predominant but pinnacled and worn bergs of all shapes were in almost continuous sight while in the pack. Along the western coast of King Edward VII land and off Cape Colbeck, there was a regular corridor of bergs which were often only a few hundred yards apart. It was a common experience to count from forty to over a hundred bergs in sight ahead at one time from the bridge. Many of the tabular bergs showed layering in the upper portions with laminae of about a foot in thickness, corresponding closely with the neve layers observed in snow pits made on the barrier. Rafted and hummocky ice was much more prevalent in the Antarctic. Polynyas were very seldom observed. Ice conditions appeared to require much more time to change than in the Arctic. It is believed that the coast might have been reached at most of the places attempted had there been more time to wait for improvement in the condition of the pack; the time required for such changes would probably have been a matter of days or weeks rather than a few hours or a day or so, as in the Arctic. Almost no puddling was observed, and pools of fresh water of sufficient size to warrant pumping for ship’s use were never seen during the Antarctic cruise.
Along most of the coasts visited from the Ross Sea to Coats Land on the Weddell Sea side of the Antarctic continent, faces of shelf ice similar to the great Ross Ice Barrier were the rule, and no actual coast line was observed save in the Palmer Peninsula region. This was a most striking feature of the Antarctic landscape. Ice conditions along the coastal areas from Cape Colbeck to Thurston Peninsula south of Atka’s track were certainly much more severe than any ice encountered on the Arctic cruise, and should an attempt be made to gain the coast in this area, there is no question that a considerable amount of effort would be necessary. This would take three to four weeks of ramming, heeling, backing, and a favorable season, but it could be done if there were sufficient reasons for penetrating within landing range of the coast at Sulzberger Bay, Mt. Siple, or the Thurston Peninsula.
Weather
The highest temperature recorded on the Burton Island during the summer cruise was 53°F., the lowest 26°F. In the Antarctic, the highest temperature on the ship was recorded while passing through Bransfield Strait (42°F), while the lowest temperature was 7°F. at Atka Bay. On the shelf ice at Byrd Bay on the Atlantic side, a low of 0°F, was observed; at Little America earlier in the season we worked in comfort digging a snow pit without gloves or hats at a temperature of 20°F., on the shelf ice near Little America III. Unusually clear and sunny weather was the rule while in the Arctic, and except toward the last, there was little fog or overcast days. In the Antarctic, absence of sun or days with more than fifty per cent overcast were the rule, and bright, clear days were very few and far between. Little wind and no strong winds were experienced in either area. Slight winds experienced while working on the fast ice, accompanied by snow, gave us a slight taste of what conditions might be in the Antarctic during winter with lower temperatures and blizzard conditions. In the Arctic there were only a few days on which there were snow flurries while in the Antarctic snow showers were common throughout the cruise.
Animal Life
Enough has already been written on this subject to warrant only slight mention in these notes. In the Arctic, there is the constant threat of polar bear attack while on the ice or land; the Antarctic presents no formidable animals with the exception of killer whales, which have been known to threaten personnel on small floes. Seals were occasionally seen in the Arctic as were walrus in certain areas. Birds were present in both the Arctic and Antarctic, but my impression was that there were more birds and more varied bird life in the Antarctic; the Antarctic petrel and skua gulls were very common. In the Antarctic, seals, mainly Weddell with fewer crab-eaters and occasional sea leopards, were seen almost constantly on the floes and sunning themselves on the shore ice. The most striking feature of the animal life in the Antarctic is of course the universal presence of penguins, which were seen in small groups, or in large flocks of a hundred or more at almost any time one cared to look over the side. On the Ross Sea side, Adelie penguins were more frequently seen, with occasional Emperors, while on the Atlantic side of the continent Emperor penguins were more abundant. In both the Arctic and Antarctic the extreme lack of fear shown by such animals as the Arctic hare, wolf, and fox, penguins, and seals was especially striking; in the Antarctic only, seals showed no fear of man or of the ship, even on very close proximity. Penguins were always curious and friendly, seals indifferent to man’s approach. It has often been written that only in these two regions may one encounter animal life in the wild with no fear of man or larger enemies—one of the most remarkable features of the Antarctic and to a lesser extent of the Arctic.