Robert McClure and the Secret of the Northwest Passage

Second Arctic Voyage
1850 - 1854

Critical position of H.M.S. Investigator on the north coast of Baring Island, Northwest Territories, August 20, 1851 Copyright/Source

The two ships, HMS Enterprise and HMS Investigator, were sent out again soon after they got home to Britain. McClure was given command of Investigator. This time, they tried to find Franklin's expedition by coming from the west. McClure's ship was the first to reach the Bering Strait and carried on alone.

McClure soon discovered the Prince of Wales Strait between Banks and Victoria Islands. The ship became frozen in the ice but expeditions by sledge convinced McClure that they had found the Northwest Passage.

Investigator stayed trapped in the ice throughout 1852 and the crew began to suffer from scurvy and starvation. In 1853 they were found and ordered to abandon their ships. HMS North Star finally brought them home to Britain on September 28, 1854.

Rescue!
The winter of 1852-53 was severe. The Investigator was locked in ice. With food running low and dozens of the crew sick, time was running out. Then just as it seemed there was no hope, they spotted a man in the distance running towards them: "From his pace and gestures we both naturally assumed that he was pursued by a bear. The stranger came on and then called out, 'I am lieutenant Pim …now in Resolute. Captain Kellett is in her at Dealy Island!' To rush and seize him by the hand was the first impulse, for the heart was too full for the heart to speak."

"Captain Belcher's Expedition", www.cronab.demon.co.uk/Resol.htm

Here We Go Again!
With their ship stuck in the ice and their food almost gone, McClure and his crew climbed aboard the Resolute and the Intrepid to safety. But by the following winter both the Resolute and Intrepid were stuck in the ice and McClure's crew found themselves abandoning the very ships that had rescued them. Transferring to yet another ship, they sailed back to England in September 1854.

The Ghost Ship
When the Resolute got stuck in the ice searching for Franklin, Captain Kellett wanted to wait for the ice to thaw. His commander ordered him to abandon ship and return on another. Over a year later, an American whaling ship came across a ship in Davis Strait. It was the Resolute. It had freed itself and had travelled 1200 miles on its own.

Twenty-four years later, the Resolute was broken up and a desk was made from the ship's timbers. Queen Victoria presented it to American President Rutherford S. Hayes. The desk is in the White House, and has been used by every president since then.