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 fog, which had prevailed during the night, cleared away in the morning of the 16th, and a very fine day succeeded, with a moderate breeze from the westward. In order to have a clear and distinct view of the state of the ice, after twenty-four hours' wind from that quarter, Captain Sabine, Mr. Edwards, and myself, walked about two miles to the westward, along the high part of the land next the sea, from whence it appeared but too evident that no passage in this direction was yet to be expected. The ice to the west and southwest was as solid and compact, to all appearance, as so much land; to which, indeed, the surface of so many fields, from the kind of hill and dale I have before endeavoured to describe, bore no imperfect resemblance. I have no doubt that, had it been our object to circumnavigate Melville Island, or, on the other hand, had the coast continued its westerly direction instead of turning to the northward, we should still have contrived to proceed a little occasionally, as opportunities offered, notwithstanding the increased obstruction which here presented itself; but, as neither of these was the case, there seemed little or nothing to hope for from any farther attempts to prosecute the main object of the voyage in this place. I determined, therefore, no longer to delay the execution of my former intentions, and to make trial, if possible, of a more southern latitude, in which I might follow up the success that had hitherto attended our exertions.

The station at which the ships were now lying, and which is the westernmost point to which the navigation of the Polar Sea to the northward of the American Continent has yet been carried, is in latitude 74° 26' 25", and longitude, by chronometer, 113° 46' 43.5".

The place where the Hecla was now secured, being the only one of the kind which could be found, was a little harbour, formed, as usual, by the grounded ice, some of which was fixed to the bottom in ten to twelve fathoms. One side of the entrance to this harbour consisted of masses of floes, very regular in their shape, placed quite horizontally, and broken off so exactly perpendicular as to resemble a handsome, well-built wharf. On the opposite side, however, the masses to which we looked for security were themselves rather terrific objects, as they leaned over so much towards the ship as to give the appearance of their being in the act of falling upon her deck; and as a very trifling concussion often produces the fall of much heavier masses of ice, when in appearance very firmly fixed to the ground, I gave orders that no guns should be fired near the ship during her continuance in this situation. The Griper was of necessity made fast near the beach in rather an exposed situation, and her rudder unshipped, in readiness for the ice coming in; it remained quiet, however, though quite close, during the day, the weather being calm and fine.

It was again nearly calm on the 19th, and the weather was foggy for some hours in the morning. In the evening, having walked to Cape Providence to see if there was any possibility of moving the ships, I found the ice so close that a boat could not have passed beyond the Cape; but a light air drifting the ice slowly to the eastward at this time, gave me some hopes of soon being enabled to make our escape from this tedious as well as vexatious confinement. At a quarter past eight it was high water by the shore; about this time the ice ceased driving to the eastward, and shortly after returned in the opposite direction.

At half past eleven P.M., some heavy pieces of the grounded ice, to which our bow-hawser was secured, fell off into the water, snapping the rope in two without injuring the ship. As, however, every alteration of this kind must materially change the centre of gravity of the whole mass, which already appeared in a tottering state, I thought it prudent to move the Hecla out of her harbour to the place where the Griper was lying, considering that a ship might easily be forced on shore by the ice without suffering any serious damage; but that one of those enormous masses falling upon her deck must inevitably crush or sink her.

The "young ice" had increased to the thickness of an inch and a half on the morning of the 23d, and some snow which had fallen in the night served to cement the whole more firmly together. On a breeze springing up from the westward, however, it soon began to acquire a motion to leeward, and at half an hour before noon had slackened about the ships sufficiently to allow us to warp them out, which was accordingly done, and all sail made upon them. The wind having freshened up from the W.N.W., the ships' heads were got the right way, and, by great attention to the sails, kept so till they had got abreast of Cape Providence, after which they were no longer manageable, the ice being more close than before. I have before remarked that the loose ice in this neighbourhood was heavy in proportion to the floes from which it had been broken; and the impossibility of sailing among such ice, most of which drew more water than the Hecla, and could not, therefore, be turned by her weight, was this day rendered very apparent, the ships having received by far the heaviest shocks which they experienced during the voyage. They continued, however, to drive till they were about three miles to the eastward of Cape Providence, where the low land commences; when, finding that there was not any appearance of open water to the eastward or southward, and that we were now incurring the risk of being beset at sea, without a chance of making any farther progress, we hauled in for the largest piece of grounded ice we could see upon the beach, which we reached at six P.M., having performed six miles of the most difficult navigation I have ever known among ice. The Hecla was made fast in from eighteen to twenty feet water close to the beach, and the Griper in four fathoms, about half a mile to the westward of us.

The situation in which the ships were now placed, when viewed in combination with the shortness of the remaining part of the season, and the period to which our resources of every kind could be extended, was such as to require a more than ordinary consideration, in order to determine upon the measures most proper to be pursued for the advancement of the public service, and the security of the ships and people committed to my charge. Judging from the close of the summer of 1819, it was reasonable to consider the 7th of September as the limit beyond which the navigation of this part of the Polar Sea could not be performed, with tolerable safety to the ships or with any hope of farther success. Impressed, however, with a strong sense of the efforts which it became us to make in the prosecution of our enterprise, I was induced to extend this limit to the 14th of September, before which day, on the preceding year, the winter might fairly be said to have set in. But even with this extension our prospect was not very encouraging: the direct distance to Icy Cape was between eight and nine hundred miles, while that which we had advanced towards it this season fell short of sixty miles.

By Mr. Hooper's report of the remains of provisions, it appeared that, at the present reduced allowance (namely, two thirds of the established proportion of the navy), they would last until the 30th of November, 1821; and that an immediate reduction, to half allowance, which must, however, tend materially to impair the health and vigour of the officers and men, would only extend our resources to the 30th of April, 1822; it therefore became a matter of evident and imperious necessity, that the ships should be cleared from the ice before the close of the season of 1821, so as to reach some station where supplies might be obtained by the end of that, or early in the following year.

By the same report, it appeared that the fuel with which we were furnished could only be made to extend to a period of two years and seven months, or to the end of November, 1821; and this only by resorting to the unhealthy measure of both crews living on board the Hecla during six of the ensuing winter months.

The ships might be considered almost as effective as when the expedition left England; the wear and tear having been trifling, and the quantity of stores remaining on board being amply sufficient, in all probability, for a much longer period than the provisions and fuel. The health of the officers and men continued also as good, or nearly so, as at the commencement of the voyage. Considering, however, the serious loss we had sustained in the lemon-juice, the only effectual antiscorbutic on which we could depend during at least nine months of the year in these regions, as well as the effects likely to result from crowding nearly one hundred persons into the accommodation intended only for fifty-eight, whereby the difficulty of keeping the inhabited parts of the ship in a dry and wholesome state would have been so much increased, there certainly seemed some reason to apprehend that a second winter would not leave us in possession of the same excellent health which we now happily enjoyed, while it is possible that the difficulty and danger of either proceeding or returning might have been increased.