England for the northwest passage, whether in its wealth of venturesome
daring, in its development of the greatest maritime nation of the world,
or in its material contributions to the wealth of the nations. Through
three and a half centuries the British Government never lost sight of
it, from the voyage of Sebastian Cabot, in 1498, to the completion of
the discovery by Franklin in 1846-7. It became a part of the maritime
life of England when Sir Martin Frobisher brought to bear on the search
"all the most eminent interests of England--political and aristocratic,
scientific and commercial." To the search are due the fur-trade of
Hudson Bay, the discovery of continental America, the cod-fishery of
Newfoundland, and the whale-fishery of Baffin Bay. For the discovery of
the northwest passage various parliaments offered a reward of twenty
thousand pounds sterling.
An enterprise that so vitally affected the maritime policy of England,
and in which the historic explorer, Henry Hudson, and the great
navigator, James Cook, met their deaths, involved many heroic
adventures, among which none has engaged more attention than the fateful
voyage of Sir John Franklin and his men, by which the problem was
solved.
[Illustration: Franklin's route on the northwest passage.]
* * * * *
Among the many notable and interesting paintings in the Tate Gallery,
one of the famous collections of pictures in London, is one by Sir John
Millais, entitled "The Northwest Passage." A young girl is reading tales
of arctic travel and of bold adventure to her listening father, whose
tightly closed right hand she affectionately fondles as the thrilling
story reaches its climax. On the table is an outspread map of North
America, consulted often by the attentive readers, whereon blank spaces
denote regions as yet unknown to man. The tale done, the old, grizzled,
weather-beaten sailor, whose clinched hands and fixed eyes betray his
strong emotion, cries out: "It can be done, and England should do it!"
Few pictures, in title and in subject, have more forcibly portrayed that
pride of achievement which is the glory of Britain.
The tale of the northwest passage in its last phase of discovery cannot
anywhere be found in a distinct and connected form. As a record of man's
heroic endeavor and of successful accomplishment at the cost of life
itself, it should be retold from time to time. For it vividly
illustrates an eagerness for adventurous daring for honor's sake that
seems to be growing rarer and rarer under the influences of a luxurious
and materialistic century.
When in 1845 the British Government decided to send out an expedition
for the northwest passage, all thoughts turned to Franklin. Notable
among the naval giants of his day through deeds done at sea and on land,
in battle and on civic duty, he was an honored type of the brave and
able captains of the royal navy. Following the glorious day of Trafalgar
came six years of arctic service--whose arduous demands appear in the
sketch, "Crossing the Barren Grounds"--followed by seven years of duty
as governor of Tasmania. But these exacting duties had not tamed the
adventurous spirit of this heroic Englishman. Deeming it a high honor,
he would not ask for the command of this squadron, for the expedition
was a notable public enterprise whereon England should send its ablest
commander.
When tendered the command the public awaited eagerly for his reply.
He was in his sixtieth year, and through forty-one degrees of
longitude--from 107 deg. W. to 148 deg. W.--he had traced the coast of North
America, thus outlining far the greater extent of the passage. But his
arctic work had been done under such conditions of hardship and at such
eminent peril of life as would have deterred most men from ever again
accepting such hazardous duty save under imperative orders.
Franklin's manly character stood forth in his answer: "No service is
dearer to my heart than the completion of the survey of the northern
coast of North America and the accomplishment of the northwest passage."
Going with him on this dangerous duty were other heroic souls, officers
and men, old in polar service, defiantly familiar with its perils and
scornful of its hardships. Among these were Crozier and Gore, who, the
first in five and the last in two voyages, had sailed into both the
ice-packs of northern seas and among the wondrous ice islands of the
antarctic world.
Sailing May 26, 1845, with one hundred and twenty-nine souls in the
_Erebus_ and the _Terror_, Franklin's ships were last seen by Captain
Dennett, of the whaler _Prince of Wales_, on July 26, 1845. Then moored
to an iceberg, they awaited an opening in the middle pack through which
to cross Baffin Bay and enter Lancaster Sound.
Franklin's orders directed that from Cape Walker, Barrow Strait, he
should "endeavor to penetrate to the southward and to the westward, in a
course as direct to Bering Strait as the position and extent of the ice,
or the existence of the land at present unknown, may admit."
