Arctic exploration

It was in the summer of 1847 that serious doubts concerning the safety of the Franklin expedition were first entertained and the Government decided to take steps towards its relief. As we have already seen, the Erebus and Terror were last sighted in Lancaster Sound, and there was no means of knowing in what direction they had sailed from that day onwards. Accordingly, it was thought best to send out relief parties from the east, through Lancaster Sound, from the west, through Behring Strait, and from the south, to search the northern shores to America.

The first of these to start was that which was to attempt to meet Franklin by way of Behring Strait. The Herald (Captain Kellett), a survey ship of 500 tons was already near the scene of action, and it was decided to reinforce her with the Plover, a store ship of 213 tons, under Commander Moore, and to send these two ships on a voyage round the North American coast to the Mackenzie River.

The Plover proved herself to be a very poor sailor, and it was not until June 1849 that the two ships met at their appointed rendezvous in Kotzebue Sound. Here they were joined by the Nancy Dawson, a small yacht owned and commanded by Mr Robert Sheddon, who had sailed north with a view to taking part in the search. The three ships sailed north in company, and, on reaching Wainwright Inlet, despatched three boats, filled to the brim with provisions and commanded by Lieutenant Pullen, on the long journey to the Mackenzie River. Mr Sheddon determined to accompany Lieutenant Pullen for a part of his journey, but the Herald and Plover sailed on and explored the waters to the north of Behring Strait. Beyond discovering the two islands which now bear their names, however, they accomplished but little.

By September 2 the two government ships and the Nancy Dawson were all lying in Kotzebue Sound, where it had been decided that the Plover should spend the winter. After supplying the wants of her companion ship, the Herald sailed away south with the Nancy Dawson, reaching Mazatlan, on the coast of Mexico, at the beginning of October. Mr Sheddon, who had been in failing health for some time, did not survive the winter.

In the meanwhile, Moore, of the Plover, opened up communications with the natives round Kotzebue Sound in the hope that he might obtain tidings of Franklin. The result was that circumstantial tales concerning white men travelling in the interior, were poured into his ears, and, in attempting to verify these, Bedford Pim very nearly lost his life. Neither then, however, nor in the summer, when the Herald and Plover made a cruise round the coast, could they discover that these stories had any foundation in fact, nor did their search give them any reason to suppose that Franklin and his party had approached the shores along which they were sailing.

Lieutenant Pullen’s boat expedition to the Mackenzie met with no better success. Cramped up in open boats which were in constant danger of being wrecked by gales or the drifting ice, he and his men suffered tortures from cold and exposure, and the difficulties and dangers of their 1500-mile journey were enhanced by the unfriendliness of the natives. The winter was spent at the various stations of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and, in the following spring, Pullen set out again for the shores of the Polar Sea. The conditions, however, were such as to preclude any possibility of success, and he was obliged to turn back before he had even reached the point at which his search proper was to have begun.

The conduct of the first overland journey was entrusted to Richardson, who, with Rae as his lieutenant, was commissioned to search the coast of North America from the Mackenzie to the Coppermine. The Polar Sea was reached without misadventure, but from that point onwards the journey proved dangerous and difficult, as owing to the lateness of the spring they were obliged to cache their boats and make a great part of it on foot. In the following year Rae returned to the mouth of the Coppermine only to find that the natives had discovered the boats and had broken them up for the sake of the copper fastenings. Any sea voyage was, therefore, out of the question, and, after cross-examining the Eskimos and sweeping the shores of Wollaston Land with a telescope, he was obliged to return to headquarters at Fort Confidence.

The first two attempts at conducting the search through Lancaster Sound were not a conspicuous success. Sir James Clark Ross started off in the Enterprise and Investigator and explored most of Prince Regent Inlet and the northern gulf of Boothia, but without obtaining any clues to Franklin’s fate, while, in the following year, Saunders, who was sent out in the North Star with provisions for Ross, was caught in the ice and never succeeded in reaching his destination.

In 1851, however, the search was prosecuted with far greater vigour, and no fewer than five expeditions left British and American shores almost simultaneously. Of these, the Government sent out two, one consisting of four ships, the Resolute and the Assistance, with their steam tenders, the Pioneer and the Intrepid, commanded by Captain Horatio Austin, with Captain Ommaney, Lieutenant Osborn, and Lieutenant Cator under him, and the other of two whalers, the Lady Franklin and the Sophia, under William Penny, a whaler of great repute, who, it was hoped, would meet with rather more success in battling with the ice than did his predecessors, Ross and Saunders. Two private expeditions also set out from England, one of them, the Prince Albert, having been equipped by Lady Franklin, while the other, the Felix, was placed under the command of Ross. The American expedition consisted of the Advance and the Rescue, with Lieutenant De Haven at the head of affairs.

