M’CLINTOCK AND THE “FOX”
The news that Rae brought home naturally created the greatest stir
in England, and it was felt that steps ought to be taken at once
to discover whether any of the luckless explorers had succeeded in
making their way to the territories of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
Unfortunately the Crimean War was at that time occupying the full
resources of the nation, and the Government accordingly appealed
to the Hudson’s Bay Company to send out yet another expedition to
search the neighbourhood of the Great Fish River. In response to this
appeal, Mr James Anderson, chief factor of the Company, was detailed
for the service, but, as he did not succeed in discovering any
valuable clues, his journey need not detain us here.
After this failure the Government was indisposed to take any
further steps in the matter, arguing—and it is not to be denied
that they had a certain amount of reason on their side—that it was
practically impossible that any member of the expedition should be
still alive, seeing that eleven years had elapsed since they left
England. Lady Franklin, however, was by no means disposed to let
matters rest here, so, with the help of a number of friends, she
fitted out the _Fox_, a steam yacht of 157 tons, and placed it under
Commander M’Clintock, whose brilliant work in the Arctic Seas made
him peculiarly fitted for such a mission. Lieutenant W. R. Hobson
joined as second in command, Captain Allen Young consented to act as
sailing-master, while many other members of the company had already
seen Arctic service, among them being Dr Walker and Carl Petersen,
the interpreter.
Fully provisioned for twenty-eight months, the _Fox_ set sail from
Aberdeen on July 1, 1857. M’Clintock found the ice in Melville Bay
in a far from satisfactory condition, but, being determined to run
any risks rather than linger on the journey, he entered the pack and
attempted to make Lancaster Sound. For three weeks or so he pushed on
in the face of great difficulties, but it soon became evident that he
was not destined to cross the bay that year, and before the middle of
September the _Fox_ was firmly frozen into the pack with no prospect
of release until the following spring.
After a somewhat exciting winter, during the course of which the
voyage of the yacht was, on more than one occasion, nearly brought to
an untimely end, she was at last released, and, after putting into
Holsteinberg Bay for repairs, she made her second attempt to cross
Melville Bay. On this occasion fate was kinder to her, and, on August
6, she steamed up Lancaster Sound, anchoring off Beechey Island on
the 11th. Here M’Clintock landed a handsome tombstone sent out by
Lady Franklin in memory of her husband and his companions, which was
placed close to the monument erected to the memory of Bellot and
those who had died on the previous search expeditions.
Peel Sound proved impracticable, so M’Clintock determined to make
for Bellot Strait, through which no ship had yet sailed, and the
very existence of which was disputed by many. All doubts upon the
latter point were soon set at rest, but the violent currents which
raced through the strait, bearing with them vast masses of ice that
threatened the ship with instant destruction whenever she attempted
to force a passage through, made it impossible for M’Clintock to
reach the western ocean, and, after several gallant attempts, he was
obliged to resign himself to the inevitable, and to make preparations
for spending the winter in an indentation on the north side of the
strait, which he named Port Kennedy.
The winter passed without misadventure, and on February 17 M’Clintock
set out on a preliminary expedition, with a view to gleaning
such information as he could from the Boothian natives. To his
disappointment the coast seemed completely deserted, and he was
thinking of turning back when he came upon four Eskimos, members
of a tribe which was established in a snow village not far off.
From these men he obtained some tidings of the fate of the missing
explorers, though they could not add very much to what he already
knew. A number of white men, they said, had been starved to death on
an island near a river. None of them had seen the men, but both they
and their friends had articles in their possession which had once
belonged to the whites. Having engaged these natives to build him a
snow-hut for the munificent remuneration of a needle apiece, he sent
them back to tell their friends that he was willing to purchase any
relics that they possessed at a good price. On the following day the
whole community, from the oldest man to the youngest baby, put in an
appearance, bringing with them numbers of spoons, forks, buttons, and
knives, which M’Clintock immediately acquired. He then set out on the
return journey to the ship, reaching Port Kennedy on March 14. During
his absence of twenty-five days he had covered about four hundred and
twenty miles, and had completed the discovery of the coast-line of
continental America.
Immediately after his return he despatched Young, who had been
depositing a store of provisions on Prince of Wales’ Land, on a
trip to Fury Beach, with instructions to bring back a supply of
sugar from the stores left there by Parry. He found an immense stock
of provisions of all kinds, most of them in a marvellous state of
preservation. In addition to 1200 lbs. of sugar, he brought back a
couple of tins of “carrots plain” and “carrots with gravy,” which had
lain on the shore for thirty-four years and were still in excellent
condition.
