CHAPTER XI.

A Whale killed.--Other Charts drawn by the Esquimaux.--Account of a Journey to the Narrows of the Strait.--Discovery of the Sea to the Westward.--Total Disruption of the Ice at the Eastern Entrance of the Strait.--Instance of local Attraction on the Compasses.--Sail through the Narrows, and again stopped by fixed Ice.--Account of several Land Journeys and Boat Excursions.--Observations on the Tides.--Continued Obstacles from fixed Ice.

_Aug._ 1.--The information obtained by Captain Lyon on his late journey with the Esquimaux served very strongly to confirm all that had before been understood from those people respecting the existence of the desired passage to the westward in this neighbourhood, though the impossibility of Captain Lyon's proceeding farther in that direction, combined with our imperfect knowledge of the language, still left us in some doubt as to the exact position of the strait in question. While, therefore, Captain Lyon was acquainting me with his late proceedings, we shaped a course for Igloolik, in order to continue our look-out upon the ice, and made the tents very accurately by the compass, after a run of five leagues.

The present state of the ice, which was thin and "rotten,", served no less to excite our surprise than to keep alive our hopes and expectations. The spaces occupied respectively by ice and holes were about equal; and so extensive and dangerous were the latter, that the men could with extreme difficulty walk twenty or thirty yards from the ship to place the anchors, and that at no small risk of falling through. We were astonished, therefore, to find with what tenacity a field of ice, whose parts appeared thus loosely joined, still continued to hang together, notwithstanding the action of the swell that almost constantly set upon its margin.

We had for several days past occasionally seen black whales about the ships, and our boats were kept in constant readiness to strike one, for the sake of the oil, in which endeavour they at length succeeded this morning. The usual signal being exhibited, all the boats were sent to their assistance, and in less than an hour and a half had killed and secured the fish, which proved a moderate-sized one of above "nine feet bone," exactly suiting our purpose. The operation of "flinching" this animal, which was thirty-nine feet and a half in length, occupied most of the afternoon, each ship taking half the blubber and hauling it on the ice, "to make off" or put into casks.

As soon as we had completed the stowage of the blubber, and washed the ships and people's clothes, we cast off on the 6th, taking in tow the carcass of the whale (technically called the "crang") for our friends at Igloolik. The wind dying away when the ships were off the northeast end of the island, the boats were despatched to tow the whale on shore, while Captain Lyon and myself went ahead to meet some of the canoes that were paddling towards us. We soon joined eleven of them, and on our informing the Esquimaux of the prize the boats were bringing them, they paddled off with great delight. When they arrived at the spot, and had civilly asked permission to eat some of it, they dropped their canoes astern to the whale's tail, from which they cut off enormous lumps of flesh and ravenously devoured it; after which they followed our boats in-shore, where the carcass was made fast to a mass of grounded ice for their future disposal.

As we made several tacks off the island next to the northward of Igloolik, called by the Esquimaux _Neerlo-Nackto_, two canoes came off to us, in one of which was Toolemak. He and his companions came on board the Fury, when I employed him for a couple of hours in drawing a chart of the strait. Toolemak, though a sensible and intelligent man, we soon found to be no draughtsman, so that his performance in this way, if taken alone, was not a very intelligible delineation of the coast. By dint, however, of a great deal of talking on his part, and some exercise of patience on ours, we at length obtained a copious verbal illustration of his sketch, which confirmed all our former accounts respecting the existence of a passage to the westward in this immediate neighbourhood, and the large extent of land on the northern side of the strait. Toolemak also agreed with our other Esquimaux informants in stating, that from the coast of Akkoolee no land is visible to the westward; nor was any ever heard of in that direction by the Esquimaux. This fact they uniformly assert with a whine of sorrow, meaning thereby to intimate that their knowledge and resources are there both at an end.

The disruption of the ice continued to proceed slowly till early on the morning of the 14th; the breeze having freshened from the northwest, another floe broke away from the fixed ice, allowing us to gain about half a mile more to the westward; such was the vexatious slowness with which we were permitted to advance towards the object of our most anxious wishes!