Unfortunately, all of these expeditions had one common objective—to pass up Lancaster Sound and examine the shores of Wellington Channel, the south-east entrance to which they reached almost simultaneously. It was now that the first traces of the missing explorers were found, for, going ashore on Beechey Island on August 23, Ommaney discovered signs that a party of white men had encamped there, and Penny, examining the spot four days later, came upon the graves of four men belonging to the Erebus and Terror. In addition to the graves there was a hut, some pieces of rope of the pattern used in the Navy, and such miscellaneous odds and ends as torn mits, fragments of writing paper, meat-tins, and coal-bags, but, search as they would, they could find no sign of any written document such as might give some hint as to the direction which Franklin had taken on leaving his winter quarters. At Cape Riley again traces were found in abundance, but no information of any value was forthcoming.

Leaving his companions to follow up these discoveries, Forsyth instantly made his way back to England. De Haven also intended to return home, but the ice intervened, and the American ships were firmly beset before they had left Wellington Channel. From that time onwards their experiences were much like those of the Terror. Drifting northward with the ice, they were carried up to Grinnell Land, which had never been sighted before, and then, the drift changing to the south, they were borne down Wellington Channel along Lancaster Sound, and into Baffin Bay, till, after covering a distance of over a thousand miles in this fashion, they were finally released in July.

There was now nothing for the other three parties to do but to find winter quarters, whence they might prosecute the search as soon as spring made it possible for them to send out sledging parties. The Lady Franklin, the Sophia, and the Felix, therefore, put into Assistance Bay, at the south end of Cornwallis Land, while Austin and his squadron made for Griffith Island, where they were frozen in in September.

It was Penny’s special duty to explore the shores of Wellington Channel, and, as soon as the worst of the winter was over, he and Petersen started out with this end in view. As they pushed northward, they became more and more convinced that the channel led into a great open sea, and they had already determined to pursue their investigations further in this direction as soon as summer should have released the ships, when, to their amazement, on rounding a headland, they came upon a great channel of water, stretching away for at least twenty-five miles to the northward, and probably further. Racing back to the ship with all possible speed, they obtained a boat and succeeded in dragging it over the ice to the scene of their discovery. Unfortunately, however, contrary winds and drifting floes made it impossible to proceed any further, and they were obliged to turn back without exploring the water-way and its shores.

In the meanwhile Austin was pushing on his work with tremendous vigour, and to him and to his able junior officer, M’Clintock, must belong the credit of bringing the art of sledging to a higher pitch of perfection than had ever been attained before. The autumn was spent in establishing depots of provisions along the routes which were to be followed in the spring, and in examining the southern shores of Cornwallis Land in the hope that some traces of Franklin might be found there. It was in the middle of April that two great sledge parties started out under Ommaney and M’Clintock to pursue the search to the south and east. Ommaney discovered and explored the northern shores of Prince of Wales’ Land, which lay in the route where Franklin had been instructed to seek for the North-West Passage. He found, however, that the sea was so shallow and the ice so old that by no possibility could the Erebus and Terror have approached the shores. During his sixty days’ absence from the ship he covered 480 miles and explored 205 miles of new coast. M’Clintock’s objective was Melville Island, which had not been visited since Parry wintered there, but, though he covered 770 miles during his eighty-one days’ absence, he found no trace of the explorers. Other parties sent out from the ships made important geographical discoveries, but, so far as the main object was concerned, their efforts were as fruitless as were those of the two big sledge expeditions.

As soon as the ice broke up, Penny approached Austin with a suggestion that one of his steam tenders should explore the northern half of Wellington Channel. Austin, however, did not think that any useful purpose would be served thereby, and, as he was not prepared to spend another winter in the ice the whole squadron returned home.

In the same summer the Prince Albert, which, it will be remembered, had sailed for home with tidings of the discovery of Franklin’s first winter quarters, set out once more under the command of Captain Kennedy, with a French volunteer, Lieutenant J. R. Bellot, as second in command. It was while he was examining the northern shores of Prince Regent’s Inlet that Kennedy’s career was very nearly brought to an untimely close, for, with four companions, he became separated from the ships, and for a long time there seemed no prospect of his being able to rejoin her. Fortunately, he found that the stores which Ross had left at Somerset House in 1832 were in good condition, and there he and his companions remained for six weeks, at the end of which time Bellot succeeded in rescuing them. In the spring the two officers made a brilliant sledge journey, in the course of which they discovered that Brentford Bay was really a strait—which Kennedy promptly named after his companion—and travelled round the whole coast of North Somerset. In spite of their efforts, however, they did not light upon a single trace of Franklin and his men.