Hitherto the northern coasts of North America had remained completely unknown save for the work of Hearne and Mackenzie, and it was felt that something should be done to fill up the large area of blank on the map. The Secretary of State for the Colonies now resolved that, with the co-operation of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the coast-line should be discovered and surveyed.
The officer selected for this arduous duty was Lieutenant John Franklin, who had just returned from the command of the Trent in the Spitsbergen seas. Few officers of his age had seen so much service. A Lincolnshire lad, born at Spilsby and educated at Louth Grammar School, Franklin entered the navy at the age of 14, and in his very first ship, the Polyphemus, he was at the battle of Copenhagen and closely engaged. Next he joined the discovery ship Investigator under his relative Captain Flinders124, and was for two years engaged in the survey of the coast of the great island to which Flinders gave the name of Australia. At last the old Investigator was found to be no longer seaworthy. She was condemned, and her captain, officers, and crew were embarked on board H.M.S. Porpoise for a passage to England.
Entangled among the reefs off the coast of Queensland, the Porpoise ran on shore, became a wreck, and young Franklin found himself one of 94 souls on a sandbank. Flinders went in an open boat to Port Jackson, 750 miles off, and returned with help, and eventually Franklin got a passage in a vessel bound for Canton, with the object of returning home in one of the East India Company’s ships. He was taken on board the Earl Camden, Commodore Dance, and sailed with the China fleet of merchantmen, when as signal midshipman he took part in an ever-memorable action. In the Straits of Malacca the French Admiral Linois was encountered with a line-of-battle ship and three frigates, and after a sharp fight the French retreated, and were chased for three hours by the English merchantmen.
In 1804 Franklin joined the Bellerophon at the blockade of Brest, and on the 21st of October, 1805, was at the battle of Trafalgar, when he was once more signal midshipman. His next service was on board the Bedford, escorting the royal family of Portugal to Rio. He became a Lieutenant in 1808 and served in the Walcheren expedition. In 1813 he convoyed a fleet of merchantmen to the West Indies, and his last war service was a severe but successful action with American gun-boats near New Orleans.
Franklin gladly accepted the appointment offered to him by the Colonial Office to take command of an expedition to co-operate with Hudson’s Bay Co. in exploring the north coast of America and surveying it. His colleagues were Dr Richardson, who had sole charge of the natural history work; two midshipmen named Back and Hood, selected for their proficiency as artists, and a blue-jacket named Hepburn. Other members of the expedition were to be engaged in the country, Hudson’s Bay men and Canadian voyageurs.
George Back was then aged 22. He had entered the navy in 1808 on board the Arethusa, and served in boat actions on the north coast of Spain, where in his last fight 14 of his crew were killed out of 18. Back was taken prisoner while making an attack on a battery of heavy guns at Lequeitio and was detained at Verdun until 1814. On regaining his liberty he served in the Akbar under Sir J. Byam Martin at Flushing, and afterwards on the North American station. He passed for Lieutenant in 1817, and in the following year joined the Trent under Franklin in the Spitsbergen voyage. Franklin gladly secured the gallant young officer’s services again for his first land expedition.
It was a difficult task, as the narrative of Hearne made sufficiently clear. The explorers were to discover the north coast of America from the mouth of the Coppermine eastward. The party reached York Factory in Hudson’s Bay in August, 1819, and Fort Chipewyan early in 1820. In July they were at Fort Providence on the north-east side of the Great Slave Lake, and early in August they set out for the Coppermine river, wintering at a station which was built on Winter Lake, and called Fort Enterprise. The fatigue and difficulty of travelling thus far were enormous. Franklin calculated that all the portages, each having to be traversed four times, made together 150 miles.
One of the North West Co.’s men having joined the expedition, the party now consisted of six Englishmen and twenty-six others, principally Canadian voyageurs. Franklin arranged with the Indians that, on his return, there should be supplies of food and Indians at Fort Enterprise.
The descent of the Coppermine river was then commenced, and the mouth was reached on the 21st of July, 1821. Franklin and his gallant companions then embarked on the polar sea in their frail bark canoes. It was a rock-bound coast, fringed with masses of ice which rose and fell with every motion of the tempestuous sea, and the undertaking was in the highest degree perilous in canoes only fit for lake navigation. Franklin nevertheless persevered in the discovery of the coast-line until the 18th of August, when he felt obliged to begin the return voyage. Their provisions were nearly run out, and they were disappointed at not meeting with any Eskimos, from whom they might have obtained supplies. Their furthest point was named Point Turnagain, and was 6½° of longitude to the east of the mouth of the Coppermine. Franklin decided to land in Arctic Sound, at the mouth of a river he had named after Hood, and make direct for Fort Enterprise, rather than return by the Coppermine. He hoped to find more game by the new route. The canoes were broken up in order to construct smaller and lighter boats for carrying round the portages, and they left the banks of the Hood river on the 3rd of September, making straight for Fort Enterprise. The country proved to be stony and barren, there was no game, and their stock of provisions was soon exhausted. All they had to subsist on was tripe de roche, a noxious unwholesome lichen. At last, on the 10th of September, after six days of starvation, a herd of musk oxen was seen, and one was killed.
