The “Prince Albert” having brought home in 1850 the intelligence of the discoveries at Beechey Island, it was resolved to prosecute the search during the next season, and no time was lost to refit the little vessel and send her once more on her noble errand, under the command of William Kennedy (1851–52), to examine Prince Regent’s Inlet, on the coast of North Somerset. Finding the passage obstructed by a barrier of ice, Kennedy was obliged to take a temporary refuge in Port Bowen, on the eastern shore of the inlet. As it was very undesirable, however, to winter on the opposite coast to that along which lay their line of search, Kennedy, with four of his men, crossed to Port Leopold, amid masses of ice, to ascertain whether any documents had been left at this point by previous searching parties. None having been found, they prepared to return; but to their dismay they now found the inlet so blocked with ice as to render it absolutely impossible to reach the vessel either by boat or on foot. Darkness was fast closing round them, the ice-floe on which they stood threatened every instant to be shivered in fragments by the contending ice-blocks which crashed furiously against it: unless they instantly returned to shore, any moment might prove their last. A bitter cold night (September 10, 1851), with no shelter but their boat, under which each man in turn took an hour’s rest—the others, fatigued as they were, seeking safety in brisk exercise—was spent on this inhospitable shore, and on the following morning they discovered that the ship had disappeared. The drift-ice had carried her away, leaving Kennedy and his companions to brave the winter as well as they could, and to endeavor in the spring to rejoin their vessel, which must have drifted down the inlet, and was most likely by this time imprisoned by the ice. Fortunately a dépôt of provisions, left by Sir James Ross at Whaler Point, was tolerably near, and finding all in good preservation, they began to fit up a launch, which had been left at the same place as the stores, for a temporary abode. Here they sat, on October 17, round a cheerful fire, manufacturing winter garments and completely resigned to their lot, when suddenly, to their inexpressible joy, they heard the sound of well-known voices, and Lieutenant Bellot, the second in command of the “Prince Albert,” appeared with a party of seven men. Twice before had this gallant French volunteer made unavailing attempts to reach the deserted party, who soon forgot their past misery as they accompanied their friends back to the ship. In the following spring Kennedy and Bellot explored North Somerset and Prince of Wales’ Land, traversing with their sledge 1100 miles of desert, but without discovering the least traces of Franklin or his comrades. Yet in spite of these frequent disappointments the searching expeditions were not given over, and as Wellington Channel and the sounds to the north of Baffin’s Bay appeared to offer the best chances, the spring of 1852 witnessed the departure of Sir Edward Belcher and Captain Inglefield[17] for those still unknown regions.
The voyage of the latter proved one of the most successful in the annals of Arctic navigation. Boldly pushing up Smith’s Sound, which had hitherto baffled every research, Inglefield examined this noble channel as far as 78° 30´; N. lat., when stormy weather drove him back. He next attempted Jones’s Sound, and entered it sufficiently to see it expand into a wide channel to the northward.
The squadron which sailed under the command of Sir Edward Belcher was charged with the double mission of prosecuting the discoveries in Wellington Channel, and of affording assistance to Collinson and M’Clure, who, it will be remembered, had sailed in 1850 to Bering’s Straits.
At Beechey Island, where the “North Star” was stationed as dépôt-ship, the squadron separated, Belcher proceeding with the “Assistance” and the “Pioneer” up Wellington Channel, while Kellett, with the “Resolute” and “Intrepid,” steered to the west. Scarcely had the latter reached his winter-quarters (September 7, 1852) at Dealy Island, on the south coast of Melville Island, when parties were sent out to deposit provisions at various points of the coast, for the sledge parties in the ensuing spring.
The difficulties of transport over the broken surface of the desert when denuded of snow may be estimated from the fact, that though the distance from the north to the south coast of Melville Island is no more than thirty-six miles in a direct line, Lieutenant M’Clintock required no less than nineteen days to reach the Hecla and Griper Gulf. Similar difficulties awaited Lieutenant Mecham on his way to Liddon Gulf, but he was amply rewarded by finding at Winter Harbor dispatches from M’Clure, showing that, in April, 1851, the “Investigator” was lying in Mercy Bay, on the opposite side of Banks’s Strait, and that consequently the north-west passage, the object of so many heroic efforts, was at last discovered.
