Arctic exploration

We must now return to Parry, who, it will be remembered, landed in England on October 1820, after making a number of most valuable discoveries in Lancaster Sound. The results of his voyage had been so encouraging that the Government determined to prepare another expedition for the following year. It was only natural to suppose, however, that any further attempts to find a North-West passage through Lancaster Sound would be rendered abortive by the ice, which seemed to form an absolutely impenetrable barrier across the westward entrance, and it was consequently decided to seek a passage by a more southerly route, in the hope that the climate would be more temperate and the ice less of an obstruction.

On the first expedition the Hecla had proved herself an excellent ship, but the Griper, owing to her poor sailing qualities, had been less of a success. Her place was taken, therefore, by the Fury, to which Parry himself was commissioned, while Captain George Francis Lyon, an officer of great ability, who was especially noted for the excellence of his drawings, was placed in command of the Hecla.

So popular was Parry that hardly had the news of his appointment been published than he was besieged by volunteers, among them being many members of his previous expedition. The latter included Lieutenants Hoppner, Mias, and Reid, James Clark Ross, a midshipman who had already had considerable experience of Arctic travel, and who was destined subsequently to win fame for himself by the discovery of the magnetic pole; and Mr Edwards, Parry’s former surgeon. In all, the party consisted of 118 officers and men.

Parry set sail at the end of April with instructions to make direct for Hudson’s Strait. Thence he was to sail westward until he should reach some part of the mainland of North America. On striking the coast he was to turn northward, and to examine every bay and inlet which might seem to afford a passage to the west, thus practically taking up the work of exploration where it had been dropped by Captain Middleton, who, in 1742, discovered Wager Inlet, and penetrated as far north as Cape Hope, near the entrance to Repulse Bay.

He reached Southampton Island on April 27, and after some delay occasioned by the ice, he succeeded in passing through Frozen Strait and making Repulse Bay. Up till that day the precise nature of the bay had never been determined, and it was believed by many to be in reality the entrance to a strait. Parry, however, soon discovered that it was actually a bay, and he accordingly turned northward in pursuit of his quest for a western passage. The coast along which he was now sailing was so broken that his progress was necessarily slow, and when the beginning of October came he found himself no further north than the entrance to Lyon Inlet. The work that he did during those six weeks, however, though terribly tedious, was of immense value, for he mapped out every mile of a coast-line which had never been explored before.

It was now too late in the season for him to make much further progress that year, so he set sail to the south-east with a view to discovering comfortable winter quarters on the south side of Winter Island. On October 8, after a dangerous voyage through the ice, he found a bay which seemed admirably adapted for the purpose, and here, accordingly, he hove too and put everything ship-shape and in order for the long winter months.

Of the manner in which the crew beguiled their time it is unnecessary to speak at length. The theatrical performances, which had proved so successful on the previous voyage, were repeated, concerts were held, and everything possible was done to ward off that archenemy of the Arctic explorer, the scurvy. At the same time, of course, scientific observations were carried on without intermission.

At the beginning of February a party of Eskimos put in an appearance, and the explorers were astonished to find that a complete village had sprung up in their neighbourhood with a rapidity which is generally supposed to be the sole prerogative of castles in fairy stories. The explanation was that not a single material was employed in the construction of the huts except snow and ice. The natives proved exceptionally friendly and rather less greedy than most of their race. As a rule the first Eskimo word that the uninitiated traveller is taught is “pilletay”—“give me”—which springs to a native’s lips whenever his eyes light upon an object which he has not seen before.

The usual presentations of beads and nails formed a part of the introductory ceremonial. The recipients of these gifts were wont to display their gratitude in a manner that was not a little embarrassing, for when they were given anything they went off into fits of hysterical screaming or laughter, varied by the women with periods of weeping.

Apart from increasing their knowledge of the habits of the Eskimos, the explorers gained but little information that was of any value to them, and they learned nothing of that passage to the west for which they were seeking. One of the women was able to draw a rough map of the coast for some miles northward of Repulse Bay, and, in attempting to verify it, Captain Lyon very nearly lost his life in a snowstorm. Otherwise, however, the winter was marked by no event that need be recorded. On July 2, 1822, the two ships sailed out of their winter quarters and pursued their journey northward.

Occasionally the work of mapping out the coast, which, of course, occupied most of their attention, was varied by a little walrus-hunting, which proved to be excellent sport. Some idea of the strength of these creatures may be gathered from the fact that, in a big battue in which they indulged on July 15, one of the boats was seriously damaged by a walrus’s tusks, while another of the creatures, being accidentally touched by an oar, wrenched it out of the rower’s hand with its flippers and broke it in two. The largest of the animals killed on that day weighed fifteen hundredweight and a half.

In such a way as this was the whole of the summer spent, and the arrival of winter found them as far as ever from the discovery of the North-West Passage. Parry spent the dark months off the Island of Igloolik, intending to continue his work during the following summer. An outbreak of scurvy, however, compelled him to change his plans, and, cutting short his voyage, to return to England, which he reached early in October.

In the following year Parry started out on his third and last search for the North-West Passage. The plan of the expedition was to explore Prince Regent’s Inlet, but the ice was bad and the weather was unfavourable, with the result that he had barely reached the scene of his labours when winter set in. In the following year he was even more unfortunate, for the Fury was driven ashore in a gale and he was obliged to leave her to her fate, taking her men and such of her stores as he could find room for on board the Hecla. He had now no choice but to return home, as, with so many mouths to feed and so little to feed them with, he dared not risk another winter in the ice. It is worthy of mention, however, that the stores left behind on the ship and on the shore proved the salvation of several later expeditions.

By no means the least valuable of the pieces of information brought back by Parry was that, while the eastern coast of any land in the Arctic regions is almost invariably encumbered with heavy ice, the western coast is, in ordinary years, comparatively free—a discovery of which navigators have taken the fullest advantage ever since.