ARCTIC VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY, FROM BAFFIN TO M’CLINTOCK.
Buchan and Franklin.--Ross and Parry (1818).--Discovery of
Melville Island.--Winter Harbor (1819–1820).--Franklin’s
first land Journey.--Dreadful Sufferings.--Parry’s second
Voyage (1821–1823).--Higliuk.--Lyon (1824).--Parry’s third
Voyage (1824).--Franklin’s second land Journey to the Shores
of the Polar Sea.--Beechey.--Parry’s sledge Journey towards
the Pole.--Sir John Ross’s second Journey.--Five Years in the
Arctic Ocean.--Back’s Discovery of Great Fish River.--Dease and
Simpson (1837–1839).--Franklin and Crozier’s last Voyage (1845).--
Searching Expeditions.--Richardson and Rae.--Sir James Ross.--
Austin.--Penny.--De Haven.--Franklin’s first Winter-quarters
discovered by Ommaney.--Kennedy and Bellot.--Inglefield.--Sir
E. Belcher.--Kellett.--M’Clure’s Discovery of the North-west
Passage.--Collinson.--Bellot’s Death.--Dr. Rae learns the Death
of the Crews of the “Erebus” and “Terror.”--Sir Leopold M’Clintock.
The failure of Captain Phipps (afterwards Lord Mulgrave) in the
Spitzbergen seas (1773), and that of the illustrious Cook (1776), in
his attempt to circumnavigate the northern shores of America or Asia
by way of the Straits of Bering, entirely damped, for the next forty
years, the spirit of Arctic discovery; but hope revived when it became
known that Captain Scoresby, on a whaling expedition in the Greenland
seas (1806), had attained 81° 30´ N. lat., and thus approached the pole
to within 540 miles. No previous navigator had ever reached so far
to the north; an open sea lay temptingly before him, and the absence
of the ice-blink proved that for miles beyond the visible horizon no
ice-field or snow-covered land opposed his onward course; but as the
object of Scoresby’s voyage was strictly commercial, and he himself
answerable to the owners of his vessel, he felt obliged to sacrifice
his inclinations to his duty, and to steer again to the south.
During the Continental war, indeed, England had but little leisure
to prosecute discoveries in the Arctic Ocean; but not long after the
conclusion of peace, four stout vessels (1818) were sent out on that
mission by Government. Two of these, the “Dorothea,” Captain Buchan,
and the “Trent,” Commander Lieutenant John Franklin, were destined to
proceed northward by way of Spitzbergen, and to endeavor to cross the
Polar Sea. After unnumbered difficulties, the expedition was battling
with the ice to the north-west of that wintry archipelago, when, on
July 30, a sudden gale compelled the commander, as the only chance
of safety, to “take the ice”--that is, to thrust the ships into an
opening among the moving masses that could be perceived. In this very
hazardous operation, the “Dorothea”--having received so much injury
that she was in danger of sinking--was therefore turned homeward as
soon as the storm subsided, and the “Trent” of necessity accompanied
her.
The other two ships, which sailed in the same year, the “Isabella,”
commanded by Captain John Ross, and the “Alexander,” by Lieutenant
William Edward Parry, had been ordered to proceed up the middle of
Davis’s Strait to a high northern latitude, and then to stretch
across to the westward, in the hope of being able to pass the northern
extremity of America, and reach Bering’s Strait by that route. As
respects the purposes for which it was sent out, this expedition
likewise ended in disappointment; for though Ross defined more clearly
the Greenland coast to the north of the Danish possessions between
Cape Melville and Smith’s Sound, he was satisfied with making a very
cursory examination of all the great channels leading from Baffin’s
Bay into the Polar Sea. After sailing for some little distance up
Lancaster Sound, he was arrested by the atmospheric deception of a
range of mountains, extending right across the passage, and concluding
it useless to persevere, he at once--to the great astonishment and
mortification of his officers--abandoned a course which was to render
his successor illustrious. As may easily be imagined, the manner
in which Ross had conducted this expedition failed to satisfy the
authorities at home; and thus, in the following year, the “Hecla” and
“Griper” were commissioned for the purpose of exploring the sound,
whose entrance only had been seen by Baffin and Ross. The former ship
was placed under the Command of Parry, and the latter under that of
Lieutenant Matthew Liddon.
With this brilliant voyage, the epoch of modern discoveries in the
Arctic Ocean may properly be said to begin. Sailing right through
Lancaster Sound, over the site of Ross’s imaginary Croker Mountains,
Parry passed Barrow’s Strait, and after exploring Prince Regent
Inlet, whence the ice compelled him to return to the main channel,
he discovered Wellington Channel (August 22), and soon after had the
satisfaction of announcing to his men that, having reached 110° W.
long., they were entitled to the king’s bounty of £5000, secured by
order of council to “such of His Majesty’s subjects as might succeed
in penetrating thus far to the west within the Arctic Circle.” After
passing and naming Melville Island, a little progress was still made
westward; but the ice was now rapidly gathering, the vessels were soon
beset, and, after getting free with great difficulty, Parry was only
too glad to turn back and settle down in Winter Harbor. It was no easy
task to attain this dreary port, as a canal, two miles and a third in
length, had first to be cut through solid ice of seven inches average
thickness; yet such was the energy of the men that the herculean labor
was executed in three days. The two vessels were immediately unrigged,
the decks housed over, a heating apparatus arranged, and every thing
made as comfortable as possible. To relieve the monotony of the long
winter’s night, plays were acted every fortnight, a school established,
and a newspaper set on foot--certainly the first periodical ever
issued in so high a latitude. During the day the men were employed for
exercise in banking up the ships with snow or making excursions within
a certain distance; and when the weather forbade their leaving shelter,
they were obliged to run round the decks to the tune of a barrel-organ.
In January the cold became more and more intense. On the 12th it was
51° below zero in the open air, and on the 14th the thermometer fell
to 54°. On February 24 a fire broke out in a small house which had
been built near the ships, to serve as an observatory for Captain
Sabine, who accompanied the expedition as astronomer. All hands rushed
to the spot to endeavor to subdue the flames, but having only snow
to throw on it, it was found impossible to extinguish it. The snow,
however, covered the astronomical instruments, and secured them from
the fire. The thermometer was at the time 44° below zero, and the
faces of nearly the whole party grew white and frost-bitten after five
minutes’ exposure, so that the surgeon and two or three assistants
were busily employed in rubbing the faces of their comrades with snow,
while the latter were working might and main to extinguish the flames.
One poor fellow, in his anxiety to save the dipping-needle, carried
it out without putting on his gloves; his hands were so benumbed in
consequence, that when plunged into a basin of cold water it instantly
froze, from the intense coldness imparted to it, and it was found
necessary to resort, some time after, to the amputation of a part of
four fingers on one hand and three on the other.
February 3 was a memorable day--the sun being visible from the maintop
of the “Hecla,” from whence it was last seen on November 11. The
weather got considerably milder in March; on the 6th the thermometer
rose to zero, for the first time since December 17, and on April 30 it
stood at the freezing-point, which it had not done since September 12.
