THE FRANKLIN SEARCH BEGUN
It was in the summer of 1847 that serious doubts concerning the
safety of the Franklin expedition were first entertained and the
Government decided to take steps towards its relief. As we have
already seen, the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ were last sighted in
Lancaster Sound, and there was no means of knowing in what direction
they had sailed from that day onwards. Accordingly, it was thought
best to send out relief parties from the east, through Lancaster
Sound, from the west, through Behring Strait, and from the south, to
search the northern shores to America.
The first of these to start was that which was to attempt to meet
Franklin by way of Behring Strait. The _Herald_ (Captain Kellett), a
survey ship of 500 tons was already near the scene of action, and it
was decided to reinforce her with the _Plover_, a store ship of 213
tons, under Commander Moore, and to send these two ships on a voyage
round the North American coast to the Mackenzie River.
The _Plover_ proved herself to be a very poor sailor, and it was
not until June 1849 that the two ships met at their appointed
rendezvous in Kotzebue Sound. Here they were joined by the _Nancy
Dawson_, a small yacht owned and commanded by Mr Robert Sheddon,
who had sailed north with a view to taking part in the search. The
three ships sailed north in company, and, on reaching Wainwright
Inlet, despatched three boats, filled to the brim with provisions
and commanded by Lieutenant Pullen, on the long journey to the
Mackenzie River. Mr Sheddon determined to accompany Lieutenant Pullen
for a part of his journey, but the _Herald_ and _Plover_ sailed
on and explored the waters to the north of Behring Strait. Beyond
discovering the two islands which now bear their names, however, they
accomplished but little.
By September 2 the two government ships and the _Nancy Dawson_
were all lying in Kotzebue Sound, where it had been decided that
the _Plover_ should spend the winter. After supplying the wants of
her companion ship, the _Herald_ sailed away south with the _Nancy
Dawson_, reaching Mazatlan, on the coast of Mexico, at the beginning
of October. Mr Sheddon, who had been in failing health for some time,
did not survive the winter.
In the meanwhile, Moore, of the _Plover_, opened up communications
with the natives round Kotzebue Sound in the hope that he might
obtain tidings of Franklin. The result was that circumstantial
tales concerning white men travelling in the interior, were poured
into his ears, and, in attempting to verify these, Bedford Pim very
nearly lost his life. Neither then, however, nor in the summer, when
the _Herald_ and _Plover_ made a cruise round the coast, could they
discover that these stories had any foundation in fact, nor did their
search give them any reason to suppose that Franklin and his party
had approached the shores along which they were sailing.
Lieutenant Pullen’s boat expedition to the Mackenzie met with no
better success. Cramped up in open boats which were in constant
danger of being wrecked by gales or the drifting ice, he and his
men suffered tortures from cold and exposure, and the difficulties
and dangers of their 1500-mile journey were enhanced by the
unfriendliness of the natives. The winter was spent at the various
stations of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and, in the following spring,
Pullen set out again for the shores of the Polar Sea. The conditions,
however, were such as to preclude any possibility of success, and
he was obliged to turn back before he had even reached the point at
which his search proper was to have begun.
The conduct of the first overland journey was entrusted to
Richardson, who, with Rae as his lieutenant, was commissioned
to search the coast of North America from the Mackenzie to the
Coppermine. The Polar Sea was reached without misadventure, but from
that point onwards the journey proved dangerous and difficult, as
owing to the lateness of the spring they were obliged to cache their
boats and make a great part of it on foot. In the following year
Rae returned to the mouth of the Coppermine only to find that the
natives had discovered the boats and had broken them up for the sake
of the copper fastenings. Any sea voyage was, therefore, out of the
question, and, after cross-examining the Eskimos and sweeping the
shores of Wollaston Land with a telescope, he was obliged to return
to headquarters at Fort Confidence.
The first two attempts at conducting the search through Lancaster
Sound were not a conspicuous success. Sir James Clark Ross started
off in the _Enterprise_ and _Investigator_ and explored most of
Prince Regent Inlet and the northern gulf of Boothia, but without
obtaining any clues to Franklin’s fate, while, in the following
year, Saunders, who was sent out in the _North Star_ with provisions
for Ross, was caught in the ice and never succeeded in reaching his
destination.
In 1851, however, the search was prosecuted with far greater vigour,
and no fewer than five expeditions left British and American shores
almost simultaneously. Of these, the Government sent out two, one
consisting of four ships, the _Resolute_ and the _Assistance_, with
their steam tenders, the _Pioneer_ and the _Intrepid_, commanded by
Captain Horatio Austin, with Captain Ommaney, Lieutenant Osborn, and
Lieutenant Cator under him, and the other of two whalers, the _Lady
Franklin_ and the _Sophia_, under William Penny, a whaler of great
repute, who, it was hoped, would meet with rather more success in
battling with the ice than did his predecessors, Ross and Saunders.
Two private expeditions also set out from England, one of them,
the _Prince Albert_, having been equipped by Lady Franklin, while
the other, the _Felix_, was placed under the command of Ross. The
American expedition consisted of the _Advance_ and the _Rescue_, with
Lieutenant De Haven at the head of affairs.
