The lands of silence

by Sir Clements R. Markham

Alexander Mackenzie

On June 29th, 1772, Hearne returned to Fort Prince of Wales, and was soon afterwards rewarded by being made Governor. But in 1782 a French Expedition under La Pérouse destroyed the fort, carrying off Hearne and the other Company’s servants as prisoners. Hearne was several years a prisoner of war, and only returned to London to die. This disaster so affected the faithful Matonabi that he committed suicide.

It was 18 years after Hearne’s discovery of the mouth of the Coppermine that a young man named Alexander Mackenzie undertook to trace the course of another river, flowing north from the Great Slave Lake. This explorer was not one of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s servants, but at an early period of life he had been led, with commercial views, to the vast region north-west of Lake Superior. His voyage down the river which received his name was undertaken in six canoes, chiefly manned by French Canadians. Starting in June, 1789, he reached the numerous channels which form the estuary of the Mackenzie river on July 13th, and thus was the second European to reach the American polar ocean. The river journey was over 1000 miles in length. Mackenzie was knighted in recognition of the value of his discovery.

It was in a year between the dates of the two river mouth discoveries that Captain Cook, during his third voyage, made his researches in the Arctic Sea between the two continents of Asia and America. The Resolution under the command of the great navigator himself, and the Discovery under Captain Clerke, were commissioned in 1776, but it was not until August, 1778, that they crossed the Arctic Circle. The first Lieutenant of the Discovery was James Burney, so well known to geographers as the historian of voyages in the Pacific, and the writer of an interesting account of Cook’s Arctic discoveries.

The Sandwich Islands had been discovered on January 18th, 1778, and on August 4th the Resolution and Discovery anchored off Sledge Island in 64° 30′ N. The westernmost extremity of the American continent in Bering Strait, 65° 45′ N., received the name of Prince of Wales Cape. Captain Cook then stood over to the Asiatic side, and landed to investigate the Tchuktches, of which tribe he gives an interesting account. Continuing his exploring work he crossed Bering Strait, and proceeded along the American coast, naming a cape after another Arctic explorer, Lord Mulgrave. On the 18th August the two ships were close to the edge of a very heavy pack which was drifting towards the coast. The furthest point seen was very low and much encumbered with ice. Captain Cook gave it the name of Icy Cape, in lat. 70° 29′ N., long. 161° 42′ W. This was the furthest point reached on the American side.

Captain Cook found himself in a narrow lane in shoal water with the ice coming down upon the ships. He plied to the westward, making short boards between the ice and the shore. On the 19th the ships were among loose pieces, and were brought to at the edge of a close pack. There were immense herds of walrus on the ice, which afforded them a welcome change of diet from the salt beef. Much attention was given to soundings and to the force and direction of the currents. The sea in Bering Strait is shallow, and the strait exercises no influence on the general direction of the movement of the water. The principal current in the strait is tidal and intermittent, flowing north with the flood and south with the ebb.

From the 21st to the 29th of August the exploring ships were sailing along the coast of Asia, which was low, with elevated land behind. The furthest point was in lat. 65° 56′ N., long. 179° 11′ W., and received the name of Cape North. The thick weather made it prudent to return. The greatest depth north of Bering Strait was 30 fathoms, the current slight. Passing through Bering Strait on a southerly course, the distance across between Tchuktchi-nos and Prince of Wales Cape was found to be 13 leagues. The ships arrived at a large bay on the American side, which received the name of Norton Sound, after the Speaker of the House of Commons (Lord Grantley). Here spruce was collected to make spruce beer, and the men were sent on shore to collect berries, for Captain Cook was ever thoughtful for the health of his people. A corporal of Marines, John Ledyard, volunteered to go in search of settlers in one of the frail baidor, a light wooden-frame boat covered with whale skin, and he brought back two Russians whose information was very useful to Captain Cook[101].

Captain Cook’s expedition returned to the Sandwich Islands, where the great navigator was murdered. There was to have been a second voyage to the Arctic regions in the next navigable season. Captain Clerke succeeded to the command, but he was in a dying state. In April, 1779, the Resolution and Discovery arrived at Petropaulovsky in Kamschatka, where they were most hospitably received by the Russian Governor, and in July the ships again passed through Bering Strait, and were among the ice in lat. 69° 20′ N. But on the 27th further attempts were relinquished and it was decided to return to England. Captain Clerke died on the 23rd of August.

The Arctic discoveries of Captain Cook extend on the Asiatic side to Cape North, and on the American side to Icy Cape. For nearly 50 years the knowledge of the polar sea north of America was bounded by Cook’s Icy Cape, with the mouths of the two rivers Coppermine and Mackenzie.

A gun brig had been fitted out to meet Captain Cook in Baffin’s Bay, the Lion, commanded by Lieutenant Pickersgill, who had served in Cook’s second voyage. But he never got north of 68° 14′, though he fixed several positions in Davis Strait. He left the Scilly Islands June 20th, 1776, with instructions to protect the whalers from any attacks from colonial rebels, as well as to meet Captain Cook’s expedition[102]. In the following year the Lion was sent north again, under Lieutenant Young, but did still less.