Collinson's was the most remarkable voyage ever accomplished by a sailing-ship in the Arctic regions. It lasted from 1850 to 1855—five years and a hundred and sixteen days—all the way out across the Atlantic and Pacific and home again in safety, traversing a hundred and twenty-eight degrees of longitude in the Arctic sea, coming nearest at the time to completing the north-west passage by ship (up Prince of Wales Strait), finding two north-west passages by sledge (one joining with Parry's discoveries across Banks Strait, the other with Franklin's up Victoria Strait), and approaching nearer than any other naval expedition to the great discovery by travelling up Franklin's route for some distance, and passing within thirty miles of the spot where the vessels he was in search of had been abandoned, though unfortunately, like Rae, he was on the west side of the waterway instead of the east. Passing Bering Strait in July, 1850, the _Enterprise_ went north from Wainwright Inlet into the Beaufort Sea, until she was stopped by the heavy pack. Trying east, to join with Parry's farthest, and then west, she arrived, on the 28th of August, at 73° 23´ in 164°, and here she turned south after having sailed over eleven thousand miles without having to reef her topsails, an unprecedented run of distance and fine weather combined. Returning in 1851 from wintering at Hong Kong, Collinson, with a southerly wind "too precious to be wasted," made his way up Prince of Wales Strait, knowing nothing of the visit of the _Investigator_, to find ice blocking his way just at the northern outlet, his furthest north, by ship, 73° 30´, forty miles beyond M'Clure's winter quarters, as given in the record he found in one of the cairns. Unable to round the corner into Banks Strait owing to the ice block, Collinson returned down Prince of Wales Strait and followed the track of the _Investigator_ half-way up the west coast of Banks Land, though he had found nothing to indicate she had gone in that direction. Finding the ice conditions dangerous, he retraced his route along the coast and went into comfortable winter quarters in Walker Bay, at the entrance of Prince of Wales Strait. By the end of November the natives fishing for salmon-trout had cleared off, as also had the reindeer, hares, and ptarmigan and other birds, and on the 17th of March the ravens, which had been the last to leave, were the first to return. In April sledge parties went out, one of which under Lieutenant Parkes crossed the route of the _Hecla_ along the strait and reached Melville Island at Cape Providence on the way to Winter Harbour, short of which, within sight of Point Hearne, Parkes began his homeward journey, owing to his taking the tracks of sledges and barking of dogs as indicating the presence, not of M'Clure as it did, but of Eskimos, with whom, being without weapons, he was unable to cope.