Part 31 (1/2)

on the hard ground, brought the party to the first stage of their journey Snoas now beginning to fall, and ice was thick on the rivers, when Franklin resolved to push on to Lake Athabasca that he e in the su Richardson and Hood at the fort, he started off with Back and the faithful Hepburn on 18th January 1820, in the very heart of the Arctic winter Friends at the fort had provided him with Indian snowshoes turned up at the toes like the prow of a boat--with dog sledges, furs, leather trousers, drivers, and food for a fortnight The snoas very deep, and the dogs found great difficulty in dragging their heavy burdens through the snow But the record was good A distance of eight hundred and fifty-seven ht days, with the therrees below zero The hardshi+ps endured are very briefly recorded: ”Provisions becos without food, except a little burnt leather; night miserably cold; tea froze in the tin pots before we could drink it”

Lake Athabasca was reached on the 26th of March and preparations for the voyage were pushed forward Four months later they were joined by Richardson and Hood ”This ratification of welco-separated friends, Dr Richardson and Mr Hood, who arrived in perfect health with two canoes” This is the si was now ready Spring in these northern cli ”The trees quickly put on their leaves after the long, hard winter etable world coreeable” At the sa sand-flies hts horrible

On 18th July the little party in high glee set forward in canoes rowed by Canadian boat to reach the Copper Mine River before winter set in But the difficulties of the ere great, provisions were scarce, the boatrew discontented, ice appeared early, and Franklin had to satisfy hi at a point five hundred and fifty miles from Lake Athabasca, which he called Fort Enterprise

Here there was prospect of plenty, for large herds of reindeer were grazing along the shores of the lake, and from their flesh ”pemmican”

wasand cheerless, and Franklin soon realised that there was not enough food to last through it So he dispatched the midshi+pman Back to Lake Athabasca for help Back's journey was truly splendid, and we cannot omit his simple summary: ”On the 17th of March,” he says, ”at an early hour we arrived at Fort Enterprise, having travelled about eighteen ood health, after an absence of nearly fivewhich time I had travelled one thousand one hundred and four ht than a blanket and deer skin, with the therrees below zero, and soe and endurance he saved the whole party at Fort Enterprise By June the spring was sufficiently advanced to set out for the Copper Mine River, and on July they reached the mouth after a tedious journey of three hundred and thirty-four miles

[Illustration: A WINTER VIEW OF FORT ENTERPRISE Fro, by Wm Back, in Franklin's _Journey to the Polar Sea_, 1823]

The real work of exploration was now to begin, and the party e the southern coast of the Polar sea, with the possibility always ofthe Parry expedition But the poor Canadian boatht of the sea on which they had never yet sailed, and they ith difficulty persuaded to elishmen had ever been on the sea, and it has been well said that this voyage along the shores of the rock-bound coast of the Arctic seaand hazardous exploits that have ever been accoraphical research The two canoes hugged the icy coast as they made their way eastward, and Franklin named the bays, headlands, and islands for a distance of five hundred and fifty-five ain e IV Coronation Gulf studded with islands, Hood's River, Back's River, Bathurst's Inlet, named after the Secretary of State, and Parry Bay after ” research for a North-West Passage”

[Illustration: FRANKLIN'S EXPEDITION TO THE POLAR SEA ON THE ICE Fro, by Wm Back, in Franklin's _Journey to the Polar Sea_, 1823]

The short season for exploration was now over; rough weather and want of food turned them home, only half satisfied with their work The worst part of their journey was yet to coic history of Arctic exploration, had greater hardshi+ps been endured than Franklin and his handful of ust the party left Point Turnagain, hoping by means of their newly discovered Hood River to reach Fort Enterprise

The ground was already covered with snow, and their food was reduced to one meal a day when they left the shores of the Arctic sea for their long inland tramp Needless to say, the journey had to be performed on foot, and the as stony and barren For the first few days nothing was to be found save lichen to eat, and the te-point An uncooked cow after six days of lichen ”infused spirit into our starving party,” relates Franklin But things grew no better, and as they proceeded sadly on their way, starvation stared the stilled by ”pieces of singed hide mixed with lichen”; another time the horns and bones of a dead deer were fried with some old shoes and the ”putrid carcase of a deer that had died the previous spring was derew so bad that Franklin and the et and send back food if possible to Richardson and Hood, ere now al at all Bitter disappointth,” says Franklin, ”we reached Fort Enterprise, and to our infinite disappointrief found it a perfectly desolate habitation There were no provisions--no Indians It would be i this lected; the whole party shed tears, not so much for our own fate as for that of our friends in the rear, whose lives depended entirely on our sending immediate relief from this place” A few old bones and skins of reindeer were collected for supper and the worn-out explorers sat round a fireof the roo entry in Franklin's journal: ”When I arose the followingmy body and limbs were so swollen that I was unable to walk more than a few yards”

