The Great White North / The story of polar exploration from the earliest times to the discovery of the pole

by Helen S. Wright

CHAPTER VII

Search for Sir John Franklin.—Captain Kellett.—Captain Moore.—Dr. Richardson.—Dr. Rae.—Sir J. C. Ross.—Mr. Parker.—Dr. Goodsir.—Collinson and M’Clure.—The Felix.—Prince Albert.—Commanded by Charles C. Forsyth.—Captain Austin’s squadron.—Captain Ommaney.—Lieutenant Sherard Osborn.—Commander Cator.—Grinnell expedition under De Haven.

No tidings of the Erebus and Terror having reached England by the close of 1847, great anxiety was felt as to the whereabouts and fate of the missing ships. The government immediately took measures to outfit three searching parties. The first was to go westward to Behring Strait, and there meet the ships with assistance, should they have been successful in making the object of their voyage, and for this purpose Captain Henry Kellett commanding the Herald and Captain Moore in the ship Plover left England in January, 1848.

The second was to be an overland and boat expedition with its object to explore the coast of the Arctic Sea between the Mackenzie and Coppermine rivers, under the leadership of that faithful companion and friend of Sir John Franklin, Dr. Sir John Richardson, accompanied by Rae, who had but lately returned from his memorable journey of 1846-1847.

The third expedition was under Sir James Clark Ross in the ships Enterprise and Investigator, with instructions to make for Lancaster Sound and Barrow Strait, examine all tracks of the missing ships westward and render relief if the ships should be discovered imprisoned in the ice.

Owing to the poor sailing qualities of the Plover and Herald, the ships were unable to reach high latitudes in time to penetrate to the northward that season, and not until the following July, in company with the Nancy Dawson, a pleasure yacht belonging to Robert Sheldon, Esq., did they pursue the main object of their expedition. July 18, 1849, they left Chamisso, and on the 20th they were off Cape Lisburn; five days later they passed Icy Point. Here they despatched the Herald’s pinnace and three other boats, with a party of twenty-five men with three months’ provisions, under command of Lieutenant Pullen, whose instructions were to connect with the Richardson party, one division in two whale-boats to extend the search to the Mackenzie River, ascend that river, and return homeward by Fort Hope and York Factory; the remaining division to return to the rendezvous of the ships at Chamisso Island.

The Herald and Plover cruised northward as far as the ice would permit, then explored the coast-line in detail. On the 7th of August, the Herald sighted new territory. Running close to the island, they found it barren, and for the most part of inaccessible granite cliffs.

The Nancy Dawson and the return boats under Lieutenant Pullen rejoined the Herald by the 24th of August. They had parted company with the two whale-boats at Dease Inlet. They had found no traces of the Franklin expedition, but had left deposits of provisions at intervals along the route.

The following months were spent in winter quarters, and, as soon as the weather permitted, in careful examination of the inlets and coast from Icy Cape to Point Barrow in the hope of finding traces of the missing party. Disappointed at a fruitless voyage, the ships returned to England in October, 1850.

RICHARDSON’S REPORT

In his official report to the Secretary of the Admiralty, Sir John Richardson gives an excellent summary of the results of the second expedition. He says in part:—

“In the voyage between the Mackenzie and Coppermine, I carefully executed their lordships’ instructions with respect to the examination of the coast-line, and became fully convinced that no ships had passed within view of the mainland. It is, indeed, nearly impossible that they could have done so unobserved by some of the numerous parties of Eskimos on the look-out for whales. We were, moreover, informed by the Eskimos of Back’s Inlet, that the ice had been pressing on their shore nearly the whole summer; and its closely packed condition when we left it on the 4th of September made it highly improbable that it would open for ship navigation later in the season. I regretted extremely that the state of the ice prevented me from crossing to Wollaston Land, and thus completing, in one season, the whole scheme of their lordships’ instructions. The opening between Wollaston and Victoria Lands has always appeared to me to possess great interest, for through it the flood-tide evidently sets into Coronation Gulf, diverging to the westward by the Dolphin and Union Strait, and to the eastward round Cape Alexander. By the fifth clause of Sir John Franklin’s instructions, he is directed to steer southwestward from Cape Walker, which would lead him nearly in the direction of the strait in question. If Sir John found Barrow Strait as open as when Sir Edward Parry passed it on four previous occasions, I am convinced that (complying as exactly as he could with his instructions and without looking into Wellington Sound, or other openings either to the south or north of Barrow Strait) he pushed directly west to Cape Walker, and from thence southwestwards. If so, the ships were probably shut up on some of the passages between Victoria, Banks, and Wollaston Lands.

