Columbus and Other Heroes of American Discovery

by N. D'Anvers

It was the failure of Baffin, Davis, and other early heroes of Arctic discovery to find the clew to the long-coveted secret of the vast labyrinth of straits, inlets, etc., between Greenland and the north-eastern shores of America, which first directed the attention of the thinkers of Europe to Hudson’s Bay as a possible passage to the Pacific. As in Canada and elsewhere in America, however, scientific exploration, for its own sake, soon retired before the pioneers of commerce and settlement, making it next to impossible for the geographical student to trace the thin line of discovery with any certainty.

Strictly speaking, the work of the travelers who paved the way for the foundation of the great Hudson’s Bay Company, destined to be so formidable a rival to the French coureurs de bois, belongs to Arctic history; but, in the early days of which we are now writing, those whose main object was the discovery of the North-west Passage, often turned aside from it either from necessity or curiosity, and in the parentheses, so to speak, of their voyages, penetrated below the 60th parallel, which we have taken as our most northerly limit. Notably was this the case with the bold mariner, Luke Fox, of London, who, in 1630, obtained from Charles I. the command of a pinnace of eighty tons, manned by twenty men, with permission to cruise about Hudson’s Bay until he found a northern passage out of it.

Fox’s pinnace entered Hudson’s Straits early in June, 1631, and, eagerly steering his way among the numerous obstacles with which they are always encumbered, he entered the bay itself in safety, sailed across it in a north-westerly direction, and reached the narrow passage known as the Welcome between its eastern shores and Southampton Island. Here, for some unknown reason, he turned southward, and, after an exciting cruise along the coasts of the great bay, he came to the mouth of its greatest feeder, the Nelson, in N. lat. 56° 35′. Convinced that no passage to the northern ocean was to be found so far south, and ignorant how near he had been to it when he changed his course at the outlet of the Welcome, he now struck across the bay in a north-westerly direction, till he came to the most southerly point of Southampton Island, called Carey’s Swan’s Nest.

So much time had been wasted in the détour southward, which has won for Fox a mention in our present volume, that he could now only advance a short distance along the channel bearing his name, between the east of Southampton Island and the western boundaries of the bay. Compelled to return to England without having accomplished much, he learned a little later, somewhat to his disgust, that his discoveries in the south of the bay had been continued by his rival, Captain James. James had met him at the mouth of the Welcome, in a little vessel fitted out by the merchants of Bristol, with the same end in view as Fox had—the finding of a passage to the East by way of Hudson’s Bay.

James, told by Fox that he was quite sure not to succeed in his quest, had been driven, after this far from cheering meeting, to steer for the south in consequence of his inability to cope with the huge masses of ice which were now beginning to fill the northern half of the bay, and arriving at what is now known as Charlton’s Island, in N. lat. 52° 5′, W. long. 80° 15′, he determined to winter there.

Terrible sufferings were now endured, but through them all James and his men kept up their courage, preparing, in face of every difficulty, for starting on the return voyage early in the following year. The battered vessel was refitted; the southern shores alike of the island and of the bay, were carefully examined; and when home was at last reached by the survivors of the party, the reports given by them, though not exactly encouraging to the general public, were such as to embolden a few enterprising spirits to see what could be done in the same direction.

A few years after the return of James to England, a Frenchman named Grosseliez made a journey of discovery from Canada, and, after a successful cruise up the western shores of Hudson’s Bay, landed in Nelson’s River. Here, to his intense astonishment, he found a little settlement of white men, who had made their way thither from Boston, and were struggling, in spite of the rigorous climate, scarcity of food, etc., to gain a permanent footing in the country. Leaving these unexpected rivals to fight out their battles as best they could, Grosseliez completed his own survey of the surrounding districts, and hastened with it to France, hoping to gain the patronage of the French monarch for an emigration scheme of his own. He entirely failed in this purpose, but his pertinacity won for him the notice of Mr. Montague, at that time English ambassador at Paris, who gave him a letter of recommendation to Prince Rupert, then, after many vicissitudes, in the very zenith of his prosperity.

Though at this time engaged in the eager prosecution of the newly-discovered art of mezzotint engraving, which owed so much of its perfection to him, Prince Rupert at once turned his attention to the geographical problem laid before him by Grosseliez. The desirability of securing to England the monopoly of the fur-trade of the North, with the possibility of winning a new water highway to the North through the as yet unexplored ice-blocked channels of the Great Bay, or to the Pacific through some inland passage still to be discovered, was recognized at once. Prince Rupert obtained the consent of his cousin, Charles II., to the sending out of a pioneering expedition under Captains Zachariah Gillam and Grosseliez; and in the summer of 1668, their little vessel entered Hudson’s Straits.

This time the eastern shores of the bay were explored, and a little river flowing into the south-eastern extremity from Lake Mistassinie was discovered, to which the name of Rupert was at once given. A fort was erected at its mouth, and the adventurers returned home with a report that lands rich in furs stretched away as far as the eye could reach, on the east as well as on the west of Hudson’s Bay.

Encouraged by the result of this preliminary experiment, Prince Rupert now obtained from Charles a charter, conferring on himself and nine associates absolute proprietorship, subordinate sovereignty, and exclusive traffic in a territory of undefined extent, embracing, however, all the regions discovered or to be discovered within Hudson’s Straits, and all lands from which rivers flowed into Hudson’s Bay, saving only such as were already in the possession of any Christian State or prince.