| Section M'Clintock | SLEDGES USED BY (1) SIR LEOPOLD M'CLINTOCK AND (2) SIR GEORGE NARES | Section Nares |
| (In the collection of Ed. Whymper) |
Lieutenant Aldrich, supported for three weeks by Lieutenant Giffard, was to explore the shores of Grant Land, towards the north and west, along the coast-line he had discovered in the previous autumn. Commander Markham, seconded by Lieutenant Parr, was to accompany Aldrich to Cape Joseph Henry and then strike off to the northward over the ice. The other three sledges were to accompany these as far as their own provisions would allow, after completing the four's deficiencies and giving them a fresh start from an advance post.
When Markham was only eleven days out, one of his crew complained of pain in his ankles and knees, and was of no help for the rest of the journey. This was the first appearance of the scurvy which was to ruin so many hopes, for man after man was taken ill and became a passenger. To make matters worse no rougher road was ever traversed by sledge. Over a labyrinth of piled-up blocks of ice ranging to forty feet and more in height, through which the road had to be cut with pickaxe and shovel, and amid gale and fog and falling snow, the painful progress went on. With many a "One; two; three; haul!" the heavy mass would be dragged where the men could hardly drag themselves; one of the sledges taken a few yards by the combined crews, who would then return for the other. On the 19th of April one of the boats was abandoned and this made matters easier, but only for a time, as the disease spread. At last it was decided to stop; and on the 12th of May a party of ten went ahead to reach the farthest north.
"The walking," says Markham, "was undoubtedly severe, at one moment struggling through deep snowdrifts, in which we floundered up to our waists, and at another tumbling about amongst the hummocks. Some idea may be formed of the difficulties of the road, when, after more than two hours' hard walking, with little or nothing to carry, we had barely accomplished one mile. Shortly before noon a halt was called, the artificial horizon set up, and the flags and sledge standards displayed. Fortunately the sun was favourable to us, and we were able to obtain a good altitude as it passed the meridian, although almost immediately afterwards dark clouds rolled up, snow began to fall, and the sun was lost in obscurity. We found the latitude to be 83° 20´ 26˝ N., or three hundred and ninety-nine miles and a half from the North Pole."
On the 8th of June Lieutenant Parr appeared on the quarter-deck of the Alert greeting in silence the one or two who chanced to meet him. That some calamity had happened was evident from his looks. He had walked on alone for forty miles to bring the news that Markham's party were in sore distress. Measures of rescue were instantly taken; Lieutenant May and Doctor Moss, on snow-shoes, pushing ahead with the dog-sledge laden with medical stores, while Nares with a strong party followed. On their arrival one man had died, and of the others no less than eleven were brought back to the ship on the relief sledges.
Ten days afterwards, fearing a similar fate had overtaken Aldrich's party, Lieutenant May was despatched to find him. As with Markham, scurvy had begun on the outward journey, and it had become so bad on the return that one of the men was being sent off to the ship when May arrived with help. It had nevertheless been a successful journey, the road being easier than that by the northern route. Aldrich had traced the continuous border of the heavy pack for two hundred miles from Floeberg Beach, rounded Cape Columbia, in 83° 7´ N., the northernmost point of Grant Land, and, along the coast trending steadily south-west, had reached longitude 85° 33´ and sighted Cape Alfred Ernest in longitude 86½°.
With his arrival there were over forty scurvy patients on board the Alert; and Nares was to learn that the sledge parties from the Discovery had been similarly affected. Lieutenant Beaumont had gone along the North Greenland coast, reaching, on the 21st of May, 51° W., in 82° 20´ N., and sighting Cape May, Mount Hooker, and Cape Britannia. On the 10th of May, while on his outward journey, he had sent back Lieutenant Rawson to bring a relief party to meet him, and Rawson with Hans and eight dogs, accompanied by Doctor Coppinger, reached him on the 25th of June when he was on his last possible day's journey, he and two of his men dragging the sledge with four helpless comrades lashed on the top of it.
The Discovery had also sent out Lieutenant Archer to survey the fiord named after him, which opens out into Lady Franklin Bay; and Lieutenant Fulford had crossed the channel and explored Petermann Fiord. In fact, the expedition's geographical work was of great extent, as was the other scientific work, the most important, as usual, being that done from the ships. Among the odds and ends easily rememberable was the haul of the seine in Sheridan Lake, near the wintering station of the Alert, which yielded forty-three char (Salmo arcturus), the most northerly freshwater fish; the finding of the nest of the sanderling (Calidris arenarius), now in the Natural History Museum, in 82° 33´, and the discovery of the nesting of the grey phalarope and the knot in the same neighbourhood; the thirty-feet seam of Miocene coal worked in Discovery Harbour; and the Eskimo relics at Cape Beechey, near the eighty-second parallel, which, in connection with the encampments on the opposite coast, suggested that there, at the narrowest part of Robeson Channel, had been a crossing place from shore to shore.
On the 31st of July, 1876, the Alert was again under steam after her long rest, and one of the most dangerous voyages on record began. The ships, of from five hundred to six hundred tons, were handled as if they were small tugs; blocked, beset, pressed on shore, Nares with consummate skill, constant watchfulness, and never-failing patience, brought them through. But they did not get out of Smith Sound until the 9th of September, and then it was against head winds in stormy weather amid icebergs innumerable that they were slowly worked southwards and homewards.