CHAPTER
10
BY THE END OF 1846, with no word from the Franklin expedition or any sightings of the two ships or their crews, concerns for their welfare began to grow in England. Mitigating those concerns was the knowledge that John Ross and James Clark Ross and their crew had spent four winters in the ice between 1829 and 1833 on the paddle steamer Victory and lived to tell the tale. Therefore, it was believed, the Franklin expedition should not be in any grave danger, well equipped as it was for three or more years in the ice. But still, the Arctic was known to be a dangerous, unpredictable environment, so there was some doubt.
Sir John Ross had made Franklin a personal promise only two days before Erebus and Terror sailed from the Thames River: “I shall volunteer to look for you, if you are not heard of in February 1847; but pray put a notice in the cairn where you winter, if you do proceed, [telling] which of the routes you take.”
On February 9, 1847, Sir John Ross lived up to his word. He went to the Admiralty with his plans for a search-and-rescue mission, if that should be necessary, and was turned down. The august deciding body, made up of experts such as Barrow, Parry, Ross’s estranged nephew, James Clark Ross, and Dr. Richardson, among others, all of whom should have known better, decided a relief expedition was unnecessary at that time. Old Sir John Ross was far from pleased at the apparent callousness of the decision and let his feelings be known in a strongly worded letter to the First Lord of the Admiralty. Again he was rejected and advised to talk to the Royal Society, as that association had been involved in the early arrangements for Franklin’s expedition. The Royal Society turned Ross down, too, passing the responsibility back to the Admiralty.
Ross contacted Lady Franklin and was again disappointed. Jane had considerable faith in her missing husband and still believed he would win through. The months passed. Spring became summer and summer turned into autumn. As another winter approached, still there was no word of Franklin or his expedition. More people, in addition to Sir John Ross, began to show concern.
Early in November 1847, James Clark Ross approached the Admiralty with plans for a relief expedition to search for Franklin, without telling his uncle of his intentions. Sir John Ross, ignorant of this activity, again contacted the Admiralty, only one week later than his nephew. John Ross’s proposal was again rejected. His nephew’s plan was accepted in December.
While the grey, wet winter continued in England, relief plans went into high gear. On January 30, 1848, HMS Plover, under the command of Captain Thomas Moore, was dispatched round the Horn to sail the length of the Pacific Ocean and through the Bering Strait to search for Franklin in the Beaufort Sea. Less than two months later, Dr. John Richardson and the HBC’s Dr. John Rae left England. Their task would be to travel overland and on rivers across the muskeg and tundra to the Mackenzie River delta and follow the coast east to the mouth of the Coppermine River.
Sir James Clark Ross got under way on May 12, 1848, with two large naval ships, HMS Enterprise and HMS Investigator, planning to probe into the eastern Arctic and attempt to locate clues to Franklin’s whereabouts. With Captain Edward Bird in charge of Investigator and Ross on the flagship, they were ably assisted by lieutenants Robert McClure and Leopold McClintock.
These three expeditions mounted in 1848, two by sea and one by land, were only the beginning of what would become the most complex and long-lasting search for missing explorers in history. The tireless and determined Lady Franklin wanted to join the land expedition but was persuaded otherwise. Instead, she remained in England to raise money in case further rescue expeditions should be necessary, and she offered a reward of £2,000 for information regarding the missing ships.
HMS Plover, of course, went on her mammoth voyage for nothing. Her personnel found no trace of the expedition in the Bering Strait or Beaufort Sea area. Franklin had not gone through the passage. Richardson and Rae covered the coast far to the east and ascertained that the missing ships and crews had not reached the mainland. James Ross, however, spent a year in the Lancaster Sound/Somerset Island area and still missed the all-important evidence.