“Being apprehensive that the boats I left on the coast would be broken up by the Eskimos, and being, moreover, of opinion that the examination of the opening in question might be safely and efficiently performed in the only remaining boat I had fit for the transport from Bear Lake to the Coppermine, I determined to entrust this important service to Mr. Rae, who volunteered, and whose ability and zeal in the cause I cannot too highly commend. He selected an excellent crew, all of them experienced voyageurs and capable of finding their way back to Bear Lake without guides, should any unforeseen accident deprive them of their leader.

“In the month of March (1849) a sufficient supply of pemmican, and other necessary stores, with the equipments of the boat, were transported over the snow on dog-sledges to a navigable part of the Kendall River, and left there under the charge of two men. As soon as the Dease broke up in June, Mr. Rae would follow, with the boat, the rest of the crew, and a party of Indian hunters, and would descend the Coppermine River about the middle of July, at which time the sea generally begins to break up. He would then, as soon as possible, cross from Cape Krusenstern to Wollaston Land, and endeavor to penetrate to the northward, erecting signal-columns, and making deposits on conspicuous headlands, and especially on the north shore of Banks’ Land, should he be fortunate enough to attain that coast. He was further instructed not to hazard the safety of his party by remaining too long on the north side of Dolphin and Union Strait, and to be guided in his movements by the season, the state of the ice, and such intelligence as he might obtain from the Eskimos. He was also requested to engage one or more families of Indian hunters to pass the summer of 1805 on the banks of the Coppermine River, to be ready to assist any party that may direct their course that way.”

Upernavik

SIR JAMES CLARK ROSS

The 6th of July, 1848, found the Enterprise and Investigator of the third expedition, at the Danish settlement of Upernavik; from this port Sir James Clark Ross wrote a letter to the British Admiralty stating that after passing a second winter near Port Leopold, should no traces of Sir John Franklin’s party be discovered, he would send the Investigator under Captain Bird back to England and proceed with the search alone.

This caused great uneasiness at the Admiralty, and the North Star was at once despatched with a supply of extra stores and instruction to Ross to remain in company with the Investigator and not follow out the design expressed in his letter. The North Star was further instructed that should she fail to reach the ships, stores were to be left at the farthest point she could reach in safety, and then she should return to England. Though explicitly warned against getting beset in the ice, the season of 1849 passed, and the North Star did not return, thus causing great anxiety in England as to her safety.

To return to the Enterprise and Investigator, these two ships, after leaving Upernavik, had found very unfavourable conditions in the ice, which necessitated towing the ships or proceeding slowly under light winds and calms. By the 23d of August, the ships had reached Pond Bay, having sustained severe shocks through ice pressure and other discouraging conditions. They kept close to the shore, firing guns and sending up signals at frequent intervals, but no sign of Eskimos or other human beings were discovered.

Upon reaching Possession Bay, a party was sent on shore to search for traces of the expedition, but nothing was found except a paper left there by Sir Edward Parry on the same day (August 30) in 1819. Again at Cape York another party went ashore, and, though no traces were found, a conspicuous mark was erected for the benefit of any other party that might reach there. The ships then proceeded.

“We stood over,” writes Sir James Ross, “toward Northeast Cape until we came in with the edge of a pack, too dense for us to penetrate, lying between us and Leopold Island, about fourteen miles broad; we therefore coasted the north shore of Barrow Strait, to seek a harbour further to the westward, and to examine the numerous inlets of that shore. Maxwell Bay, and several smaller indentations, were thoroughly explored, and, although we got near the entrance of Wellington Channel, the firm barrier of ice which stretched across it, and which had not broken away this season, convinced us all was impracticable in that direction. We now stood to the southwest to seek for a harbour near Cape Rennell, but found a heavy body of ice extending from the west of Cornwallis Island. Coasting along the pack during stormy and foggy weather, we had difficulty in keeping the ships free during the nights, for I believe so great a quantity of ice was never before seen in Barrow Strait at this period of the season.”

By the 11th of September, the ships found winter quarters in the harbour of Port Leopold, and almost immediately the ice pack closed in and formed a complete barrier for the remainder of the winter. Various exploring and surveying journeys were undertaken during this winter and the coast carefully examined in all directions, but no trace of Franklin or his ships was discovered.

The crew caught in traps a number of white foxes, and knowing how far these animals will roam in search of food, the men clasped round the animals’ necks copper collars, on which were written the position of the ships and depots of provisions, and the creatures were set at liberty in the hope they would be caught by some of the ill-fated party.

During April and May, Captain Ross, accompanied by Lieutenant M’Clintock and a party of twelve men, carefully explored the coast-line of the northern and western coast of Boothia Peninsula.

“The examination of the coast,” writes Captain Ross, “was pursued until the fifth of June, when, having consumed more than half our provisions, and the strength of the party being much reduced, I was reluctantly compelled to abandon further operations, as it was, moreover, necessary to give the men a day of rest. But that the time might not be wholly lost, I proceeded with two hands to the extreme south point in sight from our encampment, distant about eight or nine miles.”

