The Northern Lights, page 7
Birkeland sat for a while before turning to the others, who had been working on the charts, to tell them his ideas. The long days of calculations, mapping, and observations had taken their toll. Knudsen had slipped into his bunk and Boye was fast asleep at the table. Sæland, the one who would have understood Birkeland best and would have been most excited, was less than four kilometers away but might as well have been on the moon.
Two days later the wind dropped as suddenly as it had arrived. The cloud cover broke and revealed small patches of twilight blue between the gray. The men emerged from the hut like bears out of hibernation. Birkeland’s first concern was to ensure Sæland was safe. Boye volunteered to go over to Talvik peak and left with a large saucepan on which he banged to attract the reindeer and pockets stuffed with dried moss, perfect reindeer bait. Hætta had taught him that trick which Boye hoped would work—it was a long walk to the summit of Talvik. He returned after two hours, hoarse from shouting but triumphantly leading the reindeer and they left almost immediately. Birkeland and Knudsen assessed the damage inflicted on the observatory by the storm. Several of the steel guy ropes had snapped, the wooden rail on the roof of the observing tower was gone, the anemometer was smashed to pieces, and the wooden casing that protected the winding mechanism of the cable car had completely disappeared. The larder had been blasted to nothing and the crevices and hollows of the summit were filled with little offerings of food and shards of timbers. In the back of Birkeland’s mind was fear at what Boye might find on Talvik peak.
At five o’clock Birkeland heard shouts and out of the darkness trudged Boye and Sæland. Sæland had seen the storm hit the Haldde peak and the whole mountain disappear in snow. He had just had time to take down the electrometer, put the reindeer behind the tower for shelter, and bring in supplies. By the time Sæland ventured outside after three days trapped in the hut, the reindeer was dead, which saved him from having to slaughter it himself. He used every part of the animal, blocking drafts with the fat and covering the door with the skin. There was not enough fuel to keep the fire going, but once the drafts were tackled the temperature inside was bearable. Sticking to the timetable for readings had kept him sane. That night, the first clear night for three weeks, the sky blazed with the brightest auroras they had seen since arriving. The men were too tired to stay up watching until they faded; only Boye had the energy to sit on the tower and write notes in the ledger.
Two days after the storm abated Hætta arrived, so covered in ice that he was unrecognizable and too cold to move the muscles in his face. They put him by the fire to thaw out and unpacked his bags— fresh milk, eggs and bread from the Quales, who had been anxious about the men on the peak, a few letters and a telegram for Birkeland from his brother.
FATHER DIED THIS MORNING. FUNERAL 5 FEB. PLEASE RETURN. TØNNES.
Birkeland was saddened but not surprised by his father’s death. When Kristian left Christiania, his father had been unwell, feverish and coughing, although the doctor had said he would recover. Reinert Birkeland had been a farmer in southern Norway until he married and moved with his bride to the capital, using the proceeds from the sale of his small farm to set up a small import-export firm and a shop. For a decade business had been reasonable and the family comfortable but his father had lost most of his business during the depression that struck when Sweden imposed a number of trade sanctions. After that he had become very withdrawn and Birkeland grew closer to Elling Holst, his math teacher. Spending most of his time at the university, Birkeland rarely saw his father.
Once Hætta was warm enough to leave the stove and return along the icy, twilit route to the fjord, he gabbled a short speech to Birkeland, expressing regret about the death of Birkeland’s father but claiming it was a warning that they should leave the mountain. The terrible storm, the dramatic Lights that shone afterward, and then the death of Birkeland’s father—these were bad omens. Hætta feared the scientists had angered the Lights with all their measuring and photographs and that they would take their revenge. Birkeland assured Hætta that they would leave the following month; they needed just a few more weeks of observations. After that, every week that Hætta arrived with the post he repeated his warning, until the morning of 15 March when Birkeland suggested that one member of the group return with Hætta to collect sleds and extra reindeer for their descent from the summit. Knudsen volunteered. Deciding he would enjoy another fast sled ride, Boye joined them at the last minute. They arranged to return to the observatory the following afternoon.