To be fair, Enterprise and Investigator had a difficult time in Greenland waters and in Baffin Bay due to ice. The two ships, therefore, did not enter Lancaster Sound until August 26, 1848, three years after Franklin disappeared. Ice buildup at the western end of Lancaster Sound was already heavy. Plans to search Wellington Channel, Barrow Strait and Prince Regent Inlet had to be abandoned for that season. On September 11, Ross moored his ships at Port Leopold on the northeast corner of North Somerset Island and prepared for a winter in the Arctic.
In the early spring of 1849, while the snow still covered the land and ice choked the waterways, Ross sent out sledging parties to build cairns at strategic locations in the hope that some of Franklin’s men might be alive to find them. He also surveyed coastlines, adding information to maps and charts of the lands bordering Peel Sound. As an emergency measure, he had his men construct a house big enough for over 60 men on shore at Port Leopold and left a large cache of provisions there.
That year, the ice was late in breaking up, so the two ships were not able to break free of their harbour until August 29. They moved out into Barrow Strait with the intention of searching north and west but soon became caught up in the drifting ice surging into Lancaster Sound. Surrounded by pack ice with no way out, the ships were carried east into Baffin Bay before being set free. As it was then so late in the season, there was no point in attempting to regain lost ground. Ross turned his ships for home.
The relief expedition had failed to find Franklin or any signs of the lost expedition’s whereabouts, but James Clark Ross had managed to accomplish some useful surveying work. He had also taught his two lieutenants the sledging skills they would need on future Arctic expeditions. Beyond that, others would have to continue the search.
Sir John Ross, 72 years old in the summer of 1849, continued to offer his considerable knowledge and skills to a search program. He advocated sending small ships, lightly manned. The Admiralty continued to turn him down. In a rather brilliant stroke of reasoning, Ross turned away from the Admiralty and approached the HBC. There he received a much more positive response to his plans.
The HBC agreed with the idea of smaller ships and offered their help. They handed over £500 toward the purchase of a ship. Additional amounts of £100 each came from other sources associated with the company. Sir Felix Booth, of gin fame, promised £1,000. Various other associates handed over small amounts. Ross was overjoyed and soon found a 91-ton schooner in Scotland. He named her Felix. Unfortunately for Ross, Booth died before handing over his donation, and after the expedition, Ross was never able to collect the money from the successor.
Wasting no time, Ross hired his officers and crew, making a total complement of 18 men with food supplies for 18 months. Felix sailed from Scotland one month short of Ross’s 73rd birthday. It was a magnificent gesture for a man of Ross’s age, as well as a serious venture. Felix, towing Ross’s personal yacht Mary, arrived in Greenland just over three weeks later. The old sailor and explorer stayed there long enough to celebrate his birthday and hire an Inuit interpreter for the rest of the voyage.
The summer of 1850 was a busy time in the Canadian Arctic. In addition to Sir John Ross’s expedition, there were at least five other groups searching for evidence of Franklin. Despite having turned Ross down, the Admiralty had sent three forces into the North. Four Royal Navy ships under the command of Captain Horatio Austin were in Lancaster Sound. Two more ships, Lady Franklin and Sophia, were in the same area and commanded by Captain William Penny. Lady Franklin had sent out her own team, financed by herself and bolstered by public donations, in the 90-ton Prince Albert under Captain Charles Forsyth. That ship, too, was in the eastern Arctic. Joining that considerable search-and-rescue fleet were two more ships from America, Advance and Rescue, commanded by Captain E.J. de Haven, funded by Henry Grinnell, a wealthy New York businessman, and staffed by crews from the US Navy. The British Admiralty’s third flotilla was sent through the Bering Strait to search the western Arctic. Again, those two ships were Investigator and Enterprise, captained by Robert McClure and Richard Collinson respectively.
None of the expeditions was successful in finding Franklin, although Penny was the first to find evidence of the winter sojourn in the ice off Beechey Island. In the west, Investigator and Enterprise became separated but explored on their own. Neither ship was successful in finding Franklin, but McClure, in Investigator, would complete a route through the Northwest Passage, albeit by abandoning his ship and walking on the fast ice to Barrow Strait and Beechey Island. But that was not until the summer of 1853.