ROSS DISCOVERS THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE
The first attempt to discover the North-West Passage by means of steam
instead of sail was made by Captain Ross, who, since his expedition
in 1819, had been burning to set off again for the Arctic regions.
The reward of 20,000 pounds held out to the discoverer of a north-west
passage had been repealed, but an old friend, Felix Booth, decided
to finance Ross, the Government having refused. "After examining
various steamships advertised for sale," says Ross, "I purchased the
_Victory_, which had been once employed as a packet." With food and
fuel for one thousand days, and accompanied by his nephew, James Ross,
who had been with Parry on his recent Polar voyage, he left England
the end of May 1829, not to return for many a long year. Disasters
soon began. The _Victory_ began to leak, her engines were defective,
and there was nothing for it but to heave up her paddles and trust
to sail. Sailing to the northward, they found the sea smooth and the
weather so warm that they could dine without a fire and with the
skylights off. Entering Lancaster Sound, they sailed up Prince
Regent's Inlet. They soon discovered the spot where the _Fury_ had
been wrecked four years before and abandoned by Captain Parry with
whom was James Ross, who now found the stores which had been safely
hidden on that occasion. As they made their way up the inlet, strong
currents and vast masses of ice hard and solid as granite more than
once threatened them with destruction.
"Imagine," says Captain Ross, "these mountains hurled through a narrow
strait by a rapid tide, meeting with the noise of thunder, breaking
from each other's precipices huge fragments, till, losing their former
equilibrium, they fall over headlong, lifting the sea around in
breakers and whirling it in eddies."
Escaping these perils, Ross entered a fine harbour. Here he landed,
hoisted the colours, and took possession of the new land he had found,
and, drinking the King's health, called the land Boothia, after his
patron. For the next two months, August and September, he carefully
explored the coast of this newly discovered Boothia for some three
hundred miles, naming points and capes and islands after friends at
home and on board. Heavy squalls of snow and ever-thickening ice
pointed out the necessity of winter quarters, and 1st October found
the _Victory_ imprisoned by thick immovable ice. "The prison door was
shut upon us for the first time," says Ross sadly. "Nothing was to
be seen but one dazzling, monotonous extent of snow. It was indeed
a dull prospect. Amid all its brilliancy, this land of ice and snow
has ever been, and ever will be, a dull, dreary, heart-sinking,
monotonous waste, under the influence of which the very mind is
paralysed. Nothing moves and nothing changes, but all is for ever the
same--cheerless, cold, and still."
The explorers little thought that this was to be their home for the
next three years. They spent a fairly cheerful Christmas with mince
pies and "iced cherry brandy" taken from the stores of the _Fury_,
and early in 1830 the monotony was broken by the appearance of Eskimos.
These were tremendously dressed up in furs, a shapeless mass, and Ross
describes one as resembling "the figure of a globe standing on two
pins." They soon became friendly, taking the Englishmen to see their
snow huts, drawing them charts of Boothia Gulf beyond Felix Harbour,
while in exchange the explorers taught English to the little Eskimo
children and ministered to their ailments, the ship's carpenter even
making a wooden leg for one of the natives.
[Illustration: ROSS'S WINTER QUARTERS IN FELIX HARBOUR.]
[Illustration: THE FIRST COMMUNICATION WITH ESKIMOS AT BOOTHIA FELIX,
JANUARY 1830. SIR JOHN ROSS'S EXPEDITION TO THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE,
1829-1833. From drawings by Ross in his _Narrative of a Second Voyage
in Search of a North-West Passage_.]
So the long winter passed away. A few land journeys with sledges only
ended in disappointment, but at last the vessel was free of ice and
joyfully they hoisted her sails. But worse disappointment was in store.
She had sailed for three miles when they met a ridge of ice, and a
solid sea forbade any further advance. In vain did they try to saw
through the ice. November found the poor _Victory_ hopelessly icebound
and her crew doomed to another winter in the same region.
It was not till May that a journey across the land of Boothia to the
west coast was possible. Ross and his nephew had been calculating the
position of the North Magnetic Pole all the long winter, and with signs
of spring they set forth.
"Our journey had a very new appearance. The mother of two Eskimos led
the way with a staff in her hand, my sledge following with the dogs
and one of the children, guided by one of the wives with a child on
her back. After a native sledge came that of Commander Ross, followed
by more Eskimos. Many halts were made, as our burdens were heavy, the
snow deep, and the ice rough."
After a fortnight's travelling past the chain of great lakes--the
woman still guiding them--the Rosses, uncle and nephew, separated.
