"Her Majesty's Government, having determined that an expedition of Arctic exploration and discovery should be undertaken, My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty have been pleased to select you for the command of the said expedition, the scope and primary object of which should be to attain the highest northern latitude and, if possible, to reach the North Pole."
Such was the opening sentence of the official instructions sent to Sir George Nares to take command of the Alert and Discovery, two steam vessels, which constituted the first expedition the British Government had sent to the Arctic regions since the search parties for Sir John Franklin. It was confidently expected that the introduction of the screw steamer into Arctic navigation would result in startling achievements, and those expectations were fully justified.
The two ships, with H.M.S. Valorous in consort with provisions, &c., on board, left Portsmouth on May 29, 1875. They were home again by November 2, 1876, and during the intervening eighteen months they had reached the most northerly point attained by man up to that period, and only since exceeded, on the sea, by the Fram.
No greater contrast can be given of the enormous strides which had been made in navigation during the thirty years which had elapsed since Franklin sailed away on his last and fatal voyage, than the fact that whereas after six weeks' journeying Franklin had barely reached the region of drift ice, in six weeks from the date of leaving Portsmouth the Alert and Discovery were almost in the region of perpetual ice. And all owing to the application of steam to ocean travelling.
The route laid down for the expedition was along the western coast of Greenland and as far through Robeson Channel, which divides Grinnel Land from Greenland, as it was possible to get. Disko Bay, half-way up the Greenland coast, was the spot where the Alert and Discovery were to part company with the Valorous. They entered the Bay on July 4, having had, on the voyage to the North, the peculiar experience of chasing and overtaking a season. When they left Portsmouth at the end of May, summer was well in; but when they arrived at Disko Bay they found that the mild weather which forms the spring had not yet set in sufficiently to melt all the winter's snows. So that they had travelled quicker than the summer, having started after it had begun in England, and arrived in Greenland before it was due.
The early spring flowers were just commencing to bloom on the slopes around Disko, wherever the snow had melted, while higher up on the hills, where the winter's snow still lay, the explorers had an opportunity of looking upon that curious phenomenon, red snow. A minute animalcule (Protococcus nivalis) generates in the frozen covering of the earth, and increases so rapidly and in such vast numbers that it gives to its cold white habitat the hue of its own microscopic body. Another minute creature also breeds in enormous numbers in these bleak regions, the mosquito, which one usually associates with dense tropical jungles and fever-breeding swamps. All along the Greenland coast, wherever there is a pool of fresh water which thaws from the ice-grip, the larvæ of the mosquito appear in swarms in the spring, and, very shortly after, the full-fledged insect emerges in the utmost vigour of irritating stinging life. As the time is short between the period when the ice melts and when the water freezes again, the Greenland mosquito has to be active to work out his life mission before he is frozen off, and the skin of all visitors to his locality gives ample evidence how well he utilises his opportunities.
In addition to taking on board the surplus stores from the Valorous, the two Arctic ships also took on board teams of dogs for sledging purposes. Fifty-five in all were shipped, their quarters being situated on the main deck, where they were necessarily cramped for room, and, what was worse from their point of view, were unable to get at one another's throats owing to their being chained to bolts. Consequently they kept up a constant chorus of snarls and yaps, varied now and again with a howl as one or another received a remonstrating kick from a sailor.
This interminable uproar was explained by the Eskimo dog driver, who was also taken on board, as being due to the fact that most of the dogs were strangers to one another, and no one was as yet the properly constituted king.
When Captain McClintock purchased a team of dogs from the Eskimo of King William's Land, he had a good deal to learn about their peculiarities; but the people on the Alert and the Discovery, having a great many more dogs than he was able to obtain, had also a great deal more to learn about them. Sir George Nares, in his account of the expedition, gives some particulars which were furnished by his Eskimo dog driver, and these show that the sledge dog is quite as wise as one might expect from Captain McClintock's experiences.