PARRY’S BOAT AND SLEDGE EXPEDITION.
Parry’s Attempt at the Pole—Hecla Cove—Boat and Sledge
Expedition—Mode of Travelling—Their Camps—Laborious Efforts—Broken
Ice—Midnight Dinners and Afternoon Breakfasts—Labours of
Sisyphus—Drifting Ice—Highest Latitude Reached—Return Trip to the
Ship—Parry’s Subsequent Career—Wrangell’s Ice Journeys.
Undaunted by the comparative failure of his last voyage, we find Parry in
1826 proposing an attempt to reach the North Pole with sledge-boats over
the ice. The reports of several navigators who had visited Spitzbergen
agreed in one point—that the ice to the northward was of a nature
favourable to such a project. In the two narratives descriptive of Captain
Phipps’s expedition in 1773 the ice was mentioned as “flat and unbroken,”
“one continued plain,” and so forth. Scoresby the younger, speaking of the
ice in the same region, stated that he once saw a field so free from
fissure or hummock that he imagined, “had it been free from snow, a coach
might have been driven many leagues over it in a direct line without
obstruction or danger.” Franklin had previously mooted a very similar
proposition to that now made by Parry, and his plans were followed in many
essential particulars when the sanction of the Admiralty had been given to
the attempt. Two twenty-feet boats were specially constructed, nearly
resembling what were called “troop-boats,” having great flatness of floor,
with an even width almost to bows and stern. They were provided with
strong “runners,” shod with steel in the manner of a sledge, and their
construction generally was such as to combine lightness with strength. A
bamboo mast, a large sail—answering also for an awning—fourteen paddles, a
steer-oar, and a boat-hook, formed an essential part of the equipment of
each.
The _Hecla_ left the Nore April 4th, 1827, on this her fourth Arctic
voyage; and the expedition reached Hammerfest April 19th, where eight
reindeer(32) were taken on board, with a supply of moss for their
provender. A number of snow-shoes and “kamoogas” (leather shoes, intended
to be worn with the former) were also obtained. On May 14th the _Hecla_
reached Hakluyt’s Headland, where a severe gale was encountered, which
almost laid the ship on her beam-ends, and her canvas had to be reduced to
her maintop-sail and storm-sails. Shortly afterwards the vessel was driven
into a most perilous position, almost on to the packed ice. It was deemed
advisable to try the dangerous and almost last resort of running the ship
into the pack, and a tolerably open part of the margin having been found,
the ship was forced into it under all sail. The plan succeeded, and the
_Hecla_ was soon in a secure situation half a mile inside the ice-field,
with which she drifted vaguely about for many days. It was not till June
18th that a secure harbour for the vessel was found on the northern
Spitzbergen coast, which was named accordingly Hecla Cove.
Having made all necessary arrangements for the safety of the vessel, Parry
left the station on June 21st with the two boats, which were named the
_Enterprise_ and the _Endeavour_, Lieutenant (afterwards Sir) James Clarke
Ross having command of the second. Lieutenant Crozier accompanied the
boats to Low and Walden Islands, where depôts of provisions were made.
