Arctic Survival 1912

For more than two months they traversed the twilit ice, hampered by ridges, crevices and shifting floes. Two of the men fled, taking with them food, guns and the group's only compass. Albanov's men staved off starvation by hunting polar bears. But on July 8, they reached Alexander Island, the farthest northwestern reach of Franz Josef Land, where they found the two runaways. Despite high emotions, Albanov allowed them to rejoin the group.

----I WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN THAT KIND
 
WILLIAM.M said:
For more than two months they traversed the twilit ice, hampered by ridges, crevices and shifting floes. Two of the men fled, taking with them food, guns and the group's only compass. Albanov's men staved off starvation by hunting polar bears. But on July 8, they reached Alexander Island, the farthest northwestern reach of Franz Josef Land, where they found the two runaways. Despite high emotions, Albanov allowed them to rejoin the group.

----I WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN THAT KIND
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I was thinking the same thing when I read that.
 
The knife lasting is not really a surprise to me as the arctic is in most places a desert that is frozen much of the year in which does not seem to be a very oxidizing environment. I found 20 year old implements in the arctic in very good condition. A good read/story.
 
WILLIAM.M said:
For more than two months they traversed the twilit ice, hampered by ridges, crevices and shifting floes. Two of the men fled, taking with them food, guns and the group's only compass. Albanov's men staved off starvation by hunting polar bears. But on July 8, they reached Alexander Island, the farthest northwestern reach of Franz Josef Land, where they found the two runaways. Despite high emotions, Albanov allowed them to rejoin the group.

----I WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN THAT KIND
Click to expand...

Polar Bear Bait....
 
lol i agree i wouldn't have been that nice at all though maybe his plan was to eat them once they died lol. thats a crazy little survival story i mean 2 months in the freezing cold hunting polar bears. i mean they say on a good day polar bears can smell seals/whale carcass at 20 miles away. and they have video of one traveling farther than that for a in heat female. i guess you just better hope it smells you and comes looking
 
Wicked cool story. I can only imagine the hell those men went through and I can hardly believe that two of them survived!
 
jackknife said:
So much for the fears of a carbon steel knife rusting away in a survival situation.
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Yeah, but the wood handle cracked...

CUTS LIKE A KRIS said:
The knife lasting is not really a surprise to me as the arctic is in most places a desert that is frozen much of the year in which does not seem to be a very oxidizing environment. I found 20 year old implements in the arctic in very good condition. A good read/story.
Click to expand...

Yes, and there are abandoned outposts in Antarctica from around the same time with food that would still be as edible today as the day they were left... The intense cold paired with a lack of liquid water doesn't lend to decomposition (much too cold for bacteria and fungi).
 
Notice how the knife isn't a 9" long 1/4" thick "survival" knife.

You only survive in situations like that because you want to. I contribute their desire to survive to the hard work they were used to back in those days; how would some modern day yuppie fair if their sail boat went off course into the Arctic?
 
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