Discovering the North-West Passage: The fouryear Arctic odyssey of H.M.S. ‘Investigator’ and the McClure Expedition

摘要

In 1845 Sir John Franklin set out in command of the ships Erebus and Terror to discover the Northwest Passage. As the years passed without word from Franklin, increasing anxiety rose about the fate of the expedition. Rescue missions were sent out to find the missing ships. One of those missions, departing England in 1850, consisted of the ships Enterprise and Investigator, commanded by Richard Collinson and Robert McClure, respectively. Since Collinson’s ship was faster than McClure’s, the ships became separated, despite Admiralty orders that they should not. Further complications brought McClure’s ship Investigator into the ice before Collinson’s Enterprise. Before arriving at the ice there was an unspoken competitiveness between McClure and Collinson, over both who would find Franklin’s lost party, and who would find the Northwest Passage. In addition, on McClure’s ship there was considerable tension between McClure and his officers.