The Way Was Broad
And Open, Due West, A Most Prosperous Beginning For A North-West
Passage.
If this continued, he would soon reach Behring Strait.
A
broad channel to the right, directed, that is to say, southward, he
entered on the Prince of Wales's birthday, and so called it the
"Prince Regent's Inlet." After exploring this for some miles, he
turned back to resume his western course, for still there was a
broad strait leading westward. This second part of Lancaster Sound
he called after the Secretary of the Admiralty who had so
indefatigably laboured to promote the expeditions, Barrow's Strait.
Then he came to a channel, turning to the right or northward, and he
named that Wellington Channel. Then he had on his right hand ice,
islands large and small, and intervening channels; on the left, ice,
and a cape visible, Cape Walker. At an island, named after the
First Lord of the Admiralty Melville Island, the great frozen
wilderness barred farther progress. There he wintered. On the
coast of Melville Island they had passed the latitude of one hundred
and ten degrees, and the men had become entitled to a royal bounty
of five thousand pounds. This group of islands Parry called North
Georgian, but they are usually called by his own name, Parry
Islands. This was the first European winter party in the Arctic
circle. Its details are familiar enough. How the men cut in three
days, through ice seven inches thick, a canal two miles and a half
long, and so brought the ships into safe harbour.
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