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

Each officer and man was also furnished with a blanket made into a bag, with a drawing-string at each end, a pair of spare shoes, and stockings, a flannel shirt, and a cap to sleep in. The clothing and blankets were carried on our backs in knapsacks, those of the officers weighing from seventeen to twenty-four pounds each, and one between every two men weighing twenty-four pounds, to be carried for half a day alternately.

At five P.M. we left the ships, accompanied by a large party of officers and men from each, who were desirous of relieving us from the weight of our knapsacks for an hour or two; and, having been cheered by the ships on our departure, we went round the head of the harbour, and ascended the northeast hill, our companions left us at eight P.M., and we proceeded across a level plain almost entirely covered with snow, which, however, was so hard as to make the travelling very good; and the cart was dragged along without difficulty. At eleven P.M. we came to three remarkable round hills; composed entirely of sand and masses of sandstone, and halted to dine close to the northward of them. Those parts of the land which were clear of snow appeared to be more productive than those in the immediate neighbourhood of Winter Harbour, the dwarf-willow, sorrel, and poppy being more abundant, and the moss more luxuriant; we, could not, however, collect a sufficient quantity of the slender wood of the willow, in a dry state, for the purpose of dissolving snow for water, and were therefore obliged to use a part of the fuel which we had provided for that purpose. The thermometer stood at 31° at midnight.

Having set off soon after midnight, at the distance of half a mile in a N.b.E. direction we came to a piece of frozen water, half a mile in length and two hundred yards wide, situated on the south side of the range of hills which bound the prospect from Winter Harbour. The ice on the surface of this lake or pond was in some parts nearly dissolved, and in all too soft to allow us to cross it. We halted at half past six A.M., and pitched the tents on the hardest ground we could find, but it became quite swampy in the course of the day. We killed seven ptarmigan, and saw two plovers and two deer, being the first we had met with this season, with a fawn so small as to leave no doubt of its having been dropped since the arrival of the female upon the island. They were so wild as not to allow us to approach them within a quarter of a mile. The day was fine, with light and variable airs; the thermometer stood at 34° in the shade at seven A.M., at which time it was unfortunately broken.

We again set forward at two A.M. on the 3d, crossing one or two ravines, running E.N.E. and W.S.W., in which there was a large collection of snow, but as yet no appearance of water in the bottom of them. Captain Sabine and myself, being considerably ahead of the rest of the party, had sat down to wait for them, when a fine reindeer came trotting up, and played round us for a quarter of an hour, within thirty yards. We had no gun, nor do I know that we should have killed it if we had, there being already as much weight upon the cart as the men could well drag, and having no fuel to spare for cooking; besides, we felt it would have been but an ill return for the confidence which he seemed willing to place in us. On hearing our people talking on the opposite side of the ravine, the deer immediately crossed over, and went directly up to them, with very little caution; and they being less scrupulous than we were, one or two shots were immediately fired at him, but without effect; on which he again crossed over to where we were sitting, approaching us nearer than before. As soon as we rose up and walked on, he accompanied us like a dog, sometimes trotting ahead of us, and then returning within forty or fifty yards. When we halted, at six A.M., to make the usual observations, he remained by us till the rest of the party came up, and then trotted off. The reindeer is by no means a graceful animal; its high shoulders, and an awkward stoop in its head, giving it rather a deformed appearance. Our new acquaintance had no horns; he was of a brownish colour, with a black saddle, a broad black rim round the eyes, and very white about the tail. We observed that, whenever he was about to set off, he made a sort of playful gambol, by rearing on his hind legs.

At two o'clock on the morning of the 4th we continued our journey to the northward, over the same snowy and level plain as before, than which it is impossible to conceive anything more dreary and uninteresting. It frequently happened that, for an hour together, not a single spot of uncovered ground could be seen. The breeze freshened up to a gale from the S.S.E. as we proceeded, and the men, as if determined not to forget that they were sailors, set a large blanket upon the cart as a sail, which, upon the present level ground, was found to be of material assistance. The snow was deep and rather soft, which made the travelling heavy; and as the wind produced a good deal of snowdrift, most of the bare patches of ground became covered up, so that, when our time for halting had arrived, not a piece of ground could be seen on which to pitch the tents. Captain Sabine and myself went forward to look out for a spot, and at length were fortunate to meet with one, on which there was just room for our little encampment. It was with some difficulty, by building a wall with stones and our knapsacks, that we prevented its being covered with snow before the party came up, which they did at half past seven A.M., having travelled ten miles in a N.W.b.N. direction.

By the time we had secured the tents the wind blew hard, with a continued fall, as well as drift of snow, so that we could not but consider ourselves fortunate in having met with a spot of ground in good time. Notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, we found the tents afford us very comfortable and sufficient shelter, the cart being tilted up to windward of them, so as to break up some measure the violence of the wind; and, when wrapped up, or, rather, enclosed in our blanket bags, we were generally quite warm enough to enjoy the most sound and refreshing repose.

It continued to blow and snow till seven P.M., when the wind having veered to the S.W., and become more moderate, we struck the tents; and having now placed the men's knapsacks on the cart, to enable them to drag with greater facility, we proceeded on our journey to the northward. We passed a narrow but deep ravine lying across our course, in some parts of which the snow reached nearly to a level with the banks, forming a kind of bridges or causeways, on one of which we crossed without difficulty. The men had hoisted one sail upon the cart at first setting off; but the wind being now, as they expressed it, "on the larboard quarter," a second blanket was rigged as a mainsail, to their great amusement as well as relief.

After crossing a second ravine, on the north side of which the ground rose considerably, we entered upon another snowy plain, where there was nothing to be seen in any direction but snow and sky. To make it the more dreary, a thick fog came on as the night advanced; and as this prevented our taking any mark more than fifty or a hundred yards ahead, we had to place the compass, by which we were now entirely travelling, upon the ground every five minutes; and as it traversed with great sluggishness, we made a very crooked and uncertain course. For more than two hours we did not pass a single spot of uncovered ground, nor even a stone projecting above the snow.

The fog continued too thick to allow us to move till six A.M., at which time we resumed our journey. There was a broad and distant haze-bow of very white and dazzling light directly opposite the sun. The weather being still too foggy to see more than a quarter of a mile ahead, it was with considerable difficulty that we could proceed on a tolerably straight course. To effect this, it was necessary to determine the point on which we were walking by the bearing of the sun, which was still visible, and the apparent time, and then to take a mark ahead by which our course was to be directed. From the thickness of the weather, however, it was necessary to repeat this operation every five or ten minutes, which, together with the uniform whiteness and intense glare of the snow, became so extremely painful to the eyes, that Mr. Fisher and myself, who went ahead as guides, soon became affected with snow blindness, and the headmost man at the cart, whose business it was constantly to watch our motions, began to suffer in a similar manner from the same cause.

It may, perhaps, be conceived, then, under these circumstances, how pleasing was the relief afforded by our seeing, at eight A.M., a stripe of black or uncovered land ahead, which proved to be the bank of a ravine fifty or sixty feet deep and three hundred yards wide, on the north side of which we pitched the tents, having made good only one mile and a half, the snow being so soft and deep as to make it difficult to drag the cart through it.