Before Noveedy happened Hood was er and misery One after another now dropped down and died, and death see Franklin, Richardson, Back, and Hepburn when three Indians ues It was not a a men, until they were sufficiently restored to leave Fort Enterprise and make their way to Moose Deer Island, where, with the Hudson Bay officers, they spent the winter recovering their health and strength and spirits

When they returned to England in the summer of 1822 they had accomplished five thousand five hundred and fifty miles They had also endured hardshi+ps unsurpassed in the history of exploration When Parry returned to England the following sus he cried like a child He must have realised better than any one else what those sufferings really were, though he hi his way to the Copper Mine River, Parry on board the _Fury_, accompanied by the _Hecla_, started for Hudson's Strait, by which he was to penetrate to the Pacific, if possible Owing to bad weather, the expedition did not arrive a two hundred feet high, the explorers counted fifty-four at one time before they arrived at Resolution Island at the mouth of Hudson Strait There were already plenty of well-known landion of Hudson's Bay, and Parry soon made his way to Southary discussion had taken place so ”a ave the name of the ”Duke of York's Bay” The discovery, however, was one of little ie The winter was fast advancing, the navigable season was nearly over, and the explorers seee had been dangerous, harassing, unproductive

They had advanced towards the Behring Strait; they had discovered two hundred leagues of North American coast, and they now prepared to spend the winter in these icebound regions As usual Parry arranged both for the health and a Arctic lish roast beef” for Christ the outside with salt and hanging it on deck covered with canvas” There were also Eski source of interest

[Illustration: AN ESKIMO WATCHING A SEAL HOLE Froe for a North-West Passage_, 1824]

One day in April--snow had been falling all night, news spread that the Eski on the ice” ”If the women,” says Parry, ”were cheerful before, they were now absolutely frantic A general shout of joy re-echoed through the village; they ran into each others' huts to coed one another in an ecstasy of delight When the first burst of joy had at last subsided the women crept one by one into the apartment where the sea-horses had been conveyed Here they obtained blubber enough to set all their laht, besides a few scraps of oes were continually arriving, the principal part being brought in by the dogs and the rest by the ed in a portion

Every la with oil, the huts exhibited a blaze of light, and never was there a scene ofup of the walruses continued” For three solid hours the Eski walrus flesh ”Indeed, the quantity they continued to get rid of is almost beyond belief”

It was not till early in July that the shi+p could be moved out of their winter's dock to renew their efforts towards a passage They were not a little helped by Eskimo charts, but old ice blocked the way, and it was the ust before Parry discovered the Strait he called after his two shi+ps, ”the Strait of the Fury and Hecla,” between Melville Peninsula and cockburn Island Confident that the narrow channel led to the Polar seas, Parry pushed on till ”our progress was once more opposed by a barrier of the saanised land expeditions, and reports, ”The opening of the Strait into the Polar sea was now so decided that I considered the principal object of my journey accomplished”

September had come, and once more the shi+ps were established in their winter quarters A secondthe ice lish explorers, but cheerfully enough they built a wall of snoelve feet high round the _Fury_ to keep out snowdrifts The season was long and severe, and it was August before they could get free of ice The prospect of a third winter in the ice could not be safely faced, and Parry resolved to get home October found the and the town illuminated with joy at the arrival of men who had been away from all civilisation for twenty-seven months On 14th Noveland

Still the restless explorer was longing to be off again; he was still fascinated by the e we need not follow hireat ient's Inlet, and the whole party had to return on board the _Hecla_ in 1825

CHAPTER LIII

FRANKLIN'S LAND JOURNEY TO THE NORTH

The northern shores of North America were not yet explored, and Franklin proposed another expedition to the mouth of the Mackenzie River, where the party was to divide, half of the daunted by his recent sufferings, Franklin accepted the supreme command, and amid the foremost volunteers for service were his old friends, Back and Richardson The officers of the expedition left England in February 1825, and, travelling by way of New York and Canada, they reached Fort cu June; a month later they were at Fort Chipewyan on the shores of Lake Athabasca, and soon they had made their way to the banks of the Great Bear Lake River, which flows out of that lake into the Mackenzie River, dohich they were to descend to the sea They decided to winter on the shores of the Bear Lake; but Franklin could never bear inaction, so he resolved to push on to the mouth of the Great River with a s expedition