Birkeland and Sæland were nailing lids to the last packing cases the next day when they heard shouting from below. Two men were struggling up the mountainside as fast as possible. Birkeland and Sæland almost fell down the slope in their haste to reach them. It was Quale and Knudsen, panting so hard they could barely speak, the frozen air spiking their lungs. Quale and some friends had asked to join Knudsen and Boye on their return journey in order to visit the observatory and help with the removal. As they climbed, snow had fallen away from the road under their feet and taken some of the group with it. Knudsen had been swept under in the avalanche but had found a branch and managed to pull himself out. Two were dead. Knudsen explained that he had found Boye within minutes of his own escape but all attempts to revive him had proved futile. Captain Lange’s lifeless body was discovered later by men from the village who had come to help. Boye and Lange were carried to the church where they were laid under the blue roof studded with golden stars.
5
“Riddle Solved!”
April 1900
Christiania, Norway
In such moments solitude also is invaluable, for who would speak or be looked upon, when behind him lies all of Europe fast asleep, except the watchmen, and before him the silent Immensity and Palace of the Eternal, where our Sun is but a porch-lamp?
THOMAS CARLYLE (1795–1881)
21 April 1900
To Boye’s parents,
I will not make any excuses about why I have not written before as there really aren’t any. It is not because I am indifferent but because I too have been mourning his death. His touching goodness, open heart, his faithful companionship and the eagerness he showed carrying out everything I asked, all this made me appreciate him very much and I feel his loss like the loss of a dear friend.
I never watched him on the mountain without enjoying his youthful energy which made everything go at full speed—I admired his strength, his courage and his scientific abilities that were developing fast. He was also very kind. I was once so touched by his manner that I took his arm and called him “posen” [a term of endearment]. He was astonished, but that name is what my father used to call me.
Allow me to tell you how I met your son. I was in need of help to perform some calculations and was therefore looking for some science students as assistants. When your son turned up he told me he was a Latin student but it may help to know that he had two “1s” in Mathematics. I looked him in the eyes a second and immediately realized that I really liked him a lot. I said aloud, “It could be useful to have some Latin input” and thus he was hired before anyone else. From the first time I saw him until his death, I have always had the same impression of him. The image in my mind just became more detailed and nicer. This image of him will always stay with me.
Kristian Birkeland
Captain Lange was buried in Kaafjord on 22 March at 3 p.m. Boye’s body was shipped back to his parents. Boye had been insured for 10,000 crowns and Birkeland was required to fill in many documents explaining the circumstances and details of the tragedy before he could leave Finnmark.
He eventually boarded one of the new steamers that plied up and down the long western coastline, and docked in Christiania harbor in early April. He engaged two porters to supervise loading a large wagon with the boxes of instruments and to deliver them to his office in the university. Then he hailed a smaller carriage to take him to his parents’ home, where he still lived. It was virtually a straight road all the way across the capital from the south, where the harbor was, to the north, where the large state hospital was just being built and his parents’ apartment was situated. The weather was gray and cloudy, with a bitter wind that made women pull their shawls closer round their necks and men hold on to their hats. There were still patches of slush pushed up against the curbs and between cobbles and the sky threatened rain or snow. After the vastness of Haldde Mountain with its unobstructed views, Christiania seemed cramped, noisy, and brash.
As they passed out of the harbor precinct and crossed the central square, he saw that the trees in the gardens were still barren. Children skated on the oblong pond. To his left, the National Theatre building was nearly finished and only the roundels and the decorative friezes had still to be attached. Across from the theater, the university looked just as it had when he left in October, with groups of students sheltering under the imposing portico, smoking and laughing. At the end of the east wing was the clock by which Ibsen checked his watch every day. Birkeland would see his large, slightly stooping figure stop before his windows on the dot of twelve. Satisfied that he was as punctual as ever, the great playwright would then carry on along Carl Johan Gate, the main route connecting east and west Christiania, to the elegant portals of the Café Grand, where he sat at the same small marble table by the door. Perhaps due to Ibsen’s presence, the Grand had become the focus for Christiania’s artistic and intellectual élite, who gathered there every day except Sunday.
