Round About the North Pole

by W. J. Gordon

For three days Davis went coasting downwards, and rounding the southern point of the peninsula, which he named the Cape of God's Mercy, he entered what he afterwards called Cumberland Strait, now Cumberland Gulf, supposing it to be his way to the westward. It was clear of ice; sixty leagues up islands were found, among which a stay was made during five days of very foggy foul weather. On the 15th of August "we heard dogs houle on the shoare, which we thought had bene Wolves, and therefore we went on shoare to kil them; when we came on lande, the dogs came presently to our boate very gently, yet we thought they came to pray upon us, and therefore we shot at them and killed two: and about the necke of one of them we found a letheren coller, whereupon we thought them to be tame dogs. Then wee went farther and founde two sleads made like ours in Englande. The one was made of firre, spruse and oken boards, sawen like inch boards; the other was made all of whale bone, and there hung on the toppes of the sleds three heads of beasts, which they had killed. We saw here larkes, ravens, and partriges"—probably rock ptarmigan.

Searching about, it was agreed that the place was all islands, with sounds passing between them; that the water remained of the same colour as the main ocean, whereas in every bay they had been into it became blackish; that a shoal of whales they saw must have come from the west, because to the eastward no whale had been seen; that "there came a violent counter checke of a tide from the south-west against the flood which we came with, not knowing from whence it was maintayned"; that the further they ran westward the deeper was the water, "so that hard abord the shoare among these yles we could not have ground in 330 fathoms"; and that, lastly, there was a tide range of six or seven fathoms, "the flood comming from diverse parts, so as we could not perceive the chiefe maintenance thereof." For which six reasons it was determined to continue the voyage to the westward if the weather changed—which it did to worse with the wind unfavourable, so that the ships had to run for shelter and then sail for home, crossing the Atlantic from Greenland in a fortnight. On arrival Davis reported to Walsingham that the North-West Passage was a matter nothing doubtful, but at any time almost to be passed, the sea navigable, void of ice, the air tolerable, and the waters very deep; and a voyage for next year was decided on, for which the merchants of Exeter, Totnes, London, Cullompton, Chard, and Tiverton, and five private subscribers, "did adventure their money"—to the amount of £1175—"with Mr. Adrian Gilbert and Mr. John Davis in a voyage for the discovery of China, the seventh daie of April in the xxviij yeare of the rayne of or. soverayne Ladie Elizabeth."

The fleet, consisting of the Mermaid of one hundred and twenty tons, the Sunshine and Moonshine, and a ten-ton pinnace named the North Star, left Dartmouth on the 7th of May, 1586. On reaching Greenland the Sunshine and North Star were sent up the east coast of Greenland, while the Mermaid and Moonshine made for Gilbert Sound.

Here the Eskimos received them cordially "after they had espied in the boate, some of our companie that were the yeere before heere with us, they presently rowed to the boate, and tooke holde on the oare, and hung about the boate with such comfortable joy as woulde require a long discourse to be uttered: they came with the boates to our shippes, making signes that they knewe all those that the yere before had bene with them. After I perceived their joy, and smal feare of us, my selfe with the merchaunts, and others of the company went a shoare, bearing with me twentie knives: I had no sooner landed, but they lept out of their Canoas, and came running to mee and the rest, and imbraced us with many signes of hartie welcome: at this present there were eighteene of them, and to each of them I gave a knife: they offered skinnes to mee for rewarde, but I made signes that it was not solde, but given them of curtesie: and so dismissed them for that time, with signes that they shoulde returne againe after certaine houres." But soon there were passing troubles owing to iron having so great an attraction for them that they could not resist stealing it. While amongst them, exploring the country, Davis compiled the first Eskimo vocabulary known, a list of some forty words written down phonetically, most of them remarkably good approaches considering that both parties were ignorant of each other's language, none of them, however, except that for "sea" being likely to be of any use in putting him on the road to China.

On leaving Gilbert Sound, Davis when in latitude 63° 8´ "fel upon a most mighty and strange quantity of ice, in one intyre masse, so bigge as that we knew not the limits thereof, and being withall so very high, in forme of a land, with bayes and capes, and like high cliffe land, as that we supposed it to be land, and therefore sent our pinnesse off to discover it: but at her returne we were certainely informed that it was onely ice, which bred great admiration to us all, considering the huge quantity thereof, incredible to be reported in truth as it was, and therefore I omit to speake any further thereof. This onely, I thinke that the like before was never seene, and in this place we had very stickle and strong currants. We coasted this mighty masse of ice untill the 30 of July, finding it a mighty bar to our purpose: the ayre in this time was so contagious, and the sea so pestered with ice, as that all hope was banished of proceeding: for the 24 of July all our shrowds, ropes, and sailes were so frozen, and compassed with ice, onely by a grosse fogge, as seemed to me more then strange, sith the last yeere I found this sea free and navigable, without impediments."

Crossing the straits he repaired and revictualled the Moonshine in an excellent harbour among islands where they found it very hot and were "very much troubled with a flie which is called Musketa, for they did sting grievously." Forsaken by the Mermaid, he abandoned the search in Cumberland Sound as he "found small hope to pass any farther that way," and worked south, it being too late to go northwards, crossing Frobisher Bay, which he described as "another great inlet neere forty leagues broad where the water entered with violent swiftnesse, this we also thought might be a passage, for no doubt the north parts of America are all islands." Off the coast of Labrador he found a vast shoal of codfish, of which he caught over forty with a long spike nail made into a hook. These he salted, and some of them, on his return, he gave, at Walsingham's request, to Burghley, who, at an interview, encouraged him to make a further attempt.

Next year he was off again, this time "to the Isles of the Molucca or the coast of China." He seems to have been on board the Ellen, a small craft of some twenty tons, his two other vessels being the Sunshine as before, and the Elizabeth. These he left to fish for cod in the straits while he went northward from Gilbert Sound in his little "clinker," which he had probably chosen as being handy for ice navigation. Running along the land, to which he gave the name of London Coast, he reached 72° 12´—the highest north up to then attained—where he named the loftiest of the headlands Sanderson's Hope, whose lofty crest piercing through the driving clouds near Upernivik has become perhaps the best-known landmark in the northern seas. Here the wind suddenly shifting to the northward made further progress impossible, and he had to shape his course westerly, and then, owing to ice, which he in vain endeavoured to get round to the north, he had to turn southwards. Amid much fog, and with the ice always present, he came down the coast of Baffin Land, giving a name here and there on the way, until on the 31st of July he passed "a very great gulfe, the water whirling and roring, as it were the meetings of tides," which was probably the entrance to Hudson Strait. Next day he was off the Labrador coast and named Cape Chidley after his friend who died in the Straits of Magellan, and on the 15th of August he laid his course for England.

BAFFIN BAY IN 1819

Of this voyage Hakluyt prints the Traverse Book, one of the earliest known. In it the full detail is given for every day, arranged in nine columns, one each for the month, the day, the hour, the courses, the leagues, the elevation of the pole in degrees and minutes, the wind, and a remarks column headed "The Discourse"—for Davis was an exact and systematic man remarkable for his latitudes never being wrong, though like all those old navigators before the invention of the chronometer, he was frequently out in his longitude. He was going off again bound for the sea north of Sanderson's Hope, but the coming of the Armada and the death of Walsingham caused the postponement of the project he did not abandon, for it seems that the Desire, in which he discovered the Falkland Islands at the other end of America, was to be his reward for accompanying Cavendish round the world, and that in her he intended to make his next Polar voyage.