Crozier’s closest companion on the expedition was Ross, another Fury shipmate. The pair quickly developed strong bonds and became each other’s closest companion, a deep relationship that lasted for the rest of their lives. Ross was one of the few who called Crozier by the name of Frank.
Ross was also everything that Crozier was not. Crozier was a dark-haired and solidly built man of about 5 feet 9 inches, a model of simplicity and efficiency. He was an industrious, utterly trustworthy officer who carried a little too much weight but rarely stood out in a crowd. He was straightforward, genial and possessed a gentle sense of humour. An unpretentious man who disliked excessive formality and pomp, he once returned to Banbridge for the opening of the town’s new church opposite his family home and discovered that class-conscious parishioners were jostling to reserve the most favourable pews. Crozier walked calmly into the church and sat in a pew at the back of the building, proclaiming: ‘One pew is as good as another.’
Crozier was an understated figure without a trace of vanity. His principal frailty was a low level of self-confidence that may have stemmed from insecurity about his modest formal education. The surviving correspondence of Crozier, with its occasionally erratic spelling and punctuation, reflects the limited instruction of someone who left school at thirteen.
Sir James Clark Ross, lifelong friend of Crozier and the navy’s most accomplished polar explorer of the age who made nine journeys to the ice.
On board ship, Crozier mixed easily with young men from similar backgrounds who had enlisted before reaching adulthood and who relied on their quick wits and sound basic intelligence to progress through the naval ranks. But it was a different matter on shore, where the untutored young officer felt a little ill at ease among the more sophisticated and scholarly types he met at receptions and dinner parties.
Crozier was nevertheless highly respected by his naval colleagues – the men who knew him best. He may have lacked flair, but his fellow officers warmed to his firm loyalty, unswerving dedication and ironclad integrity. John Barrow, not a man to lavish praise, once wrote of Crozier:
A most zealous young officer who, by his talents, attention and energy, has succeeded in working himself up to the top of the service.2
Rock solid and reliable, Crozier was born to be a number two.
James Clark Ross, by contrast, was a striking figure with dark piercing eyes and once christened the most handsome man in the navy. He was a charismatic, popular figure with a flair that made him one of the greatest polar explorers of all time – something that more than compensated for his streak of vanity, arrogance and occasional sharp tongue. Where Crozier may have lacked confidence, Ross displayed a breezy self-assurance and a strong sense of destiny that swept all before him. Ross, a dashing figure with a strong sense of his own destiny, was a born leader.
Despite the outward differences, Crozier and Ross had much in common. They shared ancestral roots in Scottish Presbyterianism and a staunch belief in the powers of the Almighty. Ross’ ancestors were soldiers and ministers on the craggy peninsula near Stranraer in west Galloway, barely 100 miles (160 kilometres) from the border homelands of the early Croziers. Both had joined the navy as boys, Ross signing up in 1812 less than a fortnight before his twelfth birthday.
Both men also overcame limited formal tuition to become leading authorities in the field of maritime science, notably on the effect of the earth’s magnetic fields on navigational compasses. It was Ross – in conjunction with the acknowledged experts, Sir Edward Sabine and Professor Humphrey Lloyd – who later made the first systematic magnetic survey of the British Isles.
Crozier showed great aptitude for scientific observation. On successive expeditions he took responsibility for erecting observatories and taking readings, and developed a strong reputation for his work. Years later, some of the most distinguished scholars and naval figures of the age endorsed Crozier’s election as a Fellow of the Royal Society, the country’s most prestigious scientific body.3
Crozier’s appointment to Fury found him suddenly catapulted into unaccustomed limelight after a decade of anonymity in the fleet. With Arctic exploration now popular among the public, crowds poured down to Deptford on the River Thames to see the two ships and the heroic explorers before they departed into the unknown.
Parry responded to the popular acclaim by throwing a grand farewell ball on the decks of Fury. Hundreds of guests, splashed with spring moonlight, danced long into the night.