Affairs were so serious that young Back volunteered to make his way to Fort Enterprise and send back Indians with the supplies that had been ordered to be collected there. Back started on the 4th of October, Fort Enterprise being then 24 miles distant. The rest followed, several in a state of extreme weakness. Some of the men got weaker every day. At last it was settled that Dr Richardson, with Hood and Hepburn, should remain with the sick, while Franklin, with the stronger men, went on to Fort Enterprise for help.
Franklin, living on tripe de roche, took four days to reach Fort Enterprise and, on his arrival, found to his horror and dismay that there were no Indians there, no provisions, and that the place was quite abandoned. There was a hurried note from Back saying that he had gone on in search of Indians, and that if he found none, he intended to walk to Fort Providence. He added that it was doubtful whether, in his debilitated condition, he could make the journey. The temperature at Fort Enterprise was 15° to 20° below zero.
On the 29th Dr Richardson and Hepburn quite unexpectedly arrived at Fort Enterprise. They had a sad tale to tell. They were the only survivors of their party, the others having died of cold and starvation. But the horrors were made far more appalling by the crimes of a Canadian voyageur named Michel. There was little doubt that he had murdered two of his comrades, and feasted on their bodies, getting fat and strong while the others became weaker every day, and were at his mercy. He then shot Hood through the head, while the others were away collecting tripe de roche, and they found the body of their murdered friend on their return. Their only chance of survival now was the death of Michel. Dr Richardson undertook the duty, and shot him. The two survivors then walked on to Fort Enterprise. Here they all remained in the last stage of starvation until on the 7th of November three Indians arrived with food, having been sent by Back, and their lives were saved. The Indians treated the starving explorers with the greatest kindness, attending to all their wants until they arrived at Fort Providence on the 11th December.
Back’s sufferings while in search of help had been quite as severe as those of his comrades he had left behind. His sole food consisted of a pair of leather trousers, a gun-cover, and an old shoe, with a little tripe de roche. At length, after some days, he fell in with the Indians and sent them with food to Fort Enterprise. Reaching Fort Providence he found Franklin’s commission as Commander, and his own as Lieutenant. On his arrival in England Franklin was promoted to the rank of Captain on November 20th, 1822.
Franklin was busily employed, while in England, in writing the narrative of his expedition, and in August 1823 he married Miss Eleanor Porden. Their married life was a brief one, for she died in February 1825, soon after Franklin’s departure on his second expedition, leaving a daughter.
When Parry sailed on his third voyage by way of Prince Regent’s Inlet, it was resolved that Captain Beechey, in the Blossom, should co-operate by way of Bering’s Strait, while another land expedition was despatched to the north coast of America. Captain Franklin and Lieut. Back were to explore to the westward of the Mackenzie River, while Dr Richardson and Mr Kendall were to survey the coast between the mouths of the Mackenzie and Coppermine. Three boats were specially built for the expedition, combining lightness with stability. The largest was 26 feet long, the other two 24 feet.
The expedition left England in February, 1825. For a few days the explorers rested at Fort Resolution, the only station of the Hudson’s Bay Company on the Slave Lake, and then proceeded to the Mackenzie River, which was reached on the 2nd of August. They descended the river to the Hudson’s Bay post called Fort Norman. Lieut. Back, accompanied by Mr Dease of the Hudson’s Bay Company, was then sent to the Great Bear Lake to select a site and build a house for winter quarters. Franklin and Kendall went down the Mackenzie to its mouth. They all returned to Fort Franklin on the Great Bear Lake in 65° 11′ 50″ N. to winter. The party consisted of 15 seamen and marines, nine Canadian voyageurs, and some Indians with their families. Another boat was built and named the Reliance.
The two parties, led by Franklin and Richardson, left Fort Franklin on the 24th of June, 1826, descended the Mackenzie River together, and parted west and east where the delta commenced, on the 3rd of July. In making his way along the coast to the westward Franklin’s boats were often in danger from heavy masses of ice, and suffered long detentions from foul weather. On the 18th of August he found it necessary to give up any attempt to proceed further, having discovered 374 miles of new coast. He named his furthest point Cape Beechey. Captain Beechey in the Blossom was off Icy Cape by the middle of August, and sent a boat to meet Franklin, and the two boats were within 160 miles of each other, but Beechey and Franklin were not destined to meet. Beechey discovered Point Barrow.
