Arctic Obsession. Alexis S. Troubetzkoy
way with the English, French, and Danes knocking at the gate of the Northwest Passage, and the Dutch (and later, the Russians) pressing the portals of the Northern Sea Route.
Notes
1. J.R.S. Sterrett, The Geography of Strabo, Vol. I (London: Loeb Classical Library, 1917), 261.
2. Paul Simpson-Housley, The Arctic: Enigmas and Myths (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1996), 24.
3. Jeannette Mirsky, To the Arctic! (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 18.
4. Finn Gad, The History of Greenland, Vol. I (London: C. Hurst & Co., 1970), 19.
5. Ibid., 26
6. H.A.L. Fisher, A History of Europe (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1955), 374.
2
Eastern Thrusts to Cathay
BY LATE MIDDLE AGES, merchant guilds had come to dominate commerce in most parts of Europe, and in Britain they had developed into a way of life, with most trades being organized — goldsmiths, shoemakers, dyers, stonemasons, bakers, and the like. In 1407, Henry IV approved the formation of a guild to oversee and control overseas trade, particularly in cloth. The Company of Merchant Adventurers, it was popularly called, but its precise name was “Mysterie and Companie of Merchant Adventurers for the Discoverie of Regions, Dominions, Islands, and Places Unknowen.”
The guild flourished and in time it spawned a number of ancillary organizations, including the establishment of the Muscovy Trading Company, the first major English joint-stock company. By its royal charter, the new entity was granted a monopoly of trade between England and Russia, a privilege it enjoyed for 150 years (ceasing operations in 1917 with the Russian Revolution). Impetus for the organization’s formation came from a trio of adventurous entrepreneurs: Richard Chancellor, Sir Hugh Willoughby, and Sebastian Cabot, son of John Cabot, who was the first European to have set foot in North America since the Vikings.
Sebastian Cabot, appointed by the king as “Grand Pilot of England,” held but one searing ambition — to secure the passage to Cathay through the “impassable waters” of northern Russia. He successfully persuaded his fellow merchants to finance an exploratory expedition, and in 1553 three ships were procured, outfitted in Bristol, and launched on their journey: the Bona Esperanza of 120 tons, the 160-ton Edward Bonaventure, and the Bona Confidentia, the smallest of the lot at ninety tons. So confident were they of success in reaching the east, India in particular, that the hulls were coated with lead as protection against infestation of worms, which they understood were common in tropical waters. Commanding the whole was “Admiral of the Fleet” Willoughby on board the Esperanza. A dubious appointment made, we are informed, because he was “preferred above all others, both by reason of his goodly personage (for he was tall of stature) as also for his singular skill in the services of warre.”[1] Height and service as a cavalry officer was all very well and good, but the ships might have been better served had Sir Hugh “taken to the sea” earlier in his career. With a mere three years of sailing experience, his navigation and piloting skills were anything but developed. At his side was a crew of thirty-eight that included a master gunner, a couple of surgeons, and six merchants. Richard Chancellor, the expedition’s chief pilot, was on board the fifty-crew-member Bonaventure, commanded by Stephen Borough.
