Due North: or, Glimpses of Scandinavia and Russia

The Lapps in their quaint and picturesque costumes surrounded the newly arrived steamer in their boats, offering furs, carved horn implements, moccasons, walrus-teeth, and the like for sale. These wares are of the rudest type, and of no possible use to civilized people; but they are curious, and serve as mementos of the traveller's visit to these northern latitudes. In the town there are several stores where goods, manufactured by the better class of Lapps, can be had of a finer quality than is offered by these itinerants, who are very ready to pass off inferior articles upon strangers. Their drinking-cups, platters, and dishes generally are made of the wood of the birch. Spoons and forks are formed of the horns and bones of the reindeer. In the fancy line they make some curious bracelets from the roots of the birch-tree. These Lapps are very shrewd in trade, and are not without plenty of low cunning hidden behind their brown, withered, and expressionless faces.

On the main-land near by, as we were told, there are some singular relics of antiquity, such as a series of large stones uniformly arranged in circles, and high cairns of stone containing in their centres one or more square chambers. At one place in this district there is a remarkable mound of reindeer's horns and human bones, mingled with those of unknown species of animals. It is believed that here, centuries ago, the Lapps sacrificed both animals and human beings to their Pagan deities. There are also some deep earth and rock caves found in the same vicinity, which contain many human bones with others of huge animals, which have excited great interest among scientists. In the neighborhood of Tromsöe, and especially still farther north, large numbers of eider-duck are found, so abundant that no reliable estimate can be made of their number. The eggs are largely used by the natives for food, the nests being also regularly robbed of the down, while the birds with patient resignation continue for a considerable period to lay eggs and to renew the soft lining of their nests. The birds themselves are protected by law, no one being permitted to injure them. The male bird is white and black, the female is brown. In size they are larger than our domestic ducks. Landing almost anywhere in this sparsely inhabited region along the coast, but more particularly upon the islands, one finds the eider-ducks upon their low accessible nests built of marine plants among the rocks, and during incubation the birds are quite as tame as barn-yard fowls. The down of these birds forms a considerable source of income to many persons who make a business of gathering it. It has always a fixed value, and is worth, we were told, in Tromsöe, ten dollars per pound when ready for market. The waste in preparing it for use is large, requiring four pounds of the crude article as it comes from the nest to make one pound of the cleansed, merchantable down. Each nest during the breeding season produces about a quarter of a pound of the uncleansed article. When thoroughly prepared, it is so firm and yet so elastic that the quantity which can be pressed between the two hands will suffice to properly stuff a bed-quilt. It is customary for a Norsk lover to present his betrothed with one of these quilts previous to espousal, the contents of which he is presumed to have gathered with his own hands. A peculiarity of eider-down, as we were informed, is that if picked by hand from the breast of the dead bird it has no elasticity whatever. The natural color is a pale-brown. Many of the localities resorted to by the birds for breeding purposes are claimed by certain parties, who erect a cross or some other special mark thereon to signify that such preserves are not to be poached upon. The birds, like the people, get their living mostly by fishing, and are attracted hither as much by the abundance of their natural food as by the isolation of their breeding haunts.

The Lapps are to be seen by scores in the streets of Tromsöe. They are small in stature, being generally under five feet, with high cheek-bones, snub-noses, oblique Mongolian eyes, big mouths, large ill-formed heads, faces preternaturally aged, hair like meadow hay, and very scanty beards. Such is a photograph of the ancient race that once ruled the whole of Scandinavia. By taking a short trip inland one comes upon their summer encampment, formed of a few crude huts, outside of which they generally live except in the winter months. A Lapp sleeps wherever fatigue or drunkenness overcomes him, preferring the ground, but often lying on the snow. He rises in the morning refreshed from an exposure by which nearly any civilized human being would expect to incur lasting if not fatal injury. They are the gypsies of the North, and occupy a very low place in the social scale, certainly no higher than that of the Penobscot Indians of Maine. Their faculties are of a restricted order, and missionary efforts among them have never yet yielded any satisfactory results. Unlike our western Indians they are of a peaceful nature, neither treacherous nor revengeful, but yet having many of the grosser failings of civilized life. They are greedy, avaricious, very dirty, and passionately fond of alcoholic drinks, but we were told that serious crimes were very rare among them. No people could be more superstitious, as they believe that the caves of the half-inaccessible mountains about them are peopled by giants and evil spirits. They still retain some of their half-pagan rites, such as the use of magical drums and tom-toms for conjuring purposes, and to frighten away or to propitiate supposed devils, malicious diseases, and so on. The most advanced of the race are those who inhabit northern Norway. The Swedish Lapps are considered as coming next, while those under Russian dominion are thought to be the lowest.

