Taissumani, Aug. 27
Robert McClure and the Investigator - Part 3
KENN HARPER
In last week’s article, Robert McClure has established with certainty the existence of a Northwest Passage. But his ship remained locked in the ice of Prince of Wales Strait.
In the summer of 1851 ice still blocked McClure’s hoped-for passage into Melville Sound, so he reversed his course, determined to enter the passage by sailing up the west coast of Banks Island. He reached the northern coast of the island but once again was held back by ice. He took refuge in Mercy Bay where the Investigator was frozen in for the winter of 1851-2. That spring a sledge party travelled to Winter Harbour, Parry’s old wintering spot on Melville Island, and left a message there describing their whereabouts and their accomplishments.
Luck was not with them and they were beset in Mercy Bay for a second winter. But in the spring of 1853 help arrived unexpectedly from the east. Sir Edward Belcher had been despatched from England with five ships in 1852. One of them, the Resolute, was commanded by Henry Kellett, whom McClure had last seen in 1850 north of Alaska. Resolute reached Melville Island, searching for the Investigator and the Enterprise; she wintered at Dealy Island off the coast of Melville Island. A fall sledge party led by George Mecham discovered McClure’s records at Winter Harbour.
In April of 1853 McClure and one of his crew saw a speck on the ice to the north-east. What could it be? As it grew in size it transformed itself into the shape of a man approaching. In fact it was a naval lieutenant who revelled in the marvellous name of Bedford Clapperton Pim. He had come from the Resolute. For McClure, rescue was now at hand.
But McClure was loath to leave his ship. He wanted to remain with the Investigator and keep enough men with him in the hope that she would be released from the ice in the summer of 1853 and he could sail her eastward through the passage. If he had discovered the Northwest Passage, he should sail his ship triumphantly through it and back to England.
But Henry Kellett disagreed and he still outranked McClure. He ordered McClure to abandon the Investigator. McClure and his crew joined Kellett on the Resolute to return to England.
And then the unthinkable happened. The Resolute began its return to Beechey Island in the summer of 1853, but never made it. She was beset by ice off Bathurst Island and was forced to winter there. Robert McClure spent a fourth winter trapped in the Arctic. The following spring - by now it was April of 1854 - McClure and his crew travelled by sledge to Beechey Island. That September, aboard the North Star, they finally reached England.
A court-martial awaited McClure for losing the Investigator, but he was acquitted, promoted and knighted. He collected a reward of 5,000 pounds for having found and traversed the Northwest Passage. A further 5,000 pounds was shared by his crew, all save the four unfortunate men whose bodies lay buried on far-off Banks Island.
Sherard Osborn, who wrote up McClure’s voyage, had this to say about the man:
“Stern, cool, bold in all perils, severe as a disciplinarian, self-reliant, yet modest as became an officer. With a granite-like view of duty to his country and his profession, he would in war have been a great leader, and it was his good fortune, during a period of profound peace, to find a field for all these valuable qualities.”
It was also his misfortune to have found the Northwest Passage at a time in the mid-1800s when ice conditions were at their most severe. The same ice conditions that resulted in the loss of Franklin and all his men prevented McClure from sailing through his discovery. He could not sail his ship through the passage. But he - the man - went through it, by sail, on foot, and hauled by sledge. He traversed it and Parliament gave him his reward.
