In the same year that the English Arctic expedition was despatched, Sir Allen Young determined to see whether it was an open year for passing through the navigable north-west passage discovered by Sir Leopold M’Clintock. This depends upon the winds. If very strong winds from the north have been prevalent, the passage down Franklin Channel is choked with ice and impassable. If this has not been the case, the passage can be made. Sir Allen Young bought the gunboat Pandora from the Admiralty, a vessel built at Devonport for speed, and commissioned by my old friend Ruxton in 1863. She was well strengthened for Arctic work at Southampton. Allen Young bore the expense with some assistance from Lady Franklin and Lieutenant Lillingston, R.N., who went as his chief officer. The second was Navigating Lieutenant Pirie, and an ardent young Dutch naval officer named Koolemans Beynen joined as a volunteer. The Pandora was provided with a steam cutter, which proved very useful, three whaleboats, and four other boats.

Allen Young paid a very interesting visit to the cryolite mine in South Greenland153 where he found his old ship, the Fox. He took in a supply of coals at Kudlisit in Disco, and was fortunate in passing through the ice of Melville Bay. After leaving letters for the Alert and Discovery on one of the Cary Islands, he proceeded up Lancaster Sound to examine the depôt on Beechey Island. He then went down Peel Sound in very thick weather. He was entering upon his own ground, his discoveries during the journey from the Fox in 1859. Then came a great disappointment. Dense pack ice extended right across the channel near Levesque Island and there was nothing to the southward but solid pack, with a strong ice-blink beyond 72° 14′ N. Cape Bird, the northern portal of Bellot Strait, was distant about 10 miles. Young ascended Roquette Island (about 200 feet) but there was nothing to be seen but unbroken pack extending from shore to shore and he inclined to the belief that the only way was by Bellot Strait. He reluctantly beat to the northward, and by September 7th was clear of Lancaster Sound. He landed again at the Cary Islands and fortunately found letters from the Alert and the Discovery. These he brought home, arriving at Spithead October 16th, 1875.

The cause of the Franklin disaster was that no provision was made against unavoidable detention or other misfortune, either by stationing a depôt ship to fall back upon, or by sending a relief ship. I represented to the Admiralty the importance of taking some such step in the case of the Nares expedition, and Sir Allen Young agreed with me. But the Admiralty authorities only awoke to the necessity when it was too late to send an expedition themselves. They therefore requested Sir Allen Young to undertake the duty with the Pandora, giving up his own cherished plans for the North West Passage. He felt bound to consent. This time he took Lieutenant Arbuthnot, R.N., as his second, as well as Navigating Lieutenant Pirie, Koolemans Beynen, and an Austrian naval officer, the late Admiral Alois Ritter von Becker. The Pandora was to take out letters to Littleton Island or Cape Isabella, and if possible bring back despatches from Captain Nares.

Sailing in May, 1876, the Pandora again obtained coal at Kudlisit, and proceeded to Melville Bay, where a very different reception awaited her from the welcome she had found in the previous year. The bad time began with dense fogs. Then she encountered furious gales, being in great danger from icebergs crushing through the floes and threatening instant destruction. At one time she was so severely nipped that every preparation was made to abandon her, and take to the boats. They had no sooner got into the North Water of Baffin’s Bay than a gale sprang up off the Cary Islands, which increased to a frightful storm from the south-east. No previous voyagers had ever experienced the like in that part. On the 1st of August it moderated, and a landing was effected on one of the Cary Islands, but nothing was found. The Pandora arrived at Littleton Island, within the entrance of Smith Sound, on the 3rd August.

Allen Young then determined to reach Cape Isabella, on the west side of Smith Sound, expecting to find despatches from the Nares expedition there. In this he was successful, and Arbuthnot and von Becker went on shore to examine the cairn which had been erected the previous year by Commander A. H. Markham on the summit of the cape. The boat had to be forced through drifting ice, but reached the shore. A record was found, dated July 29th, 1875, and signed by Nares. Next day Young began to think that a cask which Arbuthnot believed to be full of provisions ought to have been examined for letters, and determined to return to Cape Isabella to do this. As the Cape was approached, it blew so hard and the sea was so covered with drifting ice that it was not safe to send a boat, and for a whole month the vessel fought gales of wind, drifting floes, and danger in many forms, before a landing was ultimately effected. The cask was found to be empty! Nothing remained but to return home, for all possibility of making their way to the north was prevented by the solid pack. Letters were left at Cape Isabella and Littleton Island. On the voyage home a very pleasant visit was paid to the Arctic Highlanders in Whale Sound, “kind and simple people, robust and healthy, who offered us everything they had.” On the 11th September the Pandora left Upernivik, and on the 16th of the following month the Alert and Discovery were sighted in mid-Atlantic on their voyage home. Portsmouth was reached on November 3rd, 1876.

