Arctic exploration

The idea of discovering a north-west passage, though temporarily eclipsed by Parry’s great effort to reach the North Pole, was by no means set aside, and in 1828, soon after the return of the Polar Expedition, Captain John Ross approached the Government with a plan for the long-dreamt-of route through Prince Regent’s Inlet. It will be remembered that Ross had had some previous experience of Arctic navigation, for in 1818 he had set out with the Isabella and Alexander on a voyage through Baffin’s Bay, Parry being his second in command. On that occasion he distinguished himself by jumping to the conclusion that Lancaster Sound was a land-locked bay, and possibly on account of this error the Government did not see fit to entertain his new proposal.

Thanks, however, to the generosity of his friend Mr Felix Booth, he was able, in 1829, to buy and fit out a paddle steamer called the Victory, which had previously been used as a steam packet running between Liverpool and the Isle of Man.

In those days, of course, navigation by steam was in the very earliest stages of its development, and the experiment of sailing the Arctic seas in a boat propelled by the new motive power had yet to be tried. The disadvantages of paddles in the ice were many and obvious, but they were minimised by an ingenious contrivance whereby the paddles could be lifted out of the water in a minute; while the Victory was also so fitted out that she could be used as a sailing vessel if necessary.

No sooner was the news of the preparation of the expedition made known, than Ross received offers of service from many experienced Arctic navigators, among them being Lieutenant Hoppner, Parry’s former colleague, and Captain Back, Franklin’s friend and companion. He had, however, already selected his nephew, Lieutenant James Clark Ross, as his second in command, and he could not, in consequence, accept their proposals.

The Victory set sail on May 23, 1829, and it was soon found to be fortunate that she had her sails to fall back upon, for the machinery, which was of the crudest description, was constantly getting out of working order, and, bit by bit, was ultimately rejected and thrown away.

Lancaster Sound was reached without any serious misadventure, and on August 10 the Victory rounded Cape York and entered Prince Regent’s Inlet. Ross then headed for the western shore, and he was soon off the place where the Fury had been lost on Parry’s previous expedition. The weather was bad, but he eventually succeeded in effecting a landing within a quarter of a mile of that ill-fated spot. Of the Fury herself no trace was to be seen, but the shore was strewn with coal, while in the officers’ mess-hut, which Parry had erected before leaving, were quantities of stores which proved of inestimable value to the present party of explorers. The bears had evidently been bestowing their attentions upon the contents of the store-house, but they had been unable to make anything of the preserved meats and vegetables which, in spite of their four years’ exposure to the weather, were in an excellent state of preservation.

The Victory had been originally provisioned for a thousand days, and as he had already drawn pretty freely upon his stores, Ross decided to make up the deficit from the hoard left by the Fury. They consequently took on board enough stores and provisions to complete their equipment for two years and three months, and set sail for the south.

On August 15 they passed Cape Garry, the furthest point of the coast yet discovered. From this point onwards, of course, they devoted themselves to mapping out and naming the principal features of the seaboard along which they sailed; and in due course they reached what appeared to them to be a continuous stretch of land, which they named Boothia, in honour of Mr Felix Booth, who had equipped the expedition.

Whether it was ill luck, or whether it was a lack of perspicacity, it is difficult to say, but certain it is that Ross seemed always to be foredoomed just to miss the prize for which he was seeking. On his former voyage he mistook Lancaster Sound for an inlet, and, in consequence, the kudos which he might have gained from its discovery went to Parry instead. But on this occasion he was even more unfortunate, for, just before he reached Boothia, he passed Bellot Strait, which, as Kennedy subsequently discovered, leads directly into the Arctic Sea, the very North-West Passage, in fact, for which he was looking. He again missed his chance, however, and, failing to recognise it as a strait, he named it Hazard Inlet and went on his way without the remotest idea of the discovery which he might have made had he taken the trouble to examine the inlet a little more closely.

Soon after this the Victory fell in with the ice and her voyage became one of the most hazardous description. Over and over again she seemed in imminent danger of being sunk, but she always managed to pull through, and eventually, on October 1, Ross found himself in a bay which seemed to be designed by nature for his winter quarters.

Here, accordingly, he decided to stay and his vessel was soon put ship-shape and in order for what ultimately proved to be the longest sojourn ever made by an explorer in the Arctic regions till then. It was not, indeed, until four winters had passed that the party was able to leave this dreary quarter of the world, and even then they were obliged to abandon their ship and take to the boats.

Very little that is worthy of note occurred during the first winter. The monotony of the excessively dull season was, however, relieved by the appearance of a party of Eskimos, who proved to be thoroughly friendly, except on one occasion when they nearly assassinated half the party because they imagined that they had caused the death of one of the members of their tribe by witchcraft. The white men, by the way, won their sinister reputation in a rather curious way. One of the Eskimos had had the misfortune to lose a leg during an altercation with a bear. The ship’s carpenter, seeing how severely handicapped the man was, thoughtfully provided him with a wooden leg, to the amazement and delight of himself and his fellows, who imagined that their new friends must be possessed of some very extraordinary powers to be able to provide the legless with fresh means of locomotion. One of them was so fascinated by the carpenter’s ingenuity that, having done some slight damage to one of his own legs, he suggested that it would not be amiss if he were provided with a new one. On being informed, however, that it would be necessary to cut the other off first, he regarded the scheme with less enthusiasm.

