52 TRANSACTIONS iSqQ-IoO 



In August the vessels went westward. A high and bold 

 coast was sighted and named Banks land, and then, the ice pack 

 preventing further progress in that direction, the vessels' bows 

 were turned eastward, and the ships' company examined, as they 

 pushed their way along, the southern coast of Melville Sound 

 and Barrow Strait. Parry had sailed upwards of 30 degrees of 

 west longtitude beyond any former navigator, and had seen the 

 most westerly lands of the now called District of Franklin. In 

 due time he arrived in England. 



Sir John Barrow, commenting on this voyage says, 'We are 

 proud, and justl}^ proud of the name of Cook, but we venture to 

 assert, without fear of contradiction and without meaning to 

 derogate one tittle from the merit of that renowned navigator, 

 that in no part of his career of discovery had he occasion to call 

 into action all those personal exertions and mental energies 

 which were perpetually demanded in, and essential to the safety 

 of, the late expedition." 



Parry made a second voyage as commander in 1821, going 

 to Repulse Bay and exploring some 200 leagues, nearly one-half 

 of which belonged to the continent. He wintered near Winter 

 Island in Repulse Bay and established a theatre, where, on the 

 17th of November, "A shivering set of actors performed to a 

 great-coated, shivering audience, the appropriate play of the 

 "Poor Gentleman." He went up the east coast of Melville 

 Peninsula guided by the tracings on paper of a remarkably 

 intelligent young Eskimo woman, whose untrained hand took as 

 naturally to drawing as the hands of others of her tribe did to 

 pilfering. He named the strait which separates the peninsula 

 from the island north of it the "Fury and Hecla" strait, after 

 his vessels. He did not succeed in finding a North West Pas- 

 sage and returned to England. Nothing daunted, the British 

 authorities sent out three expeditions — one by way of Behring's 

 Strait, the second under Parry by Baffin Bay, and the third 

 under Franklin by land, to the continental shores of Northern 

 America. Parry did little, his vessel, the "Fury" was wrecked 

 and he returned to England ; his future acts, not being associated 

 directly with Canada's archipelago of the north, concern us not. 



I have quoted Sir John Barrow's opinion of Sir. Ed. Parry. 

 You will see on the map between Coppermine River and 