The two voyages of the Pandora, under the command of a great seaman, a great discoverer, and a most popular commander, are well worthy of record, and Sir Allen Young’s admirable but modest narrative is a model of the way in which an Arctic story should be told.

Although Nordenskiöld’s wonderful expedition in the Vega had brought the protracted struggle for the North East Passage to a successful conclusion, the North West Passage, though known throughout the greater part of its extent, still remained unconquered. It fell to a Norwegian with seven companions in a small fishing boat to accomplish this remarkable journey. The Gjoa, a cutter-rigged herring-boat, fitted with a 13 h.-p. motor, under command of Roald Amundsen, with a crew of seven men, sailed from Christiania June 16th, 1903, and arrived off Godhavn on July 24th. Melville Bay offered fortunate ice conditions, and they reached Dalrymple Rock, where 105 cases of stores had been left for them, on August 15th. They now had 4245 gallons of petrol aboard. Erebus Bay in Beechey I. was reached August 22nd, and the season being an exceptionally favourable one they made rapid progress, and passing down the east side of King William Land found Simpson Strait leading to the westward quite free from ice. But, though it was tempting to press on, they were on the look-out for a wintering spot for magnetic observations, and they were fortunate enough to discover an ideal situation in a small sheltered bay in the south-east part of King William Land. Here stores were landed and houses and an observatory built in mid-September. The bay was named Gjoahavn. Meanwhile Lund the mate and Hansen the astronomer were sent to an island in the middle of Simpson Strait, known to be the resort of reindeer in the autumn, and returned with twenty. At Hall Point, the southern end of King William Land, two skeletons of white men were found, which were considered to be undoubtedly those of two members of the Franklin expedition, who, it will be remembered, made their retreat southward along the western shore of King William Land. Reindeer became later very numerous even at Gjoahavn itself, as many as 13 being shot in one day by a single sportsman. Birds too, such as geese and ptarmigan, were also plentiful. Later, Eskimos appeared; they were very friendly and some remained all the winter. They were afterwards found to be very numerous.

Sledging journeys of a modest nature were made in the spring and surveys taken, etc. The summer and autumn passed and they prepared for a second winter (1904–5). Constant work was carried on at the observatories. The lowest temperature recorded this winter was -50° Fahr., and was thus much milder than the previous one, when -80° had been registered, while at the end of March the thermometer was +17° Fahr., instead of -40°. When the weather was sufficiently established Hansen and Ristvedt started by sledge with 75 days’ provisions to make a rough survey, if possible, of part of the east side of Victoria Land. They took two sledges and 12 dogs with their food for 70 days, and started on April 2nd. On May 26th they reached their furthest point north on the western shore of M’Clintock Channel, and safely returned June 25th, having been successful in their object.

On August 13th, 1905, the Gjoa once more got under way on her westward journey. The observations, magnetic and other, had been kept continuously for 19 months, and the large number of Nechilli Eskimos who had been in their neighbourhood, or had come long distances to see them, had also given them abundant opportunity for ethnological notes on these people. Fortune still favoured the expedition, the sea proved sufficiently clear of ice, and though they had an anxious time navigating through the shoals and islands which lay between Nordenskiöld I. and the Royal Geographical Society’s group, they had cleared Dease Strait on the 19th of August, and Union Strait four days later. Off Baring Land on August 26th they met the first whaler from the Bering Strait side, and had, as they thought, practically accomplished their task.

They were still a long way from having done so, however, for a few days later they encountered heavy pack at King Point, off the mouth of the Mackenzie River, and here they were reluctantly compelled to pass a third winter. There were many Eskimos here, and at Herschel I., 35 miles away, five whalers were wintering. While at King Point the magnetic observer, Wijk, died of pneumonia. Early in August, 1906, the Gjoa resumed her voyage, passed through Bering Strait without further incident, and arrived at Nome August 31st, thus completing a voyage of extraordinary pluck and endurance, and it must be added, of scarcely less extraordinary good fortune.