With this brilliant voyage, the epoch of modern discoveries in the Arctic Ocean may properly be said to begin. Sailing right through Lancaster Sound, over the site of Ross’s imaginary Croker Mountains, Parry passed Barrow’s Strait, and after exploring Prince Regent Inlet, whence the ice compelled him to return to the main channel, he discovered Wellington Channel (August 22), and soon after had the satisfaction of announcing to his men that, having reached 110° W. long., they were entitled to the king’s bounty of £5000, secured by order of council to “such of His Majesty’s subjects as might succeed in penetrating thus far to the west within the Arctic Circle.” After passing and naming Melville Island, a little progress was still made westward; but the ice was now rapidly gathering, the vessels were soon beset, and, after getting free with great difficulty, Parry was only too glad to turn back and settle down in Winter Harbor. It was no easy task to attain this dreary port, as a canal, two miles and a third in length, had first to be cut through solid ice of seven inches average thickness; yet such was the energy of the men that the herculean labor was executed in three days. The two vessels were immediately unrigged, the decks housed over, a heating apparatus arranged, and every thing made as comfortable as possible. To relieve the monotony of the long winter’s night, plays were acted every fortnight, a school established, and a newspaper set on foot—certainly the first periodical ever issued in so high a latitude. During the day the men were employed for exercise in banking up the ships with snow or making excursions within a certain distance; and when the weather forbade their leaving shelter, they were obliged to run round the decks to the tune of a barrel-organ.
In January the cold became more and more intense. On the 12th it was 51° below zero in the open air, and on the 14th the thermometer fell to 54°. On February 24 a fire broke out in a small house which had been built near the ships, to serve as an observatory for Captain Sabine, who accompanied the expedition as astronomer. All hands rushed to the spot to endeavor to subdue the flames, but having only snow to throw on it, it was found impossible to extinguish it. The snow, however, covered the astronomical instruments, and secured them from the fire. The thermometer was at the time 44° below zero, and the faces of nearly the whole party grew white and frost-bitten after five minutes’ exposure, so that the surgeon and two or three assistants were busily employed in rubbing the faces of their comrades with snow, while the latter were working might and main to extinguish the flames. One poor fellow, in his anxiety to save the dipping-needle, carried it out without putting on his gloves; his hands were so benumbed in consequence, that when plunged into a basin of cold water it instantly froze, from the intense coldness imparted to it, and it was found necessary to resort, some time after, to the amputation of a part of four fingers on one hand and three on the other.
February 3 was a memorable day—the sun being visible from the maintop of the “Hecla,” from whence it was last seen on November 11. The weather got considerably milder in March; on the 6th the thermometer rose to zero, for the first time since December 17, and on April 30 it stood at the freezing-point, which it had not done since September 12.
At length May appeared, bringing the long summer’s day of the high northern latitudes; but as many a week must still pass before the vessels could move out of their ice-bound harbor, Parry started on June 1 to explore the interior of the island, which at this early period of the season still wore a very dreary aspect. But such was the rapidity of vegetation, that by the end of the month the land, now completely clear of snow, was covered with the purple-colored saxifrage in blossom, with mosses, and with sorrel, and the grass was from two to three inches long. The pasturage appeared to be excellent in the valleys, and, to judge by the numerous tracks of musk-oxen and reindeer, there was no lack of animals to enjoy its abundance.
It was not before August 1 that the ships were released from their ten months’ blockade in Winter Harbor, when Parry once more stood boldly for the west; but no amount of skill or patience could penetrate the obstinate masses of ice that blocked the passage, or insure the safety of the vessels under the repeated shocks sustained from them. Finding the barriers insuperable, he gave way, and steering homeward, reached London on November 3, 1820, where, as may well be imagined, his reception was most enthusiastic.
