While the Alert was thus imprisoned, the huge pack-ice in the offing was carried up and down the strait by the tidal movement, the wind having the effect of increasing the velocity of the current and the duration of its flow both northward and southward. The ice generally was of a lighter character than that in the Polar Sea; but many heavy Polar floes were driven southward by the gale, and set into Lady Franklin Sound and Archer Fiord rather than down Kennedy Channel. Lady Franklin Sound, indeed, seems to be the receptacle of all the heavy ice that comes south through Robeson Channel; retaining it until the prevailing westerly winds carry it once more to the northward, and empty the Sound, previous to its being refilled on the return of the northerly gales. It is only, says Captain Nares, in seasons when northerly winds occur more frequently than westerly ones, that any considerable quantities of the huge Polar ice are drifted into Smith Sound and Baffin Bay.
The gale of the 6th of August was very violent. The tide rushing southward, drove a succession of heavy floe-pieces against the small bergs that protected the ship, and capsized one of them completely. It was firmly aground when struck by the point of a large floe; but such was the force of the collision that it was reared erect in the air to its full height of at least sixty feet above water, when, turning a complete somersault, like a practised gymnast, it came down on its back with a shock that shattered it into pieces, and raised a wave sufficient to roll the ship considerably. Into the gap thus caused moved the ice, until at last it nipped the Alert, though not dangerously.
That same evening Lieutenant Rawson and two seamen arrived from the Discovery, with news of the ill-fortune that had overtaken the Greenland sledge-party.
It soon became apparent that there was no chance of releasing the ice-bound ship except by cutting down the heavy floe that held her prisoner; and accordingly all hands were set to work. After three days’ toil, so much of the floe was hewn away that at high water it floated and set the ship free; at the same time the main pack moved off, and the Alert steamed onward, rejoining her consort, the Discovery, on the 11th of August.
All the invalids on board the Alert were now removed to the Discovery, and Captain Nares remained at the entrance to the harbour, prepared to cross to Polaris Bay, as soon as the ice permitted, to relieve Lieutenant Beaumont. As before stated, however, he arrived on the 14th, and relieved the commander of the expedition of a serious anxiety. Both vessels were now ready to start, but the state of the ice detained them until the 20th, when, a “lead” offering through the pack, away they steamed, and arrived close to Cape Lawrence without encountering any serious obstacle. Here their old enemy, the ice, again opposed them; and Captain Nares found only the famous “three courses” of a well-known statesman open to him: either to return north, to drive ahead into the pack, or make fast the ships to some of the grounded floebergs. This last expedient was adopted, and in a land-locked inner basin the Alert and the Discovery were accordingly secured. But, unfortunately, at the fall of high water a piece of ice pressed against the Alert, and at the same time its protecting floeberg drove ashore. Result: the Alert was aground forward, but with deep water under the stern. And before she could be released, the tide had fallen fourteen feet, so that the ship lay over at an angle of 22°, with fore-foot and keel exposed as far aft as the fore-channels. Nothing could be done until the tide rose. Then the ship was lightened, and afterwards hauled off without having undergone any damage.
A passage again opened on the 22nd of August, and the two ships steamed as far southward as Cape Collinson, with no other troubles than dense snow-storms, mists, and strong head-winds. But off the cape, the Alert having to back to escape a nip, she fouled the Discovery for a moment; the latter escaping, however, with nothing worse than the loss of a boat’s davit.
The ice gradually breaking up before a strong south-west wind, the two ships crossed Scoresby Bay, which was perfectly clear, but rolled with a heavy sea. As they approached Cape Frazer, they were buffeted by a terrible gale, and put in to Maury Bay, anchoring among a quantity of grounded ice. Three days were spent in arduous efforts to double Cape Frazer,—one of the bêtes noires of Arctic navigators, because it is the meeting-point of the flood-tides, north and south, one from the Polar Ocean and the other from the Atlantic,—and Cape Hayes, the boundary-mark of the channel. Then the voyagers, with glad hearts, passed into Smith Sound; and hugging the shore as closely as was safe, arrived on the 29th at Prince Imperial Island, in Dobbin Bay, “every one heartily thankful to be out of the pack, clear of the straggling icebergs, and for the ships to be secured to fixed ice once more.”
The temperature now sunk again below freezing-point. The brief Arctic summer was over, and day and night the young sea-ice formed continuously. The mists that had hitherto accompanied the ships cleared away before a brisk northerly wind, and revealed a magnificent panorama of lofty mountains, white with shrouds of snow, and deep valleys filled with colossal glaciers. One of these stretched downwards to the shore, and threw off great icebergs which floated or stranded in Dobbin Bay. It was named after the Empress Eugénie, who had taken a lively personal interest in the expedition.
Crossing Dobbin Bay on the 1st of September, the voyagers came within a quarter of a mile of a depôt of provisions established near Cape Hawks in the previous autumn, and succeeded in removing a portion. A day or two later Captain Nares landed on Washington Island, and visited a cairn which he had raised there on the 12th of August 1865. He visited, also, two old cairns erected by former explorers; the lichens with which they were gray proved that they were of earlier date than Dr. Hayes’ expedition.
On the 3rd of September, by dint of steaming assiduously, the ships rammed their way through a lane of water to the westward of Cape Hawks, which was inconveniently obstructed by loose pieces of old ice. After rounding the cape, says the captain, the pack by drifting away from the land had left unfrozen water and numerous detached small floes, which forced them to make a very serpentine course, and occasionally to pass within thirty yards of the low ice-foot on the shore, fortunately always finding deep water. In this way they reached Allman Bay, half-way between Cape Hawks and Franklin Pierce Bay. Meeting here with a belt of new ice, the Discovery was sent ahead; and under full steam she forced a canal through the ice, which was from one to three inches thick. From the lofty hills in the interior a huge glacier leads down to Allman Bay; and it is a noticeable fact that always in the neighbourhood of a glacier-stream the water was found nearly fresh, and of the temperature of 32°.