Leg 2: Tuktoyaktuk to Iqaluit
The second and concluding leg of the Tundra Northwest 1999 expedition covered an immense territory in both spatial and temporal terms. The northern parts of the central and western Nearctic are generally perceived to be an almost impenetrable wilderness. To a large extent however, they are a cultural landscape which has had, and still has, a profound meaning and significance for the native Inuit.
Even though humanistic studies played only a minor role on the expedition, locations of cultural importance were visited as often as the schedule permitted. In addition to visits to sites of considerable significance regarding the history of Arctic exploration, visits were also made to local Inuvialuit and Inuit settlements.
The cultural landscape of the Neactic comprises several different cultural layers. The earliest of these indicates the former presence of a Palaeo Eskimo tradition, or in some cases even earlier remains of human activity. The most recent remains however are of military installations from the Cold War or some decades earlier. These are tokens of Canadian presence in the area. In between there are a lot of scattered cairns, huts and tombstones testifying to the long European endeavour to find a navigable sea route from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, the North West Passage.
At the first stop-over on the second leg – Ivvavik National Park in the Yukon Territory – some of the expedition camps were located quite close to the Ingitsiaq area containing artefacts and bone remains spanning up to ten thousand years of human history. The Ingitsiaq mountain and valleys along the Firth river are still important hunting grounds for local Inuvialuit hunters in their search for caribou and musk-oxen, which clearly indicates the long historical continuum of native people in the Arctic.
Due to a dangerous and unstable ice situation in the upper parts of Prince of Wales Strait, between Banks Island and Victoria Island, our expedition ship, the Louis S. St-Laurent, had to follow a route off the west coast of Banks Island and thereby enter the enigmatic Parry Channel and M’Clure Strait from the west. In doing so, the Tundra Northwest 1999 expedition literally followed in the footsteps of Robert M’Clure who was the first man to find, if not actually travel through, two north west passages on his expedition of 1850–1854 in search of Franklin.
Three centuries of unsuccessful attempts at finding the elusive passage ended in the summer of 1819 when commander William Edward Parry with HMS Hecla and Griper entered the legendary Lancaster Sound. Right into the very heart of the unknown Arctic they sailed, and continued for many hundreds of kilometres until meeting with heavy layers of multi-year ice in the M’Clure Strait.
Parry and his 93 colleagues were forced to winter in the Arctic and their successful wintering was the first by white men in this part of the world. Many were to follow Parry’s example but, needless to say, few were as fortunate as he was. The 1819–1820 expedition found a winter haven on Melville Island and called it Winter Harbour.
Parry’s ideas, logistics and style offered a prototype for how wintering in the desolate and severe Arctic could be possible without incurring huge human losses. It is not surprising that his methods for overcoming scurvy and melancholy won him many adherents within the polar research community.
His military and paternalistic approach to the crew is perhaps best described by Parry himself. In his journal he wrote that orders to the crew had always to be implemented in the presence of an officer and that this applied especially to the precautions taken to stop scurvy: ’This latter precaution may appear to have been unnecessary, to those who are not aware how much sailors resemble children in all points in which their own health and comfort are concerned’.
When moving between TUNDRA Northwest 1999’s third and fourth stop-over, on North Banks Island and Beverley Inlet on Melville Island, Parry’s wintering place at Wintering Harbour was visited. In contrast to other locations in the Canadian Arctic which are also part of the British quest for the Northwest Passage, Parry’s Winter Harbour is, due to its remote location, a relatively unknown site. It has therefore not been disturbed or damaged by the pressure of large numbers of visitors.
The huge cairns built for guiding tundra hikers during the dark polar nights still lie seemingly untouched a few hundred metres from the seashore at Winter Harbour. Assistant Surgeon C.J. Beverley’s grafitti is still there, and it was also possible to find the grave of the young boatswain William Scott. The latter’s whereabouts were of great concern to the expedition leaders. But according to the medical journal ’his complaint appeared to be more mental than corporeal, and, therefore, one which no medicine could be expected to cure’.
William Scott’s death on 2 July 1820 was, nevertheless, a gloomy event. Parry, who was obliged to read the sermon, wrote later in his journal that his last duty ’could not fail to import an additional feeling of awful solemnity, which it is more easy to imagine than to describe’.