Below decks, the holds of Fury and Hecla were bulging with food and equipment for a journey into the unknown that might last three years.
chapter four
A Promise
Fury and Hecla sailed on 8 May 1821 with instructions to enter Hudson Bay and proceed along the western shores in search of an outlet that would take the ships towards the Bering Strait. The most likely avenue was thought to be Repulse Bay on the north-western side of the bay, or further north in the little-known waters of Foxe Basin.
In early July, the two ships – accompanied by the supply vessel, Nautilus – reached the mouth of Hudson Strait, the gateway to the Arctic ice that separates Canada’s north-eastern coastline and Baffin Island. Tons of supplies, including twenty live bullocks, were transferred in the choppy seas and Nautilus turned for home, leaving Fury and Hecla alone on the edge of the frozen wilderness.
The ships sailed through the awkward currents of Hudson Strait and all on board were surprised to discover they were not quite alone. Three merchant vessels were spotted making their way into Hudson Bay, including one carrying 160 Dutch settlers seeking new lives in one of civilisation’s most far-flung outposts. Parry persuaded one of the ships to carry the expedition’s mail back to England and Fury and Hecla resumed their journey.
Hudson Bay is a vast inland sea some 700 miles (1,120 kilometres) wide and 850 miles (1,360 kilometres) long and the ships’ progress across the icy waters in patchy fog was agonisingly slow. All hands were on constant alert to avoid collisions with loose ice floes.
The expedition faced a major decision as the ships came close to Southampton Island at the apex of the bay and headed for Repulse Bay. The only known route at the time was up the dangerous narrow channel that runs between the bleak western shore of Southampton Island and the Canadian mainland – a channel with the incongruous name of Roe’s Welcome Sound. Parry gambled and decided to avoid the proven route, running along the mostly uncharted Frozen Strait on the north-eastern side of Southampton Island, where no ships had been before.
Visibility was poor as the vessels moved deliberately forward, taking regular depth soundings and keeping on full alert for drifting ice. ‘Neck-or-nothing navigation’, Parry called it. Occasionally, small boats went ashore to investigate Southampton Island and to pick up fresh water and supplies. Crozier returned from one trip with enough shellfish to feed both ships for a couple of days.
To relief all round, the fog suddenly lifted to reveal Fury and Hecla in a massive natural theatre of a bay enclosed on three sides by steep cliffs rising to 600 feet (185 metres). Without fully realising it, Fury and Hecla had passed blindfold through the unexplored Frozen Strait and into Repulse Bay. The bay, discovered by Captain Christopher Middleton in 1742, was aptly named. A quick reconnoitre showed that it was a dead end with no sign of an exit to the west.
Parry immediately withdrew and turned the ships into Foxe Basin. Progressing northwards along the largely unknown shores of Melville Peninsula, Hecla and Fury were now venturing into seas where few ships had been before.
Foxe Basin, with its chunky blockade of intimidating ice floes, had rarely been visited since its discovery by Luke Foxe in 1631. Foxe, an experienced sailor, declared it a blind alley and his firm declaration brought the early search for the North West Passage to a halt for almost 100 years. Parry was now poised to take his ships into Foxe’s cul-de-sac.
For six weeks, Fury and Hecla poked and probed along the rugged Melville Peninsula on the western shores of Foxe Basin, dodging the ice
and taking frequent depths in the uncertain waters. But the elusive pathway to the west could not be found. As September gave way to October, the short season of ice-free passages in the area was coming to an end and attention turned to finding a sanctuary where the ships could spend the winter.
The refuge, found in early October, was a wide bay at the southern tip of Melville Peninsula and was given the appropriate name of Winter Island. The shelter, a few miles to the south of the Arctic Circle, was to be their home for nine months.
Over-wintering with Parry did not threaten the same terror for the combined payroll of 118 men on board Fury and Hecla as it had for men on earlier voyages to the Arctic. Most had reluctantly endured an isolated winter only after becoming trapped in the ice. Parry, by contrast, deliberately chose to pass a winter in the Arctic and had planned for the occasion.
