Taissumani, Aug. 13
Robert McClure and the Investigator
The wreck of Robert McClure’s vessel, the Investigator, lying in Mercy Bay near Banks Island. (PHOTO COURTESY OF PARKS CANADA)
The ship Investigator has been much in the news lately, a result of her discovery by Parks Canada late last month in the waters of Mercy Bay on Banks Island, surely one of the most isolated spots in the Northwest Territories.
So I thought it would be appropriate to delve into the history of this ship and the remarkable man who commanded her.
Let’s start with the man. Robert McClure was born in Wexford, Ireland on January 28, 1807, the son of an army captain who died five months before his son’s birth. Nevertheless, McClure received a good education at Eton and Sandhurst before joining the Navy at the age of 17.
His life at sea included three voyages to the Arctic. On each of these the ship on which he served was iced in and he spent dark and cheerless winters in the High Arctic, enduring the sunless period that often proved so harmful to the mental well-being of other men.
On his first Arctic voyage he served as mate to George Back, captain of the Terror. Ironically this would, over a decade later, become one of Sir John Franklin’s two ships for which McClure would search, from both ends of the elusive Northwest Passage, on his two subsequent Arctic forays.
In 1836, aboard the Terror, Back and his crew sailed into Foxe Channel, where the object was to round the northern coast of Southampton Island and proceed to Wager Bay.
But the ship became frozen in off the coast of the island, and drifted eastward through the winter. The following year, released from the ice, badly damaged, the Terror barely made it back across the Atlantic. The expedition accomplished nothing.
In 1848, McClure returned to the Arctic. Sir James Clark Ross, in search of the missing Franklin expedition, commanded an expedition of two ships, the Enterprise (on which Ross himself sailed) and the Investigator under Edward Joseph Bird. McClure served as first lieutenant aboard the Enterprise.
This expedition too was remarkably unsuccessful. The ships were quickly frozen in in Lancaster Sound off Port Leopold on north-eastern Somerset Island. McClure spent a month on the sick list and did not participate in any of the sledge expeditions that searched for traces of Franklin that winter. Both ships returned to England the following year with no accomplishments to report.
The British public was becoming impatient with the lack of progress in finding Franklin or learning anything of his fate. And so the Admiralty sent the same two ships out again in 1850, this time on a lengthy expedition that would round the tip of South America, meet at Honolulu, and continue north through Bering Strait to approach the presumed Northwest Passage from the west. Richard Collinson was the leader of the expedition and commanded the Enterprise. McClure was given command of the Investigator.
The two ships became separated in the Pacific Ocean and Collinson reached Honolulu first. After waiting five days for McClure, he continued northward. McClure arrived later that same day. He then headed north, ostensibly to catch Colllinson.
But he probably already had plans of his own. McClure made a dangerous gamble — and luck was with him. He took a short cut through the shallow and uncharted waters of the Aleutian island chain and beat Collinson to Bering Strait.
Did he know that he was, by that time, ahead of Collinson? Most historians conclude that he must have known. But he didn’t wait for his commander to catch up with him. He forged ahead.
Off the north coast of Alaska he met Henry Kellett, in command of the Herald, also in search of the Franklin expedition. And here McClure’s luck held again. He told Kellett that he believed that Collinson’s Enterprise was ahead of him and that he had to hurry ahead to rejoin her.
Kellett didn’t believe him and, in fact, he thought that McClure should wait there for his commander to catch up with him. McClure was not inclined to wait. Kellett outranked McClure and could have ordered him to wait. But he didn’t. And once again, McClure continued ahead.
This act of insubordination, for it was nothing less, turned McClure and his commander into rivals. McClure was an ambitious man and he wanted nothing less than the glory of discovering the Northwest Passage.
Parliament had offered a reward of 10,000 pounds for its discovery. This was a huge sum of money, one worth taking some risks for. There could be no greater reward, save for discovering — perhaps rescuing — Franklin himself.
To be continued next week.
Taissumani recounts a specific event of historic interest. Kenn Harper is a historian, writer and linguist who lives in Iqaluit. Feedback? Send your comments and questions to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
