Captain Francis Crozier

by Michael Smith

  The plan was to take Hecla to Spitzbergen in the Svalbard archipelago and from there dispatch two teams of sailors north, dragging specially built boats across the ice to the edge of the ‘Open Polar Sea’. The boats were equipped with wheels or steel runners and backed up by the unusual auxiliary power of eight Norwegian reindeer. The option of using dog teams to cross the ice, as advocated by Scoresby, was flatly rejected.

  Buoyed by Barrow’s enthusiasm and his own in-built optimism, Parry was highly confident of making a routine hike to the Pole. ‘Few enterprises are so easily practicable’, he wrote. ‘I can perceive nothing whatever that should make it an enterprise of extraordinary risk.’

  Hecla sailed in late March 1827 and reached the small port of Hammerfest in Norway, high above the Arctic Circle, on 19 April. Here, the party expected to pick up the reindeer, but the animals were nowhere to be seen.

  Crozier was then ordered to make a tricky 60-mile (100-kilometre) trip in stormy weather along the coast to Alten to acquire the animals. He returned a few days later in stormy conditions with the mournful-looking beasts and bales of moss for fodder.

  The weather was appalling during the trip to Spitzbergen – far more troublesome than anyone had expected. Hecla was struck by vicious storms soon after leaving Norway and it was clear from the heavily packed ice that the winter of 1826–27 had been unusually cold.

  Hecla ran into further difficulties while skirting the west coast of Spitzbergen. The ship was forced to seek shelter from the high winds by pulling into the pack for protection. Entering the ice proved far easier than escape, however, and Hecla was stuck in the ice for three weeks, throwing Parry’s schedule into disarray. Even when a sharp easterly gale broke open the pack, Hecla spent a further ten days hunting for a safe harbour to moor the ship in freezing conditions.

  The combination of severe gales and heavy pack ice forced Parry to consider landing supplies on shore in case Hecla had to be abandoned. But even the contingency plan ran into trouble.

  Crozier and Foster had been ordered to ferry the emergency supplies ashore, but a fresh storm blew up immediately the operation began. After struggling for fourteen hours in treacherous seas and bitterly cold temperatures, the men were still unable to land the stores. Crozier and Foster, weary from their exertions, returned to Hecla and the plan to cache emergency supplies was abandoned.

  Hecla soon became trapped in the ice for a second time and a further two precious days were lost. It was not until 18 June, almost three weeks behind schedule, that Hecla found a suitable harbour. Sorgfjord, a small bay at the northern end of the narrow channel that separates the islands of West Spitzbergen and North East Land, is a desolate, austere inlet whose surrounding hills are dotted by the gravestones of unfortunate whalers. Dutch sailors originally named it Treurenberg Bay from the word treuren – to lament.

  North Pole: Crozier accompanied Parry during a failed bid to reach the North Pole in 1827. Crozier is depicted in the group (bottom right) waving farewell to the boat-hauling teams embarking on the unsuccessful attempt to reach the Pole.

  Hecla was manoeuvred into the small, sheltered bay, which was renamed Hecla Cove. High above the bay, a headland offering a spectacular lookout over the planned route to the Pole was named Point Crozier.

  Three days later, on 21 June, two seven-man teams left for the Pole, about 700 miles (1,120 kilometres) away. Parry took charge of one boat, which he called Enterprise and Ross took the other, which was named Investigator.

  Crozier accompanied the boat parties northwards with additional supplies for about 50 miles (80 kilometres), before bidding farewell to the party on the small outpost of Walden Island.

  Unlike the blithely optimistic Parry, Crozier had reservations about the difficult trek and knew the party faced a tougher journey than Parry was prepared to publicly admit. Crozier’s concerns were reflected in a letter to his friend Ross that he left behind in a food depot:

  I cannot explain the mingled sensations I experienced the day I parted with you at Walden Isle. I did not think I was so soft (amiable weakness you must say). But I assure you my heart was in my mouth till I got on board. God bless you my boy and send you all back safe and sound by the appointed time is the constant prayer of your old messmate.1

  Crozier’s anxiety was well founded. The expedition was doomed to failure, partly because the boats were too heavy to drag for hundreds of miles and partly because Parry and Ross had innocently set out too late in the season. The hard ice that persists in the late spring months of April and May makes for better travel in the Arctic than the loose, slushy conditions encountered in the warmth of July and August. At that time of year, hazardous large pools and wide lanes of open water are created.