Parry was the most accomplished of early-nineteenth-century polar explorers and his methods and routines for withstanding the long, dark months of isolation became a model for many other voyagers in both the Arctic and Antarctic. He devised a system of firm discipline and busy working schedules, combined with a comfortable living environment, a generous diet and an abundance of pastimes and amusements to keep the men occupied. It was a system that generally worked very well.
The upper masts were taken down and canvas was stretched over the decking to provide a covering against the worst of the weather. Another innovation was an early form of central heating which was rigged up below decks using a maze of insulated pipes to carry hot air from a coal-burning stove in the galley to the living quarters. The contraption – named the Sylvester stove after its inventor – was crude but highly effective. But without the benefit of thermostat control, temperatures soared to uncomfortable levels and the men often found themselves in the bizarre position of being far too hot in one of the coldest places on earth. Anyone venturing from the sweltering heat of the lower decks to the freezing outside environment had to endure a heart-stopping change in temperature of more than 100°F (40°C) within the space of 60 seconds.
Strict discipline was observed, with regular inspections of the ship and a weekly examination of the crew by doctors and firm directives to ensure the men took frequent exercise. Classes were set up to teach the mostly illiterate crew how to read and write and Parry, a devoutly religious man, proudly announced that all hands would return home with the ability to read the Bible.
The diet, particularly the fresh food, was plentiful and explicitly arranged to avoid scurvy, the traditional curse of seamen on long voyages. Although the causes of scurvy – lack of the anti-scorbutic vitamin C typically found in fresh meat, vegetables and fruit – would not be properly identified for another century, Parry’s regime was fairly successful in combating the ailment. But it was not foolproof and without sufficient quantities of fresh meat or vegetables, scurvy was inevitable. The diet was the traditional navy fare of salted beef or pork and oatmeal, along with the latest innovation of tinned soups, vegetables and fruit, which kept the men well fed but did not contain the necessary requirement of anti-scorbutics.
Occasionally, the men ate fresh meat from local game and small quantities of lemon juice, fortified with generous helpings of rum, were administered. The steaming hot pipes were dressed with trays of mustard and cress that grew rapidly in the hot-house conditions and for a time provided the men with 100 pounds (45 kilograms) of fresh greenery rich in vitamin C.
All hands were given plenty of free time to amuse themselves or participate in organised events. Regular sing-songs and musical recitals– Parry was a capable violinist – could be enjoyed, while others sought a quiet corner in which to read, play chess or write up their journals. The most popular pastimes were the magic-lantern shows and Parry’s finest novelty, the Royal Arctic Theatre. The theatre was first introduced during the 1819 voyage and presented a series of popular costume dramas, with officers shaving off their whiskers and dressing up as women to thunderous applause from the captive audience. It was a stunning piece of man-management, giving the men something special to look forward to and providing sailors with the unprecedented opportunity to laugh uproariously at their officers. Such insubordination would have brought a flogging in normal circumstances, but it was positively encouraged in the Arctic outpost, thousands of miles from anywhere.
Crozier was press-ganged into participating in the first production of the 1821 Arctic theatrical season, The Rivals, written by the Irish playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. He shaved off his whiskers to play the key role of Sir Lucius O’Trigger in the classic comedy of manners set in Parry’s home city of Bath.
The important business of the expedition’s extensive scientific agenda took up much of the time for officers such as Crozier and Ross during the winter. A vast amount of astronomical readings were taken and gravitational experiments undertaken, officers conscientiously measured air and water temperatures every four hours, and Crozier was engaged in the painstaking mathematical task of making magnetic observations.
The expedition ships Hecla and Fury at Winter Island, 1821. This was Crozier’s first trip to ice, which he made with Edward Parry.
A bizarre – and hazardous – test was conducted to discover whether the spectacular aurora borealis emitted a noise. Officers soon found that their uncovered ears froze solid as they stood silently in sub-zero temperatures gazing at the heavens and listening for faint sounds from the ether. Many ears were pinched by the cold during the bizarre test, but no ‘sound’ was ever heard.
