Coppermine expedition

The local fur trading companies and native peoples offered less assistance than expected, and the dysfunctional supply line, coupled with unusually harsh weather and the resulting absence of game, meant the explorers were never far from starvation.

Eventually, the party reached the Arctic coast, but only explored roughly 500 miles (800 km) before turning back due to the onset of winter and the exhaustion of their supplies.

The party desperately retreated across uncharted territory in a state of starvation, often with nothing more than lichen to eat; 11 of the 22 members died amid accusations of murder and cannibalism.

As documented in his journals, a second ordinary seaman, Samuel Wilkes, was initially assigned to the party, but fell ill on arriving in Canada and played no further part in the expedition, returning to England with dispatches.

[citation needed] The Coppermine Expedition sailed from Gravesend on 23 May 1819 on a Hudson's Bay Company supply ship, after three months of planning, and immediately hit a note of farce.

[5] A more serious problem arose in Stromness when the expedition, now reunited with Back, attempted to hire local boatmen to act as manhaulers for the first part of the overland trek.

[5] On 30 August 1819, Franklin's men reached York Factory, the main port on the southwest coast of Hudson Bay, to begin the 1,700 miles (2,700 km) trek to Great Slave Lake.

[2] Franklin was provided with a boat too small to carry all his supplies and proceeded—he was assured the rest would be sent on—along normal trading routes to Cumberland House; little more than a log cabin which was home to 30 Hudson's Bay men.

[7] The following January, Franklin, Back and Hepburn formed an advance party to head through the pine forests to Fort Chipewyan, to hire voyageurs and arrange supplies for the next leg of the expedition.

The harsh winter meant that food was barely available, and he had to make do with a vague promise that hunters would feed them en route, and that the chief of the Coppermine First Nations would offer assistance.

[9] Reunited with Hood and Richardson, the party left for Great Slave Lake in July, reaching the trading post at Fort Providence on its northern shore ten days later.

Here they met Akaitcho, the leader of the local Yellowknives (or Copper Dene) First Nation who had been recruited by the North West Company as guides and hunters for Franklin's men.

Akaitcho, described as a man "of great penetration and shrewdness"[10] understood the concept of the Northwest Passage, and patiently listened as Franklin explained that its use would bring wealth to his people.

After a 1,200 miles (1,900 km) journey on snowshoes, often with no shelter beyond blankets and a deerskin in temperatures as low as −67 °F (−55 °C), Back returned having secured enough supplies to meet the expedition's immediate needs.

[18] The discord was not confined to the voyageurs; Back and Hood had fallen out over their rivalry for the affections of a Yellowknives girl nicknamed Greenstockings, and would have fought a duel with pistols over her had John Hepburn not removed the gunpowder from their weapons.

However, if Parry failed to appear, or he was unable to reach Repulse Bay he would either retrace his outward route or, if it seemed better, return directly to Fort Enterprise across the uncharted Barren Lands to the east of the Coppermine River.

Franklin gave orders to those departing that caches of food were to be left on route and that most importantly Fort Enterprise be stocked with a large amount of dried meat.

With the lateness of the season the latter point was crucial because Franklin now feared that if, as seemed likely, he failed to reach Repulse Bay, the sea would freeze and prevent him returning to the mouth of the Coppermine River.

Their going across the Barren Lands was extremely arduous; the ground was a treacherous expanse of sharp rocks that cut their boots and feet, and was a constant threat to more serious injury.

Apart from the rare deer they managed to kill, they were reduced to eating barely-nutritious lichens—christened tripe de roche—and the occasional rotting carcass left by packs of wolves.

[30] With the starving party weakening rapidly, the situation was saved by Pierre St Germain, who alone had the strength and willpower to construct a makeshift one-man canoe from willow branches and canvas.

No game was to be found, even if any of them had been strong enough to hold a rifle, and recounting the story, Franklin made a comment which would become famous: "There was no tripe de roche, so we drank tea and ate some of our shoes for supper.

A voyageur, Joseph Benoit, and an Inuit interpreter, Tannannoeuck ("Augustus") set off downriver [12] in the hope of meeting a Copper Dene band under Chief Akaitcho, who had been helping the expedition throughout.

Two of the voyageurs, François Semandrè and Joseph Peltier,[12] lay down crying and waited to die, and even the normally optimistic Franklin wrote of how quickly his strength was evaporating.

The claim was self-evidently absurd; the rifle was too long for a man to shoot himself with, moreover Hood had been shot in the back of the head, apparently while reading a book on Christian scripture.

"[39] For over a week the men at Fort Enterprise subsisted on tripe de roche and rotten deerskins, which they ate complete with the maggots, which tasted "as fine as gooseberries.

His reluctance to deviate from his original plan, even when it became obvious that supplies and game would be too scarce to complete the journey safely, were cited as evidence of his inflexibility and inability to adapt to a changing situation.

[45] Wentzel, the North West Company interpreter who was blamed for failing to ensure that Fort Enterprise was stocked, went so far as to accuse Richardson of murder, and demanded that he be brought to trial.

[44] After stints commanding ships outside the Arctic, and an unhappy period as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land, he led a final expedition to discover the Northwest Passage in 1845.

The story of the Coppermine Expedition served as an influence on Roald Amundsen, who eventually became the first man to navigate the entire Northwest Passage, as well as the first to reach the South Pole.