An old navigator named Scrahthrift, while making a voyage of discovery northward, more than three centuries ago, wrote about the Lapps as follows: "They are a wild people, which neither know God nor yet good order; and these people live in tents made of deerskins, and they have no certain habitations, but continue in herds by companies of one hundred or two hundred. They are a people of small stature and are clothed in deerskins, and drink nothing but water, and eat no bread, but flesh all raw." They may have drunk nothing but water three hundred years ago, but they drink alcohol enough in this nineteenth century to make up for all former abstemiousness. Scrahthrift wrote in 1556, and gave the first account to the English-speaking world of this peculiar race whom modern ethnologists class with the Samoyedes of Siberia and the Esquimaux, the three forming what is called the Hyperborean Race. The word Samoyedes signifies "swamp-dwellers," and Esquimau means "eater of raw flesh."

The Lapps are natural nomads, their wealth consisting solely in their herds of reindeer, to procure sustenance for which necessitates frequent changes of locality. A Laplander is rich, provided he owns enough of these animals to support himself and family. A herd that can afford thirty full-grown deer for slaughter annually, and say ten more to be sold or bartered, makes a family of a dozen persons comfortably well off. But to sustain such a draft upon his resources, a Lapp must own at least two hundred and fifty head. There is also a waste account to be considered. Not a few are destroyed annually by wolves and bears, notwithstanding the usual precautions against such casualties, while in very severe winters numbers are sure to die of starvation. They live almost entirely on the so-called reindeer moss; but this failing them, they eat the young twigs of the trees. When the snow covers the ground to a depth of not more than three or four feet, these intelligent creatures dig holes in order to reach the moss, and guided by some strong instinct they rarely fail to do so in just the right place. The Lapps themselves would be entirely at a loss for any indication where to seek the animal's food when it is covered by the deep snow.

What the camel is to the Arab of the desert, the reindeer is to the Laplander. Though found here in a wild state, they are not common, and are very shy sometimes occupying partially inaccessible islands near the main-land, swimming back and forth as necessity may demand. The domestic deer is smaller than those that remain in a state of nature, and is said to live only half as long. When properly broken to harness, they carry lashed to their backs a hundred and thirty pounds, or drag upon the snow, when harnessed to a sledge, two hundred and fifty pounds, travelling ten miles an hour, for several consecutive hours, without apparent fatigue. Some of the thread prepared by the Lapp women from the sinews of the reindeer was shown to us, being as fine as the best sewing-silk, and much stronger than any silk thread made by modern methods.

These diminutive people are not so poorly off as one would at first sight think them to be. The climate in which they live, though terrible to us, is not so to them. They have their games, sports, and festive hours. If their hardships were very trying they would not be so proverbially long-lived. Though an ill-formed race, they are yet rugged, hardy, and self-reliant. Their limbs are crooked and out of proportion to their bodies; one looks in vain for a well-shaped or perfect figure among them, and indeed it may be safely doubted whether a straight-limbed Lapp exists. They are one and all bow-legged. The country over which these people roam is included within northern Norway, Sweden, Russia, and Finland, say extending over seven thousand square miles; but the whole race will hardly number thirty thousand in the aggregate. Lapland in general terms may be said to be the region lying between the Polar Ocean and the Arctic Circle, the eastern and western boundaries being the Atlantic Ocean and the White Sea, two thirds of which territory belong to Russia, and one third is about equally divided between Norway and Sweden.

