Voyages of discovery and research within the Arctic regions, from the year 1818 to the present time

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Preface

If, by bringing forward the present volume, I shall have succeeded in affording gratification to those who are mainly the objects of it, my principal aim will be accomplished : in the compilation of it, I was influenced by the consideration that such an epitome was due to those whose persevering and adventurous exertions for the extension and improvement of science and geography have conferred a public benefit ; but it did not escape me that something of this kind was also wanting, and might be acceptable, to supply the place of the official quarto volumes, whose costly size and decorations preclude them from the general and ordinary class of readers. By the copious details they embrace, in every branch of astronomical and nautical science, of geography, meteorology, and other physical researches — the charts and prints by which they are illustrated — they are made highly valuable to the man of science and taste, and well adapted for public libraries, or those generally found in the mansions of the wealthy ; but they are not exactly suited for general circulation.

VI PREFACE.

It was pretty much on the same grounds that, some years ago, when the renewal of the search for a Northwest Passage was set on foot, I was induced to bring out a small volume descriptive of the discoveries and exploits of our old " marine worthies" in the Arctic regions, commencing in the days of the Cabotas ; the originals of which being confined, in like manner, to the huge folios of the old chroniclers, were very little known to the public at large. The object which I then had in view was to show briefly what had been accomplished by the former race of British naval officers and their hardy seamen, and, at the same time, to make their deeds more familiarly known to the existing race about to be employed on similar pursuits, and in the same regions of the globe.

A like view of setting forth to public notice the arduous services of our recent Arctic voyagers by sea and land — of endeavoring to appreciate their several characters and conduct, so uniformly displayed in their unflinching perseverance in difficulties of no ordinary description—their patient endurance of extreme suffering, borne without murmuring, and with an equanimity and fortitude of mind under the most appalling distress, rarely if ever equalled, and such as could only be supported by a superior degree of moral courage and resignation to the

PREFACE, Vll

Divine will — -of displaying virtues like these of no ordinary cast, and such as will not fail to excite the sympathy and challenge the admiration of every right- feeling reader— has been the pleasing yet anxious object of the present volume.

Officers such as are herein mentioned are sure to create corresponding good seamen — by the establishment of i*egular discipline and good order — by judicious employment to prevent idleness and discontent — by aljowing amusement and mirthful hilarity to divert the mind from despondency — and, above all, by attention to their wants and to their comforts — these are the means to inspire confidence and obtain obedience; and seamen so commanded and treated will never receive, because they will never require, any kind of corporal punishment.

The perilous incidents and adventures to which many, both officers and men, were necessarily exposed — the hopes and fears by which they were alternately excited — are so well and forcibly described in the several Journals of the former, that I have endeavored to preserve, as far as it could be done, their own respective statements in their own words, singly, or interwoven into the text of the present narrative.

The physical power of the navy of England has long been duly appreciated at home, also

V1J1 PREFACE.

by most foreign nations, and is matter of public record ; its moral influence, though less the object of publicity, requires only to be more extensively known to be equally felt and esteemed ; and nothing can be more conducive to this end than the results to be derived from voyages of discovery such as those under consideration, whose great aim has been the acquisition of knowledge, not for England alone, but for the general benefit of mankind.

It may be noticed that the present epitome is meant to convey the substance of six or seven large quarto volumes, with two or three smaller ones, containing together from three to four thousand pages, exclusive of four or five other volumes, consisting entirely of subjects in natural history, which on the present occasion do not fall within my province.

I can not but feel it a most gratifying reflection that, in so great a number of persons who have been employed and passed several winters in one of the most Cold, dark, and desolate regions of the globe, so few lives, in some of the ships none, have been lost. It is equally gratifying to have the opportunity of recording, which I have not omitted to do, that most of those who survived the trial have received advancement in their professional career, or some distinction of honor, in reward of their services ;

PREFACE. IX

and that there are few of those in the inferior ranks who have not improved their condition in life, in consequence of their good conduct on very trying occasions.

