Exploring parties were, at the same time, in the field from the Discovery. Lieutenant Archer explored Franklin sound and reached the head of Archer fiord. Lieutenant Beaumont left the ship with two sleds, and, after first visiting the Alert, crossed Robeson channel to Repulse harbour, on the coast of Greenland. He succeeded in reaching with one man, the eastern side of Sherard Osborne fiord, in 82° 20´ N. and 50° 45´ W., on the 20th of May. The return was made under distressing circumstances; only Beaumont and one man were free from scurvy when Repulse harbour was reached. The ice in Robeson channel was too rotten to cross with his crew of invalids, and but for the timely arrival of a relief party all would have perished. Two men died, and only with great difficulty did the remainder reach the ship. Owing to the scurvy, Captain Nares wisely determined to return home. The disease had attacked almost every man on the ships outside the officers, but it is a mystery why it should have played such ravages on an expedition fitted out and provisioned with all possible precautions against the disease; the only explanation given is that the men were over-worked, slept in damp clothes, and were regularly served with a liberal ration of spirits. The Alert left Floeberg beach on the 31st of July, and on the 9th of September both vessels safely reached the open sea, and recrossed the Arctic circle on the 4th of October.
In 1881 the United States government determined to establish a meteorological station in connection with the international polar stations in the region of Smith sound. Congress voted an appropriation of $25,000 for this expedition, a sum ridiculously small, as only $6,000 remained after paying for the transport of the party to their destination. The expedition was under the command of Lieutenant A. W. Greely, and was composed of officers and men from the United States army, none of whom had had previous experience in Arctic work. The party, numbering twenty-six, sailed from St. John’s, Newfoundland, in the steam sealer Proteus, on the 4th of July, 1881. At Upernivik two Eskimo dog-drivers were added to their number. Little trouble was experienced from the ice until the ship reached Discovery bay, where the station was to be located, and after a short delay the party was landed on the 11th of August. Two men found to be physically unfit were sent home. A house was soon erected, and the observation work carried on regularly during the time that the expedition remained there. In the spring of 1882 several sled journeys were made, the most important being that of Lieutenant Lockwood, who crossed Kennedy channel, and passing northeastward along the coast of Greenland pushed beyond the farthest point reached by Lieutenant Beaumont, and succeeded in reaching latitude 83° 23´ N., the highest attained at that time. The Neptune attempted to relieve them during the summer of 1882, but found Smith sound blocked with ice. The second autumn and spring were spent in making explorations, chiefly in Ellesmere island. Lockwood attempted to pass his previous record, but was prevented by the loose ice and the rugged mountains along the northern coast. As no relief ship arrived and parts of the supplies were running short, a retreat was decided upon, and the party started south in a steam launch and two boats, on the 11th of August. Great trouble was experienced in the heavy ice, and they were obliged to abandon their boats on the 10th of September, after having been beset by the ice for two weeks. Land was reached at Cape Sabine on the 29th of September, where a poor shelter of stones and canvas was erected, in which the party passed the winter. Their provisions comprised the remainder of the food taken with them, and a small quantity landed from the Proteus after that vessel sank from an ice nip while trying to reach Greely a few weeks earlier in the season. The bulk of their provisions was obtained from the caches left by Nares in 1875. Exposure to the weather had nearly ruined everything left in the caches, but their contents, even in this shape, were of great assistance to these famished men; without them all would have succumbed; as it was, only seven survived the hardships and starvation, when the rescue steamer arrived on the 22nd of June, 1883.
The next Arctic work was the crossing of the Greenland ice-cap, in 1893, by Nansen, who landed on the eastern side, and with a few companions succeeded in passing over the immense fields of ice and snow, coming out on the coast of the western side to the southward of Disko.
Lieutenant R. E. Peary, United States navy, spent eight winters in the regions about Smith sound. During these years none of the ships engaged to take supplies to him were able to penetrate more than the southern portion of Smith sound, and consequently Peary had to haul all his provisions and outfit over the very rough ice in dog-sleds two hundred miles before he arrived at the original starting point of Beaumont and Lockwood. This was a handicap of the severest description, and Peary deserves the greatest credit for the manful way in which he overcame it, and succeeded in not only crossing the ice-cap of the northern part of Greenland, but also in tracing its northern outline far to the eastward, and so establishing the certainty of the island character of that supposed peninsula.
The last of the expeditions to the Smith sound region was that headed by Captain Sverdrup, in the famous Fram. This expedition started with the intention of exploring the northern part of Greenland, but found Smith sound blocked with ice, and the Fram was obliged to pass the winter of 1898-99 at Cape Sabine, where Greely’s party passed their last winter. In the spring, parties from the ship explored Hayes sound, and crossed Ellesmere island to its west coast. In 1899 Smith sound continued closed, and Sverdrup returned south with the intention of exploring Jones sound. Taking the Fram up that channel, he went into the second winter quarters on its north side, in a small fiord on the south coast of Ellesmere island. During the following spring two long sled journeys were made to the north and west, occupying seventy-six and ninety days respectively. The Fram broke out of winter quarters on the 9th of August, 1901, and proceeding westward was beset off the north coast of Grinnell peninsula until the middle of September, when she was again released, and reached winter quarters in Belcher channel at the western end of Jones sound. In the spring of 1902 two long journeys were again undertaken by Sverdrup and Isacksen, involving important discoveries. The Fram could not be released, and a fourth winter had to be faced. Sverdrup made his longest and most important journey in the spring of 1902, while his companions were making minor trips. On the 6th of August the Fram was released, and returned to Norway, after having completed the last great and important work that remained to be done in the Arctics, thus finishing the work begun three centuries ago. The principal achievements were the mapping of Jones sound and the western side of Ellesmere island, the discovery of a large island lying on the west side of Ellesmere island, and two other large islands in latitude 79°, extending westward to longitude 106° W., which is that of the eastern side of Melville island, while North Cornwall and Findlay islands were seen to the south. To the westward and northward no signs of land were seen, and the ancient Arctic ice was found pressing on the coasts of these new northern islands, so that the line of drift pressure can now be traced from Bering sea to the east coast of Greenland.
| [*] | Another version, however, of the origin of the Hudson’s Bay Company, states that the two Frenchmen went to Boston, New England, where they met Sir George Carteret (or Cartwright), who gave them letters of introduction to King Charles. |
Frenchman Cove, Cyrus Field Bay.