Up the hill on Birkeland’s left, beyond the theater and the university, stood the Royal Palace. Built in the 1840s, at the same time as the university, it had a similarly institutional air. There were no ornate gates or railings around it; it stood blind-windowed and empty on the hill, deserted the year round by King Oscar, who preferred his residence in Sweden. Out of Birkeland’s sight, beyond the palace hill, lay expensive avenues where large houses were being built for the new class of entrepreneurs Norway was creating in international trade and communications, industry, and shipping.
The carriage was held up for a few moments as the tram crossed their path along Carl Johan Gate. A new department store had opened in his absence but many small specialist shops had shut in the past decade, unable to compete as Norway’s investors aggressively bought out or undersold their smaller competitors. The few that survived were struggling in the recession following the Christiania Crash of 1899, a spectacular financial disaster that had occurred in June, just a few months before Birkeland left on his expedition. The crash started with a young messenger boy who overheard one of the most important financiers in the capital say that this was the last time he could pay off all his creditors. His next delivery was to another large business where he relayed his information. Panic set in. Credit was withdrawn from the first company, despite the chairman’s protests that the news they had received was incorrect, and the bank supporting him was forced to close. Other companies heard of the extraordinary move and began clawing back money from their own creditors; businesses collapsed, particularly in construction and banking; and the speculative boom of the previous five years ended almost overnight. Far too much had been built during the last years of the century and Christiania had an enormous surplus of housing. Birkeland had hoped the situation would blow over quickly, but the newspapers he had received in Haldde revealed that the crisis was deep and would continue for several years—gloomy news for Birkeland, who knew that this would inevitably affect funding at the university and make his budgets even stricter.
Passing through the central square and into the streets leading north, the carriage climbed gently uphill toward the State Hospital and Vår Frelsers Gravlund, the cemetery where Norway’s most eminent citizens were buried. As the carriage continued into the part of town in which Birkeland lived, he saw that new apartments were standing half-finished in the northern districts. A thin layer of stone and plaster dust covered the streets and mixed with the slush to form slippery yellow mud. The carriage crossed the square on which his old school, Aars and Voss, was situated and turned left onto Langes Gate. When Birkeland’s parents had moved here thirty-five years before, theirs was the only block in a street surrounded by fields, but Birkeland had spent his childhood playing in the building sites that sprang up across the district as more families renounced farming and fishing to take jobs as clerks, telegraphists, and shop assistants. He had seen the capital grow at an incredible pace as new residential and mercantile areas ate up the countryside in all directions except south, where the waters of the fjord halted their encroachment. Those who did not come to the city crossed the Atlantic to find work in America, some moving there permanently, others making the journey only when work failed in Norway. The country came second only to Ireland in rates of emigration; a quarter of its two million population had left over the previous half century.
Langes Gate consisted of three- and four-story apartment buildings designed for the emerging middle class, with no separate servants’ quarters. Birkeland was born in an apartment on the second floor of number 6, a four-story, white-plastered building that formed the corner of Langes Gate and Nordal Bruns Gate. It was built around a small courtyard that was mainly used for hanging laundry, as no one in the building owned a carriage or a horse. The main entrance was not imposing—only a simple wooden staircase connected the floors—but the apartments were light and modern, with electricity and indoor plumbing.