James Ross now made for the spot where the Magnetic Pole was supposed
to be. His own account shows with what enthusiasm he found it. "We
were now within fourteen miles of the calculated position of the
Magnetic Pole and now commenced a rapid march, and, persevering with
all our might, we reached the calculated place at eight in the morning
of the 1st of June. I must leave it to others to imagine the elation
of mind with which we found ourselves now at length arrived at this
great object of our ambition. It almost seemed as if we had accomplished
everything that we had come so far to see and to do; as if our voyage
and all its labours were at an end, and that nothing remained for us
but to return home and be happy for the rest of our days. Amid mutual
congratulation we fixed the British flag on the spot and took
possession of the North Magnetic Pole and its adjoining territory in
the name of Great Britain and King William IV. We had plenty of
materials for building, and we therefore erected a cairn of some
magnitude under which we buried a canister containing a record of the
interesting fact." Another fortnight found the successful explorers
staggering back to the _Victory_ with their great news, after an
absence of twenty-eight days.
Science has shown that the Magnetic Pole revolves, and that Ross's
cairn will not again mark its exact position for many a long year to
come.
[Illustration: THE ROSSES ON THEIR JOURNEY TO THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE.
From a drawing in Ross's _Second Voyage for a North-West Passage_,
1835.]
By the end of August the ice had broken and the _Victory_ was once
more in full sail, but gales of wind drove her into harbour, which
she never left again. Despite their colossal efforts, it soon became
apparent that yet another winter would have to be passed in the frozen
seas. The entries in Ross's journal become shorter and more despondent
day by day. "The sight of ice to us is a plague, a vexation, a torment,
an evil, a matter of despair. Could we have skated, it would not have
been an amusement; we had exercise enough and, worst of all, the ice
which surrounds us obstructed us, imprisoned us, annoyed us in every
possible manner, had become odious to our sight." By October there
was no open water to be seen; "the hopeful did not hope more, and the
despondent continued to despair."
This was their third winter in the ice--food was growing scarce, the
meat was so hard frozen that it had to be cut with a saw or thawed
in warm cocoa. Snow-blindness afflicted many of the men badly. At last
came the summer of 1833, but the _Victory_ was still fast in her winter
quarters, and all attempts to release her had failed. They now decided
to abandon her and to drag their boats over the ice to the wreck of
the _Fury_, replenishing their stores and trusting to some whaler to
take them home. We get a pathetic picture. "The colours were hoisted,"
says Ross, "and nailed to the mast, we drank a parting glass to our
poor old ship, and, having seen every man out, I took my own adieu
of the _Victory_ in the evening. She had deserved a better fate. It
was like parting with an old friend."
On 23rd April the weary explorers began dragging their boats and the
last month's provisions over the ice in the face of wind and snow.
The journey was painful and distressing. They found Barrow's Strait
full of impenetrable ice, and resolved to pass the winter on Fury beach,
which seemed almost like home to the half-starved men. Erecting a house
which they called "Somerset House," they prepared for a fourth winter.
For severity it was unequalled, the crew developed scurvy, and all
were suffering sorely when, in the following August, the unfortunate
party was rescued by the whaler, "_Isabella_ of Hull, once commanded
by Captain Ross." It was the ship in which Ross had made his first
Arctic exploration. At first the mate refused to believe the story
of these "bear-like" men. The explorers and Ross had been lost these
two years. But, almost frantic with delight, the explorers climbed
on board the _Isabella_ to be received with the heartiest of cheers
when their identity was disclosed. "That we were a repulsive-looking
people, none could doubt," says poor Ross, "unshaven since I know not
when, dirty, dressed in rags of wild beasts, and starved to the very
bones, our gaunt and grim looks, when contrasted with those of the
well-dressed and well-fed men around us, made us all feel what we really
were, as well as what we seemed to others." Then followed a wild scene
of "washing, dressing, shaving, eating, all intermingled," while in
the midst of all there were questions to be asked and the news from
England to be heard. Long accustomed to a cold bed on the hard snow
or the bare rock, few of them could sleep that night in the comfort
of the new accommodation.
They were soon safely back in England, large crowds collecting to get
a glimpse of Captain Ross. His own words best end the account of his
travels. "On my arrival in London," he says, "on the 20th of October
1883, it became my first duty to repair to the royal palace at Windsor,
with an account of my voyage, and to lay at the feet of His Majesty
the British flag which had been hoisted on the Magnetic Pole."
[Illustration: "SOMERSET HOUSE," ROSS'S WINTER QUARTERS ON FURY BEACH.
From a drawing in Ross's _Second Voyage for a North-West Passage_,
1835.]