ATTEMPT TO REACH BEECHY ISLAND.

All the sledge-parties were now once more aboard ship, and the season of Arctic travel had ended. For more than two months we had been imprisoned in ice, and throughout all that period, except during the enforced holiday of the midwinter darkness, or while repairing from actual disaster, had been constantly in the field. The summer was wearing on, but still the ice did not break up as it should. As far as we could see, it remained inflexibly solid between us and the North Water of Baffin’s Bay. The questions and speculations of those around me began to show that they too had anxious thoughts for the coming year. There was reason for all our apprehensions, as some of my notes may show.

“July 8.—Penny saw water to the southward in Barrow’s Straits as early as June; and by the first of July the leads were within a mile of his harbour in Wellington Channel. Dr Sutherland says he could have cut his way out by the 15th. Austin was not liberated till the 10th of August; but the water had worked up to within three miles and a half of him as early as the 1st, having advanced twenty miles in the preceding month. If, now, we might assume that the ice between us and the nearest water would give way as rapidly as it did in these two cases,—an assumption, by the way, which the difference of the localities is all against, the mouth of our harbour should be reached in fifty days, or by the last day of August; and after that, several days, or perhaps weeks, must go by before the inside ice yields around our brig.

“I know by experience how soon the ice breaks up after it once begins to go, and I hardly think that it can continue advancing so slowly much longer. Indeed, I look for it to open, if it opens at all, about the beginning of September at furthest, somewhere near the date of Sir James Ross’s liberation at Leopold. But then I have to remember that I am much further to the north than my predecessors, and that by the 28th of last August I had already, after twenty days of unremitting labour, forced the brig nearly forty miles through the pack, and that the pack began to close on us only six days later, and that on the 7th of September we were fairly frozen in. Yet last summer was a most favourable one for ice-melting. Putting all this together, it looks as if the winter must catch us before we can get half-way through the pack, even though we should begin warping to the south at the earliest moment that we can hope for water.

“It is not a pleasant conclusion of the argument; for there never was, and I trust never will be, a party worse armed for the encounter of a second Arctic winter. We have neither health, fuel, nor provisions. Dr Hayes, and indeed all I have consulted about it indirectly, despond at the thought; and when I look round upon our diseased and disabled men, and think of the fearful work of the last long night, I am tempted to feel as they do.

“The alternative of abandoning the vessel at this early stage of our absence, even were it possible, would, I feel, be dishonouring; but, revolving the question as one of practicability alone, I would not undertake it. In the first place, how are we to get along with our sick and newly-amputated men? It is a dreary distance at the best to Upernavik or Beechy Island, our only seats of refuge, and a precarious traverse if we were all of us fit for moving, but we are hardly one-half in efficiency of what we count in number. Besides, how can I desert the brig while there is still a chance of saving her? There is no use of noting pros and cons: my mind is made up; I will not do it.

“But I must examine this ice-field for myself. I have been maturing through the last fortnight a scheme of relief, based upon a communication with the English squadron to the south, and to-morrow I set out to reconnoitre. Hans will go with me. We will fit out our poor travel-worn dogs with canvas shoes, and cross the floes to the true water edge, or at least be satisfied that it is impossible. ‘He sees best who uses his own eyes.’

“July 11.—We got back last night: a sixty miles’ journey,—comfortless enough, with only three hours’ sleep on the ice. For thirty-five miles south, the straits are absolutely tight. Off Refuge Inlet and Esquimaux Point we found driving leads; but between these points and the brig not a crack. I pushed the dogs over the drift-ice, and, after a fair number of mischances, found the North Water. It was flowing and free; but since M’Gary saw it last May it has not advanced more than four miles. It would be absurd at this season of the year to attempt escaping in open boats with this ice between us and water. All that can be done is to reinforce our energies as we may, and look the worst in the face.