  The boats, too, proved problematic. The plan to harness the reindeer to the 20-foot-long (6 metres) craft had been abandoned even before the party set off. On a trial run, the wheels and runners attached to the heavy boats had sunk deep into the ice and they had barely moved an inch. On board Hecla, the reindeer awaited the butcher’s knife.

  In their stead, the men were to pull the boats, each weighing over 1,800 pounds (850 kilograms) when packed with provisions. Effectively, each man was required to pull the equivalent of just under 260 pounds (121 kilograms). A tortuous slog saw the men struggle all day dragging the boats across the soft snow and ice. Sometimes, they crawled on all fours like the animals they had replaced.

  The ever-optimistic Parry had set out with the fond hope of travelling around 15 miles (24 kilometres) a day on the 1,400-mile (2,240-kilometre) round trip to the Pole and back. But the party managed only a fraction of this.

  The arduous task of hauling boats was compounded by the nature of the terrain. Instead of the promised ‘continued plain of smooth unbroken ice’, they found miles of broken, lumpy blocks of ice intersected by dangerous lanes of open water that meant frequent stoppages. Each time a lead was reached, the men had to go through the tedious process of unloading the supplies, launching the boats, carrying the supplies across the water and reloading the boats on the other side; it was not possible to launch the heavily laden boats into the open water as they would be too heavy to drag from the water back onto the ice.

  Even worse, the ice was constantly on the move due to the persistent northerly wind, which drove them backwards despite hours of intensive struggle. on some days, the men made no northerly progress despite hours of intense struggle. It was like walking the wrong way up a fast-moving escalator. At the end of one particularly exhausting day, it was calculated that, though the parties had travelled northwards for 10–11 miles (16–17 kilometres), they had ended up 3 miles (5 kilometres) south of where they had started that morning.

  Parry never reached the ‘main ice’ that he believed would provide a smooth pathway to the ‘Open Polar Sea’. On 26 July, it was estimated that the previous five days of back-breaking labour had taken them only 1 mile north and that they were still around 500 miles (800 kilometres) from the Pole. The march was abandoned.

  During the five-week slog, the party had trekked 668 miles (1,069 kilometres) but advanced only 172 miles (275 kilometres) north from Hecla – a heartbreaking ratio of 4 miles (6 kilometres) pulling for every single mile gained northwards. Nevertheless, the fourteen men stood at 82° 45′ north, the furthest north reached by anyone– a record that stood for half a century.

  The struggle back to Hecla brought further torture for the tired party, with the men wracked by snow-blindness, growing hunger and early signs of scurvy. Parry had badly underestimated food rations and he noted a ‘wildness in their looks’ as the men made their way towards the safety of Hecla.

  Map 6: Furthest North, 1827

  While Parry was away, Crozier experienced some of what the polar party was going through. In July, he led a group of twelve from Hecla to lay down a line of food depots along the route of the party’s return and he found the going very tough. The round trip of 160 miles (256 kilometres) to the Walden, Phipps and Little Table Islands was unde
rtaken in atrocious weather and Crozier later commented, ‘No small job, I assure you’.

  The food depots laid by Crozier following Parry’s departure proved to be vitally important for the survival of Parry and Ross. When the polar party stumbled into the depot at Little Table Island, the men had been on the march for over two days without proper food or rest. It was a grateful Ross who reported the discovery of ‘various little luxuries’ that had been deposited by Crozier. Ross also found a welcoming note from Crozier, which read:

  I hope with the blessing of God you will find us right here on your arrival in due season. We think of you sometimes, always at dinner time. How much we would give just to know whereabouts you are, whether sailing or hauling. God send the former.2

  On 21 August, two months after setting out, the exhausted man-hauling party, suffering badly from the effects of scurvy, finally reached Hecla. It was a close-run thing. Crozier, punctual and meticulous as ever, had the ship ready to sail for home without a moment’s delay.

