THE VOYAGES OF COLLINSON AND M’CLURE
It will be remembered that, in organising the Franklin search, the
Government determined to send out expeditions from three points of
the compass, east, west, and south. The first group was to follow
in Franklin’s tracks, the second was to attempt to meet him by way
of Behring Strait, and the third was to search the North American
coast in the hope that he might have found his way thither. As we
have seen, the _Herald_ and _Plover_ had already been sent to Behring
Strait, but the authorities felt that there was ample room for
another expedition in that direction, so in 1849 they refitted the
_Enterprise_ and _Investigator_, and, putting them under the command
of Captain Richard Collinson, C.B., and Captain J. Le Mesurier
M’Clure, they despatched them on this hazardous service. Though
Collinson was nominally leader of the expedition, M’Clure actually
became its central figure, and it is with his doings that we shall
have principally to deal.
M’Clure was a fine seaman and a man of indomitable courage, but, as
we shall see presently, he possessed almost more than his fair share
of that peculiarly British quality of never knowing when he was
beaten, and he came near, in consequence, to sacrificing the lives of
every member of his expedition.
The two ships set sail from the Thames on January 10, 1850, but early
in February they parted company, and did not meet again till they
reached Magellan Bay, though, curiously enough, they had crossed the
line on the same day. On the evening of the day on which they left
the Bay they were separated by a gale, never to meet again.
The _Investigator_ was rather the better ship of the two, and she
entered Behring Strait considerably in advance of her companion.
Here M’Clure fell in first with the _Plover_ under Commander Moore,
by whom he sent a message home to England saying that he was making
for Banks Land and was provisioned for three years, and later with
the _Herald_. Kellett, who commanded the latter ship, told him that
nothing had yet been heard of the _Enterprise_, and ordered him to
await her arrival in accordance with his official instructions.
This plan, however, by no means commended itself to M’Clure, so,
signalling back “Important duty; cannot on my own responsibility,”
he sailed on his way. Kellett ought, no doubt, to have insisted on
M’Clure obeying orders, but he was very awkwardly situated. He knew
that the _Investigator_ was on its way to succour Franklin, and that
a winter’s delay might ruin its chances of success, and, naturally
enough, he did not like to incur the grave responsibility of stopping
her in her work of humanity.
The main pack was sighted on August 2, but M’Clure was fortunate
enough to find open water to the south of it, and he was soon round
Point Barrow and sailing in waters which had never been travelled
by a ship before. Navigation was very far from easy, for the sea
was covered with detached floes which, driven onward by the wind,
came charging down upon the ship with tremendous force, setting her
aquiver from stem to stern, and often endangering the safety of her
masts.
Whenever it was possible M’Clure sent parties ashore to erect cairns
and to open up communications with any natives that they might find.
From these he gleaned one valuable piece of information, namely, that
they had never before seen a “big oomiak” like the _Investigator_.
The _Erebus_ and _Terror_, therefore, could not have reached these
shores.
After passing Return Reef navigation became more perilous than
ever, owing to the innumerable shoals composed of driftwood and
the deposits of the neighbouring rivers. On one occasion the
_Investigator_ went aground and lay for some time in imminent danger
of being crushed to matchwood by the drifting floes. With all
possible speed, a liberal supply of provisions was transferred to the
boats, one of which unfortunately capsized and sixteen casks of salt
meat went to the bottom. The loss was very severely felt later on.
Sailing with great care and circumspection, M’Clure succeeded in
reaching Cape Parry. Here a south-easterly wind sprang up which
cleared the sea of ice and gave him an open way to the north, of
which he was not slow to take advantage. In a few hours the welcome
cry of “land on the port bow” rang out, and Banks’ Land came in
sight. At first there was some doubt as to what this new land might
be. Some thought that it was a continuation of Wollaston Land,
others held that it was a part of Banks’ Land. In his uncertainty
M’Clure gave it the name of Baring Island, but when, later on, it
was found to be the southern extension of the land sighted by Parry
from Melville Island in 1819-20, its original name was, of course,
retained.
