From there he and his men marched inland for 130 miles to establish contact with the dwindling native Beothuk population, one of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas in the region.

Both were prompted by the interest of John Barrow in Arctic exploration and the fact that in 1817 whalers reported that the normal ice between Greenland and Spitzbergen had disappeared.

[7] The ships were HMS Dorothea (Captain Buchan, first lieutenant Arthur Fleming Morrell, astronomer George Fisher) and HM brig Trent under John Franklin who was later famous for his disappearance in the Arctic.

It took only nine days to return to open water, but almost immediately they were hit by a storm which threatened to drive them onto the ice.

Buchan later ordered additional efforts to return Demasduit's niece, Beothuk woman Shanawdithit, to her family but she refused to go with any European expedition.

David Buchan was promoted to captain in the Royal Navy on 12 June 1823, but was removed from the active list the same year.

In December 1838, he was declared lost at sea with the East Indiaman Upton Castle en route from Calcutta to England.