At length May appeared, bringing the long summer’s day of the high
northern latitudes; but as many a week must still pass before the
vessels could move out of their ice-bound harbor, Parry started on
June 1 to explore the interior of the island, which at this early
period of the season still wore a very dreary aspect. But such was
the rapidity of vegetation, that by the end of the month the land,
now completely clear of snow, was covered with the purple-colored
saxifrage in blossom, with mosses, and with sorrel, and the grass was
from two to three inches long. The pasturage appeared to be excellent
in the valleys, and, to judge by the numerous tracks of musk-oxen and
reindeer, there was no lack of animals to enjoy its abundance.
It was not before August 1 that the ships were released from their ten
months’ blockade in Winter Harbor, when Parry once more stood boldly
for the west; but no amount of skill or patience could penetrate
the obstinate masses of ice that blocked the passage, or insure the
safety of the vessels under the repeated shocks sustained from them.
Finding the barriers insuperable, he gave way, and steering homeward,
reached London on November 3, 1820, where, as may well be imagined, his
reception was most enthusiastic.
While Parry was engaged on this wonderful voyage, Lieutenant Franklin
and Dr. Richardson, accompanied by two midshipmen, George Back and
Robert Hood, and a sailor, John Hepburn, to whom were added during
the course of the journey a troop of Canadians and Indians, were
penetrating by land to the mouth of the Coppermine River for the
purpose of examining the unexplored shores of the Polar Sea to the
east. An idea of the difficulties of this undertaking may be formed,
when I mention that the travellers started from Fort York, Hudson’s
Bay, on August 30, 1819, and after a boat voyage of 700 miles up the
Saskatchewan arrived before winter at Fort Cumberland. The next winter
found them 700 miles farther on their journey, established during the
extreme cold at Fort Enterprise, as they called a log-house built
by them on Winter Lake, where they spent ten months, depending upon
fishing and the success of their Indian hunters. During the summer
of 1821 they accomplished the remaining 334 miles to the mouth of
the Coppermine, and on July 21 Franklin and his party embarked in
two birch-bark canoes on their voyage of exploration. In these frail
shallops they skirted the desolate coast of the American continent
555 miles to the east of the Coppermine as far as Point Turnagain,
when the rapid decrease of their provisions and the shattered state of
the canoes imperatively compelled their return (August 22). And now
began a dreadful land-journey of two months, accompanied by all the
horrors of cold, famine, and fatigue. An esculent lichen (tripe de
roche), with an occasional ptarmigan, formed their scanty food, but
on very many days even this poor supply could not be obtained, and
their appetites became ravenous. Sometimes they had the good-fortune
to pick up pieces of skin, and a few bones of deer which had been
devoured by the wolves in the previous spring. The bones were rendered
friable by burning, and now and then their old shoes were added to the
repast. On reaching the Coppermine, a raft had to be framed, a task
accomplished with the utmost difficulty by the exhausted party. One
or two of the Canadians had already fallen behind, and never rejoined
their comrades, and now Hood and three or four more of the party broke
down and could proceed no farther, Dr. Richardson kindly volunteering
to remain with them, while Back, with the most vigorous of the men,
pushed on to send succor from Fort Enterprise, and Franklin followed
more slowly with the others. On reaching the log house this last party
found that wretched tenement desolate, with no deposit of provisions
and no trace of the Indians whom they had expected to meet there.
“It would be impossible,” says Franklin, “to describe our sensations
after entering this miserable abode and discovering how we had been
neglected; the whole party shed tears, not so much for our own fate as
for that of our friends in the rear, whose lives depended entirely on
our sending immediate relief from this place.” Their only consolation
was a gleam of hope afforded them by a note from Back, stating that he
had reached the deserted hut two days before, and was going in search
of the Indians. The fortunate discovery of some cast-off deer-skins and
of a heap of acrid bones, a provision worthy of the place, sustained
their flickering life-flame, and after eighteen miserable days they
were joined by Dr. Richardson and Hepburn, the sole survivors of their
party, Lieutenant Hood, a young officer of great promise, having been
murdered by a treacherous Canadian, whom Richardson was afterwards
obliged to shoot through the head in self-defense.
“Upon entering the desolate dwelling,” says Richardson, “we had the
satisfaction of embracing Captain Franklin, but no words can convey an
idea of the filth and wretchedness that met our eyes on looking around.
Our own misery had stolen upon us by degrees, and we were accustomed to
the contemplation of each other’s emaciated figures; but the ghastly
countenances, dilated eyeballs, and sepulchral voices of Captain
Franklin and those with him were more than we could at first bear.”
At length, on November 7, when the few survivors of the ill-fated
expedition (for most of the voyagers died from sheer exhaustion) were
on the point of sinking under their sufferings, three Indians sent
by Back, whose exertions to procure them relief had been beyond all
praise, brought them the succor they had so long been waiting for. The
eagerness with which they feasted on dried meat and excellent tongues
may well be imagined; but severe pains in the stomach soon warned them
that after so long an abstinence they must be exceedingly careful in
the quantity of food taken. In a fortnight’s time they had sufficiently
recruited their strength to be able to join Back at Moose Deer Island,
and in the following year they returned to England.
Parry’s second voyage of discovery (1821–1823) was undertaken for
the purpose of ascertaining whether a communication might be found
between Regent’s Inlet and Rowe’s Welcome, or through Repulse Bay
and thence to the north-western shores of America. The first summer
(1821) was spent in the vain attempt of forcing a way through Frozen
Strait, Repulse Bay, the large masses of ice in these waters holding
the ships helplessly in their grasp, and often carrying them back in
a few days to the very spot which they had left a month before. Owing
to these rebuffs, the season came to an end while their enterprise
was yet scarcely begun, and the ships took up their quarters in an
open roadstead at Winter Island to the south of Melville Peninsula.
Besides the winter amusements and occupations of the first voyage,
the monotony of the winter was pleasantly broken during February by
friendly visits from a party of Esquimaux. Among these a young woman,
Higliuk, distinguished herself by her talents. Her love for music
amounted to a passion, and her quickness of comprehension was such
that she soon became an established interpreter between her own people
and the English. The nature of a map having been explained to her, she
readily sketched with chalk upon the deck the outlines of the adjoining
coast, and continuing it farther, delineated the whole eastern shore of
Melville Peninsula, rounding its northern extremity by a large island
and a strait of sufficient magnitude to afford a safe passage for the
ships. This information greatly encouraged the whole party, whose
sanguine anticipations already fancied the worst part of their voyage
overcome, and its truth was eagerly tested as soon as the ships could
once more be set afloat, which was not till July 2.
After running the greatest dangers from the ice, they at length reached
the small island of Igloolik, near the entrance of the channel, the
situation of which had been accurately laid down by the Esquimaux
woman. But all their efforts to force a passage through the narrow
strait proved vain, for after struggling sixty-five days to get
forward, they had only in that time reached forty miles to the westward
of Igloolik. The vessels were therefore again placed in winter-quarters
in a channel between Igloolik and the land; but having ascertained by
boat excursions the termination of the strait, Parry thought it so
promising for the ensuing summer that he at once named it the “Hecla
and Fury Strait.” But his hopes were once more doomed to disappointment
by the ice-obstructed channel, and he found it utterly impossible to
pass through it with his ships. His return to England with his crews in
health, after two winters in the high latitudes, was another triumph of
judgment and discipline.
In the following year two new expeditions set sail for Polar America.