With a view to obtaining from the Eskimos such geographical information as they might possess, Ross would frequently invite parties of them to dinner in his cabin. They did not, however, look upon English food with much favour. Salt meat, pudding, rice, or sweets they regarded with abhorrence, and the only articles of English diet that they would touch were soup and salmon, which they would wash down with beakers of oil, wine proving not at all to their tastes.

It was not until September 17 that the Victory was floating in open water again, but her release was destined to be short-lived, for after drifting about for a fortnight, the explorers found themselves frozen in again on September 30, only a few miles from the spot at which they had spent the previous winter.

For some months it had been pretty evident, from the variations of the compass and the dip of the magnetic needle, that they were very near that mysterious centre of terrestrial magnetism, the North Magnetic Pole, and Ross came to the conclusion that his present enforced sojourn among the ice might be profitably employed in determining the point exactly. Accordingly, at the end of May 1831, the younger Ross set out with a party, armed with the instruments necessary for making the discovery which had occupied the thoughts of Parry on his earlier journey. They travelled westwards over the Boothia wilderness, and at eight o’clock on the morning of June 1 they realised that they had discovered the object of their search.

There was nothing in the place itself to distinguish it from the surrounding country, but the horizontal needles, which were suspended in the most delicate manner possible, remained absolutely inactive, while the amount of dip recorded by the dipping needle was 89° 59′, or within one minute of the vertical.

Having come definitely to the conclusion that he was actually standing on the Magnetic Pole, Ross hoisted the British flag and took possession of it and of its adjoining territory in the name of Great Britain and King William IV. He then raised a cairn of stones, in which he buried a canister containing a record of the discovery, and having determined the latitude to be 70° 5′ N., and the longitude 96° 43′ W., he set out on the return journey, which was accomplished without misadventure.

It had been hoped that the Victory would be able to sail for the open sea at the end of August, and by the 27th the bay was practically free of ice. But the travellers were once more doomed to disappointment, for adverse winds sprang up, and before she had travelled many miles she was driven into a small bay into which she was promptly frozen.

By the middle of January 1832 it became perfectly obvious that if the members of the party were ever to return to England alive they must make a push for it; for scurvy broke out, and the health of his men became so enfeebled that they were faced by the unpleasant prospect of dying, one by one, in those inclement regions. Accordingly Ross determined to abandon the Victory and to take to the boats.

Experience, however, had taught him that it would be madness to hope to make any substantial progress in the very short time during which the sea in that neighbourhood appeared to be free from ice. So sledges were prepared, and the winter months were spent in dragging the boats over the ice in the direction of Fury Beach. The men were terribly reduced in strength by illness, and the hardships of their journey were appalling. However, it was their only chance of surviving, and they plodded steadily on. They left the Victory on May 29, and it was not until July 2 that they found themselves on Fury Beach, after an incredibly laborious journey which, in a direct line, was over three hundred miles, but which, in their case, was vastly lengthened by the fact that the combined strength of the whole party was often only sufficient to drag one boat at a time, and they were constantly obliged to cover each stretch of their journey two or three times.

On arriving at Fury Beach they built themselves a house, which they named Somerset House, and settled down to wait for the breaking up of the ice. Once more, however, they were doomed to disappointment. At the beginning of August they set sail for the north, and the open sea, but they were almost immediately driven ashore again by the ice, and though they made one subsequent attempt to escape, they met with no better success.

There was nothing for it, therefore, but to make the best of a bad business, and to return to Somerset House for the winter. Mercifully there was still an abundance of the Fury’s stores left, and they were, in consequence, in no danger of starving, but it may well be imagined that the disappointment was extreme, and that the prospect of being obliged to spend an Arctic winter in a cabin, that was but ill protected against the weather, was not enticing.

Their troubles, however, were approaching an end, for in the following summer the ice cleared away from the inlet, and the explorers were able to quit the country in which they had spent four tedious winters. Sailing on July 14 they were picked up on the 26th by a whaler which, curiously enough, Ross himself had once commanded—the Isabella, of Hull. It was only with some difficulty that they succeeded in persuading the mate of the boat which put out to meet them that they were not their own ghosts, for the party had long since been given up as lost. However, this difficulty having been satisfactorily overcome, they were taken on board, and they eventually arrived home in the middle of October.

Ross failed in the object of his voyage, partly, perhaps, through his own stupidity, for as we have already pointed out, he was at one time within an ace of finding the North-West Passage. But his expedition had most valuable results, for not only did his nephew, James Clark Ross, locate the Magnetic Pole, but he also mapped out some six or seven hundred miles of coast line on either shore of Boothia and he made some exceedingly serviceable notes on the climatic conditions of North-Eastern America.

If he has never received full credit for his work, it is, perhaps, his own fault, for he made himself a most unpopular commander, and, if we may judge from the persistent pessimism of his diaries, he must have been a most depressing companion in the Arctic regions. Consequently most of the kudos has been given to his nephew, who was, no doubt, personally responsible for the discovery of the Magnetic Pole, but who, after all, was only a member of his uncle’s expedition, and was acting entirely under his uncle’s orders and directions.