PARRY’S LAST NORTH-WEST VOYAGES
We must now return to Parry, who, it will be remembered, landed in
England on October 1820, after making a number of most valuable
discoveries in Lancaster Sound. The results of his voyage had been
so encouraging that the Government determined to prepare another
expedition for the following year. It was only natural to suppose,
however, that any further attempts to find a North-West passage
through Lancaster Sound would be rendered abortive by the ice, which
seemed to form an absolutely impenetrable barrier across the westward
entrance, and it was consequently decided to seek a passage by a more
southerly route, in the hope that the climate would be more temperate
and the ice less of an obstruction.
On the first expedition the _Hecla_ had proved herself an excellent
ship, but the _Griper_, owing to her poor sailing qualities, had been
less of a success. Her place was taken, therefore, by the _Fury_, to
which Parry himself was commissioned, while Captain George Francis
Lyon, an officer of great ability, who was especially noted for the
excellence of his drawings, was placed in command of the _Hecla_.
So popular was Parry that hardly had the news of his appointment been
published than he was besieged by volunteers, among them being many
members of his previous expedition. The latter included Lieutenants
Hoppner, Mias, and Reid, James Clark Ross, a midshipman who had
already had considerable experience of Arctic travel, and who was
destined subsequently to win fame for himself by the discovery of the
magnetic pole; and Mr Edwards, Parry’s former surgeon. In all, the
party consisted of 118 officers and men.
Parry set sail at the end of April with instructions to make direct
for Hudson’s Strait. Thence he was to sail westward until he should
reach some part of the mainland of North America. On striking the
coast he was to turn northward, and to examine every bay and inlet
which might seem to afford a passage to the west, thus practically
taking up the work of exploration where it had been dropped by
Captain Middleton, who, in 1742, discovered Wager Inlet, and
penetrated as far north as Cape Hope, near the entrance to Repulse
Bay.
He reached Southampton Island on April 27, and after some delay
occasioned by the ice, he succeeded in passing through Frozen Strait
and making Repulse Bay. Up till that day the precise nature of the
bay had never been determined, and it was believed by many to be in
reality the entrance to a strait. Parry, however, soon discovered
that it was actually a bay, and he accordingly turned northward in
pursuit of his quest for a western passage. The coast along which
he was now sailing was so broken that his progress was necessarily
slow, and when the beginning of October came he found himself no
further north than the entrance to Lyon Inlet. The work that he did
during those six weeks, however, though terribly tedious, was of
immense value, for he mapped out every mile of a coast-line which had
never been explored before.
It was now too late in the season for him to make much further
progress that year, so he set sail to the south-east with a view to
discovering comfortable winter quarters on the south side of Winter
Island. On October 8, after a dangerous voyage through the ice, he
found a bay which seemed admirably adapted for the purpose, and here,
accordingly, he hove too and put everything ship-shape and in order
for the long winter months.
Of the manner in which the crew beguiled their time it is unnecessary
to speak at length. The theatrical performances, which had proved so
successful on the previous voyage, were repeated, concerts were held,
and everything possible was done to ward off that archenemy of the
Arctic explorer, the scurvy. At the same time, of course, scientific
observations were carried on without intermission.
At the beginning of February a party of Eskimos put in an appearance,
and the explorers were astonished to find that a complete village had
sprung up in their neighbourhood with a rapidity which is generally
supposed to be the sole prerogative of castles in fairy stories.
The explanation was that not a single material was employed in the
construction of the huts except snow and ice. The natives proved
exceptionally friendly and rather less greedy than most of their
race. As a rule the first Eskimo word that the uninitiated traveller
is taught is “pilletay”—“give me”—which springs to a native’s lips
whenever his eyes light upon an object which he has not seen before.
The usual presentations of beads and nails formed a part of the
introductory ceremonial. The recipients of these gifts were wont
to display their gratitude in a manner that was not a little
embarrassing, for when they were given anything they went off into
fits of hysterical screaming or laughter, varied by the women with
periods of weeping.
Apart from increasing their knowledge of the habits of the Eskimos,
the explorers gained but little information that was of any value to
them, and they learned nothing of that passage to the west for which
they were seeking. One of the women was able to draw a rough map of
the coast for some miles northward of Repulse Bay, and, in attempting
to verify it, Captain Lyon very nearly lost his life in a snowstorm.
Otherwise, however, the winter was marked by no event that need be
recorded. On July 2, 1822, the two ships sailed out of their winter
quarters and pursued their journey northward.
Occasionally the work of mapping out the coast, which, of
course, occupied most of their attention, was varied by a little
walrus-hunting, which proved to be excellent sport. Some idea of
the strength of these creatures may be gathered from the fact that,
in a big battue in which they indulged on July 15, one of the boats
was seriously damaged by a walrus’s tusks, while another of the
creatures, being accidentally touched by an oar, wrenched it out of
the rower’s hand with its flippers and broke it in two. The largest
of the animals killed on that day weighed fifteen hundredweight and a
half.
In such a way as this was the whole of the summer spent, and the
arrival of winter found them as far as ever from the discovery of the
North-West Passage. Parry spent the dark months off the Island of
Igloolik, intending to continue his work during the following summer.
An outbreak of scurvy, however, compelled him to change his plans,
and, cutting short his voyage, to return to England, which he reached
early in October.
In the following year Parry started out on his third and last search
for the North-West Passage. The plan of the expedition was to explore
Prince Regent’s Inlet, but the ice was bad and the weather was
unfavourable, with the result that he had barely reached the scene
of his labours when winter set in. In the following year he was even
more unfortunate, for the _Fury_ was driven ashore in a gale and he
was obliged to leave her to her fate, taking her men and such of her
stores as he could find room for on board the _Hecla_. He had now no
choice but to return home, as, with so many mouths to feed and so
little to feed them with, he dared not risk another winter in the
ice. It is worthy of mention, however, that the stores left behind
on the ship and on the shore proved the salvation of several later
expeditions.
[Illustration: THE WALRUS AS SEEN BY OLAUS MAGNUS]
By no means the least valuable of the pieces of information brought
back by Parry was that, while the eastern coast of any land in the
Arctic regions is almost invariably encumbered with heavy ice, the
western coast is, in ordinary years, comparatively free—a discovery
of which navigators have taken the fullest advantage ever since.