On March 9, 1853, the “Resolute” opened her spring campaign with Lieutenant Pym’s sledge journey to Mercy Bay, to bring assistance to M’Clure, or to follow his traces in case he should no longer be there.
A month later three other sledge expeditions left the ship. The one under M’Clintock proceeded from the Hecla and Griper Gulf to the west, and returned after one hundred and six days, having explored 1200 miles of coast—a sledge journey without a parallel in the history of Arctic research, though nearly equalled by the second party under Lieutenant Mecham, which likewise started to the west from Liddon Gulf, and travelled over a thousand miles in ninety-three days. The third party, under Lieutenant Hamilton, which proceeded to the north-east towards the rendezvous appointed by Sir Edward Belcher the preceding summer, was the first that returned to the ship, but before its arrival another party had found its way to the “Resolute”—pale, worn, emaciated figures, slowly creeping along over the uneven ice. A stranger might have been surprised at the thundering hurrahs which hailed the ragged troop from a distance, or at the warm and cordial greetings which welcomed them on deck, but no wonder that M’Clure and his heroic crew were thus received by their fellow-seamen after a three years’ imprisonment in the ice of the Polar Sea.
On August 1, 1850, the “Investigator,” long since separated from her consort, the “Enterprise,” had met the “Herald” and “Plover”[18] at Cape Lisburne, beyond Bering’s Straits, and now plunged alone into the unknown wildernesses of the Arctic Ocean. She reached the coast of Banks’s Land on September 6, discovered Prince Albert Land on the 9th, and then sailed up Prince of Wales’ Strait, where, on October 9, she froze in for the winter. In the same month, however, a sledge expedition was sent to the northern extremity of the strait, which established the fact of its communication with Parry Sound and Barrow’s Strait. In the following July the “Investigator,” though set free, was prevented from penetrating into the sound by impassable barriers of ice. Nothing now remained but to return to the southern extremity of the strait, and then to advance along the west coast of Banks’s Land to the north. This course was followed with tolerable ease till August 20, when the ship was driven between the ice and the beach a little north of Prince Albert Cape. Here she lay in comparative safety till the 29th, when the immense floe to which she was attached was raised edgeways out of the water, from the pressure of surrounding ice, and lifted perpendicularly some twenty-five feet. The slightest additional pressure would have thrown the delicately-poised vessel entirely over, but fortunately a large piece from underneath was rent away, and after one or two frightful oscillations the floe righted itself and drifted onward, bearing the ship unharmed upon its course.
During the succeeding month, every day brought its perils. Now forced ashore by the pressure of the ice, now hurried along amidst its inclosing masses, the adventurers, slowly working their way along the north coast of Banks’s Land, at length found refuge in a harbor to which the appropriate name of Mercy Bay was thankfully given. Here they spent two winters—the intervening summer having failed to release the ship. In the spring of 1853 Lieutenant Pym brought them the joyful news that the “Resolute” was not far off. Such had been the adventures of M’Clure up to the moment when Kellett welcomed him on board.
Meanwhile neither the sledge parties of the “Resolute,” nor those which Sir Edward Belcher had sent out in all directions from his first winter-quarters in Northumberland Sound (76° 52´ N. lat.), on the west side of Grinnell Peninsula, had been able to discover the least traces of Franklin. The winter (1853–54) passed, and in the following April Lieutenant Mecham found in Prince of Wales’ Strait, and later on Ramsay Island, at its southern outlet, documents from Collinson, bearing date August 27, 1852, and giving full intelligence of his proceedings since his separation from the “Investigator.” While M’Clure was achieving in 1850 the discovery of the north-west passage, Collinson, having arrived in Bering’s Straits later in the season, was unable to double Point Barrow. In 1851, however, he succeeded in getting round that projection, and pursuing the continental channel as easily as his precursor had done, followed him through Prince of Wales’ Strait; but, though he penetrated a few miles farther into Melville Sound, he found no passage, and returning to the south end of the strait passed the winter of 1851–52 in Walker Bay. Next summer he carried his ship through Dolphin and Union Straits and Dease Strait to Cambridge Bay, where he spent his second winter (1852–53). His sledge parties explored the west side of Victoria Strait, but a deficiency of coals compelled him to return the way he came, instead of attempting to force a passage through the channel. He did not, however, get round Barrow Point on his return without passing a third winter on the northern coast of America.