BOAT VOYAGE OF FRANKLIN AND RICHARDSON. 501 



boat-voyage of discovery along the coasts of the Icy Ocean. An 

 idea of the difficulties of this undertaking may be formed, ■when 

 I mention that the travellers started from Fort York, in Hudson's 

 Bay, on the 30th of August, 1819, and after a voyage of 700 

 miles up the Saskatchewan, reached Fort Cumberland, where 

 they spent the first winter. The next found them 700 miles 

 further on their journey, established during the extreme cold at 

 Fort Enterprise. During the summer of 1821 they accomplished 

 the remaining 334 miles, and on the 21st of July commenced 

 their exploration of the Polar Sea in two birch-bark canoes. 

 In these frail shallops they skirted the desolate coast of the 

 American continent, 555 miles to the east of the Coppermine, 

 as far as Point Turnagain, when the rapid decrease of their 

 provisions and the shattered state of the canoes imperatively 

 compelled their return. And now began a dreadful land -journey 

 of two months, accompanied by all the horrors of famine. A 

 lichen, called by the Canadians tripe de roche (rock-tripe), 

 afforded them for some time a wretched subsistence, and, that 

 failing, they were glad to satisfy their hunger with scraps of 

 roasted leather or burnt bones, from prey which the wolves 

 might have abandoned. On reaching the Coppermine a raft 

 had to be framed, a task accomplished with the utmost difficulty 

 by the exhausted party. One or two of the Canadians had 

 already fallen behind, and never rejoined their comrades, and 

 now three or four sank down, and could proceed no farther. 

 Back, with the most vigorous of the men, had already pushed 

 on to send help from Fort Enterprise ; and Eichardson, Hood, 

 and Hepburn volunteered to remain with the disabled men, 

 near a supply of the rock-tripe, while Franklin pursued his 

 journey with the others capable of bearing him company. On 

 reaching Fort Enterprise this last party found that wretched 

 tenement completely deserted, and a note from Back stating that 

 he had gone in pursuit of the Indians. Some cast-off deer-skins 

 and a heap of bones, provisions worthy of the place, sustained 

 their flickering life-flame, and after eighteen miserable days, 

 they were joined in their dreary quarters by Eichardson and 

 Hepburn, the sole survivors of their party. At length, when on 

 the point of sinking under their sufferings, three Indians sent 

 by Back brought them timely succour. After a while they were 



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