Provisions for seventy-one days were taken, which, including the boats and
all necessary gear, made up a weight of 260 lbs. per man. Four officers
and twenty-four men constituted the party. The boats made good progress
until stopped by the ice at noon on the 24th, when they were hauled upon a
small floe, the latitude by observation being 81° 12’ 51". The plan of
travelling on the ice was much as follows: Night—if the term can be used
at all in connection with the long Arctic summer day—was selected for
travelling, partly because the snow was harder, and they also avoided the
glare on its surface produced by the rays of the sun at its greatest
altitude, which is the immediate cause of snow blindness. Greater warmth
was enjoyed during the hours of rest, and it also gave them a better
chance of drying their clothes. “This travelling by night and sleeping by
day,” says Parry, “so completely inverted the natural order of things that
it was difficult to persuade ourselves of the reality. Even the officers
and myself, who were all furnished with pocket chronometers, could not
always bear in mind at what part of the twenty-four hours we had arrived;
and there were several of the men who declared—and I believe truly—that
they never knew night from day during the whole excursion.” The day was
always commenced by prayers, after which they took off their fur
sleeping-dresses, and put on those for travelling. Breakfast was rather a
light meal, consisting only of warm cocoa and biscuit. After stowing the
boats, &c., so as to secure them from wet, they usually travelled five to
five and a half hours, halted an hour for dinner, and then again travelled
four, five, or even six hours. After this they halted for the
“night,”—usually early in the morning—selecting the largest surface of ice
in the vicinity for hauling the boats on, in order to lessen the danger of
collision with other masses or from its breaking up. The boats were placed
close alongside each other, and the sails, supported by the bamboo masts
and three paddles, formed awnings over them. Supper over, the officers and
men smoked their pipes, usually raising the temperature of their lodging
10° or 15°; the men told their stories and “fought all their battles o’er
again, and the labours of the day, unsuccessful as they too often were,
were forgotten.” The day was concluded with prayer, after which they
retired for the night, a watch being set for bears or for the breaking up
of the ice. The cook roused them with a bugle call after seven hours’
rest, and the work of the day commenced as before. The dietary scale seems
to have been very light for such hard work in that severe climate—ten
ounces of biscuit, nine ounces of pemmican, and one ounce of sweetened
cocoa-powder, with one gill of rum per day each man. The fuel used
consisted exclusively of spirits of wine, the cocoa, or pemmican soup,
being cooked in an iron pot over a shallow lamp with seven wicks.
[Illustration: THE EDGE OF THE PACK.]
The journey commenced with very slow and laborious travelling, the pieces
of ice at the margin of the pack being of small extent and very rugged.
This obliged them to make three, and sometimes four, journeys with the
boats and baggage, and to launch frequently over narrow pools of water. In
other words, in making a distance of two miles they had to travel six or
eight, and their progress was very tedious. Fog and rain hindered them
somewhat, while the condition of much of the ice over which they passed
rendered their journey very fatiguing. Much of it “presented a very
curious appearance and structure, being composed, on its upper surface, of
numberless irregular, needle-like crystals, placed vertically and nearly
close together, their length varying, in different pieces of ice, from
five to ten inches.” A vertical section of it resembled satin-spar and
asbestos when falling to pieces. This kind of ice affords pretty firm
footing early in the season, but as the summer advances the needles become
loose and movable, rendering progress very difficult, besides cutting into
the boots and feet. The men called these ice-spikes “pen-knives.” This
peculiar formation of ice Parry attributed to the infiltration of
rain-water from above. The water was standing in pools on the ice, and
they had often to wade through it. On the 28th the party arrived at a floe
covered with high and rugged hummocks in successive tiers, and the boats
had to be dragged up and down places which were almost perpendicular.
While performing this laborious work, one of the men was nearly crushed by
a boat falling upon him from one of the hummocks. As an example of the
harassing nature of this service, we find them on the 29th, in making a
mile of northing by a circuitous route among the ice-masses and open
pools, travelling and re-travelling about _ten_ miles in order to keep the
party and supplies together. They tried for soundings, and found no bottom
at two hundred fathoms (1,200 feet); later, a four hundred fathom line
gave no bottom. On the 30th snowy and inclement weather rendered the
atmosphere so thick that they were obliged to halt; later in the same day
they made five miles by rowing in a very winding channel.