During the absence of Captain Ross, other parties had explored the vicinity of Cape Hind, and another along the western shore. This last party under Lieutenant Robinson reached as far as Cresswell Bay, a few miles to the southward of Fury Beach. He found the house in which Sir John Ross had wintered in 1832-1833, with a quantity of stores and provisions of the Fury, that had been there since 1827, and were in excellent state of preservation.

Preparations were now made for leaving Port Leopold, Captain Ross’s object being to examine Wellington Channel and, if feasible, to penetrate as far as Melville Island. To this end it was necessary to set to work with ice-saws and cut a channel of over two miles that the ships might be freed. This tedious work was accomplished by the last of August, but before leaving, a shelter was built on land, twelve months’ provisions, a steam-launch, belonging to the Investigator, and such other stores being left behind as would be found welcome to Sir John Franklin’s party should they reach that spot. Hardly had the ships got under way when a strong wind brought the ice down on them, and they were soon beset.

For some days it seemed as if the ships were hard fast for a dreary winter, but the wind shifted to the westward, the whole body of ice being driven to the eastward, and in the centre of a field of ice more than fifty miles in circumference, the ships were carried along the southern shore of Lancaster Sound. After passing its entrance, they drifted along the western shore of Baffin Bay until abreast of Pond Bay, when, with a suddenness that was all but miraculous, the field broke into innumerable fragments, and the ships were freed.

“At once all sail was set, warps were run out from all quarters, to assist the ship through the heavy floes, and at last the Investigator and Enterprise found themselves in open water.”

“It is impossible,” writes Ross, “to convey any idea of the sensation we experienced when we found ourselves once more at liberty; many a heart poured forth its praises and thanksgivings to Almighty God for this unlooked-for deliverance.

“The advance of winter had now closed all the harbours against us; and as it was impossible to penetrate to the westward through the pack from which we had just been liberated, I made the signal to the Investigator of my intention to return to England.”

Thus the three expeditions so far sent out had not met with success, and the anxiety in England over the fate of the Erebus and Terror was increasing. In March, 1848, the Admiralty offered the sum of one hundred guineas or more to the crews of any whaling ships that should bring accurate tidings of the missing ships and of Franklin.

In March, 1849, the British government offered another reward of twenty thousand pounds “to such private ship, or by distribution among such private ships, or to any exploring party or parties, of any country, as might, in the judgment of the Board of Admiralty, have rendered efficient assistance to Sir John Franklin, his ships, or their crews, and might have contributed directly to extricate them from the ice.”

THE LADY FRANKLIN EXPEDITION

Lady Franklin, whose devotion and courage had won the admiration of the world, offered two thousand pounds and three thousand pounds to officers and crew of any ship that should render assistance to her husband and, if necessary, bring Sir John Franklin and the party back to England.

In the spring of 1849, she sent out provisions and coal for the use of the missing ships, and these were carried in the whaling ship Truelove, in charge of Mr. Parker, and were landed at Cape Hay on the south side of Lancaster Sound.

In 1849, Dr. Goodsir, whose brother had sailed in the Erebus as assistant surgeon, went north on the whaling ship Advice, under Captain Penny, and penetrated to Lancaster Sound, but was debarred from entering Prince Regent Inlet by the ice. The Advice closely skirted the shores, and deposited provisions, but found no traces of the missing ships, and returned to England. In the meantime, the Enterprise and Investigator, the gallant ships of the third government expedition previously described, were being refitted and provisioned for the purpose of going by way of South America to Behring Strait. Sailing from Plymouth Sound January 20, 1850, the Enterprise under the command of Captain Richard Collinson, and the Investigator under Commander M’Clure, made a comparatively fast run to the Pacific. By the middle of August the Enterprise fell in with the ice. At Grantly Harbor, communication with the Plover and Herald determined Captain Collinson to proceed to Hongkong, there to replenish his stores and not attempt to penetrate the ice until the following April.

In the meantime the North Star with her provisions and despatches had spent the winter in North Star Bay, in Wolstenholme Sound, 76° 33´ north latitude and 68° 56´ west longitude. Not until August, 1850, did she get free of her retreat, and some days later in Lancaster Sound she spoke the Lady Franklin and Sophia under the command of Mr. Penny. These ships had been equipped mainly at the expense of Lady Franklin; had sailed early in the spring and, though independent of the government expeditions, were to coöperate with them as circumstances demanded. Later the North Star fell in with the Felix, a schooner-rigged vessel of one hundred and twenty tons, provisioned for eighteen months and under that veteran sea captain and explorer, Sir John Ross. The Felix had been equipped by public subscription and sent out for the purpose of searching the west side of the entrance of Wellington Channel from Cape Hotham to Banks Land.