On the 14th I left the ship with Mr. Richards and four men, and furnished with provisions for ten days, intending, if possible, to reach the main land at a point where we could overlook the strait. In this we succeeded after a journey of four days, arriving on the morning of the 18th at the extreme northern point of a peninsula, overlooking the narrowest part of the desired strait, which lay immediately below us in about an east and west direction, being two miles in width, apparently very deep, and with a tide or current of at least two knots, setting the loose ice through to the eastward. Beyond us, to the west, the shores again separated to the distance of several leagues; and for more than three points of the compass, in that direction, no land could be seen to the utmost limits of a clear horizon, except one island six or seven miles distant. Over this we could not entertain a doubt of having discovered the Polar Sea; and, loaded as it was with ice, we already felt as if we were on the point of forcing our way through it along the northern shores of America.

After despatching one of our party to the foot of the point for some of the sea-water, which was found extremely salt to the taste, we hailed the interesting event of the morning by three hearty cheers and by a small extra allowance of grog to our people, to drink a safe and speedy passage through the channel just discovered, which I ventured to name, by anticipation, THE STRAIT OF THE FURY AND HECLA. Having built a pile of stones upon the promontory, which, from its situation with respect to the Continent of America, I called CAPE NORTHEAST, we walked back to our tent and baggage, these having, for the sake of greater expedition, been left two miles behind; and, after resting a few hours, set out at three P.M. on our return.

We reached the ships at ten o'clock P.M. on Tuesday the 20th. On almost all the shores both of the main land and islands that we visited, some traces of the Esquimaux were found; but they were less numerous than in any other places on which we had hitherto landed. This circumstance rather seemed to intimate, as we afterward found to be the case, that the shores of the strait and its immediate neighbourhood are not a frequent resort of the natives during the summer months.

We got under way on the 21st, were off Cape Northeast on the 26th, and I gave the name of CAPE OSSORY to the eastern point of the northern land of the Narrows; but on that day, after clearing two dangerous shoals, and again deepening our soundings, we had begun to indulge the most flattering hopes of now making such a rapid progress as would in some degree compensate for all our delays and disappointments, when, at once to crush every expectation of this sort, it was suddenly announced from the crow's nest that another barrier of _fixed_ ice stretched completely across the strait, a little beyond us, in one continuous and impenetrable field, still occupying its winter station. In less than an hour we had reached its margin, when, finding this report but too correct, and that, therefore, all farther progress was at present as impracticable as if no strait existed, we ran the ships under all sail for the floe, which proved so "rotten" and decayed that the ships forced themselves three or four hundred yards through it before they stopped. Keeping all our canvass spread, we then tried to break the thin edges about the numerous holes, by dropping weights over the bows, as well as by various other equally ineffectual expedients; but the ice was "tough" enough to resist every effort of this kind, though its watery state was such as to increase, if possible, our annoyance at being stopped by it. The passage to the northward of the island was not even so clear as this by above two miles of ice, so that in every respect our present route was to be preferred to the other; and thus, after a vexatious delay of six weeks at the eastern entrance of the strait, and at a time when we had every reason to hope that nature, though hitherto tardy in her annual disruption of the ice, had at length made an effort to complete it, did we find our progress once more opposed by a barrier of the same continuous, impenetrable, and hopeless nature as at first!

As soon as the anchors were dropped, my attention was once more turned to the main object of the expedition, from which it had for a moment been diverted by the necessity of exerting every effort for the immediate safety of the ships. This being now provided for, I had leisure to consider in what manner, hampered as the ships were by the present state of the ice, our means and exertions might, during this unavoidable detention, be employed to the greatest advantage, or, at least, with the best prospect of ultimate utility.

Whatever doubts might at a distance have been entertained respecting the identity, or the contrary, of the place visited by Captain Lyon with that subsequently discovered by myself, there could be none on a nearer view; as, independently of the observed latitude, Captain Lyon could not, on approaching the narrows, recognise a single feature of the land; our present channel being evidently a much wider and more extensive one than that pointed out by Toolemak, on the journey. It became, therefore, a matter of interest, now that this point was settled and our progress again stopped by an insuperable obstacle, to ascertain the extent and communication of the southern inlet; and, should it prove a second strait, to watch the breaking up of the ice about its eastern entrance, that no favourable opportunity might be missed of pushing through it to the westward. I therefore determined to despatch three separate parties, to satisfy all doubts in that quarter, as well as to gain every possible information as to the length of the strait, and the extent of the fixed ice now more immediately before us.

