Resolute (40 page)

A Ballad of Sir John Franklin.
By the 1850s, the search for John Franklin had so captured worldwide attention that dozens of songs were written, lamenting his loss and praying for his safe return. Most were sung to the tune of traditional folk melodies. One of the most popularly published of the songs, written by George H. Boker was titled “The Ballad of Sir John Franklin,” written in 1851, excerpted here:

Whither sail you, Sir John Franklin?
Cried a whaler in Baffin's bay.
If to know between the land pole
I may find a broad sea-way.

I change you back Sir John Franklin
As you would live and thrive:
For between the land and the frozen pole
No man may sail alive.

But lightly laughed the stout Sir John
And spoke unto his men—
Half England is wrong, if he is right;
Bear off to westward then.

O, wither sail you brave Englishman?
Cried the little Esquimaux
Between your land and the polar star
My goodly vessels go.

Come down if you would journey there
The little Indian said;
And change your cloth for fur clothing
Your vessel for a sled.
But lightly laughed the stout Sir John
And the crew laughed with him
  too—A sailor to change from ship to sled,
I ween, were something new!

All through the long, long polar day,
The vessels westward sped;
And wherever the sail of Sir John was blown
The ice gave way and fled.

Gave way with many a hollow groan,
And with many a surly roar;
But it murmured and threatened on every side,
And closed where he sailed before.

Ho! see ye not, my merry men,
The broad and open sea?
Bethink ye what the whaler said,
Think of the little Indian's sled!
The crew laughed out in glee.

Sir John, Sir John, 'tis bitter cold,
The scud drives on the breeze,
The ice comes looming from the north,
The very sunbeams freeze.

Bright summer goes, dark winter comes—
   We cannot rule the year;
But long ere summer's sun goes down,
On yonder sea we'll steer.

The dripping icebergs dipped and rose,
And floundered down the gale;
The ships were staid, the yards were manned,
And furled the useless sail.

The summer's gone, the winter's come,
We sail not on yonder sea:
Why sail we not, Sir John Franklin?
A silent man was he.

The cruel ice came floating on,
And closed beneath the lee
Till the thickening waters dashed no more;
'Twas ice around, behind, before—
My god! there is no sea?

What think you of the whaler now?
What of the Esquimaux?
A sled were better than a ship,
To cruise through ice and snow.

Sir John, the night is black and long,
The hissing wind is bleak,
The hard, green ice is strong as death—
I prithee, Captain, speak!

What hope can scale this icy wall,
High over the main flag-staff?
Above the ridges the wolf and bear
Look down with a patient, settled stare
Look down on us and laugh.
Oh! when shall I see my orphan child?
My Mary waits for me.
Oh! when shall I see my old mother,
And pray at her trembling knee.

Be still, be still, my brave sailors!
Think not such thoughts again.
But a tear froze on his cheek;
He thought of Lady Jane.

Oh! Think you, good Sir John Franklin,
We'll ever see land?
'Twas cruel to send us here to starve,
Without a helping hand.

Oh! whether we starve to death alone,
Or sail to our own country,
We have done what man has never done—
The open ocean danced in the sun—
We passed the Northern Sea!

Kennedy and Bellot.
Nothing could have more dramatically demonstrated Lady Jane Franklin's unyielding resolve than her funding of a second
Prince Albert
rescue effort launched almost immediately after the vessel returned from its unsuccessful 1850 search. The two men she selected to head the new expedition were after neither fame nor money. They had come to her, motivated by nothing other than the desire to help her find her husband.

Canadian native William Kennedy, who would head the rescue effort, had been born at Cumberland House in Saskatchewan and, as a child, had actually met Franklin during the latter's first overland expedition. In 1833 he had joined the Hudson's Bay Company and had spent more than ten years traveling the Canadian wilderness in its employ. Highly religious, Kennedy had resigned from the company in 1846 over its policy of selling liquor to the Indians.

Joseph Renè Bellot was a lieutenant in the French navy who had begged leave to join the search for Franklin. As her friends would point out, there was no question that, in the devoted, young Bellot, Jane Franklin had found the son she never had.