Captain Lyon was sent out in the “Griper,” with orders to land at
Wager River off Repulse Bay, and thence to cross Melville Peninsula,
and proceed overland to Point Turnagain, where Franklin’s journey
ended. But a succession of dreadful storms so crippled the “Griper,”
while endeavoring to proceed onward up Rowe’s Welcome, that it became
necessary to return at once to England.
Such was the esteem and affection Parry had acquired among the
companions of his two former voyages, that when he took the command of
a third expedition, with the intention of seeking a passage through
Prince Regent’s Inlet, they all volunteered to accompany him. From
the middle of July till nearly the middle of September (1824), the
“Hecla” and the “Fury” had to contend with the enormous ice-masses of
Baffin’s Bay, which would infallibly have crushed vessels less stoutly
ribbed; and thus it was not before September 10 that they entered
Lancaster Sound, which they found clear of ice, except here and there a
solitary berg. But new ice now began to form, which, increasing daily
in thickness, beset the ship, and carried them once more back again
into Baffin’s Bay. By perseverance, however, and the aid of a strong
easterly breeze, Parry regained the lost ground, and on September 27
reached the entrance of Port Bowen, on the eastern shore of Prince
Regent’s Inlet, where he passed the winter. By July 19 the vessels
were again free, and Parry now sailed across the inlet to examine the
coast of North Somerset; but the floating ice so injured the “Fury”
that it was found necessary to abandon her. Her crew and valuables were
therefore received on board the “Hecla;” the provisions, stores, and
boats were landed, and safely housed on Fury Point, off North Somerset,
for the relief of any wandering Esquimaux, or future Arctic explorers
who might chance to visit the spot, and the crippled ship was given up
to the mercy of the relentless ice, while her companion made the best
of her way to England.
In spite of the dreadful sufferings of Franklin, Richardson, and
Back during their first land journey, we find these heroes once more
setting forth in 1825, determined to resume the survey of the Arctic
coasts of the American continent. A far more adequate preparation was
made for the necessities of their journey than before; and before
they settled down for the winter at “Fort Franklin,” on the shores
of Great Bear Lake, a journey of investigation down the Mackenzie
River to the sea had been brought to a successful end. As soon as the
ice broke in the following summer, they set out in four boats, and
separated at the point where the river divides into two main branches,
Franklin and Back proposing to survey the coast-line to the westward,
while Richardson set out in an easterly direction to the mouth of the
Coppermine River. Franklin arrived at the mouth of the Mackenzie on
July 7, where a large tribe of Esquimaux pillaged his boats, and it
was only by great prudence and forbearance that the whole party were
not massacred. A full month was now spent in the tedious survey of 374
miles of coast, as far as Return Reef, more than 1000 miles distant
from their winter-quarters on Great Bear Lake. The return journey to
Fort Franklin was safely accomplished, and they arrived at their house
on September 21, where they had the pleasure of finding Dr. Richardson
and Lieutenant Kendall, who, on their part, had reached the Coppermine,
thus connecting Sir John Franklin’s former discoveries to the eastward
in Coronation Gulf with those made by him on this occasion to the
westward of the Mackenzie. The cold during the second winter at Fort
Franklin was intense, the thermometer standing at one time at 58° below
zero; but the comfort they now enjoyed formed a most pleasing contrast
to the squalid misery of Fort Enterprise.
When Franklin left England to proceed on this expedition, his first
wife was then lying at the point of death, and indeed expired the day
after his departure. But with heroic fortitude she urged him to set out
on the very day appointed, entreating him, as he valued her peace and
his own glory, not to delay a moment on her account. His feelings may
be imagined when he raised on Garry Island a silk flag which she had
made and given him as a parting gift, with the instruction that he was
only to hoist it on reaching the Polar Sea.
While Parry and Franklin were thus severally employed in searching
for a western passage, a sea expedition under the command of Captain
Beechey had been sent to Bering’s Straits to co-operate with them,
so as to furnish provisions to the former and a conveyance home to
the latter--a task more easily planned than executed; and thus we
can not wonder that when the “Blossom” reached the appointed place
of rendezvous at Chamisso Island, in Kotzebue Sound (July 25, 1826),
she found neither Parry (who had long since returned to England) nor
Franklin. Yet the barge of the “Blossom”--which was dispatched to
the eastward under charge of Mr. Elson--narrowly missed meeting the
latter; for when she was stopped by the ice at Point Barrow, she was
only about 150 miles from Return Reef, the limit of his discoveries to
the westward of the Mackenzie.
In the year 1827 the indefatigable Parry undertook one of the most
extraordinary voyages ever performed by man; being no less than an
attempt to reach the North Pole by boat and sledge travelling over
the ice. His hopes of success were founded on Crosby’s authority,
who reports having seen ice-fields so free from either fissure or
hummock, that had they not been covered with snow, a coach might have
been driven many leagues over them in a direct line; but when Parry
reached the ice-fields to the north of Spitzbergen, he found them of
a very different nature, composed of loose, rugged masses, intermixed
with pools of water, which rendered travelling over them extremely
arduous and slow. The strong flat-bottomed boats, specially prepared
for an amphibious journey, with a runner attached to each side of
the keel, so as to adapt them for sledging, had thus frequently to
be laden and unladen, in order to be raised over the hummocks, and
repeated journeys backward and forward over the same ground were the
necessary consequence. Frequently the crew had to go on hands and knees
to secure a footing. Heavy showers of rain often rendered the surface
of the ice a mass of slush, and in some places the ice took the form
of sharp-pointed crystals, which cut the boots like penknives. But
in spite of all these obstacles, they toiled cheerfully on, until at
length, after thirty-five days of incessant drudgery, the discovery was
made that, while they were apparently advancing towards the pole, the
ice-field on which they were travelling was drifting to the south, and
thus rendering all their exertions fruitless. Yet, though disappointed
in his hope of planting his country’s standard on the northern axis of
the globe, Parry had the glory of reaching the highest authenticated
latitude ever yet attained (82° 40´ 30´´). On their return to the
“Hecla,” which awaited them under Captain Forester in Treurenberg Bay,
on the northern coast of Spitzbergen, the boats encountered a dreadful
storm on the open sea, which obliged them to bear up for Walden
Island--one of the most northerly rocks of the archipelago--where,
fortunately, a reserve supply of provisions had been deposited. “Every
thing belonging to us,” says Sir Edward Parry, “was now completely
drenched by the spray and snow; we had been fifty-six hours without
rest, and forty-eight at work in the boats, so that by the time they
were unloaded we had barely strength to haul them up on the rocks.
However, by dint of great exertion, we managed to get the boats above
the surf, after which, a hot supper, a blazing fire of drift-wood,
and a few hours’ quiet rest restored us.” He who laments over the
degeneracy of the human race, and supposes it to have been more
vigorous or endowed with greater powers of endurance in ancient times,
may perhaps come to a different opinion when reading of Parry and his
companions.
