M’Clintock now determined to make the best of his way home as soon as the thaw should release him. Steam was got up on August 6, in order that the opportunity might be seized when it arrived, which desirable event took place three days later. The death of his engineer had left M’Clintock very short handed, and he himself stood at the engines for twenty-four consecutive hours. Though held up occasionally by the ice, the return journey passed without any misadventure, and the Fox reached the English Channel on September 20.
It may here be added that in 1875 Captain Young attempted to follow the route opened up by Franklin and to reach Behring Strait via Peel and Franklin Straits; an impenetrable ice-barrier in Peel Strait, however, compelled him to turn back. In 1878-79, Lieutenant F. Schwatka, of the United States Army, and Mr W. H. Gilder, in the course of a brilliant journey, thoroughly explored the route over which the men of the Erebus and Terror were supposed to have travelled on their way to the Great Fish River, but, though they found many relics of the expedition, they could not discover a single paper or document of any kind.
CHAPTER XIX
THE VOYAGES OF KANE AND HAYES
Up to the middle of the nineteenth century America had not played a very important part in the history of Arctic exploration. In 1853, however, an expedition set out under the command of Dr Elisha Kent Kane—the young doctor who accompanied Lieutenant De Haven in the Advance and Rescue—which won immortality for itself by penetrating Smith Sound to a point never reached by any previous explorer. Although Kane had special instructions from the Secretary of the United States Navy to “conduct an expedition to the Arctic seas in search of Sir John Franklin,” it is really hardly possible to regard his enterprise as a serious part of the Franklin search, for it concerned itself with a region in which there was no possibility of finding any traces of the missing explorers.
The ship chosen for the expedition was our old friend the Advance, and the expenses were shared by Mr Grinnell, Mr Peabody, and a number of American scientific institutions. The crew consisted of seventeen officers and men, among them being Brooks and Morton, both of whom had served under De Haven, and Isaac Israel Hayes, a young surgeon, who was destined to conduct an expedition on his own account later on. The equipment of the ship seems to have been carried out with but little regard to the laws of hygiene, as recognised by Arctic explorers. “We took with us,” says Kane, “some 2000 lbs. of pemmican, a parcel of Borden’s meat biscuit, some packages of exsiccated potato, some pickled cabbage, and a liberal quantity of American dried fruits and vegetables. Besides these we had the salt beef and pork of the navy ration, hard biscuit and flour.... I hoped to obtain some fresh provisions in addition before reaching the upper coast of Greenland.” Such a dietary as this made it almost inevitable that scurvy would break out, and, as will be seen later on, the crew suffered terribly from the ravages of this fearful disease.
It was on May 30, 1853, that the Advance set sail from New York, never to return. Her passage north through Baffin Bay was by no means free from difficulties, but by August 6 she was in sight of Cape Alexander and Cape Isabella, the tremendous cliffs which guard the entrance to Smith Sound. On the following morning, as he was nearing Littleton Island, which lies well within the mouth of the sound, Kane was disappointed to see the ominous ice-blink ahead of him, which, taken in conjunction with the fact that the wind was freshening from the northward, augured ill for the future. However, he decided to press on as best he could, only pausing to place a boat and a store of provisions en cache on the island, a step on which he had good cause to congratulate himself later on.
On the next day he first closed with the ice, and began his attempt to bore his way through. A fog, however, compelled him to beat a retreat into a land-locked cove, which he named “Refuge Harbour,” where he had to remain for several days. On the 13th, taking advantage of a change in the weather, he attempted to push on once more, but he was constantly hampered by gales; these, by the 20th, had increased to a hurricane, which very nearly made an end of the whole party.
By the 22nd the storm had abated, and Kane was able to proceed on his way. His rate of progress, however, was exceedingly slow, for he was obliged to send men on to the pack with a tracking rope to drag the ship along as best they could. On the following day he found that he had reached lat. 78° 41′ N., a point 13′ higher than that reached by Inglefield, and farther north than any explorer, with the exception of Parry, had ever penetrated. He now began to realise that there was very little prospect of his being able to proceed further that year, and he had to confess that he did not like the idea of being obliged to spend a winter in so northerly a latitude, as he was so surrounded with ice that his chances of escape next year were uncertain. He accordingly called a meeting of his officers and crew, and took their opinion upon the situation. Why he took this course is not particularly clear, for the opinions expressed at that meeting did not influence him in the least. Only one member of the expedition was in favour of remaining where they were, while all the rest desired to return south without any delay whatever; yet Kane promptly decided in favour of the former course, and set about finding winter quarters for the Advance. These he eventually discovered in Rensselaer Harbour, lat. 78° 37′ N., long. 71° W.
The cold that winter was intense, and the ship’s thermometers ranged from 60° to 75° below zero. Nor did spring bring much improvement in the conditions, and Kane found himself obliged to carry out the work of preparation for his sledge journeys in very trying circumstances. The matter, however, was not of a nature that would brook delay, so ten men under Mr Brooks, the first officer, were sent off to place a store of provisions en cache at a point about ten days’ journey from the brig.
The whole of the party came within an ace of perishing on the ice, and had it not been for the efforts of Olsen, the sailing master, Sontag, the astronomer, and Petersen, the interpreter, who staggered back to the ship in search of relief, they must have been frozen to death. As it was, two men died of cold and exposure.