It will be remembered that, in organising the Franklin search, the Government determined to send out expeditions from three points of the compass, east, west, and south. The first group was to follow in Franklin’s tracks, the second was to attempt to meet him by way of Behring Strait, and the third was to search the North American coast in the hope that he might have found his way thither. As we have seen, the Herald and Plover had already been sent to Behring Strait, but the authorities felt that there was ample room for another expedition in that direction, so in 1849 they refitted the Enterprise and Investigator, and, putting them under the command of Captain Richard Collinson, C.B., and Captain J. Le Mesurier M’Clure, they despatched them on this hazardous service. Though Collinson was nominally leader of the expedition, M’Clure actually became its central figure, and it is with his doings that we shall have principally to deal.
M’Clure was a fine seaman and a man of indomitable courage, but, as we shall see presently, he possessed almost more than his fair share of that peculiarly British quality of never knowing when he was beaten, and he came near, in consequence, to sacrificing the lives of every member of his expedition.
The two ships set sail from the Thames on January 10, 1850, but early in February they parted company, and did not meet again till they reached Magellan Bay, though, curiously enough, they had crossed the line on the same day. On the evening of the day on which they left the Bay they were separated by a gale, never to meet again.
The Investigator was rather the better ship of the two, and she entered Behring Strait considerably in advance of her companion. Here M’Clure fell in first with the Plover under Commander Moore, by whom he sent a message home to England saying that he was making for Banks Land and was provisioned for three years, and later with the Herald. Kellett, who commanded the latter ship, told him that nothing had yet been heard of the Enterprise, and ordered him to await her arrival in accordance with his official instructions. This plan, however, by no means commended itself to M’Clure, so, signalling back “Important duty; cannot on my own responsibility,” he sailed on his way. Kellett ought, no doubt, to have insisted on M’Clure obeying orders, but he was very awkwardly situated. He knew that the Investigator was on its way to succour Franklin, and that a winter’s delay might ruin its chances of success, and, naturally enough, he did not like to incur the grave responsibility of stopping her in her work of humanity.
The main pack was sighted on August 2, but M’Clure was fortunate enough to find open water to the south of it, and he was soon round Point Barrow and sailing in waters which had never been travelled by a ship before. Navigation was very far from easy, for the sea was covered with detached floes which, driven onward by the wind, came charging down upon the ship with tremendous force, setting her aquiver from stem to stern, and often endangering the safety of her masts.
Whenever it was possible M’Clure sent parties ashore to erect cairns and to open up communications with any natives that they might find. From these he gleaned one valuable piece of information, namely, that they had never before seen a “big oomiak” like the Investigator. The Erebus and Terror, therefore, could not have reached these shores.
After passing Return Reef navigation became more perilous than ever, owing to the innumerable shoals composed of driftwood and the deposits of the neighbouring rivers. On one occasion the Investigator went aground and lay for some time in imminent danger of being crushed to matchwood by the drifting floes. With all possible speed, a liberal supply of provisions was transferred to the boats, one of which unfortunately capsized and sixteen casks of salt meat went to the bottom. The loss was very severely felt later on.
Sailing with great care and circumspection, M’Clure succeeded in reaching Cape Parry. Here a south-easterly wind sprang up which cleared the sea of ice and gave him an open way to the north, of which he was not slow to take advantage. In a few hours the welcome cry of “land on the port bow” rang out, and Banks’ Land came in sight. At first there was some doubt as to what this new land might be. Some thought that it was a continuation of Wollaston Land, others held that it was a part of Banks’ Land. In his uncertainty M’Clure gave it the name of Baring Island, but when, later on, it was found to be the southern extension of the land sighted by Parry from Melville Island in 1819-20, its original name was, of course, retained.
McClure’s delight was completed when he found a perfectly open channel extending along the shores of the new land in a north-easterly direction. Up this channel he sailed, hardly daring to hope what was actually the truth, that this was the North-West Passage. His doubts were not, however, to be set at rest immediately, for thirty miles from the point at which the channel joins Barrow Strait his career was summarily checked by a barrier of ice which there was no penetrating, and all that he could do was to make up his mind to spend the winter where he was.