Thus ended the last of this great navigator’s Arctic voyages. Born in
the year 1790, of a family of seamen, Parry at an early age devoted
himself, heart and soul, to the profession in which his father had
grown old. In his twenty-eighth year he discovered Melville Island, and
his subsequent expedition confirmed the excellent reputation he had
acquired by his first brilliant success. From the years 1829 to 1834 we
find him in New South Wales, as Resident Commissioner of the Australian
Agricultural Company. In the year 1837 he was appointed to organize
the mail-packet service, then transferred to the Admiralty, and after
filling the post of Captain Superintendent of the Royal Naval Hospital
at Haslar, was finally appointed Governor of Greenwich Hospital. He
died in the summer of 1855 at Ems.
Ten years had elapsed since Captain John Ross’s first unsuccessful
voyage, when the veteran seaman, anxious to obliterate the reproach
of former failure by some worthy achievement, was enabled, through
the munificence of Sir Felix Booth, to accomplish his wishes. A
small Liverpool steamer, bearing the rather presumptuous name of
the “Victory,” was purchased for the voyage, a rather unfortunate
selection, for surely nothing can be more unpractical than paddle-boxes
among ice-blocks; but to make amends for this error, the commander
of the expedition was fortunate in being accompanied by his nephew,
Commander James Ross, who, with every quality of the seaman, united the
zeal of an able naturalist. He it was who, by his well-executed sledge
journeys, made the chief discoveries of the expedition; but the voyage
of the “Victory” is far less remarkable for successes achieved than for
its unexampled protraction during a period of five years.
The first season ended well. On August 10, 1829, the “Victory” entered
Prince Regent’s Inlet, and reached on the 13th the spot where Parry,
on his third voyage, had been obliged to abandon the “Fury.” The ship
itself had been swept away; but all her sails, stores, and provisions
on land were found untouched. The hermetically sealed tin canisters in
which the flour, meat, bread, wine, spirits, sugar, etc., were packed
had preserved them from the attacks of the white bears, and they were
found as good after four years as they had been on the day when the
“Fury” started on her voyage. It was to this discovery that the crew of
the “Victory” owed their subsequent preservation, for how else could
they have passed four winters in the Arctic wastes?
On August 15 Cape Garry was attained, the most southern point of the
inlet which Parry had reached on his third voyage. Fogs and drift-ice
greatly retarded the progress of the expedition, but Ross moved on,
though slowly, so that about the middle of September the map of the
northern regions was enriched by some 500 miles of newly-discovered
coast. But now, at the beginning of winter, the “Victory” was obliged
to take refuge in Felix Harbor, where the useless steam-engine was
thrown overboard as a nuisance, and the usual preparations made for
spending the cold season as pleasantly as possible.
The following spring (from May 17 to June 13) was employed by James
Ross on a sledge journey, which led to the discovery of King William’s
Sound and King William’s Land, and during which that courageous mariner
penetrated so far to the west that he had only ten days’ provisions--
scantily measured out--for a return voyage of 200 miles through an
empty wilderness.
After twelve months’ imprisonment, the “Victory” was released from the
ice on September 17, and proceeded once more on her discoveries. But
the period of her liberty was short, for, after advancing three miles
in one continual battle against the currents and the drift-ice, she
again froze fast on the 27th of the same month.
In the following spring we again see the indefatigable James Ross
extending the circle of his sledge excursions, and planting the British
flag on the site of the Northern Magnetic Pole--which, however, is
not invariably fixed to one spot, as was then believed, but moves from
place to place within the glacial zone.
On August 28, 1831, the “Victory”--after a second imprisonment of
eleven months--was warped into open water; but after spending a
whole month to advance four miles, she was encompassed by the ice on
September 27, and once more fettered in the dreary wilderness.
As there seemed no prospect of extricating her next summer, they
resolved to abandon her and travel over the ice to Fury Beach, there
to avail themselves of the boats, provisions, and stores, which would
assist them in reaching Davis’s Straits. Accordingly, on May 29, 1832,
the colors of the “Victory” were hoisted and nailed to the mast, and
after drinking a parting glass to the ship with the crew, and having
seen every man out in the evening, the captain took his own leave
of her. “It was the first vessel,” says Ross, “that I had ever been
obliged to abandon, after having served in thirty-six, during a period
of forty-two years. It was like the last parting with an old friend,
and I did not pass the point where she ceased to be visible without
stopping to take a sketch of this melancholy desert, rendered more
melancholy by the solitary, abandoned, helpless home of our past years,
fixed in immovable ice, till time should perform on her his usual work.”
After having, with incredible difficulty, reached Fury Beach, where,
thanks to the forethought of Sir Edward Parry, they fortunately found
a sufficient number of boats left for their purpose, and all the
provisions in good condition, they set out on August 1--a considerable
extent of open sea being visible--and after much buffeting among
the ice, reached the north of the inlet by the end of the month. But
here they were doomed to disappointment, for, after several fruitless
attempts to run along Barrow’s Strait, the ice obliged them to haul
their boats on shore and pitch their tents. Day after day they lingered
till the third week in September, but the strait continuing one
impenetrable mass of ice, it was unanimously agreed that their only
resource was to fall back again on the stores at Fury Beach, and there
spend a fourth long winter within the Arctic Circle. They were only
able to get half the distance in the boats, which were hauled on shore
in Batty Bay on September 24, and performed the rest of their journey
on foot, the provisions being dragged in sledges. On October 7 they
once more reached the canvas hut, dignified with the name of “Somerset
House,” which they had erected in July on the scene of the “Fury’s”
wreck, and which they had vainly hoped never to see again.
They now set about building a snow-wall four feet thick round their
dwelling, and strengthening the roof with spars, for the purpose of
covering it with snow, and by means of this shelter, and an additional
stove, made themselves tolerably comfortable, until the increasing
severity of the cold and the furious gales confined them within-doors,
and sorely tried their patience. Scurvy now began to appear, and
several of the men fell victims to the scourge. At the same time, cares
for the future darkened the gloom of their situation; for, should they
be disappointed in their hopes of escaping in the ensuing summer, their
failing strength and diminishing stores gave them but little hope of
surviving another year.
It may easily be imagined how anxiously the movements of the ice were
watched when the next season opened, and with what beating hearts they
embarked at Batty Bay on August 15. Making their way slowly among the
masses of ice with which the inlet was encumbered, they to their great
joy found, on the 17th, the wide expanse of Barrow’s Strait open to
navigation.
Pushing on with renewed spirits, Cape York soon lay behind them, and,
alternately rowing and sailing, on the night of the 25th they rested in
a good harbor on the eastern shore of Navy Board Inlet. At 4 o’clock on
the following morning they were roused from their slumber by the joyful
intelligence of a ship being in sight, and never did men more hurriedly
and energetically set out; but the elements were against them, and the
ship disappeared in the distant haze.
After a few hours’ suspense, the sight of another vessel lying to in a
calm relieved their despair. This time their exertions were successful,
and, strange to say, the ship which took them on board was the same
“Isabella”--now reduced to the rank of a private whaler--in which
Ross had made his first voyage to the Arctic Seas.
The seamen of the “Isabella” told him of his own death--of which all
England was persuaded--and could hardly believe that it was really
he and his party who now stood before them. But when all doubts were
cleared away, the rigging was instantly manned to do them honor, and
thundering cheers welcomed Ross and his gallant band on board! The
scene that now followed can not be better told than in Ross’s own words.