With this view, I requested Captain Lyon to take with him Mr. Griffiths and four men, and proceed overland in a S.b.E. direction, till he should determine, by the difference of latitude, which amounted only to sixteen miles, whether there was or was not a strait leading to the westward, about the parallel of 69° 26', being nearly that in which the place called by the Esquimaux _Kh=emig_ had been found by observation to lie. In the mean time, Lieutenant Palmer was directed to proceed in a boat to Igloolik, or Neerlo-Nackto, as might be necessary, to ascertain whether the passage leading towards Kh=emig was yet clear of ice; and, should he find any one of the Esquimaux willing to accompany him to the ships with his canoe, to bring him on board as a pilot. The third party consisted of Mr. Bushnan, with three men, under the command of Lieutenant Reid, who was instructed to proceed along the continental coast to the westward, to gain as much information as possible respecting the termination of our present strait, the time of his return to the ships being limited to four days, at the expiration of which the other two parties might also be expected to reach us.

On the morning of the 29th, the wind being light from the eastward, but the weather much more clear than before, we weighed and stood over to the mainland with the intention of putting our travellers on shore, but found that coast now so lined with the ice which had lately broken adrift that it was not possible for a boat to approach it. Standing off to the westward, to see what service the late disruption had done us, we found that a considerable floe had separated, exactly in a line between the island off which we lay and a second to the westward of it, subsequently named in honour of LORD AMHERST. Tacking at the newly-formed margin of the fixed ice, we observed, not only that it was still firmly attached to the shores, but that it was now almost entirely "hummocky," and heavier than any we had seen since making Igloolik; some of the hummocks, as we afterward found, measuring from eight to ten feet above the surface of the sea.

The different character now assumed by the ice, while it certainly damped our hopes of the passage being cleared this season by the gradual effects of dissolution, confirmed, however, in a very satisfactory manner, the belief of our being in a broad channel communicating with a western sea. As the conclusions we immediately drew from this circumstance may not be so obvious to others, I shall here briefly explain that, from the manner in which the hummocky floes are formed, it is next to impossible that any of these of considerable extent can ever be produced in a mere inlet having a narrow communication with the sea. There is, in fact, no ice to which the denomination of "sea-ice" may be more strictly and exclusively applied than this; and we therefore felt confident that the immense floes which now opposed our progress must have come from the sea on one side or the other; while the current, which we had observed to run in an easterly direction in the narrows, of this strait, precluded the possibility of such ice having found its way in from that quarter. The only remaining conclusion was, that it must have been set into the strait from the westward towards the close of a summer, and cemented in its present situation by the frost of the succeeding winter.

A great deal of snow having fallen in the last two days, scarcely a dark patch was now to be seen on any part of the land, so that the prospect at daylight on the 30th was as comfortless as can well be imagined for the parties who were just about to find their way among the rocks and precipices. Soon after four A.M., however, when we had ascertained that the drift-ice was no longer lying in their way, they were all despatched in their different directions. For each of the land-parties a depôt of several days' provision and fuel was, in case of accidents, established on the beach; and Lieutenant Palmer took in his boat a supply for nine days.

On the 31st the wind blew fresh and cold from the northwest, which caused a quantity of ice to separate from the fixed floe in small pieces during the day, and drift past the ships. Early in the morning, a she-bear and her two cubs were observed floating down on one of these masses, and, coming close to the Hecla, were all killed. The female proved remarkably small, two or three men being able to lift her into a boat.

At half past nine on the morning of the 1st of September, one of our parties was descried at the appointed rendezvous on shore, which, on our sending a boat to bring them on board, proved to be Captain Lyon and his people. From their early arrival we were in hopes that some decisive information had at length been obtained; and our disappointment may therefore be imagined, in finding that, owing to insuperable obstacles, on the road, he had not been able to advance above five or six miles to the southward, and that with excessive danger and fatigue, owing to the depth of the snow, and the numerous lakes and precipices.

At nine A.M. on the 2d, Lieutenant Reid and his party were descried at their landing-place, and a boat being sent for them, arrived on board at half past eleven. He reported that the ice seemed to extend from Amherst Island as far as they could see to the westward, presenting one unbroken surface from the north to the south shore of the strait.

Notwithstanding every exertion on the part of our travellers, their labours had not thrown much light on the geography of this part of the coast, nor added any information that could be of practical use in directing the operations of the ships. The important question respecting a second passage leading to the westward still remained as much a matter of mere conjecture as at first; while the advanced period of the season, and the unpromising appearance of the ice now opposing our progress, rendered it more essential than ever that this point should, if possible, be decided. Under this impression it occurred to me, that the desired object might possibly be accomplished by pursuing the route along the head or western shore of Richards's Bay, part of which I had already traversed on my former journey, and found it much less laborious walking than that experienced by Captain Lyon on the higher and more rugged mountains inland. I determined, therefore, to make this attempt, taking with me Mr. Richards and most of my former companions.

