Arctic exploration

by J. Douglas Hoare

And start on to-morrow, 26th,
for Back’s Fish River.”

“This paper was found by Lieutenant Irving under the cairn supposed to have been built by Sir James Ross in 1831, four miles to the northward, where it had been deposited by the late Commander Gore in June 1847. Sir James Ross’s pillar has not, however, been found; and the paper has been transferred to this position, which is that in which Sir James Ross’s pillar was erected.”

From this paper it will be seen that Franklin had made the most remarkable voyage ever recorded in the annals of Arctic exploration. After being sighted in Baffin’s Bay on July 26, 1845, he had sailed through Lancaster Sound and Barrow Strait, and up Wellington Channel as far as 77° N. He had then returned to the mouth of the channel via the west coast of Cornwallis Island, and had wintered off Beechey Island in 1845-46 (the date given in the paper is obviously wrong). As soon as he was released he had attempted to make his way south to the American coast, but had been caught in the pack, never again to be released. The winter of 1846-47 was passed at a point about fifteen miles north-west of Cape Felix, the most northerly point of King William Island; and in the spring, when all on board were reported to be well, two officers and six men started off on an expedition, the direction and purpose of which are not stated. A fortnight later death spared Franklin the pain of knowing that his party could never again reach home, and of seeing his men dying of cold and starvation, one by one, before his eyes. The summer brought no prospects of escape, and during the following winter the two ships drifted southward with the ice for a distance of about thirty miles. As early in the spring as the conditions permitted, all the survivors left the ship in an effort to win their way back to civilisation, but not a single one of them succeeded in accomplishing his task. “So sad a tale,” says M’Clintock, “was never told in fewer words. There is something deeply touching in their extreme simplicity, and they show in the strongest manner that both the leaders of this retreating party were actuated by the loftiest sense of duty, and met with calmness and decision the fearful alternative of a last bold struggle for life, rather than perish without effort on board their ships.”

Before reaching the Fox M’Clintock was destined to find yet more grim evidence to the fate of the unfortunate explorers. After rounding Cape Crozier, the westernmost point of King William Island, the desolation of which was absolutely beyond description, he came upon a boat which had formed part of the Franklin expedition, and in which lay two skeletons. Hobson had previously discovered the boat, and had left in it a note for his commander to the effect that the most careful search had failed to reveal any journal or other memoranda such as might fill in the details of the story of which they already knew the terrible outline. M’Clintock instantly set about another examination of the boat and its surroundings, in the hope that he might come upon something that had escaped the eyes of his junior officer, but he was unrewarded. The boat itself he found to be of a light build such as would be suitable for the ascent of the Great Fish River, and fitted with sails, a sloping canvas roof, an ice-grapnell and a deep-sea sounding-line, which was probably intended for river work as a track-line. She was, however, mounted on so heavy a sledge that seven men in the best of health would have found dragging her over the ice no easy task.

In this boat lay two skeletons, one of them huddled up in the bows, and the other across the afterthwart. Beside them were five watches, two guns, and a number of books, for the most part devotional, but, search as they would, M’Clintock and his men could find no trace of a pocket-book or journal, nor even a scrap of clothing marked with a name which might reveal the identity of the two victims. Pieces of plate and an extraordinary variety of miscellaneous articles, ranging from two rolls of sheet-lead to tacks, were scattered about in the boat, and these M’Clintock describes as “a mere accumulation of dead weight, of little use, and very likely to break down the strength of the sledge-crews. The only provisions we could find,” he continues, “were tea and chocolate. Of the former, very little remained, but there were nearly forty pounds of the latter. These articles alone could never support life in such a climate, and we found neither biscuit nor meat of any kind.”

From the direction in which the boat’s head was pointing, and from its contents, M’Clintock concluded that the party attached to it had started out for the Great Fish River, but, finding themselves too utterly worn out to proceed far, had turned back intending to make their way to the ship. Unable to drag the boat any further, they had left it where it was found by the explorers, meaning to bring back food to their two companions who had been obliged, through weakness, to remain behind. The fact that five watches were left in the boat points to the conclusion that they had not thought of abandoning it finally. Overcome by cold and fatigue, however, they must have perished on the way.

After leaving the boat, M’Clintock pushed on his way with all possible dispatch, searching for traces of the wrecked ship as he went, but without success. He reached Point Victory on June 2, and there he found a note from Hobson, telling him that he had met with no better fortune in the execution of this part of his mission, but that he had found a duplicate of the record which we have already described. M’Clintock spent some little time in examining the cairn under which the paper had been discovered, and found strewn about it a vast variety of such miscellaneous articles as cooking-stoves, pickaxes, shovels, four feet of a copper lightning conductor, long pieces of brass curtain rods, a medicine chest, and some scientific instruments. There was also a pile of clothing four feet high, of which every article was searched. The pockets, however, were all empty, and not a single piece of the clothing was marked with its owner’s name. “These abandoned superfluities,” M’Clintock writes, “afford the saddest and most convincing proof that here—on this spot—our doomed and scurvy-stricken countrymen calmly prepared themselves to struggle manfully for life.”

There was now nothing left for M’Clintock but to return to the Fox, and this he accordingly did with all possible speed, reaching Bellot Strait on June 18. On the return journey he learned from a note left at one of the depots that Hobson had been taken seriously ill, and had grown so feeble that it had been found necessary to place him on one of the sledges. To his great relief he heard, on reaching the ship, that the scurvy from which his junior was suffering had already yielded to treatment, and that he was on the high road to recovery.

With the principal fruits of Hobson’s journey we have already dealt, and the rest may be dismissed in a few words. After leaving M’Clintock at Cape Victoria, he crossed James Ross Strait without any difficulty, and immediately turned westward round Cape Felix. Here he came upon the first signs of the Franklin expedition, in the shape of “a large cairn, close beside which were three small tents, with blankets, old clothes, and other vestiges of a shooting or magnetic station. But,” says M’Clintock, “although the cairn was dug under and a trench dug all round it to a distance of ten feet, no record was discovered.... Two miles farther to the south-west a small cairn was found, but neither record nor relics; and about three miles to the north of Point Victory a third cairn was examined, but only a broken pickaxe and empty canister found.” These with, of course, the boat and the famous record, completed the list of Hobson’s discoveries.

In the meanwhile Young had been very far from idle. It had been his mission to explore Peel, or, as it was afterwards called, Franklin Strait and Prince of Wales Island, and he had accomplished his task in the face of great difficulties. In the first place, gales were almost incessant, and it was no easy matter to make any headway at all against them; in the second place, he was disgusted to find that a channel existed between Prince of Wales Land and Victoria Land, and that his field of discovery would, in consequence, be widened, and his search lengthened. Accordingly, with a view to having as few mouths to feed as possible, he sent back most of his men and dogs to the ship, and tramped on accompanied only by a young man-of-war’s man named George Hobday. For forty days they pushed forward till Young became so ill through cold and exposure that he was obliged to return to Port Kennedy, which he reached on June 7. His spirit, however, was quite indomitable, and, in spite of the protests of the doctor, he was off again on a fresh journey three days later. In all, he was away from the ship for seventy-eight days, during the course of which he explored no fewer than 380 miles of new coast-line. This, with the 420 miles explored by M’Clintock and Hobson, makes the splendid total of 800 miles, a record of which the expedition had good reason to be proud.