“Though we had not been supported by our names and characters, we
should not the less have claimed from charity the attentions that we
received; for never was seen a more miserable set of wretches. 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 (I believe for the first time) what we really were, as well
as what we seemed to others. But the ludicrous soon took the place of
all other feelings; in such a crowd and such confusion, all serious
thought was impossible, while the new buoyancy of our spirits made us
abundantly willing to be amused by the scene which now opened. Every
man was hungry, and was to be fed; all were ragged, and were to be
clothed; there was not one to whom washing was not indispensable,
nor one whom his beard did not deprive of all human semblance. All,
every thing too, was to be done at once: it was washing, dressing,
shaving, eating, all intermingled: it was all the materials of each
jumbled together, while in the midst of all there were interminable
questions to be asked and answered on both sides; the adventures of
the ‘Victory,’ our own escapes, the politics of England, and the news,
which was now four years old. But all subsided into peace at last. The
sick were accommodated, the seamen disposed of, and all was done for us
which care and kindness could perform. Night at length brought quiet
and serious thoughts, and I trust there was not a man among us who did
not then express where it was due his gratitude for that interposition
which had raised us all from a despair which none could now forget,
and had brought us from the borders of a most distant grave to life,
and friends, and civilization. Long accustomed, however, to a cold bed
on the hard snow or the bare rocks, few could sleep amidst the comfort
of our new accommodations. I was myself compelled to leave the bed
which had been kindly assigned me, and take my abode in a chair for the
night; nor did it fare much better with the rest. It was for time to
reconcile us to this sudden and violent change, to break through what
had become habit, and to inure us once more to the usages of our former
days.”
The “Isabella” remained some time longer in Baffin’s Bay to prosecute
the fishery, and thus our Arctic voyagers did not return to England
before October 15, 1833, when they were received as men risen from
the grave. Wherever Ross appeared, he was met and escorted by a crowd
of sympathizers; orders, medals, and diplomas from foreign states and
learned societies rained down upon him. London, Liverpool, Bristol,
and Hull presented him with the freedom of their respective cities;
he received the honor of knighthood; and, though last, not least,
Parliament granted him £5000 as a remuneration for his pecuniary outlay
and privations.
It may easily be imagined that his long-protracted absence had not
been allowed to pass without awakening a strong desire to bring him
aid and assistance. Thus, when Captain (afterwards Rear-admiral Sir
George) Back, that noble Paladin of Arctic research, volunteered to
lead a land expedition in quest of Ross to the northern shore of
America, £4000 were immediately raised by public subscription to
defray expenses. While deep in the American wilds, Back was gratified
with the intelligence that the object of his search had safely arrived
in England; but, instead of returning home, the indefatigable explorer
resolved to trace the unknown course of the Thlu-it-scho, or Great Fish
River, down to the distant outlet where it pours its waters into the
Polar Seas.
It would take a volume to relate his adventures in this expedition, the
numberless falls, cascades, and rapids that obstructed his progress;
the storms and snow-drifts, the horrors of the deserts through which
he forced his way, until he finally (July 28) reached the mouth of
the Thlu-it-scho, or, rather, the broad estuary through which it
disembogues itself into the Polar Sea. His intention was to proceed to
Point Turnagain, but the obstacles were insurmountable, even by him.
For ten days the exploring party had a continuation of wet, chilly,
foggy weather, and the only vegetation (fern and moss) was so damp that
it would not burn; being thus without fuel, they had only during this
time one hot meal. Almost without water, without any means of warmth,
and sinking knee-deep as they proceeded on land, in the soft slush and
snow, no wonder that some of the best men, benumbed in their limbs,
and dispirited by the prospect before them, broke out for a moment in
murmuring at the hardness of their duty.
On August 15, seeing the impossibility of proceeding even a single
mile farther, Back assembled the men around him, and unfurling the
British flag, which was saluted with three cheers, he announced to
them his determination to return. The difficulties of the river were
of course doubled in the ascent, from having to go against the stream.
All the obstacles of rocks, rapids, sand-banks, and long portages had
to be faced. They found, as they went on, that many of the deposits
of provisions, on which they relied, had been destroyed by wolves.
After thus toiling on for six weeks, they were ultimately stopped by
one most formidable perpendicular fall, which obliged them to abandon
their boat; and proceeding on foot--each laden with a pack of about
75 lbs. weight--they ultimately arrived at their old habitation, Fort
Reliance, after an absence of nearly four months, exhausted and worn
out, but justly proud of having accomplished so difficult and dangerous
a voyage.
The Fish River has since been named Back’s River, in honor of its
discoverer; and surely no geographical distinction has ever been more
justly merited.
This indefatigable explorer had scarcely returned to England (Sept.
8, 1835), when he once more set out on his way to the Arctic regions;
but his ship, the “Terror,” was so disabled by the ice that she was
scarcely able to accomplish the return voyage across the Atlantic,
without allowing her to make any new discoveries.
The land expedition sent out by the Hudson’s Bay Company (1837–39),
under the direction of Peter Warren Dease, one of their chief factors,
and Mr. Thomas Simpson, proved far more successful. Descending the
Mackenzie to the sea, they surveyed, in July, 1837, that part of the
northern coast of America which had been left unexamined by Franklin
and Elson in 1825, from Return Reef to Cape Barrow.
Although it was the height of summer, the ground was found frozen
several inches below the surface, and the spray froze on the oars and
rigging of their boats, which the drift-ice along the shore ultimately
obliged them to leave behind.
As they went onward on foot, heavily laden, the frequent necessity of
wading up to the middle in the ice-cold water of the inlets, together
with the constant fogs and the sharp north wind, tried their powers
of endurance to the utmost; but Simpson, the hero of the expedition,
was not to be deterred by any thing short of absolute impossibility;
nor did he stop till he had reached Point Barrow. Indeed, no man could
be more fit than he to lead an expedition like this, for he had once
before travelled 2000 miles on foot in the middle of winter from York
Factory to Athabasca, walking sometimes not less than fifty miles in
one day, and without any protection against the cold but an ordinary
cloth mantle.
After wintering at Fort Confidence, on Great Bear Lake, the next
season was profitably employed in descending the Coppermine River,
and tracing nearly 140 miles of new coast beyond Cape Turnagain, the
limit of Franklin’s survey in 1821. The third season (1839) was still
more favored by fortune, for Simpson succeeded in discovering the
whole coast beyond Cape Turnagain as far as Castor and Pollux River
(August 20, 1839), on the eastern side of the vast arm of the sea which
receives the waters of the Great Fish River. On his return voyage, he
traced sixty miles of the south coast of King William’s Island, and
a considerable part of the high, bold shores of Victoria Land, and
reached Fort Confidence on September 24, after one of the longest and
most successful boat voyages ever performed in the Polar waters, having
traversed more than 1600 miles of sea.
Unfortunately he was not destined to reap the rewards of his labor,
for in the following year, while travelling from the Red River to
the Mississippi, where he intended to embark for England, he was
assassinated by his Indian guides; and thus died, in the thirty-sixth
year of his age, one of the best men that have ever served the cause of
science in the frozen north.
On May 26, 1845, Sir John Franklin, now in the sixtieth year of his
age, and Captain Crozier, sailed from England, to make a new attempt
at the north-west passage. Never did stouter vessels than the “Erebus”
and “Terror,” well-tried in the Antarctic Seas, carry a finer or more
ably commanded crew; never before had human foresight so strained all
her resources to insure success; and thus, when the commander’s last
dispatches from the Whalefish Islands, Baffin’s Bay (July 12), previous
to his sailing to Lancaster Sound, arrived in England no one doubted
but that he was about to add a new and brilliant chapter to the history
of Arctic discovery.