The North Star deposited a quantity of provisions at a point the commander named Navy Board Inlet, on the mainland behind Wollaston Island, and erected a cairn and flagstaff, having first made an unsuccessful attempt to reach Port Bowen and Port Neale. In Possession Bay she spoke the Prince Albert, that gallant little craft, equipped in greater part by the devoted Lady Franklin, who had raised the necessary funds by selling out all personal securities which she could legally touch. Commander Charles C. Forsyth and Mr. W. P. Snow had volunteered their services without compensation, and the object of this expedition was to examine the shores of Prince Regent Inlet and the Gulf of Boothia and send out travelling parties to examine the west side of Boothia down to Dease and Simpson straits.

Shortly after this, the North Star turned homeward, reaching Spithead, England, September 28, 1850.

The British government had by now outfitted two strong teak-built ships, the Resolute and the Assistance, and two steam vessels, the Pioneer and Intrepid. The object of this expedition was to renew the search by way of Baffin Bay and Lancaster Sound. Captain H. T. Austin commanded the Resolute, Captain Ommaney the Assistance, Lieutenant Sherard Osborn the Pioneer, and Lieutenant Commander Cator the Intrepid. Of what they accomplished, we shall speak later.

As early as April 4, 1849, Lady Franklin had made a heartrending appeal to the President of the United States, in which she called on the American nation, as a “kindred people, to join heart and hand in the enterprise of snatching the lost navigators from a dreary grave.” Such an eloquent appeal could not help but rouse the country to the strongest feeling of sympathy and interest. But the prolonged delays incident to our national legislation threatened to defeat her request, until a generous philanthropist, Mr. Henry Grinnell, a New York merchant of great wealth, stepped forward with the munificent offer of two well-equipped vessels, the Advance of one hundred and forty tons, and the Rescue of ninety tons, which he placed at the disposition of the government. Congress accepted this generous gift, and the ships were placed under the direction of the Navy Board. The command was given to Lieutenant E. De Haven, a most zealous and able naval officer; Mr. Murdock was sailing master, with Dr. E. K. Kane, that remarkable man “weak in body but great in mind,” whose succeeding journeys contributed so much to solving the mystery surrounding the fate of the lost ships.

FIRST GRINNELL EXPEDITION

The Grinnell expedition left New York on May 23, 1850, and was absent about sixteen months.

It will thus be seen that the Arctic seas had never been so replete with expeditions, whose heroic object was the search for missing comrades; and the year 1850-1851 was one of unparalleled adventure, exploration, and discovery, but alas! only the most meagre traces of the brave mariners were found, whose deplorable fate stirred the sympathy of the civilized world.

The unfavourable conditions of the “middle ice” in Baffin Bay and the Melville Bay barrier caused the searching expeditions great difficulties and discouraging delays. So strenuous were the conditions at times that the officers and crews of the smaller vessels made every preparation to leave the ships at a moment’s notice, should these vessels be crushed in the ice. By boring, tracking, and cutting, and by one ship towing the other through loose ice as the occasion demanded, slow but steady advance was made to the desired latitudes. Most interesting are the experiences of the little Prince Albert, Lady Franklin’s ship.

In describing a daring attack of this little craft upon ice-floes, Mr. Snow writes most graphically:—

“It was determined by Captain Forsyth boldly to try and break through the impediment, by forcing the ship under a press of canvas. Accordingly, all sail was set and the ship was steering direct for the narrowest and most broken part of the neck. As this was the first and only time the Prince Albert was made to come direct upon the ice to break it with the force she would derive from a press of sail, we were all anxious to see how she would stand it; and right well did she bear the test. The two mates were aloft in the ‘crow’s nest’ to con the vessel; I was standing on the extreme point of her bow and holding on by the fore-stay to direct her movement when immediately upon the ice; and Captain Forsyth was by the side of the helmsman. Every man was at some particular station, and ready to perform anything that was instantly required of him. Cook and steward were also on deck; and throughout the ship an almost breathless anxiety prevailed; for, it must be remembered, it was not a large and powerful ship, but a small, and comparatively fragile one, that was now about to try of her own accord, and with her own strength, to break a piece of ice some feet thick, though not very broad. On either side of her were heavy floes and sconce pieces; and it required the greatest nicety in guiding her, that she might, in her strongest part, the bow, hit the precise spot where the neck was weakest, and not come upon any other part where she could do nothing but severely injure herself.

“On she came, at a rate of full five miles per hour; gaining, as she proceeded, increased impetus, until she rushed towards it with a speed of at least eight miles in the hour. The distance from the neck was about a mile, and the breeze blew steadily upon it. The weakest and narrowest part was that close to the starboard floe, and to that our eyes were all directed.