Apart from what remained of Parry’s expedition, we also found remains of Joseph-Elzéar Bernier’s wintering at Winter Harbour from August 1908 to August 1909. A small but of good quality still stands close to the beach. It was built by Bernier’s men presumably on or very close to the spot were Edward Sabine had one of his two scientific huts that caught fire and was destroyed on 24 February 1820.
Sabine’s hut was built in the cause of science whereas Bernier’s hut can only be understood within the framework of polar politics. The remains of Bernier’s expedition are of great interest since the explicit aim of that expedition was to demonstrate a Canadian presence in the area and Canadian ownership of it. That political goal was in its turn jeopardized by new, and from a Canadian point of view, threatening demands that followed in the wake of huge geographical discoveries of new land made in the northern and eastern parts of the Nearctic, especially by the successful Second Fram expedition between 1898–1902. The Norwegian expedition was led by the polar veteran Otto Sverdrup and claimed large areas of land for Norway and for Oscar II, the then King of Sweden and Norway.
The next site of cultural interest to be visited by the Tundra Northwest 1999 expedition was Beechey Island with its by now famous graves from Franklin’s last expedition.
The small island, or rather peninsula, is situated in the south-western corner of Devon Island. This gloomy rocky island was first described by William Edward Parry in 1819, but it is to the tragic happenings that took place there in the winter of 1846 that it now owes its reputation.
With his two ships, HMS Terror and Erebus, Sir John Franklin was forced to winter just off Beechey Island. Three seamen died during the first winter, something that no doubt was seen as a bad omen by many of the other seamen. Today the original tombstones have been replaced by replicas due to the damage caused by the pressure of tourists from cruise ships. But not far from the small graveyard it is still possible to see the marble monument that was erected in 1855 by the polar traveller M’Clintock on behalf of Lady Franklin and in homage to all participants in Franklin’s expedition and all rescue expeditions. The marble monument reads in part:
’To the memory of Franklin, Crozier, Fizjames and all their gallant brother officers and faithful companions who have suffered and perished in the cause of science and the service of their country this tablet is erected near the spot where they passed their first Arctic winter, and whence they issued forth, to conquer difficulties or to die’. The conducting words are: ’And so He bringeth them unto the heaven where they would be’.
Today Beechey Island is a mythological and symbolic place; its significance for generations of white people transcends its geographical context and, like the Franklin expedition itself, operates as a nexus for the ever ongoing narrative of self-understanding among Europeans.
After the short stop-over on Beechey Island the Tundra Northwest 1999 expedition headed north, through the Wellington Channel towards the magnetic North Pole. The crossing of Prince Gustaf Adolf Sea, named after the Swedish prince, was a splendid moment with all conceivable colours reflected on the freezing surface of the semi-open sea.
Questions concerning Canadian sovereignty had been raised both after the Second Fram expedition, and by American interests. In order to control the huge areas, the Canadian authorities stated to relocate Inuit all over the High Arctic. In 1924 a police station was opened at Dundas Harbour in the south-east corner of Devon Island. Together with Pond Inlet on northern Baffin Island, Dundas Harbour was a strategic location controlling passage in to the Parry Channel and the entire Nearctic Archipelago from the east.
Both Dundas Harbour and Pond Inlet were visited by the Tundra Northwest 1999 expedition. Today Dundas Harbour is abandoned, but Pond Inlet showed itself to be a growing town in the new Nunavut.
Field-work on Baffin Island was difficult due to the inclement weather. Large areas did not seem to have had any summer at all in 1999. The long journey south along the east coast of Baffin Island did, nevertheless, offer opportunities to observe, document and compare the visible coastline with narratives and images of earlier expeditions. Approaching the very end of the Tundra Northwest 1999 expedition, we travelled close to the mountains of Meta Incognita first described by Martin Frobisher in 1576. It was here in the bay opening westwards that Frobisher believed that he had finally found the Northwest Passage, or the Sound of Anian as it was called in his time. We now know better, but the Northwest Passage still continues to seduce our imagination.
Dates
June–September 1999
Participants
Principal investigator
Torgny Nordin*
Department of Philosophy, University of Gothenburg
Sweden
*Not participating in the expedition