SOUTH-EAST COAST OF ALASKA
1859
Alexander von Nordmann, professor of zoology at the Imperial Alexander University in Finland, raises his glass, and the conversation begins to flow. Speaking Swedish feels homely after all that Russian, French and English, and the professor is delighted with the visit, which is, of course, long overdue. After all, he is a state councillor and an esteemed researcher who has discovered hitherto unseen parasites in the jaws of a bream and presented the new, wondrous science of palaeontology to Finnish academia. And now he has spent four long and uncomfortable months in the northernmost corner of the Americas, so it is only right and proper that the Governor of Alaska should honour him with his presence.
To his relief, von Nordmann sees that Governor Furuhjelm is a progressive man, eager to develop the colony’s zoological collections, and the governor promises to send him the second edition of Lamarck’s natural history of invertebrates, containing a section dealing with parasites of the gut. They enjoy dinner together, von Nordmann regales the governor with the fascinating life cycle of the sea snailTergipes edwardsii, and time flies by, but when it is time to move to the cognac, Furuhjelm stands up from his chair and makes his apologies: as the professor will surely appreciate, the ins and outs of the shipping company give him no rest.
The two men bid each other farewell in convivial high spirits.Before taking his leave, Furuhjelm asks whether there is anything he might do to benefit the professor and his university, and at this Alexander von Nordmann does not hesitate: he wishes to find the most precious of all discoveries in the north: he wants the famedRhytina stelleri.
The Governor of Alaska, Johan Hampus Furuhjelm, is returning from the northern regions of the colony, and during the journey his worst fears were realised. The fur-bearing animals have disappeared into the wilderness and the natives and hunters have been getting into scuffles with one another. He makes calculation upon calculation, but whichever way he looks at it he cannot promise that things will get better in the future, even though he has ordered his men to prise glistering, frozen blocks from the lakes. Now the Californians will be able to cool themselves with ice delivered by the Russian-American Company and crunch the pure, northern waters of Redoubt Lake into their whisky glasses, but even this does little to alleviate his problems. Even if every single champagne banquet in the world were to buy ice from their company, this too would be insufficient, because to compensate for even one otter pelt, they would have to harvest an entire shipload of ice. Nonetheless, the governor does not allow his fatigue to show but promises the professor that he will do what he can, though he knows that the last known sighting of the animal von Nordmann has asked about was almost a century ago. And so, he promises to locate it, for what is one more impossible promise on his already lengthy list?
The travelogues from Bering’s expedition eventually foundtheir way to St Petersburg, and since then more ink has appeared on the east of the map. Dark spots mark the positions of the islands, and behind them is an uncharted shoreline, a new, foreign land. And in each report, one exciting word comes up again and again: furs – the smooth skins of the sea otters, the furry pelts of the foxes – and before long the whole world wishes to wrap itself in Alaskan hide.
The riches of Alaska are the stuff of legend, and the Russian-American Company is duly founded to harness those riches. Furs and pelts travel across the globe aboard its ships, to Russian, China, Japan, Chile, Hawaii and California, a total of 51,315 sea-otter skins, 831,396 seal skins, 319,514 beaver skins and 291,655 foxes. Most valuable of all are the otters: clients will pay anything between eight hundred and a thousand dollars for one skin, and each consignment of furs brings the Company around fifty thousand dollars in profit.
The half century that follows is a time of full cargos and full wallets, until suddenly shores that were once crowded with otters exist only in the stories of old men. Walrus tusks keep the books pretty for another decade, but eventually the supply of northern ivory runs dry too, and in St Petersburg tongues begin to wag. The Company needs a new leader, a governor who will get profits soaring again, and officials in the capital believe they have found just the man for the job.
Johan Hampus Furuhjelm has already overseen Russian military operations in eastern Siberia. As commander of the harbour at Ayan, he kept the soldiers and the town in good order and, more importantly, managed to negotiate a lucrative trade deal with the intractable Japanese. Now he has been recalled to St Petersburg. There follows a slew of negotiations, tentative dinner invitations, and on Christmas Day the news is finally announced: Furuhjelm has been named the new Governor of Russian Alaska. His new residence will be at Novo-Arkhangelsk, and he is to assume his position without delay.
Before taking control of the north, however, there is one more feat that Furuhjelm must undertake. At thirty-seven years of age, he is still a bachelor, and the Company has had bad experiences of unmarried governors. Blue-eyed children among the natives bring dishonour upon the colony, and besides, the governor ought to be an example to his subordinates: he must arrive in the north a married man.
Furuhjelm needs a wife in her prime, a woman who can withstand the irksome, uncomfortable journey and the Alaskan winter, but he has not set foot in Europe in eight years, and one does not meet women of good reputation in a military harbour. He is told not to worry; they have found him a splendid wife in Helsinki, one Anna Elisabet von Schoultz, a 23-year-old lady of excellent Scots-Swedish extraction who speaks many languages and will not fall ill at the drop of a hat. The only stain against Miss von Schoultz’s character is her father, a man of little honour who abandoned his family and disappeared without a trace – rumour has it he was hanged during the Canadian Rebellions – but withany luck the governor will not hold the sins of the father against the daughter. Furuhjelm shakes his head, as in fact the knowledge of her background makes him gaze at Anna’s photograph all the more wistfully: they could be made for each other, the honourable children of dishonourable fathers.