I have used the liberty of making a few brief occasional remarks on some of the voyages, which I am sure the gallant conductors of them will take in good part, knowing, as they well do, the great interest I have felt in their success, from their commencement down to the existing expedition under the command of the gallant veteran, Sir John Franklin, whom, with his brave officers and men, may God preserve.*

* The two ships, " The Erebus" and " Terror," are the same that were employed, tinder the command of Sir James Clark Ross, on the Antarctic expedition, and the latter is the same ship that carried Back on the ice : on the present occasion they are commanded, officered, and manned as under : The Erebus.

Sir John Franklin, Captain.

James Fitzjames, Commander.

Graham Gore, ^ L -

Jas. Wm. Fairholme, ) tenants -

Charles F. Des Vaux, ~i

Robert O. Sargent, > Mates.

E. Couch, >

Stephen S. Stanley, Surgeon.

H. D. Goodsir, Assistant Surgeon

James Read, Ice Master. liT Warrant and Petty Officers. 58 Seamen and Marines. 70~ Total.

In recording the names of the above-mentioned officers, those of Captain Sir John Franklin and Captain Crozier require nothing farther to be said : that of Commander Fitzjames has been distinguished in the Euphrates, on the coast of Syria, and in China ; and by his zeal and alacrity, his good humor and ever cheerful

Terror.

Richard Crozier, Captain.

Ed. Little, )

John Irving, )

Frederic Hornby, ? Tvr„«.~„

Robert Thomas, J Mates '

Thomas Blanky, Ice Master.

G. A. Maclean, Second Master.

John S. Peddie, Surgeon.

Alex. M'Donald, Assist. Surgeon.

J. H. Helpman, Clerk in Charge. 11 Warrant and Petty Officers^ 57 Seamen and Marines. 68~ Total.

X PREFACE.

disposition, he has made himself a universal favorite in the navy; and I am most happy to add that, in his absence, the Board of Admiralty have promoted him to the rank of Captain. Lieutenant Graham Gore served in the last fearful voyage of the Terror ; and Lieutenant Fairholme was in the Niger expedition— excellent officers, both.

Contents

Page Preface v

CHAPTER L

Introduction

Cause of the renewal of the search for a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific 13

CHAPTER H.

In the Isabella and Alexander— Proceeded up Davis's Strait and Baffin's Bay into Lancaster Sound, and returned 25

CHAPTER m.

With the Dorothea and Trent— Toward the North Pole— Reached the northern part of Spitsbergen — Ships damaged in the Ice, and returned 49

CHAPTER IV.

LIEUTENANT PABEY'S FIRST VOYAGE,

With the Hecla and Griper — Proceeded up Davis's Strait and into Baffin's Bay, crossed over to Lancaster Sound, Regent's Inlet, through Barrow's Strait, and to Melville Island 62

CHAPTER V.

To Spitzbergen and Greenland— Hammerfest and Drontheim — To ascertain the Ehipticity of the Earth, by swinging the Pendulum . 94

CHAPTER VI.

COMMANDER PARRY'S SECOND VOYAGE,

In the Fury and Hecla— Entered Hudson's Strait, Fox's Channel, Frozen Strait, the Welcome, discovered the Fury and Hecla Strait— Passed two winters, and returned 107

CHAPTER VIL

CAPTAIN GEORGE LYON,

In the Griper— Proceeded up Hudson's Strait, Fox's Channel, the Welcome — Unable to reach Repulse Bay — Returned 153

Xli CONTENTS.

CHAPTER Vni.

CAPTAIN PARRY'S THIKD VOYAGE,

In the Hecla and Fury— Proceeded up Davis's Strait and Baffin's Bay into Lancaster Sound and Prince Regent's Inlet, where the Fury was wrecked, and. he returned Page 166

CHAPTER IX.

CAPTAIN PARRY'S FOURTH VOYAGE,

In the Hecla— As far as Spitzbergen— Thence in the Boats toward the North Pole — Reached nearly the 83d degree of latitude, and returned . . 197

CHAPTER X.

FRANKLIN AND RICHARDSON.

Journey through North America to the Polar Sea, and along the coast from Copper Mine River to Point Turn-again 229

CHAPTER XI.

