Chapter XXVI: Section VII: Remarkable Enterprise.--The nearest Approach to the North

Pole._

The adventurous attempt to reach the _North Pole_, like that of the "North-west Passage," may be considered as an enterprise peculiarly British. Of six voyages expressly undertaken for this object, up to the time, and inclusive of, Captain Buchan's, in 1818, there was no advance beyond the 81st parallel. The highest latitude reached was by Captain Phipps, in 1773, who advanced to 80° 48'. Captain Buchan's farthest was about 80° 34'. And up to the present day we have no account which can be fully relied upon of any ship, discovery ship or whaler, having approached within forty geographical miles of the high northern latitude reached by my Father in the year 1806.

The Honourable Daines Barrington, indeed, in his discussion of the question of the "Probability of Reaching the North Pole," adduces a great variety of instances of the advance of whalers to far higher positions of northern latitude; but for the reasons stated in the "Account of the Arctic Regions," (vol. i. p. 42,) I consider the authorities from which Mr. Barrington derived his information as not satisfactory. As to the defectiveness in authority of _mere recollections_, or even of the notes of ordinary observers, in respect of adventures of this kind, I have a curious example in the "Account of a Voyage to Spitzbergen," by a Greenland Surgeon, who sailed in the Resolution professionally, on the very voyage on which my Father made his greatest advance northward. The author, in respect to this advance, thus states from his journal:--"May 28. Latitude by observation 81° 50'. Sea almost clear of ice, with a great swell; weather serene. Had our object been the making of discoveries, there was not _apparently_ anything to have prevented us from going a good way farther to the north; at least we did not perceive any large fields of ice in that direction."

Now this is mainly erroneous. Instead of 81° 50', the highest latitude _observed_ was only 81° 12' 42", and the statements as to the nature and position of the ice, are equally diverse from what those circumstances actually were.

* * * * *

My Father's notable enterprise in the attainment, probably, of the highest latitude that had ever been reached by man was made in the ship Resolution, in the voyage of 1806. Occupying, young as I was, the responsible office of chief-mate in the ship, I have the records of the adventure preserved in my journal in all their essential or important details.

The entrance into the ordinary fishing-stations on the western side of Spitzbergen was, on this occasion, occupied by ice of extraordinary breadth and compactness. We entered it on the 28th of April, in the latitude of 76° N., and, pressing northward at every available opening, we reached the latitude of 77° on the 7th of May. Several ships were then in sight. On the 10th, a gale setting in from the S.E., we were enabled to make considerable progress through the encumbering ice, and soon left all our associate whalers fairly out of sight; and from that time until the 19th of June (after we had retraced much of our progress southward) we never saw a sail.

Up to the 13th of May, indeed, there was nothing unusual, as to the practice of my Father, in the nature of the adventure. But on that day, being in latitude about 78° 46', within sight of Charles Island, on the western coast of Spitzbergen, he entered upon a new and apparently dangerous enterprise,--the attempt to find, whilst the sea was apparently _filled_ with ice, in this high latitude, a navigable sea still nearer the Pole.

The ice around was singularly compact, and, to ordinary apprehension, impenetrable. Northward of us it consisted, as far as our view extended, of scattered masses of heavy drift-ice, closely cemented into a compact body by recently formed _bay-ice_. To attempt a passage herein, if such were possible, must, in any case, be a most difficult and laborious undertaking; but if the compact body were entered, and not successfully penetrated and passed beyond, it might involve a risk, which a considerable fleet actually fell into, of the loss of the fishing season by a helpless besetment. There were indications, however, which my Father's experienced eye alone discerned,--of open water to the northward. The bright reflection of the snow-covered ices in the sky, constituting the phenomenon of the "ice blink," most certainly pointed out the continuous encumbering of the navigation for a considerable way in advance; but, when elevated to the very top of the mast, he could perceive a bluish grey streak _below_ the ice-blink, parallel to and skirting the horizon, which he deemed a sure indication of "clear water," _beyond_ the proximate "pack." Yet this grey reflection, or "water-sky," might not be of any great extent? It might arise from a transient vein of water capable of being obliterated on the first change of wind? Were such the nature of the opening, it might prove, even if reached, the more dangerous trap, as its position was more advanced northward?

