Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and Narrative of an Attempt to Reach the North Pole, Volume 1

by Sir William Edward Parry

A thick fog came on again at night, and prevailed till near noon on the 18th, when we came to a close but narrow stream of ice, lying exactly across our course, and at right angles to the main body of the ice. As this stream extended to the eastward as far as we could see from the "crow's nest," an endeavour was made to push the ships with all sail through the narrowest part. The facility with which this operation, technically called "boring," is performed, depends chiefly on having a fresh and free wind, with which we were not favoured on this occasion; so that, when we had forced the ships about one hundred yards into the ice, their way was completely stopped. The stream consisted of such small pieces of ice, that, when an attempt was made to warp the ships ahead by fastening lines to some of the heaviest masses near them, the ice itself came home, without the ships being moved forward.—Every effort to extricate them from this helpless situation proved fruitless for more than two hours, when the Hecla was at length backed out, and succeeded in pushing through another part of the stream in which a small opening appeared just at that moment. All our boats were immediately despatched to the assistance of the Griper, which still remained beset, and which no effort could move in any direction We at length resorted to the expedient of sending a whale-line to her from the Hecla, and then, making all sail upon the latter ship, we succeeded in towing her out, head to wind, till she was enabled to proceed in clear water. The crossing of this stream of ice, of which, the breadth scarcely exceeded three hundred yards, occupied us constantly for more than five hours, and may serve as an example of the detention to which ships are liable in this kind of navigation.

Early on the morning of the 21st the fog cleared away, and discovered to us the land called by Davis, Hope Sanderson and the Woman's Islands, being the first land we had seen in sailing northward into Baffin's Bay, from the lat. of 63¾°. We found ourselves in the midst of a great number of very high icebergs, of which I counted, from the crow's-nest, eighty-eight, besides many smaller ones.

Having now reached the latitude of 73° without seeing a single opening in the ice, and being unwilling to increase our distance from Sir James Lancaster's Sound by proceeding much farther to the northward, I determined once more to enter the ice in this place, and to try the experiment of forcing our way through it, in order to get into the open sea. Being therefore favoured with clear weather, and a moderate breeze from the southeastward, we ran into the ice, which for the first two miles consisted of detached pieces, but afterward of floes of considerable extent, and six or seven feet in thickness. The wind died away towards midnight, and the weather was serene and clear.

At six A.M. on the 23d, a thick fog came on, which rendered it impossible to see our way any farther. We therefore warped to an iceberg, to which the ships were made fast at noon, to wait the clearing up of the fog, being in lat. 73° 04' 10", long. 60° 11' 30". At eight P.M. the weather cleared up, and a few small pools of open water were seen here and there, but the ice was generally as close as before, and the wind being to the westward of north, it was not deemed advisable to move.

The weather, being clear in the morning of the 25th, and a few narrow lanes of water appearing to the westward, the Griper was made fast astern of the Hecla; and her crew being sent to assist in manning our capstan, we proceeded to warp the ships through the ice. This method, which is often adopted by our whalers, has the obvious advantage of applying the whole united force in separating the masses of ice which lie in the way of the first ship, allowing the second, or even third, to follow close astern, with very little obstruction. In this manner we had advanced about four miles to the westward by eight P.M., after eleven hours of very laborious exertion; and having then come to the end of the clear water, and the weather being again foggy, the ships were secured in a deep "bight," or bay in a floe, called by the sailors a "natural dock."

Early on the morning of the 26th there was clear water as far as we could see to the westward, which, on account of the fog, did not exceed the distance of three hundred yards. We made sail, however, and having groped our way for about half a mile, found the ice once more close in every direction except that in which we had been sailing, obliging us to make the ships fast to a floe. At half past three P.M. the weather cleared up, and a few narrow lanes of water being seen to the westward, every exertion was immediately made to get into them. On beginning to heave, however, we found that the "hole" of water in which the Hecla lay was now so completely enclosed by ice that no passage out of it could be found. We tried every corner, but to no purpose; all the power we could apply being insufficient to move the heavy masses of ice which had fixed themselves firmly between us and the lanes of water without. In the mean time, Lieutenant Liddon had succeeded in advancing about three hundred yards, and had placed the Griper's bow between two heavy floes, which it was necessary to separate before any farther progress could be made. Both ships continued to heave at their hawsers occasionally, as the ice appeared to slacken a little, by which means they were now and then drawn ahead a few inches at a time, but did not advance more than half a dozen yards in the course of the night. By our nearing several bergs to the northward, the ice appeared to be drifting in that direction, the wind being moderate from the southward.

About three A.M., Tuesday, 27th, by a sudden motion of the ice, we succeeded in getting the Hecla out of her confined situation, and ran her up astern of the Griper. The clear water had made so much to the westward, that a narrow neck of ice was all that was now interposed between the ships and a large open space in that quarter. Both ships' companies were therefore ordered upon the ice to saw off the neck, when the floes suddenly opened sufficiently to allow the Griper to push through under all sail. No time was lost in the attempt to get the Hecla through after her; but, by one of those accidents to which this navigation is liable, and which render it so precarious and uncertain, a piece of loose ice, which lay between the two ships, was drawn after the Griper by the eddy produced by her motion, and completely blocked the narrow passage through which we were about to follow. Before we could remove this obstruction by hauling it back out of the channel, the floes were again pressed together, wedging it firmly and immovably between them: the saws were immediately set to work, and used with great effect; but it was not till eleven o'clock that we succeeded, after seven hours' labour, in getting the Hecla into the lanes of clear water which opened more and more to the westward.

On the 29th we had so much clear water, that the ships had a very perceptible pitching motion, which, from the closeness of the ice, does not very often occur in the Polar regions, and which is therefore hailed with pleasure as an indication of an open sea. At five P.M. the swell increased considerably, and, as the wind freshened up from the northeast, the ice gradually disappeared; so that by six o'clock we were sailing in an open sea, perfectly free from obstruction of any kind.

We now seemed all at once to have got into the headquarters of the whales. They were so numerous that I directed the number to be counted during each watch, and no less than eighty-two are mentioned in this day's log. Mr. Allison, the Greenland master, considered them generally as large ones, and remarked that a fleet of whalers might easily have obtained a cargo here in a few days. In the afternoon the wind broke us of from the N.N.W., which obliged us to cast off the Griper, and we carried all sail ahead to make the land. We saw it at half past five P.M., being the high land about Possession Bay, and at the same time several streams of loose but heavy ice came in sight, which a fresh breeze was drifting fast to the southeastward.

The wind increased to a fresh breeze on the morning of the 31st, which prevented our making much way to the westward. We stood in towards Cape Byam Martin, and sounded in eighty fathoms on a rocky bottom, at the distance of two miles in an east direction from it. We soon after discovered the flagstaff which had been erected on Possession Mount on the former expedition; an object which, though insignificant in itself, called up every person immediately on deck to look at and to greet it as an old acquaintance.