The Far North: Exploration in the Arctic Regions

We had our boats to prepare now for a long and adventurous navigation. They were so small and heavily laden as hardly to justify much confidence in their buoyancy; but, besides...

My diary continues:--"We passed the 'Crimson Cliffs' of Sir John Ross in the forenoon of August 5th. The patches of red snow, from which they derive their name, could be seen cl...

I found that Mr Brooks had succeeded in getting his boat and sledges as far as the floe off Bedevilled Reach. I stopped only long enough to point out to him an outside track, wh...

"Not a man now, except Pierre and Morton, is exempt from scurvy; and, as I look around upon the pale faces and haggard looks of my comrades, I feel that we are fighting the batt...

It was with mingled feelings that we neared the brig. Our little party had grown fat and strong upon the auks and eiders and scurvy-grass; and surmises were rife among us as to...

We continued toiling on with our complicated preparations till the evening of the 24th, when Hans came back well laden with walrus meat. Three of the Esquimaux accompanied him,...

"_June 27._--M'Gary and Bonsall are back with Hickey and Riley. They arrived last evening: all well, except that the snow has affected their eyesight badly, owing to the scorbut...

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...

I find that my journal is exceedingly meagre for the period of our anxious preparations to meet the winter, and that I have omitted to mention the course of circumstances which...

"_October 26._--The thermometer at 34° below zero, but fortunately no wind blowing. We go on with the outdoor work. We burn but seventy pounds of fuel a day, most of it in the g...

"Except upon the island of Spitzbergen, which has the advantages of an insular climate and tempered by ocean currents, no Christians have wintered in so high a latitude as this....

The month of April was about to close, and the short season available for Arctic search was upon us. The condition of things on board the brig was not such as I could have wishe...

Our last farewell to the brig was made with more solemnity. The entire ship's company was collected in our dismantled winter-chamber to take part in the ceremonial. It was Sunda...

In the first portions of our journey, we found a narrow but obstructed passage between the ice-belt and the outside pack. It was but a few yards in width, and the young ice upon...

The week that followed has left me nothing to remember but anxieties and sorrow. Nearly all our party, as well the rescuers as the rescued, were tossing in their sick-bunks, som...

In the month of December 1852, I had the honour of receiving special orders from the Secretary of the Navy of the United States, to "conduct an expedition to the Arctic Seas in...

The island on which we placed our observatory was some fifty paces long by perhaps forty broad, and about thirty feet above the water-line. Here we mounted our transit and theod...

"_Map 30, 1854._--It is a year ago to-day since we left New York. I am not as sanguine as I was then: time and experience have chastened me. There is everything about me to chec...

There were four of them, but two of them are in ruins. They were all of them the homes of families only four winters ago. Of the two which are still habitable, Myouk, his father...

We received all manner of kindness from the Danes of Upernavik. They gave us many details of the expeditions in search of Sir John Franklin, and added the painful news that my g...

Things grew worse and worse with us: the old difficulty of breathing came back again, and our feet swelled to such an extent that we were obliged to cut open our canvas boots. B...