Cape Thorvaldsen appears on the sea chart as a point along the Kronos’s northbound route, but the ship’s captain cannot say what lies beyond it. Its brief appearance ties a named coastal landmark to the novel’s larger tension between navigational knowledge and withheld control over where the ship is going.

Position on the Kronos’s Route

When Smilla asks Captain Lukas where the ship is headed, he points to a chart of South Greenland. A transparent overlay marks ice concentrations, visibility, and iceberg positions reported from Julianehåb. The plotted course runs north along the coast, rounds Cape Thorvaldsen, and continues north-northwest. It then stops near Vestland, at a point in the middle of the ocean.

A Waypoint, Not an Explanation

Lukas’s chart offers a precise line of travel but no final destination. His answer is limited to the route he can see: “That's all I know.” He resents being kept on a short leash, like an infant, and the map thus records not only the ship’s projected movement but also the limits imposed on its captain. Cape Thorvaldsen is a legible point in a larger passage whose purpose and endpoint remain undisclosed.

Cartographic Knowledge and Uncertainty

The plotted course depends on layers of information: a sea chart, a plastic facsimile, and symbols for ice, visibility, and berg positions. Yet even this technical apparatus cannot answer the central question of where the Kronos is bound. Cape Thorvaldsen consequently functions as a concrete geographical marker within a route that becomes uncertain beyond the known coast. The distinction echoes Smilla’s broader attention to how landscapes can be read: maps can make terrain intelligible, but the ship’s chart does not give its crew equal knowledge of the voyage’s destination.