The early days of October brought with them the exceedingly unpleasant discovery that 500 lbs. of preserved meat were putrid and only fit to be thrown away. A little later, an examination of his stores showed him that another 424 lbs. were unfit for food, bringing the loss up to nearly a thousand pounds, in addition to the sixteen casks of salt meat which had fallen into the sea earlier in the voyage. The matter was especially serious as he had assured the Admiralty that he was fully provisioned for three years.
However, there was nothing for him to do but to make his crew forget the misfortune as quickly as possible, so he set about sending out expeditions along the shores of Prince of Wales’ Strait, as he had named the channel which he had just discovered, and through Banks’ Land. It was during one of these that he actually discovered the North-West Passage and so earned the ten thousand pounds offered by the Government. This event took place on October 26th, when M’Clure, having ascended a high hill found that, as he had hoped, Prince Albert Land trended away to the eastward, while Banks’ Land terminated in a low promontory about twelve miles from the point on which he stood. Away beyond the northern entrance to Prince of Wales’ Strait he gazed across the frozen waters of Melville Sound, in which Barrow Strait terminates.
The dark days of winter passed away without misadventure, and, with the return of spring, M’Clure decided to send out sledge parties in search of Franklin. Few of those whose lot is cast in warmer climates can realise the dangers and discomforts of a long sledge journey in the Arctic regions. Sherard Osborn knew them well, and he gives so eloquent a description of them that we may quote it for the benefit of the uninitiated.
“If they should feel cold,” he writes, “they must be patient, for until their return to the ship they will have no fire to warm them. Should their parched tongues cleave to their mouths, they must swallow snow to allay their thirst, for water there is none. Should their health fail, pity is all that their comrades can give them, for the sledge must move on its daily march. If hungry, they must console themselves by looking forward to being better fed when the travelling is over, for the rations are, necessarily, in sledge journeys, weighed off to an ounce. In short, from the time they leave the ship till their return to it, the service is ever one of suffering and privation, which call for the utmost endurance and most zealous energy.”
Three parties were sent out, which surveyed the coasts of Banks’ Land and Prince Albert Land, but their labours were fated to be unrewarded, for not a trace of the missing expedition could they discover.
As soon as the thaw released him, M’Clure naturally made an effort to complete the North-West Passage. Ice and contrary winds, however, rendered it impossible for him to make his way through Prince of Wales’ Strait, so he put about and determined to try to find a passage round the western coast of Banks’ Land, and so into Melville Sound. At first all went well, but when he reached lat. 73° 55′, the highest point that he had yet attained, he was once more brought to a standstill. The channel of open water became narrower, the coast became more dangerous, and towering hills of ice hemmed them in on every side, threatening the ship with instant destruction.
At one time M’Clure feared that he would be obliged to spend the winter in this desolate situation, but fortunately a southerly wind arose which drove the ice off the shore and allowed him to proceed on his way. Weeks of valuable time had been wasted in the pack, and there was now nothing for him to do but to look for suitable winter quarters, which he eventually found in Mercy Bay.
Although, dreading lest his stay in the Arctic regions might be prolonged indefinitely, M’Clure found it necessary to put his men on rather short rations, the winter was passed comfortably enough, and, as soon as spring came round, he set out with seven men across the icepack to Melville Island in the hope that he might find another of the search expeditions stationed there. To his intense disappointment, all that he discovered was M’Clintock’s record of his visit of the previous year. Of ships or human beings there was not another trace. Fortunately for himself he left a notice there describing the position of the Investigator in Mercy Bay, and this ultimately proved his salvation.
When he returned to his ship he found that matters were not going too well with his men. They had, it is true, been fairly successful with their hunting, but scurvy had broken out and Dr Armstrong already had thirteen patients in his care. Worse, however, was to come, for July brought no sign of the desired thaw. Ice still choked the bay, thick ice covered the sound, and an ominous blink glowed in the sky. Early in September the frost once more had the bay in its grip and the unfortunate men realised that they were destined to spend a third winter in the ice.