These considerations, of very serious import, were settled, happily, by another sign which the watchful navigator got sight of. He discerned, for short intervals, occasionally, a very slight motion, as he conceived, of the water in contact with some of the large lumps of ice near the ship. His careful scrutiny of the masses, under an anxiously watchful eye, at length assured him that there _was_ a movement. Experience then certified that the movement could only arise from a _swell_, and that the swell must proceed either from the main ocean, southward, or else from some immense interglacial lake, or what is technically called "a sea of water," northward. That it _did not_ come from the southern ocean, the distance to which he had penetrated, and the unmixed brightness of the ice-blink in each of the southern quarters, convinced him; and that it _did_ come from the northward he was able to satisfy himself, by carefully observing the points or places on the masses of ice where the alteration of level in the water was the greatest; for this scrutiny sufficed to show, that the axial position of the ice, which the motion pointed out, was in strict parallelism with a wave coming directly from the place of the "water-sky" to the northward.

Encouraged by these indications, he determined on leaving a position recently attained, where the ship had some little room, and pushing, at all risks, into the formidable body of consolidated ices still beyond him. This arduous and adventurous purpose was commenced on the 13th of May, with a moderate breeze (favourable to our advance) from the south-west. Little progress was, indeed, then made; but laborious perseverance, rendered effective by a consummate application of all the means and resources available for our furtherance, ultimately yielded the desired, and I might add, deserved success. During five successive days, a series of labours were carried on of the most energetic and persevering description. The transit through the intervening ice,--which consisted, as we have intimated, of extensive sheets of bay-ice, with heavy lumps and masses consolidated therein,--was urged by all the variety of aids that were known to be applicable. These aids, beyond the available force of occasional favourable winds, consisted in the cutting of tracks or channels with ice-saws, where the thickness was too great to be broken, or, where thinner, in breaking the ice under the bows by boats suspended beneath the bowsprit, whilst their crews rolled them violently, from side to side, as in "sallying;" in making canals, by well-laden boats being run across extensive planes of ice, where their weight, with that of their crews, might be sufficient to break the resisting surface; in "warping" through encumbered channels, or amid lumps of more ponderous ices; in "towing" with boats, or "tracking" by men on the ice, during calms, along any clear channels of water which might have been opened out a-head; and, finally, by _sallying the ship_, in aid of any of these resources, for widening the space in which she floated, so as to leave her free to move, where room might exist in advance. And here, I think it due to my Father to notice, in regard to the sallying of the ship,--an oscillating or rolling motion accomplished by the running of the crew, simultaneously, from side to side across the deck,--that the application of this most important auxiliary process was original with him, and, as far as I can remember, _now_ for the first time employed. It is a process, I may add, which has subsequently been adopted by fishermen and discoverers in general, as a mean which may often be made effective when, _under all other means_ for the promotion of progress, the wedged-up or ice-bound ship has become utterly immoveable.

The manner in which these various operations were carried on was laborious in an extreme degree. Whilst the crew were allowed but limited and distant periods for rest, my Father's exertions were such as, except under the pressure of circumstances involving the alternative of life or death, I think I never saw equalled. Not only was he always at his post directing, instructing, stimulating his men when progress was being made or attempted, but often looking out when the hands in general slept, or continuing his superintending toils, watch after watch, when portions of the crew had, alternately, their intervals of rest. In that severe service, indeed, few men could have so persevered. An extraordinary vigour and strength of constitution enabled him to accomplish, in labours of this kind, for which he had so high capabilities, what most men would have broken down in attempting.

His exertions and talents, as we have indeed anticipated, had their due recompense in the most successful results of the enterprise. After passing an icy barrier of extraordinary tenaceousness and compactness, as well as of formidable extent, we reached a region, in the 80th parallel, of incomparably greater openness than we could have anticipated,--"a sea of water,"--to which we could see no bounds, but the ice we had passed through on the south side, and the land to the eastward.

Under a brisk gale of wind and with fine clear weather, we were enabled rapidly to explore through a considerable portion of its extent, the immense interglacial sea upon which we had entered. It was found to stretch east and west, or E.N.E. and W.S.W. more nearly, to an extraordinary extent, and to be bounded to the northward as well as to the southward by packed ice of undeterminable extent,--the two bodies of ice being ten to twenty leagues apart. And within this vast opening, though not till after the northern and southern ices had closed together and joined to the westward, we made the principal part of our fishery.