FRANKLIN AND RICHARDSON.

Second Journey to the Polar Sea, to the Mackenzie River, thence westward to the Return Cliff, and eastward to the Copper Mine River 279

CHAPTER XII.

BACK'S JOURNEY

Through North America— Down a River not before navigated by Europeans to its Estuary on the Polar Sea — Both now known by the name of Back 313

CHAPTER XtH. back's voyage Toward Repulse Bay — Shut up in the Ice, and floated on the Ice in the midst of the Ocean off the east coast of Southampton Island nearly a whole year 330

CHAPTER XIV.

MISCELLANEOUS.

1. Capt. John Ross's Second Voyage, in a Merchant Vessel.

2. Select Committee of the House of Commons on that Voyage.

3. Discoveries on the South Coast of the Polar Sea. By Mr. Thomas Simpson 344

DIRECTIONS FOR PLACING THE MAPS.

Chart of Simpson's Strait, to face page 358. General Polar Chart and the Arctic Regions, at the end.

ARCTIC VOYAGES.

Chapter I. Introduction

So much has been said on the subject of a northwest passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and so manyerroneous notions have been afloat concerning it, that I deem it proper, by way of introduction, to account for the recent revival of the attempts to discover it.

" Among the changes and vicissitudes to which the physical constitution of our globe is perpetually subject, one of the most extraordinary, and from which the most interesting and important results may be anticipated, appears to have taken place in the course of the last two or three years, and is still in progressive operation. The convulsion of an earthquake, and the eruption of a volcano, force themselves into notice by the dismay and devastation with which, in a greater or less degree, they are almost always attended ; but the event to which we allude has been so quietly accomplished, that it might have remained unknown but for an extraordinary change which a few intelligent navigators remarked in the state of the Arctic ice, and the reports of the unusual quantities of this ice observed in the Atlantic."

The extract here quoted must, I believe, be laid at my door. The event alluded to was the disappearance of the whole, or greater part, of the vast barrier of ice which for a long period of time, perhaps for centuries, was supposed to have maintained its firm-rooted position on the eastern coast of Old Greenland ; and its reappearance in a more southernly latitude, where it was met with, as was attested by various persons worthy of credit, in the years 1815-16 and 17 ; by ships coming from the East Indies and America; by others going to Halifax and Newfoundland ; and in different parts of the Atlantic, as far down as the 40th parallel of latitude. Some of B these detached masses were of an unusual magnitude and extent, amounting in some instances to whole islands of ice, of such vast dimensions that ships were impeded by them for many days in their voyages ; others were detached icebergs, from a hundred to a hundred and thirty feet above the surface of the water, and several miles in circumference. The Halifax packet reported that she had passed a mountain of ice nearly two hundred feet high, and at least two miles in circumference. A ship, belonging to the Old Greenland Missions, was eleven days beset on the coast of Labrador in floes of ice mixed with icebergs, many of which had huge rocks upon them, gravel, soil, and pieces of wood : in short, every account from various parts of North America agreed in stating that larger and more numerous fields and bergs of ice had been seen at greater distances from their usual places, in the years above mentioned, than had at any time before been witnessed by the oldest navigators. The fact, therefore, might be considered as too well authenticated to admit of a doubt.

It was at once concluded from whence the greater part of these immense quantities of ice were derived. In a letter from Mr. Scoresby the younger, an intelligent navigator of the Greenland seas, to Sir Joseph Banks, he says, " I observed on my last voyage (1817) about two thousand square leagues (eighteen thousand square miles) of the surface of the Greenland seas, included between the parallels 74° and 80°, perfectly void of ice, all of which had disappeared within the last two years." And he farther states, that, although, on former voyages, he had very rarely been able to penetrate the ice, between the latitudes of 76° and 80°, so far to the west as the meridian of Greenwich, on his last voyage he twice reached the longitude of ..10° west ; that in the parallel of 74° he approached the coast of Old Greenland ; that there was little ice near the land ; and he added, " that there could be no doubt that he might have reached the shore had he but a justifiable motive for navigating an unknown sea at so late a season of the year." This account was fully confirmed by intelligence received at Copenhagen from Iceland in the year 1816, that the ice had broken loose from the opposite coast of

Greenland, and floated away to the southward, after surrounding the shores of Iceland, and filling all the bays and creeks of that island ; and that this afflicting visitation was repeated in 1817 — circumstances hitherto unknown to the oldest inhabitant.

