With that end of America will ever be associated the names of Sir John
Franklin and his gallant companions, who perished in their search of the
North-west Passage; as well as those of other more fortunate successors,
especially of Captains McClure and Collinson of the British navy, to the
first of whom is due the honour of leading an expedition from west to
east along that icy shore; while Captain Collinson took his ship, the
_Enterprise_, up to Cambridge Bay, Victoria Land, further east than any
ship had before reached from the west--namely, 105 degrees west--and
succeeded in extricating her from amid the ice and bringing her home in
safety. Captain McClure, not so fortunate in one respect, was compelled
to leave his ship frozen up. The two expeditions, while proving the
existence of a channel, at the same time showed its uselessness as a
means of passing from the Atlantic to the Pacific, as, except in most
extraordinary seasons, it remains blocked up all the year by ice.
The northern end of the American continent is a region of mountains,
lakes, and rivers. Several expeditions have been undertaken through
it,--the first to ascertain the coast-line, by Mackenzie, Franklin,
Richardson, Back, and others, and latterly by Dr Rae; and also by Sir
John Richardson, who left the comforts of England to convey assistance
to his long-missing former companions, though unhappily without avail.
These journeys, through vast barren districts, among rugged hills,
marshes, lakes, and rivers, in the severest of climates, exhibit in the
explorers an amount of courage, endurance, and perseverance never
surpassed. In the course of the rivers occur many dangerous falls,
rapids, and cataracts, amid rocks and huge boulders, between which the
voyagers' frail barks make their way, running a fearful risk every
instant of being dashed to pieces. Not a tree rears its head in the
wild and savage landscape, the vegetation consisting chiefly of lichens
and mosses. Among the former the tripe de roche is the most capable of
supporting life. Here winter reigns with stern rigour for ten months in
the year; and even in summer biting blasts, hail-storms, and rain
frequently occur. Yet in this inhospitable region numerous herds of
reindeer, musk-oxen, and other mammalia find subsistence during the
brief summer, as do partridge and numerous birds of various species.
Here the Esquimaux lives in his skin-tent during the warmer months, and
in his snow-hut in winter, existing on the seals which he catches with
his harpoon, the whales occasionally cast on shore, and the bears, deer,
and smaller animals he entraps.
The numerous rivers flowing from the mountain-ridges mostly make their
way northward. The Mackenzie, the largest and most western, rising in
the Great Slave and Great Bear Lakes, falls, after a course of many
hundred miles, into the Polar Sea. The Coppermine River, rising in
Point Lake, makes its course in the same direction; while eastward, the
great Fish or Back River, flowing from the same lake as the first
mentioned stream, reaches the ocean many hundred miles away from it, at
the lower extremity of Bathurst Islet. It runs rapidly in a tortuous
course of 530 geographical miles through an iron-ribbed country, without
a single tree on the whole line of its banks, expanding here and there
into five large lakes, and broken by thirty-three falls, cascades, and
rapids ere it reaches the Polar Sea. Not far from its mouth rises the
barren rocky height of Cape Beaufort.
It was down this stream that Captain Back, the Arctic explorer, made his
way, but was compelled to return on account of the inclemency of the
weather and the difficulty of finding fuel; the only vegetation which he
could discover being fern and moss, which was so wet that it would not
burn, while he was almost without fire, or any means of obtaining
warmth, his men sinking knee-deep as they proceeded on shore in the soft
slush and snow, which benumbed their limbs and dispirited them in the
extreme. Through this country the unhappy remnant of the Franklin
expedition, many years later, perished in their attempt to reach the
Hudson Bay Company's territory. Here, in winter, the thermometer sinks
70 degrees below zero. Even within his hut, when he had succeeded in
lighting a fire, Back could not get it higher than 12 degrees below
zero. Ink and paint froze. The sextant cases, and boxes of seasoned
wood--principally fir--all split; the skin of the hands became dried,
cracked, and opened into unsightly and smarting gashes; and on one
occasion, after washing his hands and face within three feet of the
fire, his hair was actually clotted with ice before he had time to dry
it. The hunters described the sensation of handling their guns as
similar to that of touching red-hot iron; and so excessive was the pain,
that they were obliged to wrap thongs of leather round the triggers to
prevent their fingers coming in contact with the steel. Numbers of the
Indian inhabitants of the country perish from cold and hunger every
year--indeed, it seems wonderful that human beings should attempt to
live in such a country; yet much further north, the hardy Esquimaux,
subsisting on whale's blubber and seal's flesh, contrives to support
life in tolerable comfort.
To the south of the Arctic Circle stunted fir-trees begin to appear, and
at length grow so thickly, that it is with difficulty a passage can be
made amid them. Frequently the explorer has to clamber over fallen
trees, through rivulets, bogs, and swamps, till often the difficulties
in the way appear insurmountable to all but the boldest and the most
persevering.