M’Clure was now faced by a very difficult problem. In the first place, his pride and his sense of duty bade him to save his ship, which was still in perfect condition. In the second place, he felt that he could hardly ask his men to stay by him on the chance of release in the following summer. His solution of the problem cannot be regarded as entirely satisfactory. Calling his men on to the quarter deck one day in the early winter, he told them that he had decided that, as soon as spring came round, he would send away half of the crew in two divisions. One of these was to make for the mouth of Prince of Wales’ Strait, where he had left a boat, and thence to the coast of America, while the other was to march for Wellington Channel, where, he hoped, that they would be picked up by a whaler.
Armstrong knew that the men were quite unfit for such a journey, and told his commander so in no uncertain terms, but without producing the least effect. M’Clure was an incurable optimist and never could be induced to believe that his men were not capable of performing the impossible, so, with a view to ensuring a fairly adequate supply of provisions for the travelling parties, he cut down the rations once more. The result was that the whole crew lived in a state of perpetual hunger. The scurvy patients grew worse and those who had, up to the present, remained healthy, sickened rapidly. To add to their discomforts, the winter was one of the coldest on record, and on one occasion the thermometer registered ninety-nine degrees of frost.
Unfit though his men were for the service he contemplated for them, M’Clure set about making the final preparations for the expeditions. These were sufficiently extraordinary to startle even Dr Armstrong, accustomed as he was to his leader’s vagaries, for M’Clure informed him one day that it was his intention to dispatch the weaker half of the crew from the vessel and bade him make the necessary selection. Armstrong could only do as he was told, and, with a sad heart, he picked out thirty of the most scorbutic members of the ship’s company, and told them off into two divisions of fifteen each. As a final protest against what he evidently considered to be little short of murder, he and his assistant, Mr Piers, recorded in a letter their conviction that the men could not survive such a journey. This, however, had as little effect as his earlier representations.
Early in April the gloom that had settled upon the ship was deepened by the first appearance of death, for one of the seamen, John Boyle, fell a victim to scurvy after only one day’s illness. Fortunately, however, the clouds were soon to break, for, while M’Clure and Lieutenant Haswell were superintending the work of hewing a grave for Boyle out of the frozen earth, they were amazed to see a strange man coming towards them across the ice. So far as they could tell he was no member of their own crew, and their astonishment was increased when he began rushing across the ice, flinging up his arms and shouting wildly.
“In the name of God, who are you?” cried M’Clure, when he came within speaking distance.
“I’m Lieutenant Pim of the Resolute, now at Dealy Island,” was the answer, “and I’ve come to relieve Captain M’Clure and the Investigators.”
At first the men could not believe the evidence of their senses, but all doubts were set at rest when Pim’s sledge, with the two men who had accompanied him, and a supply of provisions put in an appearance. It seemed that M’Clure’s record at Winter Harbour had been found, and that Kellett, fearing that the Investigator might be still detained in the ice, had sent off Pim as soon as the conditions permitted, to bring its crew relief if they needed it. The journey had lasted a full month, and he only arrived just in time, for two or three days later the unfortunate sledge parties were to have started off on their terribly forlorn hope.
On April 8, M’Clure, accompanied by an officer and six men, set out on the return journey to the Resolute leaving orders for the two sledge parties to follow him. By some unaccountable oversight, however, he omitted to put the men who remained behind on full rations, and two more lives were lost in consequence.
Even now M’Clure’s excessive optimism had not deserted him, and, on reaching the Resolute, he told Kellett that the twenty men still on board the Investigator were quite well able to bring her home or to endure another winter in the ice if necessary. Kellett, however, had seen the condition of the men who composed the sledge-parties, and was altogether disinclined to agree with the gallant captain on this point. He accordingly arranged that his own surgeon, Dr Domville, should proceed to the Investigator, and, after joining Dr Armstrong in a medical survey of the crew, should make an unbiassed report thereon. There could only be one result. The two doctors found that none of the men were entirely free from scurvy, while many of them were very seriously ill. M’Clure, however, was by no means disposed to yield without a struggle. Accordingly he called the men on deck, and asked if any of them were prepared to volunteer for further service. Only four of them stood forward, so he had to yield to the inevitable.