McClure’s delight was completed when he found a perfectly
open channel extending along the shores of the new land in a
north-easterly direction. Up this channel he sailed, hardly daring
to hope what was actually the truth, that this was the North-West
Passage. His doubts were not, however, to be set at rest immediately,
for thirty miles from the point at which the channel joins Barrow
Strait his career was summarily checked by a barrier of ice which
there was no penetrating, and all that he could do was to make up his
mind to spend the winter where he was.
The early days of October brought with them the exceedingly
unpleasant discovery that 500 lbs. of preserved meat were putrid
and only fit to be thrown away. A little later, an examination of
his stores showed him that another 424 lbs. were unfit for food,
bringing the loss up to nearly a thousand pounds, in addition to the
sixteen casks of salt meat which had fallen into the sea earlier in
the voyage. The matter was especially serious as he had assured the
Admiralty that he was fully provisioned for three years.
However, there was nothing for him to do but to make his crew forget
the misfortune as quickly as possible, so he set about sending out
expeditions along the shores of Prince of Wales’ Strait, as he had
named the channel which he had just discovered, and through Banks’
Land. It was during one of these that he actually discovered the
North-West Passage and so earned the ten thousand pounds offered
by the Government. This event took place on October 26th, when
M’Clure, having ascended a high hill found that, as he had hoped,
Prince Albert Land trended away to the eastward, while Banks’ Land
terminated in a low promontory about twelve miles from the point on
which he stood. Away beyond the northern entrance to Prince of Wales’
Strait he gazed across the frozen waters of Melville Sound, in which
Barrow Strait terminates.
The dark days of winter passed away without misadventure, and, with
the return of spring, M’Clure decided to send out sledge parties in
search of Franklin. Few of those whose lot is cast in warmer climates
can realise the dangers and discomforts of a long sledge journey in
the Arctic regions. Sherard Osborn knew them well, and he gives so
eloquent a description of them that we may quote it for the benefit
of the uninitiated.
“If they should feel cold,” he writes, “they must be patient, for
until their return to the ship they will have no fire to warm them.
Should their parched tongues cleave to their mouths, they must
swallow snow to allay their thirst, for water there is none. Should
their health fail, pity is all that their comrades can give them, for
the sledge must move on its daily march. If hungry, they must console
themselves by looking forward to being better fed when the travelling
is over, for the rations are, necessarily, in sledge journeys,
weighed off to an ounce. In short, from the time they leave the
ship till their return to it, the service is ever one of suffering
and privation, which call for the utmost endurance and most zealous
energy.”
Three parties were sent out, which surveyed the coasts of Banks’
Land and Prince Albert Land, but their labours were fated to be
unrewarded, for not a trace of the missing expedition could they
discover.
As soon as the thaw released him, M’Clure naturally made an effort
to complete the North-West Passage. Ice and contrary winds, however,
rendered it impossible for him to make his way through Prince of
Wales’ Strait, so he put about and determined to try to find a
passage round the western coast of Banks’ Land, and so into Melville
Sound. At first all went well, but when he reached lat. 73° 55′, the
highest point that he had yet attained, he was once more brought to
a standstill. The channel of open water became narrower, the coast
became more dangerous, and towering hills of ice hemmed them in on
every side, threatening the ship with instant destruction.
At one time M’Clure feared that he would be obliged to spend the
winter in this desolate situation, but fortunately a southerly wind
arose which drove the ice off the shore and allowed him to proceed
on his way. Weeks of valuable time had been wasted in the pack, and
there was now nothing for him to do but to look for suitable winter
quarters, which he eventually found in Mercy Bay.
Although, dreading lest his stay in the Arctic regions might be
prolonged indefinitely, M’Clure found it necessary to put his men
on rather short rations, the winter was passed comfortably enough,
and, as soon as spring came round, he set out with seven men across
the icepack to Melville Island in the hope that he might find
another of the search expeditions stationed there. To his intense
disappointment, all that he discovered was M’Clintock’s record of
his visit of the previous year. Of ships or human beings there was
not another trace. Fortunately for himself he left a notice there
describing the position of the _Investigator_ in Mercy Bay, and this
ultimately proved his salvation.
When he returned to his ship he found that matters were not going too
well with his men. They had, it is true, been fairly successful with
their hunting, but scurvy had broken out and Dr Armstrong already
had thirteen patients in his care. Worse, however, was to come, for
July brought no sign of the desired thaw. Ice still choked the bay,
thick ice covered the sound, and an ominous blink glowed in the sky.
