Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and Narrative of an Attempt to Reach the North Pole, Volume 2Parry, William Edward, Sir
History
Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and Narrative of an Attempt to Reach the North Pole, Volume 2
Parry, William Edward, Sir
Arctic regions; Northwest Passage; Parry, William Edward, Sir, 1790-1855
The 30th commenced with snowy and inclement weather, which soon rendered
the atmosphere so thick that we could no longer see our way, obliging us
to halt till two P.M., when we crossed several small pools with great
labour and loss of time. We had generally very light ice this day, with
some heavy, rugged pieces intermixed; and, when hauling across these, we
had sometimes to cut with axes a passage for the boats among the
hummocks. We also dragged them through a great many pools of fresh
water, to avoid the necessity of going round them. The wind freshening
up from the S.S.W., we afterward found the ice gradually more and more
open, so that, in the course of the day, we made by rowing, though by a
very winding channel, five miles of northing; but were again stopped by
the ice soon after midnight, and obliged to haul up on the first mass
that we could gain, the ice having so much motion that we narrowly
escaped being "nipped." We set out at 11.30 A.M. on the 1st July, the
wind still fresh from the S.W., and some snow falling: but it was more
than an hour before we could get away from the small pieces of ice on
which we slept, the masses beyond being so broken up and so much in
motion, that we could not, at first, venture to launch the boats. Our
latitude, observed at noon, was 81° 30' 41". After crossing several
pieces, we at length got into a good "lead" of water, four or five miles
in length; two or three of which, as on the preceding day, occurred
under the lee of a floe, being the second we had yet seen that deserved
that name. We then passed over four or five small floes, and across the
pools of water that lay between them. The ice was now less broken up,
and sometimes tolerably level; but from six to eighteen inches of soft
snow lay upon it in every part, making the travelling very fatiguing,
and obliging us to make at least two, and sometimes three, journeys
with our loads. We now found it absolutely necessary to lighten the boat
as much as possible, by putting the bread-bags on the sledges, on
account of the "runners" of the boats sinking so much deeper into the
snow; but our bread ran a great risk of being wetted by this plan.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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