New Book 'Icebound' Follows The Footsteps Of Polar Explorer William Barents

Journalist Andrea Pitzer retraced the journeys of 16th-century Dutch polar explorer William Barents, who, along with his men, traveled farther north than any other European at that time.

On their third expedition north, one of their ships was lost to ice and the men fought to stay alive in the hostile climate.

Here & Now‘s Lisa Mullins speaks with Pitzer about her book, “Icebound: Shipwrecked At the Edge of the World.”

Watch on YouTube.

Book Excerpt: ‘Icebound’

By Andrea Pitzer

As the expedition left behind the realms of even indigenous Arctic peoples and made its way into lands unsuitable for human habitation, the calendar showed that William Barents and his men were six weeks out of Amsterdam. Beset by fog, they entered a fjord and noticed movement. They saw something they’d never seen before. They recognized it as a bear, but it was a white bear. An enormous white bear swimming in the water.

Barents and some of the sailors jumped from the ship into their small boat. They had the idea that they’d try to take the bear back to the Netherlands with them and show it as a foreign wonder. Loading a musket, one of the sailors shot the bear full in the body. It reared up and began to swim off. The crew chased the animal, with several men rowing to close the distance while one managed to swing a lasso and rope its neck. Dragging the creature back toward them, the men pulled it along in their wake.

Barents had no prior experience with polar bears to prepare him. But he and his men would not be the only explorers to feel the impulse to capture a bear and bend it to their will. Even after the fierce nature and strength of polar bears was widely known throughout Europe, twentieth-century polar explorer Roald Amundsen asked the director of the Hamburg Zoo to transform polar bears into pack animals capable of pulling sleds on a polar expedition. Fellow explorer Fridtjof Nansen thought the plan worth attempting but remained dubious about its feasibility. It seemed more likely that polar bears hauling on real ice would soon sense their power in their home environment and revolt.

Any optimism William Barents felt watching the first polar bear he’d ever seen was even shorter-lived. The lassoed animal roared and continued to fight, despite having taken a direct shot to the body. Though the Dutchmen didn’t yet see their full danger, they quickly realized the creature’s power. Revising their earlier fantasy, they decided it would be safer to kill and skin the animal than to keep it as a pet. While the bear fought to free itself, the sailors let the rope play out to hasten their quarry’s exhaustion.

From time to time, Barents goaded the bear with his boat hook. After a while, the animal paddled up to the stern of the boat and gripped the wood with its forepaws. Thinking the creature wanted a break from the struggle, Barents called the men’s attention to it, predicting, “She will there rest herself.”

The bear, perhaps sensing that it was in its own element, didn’t rest on the ledge. Instead, the animal heaved itself up and climbed halfway into the boat. The sailors fled to the other end of the craft in terror. But the far end of the noose they’d put around the bear’s neck caught under the rudder and leashed it in that vulnerable position, half in and half out of the boat, choking. The bear was trapped, not yet helpless but unable to close the distance with its attackers.

Realizing their luck, one of the sailors made his way from the front of the boat and gored the animal with a half-pike. The bear collapsed into the water and dragged the boat for a time. Once the creature grew tired, they beat it to death. Hauling the animal into the boat, they began skinning it. The first polar bear the Dutchmen encountered would, in time, make its way to Amsterdam after all. The sailors named the place Berenfort for their conquest.

From there they went on to the next bit of floating land in the tiny archipelago, where they left the ship once more. Taking their small boat to shore, they hiked through the cliffs and rocks up a hill to find a pair of large crosses on high. They weren’t quite past the bounds of history after all—at least one ship had been here before them. They christened the site Cross Island, and moved on, mapping and naming as they went.

Heading north, it was the last sign of human life they’d see. Going to sea can be challenging enough with a plotted course and an endpoint in mind. Sailing day after day without a map into unknown territory is a completely different experience. It’s impossible to know which kinds of shores, or what animals, wind, and weather may appear next. Any given tomorrow might have brought Barents or his men within sight of an open sea beckoning them to China. Or they might have worked their way north against ice and snow month after month until they came to the top of the world—the first humans to arrive at the North Pole. Or the sea might have risen up and swallowed them whole. They had to continue on without knowledge of their destination or how long it might take to get there.

The solstice marking the longest day had passed, but real darkness wouldn’t return for months, when the tables would reverse and polar night would begin to creep in. That summer in full sunlight, standing on the shores of Nova Zembla, William Barents had no reason as of yet to ponder the possibility that he might ever be away from home long enough to discover what it felt like when light gave way to endless darkness.

Excerpted from Andrea Pitzer’s book “Icebound: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World,” published in January 2021 by Scribner.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org. [Copyright 2021 NPR]