The sixty-four-year-old Cabot judged himself too aged to join the expedition, which promised to be lengthy and arduous. He did, however, oversee every facet of outfitting and provisioning of the small fleet and he also provided detailed “ordinances, instructions and advertisements of and for the intended voyage to Cathay.” Every aspect of the undertaking was touched upon by the comprehensive orders, including exhortations on personal behaviour. When making contact with the locals of the Far East, for example, Cabot instructed that no native was to be trusted and that every effort had to be made to give the impression that nothing in particular was being sought. He enjoined the expedition’s leaders to treat natives courteously and hospitably, suggesting that they be invited on board and offered beer or wine — a bit of drink was a legitimate bargaining tool. Details of the expedition are vividly related by Richard Hakluyt in a book published in 1599, the remarkable title of which runs 123 words — the short title being, The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation: Made by Sea or Overland to the Most Remote and Furthest Distant Quarters of the Earth. In this singular account, Hakluyt observes that unlike Spanish and Portuguese explorers who were obligated to engage in missionary work, Cabot’s expedition was “not to disclose to any nation the state of our religion, but to pass over in silence, without any declaration of it, seeming to beare with such lawes and rites, as the place hath, when you shall arrive.”[2]
Cabot firmly ordered, however, that prayers be had every morning and every evening on board the ships. Additionally, he directed that there be no swearing, dirty stories, or “ungodly talk to be suffered in the company of any ship, neither dicing, carding, tabling nor other devilish games …” And harking back to his early North American experience with his father, Hakluyt tells us, he gravely warned of certain dangers:
[T]here are people that can swimme in the sea, havens & rivers, naked, having bows and shafts, coveting to draw nigh your ships, which if they shal finde not wel watched, or warded, they wil assault, desirous of the bodies of men, which they covet for meate; if you resist them, they dive, and do well flee, and therefore diligent watch is to be kept both day & night, in some Islands.[3]
Great excitement prevailed as the ships set out to sea from London. As the small fleet passed Greenwich Palace where Edward VI was residing at the time, “the courtiers came running out and the common people flockt together, standing very thicke upon the shoare; the Privie Conssel, they lookt out at the windows of the court, and the rest ranne upto the tops of the towers.” On board the Esperanza, in the strongbox of Willoughby’s cabin, lay letters of recommendation, which His Majesty had graciously provided, introductions to “the Kings, Princes, and other Potentates, inhabiting the Northern parts of the Worlde, towards the mighty Empire of Cathay.”[4] As the vessels passed the palace, gun salutes were exchanged, with everyone on the decks and many ashore resplendent in blue uniforms. By mid-July the ships were off the west coast of Norway, well above the Arctic Circle and in fine weather they made steady progress toward the North Cape.
On the night of August 2, a violent storm struck that the ships barely managed to ride out. In the mayhem, however, the little fleet became dispersed, never fully to reunite. The Edward Bonaventure made its way to the Danish fortress-settlement of Vardǿ at Norway’s extreme northeast tip, forty-five miles from Russia. Chancellor thought to await the hopeful reappearance of the other two vessels, but after a week of idleness and no sight of the other ships, he moved on. Rounding the Kola Peninsula, he made his way into the White Sea and eventually reached the mouth of the Dvina River, near the settlement of Arkhangelsk. Winter arrives early to those parts, and with the markedly deteriorating weather and the start of ice formation, it was decided to take up winter quarters ashore.
In the meantime, the Bona Esperanza and the Bona Confidentia sailed right by Vardǿ without stopping, and continued east, eventually coming to Novaya Zemlya (Russian: “New Land”). This vast archipelago is an extension of the Ural Mountains and it consists of two major islands and scores of lesser ones, stretching northward over a distance of 375 miles. The islands were familiar to Novgorod hunters as early as the eleventh century, but shortly after Sir Hugh’s efforts, they became known to Western Europeans. For the most part the archipelago is a mountainous place with some peaks reaching heights of 3,500 feet. Over a quarter of the thirty-five thousand square miles of territory is permanently ice-covered. In early days, the attraction of Novaya Zemlya was the abundance of walruses, seals, Arctic fox, and polar bears that inhabited the islands — particularly rich fare for hunters resolute enough to carry on their work in dismal winter days when the furs grew especially thick. The modern reader may be familiar with Novaya Zemlya for the nuclear testing ranges the islands housed during the Cold War. It was here that the Arctic suffered her most grievous incursion ever when in 1961 the Soviets detonated “Tsar Bomba” in a massive fifty-megaton atmospheric blast — the largest, most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated. That detonation was followed twelve years later by an underground blast that recorded 6.97 on the Richter Scale — nearly the same strength of force