Round About the North Pole

by W. J. Gordon

From the river mouth Wentzel returned, as arranged, with despatches, taking with him a number of voyageurs and others, thus reducing the party to twenty in all in two canoes. In these Franklin, nearly two years after he had landed in America, went on his voyage to the eastward to enter at last on the work he had been sent to do. But the survey of this lofty rocky coast was no easy matter; the sea was rough, the weather tempestuous, the canoes were lightly built and only suited for river work, and, in short, it was a most risky enterprise. Tracing the shore of Coronation Gulf and coasting up and out of Bathurst Inlet, Franklin reached Point Turnagain in 109° 25´ W., at the entrance of Dease Strait, on the 16th of August, 1821. Though the voyage had extended over only six and a half degrees of longitude, he had sailed 555 geographical miles; and then, as his resources did not permit of his going further or of his returning to the Coppermine, and in his own words "Our scanty stock of provisions rendering it necessary to make for a nearer place," he, on the 22nd, turned back to ascend the Hood River.

Here they soon reached the Wilberforce Falls, beautiful and remarkable, but not easy of navigation. "In the evening," says Franklin in his journal, "we encamped at the lower end of a narrow chasm through which the river flows for upwards of a mile. The walls of this chasm are upwards of two hundred feet high, quite perpendicular, and in some places only a few yards apart. The river precipitates itself into it over a rock forming two magnificent and picturesque falls close to each other. The upper fall is about sixty feet high, and the lower one at least one hundred, but perhaps considerably more, for the narrowness of the chasm into which it fell prevented us from seeing its bottom and we could merely discern the top of the spray far beneath our feet. The lower fall is divided into two by an insulated column of rock which rises about forty feet above it."

As the river above the falls appeared too rapid and shallow for the large canoes they were taken to pieces, and two smaller ones built from their materials. The voyage in these lasted but three days, when the river was abandoned as trending too far to the west, and the party, carrying the canoes, proceeded overland to Point Lake on their struggle of starvation across the Barren Grounds. For days they had nothing to eat but lichens—species of Gyrophora or Umbilicaria known as tripe-de-roche—a diet varied with leather, burnt bones and skins, an occasional ptarmigan, and, once, a musk ox, until they were so weak that when a herd of reindeer went strolling past they had not strength enough to shoot at them.

The tragedy need not be lingered over. Back was again sent for help, and, finding no stores at Fort Enterprise, was on his way to Fort Providence when he fell in with Akaitcho, who at once hurried to the rescue; and on the 14th of July, 1822, Franklin, Richardson, Back, and Hepburn the seaman, who had behaved as a hero all through, returned to York Factory after a three years' journey, fraught with peril and horror, by land and water, of over six thousand three hundred statute miles.

After he had been at home a year, Franklin suggested that another attempt should be made to survey the northern coast while Parry was at work in search of the North-West Passage. The suggestion was accepted. Accompanied by Richardson and Back, and by E. N. Kendall as assistant surveyor—who had been out with Captain Lyon in the same capacity—and by Thomas Drummond as assistant naturalist, he left Liverpool on the 26th of February, 1825.

PREPARING AN ENCAMPMENT ON THE BARREN GROUNDS

Taught by experience, the expedition was better managed in every way. Instead of driving ahead regardless of the season or the trade routine, the ordinary conditions of local travel were kept in view throughout, and the results were more in proportion to the effort. Three boats were specially built at Woolwich on Franklin's design and under Buchan's superintendence. They were of mahogany with timbers of ash, both ends alike, steerable by oar or rudder, the largest 26 ft. by 5 ft. 4 ins., the two others 24 ft. by 4 ft. 10 ins., and with them Colonel Pasley's portable boat, known as the Walnut Shell from its shape, 9 ft. long and half as wide, with frames of ash fastened with thongs and covered with canvas. The canvas was "waterproofed by Mr. Macintosh, of Glasgow"—the first instance of its use—and for the first time also what we know as macintosh coats and overalls were issued as part of the outfit, the process having been patented in 1824.

The boats and stores were sent on ahead by way of York Factory in 1824, and Franklin and his party, travelling by New York and the lakes, caught them up on the Methye River at sunrise on the 29th of June. With them were several old friends, not the least delighted being the two Eskimo interpreters, Augustus and Ooligbuck, who were to be of the utmost importance throughout. On the 8th of August they had got along so well that they were at the junction of the Bear Lake River with the Mackenzie. Here Back and Peter Warren Dease of the Hudson's Bay Company, who had joined the expedition to look after the local arrangements, were sent off to build a house to winter in on the banks of the Great Bear Lake, in Keith's Bay, where the river leaves it; Richardson also left to explore the northern shore of the lake, and Franklin and Kendall continuing down the Mackenzie reached the sea before the week was out in less than six months from their departure from Liverpool. And on the 5th of September they had returned upstream and were at their winter quarters at the new house on the lake, which Back had named Fort Franklin, to find that Richardson had been along the northern shore and noted as being the nearest point to the Coppermine the entrance of the river he had named after Dease, which was to be of so much service to him later on.

During the winter another boat, the Reliance, was built on the lines of the Lion, the largest of the Woolwich boats, and leaving Dease to complete the stores for another comfortable winter, the expedition started on the 24th of June. At Point Separation, at the head of the Mackenzie delta, Franklin in the Lion with Back in the Reliance—our old friend Robert Spinks being his coxswain—took the western arm, and Richardson in the Dolphin and Kendall in the Union, carrying the Walnut Shell with them, took the eastern arm.