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Northwest passage : The search for Franklin and the discovery
of the passage, a historical account
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After Franklin's disappearance from view in July 1845 many months passed
before any concern was expressed for the safety of him and his crews
as he was well provisioned and there was no serious expectation that
the cruise could be completed in one season. In 1847 whaler William
Penny attempted to make contact with the missing expedition and in
the autumn of that year the Navy began to show concern and to make
plans for relief expeditions. In the course of a decade almost 40
expeditions were sent out to search for Franklin. Among those who
led these expeditions were John Ross, his nephew James Clark Ross,
Horatio Austin, Henry Kellett, John Richardson, Edward Inglefield,
and Edward Belcher. It was eventually learnt that on the brink of
success his ships had been icebound off King William Island. After
what must have been a dreadful winter, Franklin had died on 11 June
1847, and his surviving crew perished in a terrible ordeal while attempting
to reach the Back River to the south of the icebound ships. The discoverer
of Franklin's fate was John Rae (1853-54) who was given a reward of
£10,000 despite the opposition of Franklin's widow (and Charles
Dickens). The Inuit had supplied information about the lost expedition
to Rae and their reports were confirmed by Leopold McClintock (1857-59)
who brought back to England the only written documentation relating
to Franklin's voyage. The Franklin searches resulted in a great expansion
of the knowledge of the Canadian Arctic, including the discovery by
Robert McClure in the Investigator (1850-54) of Prince of Wales Strait,
a last link in the fabled passage. McClure was also the first to cross
from west to east, partly by sledge over sea ice from Banks Island
to near Devon Island.
There were also a number of American expeditions that went in search
of Franklin: Elisha Kent Kane (1853-55), Charles Francis Hall (1860-62
and 1864-69) and Frederick Schwatka (1878-80). All of these explorers
added to knowledge of the Arctic, although Kane's voyage took him
closer to the North Pole than the Northwest Passage. Hall found
the graves of some of Franklin's men and learnt more about the fate
of the missing expedition from the Inuit. Schwatka's overland trek
accompanied by twelve Inuit found further clues but no written records.
Their sledge journey to King William Island of nearly 3,000 miles
in 50 weeks was a remarkable feat of endurance.
By the end of the Franklin
search all the Arctic waterways were known, revealing several possible
Northwest Passages but no-one had gained
the distinction of being the first to navigate from sea to sea.
In 1875 a private British venture by Allen Young in the Pandora
set out to reach the magnetic pole by way of Baffin Bay and Lancaster
Sound, and then to navigate the Northwest Passage in one season.
But like so many before him Young was beset by ice and had to return
homeward. The Passage would not be successfully navigated until the
twentieth century when, in 1903-06, Roald Amundsen, (who would later
beat Scott to the South Pole), made the full transit by sea in the
Gjöa. It was left to a Norwegian to accomplish the crossing
of the Northwest Passage, but as he himself pointed out, the fact
that it was possible had been due to the earlier explorations by
British seamen.
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