His progress to the west being barred by heavy ice, he sailed up the
open channel to the west of Cornwallis Land, reaching 77 deg. N., the
nearest approach to the north pole in the western hemisphere that had
been reached in three centuries, and exceeded alone by Baffin in 1616,
who sailed forty-five miles nearer. Returning to the southward, the
squadron went into winter quarters at Beechey Island, 74 deg. 42' N., 91 deg.
32' W.
Knowing the virtue of labor, the captain set up an observatory on shore,
built a workshop for sledge-making and for repairs, and surely must have
tested the strength and spirit of his crews by journeys of exploration
to the north and to the east. It is more than probable that the energy
and experiences of this master of arctic exploration sent the flag of
England far to the north of Wellington Channel.
Affairs looked dark the next spring, for three of the men had died,
while the main floe of the straits was holding fast later than usual. As
summer came on care was given to the making of a little garden, while
the seaman's sense of order was seen in the decorative garden border
made of scores of empty meat-cans in lieu of more fitting material.
They had built a canvas-covered stone hut, made wind-proof by having its
cracks calked, sailor-fashion, by bunches of long, reddish mosses. This
was the sleeping or rest room of the magnetic and other scientific
observers, who cooked their simple meals in a stone fireplace built to
the leeward of the main hut. Here with hunter's skill were roasted and
served the sweet-meated arctic grouse savored with wild sorrel and
scurvy grass from the near-by ravines.[2]
Looking with eager eyes for all things new, as must those who sailed
with Franklin, they saw strange sights--unknown forms of nature
to non-arctic sailors. In the days of melting snow, during the
quick-coming, swift-flying polar spring, among all things white and
colorless, they must have been struck by the high colors of the many
little fresh-water pools whose vivid greens and brilliant reds catch and
please an eye wearied and dulled by the sombre arctic landscape. Around
the edge of these tiny ponds form thick coatings of bright-green,
thread-like algae (fresh-water plants somewhat like kelp or sea-weed).
The stones at the bottom of the centre of the pools were incrusted by
the red snow plant whose rich colors gave a sense of life to the near-by
shallows.
In such haste Franklin put to sea that the customary rule was not
observed of building a cairn in a prominent place and of placing
therein a record of operations to date. Doubtless the sea opened
suddenly by one of those offshore winds which bring ice-free water as by
magic. But they must have left the land for the open sea with the free
joy of the sailor, not knowing that fate had been kinder to the three
comrades who rested under the arctic sky in the quiet island graves than
to those who with brave hearts and high hopes sailed ever onward and
onward.
Soon Franklin sighted Cape Walker, whence he should sail to the west and
south as conditions of the land and the ice might permit. From the
record recovered from the cairn at Point Victory, he seems to have been
forced to go south through Peel Sound into Franklin Strait, where we
know that both the flag-ship _Erebus_ and the _Terror_ were beset in the
floe-ice of the open sea and were frozen up in the winter pack twelve
miles north-northwest of King William Land. This besetment, on September
12, 1846, must have been a grievous blow to Franklin, who was now
practically assured of the existence of the northwest passage along the
continental coast of North America. He was directly to the north of and
only eighty-four miles distant from Cape Herschel, King William Land,
which in 1839 had been discovered and visited by that successful
explorer, Thomas Simpson, one of the most active of the many energetic
agents of the Hudson Bay Company.
The polar winter, tedious and dreary at any time, must have been of
fearful and almost unendurable length to those eager, ambitious men
who, helpless and idle in their ice-held ships, knew that they had
substantially finished the search which for two hundred and forty-nine
years had engaged the heart and hand of the best of the marine talent of
England. The winter passed, oh! how slowly, but it ended, and with the
welcome sun and warmer air of coming spring there was a cheerful sense
of thankfulness that death had passed by and left their circle unbroken
and that "all were well."[3]
A man of Franklin's type did not let the squadron remain idle, and it is
certain that the shores of Victoria and Boothia Peninsula were explored
and the magnetic pole visited and definitely relocated.
