l899-'00 TRANSACTIONS 53 



McKenzie River, Cape Parry. In bestowing the name upon 

 that bold headland, Dr. Richardson, in 1826 wrote in his journal, 

 "Cape Parry I have named after the distinguished navigator, 

 whose skill and perseverance have created an era in the progress 

 of northern discovery." 



While Parry was taking possession of the islands of what is 

 now known as Parry Archipelago, another ardent Arctic ex- 

 plorer was at work seeking to ascertain the bounds of the 

 northern shoie of this continent. This was the man in whose 

 honour, and in that of his noble-hearted wife, twenty place- 

 name tablets have been set up in the Queen's Arctic territory. 



Sir John Franklin first became connected with Arctic ex- 

 ploration in 1818. He was born in Lincolnshire, April 16th, 

 1786, and was intended by his father for the church. But one 

 day he and his companion seized the opportunity of a holiday to 

 make a jaunt of a dozen miles to see what the ocean looked like. 

 That daj'-'s enjoyment of the salt water aroused in him the de- 

 termination to become a "salt." His father, thinking that a 

 good solid experience of the discomforts of life in an ocean ship 

 would make the boy long for the quiet of a parsonage, sent him 

 to Lisbon on board of a merchantman. But the intended cure 

 only confirmed the disease, and in 1800 when fourteen years old, 

 the youngster was on the quarter-deck of the Polyphemus, a 74 

 gun ship, which a few months later led the line in Nelson's great 

 naval battle of Copenhagen. During the next few years he was 

 knocking around the world as is the custom of sailor lads. He 

 was in Australia, where his vessel was wrecked, in India, in 

 Portugal, in Brazil and in the Gulf of Mexico performing those 

 duties which a young English naval officer in stirring times has 

 to put his hand to. 



When peace came after the battle of Waterloo, the young 

 lieutenant sought and obtained an appointment on board a vessel 

 in which it was proposed to attempt to cross the pole by the 

 often tried way of Spitzbergen. The qualities which the young 

 officer displaj^ed recommended him to the London men who had 

 polar enterprise at heart, and in 18 19 he was placed in command 

 of an expedition whose object was to find the Arctic Sea by the 

 overland route through our North West Territories, then known 

 as Rupert's Land. 



