They rejoined their own men and those of Clark, resurrected the pirogues at the bottom of the falls, and sped down the Missouri, where they rejoined Clark’s Yellowstone expedition on 12 August. (The circumstances were uncomfortable: while hunting, one of Lewis’s men mistook him for a deer and shot him through the buttocks.) Two days later they were with the Mandans, who were as friendly as before but gave them the depressing news that the region was in a state of war. All Lewis’s talk of peace had come to nothing. He did, however, with exceptional difficulty, persuade one chief to accompany them to St Louis, from where he would be escorted to Washington and then returned to his home.
Their journey was near its end. As they continued downriver, they encountered small parties of trappers heading north in search of furs. And finally, on 20 September, they reached the settlement of La Charette. Overjoyed, they fired three volleys into the air and were answered in kind by a group of five trading boats tied up on the bank. The villagers greeted them effusively but, as Clark recorded, ‘acknowledged them selves much astonished in Seeing us return, they informed us that we were Supposed to have been lost long Since.’ Two days later the Corps of Discovery paddled into St Louis. After 8,000 miles and 28 months they had reached their journey’s end.
The expedition had been a success, even if its findings did not always make happy reading. There was no transcontinental waterway, or at least not one that could be put to commercial use: the Missouri’s upper stretches were barely navigable, those of the Columbia not at all, and the Rockies presented a formidable barrier. As for the Indians, the idea of their accepting peace and prosperity under the US flag seemed to be a pipedream: not only were the Sioux and the Blackfeet determinedly aggressive but, as Lewis’s last stay with the Mandans had shown, even the more accommodating tribes were unwilling to abandon a pattern of war. These disappointments were offset by the scale and multiplicity of the expedition’s achievements. Lewis and Clark had described the habits and physiognomy of tribes unknown to white men. They had discovered 178 new plants and 122 species of animals. They had produced the first authoritative charts of the Missouri river system and had mapped immense swathes of territory from the Mississippi to the Pacific. They had encountered regions of incalculable natural wealth, rich in land, furs, timber and buffalo. They had laid the geographical foundations of what would, within a century, become the world’s most powerful nation. And they had lost only one man in the process – and then to natural causes. As Lewis wrote to Jefferson: ‘The whole of the party who accompanyed me from the Mandans have returned in good health, which is not, I assure you, to me one of the least pleasing considerations of the Voyage.’
What was one of the least pleasing considerations was the effect Lewis and Clark’s expedition had on the Indians. Spurred by their reports of limitless riches, and supported by an expansionist administration that was willing to grant land to those who extended America’s frontiers, US settlers swarmed west. Jefferson excused the invasion on economic grounds: the Indians had land but lacked manufactured goods; the Americans had goods but lacked land. Both sides would therefore be obeying the natural laws of supply and demand. That it was a forcible exchange did not disturb him – he had, anyway, neither the army nor the money to prevent it. Within a few decades the Indians were displaced – in some cases eradicated by disease – and by the middle of the century the herds of buffalo, which in Lewis’s time had roamed the prairies in their hundreds of thousands, had been all but exterminated.
The Corps of Discovery, who had set the process in motion, did not live to see its end. Several of them died early of syphilis – one of the expedition’s more controversial assessments was that the disease originated in America – and Lewis succumbed to alcohol and depression. On 1 October 1809, at the age of 35, he committed suicide.
FURTHEST INTO THE ARCTIC
W. E. Parry (1818–27)
At the end of the Napoleonic Wars Britain’s naval officers were mostly redundant. They had no enemy to fight, no ships to command and nothing much to do except draw their half-pay. To these men, who had no particular purpose, Sir John Barrow was a godsend. Second Secretary to the Admiralty, Barrow had no great interest in warfare, but was very keen on exploration. The North-West Passage, especially, piqued his interest. Did it exist, and if so why was Britain doing so little to find it? It wasn’t every day that the world’s most powerful navy had surplus gold braid to hand; and the passage, if it could be found, had such commercial value as to outweigh the cost of sending a couple of ships to find it. In 1818 the Isabella and the Alexander left Deptford for the Arctic. Their task was to chart Baffin Bay and to ascertain whether an open waterway led to the west – or, indeed, to the north.
