The only portion of the whalers at the time actively cruising had gone to the eastward of Point Barrow. On that day a seaman named Tuckfield returned from the Mackenzie in a whaleboat, and reported the ice conditions unusually favorable as far east as Mackenzie Bay, in the vicinity of which he had wintered. He was a seaman belonging to the whaling station and had been reported to me by a missionary I met at St. Michaels as having visited his station at Rampart house, upon the Porcupine river, a branch of the Yukon.
Upon the 8th of August the house of refuge was virtually finished, and as my orders were to devote my time to the whaling fleet, after the completion of this structure, I concluded to cruise after and with the vessel to the eastward of Point Barrow, leaving the Bear to remain with the vessels lying at anchor off Cape Smyth and Point Barrow. As Tuckfield wanted to go east with his Eskimo guide, I took him and his whaleboat and whaling outfit on board, leaving Cape Smyth on the evening of the 8th. The ice in sight at the time was somewhat scattered, but plentiful, and entering it about nine o'clock we slowly stood on a course parallel to the land. We were occupied in working through this ice all night and all of the next day; it was not the pack ice but shore ice broken off from the vicinity of Point Tangent, Smyth bay, and Harrison bay. At times we found it so closely packed together by current and wind that we had to turn back and work our way closer inshore. Three vessels under sail were sighted during this time off Tangent point, and by this time we had also demonstrated the uselessness of Little Joe Tuckfield as an ice pilot or prophet. The winds were very light and we had now gotten out of the strong northeast current running off Point Barrow. On the night of the 9th we passed off the north of the Colville river, the water offshore becoming very muddy.
The first important error found in the charts and maps of this region was found here by the observation of the non-existence of the Pelly mountains. This observation was confirmed upon our return by the concurrent testimony of the whaling masters who had cruised here, and the natives who hunt in the neighborhood. The mountains certainly do not exist where placed by the charts, and I judge that some small hummocks near the beach were mistaken for a far off range of mountains, when Dease and Simpson first explored this coast in 1837.
Early on the morning of the 10th of August we sighted the first steam whaler, and as we steamed toward her we skirted along some long low islands parallel to the coast line and stretching from the Return reef of Sir John Franklin to the mouth of the Colville river. The islands, one being about three miles long, are not shown upon the charts, and not having any known names were designated as the Thetis islands.
The steam-whaler was found to be the Balæna, commanded by Captain Everett Smith, one of the most intelligent of the whalemen of the Arctic. He was anchored off Return reef, which he was enabled definitely to locate by the traditions of the natives. It was at this point that Sir John Franklin, in one of his earliest boat journeys, was obliged to turn back while endeavoring to explore the coast from Mackenzie bay to Point Barrow. After a long interview with Captain Smith, from which I gathered much information as to the ice-conditions and the probable positions of the steam-whalers to the eastward, he returned on board of his ship, and the good ship Thetis once more turned her head to the eastward.
Soon afterwards another steam-whaler was sighted, made fast by ice-anchors to an ice-floe; we did not stop, but, exchanging colors, proceeded on our way. The ice seemed to be getting thicker, and shortly afterwards a third whaler was sighted, at anchor off a small low island, with apparently heavy ice ahead. As the weather seemed uncertain I determined to anchor for the night in the vicinity of the island.
The steamer was found to be the whaler Beluga, commanded by Captain Brooks, and the island, though nameless, was marked by a wooden cross, from which fact it was called Cross island. Captain Brooks stated that he had been struggling with the ice to the eastward of Cross island, the day before, in company with some other steam-whalers who had left him and gone to the eastward, so he had turned back and anchored off Cross island. I sounded out the vicinity of the island, finding shoal water to the southward, too shoal for the Thetis to anchor in, and so I remained upon the west side. The wind shifting, our position became insecure on account of the masses of ice drifting toward us; the whaler left the anchorage, stood out into the heavy ice, and made fast to a high hummocky floe. Seeing no good place near by, I held on with the chain on the steam windlass, ready to leave in a moment. Heavy ice coming down and grounding close by on both sides, we left and got out the ice-anchors to a heavy floe, where we rode out the gale until early in the morning, when we were obliged to move on, as the ice packed about our rudder. After moving again and again the wind fell away, the day cleared up, and the ice began to scatter and disappear about the island, the leads to the eastward looking more promising.
The next day at 5 in the morning, in company with our whaling friend, we left the vicinity of Cross island and, entering the ice, stood toward the northeast. The ice-floes grew heavier and larger as we progressed and the canal-like leads more confused, until at 10 o'clock the lead stopped and we both made fast to a very large, long, hummocky floe, at least ten miles in length, several miles in breadth, and aground in 80 feet of water. The day was mild and clear, and, after both of the ice-anchors had been secured and the rope-ladders lowered over the bows, a number of the officers and men went on the ice, the men playing foot-ball and snow balling, while the officers posed for their photographs. This is the time that we were reported (by a steam-whaler that we had passed) as being in a position of extreme danger, and the news was taken to the outside world.
About 4 o'clock in the afternoon we started ahead with the Beluga; the Thetis, now taking the lead, rammed her way through some pack-ice and reached another lead going inshore, the Beluga following very slowly after us. We continued forcing our way until we got into clear water by Lion reef. At midnight we made fast to a small floe and after an anxious night (caused by ice-floes setting against our stern and rudder) we proceeded, followed at along distance by the Beluga, which joined us in the afternoon at Camden Bay, and we anchored there for the night. We found that the Beluga in attempting to follow us had gotten on an ice-foot, or protruding spur, and bent her propeller-blades, and had finally to seek another lead out, to the westward of where we had rammed through. As we ran from off Lion reef to Camden bay we sighted the beautiful ranges of mountains close to the coast known as the Franklin and Romanzoff mountains, making an agreeable change in the topography of the shore, which had been low and monotonously flat since leaving Point Hope and the vicinity of Cape Lisburne. We found here that the shore-line was put upon the charts too far north, as our position near Flaxman island, on the west side of Camden bay, was well inland of the coast-line and reefs. Camden bay was the last wintering place of Collinson, in the Enterprise, upon his return from his search for Sir John Franklin, and here we fell in with the track of this distinguished navigator, whose cruise is so little known and whose efforts have been so much eclipsed by his fellow voyager, McClure, who has the distinction given him of being the actual discoverer of the Northwest passage, and who was, indeed, with his little body of men in 1850-1854, the first as well as the last to pass from the Pacific to the Atlantic, north of the American continent.
Upon a long point named Collinson point, and upon the neighboring island known as Barter island, are to be found, during the summer, encampments and rendezvous of Eskimos, who meet there for purposes of trade, similar to the same rendezvous in Kotzebue sound. Here the Alaskan and the Mackenzie river Eskimos meet, also the Lucia or Prat river Indians, who are nomads and come from the vicinity of the Porcupine and Prat rivers, and whose winter rendezvous and habitation is at the Rampart house, a Hudson Bay Company's station and Church of England mission, upon the Porcupine. They are mostly professing Christians and are related to the Athabascans, or Rock mountain Indians, in family. There are no permanent settlements here or elsewhere between the vicinity of Herschel island and Point Barrow. The country is sterile, affording but little upon which to live, the sea also having little or no animal life in its waters. The Eskimos give to this part of the Arctic ocean a native name which signifies the sea where there is always ice.