Early in September the frost once more had the bay in its grip and
the unfortunate men realised that they were destined to spend a third
winter in the ice.
M’Clure was now faced by a very difficult problem. In the first
place, his pride and his sense of duty bade him to save his ship,
which was still in perfect condition. In the second place, he felt
that he could hardly ask his men to stay by him on the chance of
release in the following summer. His solution of the problem cannot
be regarded as entirely satisfactory. Calling his men on to the
quarter deck one day in the early winter, he told them that he had
decided that, as soon as spring came round, he would send away half
of the crew in two divisions. One of these was to make for the mouth
of Prince of Wales’ Strait, where he had left a boat, and thence to
the coast of America, while the other was to march for Wellington
Channel, where, he hoped, that they would be picked up by a whaler.
Armstrong knew that the men were quite unfit for such a journey, and
told his commander so in no uncertain terms, but without producing
the least effect. M’Clure was an incurable optimist and never could
be induced to believe that his men were not capable of performing
the impossible, so, with a view to ensuring a fairly adequate supply
of provisions for the travelling parties, he cut down the rations
once more. The result was that the whole crew lived in a state of
perpetual hunger. The scurvy patients grew worse and those who had,
up to the present, remained healthy, sickened rapidly. To add to
their discomforts, the winter was one of the coldest on record, and
on one occasion the thermometer registered ninety-nine degrees of
frost.
Unfit though his men were for the service he contemplated for them,
M’Clure set about making the final preparations for the expeditions.
These were sufficiently extraordinary to startle even Dr Armstrong,
accustomed as he was to his leader’s vagaries, for M’Clure informed
him one day that it was his intention to dispatch the weaker half of
the crew from the vessel and bade him make the necessary selection.
Armstrong could only do as he was told, and, with a sad heart,
he picked out thirty of the most scorbutic members of the ship’s
company, and told them off into two divisions of fifteen each. As a
final protest against what he evidently considered to be little short
of murder, he and his assistant, Mr Piers, recorded in a letter their
conviction that the men could not survive such a journey. This,
however, had as little effect as his earlier representations.
Early in April the gloom that had settled upon the ship was deepened
by the first appearance of death, for one of the seamen, John Boyle,
fell a victim to scurvy after only one day’s illness. Fortunately,
however, the clouds were soon to break, for, while M’Clure and
Lieutenant Haswell were superintending the work of hewing a grave for
Boyle out of the frozen earth, they were amazed to see a strange man
coming towards them across the ice. So far as they could tell he was
no member of their own crew, and their astonishment was increased
when he began rushing across the ice, flinging up his arms and
shouting wildly.
“In the name of God, who are you?” cried M’Clure, when he came within
speaking distance.
“I’m Lieutenant Pim of the _Resolute_, now at Dealy Island,” was
the answer, “and I’ve come to relieve Captain M’Clure and the
_Investigators_.”
At first the men could not believe the evidence of their senses, but
all doubts were set at rest when Pim’s sledge, with the two men who
had accompanied him, and a supply of provisions put in an appearance.
It seemed that M’Clure’s record at Winter Harbour had been found, and
that Kellett, fearing that the _Investigator_ might be still detained
in the ice, had sent off Pim as soon as the conditions permitted, to
bring its crew relief if they needed it. The journey had lasted a
full month, and he only arrived just in time, for two or three days
later the unfortunate sledge parties were to have started off on
their terribly forlorn hope.
On April 8, M’Clure, accompanied by an officer and six men, set
out on the return journey to the _Resolute_ leaving orders for the
two sledge parties to follow him. By some unaccountable oversight,
however, he omitted to put the men who remained behind on full
rations, and two more lives were lost in consequence.
Even now M’Clure’s excessive optimism had not deserted him, and, on
reaching the _Resolute_, he told Kellett that the twenty men still on
board the _Investigator_ were quite well able to bring her home or to
endure another winter in the ice if necessary. Kellett, however, had
seen the condition of the men who composed the sledge-parties, and
was altogether disinclined to agree with the gallant captain on this
point. He accordingly arranged that his own surgeon, Dr Domville,
should proceed to the _Investigator_, and, after joining Dr Armstrong
in a medical survey of the crew, should make an unbiassed report
thereon. There could only be one result. The two doctors found that
none of the men were entirely free from scurvy, while many of them
were very seriously ill. M’Clure, however, was by no means disposed
to yield without a struggle. Accordingly he called the men on deck,
and asked if any of them were prepared to volunteer for further
service. Only four of them stood forward, so he had to yield to the
inevitable.