We repeat that the reindeer is to the Lapp what the camel is to the Arab. This small creature is the Lapp's cow, horse, food, clothing, tent, everything. Food is not stored for the animals, as they are never under cover even in the severest weather, and they must procure their own food or starve. The females give but a small quantity of milk, not more than the amount yielded by a well-fed goat, but it is remarkably rich and nourishing. Oddly enough, as it seemed to us, they are milked but twice a week; and when this process is performed, each animal must be lassoed and firmly held by one person while another milks. Many of the doe on the occasion of our visit were accompanied by their fawns, of which they often have two at a birth. These little creatures are able to follow their dam twenty-four hours after birth. We were told that the bucks are inclined to kill the fawns when they are first born, but are fiercely attacked by the dams and driven away. A Swiss chamois is not more expert in climbing mountains than are these Norway deer; and were it not for the efficient help of their dogs, which animals are as sagacious as the Scotch sheep-dogs, the Lapps would often find it nearly impossible to corral their herds for milking and other purposes. In their nature deer are really untamable, being never brought into such complete subjection as to be quite safe for domestic use. Even when broken to harness, that is when attached to the snow-sledge or carrying burdens lashed to their backs, they will sometimes without any premonition break out into rank rebellion and violently attack their masters. We were told by an intelligent resident of Tromsöe that the Lapps never abuse these animals, even when they are attacked by them. They only throw some garment upon the ground upon which the buck vents his rage; after which the owner can appear and resume his former control of the animal, as though nothing had happened out of the common course of events.

The Lapps live in low, open tents during the summer season, moving from place to place as food is found for their herds, but keeping near the sea-coast for purposes of trade, as well as to avoid those terrible pests the gad-fly and the mosquito, insects too obnoxious for even the endurance of a Laplander. In the winter they retire far inland, where they build temporary huts of the branches of the trees, plastering them inside and out with clay, but leaving a hole in the top to act as a chimney and convey away the smoke, the fire being always built upon a broad flat stone in the centre of the hut. In these rude, and according to our estimate comfortless, cabins they hibernate rather than live the life of civilized beings for eight months of the year. Hunting and fishing occupy a portion of their time; and to kill a bear is considered a most honorable achievement, something to boast of for life, rendering the successful hunter quite a hero among his associates. Though the forest, river, and sea furnish this people with more or less food throughout the year, still the Lapp depends upon his herd for fixed supplies of sustenance. The milk made into cheese is his most important article of food, and is stored for winter use. Few are so poor as not to own forty or fifty reindeer. The Norwegians and Swedes who live in their neighborhood have as great a prejudice against the Lapps as our western citizens have against the North American Indians. This as regards the Lapps is perhaps more especially on account of their filthiness and half-barbarous habits. It must be admitted that a visit to their huts near Tromsöe leads one to form an extremely unfavorable opinion of the race. When a couple of young Lapps desire to become married a priest is sometimes employed, but by common acceptation among them the bride's father is equally qualified to perform the ceremony, which is both original and simple. It consists in placing the hands of the two contracting parties in each other, and the striking of fire with a flint and steel, when the marriage is declared to be irrevocable. Promiscuous as their lives seem to be in nearly all respects, we were told that when a Lapp woman was once married the attendant relationship was held sacred. Though it was our fate to just miss witnessing a marriage ceremony here, the bride and groom were pointed out to us, appearing like two children, so diminutive were they. The dress of the two sexes is so similar that it is not easy for a stranger to distinguish at a glance men from women, except that the latter are not so tall as the former. Polygamy is common among them. Men marry at the age of eighteen, women at fifteen; but as a race they are not prolific, and their numbers, as we were informed, are steadily decreasing. The average Laplander is less than five feet in height, and the women rarely exceed four feet. The latter are particularly fond of coffee, sugar, and rye flour, which the men care nothing for so long as they can get corn brandy, – a local distillation quite colorless but very potent. The Norwegians have a saying of reproach concerning one who is inclined to drink too much: "Don't make a Lapp of yourself." Both men and women are inveterate smokers, and next to money you can give them nothing more acceptable than tobacco.