“As soon,” says Parry, “as we landed on a floe-piece, Lieutenant Ross and
myself generally went on ahead, while the boats were unloading and hauling
up, in order to select the easiest road for them. The sledges then
followed in our track, Messrs. Beverly and Bird accompanying them, by
which the snow was much trodden down, and the road thus improved for the
boats. As soon as we arrived at the other end of the floe, or came to any
difficult place, we mounted one of the highest hummocks of ice near at
hand (many of which were from fifteen to five-and-twenty feet above the
sea), in order to obtain a better view around us; and nothing could well
exceed the dreariness which such a view presented. The eye wearied itself
in vain to find an object but ice and sky to rest upon; and even the
latter was often hidden from our view by the dense and dismal fogs which
so generally prevailed. For want of variety, the most trifling
circumstances engaged a more than ordinary share of our attention—a
passing gull or a mass of ice of unusual form became objects which our
situation and circumstances magnified into ridiculous importance; and we
have since often smiled to remember the eager interest with which we
regarded many insignificant occurrences. It may well be imagined, then,
how cheering it was to turn from this scene of inanimate desolation to our
two little boats in the distance, to see the moving figures of our men
winding among the hummocks, and to hear once more the sound of human
voices breaking the stillness of this icy wilderness. In some cases
Lieutenant Ross and myself took separate routes to try the ground, which
kept us almost continually floundering among deep snow and water.” The
soft snow encountered was a great hindrance; on one occasion it took the
party two hours to make a distance of 150 yards! They had been deviating
from their night travelling, and were otherwise feeling the effects of it
in that inflammation of the eyes which ends in snow-blindness. The night
travelling was therefore resumed. On July 3rd their way at first lay
across a number of small loose pieces of ice, most of which were from five
to twenty yards apart, or just sufficiently separated to give them all the
trouble of launching and hauling up the boats _without_ the advantage of
making any progress by water. Sometimes the boats were used as a kind of
bridge, by which the men crossed from one mass to another. By this means
they at length reached a floe about a mile in length, on which the snow
lay to the depth of five inches or so, under which, again, there was about
the same depth of water. Parry says that snow-shoes would not have been of
the least service, as the surface was so irregular that the men would have
been thrown down at every other step. Among the hummocks noted at this
time were smooth, regular cones of ice, “resembling in shape the aromatic
pastiles sold by chemists; this roundness and regularity of form indicate
age, all the more recent ones being sharp and angular.”
Day after day they laboured on, with little variation in the circumstances
detailed above. The men worked with great cheerfulness and goodwill,
“being animated with the hope of soon reaching the more continuous body
which had been considered as composing the ‘main ice’ to the northward of
Spitzbergen,” which Captain Lutwidge had described as “one continued plain
of smooth, unbroken ice, bounded only by the horizon.”(33) They certainly
deserved to reach it, if it existed at all; but it is more than probable
that this apparently continuous level, mentioned by several navigators,
had been seen from an elevation, the “crow’s nest” on board ship, or some
hill ashore, and that a nearer inspection would have shown it to be full
of hummocks and breaks.
It is amusing to read of them _breakfasting_ at five p.m., _dining_ at
midnight, and _taking supper_ at six or seven o’clock in the morning! On
July 11th, having halted an hour at midnight for dinner, they were again
harassed by a heavy rainfall, but although drenched to the skin they made
better progress soon after, traversing twelve miles, and making seven and
a half in a northerly direction. They had now reached the latitude of 82°
11’ 51". Next day’s exertions only enabled them to make three and a half
miles of direct northing, and the following day but two and a half. Much
thin ice was encountered; it was often a nervous thing to see their whole
means of subsistence lying on a decayed sheet, with holes quite through
it, and which would have broken up with the slightest motion among the
surrounding masses. One day the ice on one side of a boat, heavy with
provisions and stores, gave way, almost upsetting her; a number of the men
jumped upon the ice and restored the balance temporarily. A rain-storm of
twenty-one hours’ duration is recorded on the 14th and 15th, which was, as
generally the case, succeeded by a thick wet fog. On the 16th the
narrative records “the unusual comfort of putting on dry stockings, and
the no less rare luxury of delightfully pleasant weather.” It was so warm
in the sun that the tar exuded from the seams of the boats. Even the
sea-water, though loaded with ice, had a temperature of 34°. At this time
the ice-floes were larger, though none are recorded over three miles in
length. On the 18th, after eleven hours’ actual labour, “requiring, for
the most part,” says Parry, “our whole strength to be exerted, we had
travelled over a space not exceeding four miles, of which only two were
made good in a NNW. direction.” The men, exhausted by their day’s work,
were treated to a little extra hot cocoa. They were also put into good
spirits by having killed a small seal, which next night gave them an
excellent supper. “The meat of these young animals is tender,” says Parry,
“and free from oiliness; but it certainly has a smell and a look which
would not have been agreeable to any but very hungry people like
ourselves.” They utilised its blubber for fuel, after the Esquimaux
manner. Some few birds—rotges, dovekies, looms, mollemucks, and ivory and
Ross gulls—were very occasionally seen and shot; and one day _a couple of
small flies_ were found upon the ice, which to them was an event of
ridiculous importance, and as so is recorded in the narrative. This at
least gives an insight into the terrible monotony of their existence at
this period.
