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

After lying-to for an hour, we again bore up to the westward, and soon after discovered a cape, afterward named by Captain Sabine, CAPE FELLFOOT, which appeared to form the termination of this coast; and as the haze, which still prevailed to the south, prevented our seeing any land in that quarter, and the sea was literally as free from ice as any part of the Atlantic, we began to flatter ourselves that we had fairly entered the Polar Sea, and some of the most sanguine among us had even calculated the bearing and distance of Icy Cape, as a matter of no very difficult or improbable accomplishment. This pleasing prospect was rendered the more flattering by the sea having, as we thought, regained the usual oceanic colour, and by a long swell which was rolling in from the southward and eastward. At six P.M., however, land was reported to be seen ahead. The vexation and anxiety produced on every countenance by such a report were but too visible, until, on a nearer approach, it was found to be only an island, of no very large extent, and that, on each side of it, the horizon still appeared clear for several points of the compass. At eight P.M. we came to some ice of no great breadth or thickness, extending several miles in a direction nearly parallel to our course; and as we could see clear water over it to the southward, I was for some time in the hope that it would prove a detached stream, from which no obstruction to our progress westerly was to be apprehended. At twenty minutes past ten, however, the weather having become hazy and the wind light, we perceived that the ice, along which we had been sailing for the last two hours, was joined, at the distance of half a mile to the westward of us, to a compact and impenetrable body of floes, which lay across the whole breadth of the strait, formed by the island and the western point of Maxwell Bay. We hauled our wind to the northward, just in time to avoid being embayed in the ice, on the outer edge of which a considerable surf, the effect of the late gale, was then rolling.

While the calm and thick weather lasted, a number of the officers and men amused themselves in the boats, in endeavouring to kill some of the white whales which were swimming about the ships in great numbers; but the animals were so wary, that they would scarcely suffer the boats to approach them within thirty or forty yards without diving. Mr. Fisher described them to be generally from eighteen to twenty feet in length; and he stated that he had several times heard them emit a shrill, ringing sound, not unlike that of musical glasses when badly played; This sound, he farther observed, was most distinctly heard when they happened to swim directly beneath the boat, even when they were several feet under water, and ceased altogether on their coming to the surface. We saw also, for the first time, one or two shoals of narwhals, called by the sailors sea-unicorns.

A steady breeze springing up from the W.N.W. in the afternoon, the ships stood to the northward till we had distinctly made out that no passage to the westward could at present be found between the ice and the land. The weather having become clear about this time, we perceived that there was a large open space to the southward, where no land was visible; and for this opening, over which there was a dark water-sky, our course was now directed.

Since the time when we first entered Sir James Lancaster's Sound, the sluggishness of the compasses, as well as the amount of their irregularity produced by the attraction of the ship's iron, had been found very rapidly, though uniformly, to increase as we proceeded to the westward; so much, indeed, that, for the last two days, we had been under the necessity of giving up altogether the usual observations for determining the variation of the needle on board the ships. This irregularity became more and more obvious as we now advanced to the southward, which rendered it not improbable that we were making a very near approach to the magnetic pole. For the purposes of navigation, therefore, the compasses were from this time no longer consulted; and in a few days afterward, the binnacles were removed as useless lumber from the deck to the carpenter's storeroom, where they remained during the rest of the season.

A dark sky to the southwest had given us hopes of finding a westerly passage to the south of the ice along which we were now sailing; more especially as the inlet began to widen considerably as we advanced in that direction: but at three A.M. on the morning of the 8th, we perceived that the ice ran close in with a point of land bearing S.b.E. from us, which appeared to form the southern extremity of the eastern shore.

With the increasing width of the inlet we had flattered ourselves with increasing hopes; but we soon experienced the mortification of disappointment. The prospect from the crow's-nest began to assume a very unpromising appearance, the whole of the western horizon, from north round to S.b.E., being completely covered with ice, consisting of heavy and extensive floes, beyond which no indication of water was visible; instead of which there was a bright and dazzling iceblink extending from shore to shore. The western coast of the inlet, however, trended much more to the westward than before, and no land was visible to the southwest, though the horizon was so clear in that quarter, that, if any had existed of moderate height, it might have been easily seen at this time at the distance of ten or twelve leagues. From these circumstances, the impression received at the time was, that the land, both on the eastern and western side of this inlet, would be one day found to consist of islands.

A breeze sprung up from the northward on the morning of the 12th, but the weather was so foggy for some hours that we did not know in what direction it was blowing. As soon as the fog cleared away, so as to enable us to see a mile or two around us, we found that the floe to which we had anchored was drifting fast down upon another body of ice to leeward, threatening to enclose the ships between them. We therefore cast off and made sail, in order to beat to the northward, which we found great difficulty in doing, owing to the quantity of loose ice with which this part of the inlet was now covered. A remarkably thick fog obscured the eastern land from our view this evening at the distance of five or six miles, while the western coast was distinctly visible at four times that distance.

The weather was beautifully calm and clear on the 13th, when, being near an opening in the eastern shore, I took the opportunity of examining it in a boat. It proved to be a bay, a mile wide at its entrance, and three miles deep in an E.b.S. direction, having a small but snug cove on the north side, formed by an island, between which and the main land is a bar of rocks, which completely shelters the cove from sea or drift ice. We found the water so deep, that in rowing close along the shore we could seldom get bottom with seven fathoms of line. The cliffs on the south side of this bay, to which I gave the name of PORT BOWEN, resemble, in many places, ruined towers and battlements; and fragments of the rocks were constantly falling from above. At the head of the bay is an extensive piece of low flat ground, intersected by numerous rivulets, which, uniting at a short distance from the beach, formed a deep and rapid stream, near the mouth of which we landed. This spot was, I think, the most barren I ever saw, the ground being almost entirely covered with small pieces of slaty limestone, among which no vegetation appeared for more than a mile, to which distance Mr. Ross and myself walked inland, following the banks of the stream. Among the fragments we picked up one piece of limestone, on which was the impression of a fossil-shell. We saw here a great number of young black guillemots, and a flock of ducks, which we supposed to be of the eider species.

The narwhals were here very numerous; these animals appear fond of remaining with their backs exposed above the surface of the water, in the same manner as the whale, but for a much longer time, and we frequently also observed their horns erect, and quite stationary for several minutes together.

The whole of the 14th was occupied in an unsuccessful attempt to find an opening in the ice to the westward, which remained perfectly close and compact, with a bright iceblink over it.