His return was confidently expected towards the end of 1847; but
when the winter passed and still no tidings came, the anxiety at his
prolonged absence became general, and the early part of 1848 witnessed
the beginning of a series of searching expeditions fitted out at the
public cost or by private munificence, on a scale exceeding all former
examples. The “Plover” and the “Herald” (1848) were sent to Bering’s
Straits to meet Franklin with supplies, should he succeed in getting
thither. In spring Sir John Richardson hurried to the shores of the
Polar Sea, anxious to find the traces of his lost friend. He was
accompanied by Dr. Rae, who had just returned from the memorable land
expedition (1846–47), during which, after crossing the isthmus which
joins Melville Peninsula to the mainland, he traced the shores of
Committee Bay and the east coast of Boothia as far as the Lord Mayor’s
Bay of Sir John Ross, thus proving that desolate land to be likewise a
vast peninsula.
But in vain did Rae and Richardson explore all the coasts between the
Mackenzie and the Coppermine. The desert remained mute; and Sir James
Ross (“Enterprise”) and Captain Bird (“Investigator”), who set sail in
June, 1848, three months after Dr. Richardson’s departure, and minutely
examined all the shores near Barrow Strait, proved equally unsuccessful.
Three years had now passed since Franklin had been expected home, and
even the most sanguine began to despair; but to remove all doubts,
it was resolved to explore once more all the gulfs and channels
of the Polar Sea. Thus in the year 1850 no less than twelve ships
sailed forth, some to Bering’s Straits, some to the sounds leading
from Baffin’s Bay.[16] Other expeditions followed in 1852 and 1853,
and though none of them succeeded in the object of their search, yet
they enriched the geography of the Arctic World with many interesting
discoveries, the most important of which I will now briefly mention.
Overcoming the ice of Baffin’s Bay by the aid of their powerful
steam-tugs, Austin, Ommaney, and Penny reached the entrance of
Lancaster Sound. Here they separated, and while the “Resolute” remained
behind to examine the neighborhood of Pond’s Bay, Ommaney found at
Cape Riley (North Devon) the first traces of the lost expedition.
He was soon joined by Ross, Austin, Penny, and the Americans, and
a minute investigation soon proved that Cape Spencer and Beechey
Island, at the entrance of Wellington Channel, had been the site of
Franklin’s first winter-quarters, distinctly marked by the remains of
a large storehouse, staves of casks, empty pemmican-tins, and, most
touching relic of all, a little garden shaped into a neat oval by
some flower-loving sailor, and filled with the few hardy plants which
that bleak clime can nourish. Meanwhile winter approached, and little
more could be done that season; so all the vessels which had entered
Barrow’s Strait now took up their winter-quarters at the southern
extremity of Cornwallis Land; with the exception of the “Prince
Albert,” which set sail for England before winter set in, and of the
Americans, who, perceiving the impolicy of so many ships pressing to
the westward on one parallel, turned back, but were soon shut up in the
pack-ice, which for eight long months kept them prisoners. The “Rescue”
and “Advance” were drifted backward and forward in Wellington Channel
until in December a terrific storm drove them into Barrow’s Strait,
and still farther on into Lancaster Sound. Several times during this
dreadful passage they were in danger from the ice opening round them
and closing suddenly again, and only escaped being “nipped” by their
small size and strong build, which enabled them to rise above the
opposing edges instead of being crushed between them. Even on their
arrival in Baffin’s Bay the ice did not release them from its hold, and
it was not till June 9, 1851, that they reached the Danish settlement
at Disco. After recruiting his exhausted crew, the gallant De Haven
determined to return and prosecute the search during the remainder of
the season; but the discouraging reports of the whalers induced him to
change his purpose, and the ships and crews reached New York at the
beginning of October, having passed through perils such as few have
endured and still fewer have lived to recount.
Meanwhile the English searching expeditions had not remained inactive.
As soon as spring came, well-organized sledge expeditions were
dispatched in all directions, but they all returned with the same
invariable tale of disappointment.
As soon as Wellington Channel opened, Penny boldly entered the
ice-lanes with a boat, and, after a series of adventures and
difficulties, penetrated up Queen’s Channel as far as Baring Island and
Cape Beecher, where, most reluctantly, he was compelled to turn back.
A fine open sea stretched invitingly away to the north, but his fragile
boat was ill-equipped for a voyage of discovery. Fully persuaded
that Franklin must have followed this route, he failed, however,
in convincing Captain Austin of the truth of his theory, and as,
without that officer’s co-operation, nothing could be effected, he was
compelled to follow the course pointed out by the Admiralty squadron,
which, after two ineffectual attempts to enter Smith’s and Jones’s
Sounds, returned to England.
The “Prince Albert” having brought home in 1850 the intelligence of
the discoveries at Beechey Island, it was resolved to prosecute the
search during the next season, and no time was lost to refit the little
vessel and send her once more on her noble errand, under the command
of William Kennedy (1851–52), to examine Prince Regent’s Inlet, on the
coast of North Somerset. Finding the passage obstructed by a barrier of
ice, Kennedy was obliged to take a temporary refuge in Port Bowen, on
the eastern shore of the inlet. As it was very undesirable, however,
to winter on the opposite coast to that along which lay their line
of search, Kennedy, with four of his men, crossed to Port Leopold,
amid masses of ice, to ascertain whether any documents had been left
at this point by previous searching parties. None having been found,
they prepared to return; but to their dismay they now found the inlet
so blocked with ice as to render it absolutely impossible to reach
the vessel either by boat or on foot. Darkness was fast closing round
them, the ice-floe on which they stood threatened every instant to
be shivered in fragments by the contending ice-blocks which crashed
furiously against it: unless they instantly returned to shore, any
moment might prove their last. A bitter cold night (September 10,
1851), with no shelter but their boat, under which each man in turn
took an hour’s rest--the others, fatigued as they were, seeking safety
in brisk exercise--was spent on this inhospitable shore, and on the
following morning they discovered that the ship had disappeared. The
drift-ice had carried her away, leaving Kennedy and his companions to
brave the winter as well as they could, and to endeavor in the spring
to rejoin their vessel, which must have drifted down the inlet, and was
most likely by this time imprisoned by the ice. Fortunately a dépôt
of provisions, left by Sir James Ross at Whaler Point, was tolerably
near, and finding all in good preservation, they began to fit up a
launch, which had been left at the same place as the stores, for a
temporary abode. Here they sat, on October 17, round a cheerful fire,
manufacturing winter garments and completely resigned to their lot,
when suddenly, to their inexpressible joy, they heard the sound of
well-known voices, and Lieutenant Bellot, the second in command of the
“Prince Albert,” appeared with a party of seven men. Twice before had
this gallant French volunteer made unavailing attempts to reach the
deserted party, who soon forgot their past misery as they accompanied
their friends back to the ship. In the following spring Kennedy and
Bellot explored North Somerset and Prince of Wales’ Land, traversing
with their sledge 1100 miles of desert, but without discovering the
least traces of Franklin or his comrades. Yet in spite of these
frequent disappointments the searching expeditions were not given over,
and as Wellington Channel and the sounds to the north of Baffin’s Bay
appeared to offer the best chances, the spring of 1852 witnessed the
departure of Sir Edward Belcher and Captain Inglefield[17] for those
still unknown regions.
