After wintering at Fort Confidence, on Great Bear Lake, the next season was profitably employed in descending the Coppermine River, and tracing nearly 140 miles of new coast beyond Cape Turnagain, the limit of Franklin’s survey in 1821. The third season (1839) was still more favored by fortune, for Simpson succeeded in discovering the whole coast beyond Cape Turnagain as far as Castor and Pollux River (August 20, 1839), on the eastern side of the vast arm of the sea which receives the waters of the Great Fish River. On his return voyage, he traced sixty miles of the south coast of King William’s Island, and a considerable part of the high, bold shores of Victoria Land, and reached Fort Confidence on September 24, after one of the longest and most successful boat voyages ever performed in the Polar waters, having traversed more than 1600 miles of sea.
Unfortunately he was not destined to reap the rewards of his labor, for in the following year, while travelling from the Red River to the Mississippi, where he intended to embark for England, he was assassinated by his Indian guides; and thus died, in the thirty-sixth year of his age, one of the best men that have ever served the cause of science in the frozen north.
On May 26, 1845, Sir John Franklin, now in the sixtieth year of his age, and Captain Crozier, sailed from England, to make a new attempt at the north-west passage. Never did stouter vessels than the “Erebus” and “Terror,” well-tried in the Antarctic Seas, carry a finer or more ably commanded crew; never before had human foresight so strained all her resources to insure success; and thus, when the commander’s last dispatches from the Whalefish Islands, Baffin’s Bay (July 12), previous to his sailing to Lancaster Sound, arrived in England no one doubted but that he was about to add a new and brilliant chapter to the history of Arctic discovery.
His return was confidently expected towards the end of 1847; but when the winter passed and still no tidings came, the anxiety at his prolonged absence became general, and the early part of 1848 witnessed the beginning of a series of searching expeditions fitted out at the public cost or by private munificence, on a scale exceeding all former examples. The “Plover” and the “Herald” (1848) were sent to Bering’s Straits to meet Franklin with supplies, should he succeed in getting thither. In spring Sir John Richardson hurried to the shores of the Polar Sea, anxious to find the traces of his lost friend. He was accompanied by Dr. Rae, who had just returned from the memorable land expedition (1846–47), during which, after crossing the isthmus which joins Melville Peninsula to the mainland, he traced the shores of Committee Bay and the east coast of Boothia as far as the Lord Mayor’s Bay of Sir John Ross, thus proving that desolate land to be likewise a vast peninsula.
But in vain did Rae and Richardson explore all the coasts between the Mackenzie and the Coppermine. The desert remained mute; and Sir James Ross (“Enterprise”) and Captain Bird (“Investigator”), who set sail in June, 1848, three months after Dr. Richardson’s departure, and minutely examined all the shores near Barrow Strait, proved equally unsuccessful.
Three years had now passed since Franklin had been expected home, and even the most sanguine began to despair; but to remove all doubts, it was resolved to explore once more all the gulfs and channels of the Polar Sea. Thus in the year 1850 no less than twelve ships sailed forth, some to Bering’s Straits, some to the sounds leading from Baffin’s Bay.[16] Other expeditions followed in 1852 and 1853, and though none of them succeeded in the object of their search, yet they enriched the geography of the Arctic World with many interesting discoveries, the most important of which I will now briefly mention.
Overcoming the ice of Baffin’s Bay by the aid of their powerful steam-tugs, Austin, Ommaney, and Penny reached the entrance of Lancaster Sound. Here they separated, and while the “Resolute” remained behind to examine the neighborhood of Pond’s Bay, Ommaney found at Cape Riley (North Devon) the first traces of the lost expedition. He was soon joined by Ross, Austin, Penny, and the Americans, and a minute investigation soon proved that Cape Spencer and Beechey Island, at the entrance of Wellington Channel, had been the site of Franklin’s first winter-quarters, distinctly marked by the remains of a large storehouse, staves of casks, empty pemmican-tins, and, most touching relic of all, a little garden shaped into a neat oval by some flower-loving sailor, and filled with the few hardy plants which that bleak clime can nourish. Meanwhile winter approached, and little more could be done that season; so all the vessels which had entered Barrow’s Strait now took up their winter-quarters at the southern extremity of Cornwallis Land; with the exception of the “Prince Albert,” which set sail for England before winter set in, and of the Americans, who, perceiving the impolicy of so many ships pressing to the westward on one parallel, turned back, but were soon shut up in the pack-ice, which for eight long months kept them prisoners. The “Rescue” and “Advance” were drifted backward and forward in Wellington Channel until in December a terrific storm drove them into Barrow’s Strait, and still farther on into Lancaster Sound. Several times during this dreadful passage they were in danger from the ice opening round them and closing suddenly again, and only escaped being “nipped” by their small size and strong build, which enabled them to rise above the opposing edges instead of being crushed between them. Even on their arrival in Baffin’s Bay the ice did not release them from its hold, and it was not till June 9, 1851, that they reached the Danish settlement at Disco. After recruiting his exhausted crew, the gallant De Haven determined to return and prosecute the search during the remainder of the season; but the discouraging reports of the whalers induced him to change his purpose, and the ships and crews reached New York at the beginning of October, having passed through perils such as few have endured and still fewer have lived to recount.
Meanwhile the English searching expeditions had not remained inactive. As soon as spring came, well-organized sledge expeditions were dispatched in all directions, but they all returned with the same invariable tale of disappointment.
As soon as Wellington Channel opened, Penny boldly entered the ice-lanes with a boat, and, after a series of adventures and difficulties, penetrated up Queen’s Channel as far as Baring Island and Cape Beecher, where, most reluctantly, he was compelled to turn back.
A fine open sea stretched invitingly away to the north, but his fragile boat was ill-equipped for a voyage of discovery. Fully persuaded that Franklin must have followed this route, he failed, however, in convincing Captain Austin of the truth of his theory, and as, without that officer’s co-operation, nothing could be effected, he was compelled to follow the course pointed out by the Admiralty squadron, which, after two ineffectual attempts to enter Smith’s and Jones’s Sounds, returned to England.