By the beginning of April everything was in readiness for the
extended sledge journeys. M’Clintock arranged that the operations
should be conducted by three different parties, led by himself,
Hobson, and Young. Each party was to consist of four men drawing one
sledge and six dogs drawing the second sledge, besides the officer
in charge and the dog-driver. He was, of course, a past master of
the art of arranging sledging expeditions, and so carefully had he
disposed his depots of provisions, and so skilfully had he adjusted
the travelling equipment of the parties, that he expected that each
of them would be able to absent itself from the ship for seventy or
eighty days without any difficulty whatever.
M’Clintock and Hobson started off on their journeys on April 2. For a
while their routes coincided, and, by hoisting their tents as sails,
and so taking advantage of a favourable breeze, they made excellent
progress. It was not until they were well on their way down the coast
of Boothia that they fell in with natives, and from these they learnt
that two ships had been seen some years before off King William Land.
One of them had sunk in deep water, but the other had been forced
ashore by the ice, where she was still supposed to remain, though
much broken. It was from the latter ship, according to their story,
that they had obtained most of their wood.
On April 28 they reached Cape Victoria, on the south-west Coast of
Boothia Felix. Here they were to separate, and all credit must be
given to M’Clintock for his generosity to his junior officer. Though
he knew that, if relics were to be found at all, it would be on the
west coast of King William Land, he sent off Hobson to explore that
district, reserving the far less promising east coast for himself.
Hobson’s instructions were to cross to Cape Felix, the most northern
point of King William Land, and then to search the whole of the
west coast for the missing ship or any relics or records that might
be deposited there. Should his search prove unsuccessful, he was
to cross to Victoria Land, and to complete the exploration of that
coast from Collinson’s farthest point. In the meanwhile, M’Clintock
himself meant to push southward down the east coast of King William’s
Land in the direction of the Great Fish River.
The results were exactly as we have indicated. M’Clintock examined
the whole of the east coast and the estuary of the Great Fish River
with the utmost care, but, with the exception of an occasional relic
obtained from the natives, his search was fruitless. He accordingly
crossed the strait on May 24, and proceeded to link up his own
explorations with those of Hobson. On the following day his patience
was at last rewarded, for, while slowly walking along a gravel ridge
near the beach, which the winds kept unusually bare of snow, he came
upon a skeleton partly exposed. From the clothing that lay near by
he gathered that the victim must have been a steward or officer’s
servant, who, selecting the bare ridge-top as affording less tiresome
walking, had fallen on his face in the position in which his skeleton
was found. It may here be said that an old woman with whom M’Clintock
communicated on his outward journey had told him that the unfortunate
explorers had “fallen down and died as they walked along.” Of the
melancholy truth of her words this discovery afforded a terrible
confirmation.
At Cape Herschel M’Clintock found the cairn erected by Simpson, and
this he demolished in the hope that the missing explorers might have
left some record there, but he found nothing. Twelve miles further
on he learnt that that for which he had been searching so diligently
had been discovered, for he came upon a second cairn of more recent
construction—the cairn which marked the end of Hobson’s brilliantly
successful journey. In penetrating thus far Hobson had passed the
point at which the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ had been abandoned, and
had found the first, and, indeed, the only important record of the
journey which it fell to the lot of a white man to discover.
The record, which was enclosed in a tin box and found beside a
tumbled cairn, was brief enough, but it contained the whole history
of the ill-fated expedition. It consisted merely of one of those
printed Government forms which were supplied to all discovery
ships. These forms were intended to be filled up with intimations
of discoveries, accident or distress, and then to be enclosed in a
bottle and thrown into the sea or else buried under a cairn. A note
at the head, written in several different languages, requested the
finder to forward the paper to the Secretary of the Admiralty, or,
if more convenient, to hand it over to the nearest British consul,
with an intimation concerning the time and place at which it had been
found. It was on one of these that Franklin’s officers had made their
last communication to the world. The contents of the document ran as
follows:—
“H.M. ships _Erebus_ and _Terror_,
Wintered in the ice in lat. 70° 5´ N., long. 98° 23´ W.
28th of May 1847.
Having wintered in 1846-7 at Beechey Island in lat. 74° 43´ 28´´ N.,
long. 91° 39´ 5´´ W., after having ascended Wellington Channel to
lat. 77°, and returned by the west side of Cornwallis Island.
Sir John Franklin commanding the expedition.
All well.
[Illustration: THE FRANKLIN RECORD]
Party, consisting of 2 officers and 6 men, left the ships on
Monday, 24th May 1847.
GM. GORE, Lieut.
CHAS. F. DES VŒUX, Mate.”