“‘Port! starboard! So—O—steady!’ was every now and then bawled out with stentorian lungs from aloft, and as energetically and promptly repeated, by the captain below, to the man at the wheel. Presently she came close to—she was almost upon it—a mistaken hail from aloft would have put her helm a-port, and sent her crushing upon the heavy floe. I heard the order ‘a-port,’ and, before it had been repeated, shouted loudly, with the men around me, who also saw the mistake, ‘starboard! starboard! hard a-starboard!’ and in the next instant, with a tremendous blow, that for the moment made her rebound and tremble, she struck the ice in the exact point, and caused it to rend apart in several fragments. Ice poles and boat hooks were immediately in request; and myself and half a dozen men sprang instantly over the bows, working with hands and feet and with all our might in removing the broken pieces by pushing them ahead of the vessel; in which labour, she, herself, materially aided us by her own power pressing upon them. In a moment or two it was effected, and throwing ourselves aboard again like so many wild cats, we prepared for the next encounter.

“This, however, proved nothing like the other. The first blow sent the whole of it flying in all directions, and the little Prince, as if in haughty disdain, passed through without once stopping, pushing aside the pieces, as they came against her. In another moment or two we were in a larger sheet of water, though to our disappointment blocked up at the extreme end by small bergs and huge hummocks, which latter had, apparently, been thus thrown up in consequence of some late severe squeeze there. We were, therefore, again obliged to make fast.”

Thursday, August 15, Mr. Snow makes the entry, “We were, now, fairly in what is called by Arctic seamen, the ‘North Water,’ and all seemed clear before us.”

By the 21st the little Prince Albert found herself off Port Leopold. Here a party made a difficult landing in a gutta-percha boat and found the house constructed by Sir James C. Ross, somewhat rent by the winter storms, but the provisions were in excellent condition and the little steam-launch ready to carry any shipwrecked crew to safety.

The Prince Albert now made for Prince Regent Inlet, and soon after stood off Fury Beach. From this point the outlook was discouraging, as an expanse of hummocky ice without the slightest sign of an opening extended as far as the eye could reach.

It was now found necessary to abandon the main object of the expedition; that is, the examination of the shores of Boothia, and the ship turned with the purpose of closely scanning the shores and headlands at the throat of Barrow Strait and a short distance up Wellington Channel. In Barrow Strait, they spoke the American brig Advance; by the 24th they neared Cape Hind. On this day they saw the Lady Franklin and Sophia, and later observed three more ships in Wellington Channel.

The next day, while off Cape Spencer, the officers of the Prince Albert saw that to push further into the ice-pack through the few lanes still open might mean, in case of a sudden nip, being shut up for the winter, so it was reluctantly decided to make for home.

CAPTAIN OMMANEY

Leaving behind them that noble fleet of searching vessels, including the Assistance, the Lady Franklin, the Sophia, the Rescue, and, though not visible, the Advance and Intrepid, the Prince Albert turned her bow homeward. At Cape Riley the officers noticed a signal-post and immediately sent a boat ashore to discover what it meant.

“As the boat touched the shelving rocks,” writes Mr. Snow, “I hastily sprang out into the water, leaving the men to secure her; and ran to the signal-post about fifty yards off. I was there in a moment, with Grate close at my heels. A few paces off I observed another and a rougher post erected, but this one had a small flag flying, and was evidently the principal. I really cannot tell whether the cylinder handed to me in the course of a second or two had been buried or merely tied to the post, so intent was I upon conjecturing what news I should receive. My hands trembled with eagerness, and I could hardly read the paper. It was as follows:—

“‘Her Majesty’s Arctic Searching Expedition.

“‘This is to certify that Captain Ommaney, with the officers of her Majesty’s ships Assistance and Intrepid, landed at Cape Riley on the 23d of August, 1850, where he found traces of an encampment, and collected the remains of materials which evidently prove that some party belonging to her Majesty’s ships have been detained on this spot. Beechey Island was also examined, where traces were found of the same party.

“‘This is also to give notice that a supply of provisions and fuel is at Port Leopold. Her Majesty’s ships, Assistance and Intrepid, were detached from the squadron under Captain Austin, off Wolstenholme, on the 15th inst., since when they have examined the north shores of Lancaster Sound and Barrow Strait, without meeting any other traces. Captain Ommaney proceeds to Cape Hotham and Cape Walker in search for further traces of Sir John Franklin’s expedition.

“‘Dated on board her Majesty’s ship Assistance, off Cape Riley, August 23, 1850.

“‘Erasmus Ommaney.’”

“After the other signal-post had been examined,” continues Mr. Snow, “I made a careful observation of everything around me, and commenced as close an investigation as the hurried nature of my visit, according to my orders, permitted me. The men had also, previously to my telling them and with an alacrity that did them credit, commenced a most prying search. One in a short time brought me about an inch and a half square piece of canvas well bleached; another, the second mate, more fortunate, discovered a piece of rope, as I supposed a ratlin, and which was found to contain the Chatham Dock-yard Navy mark;[2] a third found a piece of bone, with two holes bored in it. Beef bones, and other unmistakable marks of the place having been used within some very few years by a party of Europeans, for some purpose or other, were discovered. The ground presented very much the appearance of having been turned into an encampment, for certain stones were so placed as to lead to the inference that tents had been erected within some of their enclosures, and in others a fire might have been made, but no marks of fire were visible.