The only sledge-party of which there exists a record is that which left
the ships on May 24, 1847, consisting of Lieutenant Graham Gore, Mate
Des Voeux, and six men. Its small crew, led by a junior officer,
indicates that its objects were subordinate to those pursued by other
parties. Most probably it was a hunting-party in pursuit of the game of
King William Land, which now was a matter of grave urgency to Franklin.
The excessive number of empty meat-cans at Beechey Island is believed to
be due to the inferior character of the meat which led to much being
condemned. The large number of deaths which quite immediately followed
Gore's journey may well have been associated with the coming of scurvy
from malnutrition.
At all events, Gore reached Point Victory, King William Land, on May 28,
and there built a cairn and deposited the one of the two only records of
Franklin's squadron of any kind that have been found.[4] It set forth
Franklin's discoveries around Cornwallis Land, the wintering at Beechey
Island, and the besetment and wintering in the pack of the _Erebus_ and
_Terror_ in 70 deg. 05' N., 98 deg. 23' W. It ended with the encouraging
statement that all were well and Sir John Franklin in command.
From the Crozier record, to be mentioned later, it is known that evil
days followed immediately the favorable conditions set forth by Gore.
Sir John Franklin was spared the agony of watching his men and officers
perish one by one of exhaustion and starvation, for the record tells us
that he died on the ice-beset _Erebus_, June 11, 1847, fourteen days
after the erection of the Point Victory cairn. Death was now busy with
the squadron, and within the next eleven months seven officers,
including Gore, and twelve seamen perished, probably from scurvy.
Franklin's last days must have been made happy by the certainty that his
labors had not been in vain, since it was clearly evident that he had
practically finished the two labors dearest to his heart--"the
completion of the survey of the northern coasts of North America and
the accomplishment of the northwest passage." The drift of the ships to
the southwest with the main pack carried them to within sixty-five miles
of Cape Herschel, and the chart taken by Franklin showed a distance of
only fifty-five miles of unknown lands to connect the discoveries of
Ross with those of Dease and Simpson. Doubtless the evidence of the
drift had been supplemented by an exact survey of the coast by sledge.
It is incredible to assume that the energetic Franklin allowed his men
to remain inert for eight months within a score of miles of unknown
lands.
The ice holding the ships fast until the spring of 1848, it was
necessary for Captain F. R. M. Crozier, now in command, to abandon them,
as they were provisioned only until July. It was evident that the only
chance of life was to reach the Hudson Bay posts, via Back (Great Fish)
River, two hundred and fifty miles distant. While it would not be
possible to haul enough food for the whole party, they had good reasons
to believe that they could live in part on the country. Simpson had
reported large game as plentiful along the south coast of the island,
while Back spoke of thousands of fish at the river's mouth.
Arrangements for the retreat were made by landing on April 22, 1848, on
King William Land abundant supplies of bedding, tentage, provisions,
clothing, ammunition, etc., and a large camp was there established.
Sledges were strengthened and boats fitted thereon with which to ascend
Back River and if necessary to cross Simpson Strait. Great haste was
made, for they were ready to start south on April 25, 1848, on which
date the record of Gore was supplemented by another signed by Crozier
and his second in command, Captain James Fitzjames. It recorded that
Gore had returned to the _Erebus_ from his sledge journey in June, 1847,
and was now dead, as well as twenty others. It added: "Sir John Franklin
died on the 11th of June, 1847. The officers and crew, consisting of 105
souls, ... start on to-morrow, 26th, for Back's Fish River."[5]
Struggling south along the west coast of King William Land, their
progress was slow owing to illness, impaired strength, and their very
heavy, unsuitable field equipment. Doubtless some one fell out of the
sledge-traces daily, and doubtless, with the spirit of heroic Britons,
they acclaimed with cheers their final success when they had dragged
their heavy boat to the north side of Simpson Strait and thus actually
filled in the last gap in the northwest passage.
Their provisions ran low and Lieutenant John Irving went back to the
ship for other supplies, but his heroic zeal was superior to his
strength. He was buried on the beach in full uniform, encased in a
canvas shroud.[6] Of his party one at least reached the ship, and died
on board of the _Erebus_ or _Terror_, which, according to the reports of
the Eskimos, sank later off the west coast of Adelaide Peninsula. Two
others of this detachment evidently endeavored to rejoin the main part,
but died in an abandoned boat. With hope and patience they waited for
the coming of game that would save their lives, and alongside their
skeletons thirty years later were found, standing, their muskets loaded
and cocked for instant use.