Nature is sometimes anomalous. Among the group of Lapp men and women whom we met in the streets of Tromsöe, there stood one, a tall stately girl twenty-two years of age, more or less, who presented in her really fine person a singular contrast to her rude companions. Unmistakable as to her race, she was yet a head and shoulders taller than the rest, but possessing the high cheek-bones, square face, and Mongolian cast of eyes which characterizes them. There was an air of dignified modesty and almost of beauty about this young woman, spite of her leather leggins, queer moccasons, and rough reindeer clothes. Her fingers were busily occupied, as she stood there gracefully leaning against a rough stone-wall in the soft sunshine, twisting the sinews of the deer into fine thread, while she carelessly glanced up now and again at the curious eyes of the author who was intently regarding her. One could not but imagine what remarkable possibilities lay hidden in this individual; what a change education, culture, and refined associations might create in her; what a social world there was extant of which she had never dreamed! It was observed that her companions of both sexes seemed to defer to her, and we fancied that she must be a sort of queen bee in the Lapps' hive.

There is one thing observable and worthy of mention as regards the domestic habits of these rude Laplanders, and that is their apparent consideration for their women. The hard work is invariably assumed by the men. The women carry the babies, but the men carry all heavy burdens, and perform the rougher labor contingent upon their simple domestic lives. The women milk, but the men must drive the herds from the distant pasturage, lasso the doe, and hold the animals by the horns during the process. It is not possible to tame or domesticate them so as to submit to this operation with patience like a cow. Up to a certain age the Lapp babies are packed constantly in dry moss, in place of other clothing during their infancy, this being renewed as occasion demands, – thus very materially economizing laundry labor. The little creatures are very quiet in their portable cradles, consisting of a basket-frame covered with reindeer hide, into which they are closely strapped. The cases are sometimes swung hammock fashion between two posts, and sometimes hung upon a peg outside the cabins in the sunshine. It is marvellous to what a degree of seeming neglect semi-barbarous babies will patiently submit, and how quietly their babyhood is passed. Probably a Japanese, Chinese, or Lapp baby can cry upon occasion; but though many hours have been passed by the author among these people, he never heard a breath of complaint from the wee things.

Some of the Lapps are quite expert with the bow and arrow, which was their ancient weapon of defence as well as for hunting, it being the primitive weapon of savages wherever encountered. Few of this people possess firearms. The long sharp knife and the steel-tipped arrow still form their principal arms. With these under ordinary circumstances, when he chances upon the animal, a Lapp does not hesitate to attack the black bear, provided she has not young ones with her, in which case she is too savage a foe to attack single-handed. In starting out upon a bear-hunt, several Lapps combine, and spears are taken with the party as well as firearms if they are fortunate enough to possess them.

As we were standing among the Lapps in Tromsöe, with some passengers from the steamer, a bevy of children just returning from school joined the group. A blue-eyed, flaxen-haired girl of ten or eleven years in advance of the rest attracted the attention of a gentleman of the party, who presented her with a bright silver coin. The child took his hand in both her own, pressed it with exquisite natural grace to her lips, courtesied and passed on. This is the universal act of gratitude among the youth of Norway. The child had been taken by surprise, but she accepted the little gift with quiet and dignified self-possession. There is no importunity or beggary to be encountered in Scandinavia.

CHAPTER IX

Experiences Sailing Northward. – Arctic Whaling. – The Feathered Tribe. – Caught in a Trap. – Domestic Animals. – The Marvellous Gulf Stream. – Town of Hammerfest. – Commerce. – Arctic Mosquitoes. – The Public Crier. – Norwegian Marriages. – Peculiar Bird Habits. – A Hint to Naturalists. – Bird Island. – A Lonely Habitation. – High Latitude. – Final Landing at the North Cape. – A Hard Climb. – View of the Wonderful Midnight Sun