“Four of these circular parcels of stones I counted, and observed another which might or might not have been a fifth.”

Henry Grinnell

Continuing her homeward voyage with her precious relics, the Prince Albert reached Aberdeen, October 1. The Admiralty identified the bit of rope as being navy-yard manufacture of not later than 1841. The canvas was also believed to be of British manufacture. The meat bones seemed to bear exactly the marks of the ship’s provisions used about five years back, and the relics were identified as belonging to the ill-fated Erebus and Terror.

As soon as it was known among the other searching parties that Captain Ommaney had found traces of the missing expedition, Ross, Austin, Penny, and De Haven began a minute investigation of the surrounding locality and proved that Cape Spencer and Beechey Island at the entrance of Wellington Channel had been without doubt the site of Franklin’s first winter quarters. At Cape Spencer, some ten miles above Cape Riley, a ground place for a tent was found, the floor paved with small stones. About the tent birds’ bones and meat canisters were found. Numerous sledge tracks along the shore were also noticed.

LIEUTENANT OSBORN

Of the examination of Beechey Island, Lieutenant Osborn writes:—

“A long point of land slopes gradually from the southern bluffs of this now deeply interesting island, until it almost connects itself with the land of North Devon, forming on either side of it two good and commodious bays. On this slope a multitude of preserved-meat tins were strewed about; and near them, and on the ridge of the slope, a carefully constructed cairn was discovered; it consisted of layers of fitted tins, filled with gravel, and placed to form a firm and solid foundation. Beyond this, and along the northern shore of Beechey Island, the following traces were then quickly discovered: the embankment of a house, with carpenters’ and armorers’ working places, washing tubs, coal-bags, pieces of old clothing, rope, and, lastly, the graves of three of the crew of the Erebus and Terror, bearing date of the winter of 1845-1846. We, therefore, now had ascertained the first winter-quarters of Sir John Franklin.

“On the eastern slope of the ridge of Beechey Island, a remnant of a garden (for remnant it now only was, having been dug up in the search) told an interesting tale; its neatly-shaped, oval outline, the border carefully formed of moss lichen, poppies, and anemones, transplanted from some more genial part of this dreary region,—contrived still to show symptoms of vitality; but the seeds which, doubtless, they had sowed in the garden had decayed away.

“Nearer to the beach, a heap of cinders and scraps of iron showed the armorer’s working-place; and, along an old water-course, now chained up by frost, several tubs, constructed of the ends of salt-meat casks, left no doubt as to the washing-places of the men of Franklin’s squadron. Happening to cross a level piece of ground, which as yet no one had lighted upon, I was pleased to see a pair of cashmere gloves laid out to dry, with two small stones on the palms to prevent their blowing away; they had been there since 1846. I took them up carefully, as melancholy mementoes of my missing friends. In another spot a flannel was discovered; and this, together with some things lying about, would, in my ignorance of wintering in the Arctic regions, have led me to suppose that there was considerable haste displayed in the departure of the Erebus and Terror from the spot, had not Captain Austin assured me that there was nothing to ground such a belief upon, and that, from experience, he could vouch for these being nothing more than the ordinary traces of a winter station; and this opinion was fully borne out by those officers who had, in the previous year, wintered in Port Leopold, one of them asserting that people left winter quarters too well pleased to escape to care much for a handful of shavings, an old coal-bag, or a washing tub.”

The Graves on Beechey Island

On the headstones of the three graves resting in that bleak and desolate shore were the following inscriptions:—

Sacred
to the
Memory
of
W. Braine, R. M.
H. M. S. Erebus,
Died April 3rd, 1846,
Aged 32 years.
“Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.”
Joshua, ch. XXIV. 15.

Sacred to the Memory of
John Hartwell, A. B. of H. M. S.
Erebus,
Aged 23 years.
“Thus saith the Lord, consider your ways.”
Haggai, I. 7.

Sacred
to
The Memory
of
John Torrington,
Who departed this life,
January 1st, A.D., 1846,
On board of
H. M.’s Ship Terror,
Aged 20 years.

No other written record was found. The lost expedition had seemingly folded its tents, in the mysterious gloom of the Arctic night, and silently crept away.

Now, just as the searchers had struck the trail, and were hot upon the scent, the icy clutch of the long winter arrested their endeavours, imperiously demanded of them patience, courage, endurance, and enforced upon them the weariness of months of waiting. Thus the squadron took up winter quarters at the southern extremity of Cornwallis Land; the Grinnell expedition, following its instruction, made an attempt to return home; but was soon shut up in Wellington Channel, where the Advance and Rescue drifted backward and forward at the mercy of the ice. Of their attempts to escape being ice-bound for the winter, Dr. Kane draws a lively picture.