Anna and Hampus first meet at a New Year’s ball held near Senate Square. The Langenskiöld house is small, but the ballroom is festooned with shields and lanterns, and the two dance together. Hampus is quiet and serious, he looks older than his thirty-seven years, but he dances well, and the following day he stops in for lunch. After this, everything happens rather quickly. The wedding is held in February. The cream of Helsinki society is invited to the reception, and after the celebrations the newly-weds travel to the countryside to visit their respective families, but their honeymoon is short-lived. Four days of tea and champagne, then they must begin their journey to Alaska.
A governor’s wife. Anna can hardly believe her luck. In her eyes, Hampus is the perfect husband, polite and respectable; no wife could possibly want for more. Anna’s mother gives her some marriage guides, and she reads the books carefully and takes notes. A good wife should be placid and calm, she should earn her husband’s respect with impeccable behaviour and meticulous housekeeping – but what does Anna know of running a large household? She is more acquainted with the carefree urban life, her comfortable house on Mikonkatu where she never has to bother herself with menus or the price of foodstuffs. She writes to her mother:I have but one wish, one desire, that he may never, never find himself disappointed in me.
First they travel to St Petersburg. Hampus signs agreements and contracts, pores over ledgers, while Anna accustoms herself to her new role. She is the governor’s wife, a colonial queen, but to her frustration she must introduce herself to high society without her husband, for Hampus has no time to partake in the festivities. Luckily, as the governor’s wife she is warmly received in all quarters, there is no end to the balls and engagements, and she must have new clothes tailored for herself. After her father disappeared, the family had a chronic lack of money, but now she can buy hats and fabrics, acquire pink silk and dark-green damask and tell her mother about all the items she has bought and how much everything cost.My own most precious darling Mother, these have been such happy days! Hampus sends you his dear love but cannot write this time, though I am sure you are never far from his thoughts.
The governor’s workload is endless. Hampus intends to show his superiors that he is worthy of their trust. The officers must not think he is more interested in social engagements and the perks of his new position, and he heads to London. He wishes to travel quickly and easily. Such an excursion is unsuitable for women, so Anna follows him later and makes her way through Europe by herself. She sits in the carriage, wistfully writing Hampus one letter after another. On the outskirts of Warsaw, the road leads through a great forest, and through the carriage window Anna sees a wolf. Its wily figure is hunched at the edge of a clearing, and as it notices them it scarpers back into the woods. Anna has seen wolves at the zoos in London and Stockholm, but standing between the trees, the creature lookeddifferent;oh Hampus, it was like looking at another creature altogether!She writes to her love daily, sharing her thoughts and opening her heart, but Hampus is a busy man, and only rarely does she receive a reply.
It seems it is hard to find skilled people in Alaska, and fine fabrics are always in short supply, so Anna stops at Dresden, buys a collection of bedlinen and hires a housekeeper. Ida Höerle is an industrious, forty-year-old woman who has been looking after her own sister’s household and children, but now she has begun to think of the future, of an income that she can save for her old age, and to her sister’s disappointment she takes up the offer of a position with the governor’s family. Anna could not be happier. What a stroke of luck to find a housekeeper who knows her way around the pantry and the children’s rooms, for Anna senses that it will not be long before she is blessed with a child. They may not have had time to be together during the daytime, but in St Petersburg Hampus visited her chamber every night.
Her inkling is correct. Unbeknownst to her, their gametes fuse together inside her, the cells divide and begin to replicate themselves once every twenty hours. As Anna crosses Europe, a process first developed by her insect-eating ancestors begins to play out in her womb. The placenta takes shape, the spiral arteries open, and a fine filament reaches out from the tissue, binding Anna and the embryo together, and the life inside her starts to grow.
Anna arrives in England. Dear old London! She has family and friends in the city, and she’s keen to introduce her fine newhusband, the great ruler of the colony of Alaska. She has missed him terribly, written to him three times a day, but she will save the most important news until they meet again. Her bleeding has stopped, and she recognises all the signs she read about in the books her mother gave her. But by the time she arrives in London, Hampus has already left. He is touring harbours and manor houses, meeting all the right people.
Anna has to call a doctor. Her heart lurches in her chest, beats so frantically that she cannot sleep, but the doctor can find nothing wrong with her and assures her it must be her nerves, apparently such a thing is not uncommon in newly-weds, and he orders her to rest and to find pleasant things with which to amuse herself.