About the same time, the whale ships that frequented the fishery in Davis's Straits, and the Hudson's Bay trad- ' ers, experienced an unusual number of icebergs and large floes of ice drifting to the southward down the straits and along the coast of Labrador, and past Newfoundland ; yet as to a certain extent those masses of ice were of frequent occurrence in these quarters, and occasionally met with in the Atlantic, it was those from the eastward that attracted particular notice.

Whatever the cause may have been for the disruption of this immense barrier of ice from the eastern coast of Greenland, whether by its own weight after centuries of accumulation, or from the partial disruption of the coast itself, the fact is unquestionable ; and the notoriety of it given in the several journals of Europe, and more especially in those of England, corroborated by various private communications, was among the circumstances which, combined with others, gave rise to the revival of those voyages of discovery for attempting a passage round the northern coast of America to the Pacific Ocean, and also to another attempt to reach the North Pole, by proceeding between the^east coast of Greenland, now fr§ed from ice, and the West coast of Spitzbergen, generally not much hampered with ice. A naval officer, the narrator of one of the very first of the modern expeditions, which the change in the ice of the northern seas mainly occasioned, opens his account of it as follows •

" It most opportunely occurred, in the year 1817, that accounts of a change in the Polar ice particularly favorable to the undertaking were brought to England by our whale ships ; and as it has generally happened in this country that some individual, more sanguine than the rest of the community, has, by his superior knowledge, greater exertions, or more constant perseverance, succeeded in bringing a project to bear, Which, in less vigorous or pertinacious hands, would have been suffered to die away, this favorable change was turned to so good an account by an influential member of the government, and whose name is inseparable from northern discovery, that, in the following year, his Majesty George IV. ; then Prince Regent, was pleased to command that- attempts should be made to reach the Pacific, both by the western route through Baffin's Bay, and by a northern course across the Pole."*

It would be ridiculously squeamish to affect ignorance to whom the compliment in the above passage is meant to apply, and the more so as, on the whole, it is true. I am fully prepared to admit that part which relates to the "sanguine individual" who succeeded by "exertions" and "perseverance" in bringing the project to bear — a project which, like most others that are new and not well understood, could not, and therefore did not, fail to bring with it censorious remarks, and ill-natured but ignorant criticisms from one party, with a modicum of praise and approbation from another — as usual, laudatur ah his, culpatur ah Mis. Previously, however, to originating any proposals for the voyages herein treated of, no pains were spared in collecting whatever information could be gathered from the expeditions of our old travelers, the traders in the service of the Hudson's Bay and the Northwest Companies, from scattered remarks of whale fishers and casual travelers, such as Hearne and Mackenzie : and the information thus gained was submitted to the public at the time the first of the recent expeditions was in progress. f

I did not, however, stand alone, having had the good fortune to meet with every encouragement from an able coadjutor, one ever ready to hold out a helping hand when the promotion of science and general knowledge was the object. This patron was Sir Joseph Banks. Before, therefore, I submitted any proposal to Lord Melville, which I knew would be referred to the President and Council of the Royal Society, as all voyages of discovery connected with science were, I thought it right to take the president's opinion as to the effect of the changes reported to have occurred in the northern regions, in which I was aware he took a particular interest, having himself, in early life, visited Iceland and climbed to the top of Mount Hecla ; and as he knew

* Beechey's Voyage toward the North Pole.

f Chronological History of Voyages into the Arctic Regions, &c.

that I had also, in early life, paid a visit to the Spitzbergen seas, as high as Hakluyt's Headland, near the 80th parallel, I was sure of engaging his attention on the subject, and was not disappointed. He entirely approved of the renewal of attempts to accomplish a grand object which for three centuries had, at different times, occupied the attention of our sovereigns, philosophers, men of science, and merchants ; and he promised to look over and give me any information that his own correspondence might furnish : " I may be able," he said, " to name those from whom you may receive, and books from which you may derive the information you are in quest of, but for science I must refer you to my council."*