The ship was cleaned and put in thorough order, and, after M’Clure
had examined her for the last time, and had addressed a few words
to the men, which according to Armstrong, were not particularly
complimentary, the _Investigator_ was abandoned on June 3. Lieutenant
Cresswell and several members of the expedition joined the _North
Star_ at Beechey Island, and were finally conveyed to England by
H.M.S. _Phœnix_ during the summer of 1853. Those who remained on
board the _Resolute_ and _Intrepid_ were destined to spend yet
another winter in the ice, but they eventually reached home in safety
during the autumn of 1854. The ships themselves, however, had to be
abandoned, the crews being taken on board the _North Star_, which was
still in the neighbourhood.
It is worthy of mention that in May, 1854, a party was sent from the
_Resolute_ to report on the condition of the _Investigator_ in Mercy
Bay. It appeared, from the condition of the ice, that she had not
been released during the summer, and that M’Clure and his men would
have perished had they remained on board.
The expedition, though it resulted in the discovery of the North-West
Passage, cannot be regarded as an entire success. It must be
remembered that it was sent out to take part in the Franklin Search
and not to add to the world’s store of geographical knowledge. The
coast of Bank’s Land was examined, it is true, but had not M’Clure
been so possessed of a desire to complete the passage himself, he
would probably have accomplished a great deal more.
Collinson’s voyage in the _Enterprise_, if less sensational than
M’Clure’s, was really far more remarkable, not only for the brilliant
manner in which he conducted it, but also for the fact that, though
he did not know it, he was the first of the search parties to
approach the spot where the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ had been lost.
Passing Cape Lisburne a fortnight later than M’Clure, and not knowing
whither the _Investigator_ had gone, he examined the pack for a
short distance and then sailed south to Hong-Kong, where he spent
the winter. As soon as the conditions permitted he returned to the
scene of his labours and rounded Point Barrow on the last day of
July. Entering Prince of Wales’ Strait, he succeeded in following
it almost to its mouth, but, as he had already learnt from a record
left by M’Clure that his junior officer had discovered the North-West
Passage, and that there was, in consequence, no object in his
proceeding further in that direction, he turned south again and found
winter quarters in Walker Bay.
Sledging expeditions were sent out during the autumn and spring
to look for the _Investigators_ and to try to discover traces of
Franklin, but in neither object did they meet with any success. The
_Enterprise_ was released in August, 1852, and, having explored
Prince Albert Sound, Collinson set his course eastward along the
coast of America, and eventually reached the east end of Dease
Strait, where he spent the next winter.
It was during a sledging expedition in the following spring that
he came nearest to the discovery of the remains of the Franklin
expedition, for on May 10 he stood on Gateshead Island and looked
across the strait to King William Land, where lay the skeletons of
the lost sailors. Had M’Clure only seen fit to remain with his leader
more might have been accomplished, for it would have been possible
to send out stronger sledging parties and to examine that part of
the coast more thoroughly. Moreover, on board the _Investigator_ was
the only interpreter which the party possessed, and Collinson was,
in consequence, unable to learn the origin of an engine rod which
he obtained from the natives. It is practically certain, of course,
that this was a relic of one of the ill-fated ships, as also was a
hatch-way which was found on Finlayson Island.
On being released from his winter quarters, Collinson turned westward
again and spent his last winter in the Arctic regions off Flaxman’s
Island, whence he returned to England in the following year.
His voyage was unquestionably one of the most remarkable in the
whole history of Arctic exploration. In a sailing ship of none too
good a quality he succeeded in covering a distance within the Arctic
circle which has only once been excelled, and that by a steamer, the
_Vega_. He came within fifty-seven miles of completing the North-West
Passage, the nearest approach on record; and of all the Government
expeditions sent out he came nearest to bringing the Franklin search
to a successful conclusion. His name ought to rank high in the annals
of Arctic travel, and it is to be feared that he has never really
received his just due.