“September 13.

“The navigation is certainly exciting. I have never seen a description in my Arctic readings of anything like this. We are literally running for our lives, surrounded by the imminent hazards of sudden consolidation in an open sea. All minor perils, nips, bumps, and sunken bergs are discarded; we are staggering along under all sail, forcing our way while we can. One thump, received since I commenced writing, jerked the time-keeper from our binnacle down the cabin hatch, and, but for our strong bows, seven and a half solid feet, would have stove us in. Another time, we cleared a tongue of the main jack by riding it down at eight knots.”

“We were obliged,” he continues, “several times the next day to bore through the young ice; for the low temperature continued, and our wind lulled under Cape Hotham. The night gave us now three hours of complete darkness. It was danger to run on, yet equally danger to pause. Grim water was following close upon our heels; and even the Captain, sanguine and fearless in emergency as he always proved himself, as he saw the tenacious fields of sludge and pancake thickening around us, began to feel anxious. Mine was a jumble of sensations. I had been desirous to the last degree that we might remain on the field of search, and could hardly be satisfied at what promised to realize my wish. Yet I had hoped that our wintering would be near our English friends, that in case of trouble or disease we might mutually sustain each other. But the interval of fifty miles between us, in these inhospitable deserts, was as complete a separation as an entire continent; and I confess that I looked at the dark shadows closing around Barlow Inlet, the prison from which we cut ourselves on the seventh, just six days before, with feelings as sombre as the landscape itself. The sound of our vessel crunching her way through the new ice is not easy to describe. It was not like the grinding of the old formed ice, nor was it the slushy scraping of sludge. We may all of us remember in the skating frolics of early days, the peculiar reverberating outcry of a pebble, as we tossed it from us along the edges of an old mill-dam, and heard it dying away in echoes almost musical. Imagine such a tone as this, combined with the whir of rapid motion, and the rasping noise of close-grained sugar. I was listening to the sound in my little den, after a sorrowful day, close upon zero, trying to warm up my stiffened limbs. Presently it grew less, then increased, then stopped, then went on again, but jerking and irregular, and then it waned, and waned, and waned away to silence.

“Down came the captain: ‘Doctor, the ice has caught us; we are frozen up.’”

In describing the discovery of new territory, Dr. Kane says:—

“On the 22d (September, 1850), our latitude was 75° 24´ 21´´. I now saw land to the north and west; its horizon that of rolling ground, without bluffs, terminating at its northern end. Still further on to the north came a strip without visible land, and then land again with mountain tops distant and ‘rising above the clouds.’ This last was the land which received from Captain De Haven the name of Mr. Grinnell.”

ALBERT LAND

The following year (1851) this same land was seen by Captain Penny, and named by him Albert Land. The Americans naturally supposed that when it was made known that this land had been discovered by De Haven about eight months before it was reached by Captain Penny, the name “Albert” would be dropped, and that of “Grinnell” substituted. This, however, was not done. A strange, and certainly not very honourable, feeling of jealousy seems to have induced the Admiralty and Geographical Society to shut their eyes to the fact that the discovery of the land was due to the Americans. This famous controversy resulted in bitter condemnation of the English authorities for injustice and partiality.

DE HAVEN EXPEDITION

But to return to Dr. Kane’s journal. On September 23, he pictures a fatal break-up of the ice:—

“How shall I describe to you this pressure, its fearfulness and sublimity! Nothing I have seen or read of approaches it. The voices of the ice and the heavy swash of the overturned hummock-tables are at this moment dinning in my ears. ‘All hands’ are on deck fighting our grim enemy.

“Fourteen inches of solid ice thickness, with some half dozen of snow, are, with the slow uniform advance of a mighty propelling power, driving in upon our vessel. As they strike her, the semi-plastic mass is impressed with a mould of her side, and then, urged on by the force behind, slides upward, and rises in great vertical tables. When these attain their utmost height, still pressed on by others, they topple over, and form a great embankment of fallen tables. At the same time, others take a downward direction, and when pushed on, as in the other case, form a similar pile underneath. The side on which one or the other of these actions takes place for the time varies with the direction of the force, and the strength of the opposite or resisting side, the inclination of the vessel, and the weight of the superincumbent mounds; and as these conditions follow each other in varying succession, the vessel becomes perfectly imbedded after a little while in crumbling and fractured ice.”

“We are lifted bodily eighteen inches out of water,” continues Dr. Kane. “The hummocks are reared up around the ship, so as to rise in some cases a couple of feet above our bulwarks—five feet above our deck. They are very often ten and twelve feet high. All hands are out, laboring with picks and crowbars to overturn the fragments that threaten to overwhelm us. Add to this darkness, snow, cold, and the absolute destitution of surrounding shores.”