The voyage of the latter proved one of the most successful in the
annals of Arctic navigation. Boldly pushing up Smith’s Sound, which had
hitherto baffled every research, Inglefield examined this noble channel
as far as 78° 30´; N. lat., when stormy weather drove him back. He next
attempted Jones’s Sound, and entered it sufficiently to see it expand
into a wide channel to the northward.
The squadron which sailed under the command of Sir Edward Belcher
was charged with the double mission of prosecuting the discoveries
in Wellington Channel, and of affording assistance to Collinson and
M’Clure, who, it will be remembered, had sailed in 1850 to Bering’s
Straits.
At Beechey Island, where the “North Star” was stationed as dépôt-ship,
the squadron separated, Belcher proceeding with the “Assistance” and
the “Pioneer” up Wellington Channel, while Kellett, with the “Resolute”
and “Intrepid,” steered to the west. Scarcely had the latter reached
his winter-quarters (September 7, 1852) at Dealy Island, on the south
coast of Melville Island, when parties were sent out to deposit
provisions at various points of the coast, for the sledge parties in
the ensuing spring.
The difficulties of transport over the broken surface of the desert
when denuded of snow may be estimated from the fact, that though the
distance from the north to the south coast of Melville Island is no
more than thirty-six miles in a direct line, Lieutenant M’Clintock
required no less than nineteen days to reach the Hecla and Griper Gulf.
Similar difficulties awaited Lieutenant Mecham on his way to Liddon
Gulf, but he was amply rewarded by finding at Winter Harbor dispatches
from M’Clure, showing that, in April, 1851, the “Investigator” was
lying in Mercy Bay, on the opposite side of Banks’s Strait, and that
consequently the north-west passage, the object of so many heroic
efforts, was at last discovered.
On March 9, 1853, the “Resolute” opened her spring campaign with
Lieutenant Pym’s sledge journey to Mercy Bay, to bring assistance to
M’Clure, or to follow his traces in case he should no longer be there.
A month later three other sledge expeditions left the ship. The one
under M’Clintock proceeded from the Hecla and Griper Gulf to the west,
and returned after one hundred and six days, having explored 1200 miles
of coast--a sledge journey without a parallel in the history of Arctic
research, though nearly equalled by the second party under Lieutenant
Mecham, which likewise started to the west from Liddon Gulf, and
travelled over a thousand miles in ninety-three days. The third party,
under Lieutenant Hamilton, which proceeded to the north-east towards
the rendezvous appointed by Sir Edward Belcher the preceding summer,
was the first that returned to the ship, but before its arrival another
party had found its way to the “Resolute”--pale, worn, emaciated
figures, slowly creeping along over the uneven ice. A stranger might
have been surprised at the thundering hurrahs which hailed the ragged
troop from a distance, or at the warm and cordial greetings which
welcomed them on deck, but no wonder that M’Clure and his heroic
crew were thus received by their fellow-seamen after a three years’
imprisonment in the ice of the Polar Sea.
On August 1, 1850, the “Investigator,” long since separated from her
consort, the “Enterprise,” had met the “Herald” and “Plover”[18] at
Cape Lisburne, beyond Bering’s Straits, and now plunged alone into
the unknown wildernesses of the Arctic Ocean. She reached the coast
of Banks’s Land on September 6, discovered Prince Albert Land on the
9th, and then sailed up Prince of Wales’ Strait, where, on October
9, she froze in for the winter. In the same month, however, a sledge
expedition was sent to the northern extremity of the strait, which
established the fact of its communication with Parry Sound and Barrow’s
Strait. In the following July the “Investigator,” though set free, was
prevented from penetrating into the sound by impassable barriers of
ice. Nothing now remained but to return to the southern extremity of
the strait, and then to advance along the west coast of Banks’s Land
to the north. This course was followed with tolerable ease till August
20, when the ship was driven between the ice and the beach a little
north of Prince Albert Cape. Here she lay in comparative safety till
the 29th, when the immense floe to which she was attached was raised
edgeways out of the water, from the pressure of surrounding ice, and
lifted perpendicularly some twenty-five feet. The slightest additional
pressure would have thrown the delicately-poised vessel entirely over,
but fortunately a large piece from underneath was rent away, and after
one or two frightful oscillations the floe righted itself and drifted
onward, bearing the ship unharmed upon its course.
During the succeeding month, every day brought its perils. Now forced
ashore by the pressure of the ice, now hurried along amidst its
inclosing masses, the adventurers, slowly working their way along the
north coast of Banks’s Land, at length found refuge in a harbor to
which the appropriate name of Mercy Bay was thankfully given. Here they
spent two winters--the intervening summer having failed to release the
ship. In the spring of 1853 Lieutenant Pym brought them the joyful news
that the “Resolute” was not far off. Such had been the adventures of
M’Clure up to the moment when Kellett welcomed him on board.
Meanwhile neither the sledge parties of the “Resolute,” nor those
which Sir Edward Belcher had sent out in all directions from his first
winter-quarters in Northumberland Sound (76° 52´ N. lat.), on the west
side of Grinnell Peninsula, had been able to discover the least traces
of Franklin. The winter (1853–54) passed, and in the following April
Lieutenant Mecham found in Prince of Wales’ Strait, and later on Ramsay
Island, at its southern outlet, documents from Collinson, bearing date
August 27, 1852, and giving full intelligence of his proceedings since
his separation from the “Investigator.” While M’Clure was achieving
in 1850 the discovery of the north-west passage, Collinson, having
arrived in Bering’s Straits later in the season, was unable to double
Point Barrow. In 1851, however, he succeeded in getting round that
projection, and pursuing the continental channel as easily as his
precursor had done, followed him through Prince of Wales’ Strait;
but, though he penetrated a few miles farther into Melville Sound, he
found no passage, and returning to the south end of the strait passed
the winter of 1851–52 in Walker Bay. Next summer he carried his ship
through Dolphin and Union Straits and Dease Strait to Cambridge Bay,
where he spent his second winter (1852–53). His sledge parties explored
the west side of Victoria Strait, but a deficiency of coals compelled
him to return the way he came, instead of attempting to force a passage
through the channel. He did not, however, get round Barrow Point on his
return without passing a third winter on the northern coast of America.
On returning to the “Resolute,” Lieutenant Mecham found all hands busy
preparing to leave the ship, Sir E. Belcher having given orders to
abandon her, as well as the “Assistance,” “Pioneer,” and “Intrepid,”
which had now been blocked up above a year in the ice, and had no
chance of escaping.