There is certainly no shortage of amusements in London, and Anna does as she is told. She meets her friends, who are all terribly envious of her. How frightfully lucky to be able to tour the known world, to travel in the finest cabins and visit the great cities of America! Anna sips champagne and distracts herself with some shopping, buying only the bare essentials and a grand piano. The merchant packs the instrument in a tin coffer and sends it to Plymouth, where it will travel to Alaska on board a cargo ship. Now she will be able to hold musical soirées in Novo-Arkhangelsk, and she can barely remember where her woes came from. Her life is a perfect fairy tale.
The new attractions in London include an exhibition of ferocious lizards – surely Anna has already seen the knobbly skull of the Triceratops? Prince Albert himself is fanatical about these ancient bones dug up from the earth, and people throng to theNatural History Museum to see them. Distant islands, shores and mountains have revealed very curious creatures indeed, and explorers are keen to present these strange new discoveries to the public: the newspapers abound with stories of long-tailed birds of paradise and sea cows the size of a whale, but the wonders do not stop there. Now scientists have decided to turn their attention to the depths of the earth, to dig their way back through history, and from deep within the crust of the earth, layers of rock reveal a world billions of years old, a world of strange plants, cartilaginous fish, and monsters whose size and ferocity defy even the wildest imagination.
In America, the bones of strange elephants are uncovered, and a young congressman by the name of Thomas Jefferson resolves to disprove an especially pernicious claim: Georges-Louis Leclerc, the greatest naturalist of his generation, has had the gall to suggest that the climate in the Americas has made both people and animals alike small and weak. But America is a land full of beautiful and impressive creatures, and what could better prove this than the discovery of a living, breathing mammoth? To that end, Jefferson funds an expedition, hires a group of fearless men and sends them westwards to seek out the habitat of these hairy elephants, for they must be lurking somewhere, and what better hiding place than America’s vast, unexplored plains?
Jefferson arranges for the tooth of an American mammoth to be sent across the Atlantic. The specimen is received by one Prof. Georges Cuvier, founder of La Galerie de Paléontologie et d’Anatomie Comparée in Paris. He compares it to the teeth of the European and Siberian mammoths, and as he places the rostral pads alongside one another, he understands that Jefferson’s animal is not a mammoth at all, and that what lies on the table in front of him must belong to a new species of elephant, one hitherto unknown to science.
Cuvier sits at his desk, the ossified tooth in his hands, and thinks of names. The discoverer always has the right to name his discovery, and he considers various options, savours different phrases from the languages of Antiquity. Evening is drawing in, he has already enjoyed a glass or two of fine wine and runs his fingers across the rippled surface of the tooth. Its curves conjure up a lewd image, and suddenly the name comes to him: this animal shall be called mastodon, “the nipple tooth”.
Cuvier chuckles to himself, stands up and stretches his shoulders, stiff from his chair. He wants to share the joke with his friends and decides to go to the restaurant where all the scientists in Paris convene for dinner, but before leaving he walks down into the museum to admire the collections filling his gallery.
The exhibition begins with a man on a plinth, staring into the distance, his arm raised into the air. His posture makes him look like some sort of commander rousing his troops for a battle unknown to us, but instead of a uniform, he stands in front of his regiment without clothes and leathers, the tendonscriss-crossing between his bare muscles. Following behind him is a legion of the flayed. The man has lost his skin, but the animals behind him have been stripped of their flesh too. The bony animals follow mankind in order of size: first the small mammals, the apes and dogs, then the horses and other ungulates, and after them the camels, rhinoceroses, elephants and giraffes, and right at the back, arching above the rest, are the greatest, most majestic creatures of them all, the whales and their calves.
Cuvier beholds this parade of the dead, this solemn march of Creation’s plenitude through the great hall, and he considers the mastodon, an animal that no-one has ever seen in the flesh. The thought takes form quite innocently. How curious that such an animal could go unnoticed. The greatest scientific minds of our age have travelled to far-off atolls and to the furthest reaches of the oceans, but not one of these explorers has encountered the Stegosaurus or the cave lion. As it retreats, the permafrost does not reveal a subterranean city of mammoths, nor are vast plains inhabited by dinosaurs discovered in the heart of the jungle, and suddenly the realisation hits him like a bullet:these creatures no longer exist. It must be so. There is no longer any remote location where the Irish elk wanders proudly with a crown of antlers more than ten feet across, no cave where the sabre-toothed tiger lies waiting to be discovered.
That evening, Cuvier does not head to the bistro after all but hurries instead to the room in the museum housing all the bones dug up from the ground, the strange and magnificent creatures, the great sloths, the cave bears and dinosaurs, the skeleton of a pterodactyl that the Germans pulled out of a chalkquarry and that local researchers initially thought to be a fish, before Cuvier recognised the bones as characteristic of a reptile. Now he examines these ancient remains again, wandering from one fantastical creature to the next, and a bleak certainty fills his mind: Jefferson will never find his mastodon.
Cuvier catalogues twenty-three species that he believes may be lost, gathers the learned men of science together, and with this his theory becomes a reality.
