s, but
he had certainly discovered straits communicating with the Polar sea.

[Illustration: THE NORTH SHORE OF LANCASTER SOUND. From a drawing in
Parry's _Voyage for the North-West Passage_, 1821.]

CHAPTER LII

THE FROZEN NORTH

Meanwhile Franklin and Parry started on another expedition in the same
month and year. While Parry's orders were to proceed from east to west,
Franklin was to go from west to east, with a chance--if remote--that
they might meet. He was to go by Hudson's Bay to the mouth of the Copper
Mine River and then make his way by sea eastward along the coast.
Franklin had made himself a name by work done in the Spitzbergen waters;
he was to succeed in the end where others had failed in finding the
North-West Passage. The party selected for this work consisted of
Captain Franklin, Dr. Richardson, a naval surgeon, two midshipmen,
Back and Hood, one of whom was afterwards knighted, and an English
sailor named John Hepburn.

Just a fortnight after Parry's start these five English explorers
sailed on board a ship belonging to the Hudson Bay Company, but it
was the end of August before they arrived at the headquarters of the
Company. They were cordially received by the Governor, and provided
with a large boat well stored with food and arms. Amid a salute of
many guns and much cheering the little party, with some Canadian rowers,
started off for Cumberland House, one of the forts belonging to the
Hudson Bay Company. Six weeks' hard travelling by rivers and lakes,
now dragging the boats round rapids, now sleeping in "buffalo-robes"
on the hard ground, brought the party to the first stage of their
journey. Snow was now beginning to fall, and ice was thick on the rivers,
when Franklin resolved to push on to Lake Athabasca that he might have
more time to prepare for the coming voyage in the summer. Leaving
Richardson and Hood at the fort, he started off with Back and the
faithful Hepburn on 18th January 1820, in the very heart of the Arctic
winter. Friends at the fort had provided him with Indian snowshoes
turned up at the toes like the prow of a boat--with dog sledges, furs,
leather trousers, drivers, and food for a fortnight. The snow was very
deep, and the dogs found great difficulty in dragging their heavy
burdens through the snow. But the record was good. A distance of eight
hundred and fifty-seven miles was accomplished in sixty-eight days,
with the thermometer at fifty degrees below zero. The h