“October 6, Sunday. 12 Midnight. They report us adrift. Wind, a gale from the northward and westward. An odd cruise this! The American expedition fast in a lump of ice about as big as Washington Square, and driving, like a shanty on a raft, before a howling gale.

“November 25.

“Our daylight to-day was a mere name, three and a half hours of meagre twilight. I was struck for the first time with the bleached faces of my mess-mates.

“Seventy-seven days more without a sunrise! twenty-six before we reach the solstitial point of greatest darkness!

“December 22, Sunday. The solstice!—the midnight of the year!

“December 23, Monday. Perfect darkness! Drift unknown. Winds nearly at rest with the exception of a little gasp from the westward.

“December 24, Tuesday. ‘Through utter darkness borne.’

“December 25. ‘Ye Christmas of ye Arctic cruisers!’

“Our Christmas passed without a lack of the good things of this life. ‘Goodies’ we had galore; but that best of earthly blessings, the communion of loved sympathies, these Arctic cruisers had not. It was curious to observe the depressing influences of each man’s home thoughts, and absolutely saddening the effort of each man to impose upon his neighbor and be very boon and jolly. We joked incessantly, but badly, too; ate of good things, and drank up a moiety of our Heidsieck; and then we sang negro songs, wanting only time, measure, and harmony, but abounding in noise; and after a closing bumper to Mr. Grinnell, adjourned with creditable jollity from table to the theatre.”

“Never,” writes Dr. Kane, “had I enjoyed the tawdry quackery of the stage half so much.

“The ‘Blue Devils’: God bless us! but it was very, very funny. None knew their parts, and the prompter could not read glibly enough to do his office. Everything, whether jocose, or indignant, or commonplace, or pathetic, was delivered in a high-tragedy monotone of despair; five words at a time, or more or less, according to the facilities of the prompting. Megrim, with a pair of seal-skin boots, bestowed his gold upon the gentle Annette; and Annette, nearly six feet high, received it with mastodonic grace. Annette was an Irishman named Daly, and I might defy human being to hear her, while balanced on the heel of her boot, exclaim, in rich masculine brogue, ‘Och, feather,’ without roaring.

“After this followed The Star Spangled Banner; then a complicated Marseillaise by our French cook, Henri; then a sailor’s hornpipe by the diversely talented Bruce; the orchestra—Stewart playing out the intervals on the Jew’s-harp from the top of a lard-cask. In fact, we were very happy fellows. We had had a foot race in the morning over the midnight ice for three purses of a flannel shirt each, and a splicing of the main brace. The day was night, the stars shining feebly through the mist.

“December 28, Saturday.

“From my very soul do I rejoice at the coming sun. Evidences not to be mistaken convince me that the health of our crew, never resting upon a very sound basis, must sink under the continued influences of darkness and cold. The temperature and foulness of air in the between-deck Tartarus, cannot be amended, otherwise it would be my duty to urge a change. Between the smoke of lamps, the dry heat of stoves, and the fumes of the galley, all of them unintermitting, what wonder that we grow feeble. The short race of Christmas Day knocked up all our officers except Griffen. It pained me to see my friend Lovell, our strongest man, fainting with the exertion. The symptoms of scurvy among the crew are still increasing, and more general. Faces are growing pale; and an indolence akin to apathy seems to be creeping over us. I long for the light. Dear, dear sun, no wonder you are worshipped!”

It may be imagined with what rejoicings they welcomed the glowing disk when on February 18 they first beheld it. Three cheers went up, and Kane himself fired a salute. Though the dawn increased, the cold twilight still continued, and the perils of their situation were ever present. Many times the conditions of the ice threatened their destruction, but not until June 5 did its appalling disruption free them. In twenty minutes the ice, as far as the eye could reach, was a vast field of moving floes. Five days later they emerged into the open water and made for Godhaven on the coast of Greenland.

Here they underwent repairs, and, undaunted by the recent perils, again turned their prows to the north. Skirting the coast of Greenland as far as the 73d degree, they sailed to the westward and spoke an English whaling ship near the Dutch Island about the 7th and 8th of July. By the 11th they were pushing their way through the accumulations of ice in Baffin Bay, and here the gallant little Prince Albert, on her way back to join the searching squadron, continued in their company until the 3d of August, when she hove off to the westward to try a more southern passage.

Pushing bravely against the odds of impenetrable ice barriers; blocked at every manœuvre to force a passage; nine more months of winter threatening the enfeebled crew; the brave De Haven determined to give up the unequal battle, and Dr. Kane makes this entry:—

“August 19, Tuesday:

“Rescue is close astern of us; she got through about noon yesterday. Our commodore has resolved on an immediate return to the United States.”