On the 28th of May, being in latitude 80° 8', we killed our first whale; and within the next fortnight, and near the same position, sixteen others yielded their lives to our harpoons and lances. On the 29th of June, only two-and-thirty days from the time of our first capture, we completed our cargo, being "a full ship," with the produce of twenty-four whales, one narwal, two seals, two walruses, and two bears. This cargo, by far the largest, I believe, of the season, yielded 216 tuns of oil, and almost eleven tons of whalebone. The fishery, in consequence of the peculiar position of the ice, and the unusual inaccessibility of the best fishing stations, proved generally bad. Judging from the returns in my possession, comprising the successes of twenty-four of the Greenland whalers of that year, I should calculate the general average at about fifty tuns of oil per ship, or less than one-fourth of the Resolution's cargo. The united cargoes of nine ships, out of eighteen, from one port (taking, of course, the worst fished ships), exceeded only by a few tuns the single cargo which resulted from the singular enterprise of my Father.

* * * * *

But we return to the grand exploration of a region which, as far as conclusive records go, has not, before or since, ever been _navigated_.

In the first instance, after our arrival in this vast northern opening of the ice, we proceeded to the westward, and, finding no whales, tacked, when we had reached the longitude of about 8° W., in the parallel of 79° 30' N. We then stretched to the northward and eastward, proceeding, generally, near to or within sight of the northern "pack," for a distance of above 300 miles,--a direct uninterrupted progress in this high latitude quite unparalleled. On the 23d-24th, at midnight, an altitude of the sun, below the Pole, carefully taken with a fifteen-inch sextant by Ramsden, gave the latitude 81° 12' 42". We continued our progress until (early the following morning) we had reached the longitude of 19° E., when our latitude, as estimated from the recent observation, was 81° 30' N. This was our farthest advance northward, in which we had gained a position within about 510 miles of the Pole! Even then, the navigation was still quite open to the E.N.E., (true) and from that point round to the S.E.; so open, that, as we could certainly gather from the appearance of the sky, we could have easily advanced many many leagues farther in the direction we had so extensively pursued.

Our situation, at our farthest advance, was singular and solitary indeed. No ship, no human being, it was believed, was within 300 or 350 miles of us. Unquestionably, the crew of the Resolution now occupied the most northern position of any individuals in the world! The sea began to freeze and threatened our detention. We had made no progress in the fishery, nor could we find any whales. The seamen began to be anxious, fearful, and troublesome, so that abundant considerations urged our return to the westward, where, as has been shown, our commercial enterprise became so signally successful.

The accuracy of the determinations for the latitude we have stated, was variously verified during our progress both ways. Thus, going north-eastward, we observed, May 23d, at noon, in lat. 80° 50' 28"; at next midnight, as we have noted, in 81° 12' 42". At the succeeding noon, after above eight hours sailing on our return, we again observed in 81° 1' 53"; and, still running south-westerly, we sighted at 8 P.M. of the same day Hackluyt's Headland, some forty miles still to the southward of our position.

We have spoken of this adventure as reaching to the highest latitude ever attained, as far as we have conclusive records, _by sailing_. Captain Parry, in his Polar attempt of 1827, indeed, went beyond my Father's greatest attainment a distance of seventy or eighty miles; but this advance was wholly gained by travelling across the ice. For with all the advantage of a later period in the summer, and the penetration of the loose ice by boats, the _travelling_ had to be commenced on attaining the latitude of 81° 13'.

In referring to this attempt, one can hardly refrain from expressing regret at the success of an expedition so energetically pursued being marred by circumstances which, under better arrangements, might have been avoided. For had the plan as originally suggested, about twelve years before this adventure, been acted on, I have no hesitation in affirming, that _a far greater advance_ northward, if not complete success, must have attended the daring enterprise. It falls not, indeed, within the object of the present Memorials to take up again a question which is discussed in detail in a communication of mine to the "Edinburgh Philosophical Journal," and published in the number for July 1828; but it may suffice to say, that the opinion offered just above has now the sanction of the gallant conductor of the enterprise himself, who, in a letter published by the late Sir John Barrow, in his volume of "Arctic Voyages" (p. 313) states, that "he believes it to be an object of no very difficult attainment, if set about in a different manner." And, it may be added, a plan for that adventure is given in the letter now quoted, substantially embodying the characteristic points of my original scheme,[K] and, indeed, in no essential particular, except the suggestion for spending the previous winter at Spitzbergen, differing from it.

Under such support in the idea, from one of the best authorities amongst those experimentally acquainted with the difficulties of the undertaking, I am led, not only to an increased conviction of the practicability of the enterprise, but to the entertaining of the belief, that the triumph is yet in store for the daring and adventurous nation

"Whose _flag_ has braved a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze;"

when

"The meteor flag of England"

shall wave upon the axial point of the world at the Northern Pole!