Graves and skeletons, boats and tents, clothing and camp-gear silently
tell the tragic tale of that awful march, which has been traced from
Point Victory to Montreal Island through the heroic researches of Hobson
and McClintock, of Hall, Schwatka, and Gilder.
No weaklings were they, but as true men they strove with courage and
energy to the very end. At least one brave man died on the march, and
his skeleton lying on its face verified the truth of the terse tribute
of the Eskimo woman who said to McClintock: "They fell down and died as
they walked."
One boat's crew perished on the west coast of Adelaide Peninsula, and
another entered the mouth of Back River, to die one knows not how or
where. The skeleton found farthest to the south is, perchance, that of
the last survivor, possibly Surgeon Stanley of the _Erebus_, as "Mr
Stanley" was found carved on a stick found on Montreal Island in 1855.
Of the last survivor, MacGahan, in "Northern Lights," thus surmises:
"One sees this man all alone in that terrible world, gazing around him,
the sole living thing in that dark, frozen universe. There is no hope
for him--none. His clothing is covered with frozen snow, his face is
lean and haggard. He takes out his note-book and scrawls, a few lines,
as he has done every day. A drowsy torpor is crawling over his senses.
It will be sweet to sleep, untroubled by dreams of void and hunger.
Through a rift in the clouds glares a red flash of light, like an angry,
blood-shot eye. He turns and meets the sinister sunbeams with a steady
eye, in which a fiery gleam is reflected, as though bidding defiance. As
they glare at each other, this man and this spectre, the curtain is
drawn and all is dark."
This we know, that with loyalty and solidarity these heroic men kept
fast in their path of daily duty, facing unflinchingly cold and disease,
exhaustion and starvation, and, as has been truly said, they thus
"forged the last link of the northwest passage with their lives."
Rightly are the loftiest strains of the poet's songs invoked by
steadfast fortitude and by the spirit of high endeavor rather than by
physical acts of intrinsic value. So for more than a generation, as a
reminder of heroic worth, the students of Oxford University have year by
year turned into classic latin verse the memorial lines of the
poet-laureate. Avoiding mention of the northwest passage, Tennyson
raised to Franklin's "memory a monument more lasting than brass" when he
penned these enduring lines:
"Not here, not here. The White North has thy bones,
But thou, heroic sailor-soul,
Art sailing on a happier voyage,
Now toward no earthly pole."
FOOTNOTES:
[2] These details as to the life of the squadron are drawn from various
accounts of the hut, fireplace, pools, vegetation, bird-remains, and
other domestic refuse discovered by the officers and men under Ommaney
and Penny in August, 1850. Three graves with head-boards were found, but
no trace or scrap of record or journal of any kind. They were the first
traces discovered of Franklin's movements.
[3] The primary importance of concerted and co-operative action in
explorations covering such a broad field was strikingly illustrated by
the situation at this time. While Franklin and his men were facing
disaster and death in their ice-bound ships to the west of Boothia Felix
Land, that distinguished arctic traveller, John Rae, was exploring
Boothia Peninsula. On April 18, 1847, he was less than one hundred and
fifty miles from his sorely distressed countrymen.
[4] The full text of this record will be found in the sketch entitled
"The Devotion of Lady Jane Franklin."
[5] For full text, see sketch "The Heroic Devotion of Lady Jane
Franklin."
[6] Many of these details are from Gilder's "Schwatka's Search," a
remarkable expedition by these young Americans.
THE TIMELY SLEDGE JOURNEY OF BEDFORD PIM
"Huddled on deck, one-half that hardy crew
Lie shrunk and withered in the biting sky,
With filmy stare and lips of livid hue,
And sapless limbs that stiffen as they lie;
While the dire pest-scourge of the frozen zone
Rots through the vein and gnaws the knotted bone."
--BULWER.