“In view of these contingencies, I have determined to attempt in person to communicate with Beechy Island, or at least make the effort. If I can reach Sir Edward Belcher’s squadron, I am sure of all I want. I will take a light whale-boat, and pick my companions for a journey to the south and west. I may find perhaps the stores of the North Star at the Wostenholme Islands, or by great good luck come across some passing vessel of the squadron, and make known our whereabouts and wants; or, failing these, we will try and coast it along to Wellington Channel.

“A depÔt of provisions, and a sea-worthy craft large enough to carry us—if I had these, everything would be right. Even Sir John Ross’s launch, the Little Mary, that he left at Union Bay, would serve our purpose. If I had her I could make a southern passage after the fall-tides. The great enemy of that season is the young shore-ice, that would cut through our frail boats like a saw. Or, if we can only renew our stock of provisions for the winter, we may await the chances of next year.

“As a prelude to this solemn undertaking, I met my officers in the evening, and showed them my ice-charts; explaining, what I found needed little explanation, the prospect immediately before us. I then discussed the probable changes, and, giving them my personal opinion that the brig might after all be liberated at a later date, I announced my project. I will not say how gratified I was with the manner in which they received it. It struck me that there was a sense of personal relief experienced everywhere. I told them that I did not choose to call a council or connect any of them with the responsibilities of the measure, for it involved only the personal safety of those who chose to share the risk. Full instructions were then left for their guidance during my absence.

“It was the pleasantest interview I ever had with my associates. I believe every man on board would have volunteered, but I confined myself to five active men: James M’Gary, William Morton, George Riley, Hans Christian, and Thomas Hickey, made up my party.”

Our equipment had been getting ready for some time, though without its object being understood or announced. The boat was our old Forlorn Hope, mended up and revised for her new destinies.

Morton, who was in my confidence from the first, had all our stores ready. We had no game, and no meat but pork, of which we took some hundred and fifty pounds. I wanted pemmican, and sent the men out in search of the cases which were left on the floe by the frozen depÔt-party during the rescue of last March; but they could not find a trace of them, or indeed of anything else we abandoned at that time—a proof, if we wanted one, how blurred all our faculties must have been by suffering, for we marked them, as we thought, with marvellous care.

We lifted our boat over the side in the afternoon, and floated her to the crack at the Observatory Island; mounted her there on our large sledge The Faith, by an arrangement of cradles of Mr Ohlsen’s devising; stowed in everything but the provisions, and carried her on to the bluff of Sylvia Headland; and the next morning a party, consisting of all but the sick, was detailed to transport her to open water; while M’Gary, Hans, and myself, followed with our St John’s sledge, carrying our stores.

In four days more we had carried the boat across twenty miles of heavy ice-floe, and launched her in open water.

The straits were much clogged with drift, but I followed the coast southward without difficulty. We travelled at night, resting when the sun was hottest. I had every reason to be pleased with the performance of the whale-boat, and the men kept up their spirits well. We landed at the point where we left our life-boat a year ago, and to our great joy found it untouched: the cove and inlet were still fast in ice.

We now neared Littleton Island, where a piece of good fortune awaited us. We saw a number of ducks, both eiders and heraldas; and it occurred to me that by tracking their flight we should reach their breeding-grounds. There was no trouble in doing so, for they flew in a straight line to a group of rocky islets, above which the whole horizon was studded with birds. A rugged little ledge, which I named Eider Island, was so thickly colonised that we could hardly walk without treading on a nest. We killed with guns and stones over two hundred birds in a few hours.

We camped at this nursery of wild fowl, and laid in four large India-rubber bags full, cleaned and rudely boned. Our boat was hauled up and refitted; and, the trial having shown us that she was too heavily laden for safety, I made a general reduction of our stores, and cached the surplus under the rocks.

On the 19th we left Flagstaff Point, where we fixed our beacon last year; and stood west 10° south under full canvas. My aim was to take the channel obliquely at Littleton Island; and, making the drift-ice or the land to the south-west in the neighbourhood of Cape Combermere, push on for Kent Island and leave a cairn there.