Unfortunately, all of these expeditions had one common objective—to
pass up Lancaster Sound and examine the shores of Wellington Channel,
the south-east entrance to which they reached almost simultaneously.
It was now that the first traces of the missing explorers were found,
for, going ashore on Beechey Island on August 23, Ommaney discovered
signs that a party of white men had encamped there, and Penny,
examining the spot four days later, came upon the graves of four men
belonging to the _Erebus_ and _Terror_. In addition to the graves
there was a hut, some pieces of rope of the pattern used in the Navy,
and such miscellaneous odds and ends as torn mits, fragments of
writing paper, meat-tins, and coal-bags, but, search as they would,
they could find no sign of any written document such as might give
some hint as to the direction which Franklin had taken on leaving his
winter quarters. At Cape Riley again traces were found in abundance,
but no information of any value was forthcoming.
Leaving his companions to follow up these discoveries, Forsyth
instantly made his way back to England. De Haven also intended to
return home, but the ice intervened, and the American ships were
firmly beset before they had left Wellington Channel. From that time
onwards their experiences were much like those of the _Terror_.
Drifting northward with the ice, they were carried up to Grinnell
Land, which had never been sighted before, and then, the drift
changing to the south, they were borne down Wellington Channel along
Lancaster Sound, and into Baffin Bay, till, after covering a distance
of over a thousand miles in this fashion, they were finally released
in July.
There was now nothing for the other three parties to do but to find
winter quarters, whence they might prosecute the search as soon as
spring made it possible for them to send out sledging parties. The
_Lady Franklin_, the _Sophia_, and the _Felix_, therefore, put into
Assistance Bay, at the south end of Cornwallis Land, while Austin and
his squadron made for Griffith Island, where they were frozen in in
September.
It was Penny’s special duty to explore the shores of Wellington
Channel, and, as soon as the worst of the winter was over, he and
Petersen started out with this end in view. As they pushed northward,
they became more and more convinced that the channel led into a
great open sea, and they had already determined to pursue their
investigations further in this direction as soon as summer should
have released the ships, when, to their amazement, on rounding
a headland, they came upon a great channel of water, stretching
away for at least twenty-five miles to the northward, and probably
further. Racing back to the ship with all possible speed, they
obtained a boat and succeeded in dragging it over the ice to the
scene of their discovery. Unfortunately, however, contrary winds and
drifting floes made it impossible to proceed any further, and they
were obliged to turn back without exploring the water-way and its
shores.
[Illustration: BOATS AMONG THE ICE
FROM A DRAWING BY CAPTAIN BACK]
In the meanwhile Austin was pushing on his work with tremendous
vigour, and to him and to his able junior officer, M’Clintock,
must belong the credit of bringing the art of sledging to a higher
pitch of perfection than had ever been attained before. The autumn
was spent in establishing depots of provisions along the routes
which were to be followed in the spring, and in examining the
southern shores of Cornwallis Land in the hope that some traces of
Franklin might be found there. It was in the middle of April that
two great sledge parties started out under Ommaney and M’Clintock
to pursue the search to the south and east. Ommaney discovered
and explored the northern shores of Prince of Wales’ Land, which
lay in the route where Franklin had been instructed to seek for the
North-West Passage. He found, however, that the sea was so shallow
and the ice so old that by no possibility could the _Erebus_ and
_Terror_ have approached the shores. During his sixty days’ absence
from the ship he covered 480 miles and explored 205 miles of new
coast. M’Clintock’s objective was Melville Island, which had not
been visited since Parry wintered there, but, though he covered 770
miles during his eighty-one days’ absence, he found no trace of the
explorers. Other parties sent out from the ships made important
geographical discoveries, but, so far as the main object was
concerned, their efforts were as fruitless as were those of the two
big sledge expeditions.
As soon as the ice broke up, Penny approached Austin with a
suggestion that one of his steam tenders should explore the northern
half of Wellington Channel. Austin, however, did not think that any
useful purpose would be served thereby, and, as he was not prepared
to spend another winter in the ice the whole squadron returned home.
In the same summer the _Prince Albert_, which, it will be remembered,
had sailed for home with tidings of the discovery of Franklin’s first
winter quarters, set out once more under the command of Captain
Kennedy, with a French volunteer, Lieutenant J. R. Bellot, as second
in command. It was while he was examining the northern shores of
Prince Regent’s Inlet that Kennedy’s career was very nearly brought
to an untimely close, for, with four companions, he became separated
from the ships, and for a long time there seemed no prospect of his
being able to rejoin her. Fortunately, he found that the stores which
Ross had left at Somerset House in 1832 were in good condition, and
there he and his companions remained for six weeks, at the end of
which time Bellot succeeded in rescuing them. In the spring the two
officers made a brilliant sledge journey, in the course of which
they discovered that Brentford Bay was really a strait—which Kennedy
promptly named after his companion—and travelled round the whole
coast of North Somerset. In spite of their efforts, however, they did
not light upon a single trace of Franklin and his men.