Thus the summer of 1854 witnessed the return to England of the “North
Star,” with all those brave crews which had spent so many unavailing
efforts, and in numerous boat and sledge excursions had explored so
many known and unknown coasts in search of Franklin; and thus also
M’Clure and his comrades, abandoning the “Investigator” in Mercy Bay,
returned home through Davis’s Straits, after having entered the
Polar Ocean at the Strait of Bering. He had, however, been preceded
by Lieutenant Cresswell and Mr. Wynniat, who, on an excursion to
Beechey Island in the summer of 1858, had there met with and joined the
“Phœnix,” Captain Inglefield, who, accompanied by his friend Lieutenant
Bellot, had conveyed provisions to Sir E. Belcher’s squadron, and
was about to return to England. During this expedition Bellot, whose
many excellent qualities had made him a universal favorite, was
unfortunately drowned by a fall into an ice-crevice during a sledge
excursion. A stone monument erected before Greenwich Hospital reminds
England of the gallant volunteer whose name is gloriously linked with
that of Franklin in Arctic history.
Years had thus passed without bringing any tidings of the “Erebus”
and “Terror” since the discovery of their first winter-quarters,
until at last, in the spring of 1854, Dr. Rae, of the Hudson’s Bay
Company, while engaged in the survey of the Boothian isthmus, fell
in with a party of Esquimaux, who informed him that in the spring
of 1850 some of their countrymen on King William’s Island had seen
a party of white men making their way to the mainland. None of them
could speak the Esquimaux language intelligibly, but by signs they
gave them to understand that their ships had been crushed by ice, and
that they were now going to where they expected to find deer to shoot.
At a later date of the same season, but before the breaking up of the
ice, the bodies of some thirty men were discovered on the continent a
day’s journey from Back’s Great Fish River, and five on an island near
it. Some of the bodies had been buried (probably those of the first
victims of famine), some were in a tent, others under the boat which
had been turned over to form a shelter, and several lay scattered
about in different directions. Of those found on the island, one was
supposed to have been an officer, as he had a telescope strapped over
his shoulder, and his double-barrelled gun lay underneath him. The
mutilated condition of several of the corpses and the contents of the
kettles left no doubt that our wretched countrymen had been driven to
the last resource of cannibalism, as a means of prolonging existence.
Some silver spoons and forks, a round silver plate, engraved “Sir
John Franklin, K.C.B.,” a star or order, with the motto, “Nec aspera
terrent,” which Dr. Rae purchased of the Esquimaux, corroborated the
truth of their narrative.
Thus it was now known how part of the unfortunate mariners had
perished, but the fate of the expedition was still enveloped in
mystery. What had become of the ships and of the greater part of their
crews? And was Franklin one of the party seen by the Esquimaux, or had
an earlier death shortened his sufferings?
To solve at least this mournful secret--for every hope that he might
still be alive had long since vanished--his noble widow resolved
to spend all her available means--since Government would no longer
prosecute the search--and with the assistance of her friends, but
mostly at her own expense, fitted out a small screw steamer, the “Fox,”
which the gallant M’Clintock, already distinguished in perilous Polar
voyages, volunteered to command. Another Arctic officer, Lieutenant
Hobson, likewise came forward to serve without pay.
At first it seemed as if all the elements had conspired against the
success of this work of piety, for in the summer of 1857 the floating
ice off Melville Bay, on the coast of Greenland, seized the “Fox,” and
after a dreary winter, various narrow escapes, and eight months of
imprisonment, carried her back nearly 1200 geographical miles, even to
63½° N. lat. in the Atlantic.
At length, on April 25, 1858, the “Fox” got free, and, having availed
herself of the scanty stores and provisions which the small Danish
settlement of Holstenburg afforded, sailed into Barrow Strait. Finding
Franklin Channel obstructed with ice, she then turned back, and
steaming up Prince Regent’s Inlet, arrived at the eastern opening of
Bellot’s Strait. Here the passage to the west was again found blocked
with ice, and after five ineffectual attempts to pass, the “Fox” at
length took up her winter-quarters in Port Kennedy, on the northern
side of the strait.
On his first sledge excursion in the following spring, M’Clintock met
at Cape Victoria, on the south-west coast of Boothia, with a party of
Esquimaux, who informed him that some years back a large ship had been
crushed by the ice out in the sea to the west of King William’s Island,
but that all the people landed safely.
Meeting with the same Esquimaux on April 20, he learned, after much
anxious inquiry, that besides the ship which had been seen to sink in
deep water, a second one had been forced on shore by the ice, where
they supposed it still remained, but much broken. They added that it
was in the fall of the year--that is, August or September--when the
ships were destroyed; that all the white people went away to the Great
Fish River, taking a boat or boats with them, and that in the following
winter their bones were found there.
These first indications of the fate of Franklin’s expedition were soon
followed by others. On May 7 M’Clintock heard from an old Esquimaux
woman on King William’s Island that many of the white men dropped by
the way as they went to the Great River; that some were buried, and
some were not. They did not themselves witness this, but discovered
their bodies during the winter following.
Visiting the shore along which the retreating crews must have marched,
he came, shortly after midnight of May 25, when slowly walking along
a gravel ridge near the beach, which the winds kept partially bare of
snow, upon a human skeleton, partly exposed, with here and there a few
fragments of clothing appearing through the snow.
“A most careful examination of the spot,” says M’Clintock, “was of
course made, the snow removed, and every scrap of clothing gathered up.
A pocket-book, which being frozen hard could not be examined on the
spot, afforded strong grounds for hope that some information might be
subsequently obtained respecting the owner, and the march of the lost
crews. The victim was a young man, slightly built, and perhaps above
the common height; the dress appeared to be that of a steward. The poor
man seems to have selected the bare ridge top, as affording the least
tiresome walking, and to have fallen upon his face in the position in
which we found him. It was a melancholy truth that the old woman spake
when she said, ‘They fell down and died as they walked along.’”
Meanwhile Lieutenant Hobson, who was exploring with another sledge
party the north-western coast of King William’s Land, had made the
still more important discovery of a record giving a laconic account of
the Franklin expedition up to the time when the ships were lost and
abandoned. It was found on May 6 in a large cairn at Point Victory.
It stated briefly that in 1845 the “Erebus” and “Terror” had ascended
Wellington Channel to lat. 77°, and returned by the west side of
Cornwallis Island to Beechey Island, where they spent the first
winter. In 1846 they proceeded to the south-west, through Peel Sound
and Franklin Sound, and eventually reached within twelve miles of
the north extremity of King William’s Land, when their progress was
arrested by the ice. Sir John Franklin died on June 11, 1847, having
completed--two months before his death--the sixty-first year of an
active, eventful, and honorable life. On April 22, 1848, the ships were
deserted, having been beset since September 12, 1846. The officers and
crew, consisting of 105 souls, under the command of Captain Crozier,
landed with the intention of starting for Back’s Fish River, which, as
we have seen, they were never destined to reach.
Quantities of clothing and articles of all kinds were found lying about
the cairn, as if these men, aware that they were retreating for their
lives, had then abandoned every thing which they considered superfluous.
Thus all doubts about Sir John Franklin’s fate were at length removed.
He at least had died on board his ship, and been spared the miserable
end of his comrades as they fell one by one in the dreary wilderness.
The two wrecks have disappeared without leaving a trace behind. A
single document, some coins and pieces of plate--this is all that
remains of the gallant ships which so hopefully sailed forth under one
of the noblest seamen that ever served in the navy of Great Britain.
It is a curious circumstance that Franklin’s ships perished within
sight of the headlands named Cape Franklin and Cape Jane Franklin by
their discoverer, Sir James Ross, eighteen years before.