Allen Young then determined to reach Cape Isabella, on the west side of Smith Sound, expecting to find despatches from the Nares expedition there. In this he was successful, and Arbuthnot and von Becker went on shore to examine the cairn which had been erected the previous year by Commander A. H. Markham on the summit of the cape. The boat had to be forced through drifting ice, but reached the shore. A record was found, dated July 29th, 1875, and signed by Nares. Next day Young began to think that a cask which Arbuthnot believed to be full of provisions ought to have been examined for letters, and determined to return to Cape Isabella to do this. As the Cape was approached, it blew so hard and the sea was so covered with drifting ice that it was not safe to send a boat, and for a whole month the vessel fought gales of wind, drifting floes, and danger in many forms, before a landing was ultimately effected. The cask was found to be empty! Nothing remained but to return home, for all possibility of making their way to the north was prevented by the solid pack. Letters were left at Cape Isabella and Littleton Island. On the voyage home a very pleasant visit was paid to the Arctic Highlanders in Whale Sound, “kind and simple people, robust and healthy, who offered us everything they had.” On the 11th September the Pandora left Upernivik, and on the 16th of the following month the Alert and Discovery were sighted in mid-Atlantic on their voyage home. Portsmouth was reached on November 3rd, 1876.
The two voyages of the Pandora, under the command of a great seaman, a great discoverer, and a most popular commander, are well worthy of record, and Sir Allen Young’s admirable but modest narrative is a model of the way in which an Arctic story should be told.
Although Nordenskiöld’s wonderful expedition in the Vega had brought the protracted struggle for the North East Passage to a successful conclusion, the North West Passage, though known throughout the greater part of its extent, still remained unconquered. It fell to a Norwegian with seven companions in a small fishing boat to accomplish this remarkable journey. The Gjoa, a cutter-rigged herring-boat, fitted with a 13 h.-p. motor, under command of Roald Amundsen, with a crew of seven men, sailed from Christiania June 16th, 1903, and arrived off Godhavn on July 24th. Melville Bay offered fortunate ice conditions, and they reached Dalrymple Rock, where 105 cases of stores had been left for them, on August 15th. They now had 4245 gallons of petrol aboard. Erebus Bay in Beechey I. was reached August 22nd, and the season being an exceptionally favourable one they made rapid progress, and passing down the east side of King William Land found Simpson Strait leading to the westward quite free from ice. But, though it was tempting to press on, they were on the look-out for a wintering spot for magnetic observations, and they were fortunate enough to discover an ideal situation in a small sheltered bay in the south-east part of King William Land. Here stores were landed and houses and an observatory built in mid-September. The bay was named Gjoahavn. Meanwhile Lund the mate and Hansen the astronomer were sent to an island in the middle of Simpson Strait, known to be the resort of reindeer in the autumn, and returned with twenty. At Hall Point, the southern end of King William Land, two skeletons of white men were found, which were considered to be undoubtedly those of two members of the Franklin expedition, who, it will be remembered, made their retreat southward along the western shore of King William Land. Reindeer became later very numerous even at Gjoahavn itself, as many as 13 being shot in one day by a single sportsman. Birds too, such as geese and ptarmigan, were also plentiful. Later, Eskimos appeared; they were very friendly and some remained all the winter. They were afterwards found to be very numerous.
Sledging journeys of a modest nature were made in the spring and surveys taken, etc. The summer and autumn passed and they prepared for a second winter (1904–5). Constant work was carried on at the observatories. The lowest temperature recorded this winter was -50° Fahr., and was thus much milder than the previous one, when -80° had been registered, while at the end of March the thermometer was +17° Fahr., instead of -40°. When the weather was sufficiently established Hansen and Ristvedt started by sledge with 75 days’ provisions to make a rough survey, if possible, of part of the east side of Victoria Land. They took two sledges and 12 dogs with their food for 70 days, and started on April 2nd. On May 26th they reached their furthest point north on the western shore of M’Clintock Channel, and safely returned June 25th, having been successful in their object.
On August 13th, 1905, the Gjoa once more got under way on her westward journey. The observations, magnetic and other, had been kept continuously for 19 months, and the large number of Nechilli Eskimos who had been in their neighbourhood, or had come long distances to see them, had also given them abundant opportunity for ethnological notes on these people. Fortune still favoured the expedition, the sea proved sufficiently clear of ice, and though they had an anxious time navigating through the shoals and islands which lay between Nordenskiöld I. and the Royal Geographical Society’s group, they had cleared Dease Strait on the 19th of August, and Union Strait four days later. Off Baring Land on August 26th they met the first whaler from the Bering Strait side, and had, as they thought, practically accomplished their task.
They were still a long way from having done so, however, for a few days later they encountered heavy pack at King Point, off the mouth of the Mackenzie River, and here they were reluctantly compelled to pass a third winter. There were many Eskimos here, and at Herschel I., 35 miles away, five whalers were wintering. While at King Point the magnetic observer, Wijk, died of pneumonia. Early in August, 1906, the Gjoa resumed her voyage, passed through Bering Strait without further incident, and arrived at Nome August 31st, thus completing a voyage of extraordinary pluck and endurance, and it must be added, of scarcely less extraordinary good fortune.
CHAPTER XXXV
WEYPRECHT’S PLAN FOR SYNCHRONOUS OBSERVATIONS.
THE GREELY EXPEDITION
On the 18th September, 1875, Lieutenant Weyprecht, the colleague of Lieutenant Payer when Franz Josef Land was discovered, delivered an address to a meeting of German savants at Gratz in which he urged that, in the greed for discovery, scientific research was often neglected. The object of Arctic expeditions, he said, should be a nobler one than mapping and naming ice-bound coasts, or reaching a higher latitude than a predecessor. The North Pole, he held, had no greater significance for science than any other point in the higher latitudes. His contention was that meteorological and magnetic observations, to be really valuable to science, must be synchronous, and that they must be taken at selected stations round the Arctic regions, the instruments identical, the instructions identical, and the observations synchronous for at least a year.
Lieutenant Weyprecht’s views received respectful attention, and were adopted by an international polar conference at Hamburg in 1879 and by another at St Petersburg in 1882. Proposals were then made to all the countries likely to take part, and finally the following arrangements were made to carry out Weyprecht’s scheme.
The United States agreed to station Lieutenant Ray at Point Barrow, and Lieutenant Greely at Lady Franklin Bay, in Smith Sound. The Austrians sent Captain Wohlgemuth to Jan Mayen Island, and the Germans Dr Giese to Cumberland Inlet in Davis Strait. England arranged for observations to be taken at Fort Rae on the Great Slave Lake, Russia established stations at Novaya Zemlya and at the mouth of the Lena, and the Danes sent Dr Paulsen to Godthaab in Greenland. The Swedes were represented by Dr Ekholm at Ice Fjord in Spitsbergen, and the Norwegians observed at the Alten Fjord. The Dutch intended to establish a station at Port Dickson in Siberia, but unfortunately the vessel conveying the observer and his instruments was wrecked. The synchronous observations were commenced at these stations in the summer of 1882, and continued for a year, in accordance with the previously arranged plan.