After leaving Tromsöe our course was north by east, crossing broad wild fjords and skirting the main-land, passing innumerable islands down whose precipitous sides narrow waterfalls leaped hundreds of feet towards the sea. Along the shore at intervals little clusters of fishermen's huts were seen with a small sprinkling of herbage and patches of bright verdure. Here and there were partially successful attempts at vegetable culture, but the brief season which is here possible for such purposes is almost prohibitory. Whales, sometimes singly, sometimes in schools, rose to the surface of the sea, and casting up tiny fountains of spray would suddenly disappear to come up again, perhaps miles away. These leviathans of the deep are always a subject of great interest to persons at sea, and were certainly in remarkable numbers here in the Arctic Ocean. As we have said, small steamers are in use along the coast for catching whales; and these are painted green, to enable them to approach the animal unperceived. They are armed with small swivel-guns, from which is fired a compound projectile, consisting of a barbed harpoon to which a short chain is affixed, and to that a strong line. This special form of harpoon has barbs, which expand as soon as they have entered the body of the animal and he pulls upon the line, stopping at a certain angle, and rendering the withdrawal of the weapon impossible. Besides this an explosive shell is attached, which bursts within the body of the monster as soon as the flukes expand, producing almost instant death. A cable is then affixed to the head, and the whale is towed into harbor to be cut up and the blubber tried out upon the shore in huge kettles. This business is carried on at Vadsö and Hammerfest as well as at Tromsöe. The change was constant, and the novelty never ceasing. Large black geese, too heavy it would seem for lofty flight, rose awkwardly from the surface of the waves, and now and again skimmed across the fjords, just clearing the surface of the dark blue waters. Oyster-catchers, as they are familiarly called, decked with scarlet legs and bills, were abundant. Now and then that daring highwayman, among sea-birds, – the skua, or robber-gull, – was seen on the watch for a victim. He is quite dark in plumage, almost black, and gets a predatory living by attacking and causing other birds to drop what they have caught up from the sea, seizing which as it falls, he sails swiftly away to consume his stolen prize. The movements of this feathered creature through the air when darting towards its object are almost too rapid to follow with the human eye. Not infrequently six or eight gulls of the common species club together and make a combined onslaught upon this daring free-booter, and then he must look out for himself; for when the gull is thoroughly aroused and makes up his mind to fight, he distinctly means business, and will struggle to the last gasp, like the Spanish game-cock. There is proverbially strength in numbers, and the skua, after such an organized encounter, is almost always found floating lifeless upon the surface of the sea.

We were told of an interesting and touching experience relating to the golden eagle which occurred near Hammerfest, in the vicinity of which we are now speaking. It seems that a young Norwegian had set a trap far up in the hills, at a point where he knew that these birds occasionally made their appearance. He was prevented from visiting the trap for some two weeks after he had set and placed it; but finally when he did so, he found that one of these noble creatures had been caught by the foot, probably in a few hours after the trap had been left there. His efforts to release himself had been in vain, and he lay there dead from exhaustion, not of starvation. This was plain enough, since close beside the dead eagle and quite within his reach was the half-consumed body of a white grouse, which must have been brought to him by his mate, who realizing her companion's position thus did all that was in her power to sustain and help him. Occasionally domestic animals in small numbers are seen at the fishing hamlets, though this is very rarely the case above Hammerfest. Goats, cows, and sheep find but a poor supply of vegetable sustenance, mostly composed of reindeer moss; but, strange to say, these animals learn to eat dried fish, and to relish it when mixed with moss and straw. The cows are small in frame and quite short in the legs, but they are hardy and prolific, and mostly white. All domestic animals seem to be dwarfed here by climatic influences.

Long before we reached Hammerfest the passengers' watches seemed to be bewitched, for it must be remembered that here it is broad daylight through all the twenty-four hours which constitute day and night elsewhere. No wonder that sleep became little more than a subterfuge, since everybody's eyes were preternaturally wide open.

The Gulf Stream emerging from the tropics thousands of miles away constantly laves these shores, and consequently ice is here unknown. At first blush it seems a little queer that icebergs here in latitude 70° north are never seen, though we all know them to be plenty enough in the season on the coast of America at 41°. The entire coast of Norway is warmer by at least twenty degrees than most other localities in the same latitude, owing to the presence and influence of the Gulf Stream, – that heated, mysterious river in the midst of the ocean. It also brings to these boreal regions quantities of floating material, such as the trunks of palm-trees and other substances suitable for fuel, to which useful purpose they are put at the Lofoden fishing hamlets and also on the shores of the main-land. By the same active agency West Indian seeds and woods are found floating on the west coast of Scotland and Ireland.