Several long and hazardous expeditions were performed on foot with sledges during the spring of 1852, both north and east, being out between forty and fifty days. Again putting to sea, the Enterprise passed through Dolphin and Union Straits and Dean’s Straits eastward. By the 26th of September the Enterprise reached Cambridge Bay, when she was again frozen in, to pass her third winter in the ice—one of the most severe ever experienced in those regions. During the next spring, that of 1853, Captain Collinson, with his Lieutenants Jago, Parkes, and other officers, were employed in pushing on their laborious explorations in the direction where they hoped some traces of their long-lost countrymen might be found. In latitude 70 degrees 3 minutes north and longitude 101 degrees west they fell in with a cairn erected by Dr Rae, from which they obtained the first intimation that any parties had preceded them in the search, and their observations tended to corroborate his, namely, that the ice, except in extraordinary seasons, does not leave the east coast of Victoria Land.
Little did Captain Collinson know that from the shore on which he stood, as he looked eastward, he gazed on the very ice-field in which the Erebus and Terror had been beset, and that amid it, not many miles distant, the brave, the noble Franklin had breathed his last—that it was during an extraordinary season the two exploring ships had entered the icy snare, from which they were never to be released.
But we are anticipating the events of our deeply interesting and melancholy history.
Captain Collinson and his companions reached their ship on the 31st of May, after an absence of forty-nine days. It will be thus seen, that in justice the honour should be awarded to Captain Collinson and his followers, equally with Captain McClure and his, of having discovered the North-West Passage. Indeed, it is believed that it is only by the way he came, if any passage is practicable, that a ship could get round from the east to the west.
On the 10th August the Enterprise once more put to sea, steering westward. The Straits were found free of ice till they were abreast of the mouth of the Coppermine River, where they were detained till the 23rd. They passed Cape Bathurst on the 31st, again encountering ice; Herschel Island on the 5th of September; and, after overcoming various obstacles, were finally fixed for the winter on the west side of Camden Bay.
The season passed mildly away. In the spring more expeditions were made, and visits received from the Esquimaux. The ship was not free till the 20th of July. She reached Port Clarence on the 21st of August; and at length Captain Collinson was able to send home despatches announcing the safety of his ship, officers, and crew.
We are inclined to consider Captain Collinson’s voyage, with the light of the information subsequently given us, not only as the most remarkable of all the Arctic voyages, but as guided by the greatest wisdom, and executed with a courage, forethought, and perseverance unsurpassed. He may well claim the honour of being “the first navigator who took a ship of 530 tons through the narrow Dolphin and Union Straits and Dease’s Strait, ice-strewn and rocky as they are, in safety to Cambridge Bay (105 degrees west), preserved his men in health through three winters, and finally brought them home in health and his ship in safety.”
We must now return to Sir Edward Belcher’s expedition. The greatest service it rendered was through Captain Kellet, by whose means the brave Captain McClure and his crew were rescued from their perilous position. We left the Resolute and Intrepid on the northern side of the Strait, frozen up in Bridport Inlet, in the spring of 1853. Although a northern gale drove them to sea during the summer, when they drifted about for eighty-seven days helplessly in the pack till off Cape Cockburn, on the 12th of November they were again frozen in; and the Investigator, also remaining fixed, was abandoned, the officers and crew spending the winter on board the Resolute. The Assistance and Pioneer being likewise frozen in, Captain Kellet received orders from Sir Edward Belcher to abandon his part of the squadron; and on the 26th of August the two last-named ships were also abandoned, the officers and crews arriving safely on board the North Star on the following day at Beechey Island. Fortunately the next day the North Star met the Phoenix and Talbot, when all the ships returned to England.
All due praise must be awarded to the gallant officers and men of the expedition, who exerted themselves heroically in the great cause they had undertaken. An Arctic passage was discovered; McClure and his followers performed it on the ice, probably the only way in which it ever will be performed; but the most important Arctic mystery was still unsolved—the fate of Franklin remained undiscovered. It was only known where he was not. As if to teach all those engaged in that well-arranged, powerful expedition a lesson of humility, the discovery was reserved for others with far humbler means at their disposal.