Spitsbergen and the Pole under the command of Lieutenant (later 

 Sir) John Franklin, whose name, like that of James Clark Ross, was 

 to be famous in polar exploration. His fate and that of Ross were 

 to be curiously interwoven. 



Of the other two ships bound for the Northwest Passage the 

 Isabella was commanded by John Ross and carried James Ross as a 

 midshipman. Commander of the second ship, the Alexander, was a 

 young lieutenant (later Sir) William Edward Parry. Thus did four 

 famous polar explorers make their debut on the stage of history. 



Commander Ross' immediate objective was Baffin Bay, which 

 lies to the north of Canada and separates Greenland from the many 

 islands of the Canadian Arctic archipelago. It was oif Greenland's 

 west coast that young Ross got his first taste of the grinding, 

 crushing pack ice of the Arctic when both ships were beset and 

 narrowly missed total disaster. Although the voyage proved Baffin's 

 original chart to be right, the expedition failed to find a way through 

 to the Pacific; and for Commander Ross it was an embarrassing 

 failure. As the ships entered Lancaster Sound (a possible gateway 

 to the Pacific), Ross thought a mountain range barred his way. He 

 was not the first to be deceived by clouds. His second in command, 

 Parry, disagreed and wanted to push on, but Ross gave the order to 

 turn back. On his return to England there was an outcry over his 

 failure to press on through Lancaster Sound. Like Parry, the 

 Admiralty was convinced that Ross' "mountains" were nothing 

 more than a mass of clouds. 



Within two months two new ships, the Hecla and Griper had 

 been fitted out for a return voyage — this time with Parry in com- 

 mand and James Clark Ross serving under him. It was his appren- 

 ticeship during three expeditions that molded young Ross' character 

 and taught him all the subtle realities of ice. In May 1819 the ships 

 sailed to the Canadian Arctic "to advance the knowledge of 

 geography and navigation and in particular to find the Northwest 

 Passage." Though they failed to find the Passage, they managed to 

 work their way farther west than any ship before them. Two more 

 attempts to find a passage, in 182 1 and 1824, also failed. 



James Clark Ross' next taste of the Arctic came in 1827 when he 

 again sailed with Parry in the Hecla, this time in an attempt to reach 

 the North Pole. Ross was now a full lieutenant. Parry's idea was 

 to sail to Spitsbergen, 600 miles from the Pole, then work his way 

 to the Pole by hauUng boats over the intervening ice. When they 

 reached Spitsbergen they anchored the Hecla and left her in com- 

 mand of Francis Crozier, who later served with Ross in the South. 

 Parry, Ross, and their party set off in two of the ship's boats. 

 Enterprise and Endeavour. Their flat-bottom design was intended to 

 make them withstand pressure i\-om ice ; in addition each boat had 

 strong metal runners for gliding over long stretches of smooth ice. 

 At first they made good progress through the loose brash ice, but 

 soon they found themselves hauling the two-ton boats over difficult 

 ice floes. We now know how impossible was the task they had set 

 themselves. Even when they reached smooth floes, they found a 

 strong southerly current carrying them back, so they abandoned 

 the attempt after they had reached a latitude of 82°45'N. Not imtil 

 eighty-two years later, in 1909, did the American admiral Robert 

 E. Peary become the first man to reach the North Pole. This was 

 the last of Edward Parry's Arctic voyages, but for James Clark 



Parry and Ross, in the two boats Enterprise 

 and Endeavour, during ttieir attempt to 

 reacti the Pole. Here, on August 12, they 

 are caught in a storm off Spitsbergen. 



47 