  Crozier, too, had had a lucky escape while Parry was away. During one fearsome bout of weather, Hecla was driven ashore and nearly ran aground. Crozier could hear the ship’s bottom scraping along the rocky beach and his thoughts must have gone back to the luckless Fury in Prince Regent Inlet a couple of years earlier.

  Two days of intense struggle were required before he was able to take Hecla into safe depths. In a letter to Ross, he blamed himself for the incident: ‘How short sighted is man.’ It was something of an understatement when Crozier reported that he was ‘quite rejoiced’ to see the ship float off the shore and enter deeper water.

  Unfavourable winds detained Hecla for a few more days at Hecla Cove and the expedition was not permitted to sail until 28 August. The Orkneys were reached on 23 September and Hecla arrived in London on 17 October 1827 after a journey of nearly seven months.

  By coincidence, Parry and Franklin returned from their Arctic expeditions at precisely the same time – the two men walked into the Admiralty building within fifteen minutes of each other. Both were knighted, but Parry never went to the Arctic again and Franklin headed for eighteen years of obscurity before making an unfortunate return to the ice.

  Crozier, despite having completed three Arctic missions in the space of only six years, received no plaudits from above. Instead, he found himself without a ship and resigned to the navy’s modest rate of half-pay. He also found the mood at the Admiralty changed. After a decade of chasing the North West Passage and North Pole, there had been a change of political direction in London. Barrow discovered that budgets had been trimmed and Arctic exploration, which had enjoyed unchallenged priority at the Admiralty, was put on hold.

  So, too, was the career of Lieutenant Crozier.

  chapter eight

  Arctic Rescue

  Francis Crozier entered the doldrums in 1827. Despite a recognised status in Arctic circles and being at the peak of his powers, Crozier spent the next seven years in humble naval backwaters. Most of the time was spent on half-pay, interrupted by one posting. Crozier, now into his thirties, was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant after the North Pole expedition, but, in truth, he was a forgotten man without exploration.

  Crozier’s most illuminating moment on his return from the North Pole expedition was to learn that he had been elected a Fellow of the prestigious Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). The honour, which had taken effect from 11 May 1827 while Crozier was trying to reach Spitzbergen on Hecla, was in recognition of the valuable astronomical work conducted on Arctic expeditions with Parry.

  Among his proposers to the RAS had been Lieutenant Henry Foster, the likeable scientific officer from two voyages aboard Hecla. But some of the gloss was knocked off his accolade by news that Foster had since drowned in the swamps of Panama.

  Crozier’s recognition by the RAS was a rare encouragement during an otherwise melancholic period. Unable to secure a commission because of the glut of idle officers, he drifted aimlessly. To add to his worries, the rate of naval half-pay was less than £1 a day, equal to around £45 in today’s terms.

  Surprisingly, Crozier did not join the next Arctic expedition to leave British shores. The new venture was put together by John Ross – James Ross’ uncle – with a view to completing what Parry had begun: to find the North West Passage. A private undertaking without Admiralty backing, it is likely that Crozier was denied permission to enlist because of the establishment’s antagonism towards John Ross.

  John Ross, who had been ostracised by Barrow and the polar establishment since the controversy over Lancaster Sound in 1818, emerged from semi-retirement in 1828 with his bold plan. In defiance of the official channels, he persuaded Felix Booth, the philanthropic owner of Booth’s gin company, to finance the expedition.

  The announcement brought a flood of volunteers, including one abortive application from Hoppner, captain of the wrecked Fury. To the outrage of John Ross’ critics at the Admiralty, some prominent navy officers, most of them languishing on half-pay, promised to serve without a salary. Among those he did recruit for the expedition was his nephew, James Ross, who was to serve as second-in-command.

  John Ross, now aged 52, had used his exile in Scotland to reassess Arctic exploration. Among his important conclusions was that Barrow’s earlier expeditions were far too large and had used the wrong type of vessel to penetrate the ice. He proposed taking only 25 men into the ice, about one-fifth of the number taken by Parry.