Hitherto they had been favoured by the wind, but on the 19th a northerly
breeze set in, which, while it was the means of opening several lanes of
water, counterbalanced this advantage by drifting the ice—and, by
consequence, the party on it—in a southerly direction. Great was their
mortification at noon on the 20th to find by observation that since the
same hour on the 17th they had only advanced five miles in a northerly
direction. Although they had apparently made good progress in the
intervening time, their efforts had been nullified by the ice drifting
southward. These facts were carefully concealed from the men. On the 21st
the floe broke under the weight of the boats and sledges; some of the men
went completely through, and one of them was only held up by his drag-belt
being attached to a sledge which happened to be on firmer ice. This day
they made nearly seven miles by travelling, and drifted back four and a
half; or, in other words, their observation of the latitude showed them to
have, in reality, advanced only two miles and a quarter. Under these
circumstances we can understand their anxiety when, after a calm of short
duration, fog-banks were observed rising both to the southward and north.
Which would prevail? That from the south came first, with a light air from
that quarter, but soon after the weather became perfectly calm and clear.
Next night they made the best travelling during the expedition. The floes
were large and tolerably level, and some good lanes of water occurring,
they believed that they must have _advanced_ ten or eleven miles in a NNE.
direction, having traversed a distance of about seventeen. They had done
so—_on the ice_; but the ice itself had drifted so much to the southward
that they found, to their great disappointment and disgust, by observation
of the latitude, that they had only made _four_ miles. Still worse was it
on the 26th, when they found themselves in latitude 82° 40’ 23"; since
their last observation on the 22nd they had, though travelling almost
incessantly, _lost_ by drift no less than thirteen miles and a half, and
were more than three miles to the southward of their earlier position. The
men unsuspiciously remarked that they “were a long time getting to this
83°!” ignorant of the fact that the current was now taking them faster
south than all their labours advanced them north. Unlike Sisyphus, they
were but exerting an honourable ambition, but like him they were rolling a
stone up-hill which constantly rolled back again. The eighty-third
parallel had been for some time past the limit of Parry’s ambition, but
although he never reached it, he had the proud satisfaction of having
hoisted the British flag in a higher latitude than ever attained before.
Markham has since beaten him. Parry reached 82° 45’, and in reaching it
the party had, in the necessarily circuitous course taken, and counting
the constant retracing of their steps, travelled a distance nearly
sufficient to have reached the North Pole itself in a direct line.
It became evident that the nature and drift of the ice were such as to
preclude the possibility of a final success greater than that recorded.