Lady Franklin could not have chosen two more different men to carry forth her hopes. Kennedy, the hardened son of a Hudson's Bay fur trader and a Cree woman, had never been to sea. Bellot, an animated, tender soul, had never been anywhere near the Arctic. Their crewmen would always remember the sight of Kennedy sledging ahead in his Inuit clothing accompanied by the somewhat foppish Bellot in his pink tunic, high seaboots, and white leggings. Yet despite their obvious differences, the two would get along well together and theirs would turn out to be one of the most harmonious of all Arctic partnerships.

In June 1851, the
Prince Albert
, for the second time in two years, headed out in search of the lost expedition. Among its seventeen-man crew was a fifty-seven year old veteran of northern exploration: John Hepburn, who, in 1820, had come close to starving with Sir John. He too had volunteered for the mission.

According to the orders that Lady Franklin had given him, Kennedy was to search for her husband both in Prince Regent Inlet and in the area southwest of Cape Walker, which was in Barrow Strait. A month out, near Upernavik, Greenland, the
Prince Albert had
its encounter with De Haven's ships trying to make their way home. Boarding the
Prince Albert
, Elisha Kane was taken aback at the sight of Bellot. “I have seen many things here to surprise me,” the American exclaimed, “but what I least expected to find here was a French officer.” Kane and Bellot quickly discovered that they had much in common, and, in the days that the ships were anchored near each other, exchanged several visits. Later, Kane would remember his conversations with the sensitive Bellot as one of the few pleasant experiences of his first venture into the Arctic.

By September, Kennedy had succeeded in moving through Lancaster Sound and into Prince Regent Inlet. A few days later, he and four of his men went ashore at Port Leopold intending to conduct a spirited search for Franklin. Suddenly, off-shore, there was a violent shift in the ice, carrying Bellot and the rest of the crew aboard the
Prince Albert
away to the south. Finally regaining control of the ship, Bellot just managed to put into Batty Bay before he became completely icebound.

For a man who had never been in the Arctic, it was a terrifying experience. But Kennedy and his four companions had to be rescued. Over the next five weeks, Bellot and several crewmen made three laborious attempts to reach their marooned comrades. Finally they found them and led them back to the ship. Ahead of them all lay an icebound winter in Batty Bay.

But neither Kennedy nor Bellot was to be deterred. Late in February 1852, they and twelve of their crew members set out on a dog-sledge journey to search the Boothia Felix area. After passing Fury Beach and reaching Brentford Bay, eight of the crewmen returned to the
Prince Albert
while Kennedy, Bellot, and the four remaining crew moved on along the coast of Somerset Island. On April 7, they made their most important discovery—a new channel that Kennedy later named Bellot Strait.

Together on their trek, Kennedy and Bellot mapped all of Somerset Island and much of Boothia Felix (which would later be renamed Boothia Peninsula). By the time they returned to their ship, they had completed a journey of more than 1,100 miles. They left for home early in November. Although they, like those before them, had not found Franklin, they had added much to the knowledge of the Arctic and had completed their hazardous undertaking without losing a single man.

1. Sledging.
Throughout the long years of searching for John Franklin and for those who had themselves become lost in the search, more discoveries were made—and more knowledge of Arctic geography gained—through sledging than could ever have been accomplished by ships and boats alone. One of the liveliest and most accurate descriptions of this vital form of travel, exploration, and rescue appeared in the July 11, 1856,
Boston Daily Advertiser.

“The sledge is in general contour not unlike a Yankee wood-sled, about eleven feet long. The runners are curved at each end. The sled is fitted with a light canvas trough, so adjusted that, in case of necessity, all the stores etc. can be ferried over any narrow lane of water in the ice. There are packed on this sled a tent for eight or ten men, five or six pikes, one or more of which is fitted with an ice chisel, two large buffalo skins, a water-tight floor-cloth which contrives a double debt to pay floor by night, the sledge's sail by day.