Franklin and Back returned to Fort Franklin on the 21st of September. Meanwhile Dr Richardson and Kendall had discovered and surveyed the coast between the mouths of the Mackenzie and Coppermine, returning to Fort Franklin by the Coppermine River.
The large island facing the north coast has received several names, but the Dominion Government wisely determined that it shall be known by one only—Victoria Island. The strait between Victoria and the mainland was named after the two boats in which Richardson and Kendall embarked, Dolphin and Union.
The expedition returned to England in September, 1827, after an absence of over 2½ years, having surveyed a coast-line of more than 1000 miles, hitherto unknown. Back was promoted to the rank of Commander, and Franklin was knighted in 1829. On the 5th of November, 1828, he married en secondes noces Jane the daughter of John Griffin of Bedford Place, who both on her father’s and mother’s (Jeanne Guillemard) side was of Huguenot stock. He commanded the Rainbow frigate in the Mediterranean from 1830 to 1834, and was appointed Governor of Tasmania in 1837. Franklin’s narratives of his two expeditions were published in quarto volumes beautifully illustrated by Captain Back’s drawings.
The next expedition to the north coast of America was a private one. A Committee raised the necessary funds, and the plan was to descend a river which was supposed to have its rise in the Great Slave Lake, and to fall into the Polar Sea. The object was to obtain tidings of, and to succour, the expedition of the Rosses, which had not been heard of for some years. Captain Back received the command, and his companion was Dr Richard King, a medical man. Only three other men were taken from England. The explorers started in February 1833, 15 men were engaged, and the expedition reached the Great Slave Lake. The source of what Back called the Great Fish River was discovered, but its course was found to be tortuous and full of rapids. Back, therefore, caused two boats to be built, specially adapted for river navigation, and for being taken over the portages. They were sharp at both ends, with good beam, and plenty of floor for stowage. They were 30 ft. long over all, 24 ft. keel, with extra oars, masts, and tillers. Their lower parts were carvel, and the upper clinker-built. Runners, plated with iron, were fixed on either side of the keel, so that they could easily be drawn over ice by six dogs and two men. Eight men formed the crew.
Captain Back and Dr King were thus well equipped for discovering the course of the Great Fish River. But at this juncture the news was received of the safety of the Rosses, and it did not seem justifiable to do more than descend the river to its mouth. This Back did, finding that the river has a violent and tortuous course of 530 miles, sometimes expanding into large lakes, and having 83 falls and cascades. The estuary was surveyed, together with a large island named Montreal. Back intended to have traced the coast as far as Cape Turnagain, but only got 15 miles westward to Capes Richardson and Maconochie. Captain Back and Dr King both published narratives of the Great Fish River expedition.
There still remained unexplored the coast line from Franklin’s furthest to Cape Barrow on the west side, and from Cape Turnagain to Repulse Bay on the east. The Hudson’s Bay Company resolved to undertake these discoveries. Peter Warren Dease, who had assisted the Franklin Expedition, and Thomas Simpson were selected for the duty. Simpson was a very intelligent and energetic young Scot, born at Dingwall in Ross-shire in 1808. Dease was much older. The equipment was arranged at Fort Chipewyan. The two boats were clinker-built, 24 ft. keel by 6 ft. beam, each with a small oiled-canvas canoe. They were named the Castor and Pollux. Thirty bags of pemmican, each weighing 9 lb., and 10 cwt. of Red River flour were taken for the whole season. The daily ration per man was 3 lb. of pemmican.
Descending the Mackenzie, Simpson pushed on along the coast, passing and naming the Colville river. When stopped by ice he resolved to reach Cape Barrow by land. He took eight men each with a load of 40 lb., including pemmican and flour, a blanket, ammunition and instruments, and one man carried a canvas canoe. They encountered very bad weather, but they reached the long low spit of land which Captain Beechey had named Cape Barrow, and were welcomed by the Eskimos settled there. Simpson returned to the Mackenzie, and ascended that river to his winter quarters at Fort Confidence.
In the following year Simpson went down the Coppermine river, to discover the coast to the eastward. On the 17th of July, 1838, the voyage was commenced. On reaching Cape Turnagain, Franklin’s furthest point, Simpson went on by land with five of the Company’s servants and two Indians. Each man carried a weight of 50 lb., including a tent, a canvas canoe, a kettle, two axes, and provisions for ten days. Open water was seen along the shores of Victoria Island while the continental coast was choked with ice. The party, after this excursion on foot, returned by the Coppermine to Fort Confidence to winter.
On June 15th, 1839, Simpson set out again for the Coppermine river on foot, arriving where three men had been left in charge of the boat and baggage. The boat sailed past Cape Turnagain, and on the 11th of August the discoverers came to the strait, about ten miles wide, between the continent and King William Island. It was named Simpson Strait. On the 12th there was a tremendous thunderstorm, with torrents of rain, and the next day they reached Cape Ogle at the mouth of the Great Fish River.
