Learning from Point Turnagain 200 Years On
As we venture into new frontiers for space exploration and tourism, let us revisit an 1821 Arctic discovery by British explorers and assess how far we have come.
18 August 2021 will mark the 200th anniversary of a small Royal Naval party naming a bleak headland in the Arctic Ocean. They chose to call that place Point Turnagain. In 1821, this modest occurrence may have been witnessed off the coast by a Bowhead Whale coming up for air. However, both the current distribution and historical whaling records of the Bowhead Whale show that they swim elsewhere in the Arctic. Scientists at CSIRO, Australia’s National Science Agency, have recently discovered that the Bowhead Whale can live up to 268 years. It is incredible to think that there are mammals swimming today in the Arctic Ocean that were alive when Point Turnagain was named.
The Royal Naval detachment from Britain charted the Arctic Ocean coastline in the hope of discovering the fabled North-West Passage. They had started a few months earlier on the Coppermine River and had weaved their way up north by using canoes. Therefore, this venture is now known as the Coppermine Expedition (1819–1822). The party eventually reached the Arctic Ocean on 14 July 1821. However, the mission led by Lieutenant John Franklin was poorly prepared and ill-equipped to deal with harsh Arctic terrain and conditions.
The explorers were already hungry and exhausted when they reached Point Turnagain, situated on Kiillinnguyaq (Kent Peninsula). They had mapped 675 miles of coastline east of the Coppermine River. The crew may have asked themselves whether they had come far enough under their mission’s goal. Also, would they return home safely?
In August 1821, Lieutenant Franklin and his party realized that they could progress no further. The name Point Turnagain seems appropriate now, as some of them would return to the Arctic. However, because of damage to their canoes, Franklin elected to cross the “Barren Lands” to return to their winter camp at Fort Enterprise rather than take the coastal route.
The lessons that Franklin learnt after reaching Point Turnagain may be relevant today. People acquire remarkable skills and insights when they find themselves in extreme circumstances. Unfortunately, some of the explorers were to perish on the return. Still, Franklin was able to take the first-hand experiences into planning his next polar venture: the Mackenzie River Expedition (1825–1827). On this later expedition, “Whales Sighted” was labelled on his charts. If still alive today, how have these whales adapted to climate change and the further encroachment by humans?
After the departure at Point Turnabout, many challenges still lay ahead for Franklin and his followers. Later the return expedition separated into two parties, and Dr John Richardson led the second group. It was not too long before both parties faced starvation. The explorers lived off tripe de roche, a type of lichen, which provided some nutrition but caused diarrhoea. Finally, Franklin’s party was so hungry that they resorted to boiling their boots to make soup. The naval polar expedition with a shoestring budget had hungry explorers eating their boots.
The explorers were in complete dire straits, and various fatalities later occurred. However, the two detachments eventually met again at Fort Enterprise. Luckily for those that had survived, they were saved by a First Nation people, the Yellowknives (Coppermine Indians). Unfortunately, the Coppermine Expedition was a disaster because of the loss of 11 lives from a party of 22 people. It had also barely mapped 500 miles of new Arctic coastline.
Lieutenant Franklin received criticism from the local fur traders’ due to his apparent foolhardy progression into the Arctic. However, when Franklin returned to Britain, he became a hero (lauded as “the man who ate his boots”). His accounts of the early canoe voyage to the Arctic Ocean became a bestseller: a classic in travel literature. In the early 1820s, the British and overseas public’s appetite for bravery and drama meant this narrative delivered. Out of high-profile failure, the leaders of the expeditions ironically found fame. They were fêted in London society and well beyond. Fortunately for the Royal Navy, the lessons from the Coppermine Expedition were taken on board for Franklin’s next overland Arctic expedition.
Franklin and his fellow officers realized that there were several flaws in the Coppermine Expedition:
1. The size of the expedition team had been too large. In addition, there were too many mouths to feed and equipment to be transported.