Accordingly, I submitted a plan to Lord Melville, then First Lord of the Admiralty, a nobleman at all times ready to attend to any suggestion that had for its object the improvement of science or the interests of navigation and commerce. It was sent, as usual, to the President and Council of the Royal Society, returned with their approval, and submitted to Lord Liverpool, then Prime Minister, for his sanction ; and this being obtained, orders were forthwith issued by the Board of Admiralty for the preparation of four ships to be appropriated to the service in question — two for the search of a passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and two to proceed from the sea of Spitzbergen toward the North Pole.

It may be observed, that none of our old navigators were able to penetrate any part of the Polar Sea ; all their discoveries were confined to the straits, and inlets, and islands on the eastern coast of America, and the la^ge straits of Davis and Baffin on the western coast of Greenland. Had Baffin entered Lancaster Sound from his own strait, he would at once have discovered the sea whieh communicates with the Pacific, and then there is no saying what this able old navigator and his contemporaries might not have effected. Indeed, at the commencement of the late Arctic voyages, nothing was known

* Great Britain has seldom neglected to pay a tribute to the memory of men who have distinguished themselves by their zeal for the promotion of science and the arts ; to which end Sir Joseph Banks has largely contributed, personally and by his purse ; yet not even a biographical sketch that I know of has been published. Let Sir Edward Rnatchbull and the person to whom he gave th© materials look to this.

B 2 of any entrance into the Polar Sea from this side of America. All that was known on the first attempt, which hardly deserves the name, was, that a Polar Sea did exist, that the ships of Captain Cook had looked at it through Behring's Strait, and that Hearne and Mackenzie, two North American travelers, had arrived at the northern shore of North America, at different points and at different times, and reported, somewhat doubting, that they had seen the sea.

From these circumstances, and, more particularly f from the undoubted authorities I had succeeded in collecting, it was quite clear that a current was constantly found setting down Davis's Strait, and the Strait of Hudson's Bay, and also along the shore of Spitzbergen, all to the southward ; no doubt, therefore, could remain on my mind, that there must be a water communication between the seas of the Pacific and the northern Atlantic ; that the water supplied through the Strait of Behring (a well-established fact) into the Polar Sea was discharged, by some opening or other yet to be discovered, into the Atlantic. The " Edinburgh Review/' however, turned into ridicule the idea of a Polar Basin ; and others endeavored to show that, if these currents existed, they must be veiy temporary or occasional, as they would otherwise drain this Polar Basin of its water.

It may be worth the while, now that the shores of this Polar Sea have been visited and surveyed, one part of them by our own navigators, and the Asiatic part by the indefatigable Baron Wrangel and others, to show to these would-be-wise gentlemen what that sea really is — what are its inpourings, its outpourings, and its (dimensions. In the first place, it is an immense basin of water, included by the shores of Asia, of Europe, and of America. Of Asia, from Nova Zernbla, in 50° E. long e ., to East Cape in Behring's Strait, in 170° \V. long e . ; that is, 140° extent of coast. In Europe, from Nova Zernbla, in 50° E., to Baffin's Bay, about 70° W., an extent of coast equal to 120° ; and in America, from the last point, 70° W., to Cape Prince of Wales, 168° W., in Behring's Strait, an extent of coast equal to 100°. These, including the opening of Behring's Strait and that between Greenland and Spitsbergen, comprise the whole circle of 360°, an extent of coast which no other detached sea in the world can boast of. It is a circle of two thousand four hundred geographical miles in diameter, and seven thousand two hundred miles in circumference, considering the latitude of 70° to be the average boundary line, which it nearly is, by taking the inlets of the land to balance the outlets of the sea. And, in order to satisfy the malcontents regarding the currents exhausting its waters, it may, perhaps, be sufficient to state what are its supplies. They consist of the constant influx of a stream through Behring's Strait, of five or six great rivers from Asia — the Obi, the Jenisci, the Lena, the Indigirka, and the Kolima. Europe supplies the waters of the Dwina, with numerous streams from the coasts of Norway and Lapland, and the eastern coasts of Greenland, and western coast of Baffin's Bay; and America pours in several copious streams from the Rocky Mountains, with the Mackenzie, the Hearne, or the Copper Mine, the Back, and several other minor streams. To talk, therefore, of its being exhausted by the southernly currents appears to be absolute nonsense.