Toward night the wind freshened from the northward, and we passed beyond the protection of the straits into the open sea-way. My journal gives no picture of the life we now entered on. The oldest sailor who treads the deck of his ship with the familiar confidence of a man at home, has a distrust of open-boat navigation which a landsman hardly shares. The feeling grew upon us as we lost the land. M’Gary was an old Behring’s Straits whaler, and there is no better boatman in the world than he; but I know that he shared my doubts, as the boat buried herself again and again in the trough of a short chopping sea, which it taxed all his dexterity in steering to meet.

Baffin passed around this gulf in 1616 with two small vessels; but they were giants beside ours. I thought of them as we crossed his track steering for Cape Combermere, then about sixty miles distant, with every prospect of a heavy gale.

We were in the centre of this large area of open water when the gale broke upon us from the north. We were near foundering. Our false bow of India-rubber cloth was beaten in, and our frail weather-boarding soon followed it. With the utmost exertion we could hardly keep our boat from broaching to: a broken oar or an accidental twitch would have been fatal to us at any time. But M’Gary handled that whaler’s marvel, the long steering-oar, with admirable skill. None of us could pretend to take his place. For twenty-two unbroken hours he stuck to his post without relaxing his attention or his efforts.

I was not prepared for such a storm. I do not think I have seen a worse sea raised by the northern wind of the Gulf of Mexico. At last the wind hauled to the eastward, and we were glad to drive before it for the in-shore floes. We had passed several bergs; but the sea dashed against their sides so furiously as to negative all hope of protection at their base; the pack or floe, so much feared before, was now looked to for a refuge.

I remember well our anxiety as we entered the loose streams of drift after four hours’ scudding, and our relief when we felt their influence upon the sea. We fastened to an old floe, not fifty yards in diameter, and, with the weather-surf breaking over our heads, rode out the storm under a warp and grapnel.

The obstacle we had now to encounter was the pack that Stretched between us and the south.

When the storm abated we commenced boring into it,—slow work at the best of times; but my companions encountered it with a persevering activity quite as admirable as their fortitude in danger. It had its own hazards too; and more than once it looked as if we were permanently beset. I myself knew that we might rely on the southerly wind to liberate us from such an imprisonment; but I saw that the men thought otherwise, as the ice-fields closed around us and the horizon showed an unchanging circle of ice.

A slackening of the ice to the east enabled us after a while to lay our course for Hakluyt Island. We spread our canvas again, and reached the in-shore fields by one in the afternoon. We made our camp, dried our buffalo-skins, and sunned and slept away our fatigue.

We renewed our labours in the morning. Keeping inside the pack, we coasted along for the Cary Islands, encountering now and then a projecting floe, and either boring or passing around it, but making a satisfactory progress on the whole toward Lancaster Sound.

For the next three days we worked painfully through the half-open leads, making in all some fifteen miles to the south. We had very seldom room enough to row; but, as we tracked along, it was not difficult to escape nippings, by hauling up the boat on the ice. Still she received some hard knocks, and a twist or two that did not help her sea-worthiness, for she began to leak; and this, with the rain which fell heavily, forced us to bale her out every other hour. Of course we could not sleep, and one of our little party fell sick with the unmitigated fatigue.

On the 29th it came on to blow, the wind still keeping from the south-west, but cold and almost rising to a gale. We had had another wet and sleepless night, for the floes still baffled us by their capricious movements. But at three in the afternoon we had the sun again, and the ice opened just enough to tempt us. It was uncomfortable toil. We pushed forward our little weather-worn craft, her gunwales touching on both sides, till the toppling ice began to break down on us, and sometimes, critically suspended, met above our heads.

One of these passages I am sure we all of us remember. We were in an alley of pounded ice-masses, such as the receding floes leave when they have crushed the tables that were between them, and had pushed our way far enough to make retreat impossible, when the fields began to close in. There was no escaping a nip, for everything was loose and rolling around us, and the floes broke into hummock-ridges as they came together. They met just ahead of us, and gradually swayed in toward our boat. The fragments were already splitting off and spinning over us, when we found ourselves borne up by the accumulating rubbish, like the Advance in her winter drift; and, after resting for twenty minutes high out of water, quietly lowered again as the fields relaxed their pressure.

