VOYAGE TO THE ARCTIC ISLANDS.
A week was spent at Port Burwell, transferring the coals and provisions from the Erik to the Neptune, and in landing a large quantity of coal and provisions for the use of the Northwest Mounted Police. All this work having been finished, both ships weighed anchor early on the morning of the 2nd of August, the Erik bound south for Newfoundland and the Neptune northward for Smith sound.
Major Moodie having decided to return to Ottawa, left on the Erik, and that ship also carried our second steward, who was invalided home, along with a sailor of the Era who, during the past winter, had nearly died of scurvy.
The course was laid across the mouth of the strait, and at noon the snow-covered cliffs of Cape Resolution bore north-northeast, distant about twenty miles. A few icebergs were passed during the afternoon, but no field ice was seen until the following evening, when a few heavy pans were met. As the weather was thick with fog the ship slowed down for the night, and the course was changed more to the eastward. Thick fog continued until the afternoon of the 6th, when, the weather clearing, we found ourselves about twenty miles to the westward of the great island of Disko, on the coast of Greenland. The scenery of the island is very grand; the shore-line is deeply indented by narrow bays, from which the land rises abruptly into irregular mountain masses, terminating in sharp peaks, whose loftier summits were hidden in the straight line of clouds formed from the recently risen fog. All the higher valleys were filled with great glaciers pouring slowly down into a sea dotted with numerous fantastic icebergs. The contrast between the dark sombre rocks of the hills and the dazzling whiteness of the glaciers was enhanced by the streams of sunlight which flooded the interior, while the coast was veiled by the fog clouds.
The weather remained clear throughout the night and next day, as we passed northward along the rugged coast of Greenland, catching many views of its great ice-cap behind the numerous high islands that fringe the coast. The greater part of the surface of these islands was free from snow; glaciers were only seen in the higher valleys. The ice in the long fiords and the channels had broken up and been carried away, so that only numerous icebergs were seen along the shores. In the afternoon considerable heavy field ice was passed on the west. Our noon observation placed us about twenty miles off the Danish settlement of Upernivik, to the northward of which the sea was filled with great icebergs, they being especially numerous in the neighbourhood of the Devils Thumb island, so named on account of the prominent peak bearing some resemblance to that member.
When the Duck islands had been reached the ship’s course was changed to westward to cross the dreaded Melville bay. This great bay owes its bad name to the quantities of heavy ice infesting its waters during the early summer, and the whalers count themselves lucky if the delay does not exceed three weeks.
We steamed directly across for Cape York, ahead of a strong gale of wind accompanied by heavy rain and sleet, and saw no ice until within a short distance of the cape, where broken floes and icebergs formed a fringe extending a mile or so from the land. Continuing westward close along the outer margin of the ice we were abreast of Cape York at three in the afternoon, having made a record passage across the bay.
Parker Snow Bay, North Greenland.
The weather becoming very thick, we shortly after stood inside the outer stringers of ice, and kept close to the ironbound coast in order to sight Conical island, and so reach the fine harbour of Parker Snow bay just inside the island; this was successfully accomplished, and the ship was brought to anchor near the head of the bay. The wind freshened during the night, and in the morning blew so strongly that it was impossible to reach the shore with the ship’s boat. At noon the wind registered forty-eight miles an hour, and some of the gusts were much stronger.
The wind fell towards evening, allowing us to land. We were now well north of the Arctic circle, and a bright sun remained visible all night.
An ascent of one of the glaciers at the head of the bay afforded valuable information concerning the ice-cap and glacial phenomena, discussed later in the report. A sharp rocky hill, 960 feet high, divides the glaciers; this was crossed and the descent made by the second glacier, where much trouble was experienced crossing the deep gullies cut into it by surface streams of water. Neither of these glaciers discharges into the sea, their fronts terminating against high steep banks of boulder clay brought from above by the moving ice. A light pink gneiss, cut by many veins of quartz apparently all quite barren, is the chief rock of these hills. The hills surrounding Parker Snow bay rise in abrupt cliffs nearly 1,500 feet above the water; the country then rises less abruptly another thousand feet to the lower level of the great ice-cap which covers the entire interior of Greenland.