At the helm of the Isabella was a veteran, Commander John Ross: a Scot, brave, undoubtedly capable, but tempestuous, irritable and defiant. The Alexander was commanded by Lieutenant William Edward Parry, a calm, bluff-faced, equally capable Englishman, whose social connections endeared him to Barrow. The Isabella was faster than the Alexander and surged around Baffin Bay, Ross ticking off the various outlets as he went. The existing maps, which were ancient and in Barrow’s opinion made up, showed three potential exits to the North-West Passage: Smith Sound and Jones Sound at the north of Baffin Bay and, further south and to the west, Lancaster Sound. Of the first two Ross was blithely dismissive: they did exist, he said, the maps had not lied; but Smith Sound was blocked by a range of mountains and Jones Sound was a bay. The northern regions of Baffin Bay were not wholly without interest, however. On the coast of Greenland, to the east of Smith Sound, he discovered the world’s most northerly inhabitants.
The Inuit of Etah, or the Arctic Highlanders as Ross called them, had migrated north in the 16th century, since when they had adapted so absolutely to life in the snow and ice that they had forgotten the traditional skills of their southern cousins. They did not know how to use a kayak, net fish, hunt caribou or shoot a bow and arrow. They were, however, masters of their particular environment, surviving in their igloos on a diet of birds, seals, walruses and polar bears, from whose carcases they also extracted the basics for survival: fuel, clothing, tools and transport, the latter taking the form of bone sledges hauled by their one domesticated animal, the husky. Their isolation was such that they believed themselves the only people on the earth. It must therefore have been something of a shock when Ross and Parry stepped out of their ships on 8 August 1818 and advanced over the ice towards them, clad in cocked hats and full naval regalia.
The Inuit’s bewilderment was complete. Communicating through a South Greenland interpreter whom Ross had brought from London, they pestered the strangers with questions. Were the ships a species of giant bird? Were the sails their wings? Were they truly made of wood? (The only tree they had ever seen was a dwarf willow whose trunk was no thicker than a finger.) And what were all these things they contained? Was one meant to eat a watch? Did anyone live on the other side of a mirror? From what kind of animal did they make their ropes and clothes? They were puzzled, too, by the lack of women: did the newcomers belong to a race composed solely of men? Ross and Parry were similarly amazed by the pristine innocence of the Etah Inuit. They could count no higher than five, and anything beyond ‘two fives’ was simply ‘a lot’. They did not believe in an afterlife. They had no concept of ownership, simply using things as they felt like it. For entertainment they played either football or a form of ice hockey using walrus flippers as balls and pucks. They did not know the meaning of warfare because they had nobody to fight. And they had iron. How this could be was a mystery to the British, for the Inuit were clearly incapable of mining. In a flash of insight, Ross wondered if there might be a meteorite nearby from which they had managed to hack small slivers of metal. He took one of their knives and had it analysed on his return. Sure enough, it was of extra-terrestrial origin. The Etah Inuit had no laws, no religion, no army, no king, yet possessed everything that was needed for life and happiness: they were the epitome of noble savagery.
Ross and Parry spent less than a week with the Arctic Highlanders. On the 16th, rounding a promontory that Ross named Cape York, they made another bizarre discovery: a 600-foot-high slope that was coloured crimson from top to bottom. Suspecting it might be a surface coating of dust or seeds from the vegetation above, they dug down; but no, the snow was red to the rock. In fact, though they did not know it, they were right to think it might have vegetable origins: now a well-attested Arctic phenomenon, red snow is caused by a microscopic, unicellular plant called Protococcus nivalis.