The following notes were written round the margin:—
“April 25th, 1848.—H.M. ships _Erebus_ and _Terror_ were deserted
on the 22nd April, 5 leagues N.N.W. of this, having been beset
since 12th September 1846. The officers and crews, consisting of
105 souls, under the command of F.R.M. Crozier, landed here in lat.
69° 37´ 42´´ N., long. 98° 41´ W. Sir John Franklin died on 11th
June 1847; and the total loss by death in the expedition has been,
to this date, 9 officers and 15 men.
(Signed)
F. R. M. CROZIER,
Captain and Senior Officer.
(Signed)
JAMES FITZJAMES,
Capt. H.M.S. _Erebus_.
And start on to-morrow, 26th,
for Back’s Fish River.”
“This paper was found by Lieutenant Irving under the cairn supposed
to have been built by Sir James Ross in 1831, four miles to the
northward, where it had been deposited by the late Commander Gore in
June 1847. Sir James Ross’s pillar has not, however, been found; and
the paper has been transferred to this position, which is that in
which Sir James Ross’s pillar was erected.”
From this paper it will be seen that Franklin had made the most
remarkable voyage ever recorded in the annals of Arctic exploration.
After being sighted in Baffin’s Bay on July 26, 1845, he had sailed
through Lancaster Sound and Barrow Strait, and up Wellington Channel
as far as 77° N. He had then returned to the mouth of the channel via
the west coast of Cornwallis Island, and had wintered off Beechey
Island in 1845-46 (the date given in the paper is obviously wrong).
As soon as he was released he had attempted to make his way south
to the American coast, but had been caught in the pack, never again
to be released. The winter of 1846-47 was passed at a point about
fifteen miles north-west of Cape Felix, the most northerly point
of King William Island; and in the spring, when all on board were
reported to be well, two officers and six men started off on an
expedition, the direction and purpose of which are not stated. A
fortnight later death spared Franklin the pain of knowing that his
party could never again reach home, and of seeing his men dying of
cold and starvation, one by one, before his eyes. The summer brought
no prospects of escape, and during the following winter the two ships
drifted southward with the ice for a distance of about thirty miles.
As early in the spring as the conditions permitted, all the survivors
left the ship in an effort to win their way back to civilisation, but
not a single one of them succeeded in accomplishing his task. “So
sad a tale,” says M’Clintock, “was never told in fewer words. There
is something deeply touching in their extreme simplicity, and they
show in the strongest manner that both the leaders of this retreating
party were actuated by the loftiest sense of duty, and met with
calmness and decision the fearful alternative of a last bold struggle
for life, rather than perish without effort on board their ships.”
Before reaching the _Fox_ M’Clintock was destined to find yet more
grim evidence to the fate of the unfortunate explorers. After
rounding Cape Crozier, the westernmost point of King William Island,
the desolation of which was absolutely beyond description, he came
upon a boat which had formed part of the Franklin expedition, and
in which lay two skeletons. Hobson had previously discovered the
boat, and had left in it a note for his commander to the effect that
the most careful search had failed to reveal any journal or other
memoranda such as might fill in the details of the story of which
they already knew the terrible outline. M’Clintock instantly set
about another examination of the boat and its surroundings, in the
hope that he might come upon something that had escaped the eyes of
his junior officer, but he was unrewarded. The boat itself he found
to be of a light build such as would be suitable for the ascent of
the Great Fish River, and fitted with sails, a sloping canvas roof,
an ice-grapnell and a deep-sea sounding-line, which was probably
intended for river work as a track-line. She was, however, mounted
on so heavy a sledge that seven men in the best of health would have
found dragging her over the ice no easy task.
In this boat lay two skeletons, one of them huddled up in the bows,
and the other across the afterthwart. Beside them were five watches,
two guns, and a number of books, for the most part devotional, but,
search as they would, M’Clintock and his men could find no trace of
a pocket-book or journal, nor even a scrap of clothing marked with
a name which might reveal the identity of the two victims. Pieces
of plate and an extraordinary variety of miscellaneous articles,
ranging from two rolls of sheet-lead to tacks, were scattered about
in the boat, and these M’Clintock describes as “a mere accumulation
of dead weight, of little use, and very likely to break down the
strength of the sledge-crews. The only provisions we could find,”
he continues, “were tea and chocolate. Of the former, very little
remained, but there were nearly forty pounds of the latter. These
articles alone could never support life in such a climate, and we
found neither biscuit nor meat of any kind.”