The ship was cleaned and put in thorough order, and, after M’Clure had examined her for the last time, and had addressed a few words to the men, which according to Armstrong, were not particularly complimentary, the Investigator was abandoned on June 3. Lieutenant Cresswell and several members of the expedition joined the North Star at Beechey Island, and were finally conveyed to England by H.M.S. Phœnix during the summer of 1853. Those who remained on board the Resolute and Intrepid were destined to spend yet another winter in the ice, but they eventually reached home in safety during the autumn of 1854. The ships themselves, however, had to be abandoned, the crews being taken on board the North Star, which was still in the neighbourhood.
It is worthy of mention that in May, 1854, a party was sent from the Resolute to report on the condition of the Investigator in Mercy Bay. It appeared, from the condition of the ice, that she had not been released during the summer, and that M’Clure and his men would have perished had they remained on board.
The expedition, though it resulted in the discovery of the North-West Passage, cannot be regarded as an entire success. It must be remembered that it was sent out to take part in the Franklin Search and not to add to the world’s store of geographical knowledge. The coast of Bank’s Land was examined, it is true, but had not M’Clure been so possessed of a desire to complete the passage himself, he would probably have accomplished a great deal more.
Collinson’s voyage in the Enterprise, if less sensational than M’Clure’s, was really far more remarkable, not only for the brilliant manner in which he conducted it, but also for the fact that, though he did not know it, he was the first of the search parties to approach the spot where the Erebus and Terror had been lost.
Passing Cape Lisburne a fortnight later than M’Clure, and not knowing whither the Investigator had gone, he examined the pack for a short distance and then sailed south to Hong-Kong, where he spent the winter. As soon as the conditions permitted he returned to the scene of his labours and rounded Point Barrow on the last day of July. Entering Prince of Wales’ Strait, he succeeded in following it almost to its mouth, but, as he had already learnt from a record left by M’Clure that his junior officer had discovered the North-West Passage, and that there was, in consequence, no object in his proceeding further in that direction, he turned south again and found winter quarters in Walker Bay.
Sledging expeditions were sent out during the autumn and spring to look for the Investigators and to try to discover traces of Franklin, but in neither object did they meet with any success. The Enterprise was released in August, 1852, and, having explored Prince Albert Sound, Collinson set his course eastward along the coast of America, and eventually reached the east end of Dease Strait, where he spent the next winter.
It was during a sledging expedition in the following spring that he came nearest to the discovery of the remains of the Franklin expedition, for on May 10 he stood on Gateshead Island and looked across the strait to King William Land, where lay the skeletons of the lost sailors. Had M’Clure only seen fit to remain with his leader more might have been accomplished, for it would have been possible to send out stronger sledging parties and to examine that part of the coast more thoroughly. Moreover, on board the Investigator was the only interpreter which the party possessed, and Collinson was, in consequence, unable to learn the origin of an engine rod which he obtained from the natives. It is practically certain, of course, that this was a relic of one of the ill-fated ships, as also was a hatch-way which was found on Finlayson Island.
On being released from his winter quarters, Collinson turned westward again and spent his last winter in the Arctic regions off Flaxman’s Island, whence he returned to England in the following year.
His voyage was unquestionably one of the most remarkable in the whole history of Arctic exploration. In a sailing ship of none too good a quality he succeeded in covering a distance within the Arctic circle which has only once been excelled, and that by a steamer, the Vega. He came within fifty-seven miles of completing the North-West Passage, the nearest approach on record; and of all the Government expeditions sent out he came nearest to bringing the Franklin search to a successful conclusion. His name ought to rank high in the annals of Arctic travel, and it is to be feared that he has never really received his just due.