Coming home was like returning to the whole building, not just his parents’ flat. Birkeland knew his neighbors well; they had all moved into the building when it was brand new and very few had left. He looked at the names on the post rack in the hall. Johan Meinich, a telegraph inspector, was still there with his wife and four unmarried children, all of them around Birkeland’s age. Birkeland had gone to school with Meinich’s sons and loved to be invited back to tea so he could ask their father about the telegraph. The blacksmith was still there too, but with few exceptions the building was a refuge for single women. He knew best those on his own floor, Widow Olsen and her three unmarried daughters in their fifties and the one married daughter who lived across the landing with her husband and another of her single sisters. On the floor above lived the old Brown sisters and Widow Amundsen and her forty-year-old daughter; next to them was Widow Fritzner, her two single daughters in their forties, and her ward. This flock of unmarried or widowed women had made a great fuss of Birkeland when he was a child, and he had spent many afternoons in their apartments, waiting for his mother to return from the shop, being fed delicious biscuits that the women took turns baking.
He climbed the familiar stairs to his own landing. Birkeland had been so shaken by the death of Boye and Lange that he had not even thought of the consequences of his father’s death. On entering the apartment he was shocked to find it barely recognizable; even its smell had changed. The hall was littered with packing cases, most of the familiar furniture had gone, light patches on the walls marked where pictures had been removed, and rolls of rugs and carpets were stacked in a corner. His mother was in the dining room, surrounded by piles of papers, old books, and china. Ingeborg Birkeland was a short woman, small-boned but strong, sporting wire-framed spectacles that gave her the look of a severe teacher although the dark eyes behind them were often full of humor. Her thin, graying hair was pulled tight into a bun and covered with a small piece of black mourning lace. Turning sixty that year, she had been the family’s main breadwinner for most of the previous decade, keeping the much-reduced import-export business going and working in the small shop in which they sold their goods. With her husband Reinert dead at only sixty-one, she had decided to close the shop and spend her remaining years with Tønnes, Birkeland’s only sibling, who was three years older. Tønnes, who had a wife and eight children with another expected, lived in Porsgrund, a growing town on the southern coast of Norway about half a day’s boat journey from Christiania, where he ran a busy doctor’s practice. In preparation for the move she had sold most of the furniture, carpets, and the few paintings they owned. She told her newly returned son that if there was anything he wanted, he was welcome to have it as long as all his things were out of the apartment within a fortnight when the lease on the flat expired. Ingeborg planned to leave as soon as the apartment was packed up.
Uncle Andreas, his father’s younger brother, was a ship’s captain and had left that morning, gone to sea with no plans to return. The maid, Karoline, who was in her early fifties and had been with the family since Tønnes was born, would have to find another position, as there was no room in his house.
During the following weeks Birkeland found a place to live in the lively quarter of Lysaker, about five kilometers west of the center of Christiania. His belongings were moved from the old apartment, his mother took the boat to Porsgrund, and all links with his childhood were severed. He spent most of his time at the university, working alongside Sem Sæland, who had become his assistant. The two men passed many intense hours poring over the recordings from Haldde and putting them into a form that could be published. Sæland was delegated the unenviable task of writing accounts for the expedition, a laborious task because Birkeland had lost, or never received, most of the receipts.
Bjørn Helland-Hansen came to visit them at the university and reassured Birkeland that he was coping well, despite the loss of his fingertips. He had decided to enter the field of oceanography and meteorology and had been given help by the great explorer Fridtjof Nansen. Along with several colleagues in Norway and Sweden, Nansen was trying to establish an international group to study unusual ocean currents that he had observed during his three years trapped in the polar ice. He wanted to send Helland-Hansen to Stockholm to study with Wilhelm Bjerkenes, Birkeland’s great friend and schoolmate. Bjerkenes had moved to the Stockholm High School, a private university for graduate studies in science, in 1893 to pursue his interest in understanding the physics of the atmosphere in order to make accurate weather predictions. Bjerkenes had developed a theory of air circulation that, for the first time, gave a three-dimensional picture of how weather systems developed, including the potential effects on the weather of ocean currents. He was pleased to have help with the oceanographic aspect of weather forecasting and had invited Helland-Hansen to come to Stockholm early in 1901. The meeting with Helland-Hansen cheered Birkeland, as the young man seemed undiminished by his terrible experience on Haldde Mountain and in Hammerfest Hospital.
