There still remained unexplored the coast line from Franklin’s furthest to Cape Barrow on the west side, and from Cape Turnagain to Repulse Bay on the east. The Hudson’s Bay Company resolved to undertake these discoveries. Peter Warren Dease, who had assisted the Franklin Expedition, and Thomas Simpson were selected for the duty. Simpson was a very intelligent and energetic young Scot, born at Dingwall in Ross-shire in 1808. Dease was much older. The equipment was arranged at Fort Chipewyan. The two boats were clinker-built, 24 ft. keel by 6 ft. beam, each with a small oiled-canvas canoe. They were named the Castor and Pollux. Thirty bags of pemmican, each weighing 9 lb., and 10 cwt. of Red River flour were taken for the whole season. The daily ration per man was 3 lb. of pemmican.
Descending the Mackenzie, Simpson pushed on along the coast, passing and naming the Colville river. When stopped by ice he resolved to reach Cape Barrow by land. He took eight men each with a load of 40 lb., including pemmican and flour, a blanket, ammunition and instruments, and one man carried a canvas canoe. They encountered very bad weather, but they reached the long low spit of land which Captain Beechey had named Cape Barrow, and were welcomed by the Eskimos settled there. Simpson returned to the Mackenzie, and ascended that river to his winter quarters at Fort Confidence.
In the following year Simpson went down the Coppermine river, to discover the coast to the eastward. On the 17th of July, 1838, the voyage was commenced. On reaching Cape Turnagain, Franklin’s furthest point, Simpson went on by land with five of the Company’s servants and two Indians. Each man carried a weight of 50 lb., including a tent, a canvas canoe, a kettle, two axes, and provisions for ten days. Open water was seen along the shores of Victoria Island while the continental coast was choked with ice. The party, after this excursion on foot, returned by the Coppermine to Fort Confidence to winter.
On June 15th, 1839, Simpson set out again for the Coppermine river on foot, arriving where three men had been left in charge of the boat and baggage. The boat sailed past Cape Turnagain, and on the 11th of August the discoverers came to the strait, about ten miles wide, between the continent and King William Island. It was named Simpson Strait. On the 12th there was a tremendous thunderstorm, with torrents of rain, and the next day they reached Cape Ogle at the mouth of the Great Fish River.
On the 16th Simpson landed on Montreal Island, where a depôt left by Back was found. He then crossed the strait to King William Island and explored its southern coast for nearly 60 miles, until it turned north at Cape Herschel, where a lofty cairn was erected, on August 26th, 1839. They also went eastward along the American coast beyond the Great Fish River, calling their furthest point after their boats “Castor and Pollux.” In returning, Simpson explored the south coast of Victoria Island.
Geographers were not satisfied until the region had been explored between Simpson’s furthest and the Gulf of Akuli on the west side of Melville Peninsula, reported by Parry’s Eskimo draughtswoman. The Geographical Society urged the importance of this discovery on the Admiralty, and the old bomb vessel Terror was commissioned by Captain Back, with much the same instructions as were given to Captain Lyon in 1824. Many of Back’s officers had won or were to win distinction. His first Lieutenant, Smyth, an artist of no mean powers, was the second Englishman to descend the Amazon. Owen Stanley had served under Franklin in the Rainbow and became a very distinguished surveyor in Australian seas, McMurdo was afterwards with Ross in his Antarctic voyages, Graham Gore perished with Franklin, and M’Clure was the discoverer of a North West Passage. These splendid officers received their polar training under Back, in the icy storms of Fox Channel.
On the 14th of June, 1836, the Terror left Chatham. Passing down Hudson’s Strait, Back chose Parry’s route by Fox Channel for reaching Repulse Bay. The Terror was soon beset, and on the 13th of September they were a few miles from land, off Cape Comfort. The ship was closely wedged between blocks of ice, with no water in sight and was drifted backwards and forwards between Cape Comfort and Baffin Island. In this situation they entered upon an Arctic winter of exceptional severity. In the depth of winter the ice broke up, and huge masses continually dashed against the ship. She remained locked in the ice for four months, and dragged helplessly about, until at length she was liberated towards the end of July, 1837. Nothing could be finer than the conduct of Captain Back and his officers throughout this trying time. The Terror, battered and leaky, crossed the Atlantic almost in a sinking state. Early one morning they came in sight of the Irish coast. The first Lieutenant came down to the Captain, who was in his cot, “Captain Back, Sir!” “Yes, what is it?” “The ship’s sinking, Sir.” “Very good, Smyth, call me again at eight bells.” That day they reached safety in Lough Swilly.
In 1845 Sir George Simpson determined to complete the discovery of the Gulf of Akuli, starting from a base at Repulse Bay, which was to be reached by boats from Fort Churchill. The command of the expedition was given to Dr John Rae, one of the Company’s factors. The boats were constructed at York factory, clinker-built, 22 feet by 7 feet 6 inches, with two lug sails and a jib. The crew consisted of six Orkney men and two Canadian half-breeds. On July 24th, 1846, they arrived at Repulse Bay, where they wintered, having obtained 63 deer, 172 ptarmigan, 5 hares, and 116 salmon. They built a stone house, with a roof of moose skin, and made toboggan sledges, 6 to 7 feet long and 17 inches wide, of battens from the boats.
On the arrival of spring Rae resumed his journey, starting on April 5th. He had two sledges, each drawn by four dogs and six men. A snow house was built each night. The food was pemmican, reindeer tongues, flour, tea, chocolate, and sugar. Rae carried the books and instruments himself, a weight of 35 lb. The rations were 1½ lb. of pemmican daily for each man and ⅓ lb. of flour, but they obtained a seal from the Eskimo, and had seal meat for eight days. They explored the west side of the Gulf of Akuli as far as Lord Mayor’s Bay of Ross and returned May 5th, having proved that there is no outlet to the westward as was expected.
Rae’s next journey was for 28 days, from May 13th to June 9th, to explore the west side of Melville Peninsula as far as the entrance to Fury and Hecla Strait. The party, travelling over soft snow, only got within ten miles of the Strait. Rae says that he traced 655 miles of new coast. He certainly settled the question of any sea from Fury and Hecla Strait to Cape Turnagain, and proved that Boothia was a peninsula, not an island. The Gulf of Akuli is the termination of Prince Regent’s Inlet.