ADRIFT
IN THE ARCTIC ICE PACK

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OUTING ADVENTURE LIBRARY

ADRIFT

IN THE ARCTIC ICE PACK

From the History of the First
U. S. Grinnell Expedition in
Search of Sir John Franklin

By ELISHA KENT KANE, M.D.

EDITED BY

HORACE KEPHART

NEW YORK

OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY

MCMXVI

Copyright, 1915, by
OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY

All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

T was in the summer of 1845 that Sir John Franklin undertook his fourth voyage into the Arctic regions, in search of a northwest passage, and disappeared forever in that icy waste.

Franklin’s two ships, the Erebus and the Terror, were supposed to be provisioned for three years. When this interval had passed without word of the daring navigator there was grave fear that he had met with disaster. Then began an unparalleled series of search and relief expeditions, public and private, English and American: five separate ones in 1848, three in 1849, ten in 1850, two in 1851, nine in 1852, five in 1853, two in 1854, one in 1855, and one in 1857.

Among the earliest of these was one from the United States, known as the first Grinnell expedition, which left New York in May, 1848. Lady Franklin had appealed to the President of the United States to enlist his countrymen as a “kindred people, to join heart and hand in the enterprise of snatching the lost navigators from a dreary grave.” Accordingly a bill was introduced in Congress to fit out an expedition for this purpose; but the process of legislation was too slow to provide vessels and equipment in the short time that was left for such a venture.

At this juncture a New York merchant, Henry Grinnell, outfitted two of his own vessels for the service and proffered them gratuitously to our government. They were at once accepted under a joint resolution of Congress, and the President was authorized to detail officers and men from the navy to man the ships.

This little squadron comprised the Advance, of 144 tons, and the Rescue, of 91 tons, carrying, respectively, seventeen and sixteen officers and crew. The expedition was under command of Lieut. Edwin J. De Haven.

The senior medical officer was Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, who was destined later (1853) himself to lead a second Grinnell expedition on this same quest. In the present instance, Dr. Kane states that “while bathing in the tepid waters of the Gulf of Mexico” he received a telegram from Washington detaching him from the Coast Survey and ordering him to proceed forthwith to New York for duty upon the Arctic expedition. Although he made the overland trip of thirteen hundred miles with all possible despatch, he had only a fraction of a day left in New York in which to equip himself for service in the polar seas. It fell to him to be not only chief surgeon and scientific observer of the expedition, but also its historian.

In view of the elaborate scientific methods of outfitting for arctic exploration in our own day, it is interesting to contrast the vessels and equipment hurriedly assembled for a venture into the Far North at a time when so little was known of that inhospitable region. Dr. Kane says: "It was not, perhaps, to be expected that an expedition equipped so hastily as ours, and with one engrossing object, should have facilities for observing very accurately, or go out of its way to find matters for curious research. But even the routine of a national ship might, I was confident, allow us to gather something for the stock of general knowledge. With the assistance of Professor Loomis, I collected as I could some simple instruments for thermal and magnetic registration, which would have been of use if they had found their way on board. A very few books for the dark hours of winter, and a stock of coarse woolen clothing, re-enforced by a magnificent robe of wolf-skins, that had wandered down to me from the snow-drifts of Utah, constituted my entire outfit; and with these I made my report to Commodore Salter at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

“Almost within the shadow of the line-of-battle ship North Carolina, their hulls completely hidden beneath a projecting wharf, were two little hermaphrodite brigs. Their spars had no man-of-war trigness; their decks were choked with half-stowed cargo; and for size, I felt as if I could straddle from the main hatch to the bulwarks.

“At this first sight of the Grinnell Expedition, I confess that the fastidious experience of naval life on board frigates and corvettes made me look down on these humble vessels. They seemed to me more like a couple of coasting schooners than a national squadron bound for a perilous and distant sea. Many a time afterward I recalled the short-sighted ignorance of these first impressions, when some rude encounter with the ice made comfort and dignity very secondary thoughts.

“The Advance, my immediate home, had been originally intended for the transport of machinery. Her timbers were heavily moulded, and her fastenings of the most careful sort. She was fifty-three tons larger than her consort, the Rescue; yet both together barely equaled two hundred and thirty-five tons.

“To navigate an ice-bound sea, speed, though important, is much less so than strength. Extreme power of resistance to pressure must be combined with facility of handling, adequate stowage, and a solidity of frame that may encounter sudden concussions fearlessly;