  The most radical part of his scheme was his choice of expedition ship – Victory, a steam-powered vessel. The idea of taking a motorised ship to the ice was greeted with contempt by Barrow and his reactionary cohorts at the Admiralty; they mistrusted the new-fangled steam engines almost as much as they disliked Ross.

  Britain’s naval ascendancy was founded exclusively on a mastery of sail and the Admiralty had no intention of changing things for an unproven and often unreliable new technology. Lord Melville, Barrow’s political master at the Admiralty, once decreed that steam engines were ‘calculated to strike a fatal blow to the naval supremacy of the Empire’.

  Victory proved to be an uninspiring flagship for the motorisation of sea travel. The paddle-wheel steam packet sailed north in May 1829 with its engines stuttering and boilers leaking. It suffered constant mechanical problems in the North Atlantic, yet somehow managed to cross Baffin Bay.

  Victory entered Lancaster Sound and drove hard down Prince Regent Inlet, passing Fury Beach and easily surpassing the progress made by Parry. Ice conditions were favourable and when new land south of Fury Beach was found, it was given the name of Boothia Felix (now Boothia Peninsula). The discovery was celebrated with ample measures of their benefactor’s gin.

  But John Ross’ luck soon ran out and the expedition was forced to spend four tortuously long winters trapped in the ice. The faltering steam engine, the first experiment in motor-driven Arctic exploration, was dismantled and dumped ashore.

  James Ross left the ship to survey hundreds of miles of new land and in the spring of 1831 crowned his remarkable career by locating the North Magnetic Pole on the west coast of Boothia. On one sledging mission, he crossed the frozen sea ice to the west and reached a desolate chunk of territory that he named King William Land.

  The most-westerly headland was christened Point Victory – subsequently Victory Point – and from here Ross retreated, confident that the land was attached to the Canadian mainland. It was an unfortunate error that would later have serious implications for Crozier.

  After three years in the ice, Victory was abandoned and the survivors marched overland up the peninsula to plunder the food cache left at Fury Beach. Moving slowly northwards, the party eventually reached Lancaster Sound in small boats, from where it hoped to run into a passing whaler.

  But thick ice prevented escape and the desperate men were forced to return to bleak, windswept Fury Beach, where they would spend another winter. There was no sign of Fury itself, which had been obliterated by the weather.

&nbs
p; In 1833, with only thirteen of the original 25 still capable of work, John Ross took three small boats on a journey up Prince Regent Inlet. Soon after entering Lancaster Sound, the sails of a ship were spotted on the horizon. To their astonishment, it was Captain Richard Humphreys in Isabella, the ship Ross had controversially sailed to the edge of Lancaster Sound in 1818.

  John Ross lost only two men in his mammoth four-year journey of 1829–33. Even so, the lessons of the expedition were largely ignored back home.

  The party survived primarily because of its small size – just 25 – and it was able to supplement traditional naval rations by hunting local game, which both kept them alive and kept scurvy at bay. It is highly unlikely that a party of 120 – typical of Parry’s expeditions – would have survived four years in the wilderness on the staple navy diet of salted beef or pork.

  Diet was the key and John Ross was in no doubt about the vital importance of Eskimo eating habits. Unlike the men who wintered at Igloolik in 1822–23, John Ross was also prepared to learn from native customs. In one prophetic statement, he declared:

  It would be very desirable indeed if the men could acquire the taste for Greenland [Eskimo] food. All experience has shown that the large use of oil and fat meats is the true secret of life in these frozen countries.1

  Yet the experience of the Victory expedition went unheeded in London and the Admiralty continued to send large contingents of men to the ice on a diet that invited scurvy and with no adequate means of supporting themselves in case of emergency. Among the victims of Admiralty myopia would be Crozier.

  Though he was fortunate to escape the four-year ordeal of the Ross expedition, Crozier spent those years awaiting a new posting. Relief came in 1831, when he was appointed to HMS Stag. Shortly after joining Stag, his father, George Crozier, died in Ireland.