The discovery of the North-West Passage by H.M.S. “Investigator”...

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Robert John LeMesurier M’Clure. The discovery of the North-West Passage by H.M.S. “Investigator”... edited by Commander Sherard Osborn...from the logs and journals of Capt. Robert LeM. M’Clure. London, 1856.

McClure parted from Collinson, ventured into Arctic waters alone, and sailed to within sight of Melville Island, which Parry had reached from the east thirty years before. With the last link of the passage in sight, McClure was iced in at Mercy Bay, on the northern side of Banks Island. After spending two winters there (1851-1853), and suffering greatly from cold and hunger, the expedition was met by a party from the Resolute, which was anchored 160 miles away, east of Melville Island. Abandoning the Investigator, McClure and his crew sledged to the Resolute and returned eastward to England, thus completing the first ocean-to-ocean passage north of America. This expedition therefore claimed to have discovered the Northwest Passage, although part of the voyage was accomplished by sledge, and claimed the £10,000 reward.

McClure was lucky to have with him a gifted artist, Lt. Samuel Gurney Cresswell, whose series of eight lithographs illustrate the expedition. (Click here to see the eight Cresswell lithographs.) The Cresswell illustration shown on the third page above shows the gap between Banks Island and Melville Island, the last link in the Passage, blocked by ice.