To relieve herself of the shame of this Great Britain soon sent into that field a rapid succession of explorers, many of whom soon became famous. The very first of these, John Ross, despatched in 1818, confirmed fully the geography laid down by Baffin as far as Cape York, in spite of the learned book-makers, and reported a great number and variety of interesting facts; whereupon a much larger expedition was at once arranged and placed in command of a naval officer named William Edward Parry, who went out in 1819 with orders to find the northwest passage, and who had in his staff such men as Sabine, Liddon, James Ross, Reid, Crozier, and similar material, all stimulated not only by naval and scientific pride, but by the offer by Parliament of a reward of $100,000 to him who should first discover the desired thoroughfare.
This first voyage was a grand success. Forcing his way into Lancaster Sound in midsummer, Parry found that Ross’s report that it was a landlocked bay was erroneous. As Greely tells it:
The mirage-mountains of the previous year had vanished, and as Parry crowded sail westward, he opened a series of magnificent waterways hitherto unknown. The way lay through an archipelago (Parry), with North Devon, Cornwallis, Bathurst and Melville islands to the north, and Cockburn, Prince of Wales, and Banks islands to the south. Lancaster Sound, broken at its western end by Prince Regent Inlet, gave way to Barrow Strait, which broadened into Melville Sound, while yet farther to the west the encroaching land formed Banks Strait wherethrough these channels open into polar ocean.
If you will look at the map you will see that this list comprehends pretty nearly everything south of Smith Sound. Many details of course were lacking, and these Parry was sent a second time to work out, but he added really little to geography by two seasons of hard work; and a third voyage, begun in May, 1824, was still more unfortunate. These voyages, however, enabled Parry, who was one of the greatest of all Arctic students and navigators, to state that the western sides of all northerly and southerly bodies of water are always more encumbered with ice than the eastern sides; and to make many most valuable improvements in ice navigation and equipment. His illustrated narratives remain among the most readable books of Arctic experience, and little has been added to their accounts of eastern Eskimo life and customs.
Meanwhile (1819) another navy officer, who was ardent in the scientific branches of his profession, as well as distinguished in seamanship and naval warfare, and who had acquired Arctic experience under Buchan in the ill-starred expedition of 1818, was sent overland to coöperate with others in defining the mainland coast of America. This was Lieutenant John Franklin—a name destined to become the most famous of all among the explorers of the frozen North. For several years he and his parties lived and traveled among the Eskimos, tracing the coast-line from a considerable distance east of the mouth of the Coppermine River westward almost to Point Barrow, Alaska, where they came within one hundred and forty-six miles of meeting Beechey’s coöperative examination by sea from Bering’s Strait; and it was out of these trips that we got the valuable treatises upon the natural history of British America, published by his assistants, Hearne and Richardson. This ended in 1826.
The next prominent expedition was that of Captain John Ross and his nephew James, afterward celebrated in Antarctic exploration; and it turned out an exceedingly productive one. Meeting fortunate conditions in Lancaster Sound he easily reached where the Fury had gone ashore, and refilled his ship with a portion of the stores Parry had thoughtfully landed and made safe there—a provision which later kept this expedition from destruction. Then he pressed on beyond where Parry had gone, and added largely to the details of his map, but curiously failed to recognize Bellot Strait as a thoroughfare, and so unaccountably missed the thing he was in search of. Ross discovered Boothia Felix; and during the three winters spent on its eastern shore, the younger Ross, by sledging, discovered Franklin Passage, Victoria Strait, and King William’s Land, and largely explored their coasts; but his most important work, “giving imperishable renown to his name,” as Greely declares, was the determination of the position of the north magnetic pole on the west coast of Boothia Felix.
“The experiences, duration, and results of this voyage,” writes General A. W. Greely, “are among the most extraordinary on record. The party passed five years in the Arctic regions without fatality, save three (two from non-Arctic causes), discovered a new land, the northern extremity of the continent of America, and made other extensive geographical discoveries. Its observations are probably the most valuable single set ever made within the Arctic circle.”
ESKIMOS IN SUMMER TENTS.
During the third winter (1833) a rescuing party under Captain C. Back had gone from England overland in search of Ross; and recruited by Hudson’s Bay Company men of experience had descended Fish (or Back’s) River to its mouth, thus noting a new point on the map; but it failed to reach Ross. By similar overland journeys from their trading-posts on Great Slave Lake and elsewhere, the Hudson’s Bay Company’s men, especially Simpson, Dease, and Rae, connected various points of the coast, so that before 1850 it was known with substantial accuracy from Melville Peninsula to Bering Strait. In much the same way Russian sledge-travelers had traced the northern Asiatic coast by descending to the mouths of rivers; but no ship had yet succeeded in passing Gape Chelyuskin, the northernmost point of Asia or any continental land.