Towards sunset on the 17th we became more and more hampered, and were eventually beset during the night. The sea was covered with ice between us and the shore, all of this year's formation, but now of considerable thickness and formidable appearance. The wind continuing strong, the whole body was constantly pressed in upon the land, bearing the ships along with it, and doubling one sheet over another, sometimes to a hundred thicknesses. We quickly shoaled the water from seventy to forty fathoms, the latter depth occurring about a mile from the beach; and after this we drifted but little, the ice being blocked up between the point and a high perpendicular berg lying aground off it.
Under such circumstances, it evidently became expedient to endeavour, by sawing, to get the ships as close in-shore as possible, so as to secure them either to grounded ice, or by anchoring within the shelter of a bay at no great distance inside of us; for it now seemed not unlikely that winter was about to put a premature stop to all farther operations at sea for this season. At all events, it was necessary to consult the immediate safety of the ships, and to keep them from being drifted back to the eastward. I therefore gave orders for endeavouring to get the ships in towards the bay, by cutting through what level floes still remained. So strong had been the pressure while the ice was forcing in upon us, that on the 20th, after liberating the Hecla on one side, she was as firmly cemented to it on the other, as after a winter's formation; and we could only clear her by heavy and repeated "sallying." After cutting in two or three hundred yards, while the people were at dinner on the 21st, our canal closed by the external pressure coming upon the parts which we had weakened, and in a few minutes the whole was once more in motion, or, as the seamen not inaptly expressed it, "alive," mass doubling under mass, and raising those which were uppermost to a considerable height. The ice thus pressed together was now about ten feet in thickness in some places, and on an average not less than four or five, so that, while thus forced in upon a ship, although soft in itself, it caused her to tremble exceedingly; a sensation, indeed, commonly experienced in forcing through young ice of considerable thickness. We were now once more obliged to be quiet spectators of what was going on around us, having, with extreme difficulty, succeeded in saving most of our tools that were lying on the ice when the squeezing suddenly began.
A sudden motion of the ice, on the morning of the 22d, occasioned by a change of the wind to the S.E., threatened to carry us directly off the land. It was now, more than ever, desirable to hold on, as this breeze was likely to clear the shore, and, at the same time, to give us a run to the westward. Hawsers were therefore run out to the land-ice, composed of some heavy masses, almost on the beach. With the Hecla this succeeded, but the Fury being much farther from the shore, soon began to move out with the whole body of ice, which, carrying her close to the large berg off the point, swept her round the latter, where, after great exertion, Captain Hoppner succeeded in getting clear, and then made sail to beat back to us. In the mean time the strain put upon the Hecla's hawsers being too great for them, they snapped one after another, and a bower-anchor was let go as a last resource. It was one of Hawkins's, with the double fluke, and immediately brought up, not merely the ship, but a large floe of young ice which had just broken our stream-cable. All hands were sent upon the floe to cut it up ahead, and the whole operation was a novel, and, at times, a fearful one; for the ice, being weakened by the cutting, would suddenly gather fresh way astern, carrying men and tools with it, while the chain cable continued to plough through it in a manner which gave one the idea of something alive, and continually renewing its attacks. The anchor held surprisingly; and after this tremendous strain had been put upon it for above an hour, we had fairly cut the floe in two, and the ship was riding in clear water about half a mile from the shore.
I was in hopes we should make some progress, for a large channel of clear water was left open in-shore; a breeze blew off the land, and the temperature of the atmosphere had again risen considerably. We had not sailed five miles, however, when a westerly wind took us aback, and a most dangerous swell set directly upon the shore, obliging me immediately to stand off the land; and the Fury being still to the eastward of the point, I ran round it in order to rejoin her before sunset.
After midnight on the 27th the wind began to moderate, and, by degrees, also drew more to the southward than before. At daylight, therefore, we found ourselves seven or eight miles from the land; but no ice was in sight, except the "sludge," of honey-like consistence, with which almost the whole sea was covered. A strong blink, extending along the eastern horizon, pointed out the position of the main body of ice, which was farther distant from the eastern shore of the inlet than I ever saw it. Being assisted by a fine working breeze, which, at the same time, prevented the formation of any more ice to obstruct us, we made considerable progress along the land, and at noon were nearly abreast of Jackson Inlet, which we now saw to be considerably larger than our distant view of it on the former voyage had led us to suppose. A few more tacks brought us to the entrance of Port Bowen, which, for two or three days past, I had determined to make our wintering-place, if, as there was but little reason to expect, we should be so fortunate as to push the ships thus far. Beating up, therefore, to Port Bowen, we found it filled with "old" and "hummocky" ice, attached to the shores on both sides, as low down as about three-quarters of a mile below Stony Island. Here we made fast in sixty-two fathoms water, running our hawsers far in upon the ice, in case of its breaking off at the margin.
[CHAPTER III.]
Winter Arrangements.—Improvements in Warming and Ventilating the Ships.—Masquerades adopted as an Amusement to the Men.—Establishment of Schools.—Astronomical Observations.—Meteorological Phenomena.