On the 16th Simpson landed on Montreal Island, where a depôt left by Back was found. He then crossed the strait to King William Island and explored its southern coast for nearly 60 miles, until it turned north at Cape Herschel, where a lofty cairn was erected, on August 26th, 1839. They also went eastward along the American coast beyond the Great Fish River, calling their furthest point after their boats “Castor and Pollux.” In returning, Simpson explored the south coast of Victoria Island.
Geographers were not satisfied until the region had been explored between Simpson’s furthest and the Gulf of Akuli on the west side of Melville Peninsula, reported by Parry’s Eskimo draughtswoman. The Geographical Society urged the importance of this discovery on the Admiralty, and the old bomb vessel Terror was commissioned by Captain Back, with much the same instructions as were given to Captain Lyon in 1824. Many of Back’s officers had won or were to win distinction. His first Lieutenant, Smyth, an artist of no mean powers, was the second Englishman to descend the Amazon. Owen Stanley had served under Franklin in the Rainbow and became a very distinguished surveyor in Australian seas, McMurdo was afterwards with Ross in his Antarctic voyages, Graham Gore perished with Franklin, and M’Clure was the discoverer of a North West Passage. These splendid officers received their polar training under Back, in the icy storms of Fox Channel.
On the 14th of June, 1836, the Terror left Chatham. Passing down Hudson’s Strait, Back chose Parry’s route by Fox Channel for reaching Repulse Bay. The Terror was soon beset, and on the 13th of September they were a few miles from land, off Cape Comfort. The ship was closely wedged between blocks of ice, with no water in sight and was drifted backwards and forwards between Cape Comfort and Baffin Island. In this situation they entered upon an Arctic winter of exceptional severity. In the depth of winter the ice broke up, and huge masses continually dashed against the ship. She remained locked in the ice for four months, and dragged helplessly about, until at length she was liberated towards the end of July, 1837. Nothing could be finer than the conduct of Captain Back and his officers throughout this trying time. The Terror, battered and leaky, crossed the Atlantic almost in a sinking state. Early one morning they came in sight of the Irish coast. The first Lieutenant came down to the Captain, who was in his cot, “Captain Back, Sir!” “Yes, what is it?” “The ship’s sinking, Sir.” “Very good, Smyth, call me again at eight bells.” That day they reached safety in Lough Swilly.
In 1845 Sir George Simpson determined to complete the discovery of the Gulf of Akuli, starting from a base at Repulse Bay, which was to be reached by boats from Fort Churchill. The command of the expedition was given to Dr John Rae, one of the Company’s factors. The boats were constructed at York factory, clinker-built, 22 feet by 7 feet 6 inches, with two lug sails and a jib. The crew consisted of six Orkney men and two Canadian half-breeds. On July 24th, 1846, they arrived at Repulse Bay, where they wintered, having obtained 63 deer, 172 ptarmigan, 5 hares, and 116 salmon. They built a stone house, with a roof of moose skin, and made toboggan sledges, 6 to 7 feet long and 17 inches wide, of battens from the boats.
On the arrival of spring Rae resumed his journey, starting on April 5th. He had two sledges, each drawn by four dogs and six men. A snow house was built each night. The food was pemmican, reindeer tongues, flour, tea, chocolate, and sugar. Rae carried the books and instruments himself, a weight of 35 lb. The rations were 1½ lb. of pemmican daily for each man and ⅓ lb. of flour, but they obtained a seal from the Eskimo, and had seal meat for eight days. They explored the west side of the Gulf of Akuli as far as Lord Mayor’s Bay of Ross and returned May 5th, having proved that there is no outlet to the westward as was expected.
Rae’s next journey was for 28 days, from May 13th to June 9th, to explore the west side of Melville Peninsula as far as the entrance to Fury and Hecla Strait. The party, travelling over soft snow, only got within ten miles of the Strait. Rae says that he traced 655 miles of new coast. He certainly settled the question of any sea from Fury and Hecla Strait to Cape Turnagain, and proved that Boothia was a peninsula, not an island. The Gulf of Akuli is the termination of Prince Regent’s Inlet.
In 1818, as we have seen, nothing was known of the northern coast of America but the mouths of the Mackenzie and Coppermine rivers. In 1848 the whole coast had been mapped, from the Icy Cape of Cook to the Fury and Hecla Strait of Parry, a distance of 1000 miles. Franklin, Richardson, Back, Dease, Simpson, and Rae were the discoverers, and their achievements entailed deeds of heroism such as have never been surpassed, and seldom equalled, in the whole history of discovery.