“There are, besides, a cooking apparatus, of which the fire is made in spirit or tallow lamps, one or two guns, a pick and shovel, instruments for observation, pannikins, spoons, and a little magazine of such necessaries, with the extra clothing of the party. The provisions, the supply of which measures the length of the expedition, consist of about a pound of bread and a pound of pemmican per man per day, six ounces of pork, a little preserved potato, rum, lime-juice, tea, chocolate, sugar, tobacco, or other such creature comforts. The sled is fitted with two drag-ropes, at which the men haul. The officer goes ahead to find the best way among the hummocks of ice or masses of snow.

“Sometimes on a smooth floe, before the wind, the floor cloth is set for a sail, and she runs off merrily, perhaps with several of the crew on board, and the rest running to keep up. But over broken ice, it is a constant task … You hear 'one, two, three, haul' all day long, as she is worked out of one ice 'cradle hole' over a hummock into another. Different parties select different hours for traveling. Captain Kellett finally considered that the best time, when, as usual, they had constant daylight, was to start at four in the afternoon, travel till ten
P.M.
, breakfast then, tent and rest four hours; travel four more, tent, dine, and sleep nine hours. This secured sleep when the sun was highest and most trying to the eyes….

“Each man, of course, is dressed as warmly as flannel, woolen cloth, leather, and sealskin will dress him. For such long journeying, the study of boots becomes a science and our authorities are full of discussions as to canvas or woolen, or carpet or leather boots, of strings and buckles. When the time to tent comes, the spikes are fitted for tent poles, and the tent set up, its door to leeward, on the ice or snow. The floor-cloth is laid for the carpet. At an hour fixed, all talking must stop. There is just enough for the party to lie side by side on the floor-cloth. Each man gets into a long felt bag, made of heavy felting, literally nearly half an inch thick. He brings this up wholly over his head and buttons himself in. He has a little hole in it to breathe through. Over the felt is sometimes a brown holland bag, meant to keep out moisture.

“The officer lies farthest in the tent as being next to the wind and…hardship [is considered] the point of honor. The cook for the day lies next to the doorway, as being first to be called. Side by side the others lie between…No watch is kept, for there is little danger of intrusion.

“Some thirty or forty parties, thus equipped, set out from the
Resolute
while she was under Captain Kellett's charges. As the journey of Lieutenant Pim to the
Investigator…
was that on which turned the greatest victory of her voyage, we will let that stand as a specimen of what has been accomplished through sledging.”

2. Edward Inglefield.
Edward Inglefield, the man who helped bring the ill-starred Belcher expedition home, was a navy man to the core. The son of a rear admiral and the grandson of a captain, he joined the navy at the age of fourteen and by the age of twenty-five had performed so gallantly, particularly during operations off the Syrian coast, that he was promoted to the rank of commander.

While most of his colleagues were obsessed with finding the Northwest Passage, Inglefield had a different ambition. He wanted to be the first to reach the Geographic North Pole. A great admirer of John and Lady Franklin, he was also determined to take part in the search for Sir John. Perhaps if fortune smiled his way, he thought, he could accomplish both goals.

He got his chance in 1852 when Lady Franklin, who had already twice sent the private yacht
Prince Albert
to look for her husband, bought yet another small private vessel, the
Isabel
, and equipped it to join the search. Inglefield, who firmly believed that his hero Franklin was still alive, took leave from the navy and volunteered to captain the rescue ship.

Almost as soon as he reached Arctic waters, Inglefield made an important contribution. When John Ross had returned home from his search for Franklin, he had brought with him a tale that had been related to him by his interpreter, Adam Beck, that Franklin and his men had been killed by Inuit and that their bones lay buried underneath a cairn north of Umanak, Greenland. Jane Franklin who, among other Arctic observers, never believed the story, had responded by sarcastically thanking Ross for “having murdered my husband.” As soon as he reached Greenland, Inglefield found the cairn, tore it apart, and saw that it contained only animal bones. The disturbing rumor had been put to rest.

Sailing on, Inglefield entered Smith Sound at the head of Baffin Bay, filled with what he later described as “wild thoughts of getting to the Pole—of finding our way to Behring Strait—and most of all reaching Franklin and giving him help.” He did not reach the Pole and, in fact, was blocked more than 850 miles short of it. But the route he had followed through Smith Sound—one that Elisha Kane would also pursue in 1853—would nonetheless, as later explorers discovered, provide the avenue to reaching the North Pole.