WESTERN EXPLORATION, 1840-1867 TH I THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE SIR JOHN FRANKLIN'S LAST VOYAGE HE course of north-western exploration after 1840 lies largely in the vast region north of 60°, and from Hudson Bay to Alaska. Between 1840 and 1867 the few gaps left in the exploration of the northern coast of the continent were filled; much additional information obtained as to the character and extent of the great Arctic islands, and new discoveries made in the interior of the mainland, particularly in what now forms the Yukon district. With these may be considered several important surveys of the country west of Lake Superior, expeditions into the Rocky Mountains, and transcontinental journeys. Starting in the extreme north, interest centres naturally in that most tragic incident in the whole history of Arctic exploration, the fate of Sir John Franklin and his crew. Not content with the notable results of his two land expeditions to the northern coast of America, Franklin, after several years' quiet service as governor of Tasmania, accepted the command of another expedition, by sea, to search for the North-West Passage. He sailed in the Erebus with her consort the Terror, in May 1845, provisioned for three years. Towards the end of July the ships were seen in Baffin Bay by a whaling captain named Dannett. The remainder of the voyage and its terrible conclusion are known only by means of scraps of evidence picked up here and there in the Arctic years afterwards, by one or other of the Franklin search parties. Franklin, his men and his ships were never again seen except by a few Eskimos. 295 The Erebus and Terror apparently sailed through Lancaster Sound and up Wellington Channel to 77° N. Returning to Beechey Island, Franklin wintered there. The following summer he sailed down between Prince of Wales Island and North Somerset, through Franklin Strait, and to Victoria Strait between Victoria Land and King William Land, where his ships were frozen in. Here he wintered, 1846-47, and on June 11, 1847, he died on board the Erebus. The command of the expedition devolved upon Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier, and when the summer of 1847 passed without any sign of the ice breaking up, it was decided to abandon the ships and attempt to reach one of the trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company. Provisions were running low, some of the officers and men had already succumbed to disease, and others were suffering. Taking with them all the provisions they could carry on sleds, Crozier and his men set out for the mouth of Backs River. Landing at Point Victory, King William Land, the following record was deposited in a cairn, and found there by Lieutenant William Robert Hobson in 1859: April 25th, 1848.-H.M. Ships Terror and Erebus were deserted on the 22nd of April, 5 leagues N.N.W. of this, having been beset since 12th September 1846. The officers and crews, consisting of 105 souls, under the command of Capt. F. R. M. Crozier, landed in latitude 69° 37′ 42′′ N., longitude 98° 41′ w. This paper1 was found by Lt. Irving, under the cairn supposed to have been built by Sir James Ross in 1831, 4 miles to the northward, where it had been deposited by the late Commander Gore, in June 1847. Sir James Ross' pillar has not, however, been found; and the paper has been transferred to this position, which is that in which Sir James Ross' pillar was erected. Sir John Franklin died on the 11th June 1847, and the total loss by death in the Expedition has been to this date 9 officers and 15 men. F. R. M. CROZIER, Captain and Senior Officer. JAMES FITZJAMES, Captain H.M.S. Erebus. And start on to-morrow, 26th, for Back's Fish River. 1 Crozier's record was written on the margin of another deposited in Ross's cairn by Lieutenant Graham Gore, in June 1847. From Point Victory the retreat becomes a terrible record of suffering from disease and starvation. With such a large party, the scanty supply of provisions was soon exhausted, and that barren wilderness offered nothing to replenish it. Day after day they struggled forward, crawling around the west and south coasts of King William Land, their numbers diminishing daily. Some reached Point Ogle, and others Montreal Island, but none survived the desperate journey. Years afterwards, when the search parties made their way to Point Victory, they had no difficulty in tracing the path of the doomed men by graves and skeletons found everywhere along the route they had followed. As an old Eskimo woman said to Captain Francis Leopold McClintock, 'They fell down and died as they walked.' And the irony of it all was that they were within less than one hundred miles of proving the North-West Passage. Had the ice conditions been more favourable, the expedition would have completed the gap between the known waters east and west, and perhaps sailed successfully west along the coast to Bering Strait. But that was not to be. FRANKLIN SEARCH EXPEDITIONS Franklin had been provisioned to July 1848. When that year arrived with no sign of the missing explorer or his men, three search expeditions were sent out, one to follow his own supposed course through Lancaster Sound, the second to proceed through Bering Strait from the Pacific side, and the third to travel overland to the mouth of the Mackenzie River, and thence along the coast eastward. Sir James Clark Ross was appointed to the command of the first expedition, Captain T. E. L. Moore and Captain Henry Kellett to the second, and Sir John Richardson to the third. Incidentally, all three expeditions were to carry out such explorations of the Arctic coasts as might prove feasible. Sailing from England with the Investigator and Enterprise, Ross crossed Baffin Bay, traversed Lancaster Sound, and went into winter quarters at Port Leopold, on North Somerset. In the spring of 1849 he, with Lieutenant McClintock, |