Crockerland

Crockerland is alleged to be a huge island, geographically off northern Greenland and beyond the Great Ice Barrier, which may be a reflection of actual terrain. In 1909 the Arctic explorer Admiral Peary sighted land north-west of Ellesmere Island and named it "Crockerland". He thought it was real land which had eluded mapping but later it seemed to him to have been a mirage on the grounds that as much as he advanced towards it the vision receded.

On 13 April 1916 the Museum of Natural History expedition retracing Admiral Peary's journey "glimpsed a land of hills, valleys and snow-capped peaks through at least 120º of the horizon" from approximately where Peary had seen it. The Eskimos accompanying the expedition dismissed the vision as a mirage.

Lt Green was a physicist-explorer on the Peary Expedition. In 1923 in the magazine "Popular Science Monthly" he stated his belief that Crockerland was an actual island in an unexplored part of the Arctic Sea and that the Viking colonists of Greenland had emigrated there. His map accompanying the article shows it to be half-way between Point Barrow and the North Pole.

Lt Green had asked Greenland Eskimos what had happened to the colonists after the time of Eric the Red in about 985 AD and was told that "one year, a hunting party came back from the North and told the colonists that they had been near a "paradise" in Arctic waters, a place Eskimos had always known about but would not visit for fear of the "evil spirits" which protected it. They said it lay "in the direction of the coastal trail north", i.e. north-west of the north-west tip of Greenland along the same line where Admiral Peary had seen Crockerland.

In 1926 Amundsen and Lincoln Ellsworth flew a dirigible from Spitsbergen to Alaska but failed to find the island although they noted anomalous fog and an unusual temperature increase over the region.

The anomalies of the region inside the Great Ice Barrier where the "mirage" of Crockerland was seen on various occasions begin with Nansen's observation of 17 January 1894 at 79ºN 135º29'E that the wind from the north raised the temperature while the wind from the south lowered it, an indication that warm air was coming from the North Pole area in the dead of winter.

Beyond 80ºN Arctic explorers observe that instead of becoming progressively colder, the water is warmer, and this warmth appears to proceed from the polar current. Greely spoke of open water there all year round, and in the month of September Nansen recorded that the further north he voyaged the less ice he saw. Three weeks later he found the sea still open and unfrozen, leading him to comment: "It made us think we were still at Bergen". In its publication of 10 May 1884 the Norwood Review remarked that: "Once inside the Great Ice Barrier the climate is mild like that of England."

Since there is no source of fresh water in the Arctic and little rainfall or snow, it remains a mystery in what manner ice floes form. 'Nansen' drew attention to the peculiar phenomenon of the surface layer of fresh water found beyond the Great Ice Barrier, but its origin is unknown. Another mystery is how large lumps of volcanic rock become embedded in ice floes. Snow tinged black obtains its colour by volcanic carbon and ferrous material in the form of a light, fine dust, but since the Arctic has no volcano the origin of the dust is a mystery. Nansen stated that the constant fall of volcanic dust on his ship was one of the principal reasons for his abandoning the expedition.

Kane reported that when passing the crimson cliffs at Sir John Ross in the forenoon of 5 August, "the patches of red snow could be seen clearly at a distance of ten miles from the coast. It had a deep rose hue." Arctic snow tinged red, yellow or green is the result of airborne vegetal matter, probably pollen, settling on it, but since the Arctic has no plants the origin of this pollen is a mystery.

The anomalies are compounded by observations of the flora and fauna. Sverdrup found so many hares at a bay on the 81st parallel that he named it "Fjord of the Hares". The location was utterly devoid of vegetation.

The Ross's gull, common at Point Barrow, emigrates north in October: Franklin saw flights of geese heading north in winter: Frederick Schwatka reported watching approximately four million alca torda, a kind of auk (superficially similar to the penguin), darkening the sky as they headed north at the onset of winter. Not all these observations can be lightly dismissed, as is the practice, as being "birds perhaps following a ship".

Large numbers of polar bear proceed north in winter even though the Arctic has few fish and no other form of sustenance: likewise the musk-deer emigrates north in winter and well-fed Arctic foxes have been seen heading north from 80ºN. This northbound migration in winter of birds and animals can only be explained if a more temperate climate, and abundant food, is to be found in the region of the North Pole.

Hayes recorded finding a yellow-winged butterfly and a mosquito ("Who could believe it?") at 78º17'N in July "plus ten moths, three spiders, two bees and two flies". These observation find support from Greely in his book Three Years of Arctic Service. He stated of his time there from 1881 onwards that: "The extremes of the Arctic are vibrant with life to the extent that the explorer cannot speak of them faithfully without exposing himself to the risk of criticism for exaggeration, and it is a strange thing when one generally supposes that the extreme North, according to the oldest geographical theories, is a desolate area of eternal ice." He mentioned birds and flowers, butterflies and flies of unknown species, the high temperatures of 15-18°C and the abundance of willow, and branches afloat still bearing leaf which had been transported - from where? - by the current.

On 20 February 1894 the true sun appeared for the first time that year at latitude 80ºN as expected. Four days previously, Nansen had recorded: "At about midday we saw the sun, or to be more correct an image of the sun, for it was only a mirage, just above the outermost edge of the ice. It could not be the sun itself...it was a square, dull-red sun with horizontal dark streaks across it." At 80º1'N on 18 and 19 February 1894 he reported that on both days "we have seen the mirage of the sun again," and on the latter day he noted that "it was high above the horizon and almost seemed to assume a round, disc-like form. It was hazy, smoky-red."

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