Meanwhile John Franklin was despatched to cross the plains of Rupert's Land to forward Arctic enterprise. This notable man has left us an heritage of undying interest in connection with this movement. A native of Lincolnshire, a capable and trusted naval officer, who had fought with Nelson at Copenhagen, who had gone on an Arctic voyage to Spitzbergen, and had seen much service elsewhere, he was appointed to command the overland expedition through Rupert's Land to the Arctic Sea, while Lieutenant Parry sought, as we have seen, the passage with two vessels by way of Lancaster Sound.
Accompanied by a surgeon—Dr. Richardson—two midshipmen, Back and Hood, and a few Orkneymen, Lieutenant Franklin embarked from England for Hudson Bay in June, 1819. Wintering for the first season on the Saskatchewan, the party were indebted to the Hudson's Bay Company for supplies, and reached Fort Chipewyan in about a year from the time of their departure from England. The second winter was spent by the expedition on the famous barren grounds of the Arctic slope. Their fort was called Fort Enterprise, and the party obtained a living chiefly from the game and fish of the region. In the following summer the Franklin party descended the Coppermine River to the Arctic Sea. Here Hearne's mistake of four degrees in the latitude was corrected and the latitude of the mouth of the Coppermine River fixed at 67° 48´ N. Having explored the coast of the Arctic Sea eastward for six degrees to Cape Turnagain and suffered great hardships, the survivors of the party made their return journey, and reached Britain after three years' absence. Franklin was given the rank of captain and covered with social and literary honours.
Three years after his return to England, Captain Franklin and his old companions went upon their second journey through Rupert's Land. Having reached Fort Chipewyan, they continued the journey northward, and the winter was spent at their erection known as Fort Franklin, on Great Bear Lake. Here the party divided, one portion under Franklin going down the Mackenzie to the sea, and coasting westward to Return Reef, hoping to reach Captain Cook's icy cape of 1778. In this they failed. Dr. Richardson led the other party down the Mackenzie River to its mouth, and then, going eastward, reached the mouth of the Coppermine, which he ascended. By September both parties had gained their rendezvous, Fort Franklin, and it was found that unitedly they had traced the coast line of the Arctic Sea through thirty-seven degrees of longitude. On the return of the successful adventurer, after an absence of two years, to England, he was knighted and received the highest scientific honours.
CAPTAIN JOHN ROSS BY SEA.
When the British people become roused upon a subject, failure seems but to whet the public mind for new enterprise and greater effort. The North-West Passage was now regarded as a possibility. After the coast of the Arctic Ocean had been traced by the Franklin-Richardson expedition, to reach this shore by a passage from Parry's Fury and Hecla Strait seemed feasible.
Two years after the return of Franklin from his second overland journey, an expedition was fitted out by a wealthy distiller, Sheriff Felix Booth, and the ship, the Victory, provided by him, was placed under the command of Captain John Ross, who had already gained reputation in exploring Baffin's Bay. Captain Ross was ably seconded in his expedition by his nephew, Captain James Ross. Going by Baffin's Bay and through Lancaster Sound, Prince Regent's Inlet led Ross southward between Cockburn Island and Somerset North, into an open sea called after his patron, Gulf of Boothia, on the west side of which he named the newly-discovered land Boothia Felix. He even discovered the land to the west of Boothia, calling it King William Land. His ship became embedded in the ice. After four winters in the Arctic regions he was rescued by a whaler in Barrow Strait.
One of the most notable events in this voyage of Ross's was his discovery of the North Magnetic Pole on the west side of Boothia Felix. During his second winter (1831) Captain Ross determined to gratify his ambition to be the discoverer of the point where the magnetic needle stands vertically, as showing the centre of terrestrial magnetism for the northern hemisphere.
After four or five days' overland journey, with a trying headwind from the north-west, he reached the sought-for point on June 1st. We deem it only just to state the discovery in the words of the veteran explorer himself:—
"The land at this place is very low near the coast, but it rises into ridges of fifty or sixty feet high about a mile inland. We could have wished that a place so important had possessed more of mark or note. It was scarcely censurable to regret that there was not a mountain to indicate a spot to which so much interest must ever be attached; and I could even have pardoned any one among us who had been so romantic or absurd as to expect that the magnetic pole was an object as conspicuous and mysterious as the fabled mountain of Sinbad, that it was even a mountain of iron, or a magnet as large as Mont Blanc. But Nature had here erected no monument to denote the spot which she had chosen as the centre of one of her great and dark powers; and where we could do little ourselves towards this end, it was our business to submit, and to be content in noting in mathematical numbers and signs, as with things of far more importance in the terrestrial system, what we could ill distinguish in any other manner.
"The necessary observations were immediately commenced, and they were continued throughout this and the greater part of the following day.... The amount of the dip, as indicated by my dipping-needle, was 89° 59´, being thus within one minute of the vertical; while the proximity at least of this pole, if not its actual existence where we stood, was further confirmed by the action, or rather by the total inaction, of several horizontal needles then in my possession.... There was not one which showed the slightest effort to move from the position in which it was placed.