While Parry was engaged on this wonderful voyage, Lieutenant Franklin and Dr. Richardson, accompanied by two midshipmen, George Back and Robert Hood, and a sailor, John Hepburn, to whom were added during the course of the journey a troop of Canadians and Indians, were penetrating by land to the mouth of the Coppermine River for the purpose of examining the unexplored shores of the Polar Sea to the east. An idea of the difficulties of this undertaking may be formed, when I mention that the travellers started from Fort York, Hudson’s Bay, on August 30, 1819, and after a boat voyage of 700 miles up the Saskatchewan arrived before winter at Fort Cumberland. The next winter found them 700 miles farther on their journey, established during the extreme cold at Fort Enterprise, as they called a log-house built by them on Winter Lake, where they spent ten months, depending upon fishing and the success of their Indian hunters. During the summer of 1821 they accomplished the remaining 334 miles to the mouth of the Coppermine, and on July 21 Franklin and his party embarked in two birch-bark canoes on their voyage of exploration. In these frail shallops they skirted the desolate coast of the American continent 555 miles to the east of the Coppermine as far as Point Turnagain, when the rapid decrease of their provisions and the shattered state of the canoes imperatively compelled their return (August 22). And now began a dreadful land-journey of two months, accompanied by all the horrors of cold, famine, and fatigue. An esculent lichen (tripe de roche), with an occasional ptarmigan, formed their scanty food, but on very many days even this poor supply could not be obtained, and their appetites became ravenous. Sometimes they had the good-fortune to pick up pieces of skin, and a few bones of deer which had been devoured by the wolves in the previous spring. The bones were rendered friable by burning, and now and then their old shoes were added to the repast. On reaching the Coppermine, a raft had to be framed, a task accomplished with the utmost difficulty by the exhausted party. One or two of the Canadians had already fallen behind, and never rejoined their comrades, and now Hood and three or four more of the party broke down and could proceed no farther, Dr. Richardson kindly volunteering to remain with them, while Back, with the most vigorous of the men, pushed on to send succor from Fort Enterprise, and Franklin followed more slowly with the others. On reaching the log house this last party found that wretched tenement desolate, with no deposit of provisions and no trace of the Indians whom they had expected to meet there. “It would be impossible,” says Franklin, “to describe our sensations after entering this miserable abode and discovering how we had been neglected; the whole party shed tears, not so much for our own fate as for that of our friends in the rear, whose lives depended entirely on our sending immediate relief from this place.” Their only consolation was a gleam of hope afforded them by a note from Back, stating that he had reached the deserted hut two days before, and was going in search of the Indians. The fortunate discovery of some cast-off deer-skins and of a heap of acrid bones, a provision worthy of the place, sustained their flickering life-flame, and after eighteen miserable days they were joined by Dr. Richardson and Hepburn, the sole survivors of their party, Lieutenant Hood, a young officer of great promise, having been murdered by a treacherous Canadian, whom Richardson was afterwards obliged to shoot through the head in self-defense.
“Upon entering the desolate dwelling,” says Richardson, “we had the satisfaction of embracing Captain Franklin, but no words can convey an idea of the filth and wretchedness that met our eyes on looking around. Our own misery had stolen upon us by degrees, and we were accustomed to the contemplation of each other’s emaciated figures; but the ghastly countenances, dilated eyeballs, and sepulchral voices of Captain Franklin and those with him were more than we could at first bear.” At length, on November 7, when the few survivors of the ill-fated expedition (for most of the voyagers died from sheer exhaustion) were on the point of sinking under their sufferings, three Indians sent by Back, whose exertions to procure them relief had been beyond all praise, brought them the succor they had so long been waiting for. The eagerness with which they feasted on dried meat and excellent tongues may well be imagined; but severe pains in the stomach soon warned them that after so long an abstinence they must be exceedingly careful in the quantity of food taken. In a fortnight’s time they had sufficiently recruited their strength to be able to join Back at Moose Deer Island, and in the following year they returned to England.
Parry’s second voyage of discovery (1821–1823) was undertaken for the purpose of ascertaining whether a communication might be found between Regent’s Inlet and Rowe’s Welcome, or through Repulse Bay and thence to the north-western shores of America. The first summer (1821) was spent in the vain attempt of forcing a way through Frozen Strait, Repulse Bay, the large masses of ice in these waters holding the ships helplessly in their grasp, and often carrying them back in a few days to the very spot which they had left a month before. Owing to these rebuffs, the season came to an end while their enterprise was yet scarcely begun, and the ships took up their quarters in an open roadstead at Winter Island to the south of Melville Peninsula. Besides the winter amusements and occupations of the first voyage, the monotony of the winter was pleasantly broken during February by friendly visits from a party of Esquimaux. Among these a young woman, Higliuk, distinguished herself by her talents. Her love for music amounted to a passion, and her quickness of comprehension was such that she soon became an established interpreter between her own people and the English. The nature of a map having been explained to her, she readily sketched with chalk upon the deck the outlines of the adjoining coast, and continuing it farther, delineated the whole eastern shore of Melville Peninsula, rounding its northern extremity by a large island and a strait of sufficient magnitude to afford a safe passage for the ships. This information greatly encouraged the whole party, whose sanguine anticipations already fancied the worst part of their voyage overcome, and its truth was eagerly tested as soon as the ships could once more be set afloat, which was not till July 2.
After running the greatest dangers from the ice, they at length reached the small island of Igloolik, near the entrance of the channel, the situation of which had been accurately laid down by the Esquimaux woman. But all their efforts to force a passage through the narrow strait proved vain, for after struggling sixty-five days to get forward, they had only in that time reached forty miles to the westward of Igloolik. The vessels were therefore again placed in winter-quarters in a channel between Igloolik and the land; but having ascertained by boat excursions the termination of the strait, Parry thought it so promising for the ensuing summer that he at once named it the “Hecla and Fury Strait.” But his hopes were once more doomed to disappointment by the ice-obstructed channel, and he found it utterly impossible to pass through it with his ships. His return to England with his crews in health, after two winters in the high latitudes, was another triumph of judgment and discipline.
In the following year two new expeditions set sail for Polar America. Captain Lyon was sent out in the “Griper,” with orders to land at Wager River off Repulse Bay, and thence to cross Melville Peninsula, and proceed overland to Point Turnagain, where Franklin’s journey ended. But a succession of dreadful storms so crippled the “Griper,” while endeavoring to proceed onward up Rowe’s Welcome, that it became necessary to return at once to England.