This night proved the coldest we had experienced during the present season, and the thermometer stood at 24° when I left the ships at four A.M. on the 3d, having previously directed Captain Lyon to remain as near their present station as might be consistent with safety, and carefully watch for any alteration that might occur in the western ice.

Being favoured by a strong northwesterly breeze, we reached the narrows at half past six A.M., and immediately encountered a race or ripple, so heavy and dangerous that it was only by carrying a press of canvass on the boat that we succeeded in keeping the seas from constantly breaking into her. This rippling appeared to be occasioned by the sudden obstruction which the current meets at the western mouth of the narrows, aided, in the present instance, by the strong breeze that blew directly upon the corner forming the entrance on the south side.

Having landed at Cape Northeast, I made sail for the isthmus at ten A.M., where we arrived after an hour's run; and hauling the boat up on the rocks, and depositing the greater part of our stores near her, set off at one P.M. along the shore of Richards's Bay, being equipped with only three days' provision, and as small a weight of clothing as possible. The coast, though not bad for travelling, led us so much more to the westward than I expected, in consequence of its numerous indentations, that, after above five hours' hard walking, we had only made good a W.S.W. course, direct distance six miles. We obtained on every eminence a distinct view of the ice the whole way down to Neerlo-nakto, in which space not a drop of clear water was discernible; the whole of Richards's Bay was filled with ice as before.

We moved at six P.M. on the 4th, and soon came to a number of lakes from half a mile to two miles in length occurring in chains of three or four together, round which we had to walk, at the expense of much time and labour. At half past six, on gaining a sight of the sea from the top of a hill, we immediately recognised to the eastward the numerous islands of red granite described by Captain Lyon; and now perceived, what had before been surmised, that the south shore of Richards's Bay formed the northern coast of the inlet, up which his journey with the Esquimaux had been pursued. Our latitude, by account from noon, being now 69° 28', we felt confident that a short walk directly to the south must bring us to any strait communicating with that inlet, and we therefore pushed on in confident expectation of being near our journey's end. At seven P.M., leaving the men to pitch the tent in a sheltered valley, Mr. Richards and myself ascended the hill that rose beyond it, and, on reaching its summit, found ourselves overlooking a long and narrow arm of the sea communicating with the inlet before seen to the eastward, and appearing to extend several miles nearly in an east and west direction, or parallel to the table-land before described, from which it is distant three or four miles. That the creek we now overlooked was a part of the same arm of the sea which Captain Lyon had visited, the latitude, the bearings of Igloolik, which was now plainly visible, and the number and appearance of the Coxe Islands, which were too remarkable to be mistaken, all concurred in assuring us; and it only, therefore, remained for us to determine whether it would furnish a passage for the ships. Having made all the remarks which the lateness of the evening would permit, we descended to the tent at dusk, being directed by a cheerful, blazing fire of the _andromeda tetragona_, which, in its present dry state, served as excellent fuel for warming our provisions.

Setting forward at five A.M. on the 5th, along some pleasant valleys covered with grass and other vegetation, and the resort of numerous reindeer, we walked six or seven miles in a direction parallel to that of the creek; when, finding the latter considerably narrowed, and the numerous low points of its south shore rendering the water too shoal, to all appearance, even for the navigation of a sloop of ten tons, I determined to waste no more time in the farther examination of so insignificant a place. The farther we went to the westward, the higher the hills became; and the commanding prospect thus afforded enabled us distinctly to perceive with a glass that, though the ice had become entirely dissolved in the creek, and for half a mile below it, the whole sea to the eastward, even as far as Igloolik, was covered with one continuous and unbroken floe.

Having now completely satisfied myself, that, as respected both ice and land, there was no navigable passage for ships about this latitude, no time was lost in setting out on our return.

At half past eight we arrived on board, where I was happy to find that all our parties had returned without accident, except that Lieutenant Palmer had been wounded in his hand and temporarily blinded by a gun accidentally going off, from which, however, he fortunately suffered no eventual injury.

The result of our late endeavours, necessarily cramped as they had been, was to confirm, in the most satisfactory manner, the conviction that we were now in the only passage leading to the westward that existed in this neighbourhood. Notwithstanding, therefore, the present unpromising appearance of the ice, I had no alternative left me but patiently to await its disruption, and instantly to avail myself of any alteration that nature might yet effect in our favour.