For more than three centuries England made frequent and fruitless
attempts by sea and by land to discover the northwest passage, and in
1818 the British Parliament offered a reward of twenty thousand pounds
sterling for its passage by explorers. Although it is now known that the
ill-fated expedition under Sir John Franklin first discovered the
passage in 1846-7, the first persons to make the journey over a new and
more northerly route, between 1849 and 1853, were the crew of her
Majesty's ship _Investigator_, commanded by Captain Robert Le Mesurier
M'Clure, R.N.
It is a curious and notable fact that the making of the passage was, as
one may say, a matter of luck or of accident. There occurred in
connection with this journey a series of adventures that had marvellous
results, not only in the saving of the lives of the crew of the
_Investigator_, but also in raising them to the pinnacle of fame and
some of them to a state of fortune. M'Clure's ship was not sent forth
on a voyage of geographic exploration, but on a mission of mercy for the
discovery and relief of the Franklin arctic squadron which had been
missing since 1845. The Pacific searching squadron for this purpose,
commanded by Captain Robert Collinson, R.N., consisted of the two ships
_Enterprise_ and _Investigator_, which parted company in Magellan Strait
under orders to meet at Cape Lisburne, Bering Strait. Captain M'Clure
arrived first, and after a very brief delay pushed on without waiting
for his commander. The two ships never met again.
Discovering Banks Land, which the Eskimo called "The Land of the White
Bear," M'Clure followed Prince of Wales Strait to its northern entrance,
where he anchored his ship to a floe and wintered in the open pack in
default of a harbor. Retracing his course to the south the following
summer, he circumnavigated Banks Land under marvellous ice conditions of
great danger, escaping as by miracle, the _Investigator_ being so near
the sheer, precipitous crags of the west coast that her yards could
touch the cliffs, while to the seaward she was cradled in crashing,
uprearing floes which close to her bows were higher than the foreyard.
After reaching Banks Strait the ship grounded one night and M'Clure
unfortunately decided to winter there, in Mercy Bay, where she was
frozen in and abandoned two years later.
This sketch sets forth the desperate extremities to which M'Clure and
his crew were reduced, and describes the timely heroism of Lieutenant
Bedford Pim R.N., in making the sledge journey which wrought such
marvellous changes in the fate and fortunes of the ice-imprisoned men.
* * * * *
[Illustration: Route of Pim's sledge journey.]
On September 23, 1851, the _Investigator_ was frozen in for the winter
in the ice of Mercy Bay, on the north coast of Banks Land. It was her
second arctic winter, and the hardships inseparable from prolonged polar
service were soon felt. The crew were at once placed on two-thirds
allowance, a restricted diet that kept them always hungry. Soon they
felt the shadowy presence of the twin arctic evils, famine and cold,
which came with the forming ice and the advancing winter. Through the
open hatchways the down-flowing polar cold turned into hoar-frost the
moisture of the relatively warm air of the cabins and of the bunks.
Water froze in the glasses and frost particles welded into stiffness the
blankets, bedding, and hammocks of the seamen. Later even the ink froze
in the wells, while the exposed head of every metal bolt or nail was
covered with a glistening coat of ice.
Shoreward the outlook was as desolate as conditions were gloomy on
shipboard. For at first the ice-bound shores of Mercy Bay seemed utterly
barren of life in any form. But one day came with joy and thankfulness
the report that a sharp-eyed boatswain had seen several deer skirting
the snowy hill-tops to the southwestward.
Now all was activity and bustle, since this phase of useful effort had
come to increase their chance of life. Should they fail to release the
ship the coming summer, death by famine sorely threatened. So they
pursued the chase daily with the utmost energy and for a time with
marked success. Not only did the hunters meet with the timid deer and
the stolid musk-ox--their main reliance for meat--but here and there
they found the snowy polar hare, the cunning arctic fox, and too often,
alas! the ravenous wolf--the dreaded pirate of the north.
Regular hunting-parties were told off, consisting of the best shots and
most active men. To save long journeys to and from the ice-beset ship,
tents were erected at convenient places and stored with food and
needful conveniences. Owing to the usual darkness, the safe, sane rule
was laid down that no hunter should venture alone out of sight of either
tent or ship, of some member of a field party, or of a prominent
landmark.