The voyage so far had been successful: Ross had charted the east coast of Baffin Bay, had scotched the rumours that Smith and Jones Sound were navigable, and had found the Arctic Highlanders and the red snow of Cape York. All that remained was to see if Lancaster Sound might be the door to the North-West Passage. He entered it on 1 September and found an ice-choked bay at the end of which rose a range of steep mountains. He noted the fact in his log and took the Isabella and Alexander back to London, where he delivered his findings to the Admiralty on 16 November, doubtless expecting to be congratulated on the completion of his mission. Barrow, however, was outraged that he had failed to find the Passage and was not in the slightest impressed by his tales of red snow and ‘Arctic Highlanders’. Seizing on a small detail, he noted that the Alexander had been a good eight miles behind the Isabella when Ross entered Lancaster Sound, and that Parry had not been able to confirm the existence of these mountains. In these circumstances, he concluded, Ross had very likely been wrong, and a new expedition would have to be despatched. Naturally, it would not be led by Ross – whom he had never liked and now detested – but by his favourite, Parry.
It was very slight grounds for justifying the expense of another Arctic expedition, particularly as Barrow would have accepted the same evidence had it come from any other officer. But as time would prove, Barrow was right. Ross had been mistaken: Smith Sound did not end in mountains but was a viable sea route up the west coast of Greenland; Jones Sound was not a bay but another passage into the Arctic; and the range he had reported at the end of Lancaster Sound was a mirage. His reports on Smith and Jones Sounds were the result of carelessness; but in the case of Lancaster Sound he could be excused. The range of mountains he had seen were produced by Arctic refraction, whereby light bounces off the ice and is then moulded by turbulence and warm air currents to create an aerial reflection that takes the shape of jagged, grey peaks outlined by dark ridges. However, nobody knew this then. In Barrow’s opinion Ross was an incompetent fool, and he made it his job to ensure that the Royal Navy never employed him in any capacity for the rest of his life.
In 1819 Parry sailed aboard the Hecla for Baffin Bay, accompanied by the much smaller Griper commanded by Lieutenant Matthew Lidden. As they approached Lancaster Sound they were assailed by doubts. Had Ross been right after all? Would they, too, see the same mountains and impenetrable ice? ‘It is more easy to imagine than describe the oppressive anxiety which was visible in every countenance while, as the breeze increased to a fresh gale, we ran quickly to the Westward,’ Parry wrote. When, on 4 August, they entered the Sound and found it free of both ice and mountains, their doubts were replaced by exhilaration. Here was the North-West Passage! One of Parry’s fellow officers described the pride and wonder of discovery: ‘We had arrived in a sea which had never before been navigated, we were gazing on land that European eyes had never before beheld ... and before us was the prospect of realizing all our wishes, and of exalting the honour of our country.’
Westward they sailed through Lancaster Sound, which was in places 80 miles wide, passing low, sandy islands, dramatic rock buttresses and ‘noble’ channels that led north and south. It was clear that they were on a main road to the west and, should ice block their path, any one of the channels on either side might be an alternative route to the Passage. On 4 September they crossed the 110th meridian and the next day they dropped anchor for the first time since leaving Britain, off the coast of an island to which Parry gave the name Melville. Since the days of Banks’s early voyages, Parliament – more exactly the Board of Longitude – had offered prizes to stimulate the search for the North-West Passage. There was £5,000 for reaching 110° W, with an additional £5,000 for every ten degrees’ longitude towards the Pacific. The victors could expect £20,000 – a vast sum by modern standards – for reaching the Pacific. In less than a month of easy sailing, Parry had earned the first instalment – more than £250,000 today – to be shared between officers and crew, and the sea was still open before him. He continued westward until a honey-like sludge of ice brought him to a halt at 112° 51’ W. Retreating to Melville Island, Parry announced they would try again in the summer of 1820 when the ice had melted. But they were not going to return to London in the interim: instead they would spend the winter in the Arctic.
Unlike previous explorers, Parry was prepared for the ordeal. He ordered his men to cut a channel through the ice surrounding Melville Island and, once the ships were berthed, had the sails made into canvas tents above the upper decks. The crew shovelled snow against the hulls to insulate them from the wind. They erected huts in which they could take meteorological and astronomical observations. They dug holes in the ice against the seaman’s ever-present fear of fire. They shot a quantity of wildlife. And then they battened down for the winter. ‘We had plenty of provisions,’ Parry wrote, ‘crew in high health and spirits; a sea if not open then at least navigable; and a zealous and unanimous determination in both officers and men to accomplish, by all possible means, the grand object on which we had the happiness to be employed.’ Furthermore, ‘I had little doubt of our accomplishing the object of our enterprise before the close of the next season’. He called their anchorage Winter Harbour.