From the direction in which the boat’s head was pointing, and from
its contents, M’Clintock concluded that the party attached to it had
started out for the Great Fish River, but, finding themselves too
utterly worn out to proceed far, had turned back intending to make
their way to the ship. Unable to drag the boat any further, they had
left it where it was found by the explorers, meaning to bring back
food to their two companions who had been obliged, through weakness,
to remain behind. The fact that five watches were left in the boat
points to the conclusion that they had not thought of abandoning
it finally. Overcome by cold and fatigue, however, they must have
perished on the way.
After leaving the boat, M’Clintock pushed on his way with all
possible dispatch, searching for traces of the wrecked ship as he
went, but without success. He reached Point Victory on June 2, and
there he found a note from Hobson, telling him that he had met with
no better fortune in the execution of this part of his mission, but
that he had found a duplicate of the record which we have already
described. M’Clintock spent some little time in examining the cairn
under which the paper had been discovered, and found strewn about
it a vast variety of such miscellaneous articles as cooking-stoves,
pickaxes, shovels, four feet of a copper lightning conductor, long
pieces of brass curtain rods, a medicine chest, and some scientific
instruments. There was also a pile of clothing four feet high, of
which every article was searched. The pockets, however, were all
empty, and not a single piece of the clothing was marked with its
owner’s name. “These abandoned superfluities,” M’Clintock writes,
“afford the saddest and most convincing proof that here—on this
spot—our doomed and scurvy-stricken countrymen calmly prepared
themselves to struggle manfully for life.”
There was now nothing left for M’Clintock but to return to the _Fox_,
and this he accordingly did with all possible speed, reaching Bellot
Strait on June 18. On the return journey he learned from a note left
at one of the depots that Hobson had been taken seriously ill, and
had grown so feeble that it had been found necessary to place him on
one of the sledges. To his great relief he heard, on reaching the
ship, that the scurvy from which his junior was suffering had already
yielded to treatment, and that he was on the high road to recovery.
With the principal fruits of Hobson’s journey we have already
dealt, and the rest may be dismissed in a few words. After leaving
M’Clintock at Cape Victoria, he crossed James Ross Strait without any
difficulty, and immediately turned westward round Cape Felix. Here
he came upon the first signs of the Franklin expedition, in the shape
of “a large cairn, close beside which were three small tents, with
blankets, old clothes, and other vestiges of a shooting or magnetic
station. But,” says M’Clintock, “although the cairn was dug under and
a trench dug all round it to a distance of ten feet, no record was
discovered.... Two miles farther to the south-west a small cairn was
found, but neither record nor relics; and about three miles to the
north of Point Victory a third cairn was examined, but only a broken
pickaxe and empty canister found.” These with, of course, the boat
and the famous record, completed the list of Hobson’s discoveries.
In the meanwhile Young had been very far from idle. It had been his
mission to explore Peel, or, as it was afterwards called, Franklin
Strait and Prince of Wales Island, and he had accomplished his task
in the face of great difficulties. In the first place, gales were
almost incessant, and it was no easy matter to make any headway at
all against them; in the second place, he was disgusted to find that
a channel existed between Prince of Wales Land and Victoria Land,
and that his field of discovery would, in consequence, be widened,
and his search lengthened. Accordingly, with a view to having as few
mouths to feed as possible, he sent back most of his men and dogs to
the ship, and tramped on accompanied only by a young man-of-war’s man
named George Hobday. For forty days they pushed forward till Young
became so ill through cold and exposure that he was obliged to return
to Port Kennedy, which he reached on June 7. His spirit, however,
was quite indomitable, and, in spite of the protests of the doctor,
he was off again on a fresh journey three days later. In all, he was
away from the ship for seventy-eight days, during the course of which
he explored no fewer than 380 miles of new coast-line. This, with the
420 miles explored by M’Clintock and Hobson, makes the splendid total
of 800 miles, a record of which the expedition had good reason to be
proud.
M’Clintock now determined to make the best of his way home as soon as
the thaw should release him. Steam was got up on August 6, in order
that the opportunity might be seized when it arrived, which desirable
event took place three days later. The death of his engineer had left
M’Clintock very short handed, and he himself stood at the engines
for twenty-four consecutive hours. Though held up occasionally by
the ice, the return journey passed without any misadventure, and the
_Fox_ reached the English Channel on September 20.
It may here be added that in 1875 Captain Young attempted to follow
the route opened up by Franklin and to reach Behring Strait via Peel
and Franklin Straits; an impenetrable ice-barrier in Peel Strait,
however, compelled him to turn back. In 1878-79, Lieutenant F.
Schwatka, of the United States Army, and Mr W. H. Gilder, in the
course of a brilliant journey, thoroughly explored the route over
which the men of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ were supposed to have
travelled on their way to the Great Fish River, but, though they
found many relics of the expedition, they could not discover a single
paper or document of any kind.