The main object intended to be attained by the first of the recent expeditions was to discover an entry from the eastern side of America into the Polar Sea. But it was not done by the first, as it ought to have been done ; and, as the second most readily accomplished it, and, moreover, navigated one half of that sea to the westward, why, then, it may be asked, have future attempts failed to navigate the other half? The answer is easy enough — they failed by deserting the direct path, that gave them half the passage toward Behring's Strait, and tried various new ways in search of openings into the Polar Sea, and found but one other on the whole eastern coast of America, and that one not navigable. The old route of Parry through Lancaster Sound and Barrow's Strait, as far as to the last land on its southern shore, and thence, in a direct line, to Behring's Strait, is the route ordered to be pursued by Franklin.

But it may also be asked, as it has been asked by some of that class known by the name of Utilitarians, cui bono are these northern voyages undertaken ? If they were merely to be prosecuted for the sake of making a passage from England to China, and for no other purpose, their utility might fairly be questioned. But when the acquisition of knowledge is the groundwork of all the instructions under which they are sent forth ; when the commanding officer is directed to cause constant observations to be made for the advancement of every branch of science — astronomy, navigation, hydrography, meteorology, including electricity and magnetism, and to make collections of subjects in natural history — in short, to lose no opportunity of acquiring new and important information and discoveiy ; and when it is considered that these voyages give employment to officers and men in time of peace, and produce officers and men not to be surpassed, perhaps not equalled, in any other branch of the service, the question cui bono is easily answered in the words of the minister of Queen Elizabeth, " Knowledge is Power," the truth of which was practically demonstrated to the grumblers of that day by the following results.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert, in consequence of his grant of the Island of Newfoundland, made a voyage thither, on his return from which he nobly perished ; but his knowledge did not perish with him : it laid the foundation of that valuable cod-fishery which still exists. Davis, by the discovery of the strait that bears his name, opened the way to the whale-fishery, which still continues to flourish ; and Frobisher pointed out the strait which conducted Hudson to the bay that bears his name, and which gave rise to the establishment of a company of merchants, whose concerns are of such an extensive nature as to be earned on across the whole continent of America, and to the very shores of the Polar Sea; and already, in our time, the opening of Lancaster Sound by Parry has extended the whale-fishery into that sound.

But the knowledge that has resulted from these later voyages is not less valuable, less durable, or more evanescent, nor can it be too highly appreciated. Let any one cast an eye only over the best charts of the northern regions, previous to the recent Arctic expeditions, and compare them with what they now are. Let him inquire what was then known or described of that Polar sea, or indeed of the whole northern shore of the

American continent, and the answer will be, a blank ; which, however, he will now find filled up. Let him ask what was the value or amount of the geographical and physical knowledge then possessed of the regions of the globe within the Arctic circle, and the reply would be, little or nothing.; whereas the objects of Nature which the late voyages have furnished to the British Museum and other depositories are numerous and novel. Let any one turn over that extraordinary collection of engravings and descriptions of subjects in eveiy department of natural history, filling up no less than four large quarto volumes, whose general titles are as under :

1. The Fauna Boreali- Americana. — Quadrupeds;

2. The Fauna Boreali- Americana. — Birds;

3. The Fauna Boreali-Americana. — Fishes ;

4. The Fauna Boreali-Americana. — Insects ; containing from three to five hundred pages each, and all brought forward by, and under the superintendence of, Dr. Richardson, the fellow -traveler of Sir John Franklin, and the man to whose energy, courage, and skill Sir John has declared that he and the whole party owe their safety and their lives. Let these accessions to general knowledge have only their due weight, and they will then be duly appreciated.