When the long Arctic night descended, Parry’s immediate task was to distract their minds from the gloom in which they dwelt. He kept them busy, either scrubbing the deck, exercising on the ice or working in the Hecla’s onboard brewery and bakery. Anything, he reckoned, was better than inactivity. He printed a ship’s newspaper, the North Georgia Gazette and Winter Chronicle- all contributions were welcome – and instituted the Royal Arctic Theatre, in which he and his fellow officers performed skits for the delectation of the crew. The image of midshipmen dressing up as shepherdesses and scantily clad nymphs while trapped in the depths of the North-West Passage has to be one of the most surreal in the history of exploration. To those on stage it was a torment – the theatre was on the upper deck, heated by nothing more than a pile of heated shot; one actor became frostbitten in two fingers – but Parry was pleased at its success: ‘The good effect of these performances is more and more perceived by us,’ he wrote. ‘And we shall certainly go on with them, till we can have a nobler employment.’
As the winter progressed, the temperature fell and fell. Normally, the ships’ living quarters were kept comfortable by a variety of strategically placed stoves, but in February the cold became intense. With the thermometer showing – 55° F, they huddled in their greatcoats, while about them chronometers stopped and the lime juice they had packed to counteract scurvy froze and burst its bottles. Every time they opened a hatch a miasma of cold fog sank into the ship, clotting their clothes and blankets with ice. On 24 February their observatory hut caught light; they extinguished the blaze, but it took three-quarters of an hour and every firefighter was frostbitten to some degree: 16 of them had to be put on the sick list, some of them for three weeks. The worst affected was the hut’s occupant, who had bravely dragged the instruments to safety but had forgotten to wear his gloves: within 30 minutes his hands were the colour and consistency of marble, and when they were placed in a bowl of cold water the water froze. He lost seven fingers. Throughout, Parry kept an optimistic face. But as their coal began to run low he secretly drew up a plan of evacuation to Canada.
Cold was not their only worry. That month the Hecla’s gunnery officer, Mr Scallon, showed the first signs of scurvy. How he could have contracted the d
isease was a mystery to Parry, for a daily tot of lime juice was part of the crew’s morning routine. He comforted himself that it was caused by Scallon’s age and by decades of eating the Navy’s standard issue salt beef. In fact, it was more likely the product of Parry’s own anti-scorbutic regime, in which beer and exercise played a prominent part. As would later be discovered, alcohol and exertion exacerbated the condition. Parry responded with ingenuity: he placed several seedbeds of mustard-and-cress on the ship’s hot water pipes and, when they sprouted, fed the resulting salad to Scallon. Within nine days the gunnery officer boasted he could ‘run a mile’. This was a new development in the treatment of scurvy and one that caused Parry a moment of contemplation. ‘I shall be most thankful, should it prove that we can cure, or even check, this disease by our own resources,’ he wrote thoughtfully, ‘for I cannot help feeling that, under Providence, our making the North-West Passage depends upon it.’
By the end of April the temperature was the same as it had been on 9 September when they had sawed their way into Winter Harbour. On 6 May Parry ordered his men to saw their way out again. The ice that had been a seven-inch skin in September was now seven feet deep, and although the ships were released – jumping 18 inches into the air as they did so, thanks to the weight of food and fuel consumed over the winter – they had no chance of breaking free. They could only wait for a thaw. Taking advantage of their entrapment, Parry led an overland party to explore Melville Island. They set off on 1 June, dragging a cart laden with 800 pounds of food and equipment, and returned 15 days later, the cart having broken – its wheels were found in the last decade of the 20th century – and having discovered nothing but a lumpy, desolate land bisected by ravines and covered with rocks that, when broken, emitted a stench of decay. Parry had hoped that Winter Harbour might have cleared while he was away. But it was just as he had left it.
Off the Map Page 30
