Franklin’s plan found favour in the eyes of the Government, and he was immediately appointed to the command of the new expedition with authority to make such preparations as seemed proper to him. Warned by his previous experiences, he resolved to run no risks, and accordingly arranged a system of supplies which would remove all possibility of starvation, and superintended the construction of a number of boats which would be better able to withstand the ardours of navigation in the Polar Seas than the birch-bark canoes which he had previously employed.
The boats were four in number. Three of them varied from twenty-four to twenty-six feet in length, while the fourth, which was called the Walnut Shell, was nine feet by four feet four and only weighed eighty-four pounds, being so constructed that it could be taken to pieces and made up into five or six parcels.
The party consisted of Franklin, Lieutenant Back, Dr Richardson (assistant-surveyor), and Mr Thomas Drummond (assistant-naturalist), with four mariners; and their plan of campaign was to be as follows: They were to sail to New York, and thence they were to make their way by a series of lakes and rivers to the Great Bear Lake, where they were to take up their quarters for the winter. As soon as the open season began they were to divide into two parties, one of which was to travel westward from the mouth of the Mackenzie, and, if possible, was to round Icy Cape and meet H.M.S. Blossom in Kotzebue’s Inlet. The other was to turn eastward from the Mackenzie, and to explore the coast as far as the mouth of the Coppermine. Having reached that river, it was to return to the Great Bear Lake overland.
The first part of the journey was accomplished without misadventure, and on August 7, 1825, Franklin found himself at Fort Norman on the Mackenzie, near which point a tributary stream joins the river with the Great Bear Lake. The season was still so open that he decided to examine the river between Fort Norman and the sea before retiring into winter quarters, so he sent the main body of the expedition to the lake, with orders to erect the necessary buildings, while he and Mr Kendall set off downstream.
They raced along with the stream at a great pace, and on August 16 they reached Ellice Island, lat. 69° 14′, long. 135° 56′. They were now on the very shore of the Polar Sea, and to their indescribable delight they found the ocean absolutely free from ice, and, to all appearances, perfectly navigable.
At this point a somewhat touching incident took place. In 1823 Franklin had married a Miss Eleanor Purdon, to whom he was absolutely devoted. While he was making the preparations for his journey his wife fell ill, and to while away the hours of her sickness she made him a small silken Union Jack which she gave him with injunctions never to unfurl it until he planted it on the shores of the Polar Sea. A few days after he set sail she died, and he received the news of his bereavement soon after he reached America. The story of the unfurling of her flag may be told in his own words:—
“The men,” he wrote, “had pitched the tent, and I caused the silk Union Jack to be hoisted, which my deeply lamented wife had made and presented to me as a parting gift, under the express condition that it was not to be unfurled before the expedition reached the Polar Sea. I will not attempt to describe my emotions as it expanded to the breeze—however natural, and, for the moment, irresistible, I felt that I had no right, by the indulgence of my own sorrows, to cloud the animated countenances of my companions. Joining, therefore, with the best grace that I could command in the general excitement, I endeavoured to return, with corresponding cheerfulness, their warm congratulations on having thus planted the British flag on this remote island of the Polar Sea.”
Extra grog was served out to the men, and Franklin and Kendall prepared to celebrate the event in a little brandy which they had reserved for the occasion. Unfortunately, however, the Canadian guide, Baptiste, had, in the excitement of the moment, provided them with salt water instead of fresh, and they had to use the brandy in the more classical form of a libation poured on the ground.
Franklin then erected a flag-staff, and deposited under it a letter containing information concerning the nearest station of the Hudson Bay Company for the use of Parry, in the event of his reaching the mouth of the Mackenzie. This done, he set out on the return journey to the Great Bear Lake, which he reached on September 4.
He found that the winter quarters had been completed during his absence, and that they had already been named Fort Franklin in his honour. The party had been increased to fifty by fresh arrivals, and, as they would have to depend largely upon fish for their food supply during the winter months, and it was useless to expect to catch sufficient for so many mouths at any one spot, two additional houses were erected, four and seven miles away. At the Fort itself fifteen to twenty nets were kept in constant use, and fish were so plentiful that the catches averaged from three hundred to eight hundred a day during the summer and winter.