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

I began to consider whether it would not be advisable, whenever the ice would allow us to move, to sacrifice a few miles of the westing we had already made, and to run along the margin of the floes, in order to endeavour to find an opening leading to the southward, by taking advantage of which we might be enabled to prosecute the voyage to the westward in a lower latitude. I was the more inclined to make this attempt, from its having long become evident to us that the navigation of this part of the Polar Sea is only to be performed by watching the occasional openings between the ice and the shore; and that, therefore, a continuity of land is essential, if not absolutely necessary, for this purpose. Such a continuity of land, which was here about to fail us, must necessarily be furnished by the northern coast of America, in whatsoever latitude it may be found; and, as a large portion of our short season had already been occupied in fruitless attempts to penetrate farther to the westward in our present parallel, under circumstances of more than ordinary risk to the ships, I determined, whenever the ice should open sufficiently, to put into execution the plan I had proposed.

At seven P.M. we shipped the rudder and crossed the top-gallant yards in readiness for moving; and then I ascended the hill and walked a mile to the westward, along the brow of it, that not a moment might be lost after the ice to the westward should give us the slightest hope of making any progress by getting under way. Although the holes had certainly increased in size and extent, there was still not sufficient room even for one of our boats to work to windward; and the impossibility of the ships' doing so was rendered more apparent, on account of the current which, as I have before had occasion to remark, is always produced in these seas soon after the springing up of a breeze, and which was now running to the eastward at the rate of at least one mile per hour. It was evident that any attempt to get the ships to the westward must, under circumstances so unfavourable, be attended with the certain consequence of their being drifted the contrary way; and nothing could therefore be done but still to watch, which we did most anxiously, every alteration in the state of the ice. The wind, however, decreasing as the night came on, served to diminish the hopes with which we had flattered ourselves of being speedily extricated from our present confined and dangerous situation.

The weather was foggy for some hours in the morning of the 11th, but cleared up in the afternoon as the sun acquired power. The wind increased to a fresh gale from the eastward at nine P.M., being the second time that it had done so while we had been lying at this station; a circumstance which we were the more inclined to notice, as the easterly winds had hitherto been more faint and less frequent than those from the westward. In this respect, therefore, we considered ourselves unfortunate, as experience had already shown us that none but a westerly wind ever produced upon this coast, or, indeed, on the southern coast of any of the North Georgian Islands, the desired effect of clearing the shores of ice.

The gale continued strong during the night, and the ice quite stationary. Not a pool of clear water could be seen in any direction, except just under the lee of our point, where there was a space large enough to contain half a dozen sail of ships, till about noon, when the whole closed in upon us without any apparent cause, except that the wind blew in irregular puffs about that time, and at one P.M. it was alongside. The ship was placed in the most advantageous manner for taking the beach, or, rather, the shelf of submarine ice, and the rudder again unshipped and hung across the stem. The ice which came in contact with the ship's side consisted of very heavy loose pieces, drawing twelve or fourteen feet water, which, however, we considered as good "fenders," compared with the enormous fields which covered the sea just without them. Everything remained quiet for the rest of the day, without producing any pressure of consequence; the wind came round to N.b.E. at night, but without moving the ice off the land.

Early in the morning of the 13th I received by Mr. Griffiths a message from Lieutenant Liddon, acquainting me that, at eleven o'clock on the preceding night, the ice had been setting slowly to the westward, and had, at the same time, closed in upon the land where the Griper was lying, by which means she was forced against the submarine ice, and her stern lifted two feet out of the water. This pressure, Lieutenant Liddon remarked, had given her a twist, which made her crack a good deal, but apparently without suffering any material injury in her hull, though the ice was still pressing upon her when Mr. Griffiths came away. She had at first heeled inward, but, on being lifted higher, fell over towards the deep water. Under these circumstances Lieutenant Liddon had very properly landed all the journals and other documents of importance, and made every arrangement in his power for saving the provisions and stores in case of shipwreck, which he had now every reason to anticipate. Convinced as I was that no human art or power could, in our present situation, prevent such a catastrophe whenever the pressure of the ice became sufficient, I was more than ever satisfied with the determination to which I had previously come, of keeping the ships apart during the continuance of these untoward circumstances, in order to increase the chance of saving one of them from accidents of this nature. In the mean time the ice remained so close about the Hecla, that the slightest pressure producing in it a motion towards the shore must have placed us in a situation similar to that of the Griper; and our attention was therefore diverted to the more important object of providing, by every means in our power, for the security of the larger ship, as being the principal depôt of provisions and other resources.

At five P.M. Lieutenant Liddon acquainted me by letter that the Griper had at length righted, the ice having slackened a little around her, and that all the damage she appeared to have sustained was in her rudder, which was badly split, and would require some hours' labour to repair it whenever the ice should allow him to get it on shore.

Soon after midnight the ice pressed closer in upon the Hecla than before, giving her a heel of eighteen inches towards the shore, but without appearing to strain her in the slightest degree. By four P.M. the pressure had gradually decreased, and the ship had only three or four inches heel; in an hour after she had perfectly righted, and the ice remained quiet for the rest of the day.

Every moment's additional detention now served to confirm me in the opinion I had formed as to the expediency of trying, at all risks, to penetrate to the southward whenever the ice would allow us to move at all, rather than persevere any longer in the attempts we had been lately making, with so little success, to push on directly to the westward. I therefore gave Lieutenant Liddon an order to run back a certain distance to the eastward whenever he could do so, without waiting for the Hecla, should that ship be still detained; and to look out for any opening in the ice to the southward which might seem likely to favour the object I had in view, waiting for me to join him should any such opening occur.

The breeze died away in the course of the night, just as the ice was beginning to separate and to drift away from the shore; and, being succeeded by a wind off the land, which is here very unusual, Lieutenant Liddon was enabled to sail upon the Griper at two A.M. on the 15th, in execution of the orders I had given him. As I soon perceived, however, that she made little or no way, the wind drawing more to the eastward on that part of the coast, and as the clear water was increasing along the shore to the westward much farther than we had yet seen it, I made the signal of recall to the Griper, with the intention of making another attempt, which the present favourable appearances seemed to justify, to push forward without delay in the desired direction. At five A.M., therefore, as soon as the snow had cleared away sufficiently to allow the signal to be distinguished, we cast off and ran along shore, the wind having by this time veered to the E.b.N., and blowing in strong puffs out of the ravines as we passed them. We sailed along, generally at the distance of a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards from the beach, our soundings being from ten to seventeen fathoms; and, after running a mile and a half in a N.W.b.W. direction, once more found the ice offering an impenetrable obstacle to our progress westward, at a small projecting point of land just beyond us. We therefore hauled the ship into a berth which we were at this moment fortunate in finding abreast of us, and where we were enabled to place the Hecla within a number of heavy masses of grounded ice, such as do not often occur on this steep coast, which, compared with the situation we had lately left, appeared a perfect harbour. In the mean time, the wind had failed our consort when she was a mile and a half short of this place; and Lieutenant Liddon, after endeavouring in vain to warp up to us, was obliged, by the ice suddenly closing upon him, to place her in-shore, in the first situation he could find, which proved to be in very deep water, as well as otherwise so insecure as not to admit a hope of saving the ship should the ice continue to press upon her.

Mr. Fisher found very good sport in our new station, having returned in the evening, after a few hours' excursion, with nine hares; the birds had, of late, almost entirely deserted us, a flock or two of ptarmigan and snow-buntings, a few glaucous gulls, a raven, and an owl, being all that had been met with for several days.