Generally, however, the ice-fields came together directly, and so gradually as to enable us to anticipate their contact. In such cases, as we were short-handed and our boat heavily laden, we were glad to avail ourselves of the motion of the floes to assist in lifting her upon them. We threw her across the lead by a small pull of the steering-oar, and let her meet the approaching ice upon her bow. The effect, as we found in every instance, was to press her down forward as the floe advanced against her, and to raise her stern above the level of the other field. We held ourselves ready for the spring as she began to rise.

It was a time of almost unbroken excitement; yet I am not surprised, as I turn over the notes of my meagre diary, to find how little of stirring incident it records. The story of one day’s strife with the ice-floes might also serve for those which followed it. I remember that we were four times nipped before we succeeded in releasing ourselves, and that we were glad to haul upon the floes as often as a dozen times a day. We attempted to drag forward on the occasional fields; but we had to give it up, for it strained the boat so much that she was barely sea-worthy; it kept one man busy the last six days bailing her out.

On the 31st, at the distance of ten miles from Cape Parry, we came to a dead halt. A solid mass lay directly across our path, extending onward to our furthest horizon. There were bergs in sight to the westward, and by walking for some four miles over the moving floe in that direction, M’Gary and myself succeeded in reaching one. We climbed it to the height of a hundred and twenty feet, and, looking out from it with my excellent spy-glass to the south and west, we saw that all within a radius of thirty miles was a motionless, unbroken, and impenetrable sea.

I had not counted on this. I had met no ice here only seven days later in 1853. Yet it was plain, that from Cape Combermere on the west side, and an unnamed bay immediately to the north of it, across to Hakluyt Island, there extended a continuous barrier of ice. We had scarcely penetrated beyond its margin.

We had, in fact, reached the dividing pack of the two great open waters of Baffin’s Bay. The experience of the whalers and of the expedition-ships that have traversed this region have made all of us familiar with that great expanse of open sea, to the north of Cape Dudley Digges, which has received the name of the North Water. Combining the observations of Baffin, Ross, and Inglefield, we know that this sometimes extends as far north as Littleton Island, embracing an area of 90,000 square miles. The voyagers I have named could not, of course, be aware of the interesting fact that this water is divided, at least occasionally, into two distinct bodies; the one comprehended between Lancaster and Jones’s Sounds, the other extending from the point we had now reached to the upper pack of Smith’s Straits. But it was evident to all of our party that the barrier which now arrested us was made up of the ices which Jones’s Sound on the west and Murchison’s on the east had discharged and driven together.

It was obvious that a further attempt to penetrate to the south must be hopeless till the ice-barrier before us should undergo a change. I had observed, when passing Northumberland Island, that some of its glacier-slopes were margined with verdure, an almost unfailing indication of animal life; and, as my men were much wasted with diarrhoea, and our supplies of food had become scanty, I resolved to work my way to the island, and recruit there for another effort.

Tracking and sometimes rowing through a heavy rain, we traversed the leads for two days, working eastward; and on the morning of the third gained the open water near the shore. Here a breeze came to our aid, and in a couple of hours more we passed with now unwonted facility to the southern face of the island. We met several flocks of little auks as we approached it, and found on landing that it was one enormous homestead of the auks, dovekies, and gulls.

We encamped on the 31st, on a low beach at the foot of a moraine that came down between precipitous cliffs of surpassing wildness. It had evidently been selected by the Esquimaux for a winter settlement: five well-built huts of stone attested this. Three of them were still tolerably perfect, and bore marks of recent habitation. The droppings of the birds had fertilised the soil, and it abounded in grasses and sorrel to the water’s edge. The foxes were about in great numbers, attracted, of course, by the abundance of birds. They were all of them of the lead-coloured variety, without a white one among them. The young ones, as yet lean and seemingly unskilled in hospitable courtesies, barked at us as we walked about.