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The Great White North: The story of polar exploration from the earliest times to the discovery of the poleWright, Helen S. (Helen Saunders)

History

The Great White North: The story of polar exploration from the earliest times to the discovery of the pole

Name: The Great White North: The story of polar exploration from the earliest times to the discovery of the pole
Author: Wright, Helen S. (Helen Saunders)

Wright, Helen S. (Helen Saunders)

Arctic regions; North Pole

By the last of August, 1847, the party returned to civilization, where
Dr. Rae was awarded four hundred pounds by the Hudson Bay Company for his
important services.




CHAPTER VI

    Sir John Franklin.—Early life.—First land expedition of
    1819-1821.—Journey from York Factory to Cumberland House.—Reach
    Fort Providence.—Winter at Fort Enterprise.—Explorations.—5550
    miles.—Hardship.—Starvation.—Return.—Second land
    journey.—1825.—Winter quarters at Great Bear Lake.—Descent
    of the Mackenzie River to the Polar Sea.—1200 miles of coast
    added to map.—The last journey of Sir John Franklin, 1845.—The
    _Erebus_ and _Terror_.—Last seen in Melville Bay.


No name holds more romantic association with Arctic history than that of
Sir John Franklin. What a career, what love of adventure, what hardships
endured with heroic fortitude, what leadership that could inspire others
to passionate loyalty, and superhuman endurance under unspeakable trials,
and what a _fate_!

Let us review briefly a life that stands in the foremost rank of naval
history, not so much by great achievement, as by that particular charm of
character, indefinable and subtle, that is based on those great qualities
of tolerance, justice, loyalty, simplicity, and warm affections.

John Franklin, the youngest son of twelve children, was born in the
small market town of Spilsby, Lincolnshire, April 16, 1786. He was early
destined for the church and educated at St. Ives, and later at Louth
Grammar School. A holiday jaunt with a young companion, twelve miles to
the shores of the North Sea, with its overwhelming grandeur, changed his
career and decided him for the life of a sailor.

The shrewd old father, with that acute knowledge of the short-lived
enthusiasms of youth, put him to test, and at fourteen years of age
young John served on a merchantman bound for Lisbon. Undaunted by the
hard berth of a sailor lad, we find him in 1801 on the quarter-deck of
the _Polephemus_, under Captain Lanford, leading in line at the battle of
Copenhagen, Lord Nelson’s hardest fought battle.

His iron will, ever more firm in its determination for a life
of adventure, secured him later a berth in the discovery ship
_Investigator_, exploring the coast of Australia, where Franklin acquired
valuable astronomical and surveying skill under his able relative,
Captain Flinders.

Transferred to the _Porpoise_, which, in company with the _Cato_, was
wrecked on a coral reef off the coast of Australia, August 18, 1803, the
lad, with one hundred and fifty others, spent fifty days on a strip of
sand only four feet above water. Captain Flinders, after making his way
250 leagues to Port Jackson in an open boat, rescued his companions.
Franklin finally reached Canton, where he secured passage to England in
the _Earl Camden_, East-Indiaman, under Sir Nathaniel Dance, commodore of
the China fleet.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

The Great White North: The story of polar exploration from the earliest times to the discovery of the poleWright, Helen S. (Helen Saunders)

History

The Great White North: The story of polar exploration from the earliest times to the discovery of the pole

Wright, Helen S. (Helen Saunders)

Arctic regions; North Pole

By the last of August, 1847, the party returned to civilization, where
Dr. Rae was awarded four hundred pounds by the Hudson Bay Company for his
important services.




CHAPTER VI

    Sir John Franklin.—Early life.—First land expedition of
    1819-1821.—Journey from York Factory to Cumberland House.—Reach
    Fort Providence.—Winter at Fort Enterprise.—Explorations.—5550
    miles.—Hardship.—Starvation.—Return.—Second land
    journey.—1825.—Winter quarters at Great Bear Lake.—Descent
    of the Mackenzie River to the Polar Sea.—1200 miles of coast
    added to map.—The last journey of Sir John Franklin, 1845.—The
    _Erebus_ and _Terror_.—Last seen in Melville Bay.


No name holds more romantic association with Arctic history than that of
Sir John Franklin. What a career, what love of adventure, what hardships
endured with heroic fortitude, what leadership that could inspire others
to passionate loyalty, and superhuman endurance under unspeakable trials,
and what a _fate_!

Let us review briefly a life that stands in the foremost rank of naval
history, not so much by great achievement, as by that particular charm of
character, indefinable and subtle, that is based on those great qualities
of tolerance, justice, loyalty, simplicity, and warm affections.

John Franklin, the youngest son of twelve children, was born in the
small market town of Spilsby, Lincolnshire, April 16, 1786. He was early
destined for the church and educated at St. Ives, and later at Louth
Grammar School. A holiday jaunt with a young companion, twelve miles to
the shores of the North Sea, with its overwhelming grandeur, changed his
career and decided him for the life of a sailor.

The shrewd old father, with that acute knowledge of the short-lived
enthusiasms of youth, put him to test, and at fourteen years of age
young John served on a merchantman bound for Lisbon. Undaunted by the
hard berth of a sailor lad, we find him in 1801 on the quarter-deck of
the _Polephemus_, under Captain Lanford, leading in line at the battle of
Copenhagen, Lord Nelson’s hardest fought battle.

His iron will, ever more firm in its determination for a life
of adventure, secured him later a berth in the discovery ship
_Investigator_, exploring the coast of Australia, where Franklin acquired
valuable astronomical and surveying skill under his able relative,
Captain Flinders.

Transferred to the _Porpoise_, which, in company with the _Cato_, was
wrecked on a coral reef off the coast of Australia, August 18, 1803, the
lad, with one hundred and fifty others, spent fifty days on a strip of
sand only four feet above water. Captain Flinders, after making his way
250 leagues to Port Jackson in an open boat, rescued his companions.
Franklin finally reached Canton, where he secured passage to England in
the _Earl Camden_, East-Indiaman, under Sir Nathaniel Dance, commodore of
the China fleet.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

The Great White North: The story of polar exploration from the earliest times to the discovery of the pole

The Great White North: The story of polar exploration from the earliest times to the discovery of the pole

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