They had now been absent from the ship thirty-five days, and one-half
their supplies were exhausted. Parry therefore determined to give the
party a day’s rest, and then set out on the return. He says:—“Dreary and
cheerless as were the scenes we were about to leave, we never turned
homewards with so little satisfaction as on this occasion.” Still, the
southern current was now an advantage, and they knew that every mile would
tell. The return was made successfully and without any very serious
casualties. Lieutenant Ross shot a fat she-bear which had approached
within twenty yards. Before the animal had done biting the snow, one of
the men was alongside of her with an open knife, cutting out the heart and
liver for the pot which happened to be then boiling their supper. Hardly
had the bear been dead an hour when all hands were employed in discussing
its merits as a viand, and some of them very much over-gorged themselves,
and were ill in consequence, though they “attributed this effect to the
quality, and not the quantity, of meat they had eaten.” On the morning of
August 11th the first sound of the ocean swell was heard under the hollow
margins of the ice, and they soon reached the open sea, which was dashing
with heavy surges against the outer masses. Sailing and paddling, fifty
miles further brought them to Table Island, where they found that bears
had devoured all the bread left at the depôt, as arranged at the
commencement of their voyage. The men naïvely remarked, says Parry, that
“Bruin was only square with us.” From a document deposited there during
his absence, he learned that on July 7th the _Hecla_ had been forced on
shore by the ice breaking up, but that she had been hove off safely.
Taking advantage of a favourable breeze, they steered their boats for
Walden Island, but _en route_ had bad weather, reaching it completely
drenched and worn-out, having had no rest for fifty-six hours. They had
barely strength to haul the boats ashore above the surf; but a hot supper,
a blazing fire of drift-wood, and a few hours’ quiet rest soon restored
them. The party arrived at the ship on August 21st, having been absent
sixty-one days. Allowing for the number of times they had to return for
their baggage during most of the journeys on the ice, Parry estimated
their actual travelling at eleven hundred and twenty-seven statute miles;
and as they were constantly exposed to wet, cold, and fatigue, as well as
to considerable peril, it was matter for thankfulness that all of the
party returned in excellent health, two only requiring some little medical
care for trifling ailments.
The future career of Parry was of a very different nature. After being
knighted, and fêted by the people of England, in the spring of 1829 he was
appointed Commissioner of the Australian Agricultural Company in New South
Wales; and one who visited the country a few years later wrote:—“At Port
Stephens Sir Edward Parry found a wilderness, but left a land of hope and
promise.” Returning to England in 1835, he was appointed Assistant
Commissioner of Poor Law in the county of Norfolk, but after a year and a
half was forced to resign through ill-health. He was afterwards made
Comptroller of Steam Machinery to the Admiralty, a post which he held for
nearly nine years, during which time the duties of his office became every
day more arduous; and in December, 1846, he received the appointment to
the post of Captain Superintendent of the Royal Clarence Yard and of the
Naval Hospital at Haslar. He took a prominent part in the founding of a
sailors’ home at Portsmouth; and in 1852 had to resign his post at Haslar
in consequence of attaining his rear-admiral’s flag. At the close of the
following year he was made Governor of Greenwich Hospital, and died on the
8th of July, 1855, at Ems. His remains were brought to England and buried
in the mausoleum at Greenwich Hospital.
Parry’s Polar journey can hardly be dismissed without some reference to
the remarkable expeditions made by Wrangell, the great Russian explorer.
Between 1820 and 1823 inclusive he made four expeditions on the ice
northward from the Siberian coast, starting from the town or settlement of
Nijni Kolymsk, on the Kolyma River. These excursions were made with dog
sledges, and the condition of the ice must therefore have been much
superior to that encountered by Parry, who found that the reindeers he had
intended for the same purpose could not be employed at all. The provisions
taken by Wrangell were rye-biscuit, meat, and portable soup; smoked fish;
the great Russian speciality, tea; spirits; and tobacco. A conical tent of
reindeer skin, _inside_ of which a fire was lighted, was part of the
outfit. He proceeded on one occasion 140 miles, and on another 170 miles,
from the land to the margin of the open sea, having often to cross ridges
of broken and hummocky ice sometimes eighty and ninety feet above the
general level. At the edge of the frozen field the ice was found to be
rotten and unsafe; and on his last journey, when the ice on which he
travelled was broken up by a gale while he was seventy miles from land,
nothing but the swiftness of his dogs, who tore over the opening gaps,
saved him from destruction. A very thankful man was Wrangell when he
reached _terra firma_ once more.