Commander George Lyon, the colourful captain of Hecla, made his own oddball input by claiming he was better equipped to ‘hear’ than everyone else because his body retained the heat from a visit to the Sahara Desert two years earlier. By a cruel irony, Lyon would lose his sight a decade later through ophthalmia–severe inflammation of the eye – picked up in the baking heat of Africa.
Months passed slowly in the freezing darkness of Winter Island, though the monotony was relieved in February 1822 when an inquisitive band of local Eskimos visited the ships. It was a friendly exchange which encouraged bouts of singing and dancing and provided a rare opportunity for both communities to examine each other’s lifestyle.
The white men – known as kabloonas to the Eskimos – were astonished at the skills of igloo-building and the comfort of the native dwellings. Some officers and seamen even followed the native example of getting garish tattoos on their bodies. Midshipman Bird made the mistake of employing an old native woman with very poor sight to give him a tattoo and emerged with an ugly hotchpotch of meaningless squiggles that defied description. Lyon reported that the old woman stitched away with ‘barbarous indifference as if it was an old shoe she was operating on’.
The relationship between the men of Fury and Hecla and the Eskimos became increasingly close. Regular visits were made to the nearby snow houses and on occasion the Eskimos slept on board the ships. It is probable that relations became intimate, although surviving records provide only scraps of evidence. But many years later, an elderly Eskimo claimed to have slept with both Parry and Lyon during the months at Winter Island.1
More constructively, an Eskimo woman named Iligliuk gave Parry useful details about the local geography, including the tantalising promise of open water to the north and an ice-free channel to the west. Iligliuk sketched a map that raised hopes that a sea passage– perhaps even the fabled ‘Open Polar Sea’ – was within easy reach.
Encouraged by Iligliuk’s map, Parry sent small parties along the coast to scout the immediate vicinity. But while the men of Hecla and Fury were expert seafarers, they lacked any real experience or knowledge of travelling overland on the ice.
A party under Lyon ventured out too early in the season when temperatures were still dangerously low and almost perished. Lyon, pulling three days’ food and a single tent on a wooden sledge, ran into severe weather and a routine trip along the shoreline came close to disaster.
A howling gale and heavy snow forced the men to seek shelter in th
e tent after travelling barely 6 miles (10 kilometres) from the ship. Unable to steer ahead, Lyon decided to hurry back to the ship by following his outward tracks. But snow had covered the trail and the men wandered aimlessly in white-out conditions. Before long, they were hopelessly lost and one man was on the brink of collapse. Lyon was getting desperate when, by chance, someone spotted a different trail made by the Eskimos and within a short time the grateful men were back on board, having learned a salutary lesson about the hazards of overland travel.
By May, when the weather was thought to be more manageable, Parry began preparations to leave Winter Island. Parties of men equipped with pickaxes were dispatched to the ice to hack a channel to open water. The sailors laboured from six in the morning until eight at night, but temperatures were so low that the lanes of open water closed over as fast as the men could smash them open. It was exhausting work and two seamen died.
Fortunately, a gale in July achieved what was beyond human labour and a pathway to open water suddenly appeared. Fury and Hecla seized the moment and edged out of Winter Island, their nine-month stay at an end.
Guided by the Eskimo map, the ships sailed north and reached Igloolik at the top of Melville Peninsula. To its surprise, the expedition was greeted by the friendly band of natives who had made the trek overland from Winter Island to hunt game.
Anxious to locate the strait identified by Iligliuk, Parry split his party in two, taking Crozier in one group on an overland trek to find the waterway and sending Lyon inland to survey other nearby territory. Lyon found little of value, though he fully enjoyed renewing his acquaintanceship with the natives.
Parry and Crozier, by contrast, struggled northwards across broken ice to the very northern tip of Melville Peninsula, where the Eskimos had promised a channel leading to the west. Climbing a high promontory, Parry and Crozier were bitterly disappointed at the view stretched out before them.
Captain Francis Crozier Page 4