2. The equipment that they had taken was not fit for purpose. The birch bark lined canoes were fine on the inland Arctic rivers, but they were not durable enough to cope with the open Arctic Ocean. Therefore, next time Franklin commissioned more robust elm and mahogany canoes for his second expedition.
3. Franklin realized that the crew needed to be more self-sufficient, so they would now carry all the required food and supplies. The intention was not to rely too much on external parties, such as local fur traders or First Nation people.
4. Franklin now knew his remaining team members well. They recognized each other’s strengths and weaknesses and how to perform and work as a team in extreme conditions and circumstances. So, for his Mackenzie River Expedition, Franklin took along again his second in command, John Richardson, and George Back.
With these lessons, the Mackenzie River Expedition, in contrast, was successful. The expedition party separated into two parts on 4 July 1826. Franklin charted 2,048 miles to the west of the Mackenzie River. He nearly could have met up with follow naval officer Commander Frederick William Beechey, exploring at sea on HMS Blossom. Beechey was seeking to connect with Franklin’s expedition. Unbelievably Franklin and Beechey were only 160 miles apart. Under the command of Dr John Richardson, the eastern detachment travelled 1,987 miles of coastline east of the Mackenzie River. Between both Franklin and Richardson, they charted about half of the northern coastline of the North American continent.
The equipment they took and the new strategy applied for exploring meant no loss of life during this expedition. Although the journey ran ‘like clockwork’, Franklin’s new published narrative of the experiences did not sell well in the bookshops. It lacked the drama of the first voyage. One of the noteworthy things was that John Franklin recorded in November 1825 that the explorers played hockey on the ice at Délı̨nę (Fort Franklin). This is now muted as the first documented ice hockey game in Canada. Morris Neyelle, an elder in Délı̨nę, recently recalled in an interview the oral tradition in the indigenous community of visitors seen ”flying across the ice like they were floating”.(1) The Arctic explorers used this sporting pursuit to keep themselves in “good humour, health and spirits”.
What can we learn from this? We have reached a moment where decisions and actions need to preserve environmental ecosystems, which we have compromised by 200 years of economic development and industrialization. Has Earth reached its own Point Turnagain? If we take the explorers’ learning, we must work as a global team to achieve better outcomes. We should work intergenerationally to solve these issues and not burden the young by expecting them to resolve 200 years of short-sightedness on their own. After the failures of the Coppermine Expedition, the leaders knew they needed to be more self-sufficient. This was not in a selfish way, but because the resources in the Arctic are limited. Franklin also designed the new equipment to adapt to the conditions that lay ahead. Similarly, we must look creatively to new and improved ways to solve the global challenges we now face.
Sir Michael Palin has written a book on John Franklin’s last flagship HMS Erebus. He has said that the British Empire had a particular “dark side” of increasing self-confidence. In an interview on his book, he explained the British went forward believing that they had a “sense of being right”. (2) Palin thought that Britain and other western powers often ignored the rights of local people and tribal needs. Although there is nothing wrong with a “sense of belief in what you’re doing”, Palin argued that listening to “all sides of the argument” is essential.
In the 1820s, Franklin and his contemporaries were intrepid explorers. Even in the complex empire building context, they were brave men in extreme conditions. Arctic explorers leapt into the complete unknown, as did the space travellers of the second half of the Twentieth Century. Today, as Sir Richard Branson’s space tourism beckons, the most critical global question is not “how far will we go”? Instead, it should be “how, and in what direction will we go”? We can question the appropriateness of uncontrolled space adventurism.
As both an entrepreneur and an adventurer, Branson sees space travel as one of humanity’s most significant challenges and perhaps a means to ensure the survival of the human race. However, does that mean we are giving up on our habitat Earth? Will humans really be interested in living on another planet or even surviving there? The story around Point Turnagain is ultimately about learning — learning to maintain and not just explore. There is still a magnitude of things to explore in our relationship with resources on Earth, including the deep oceans. Historical whaling records show that the habitat area of the Bowhead Whale has reduced. Our essential and precious ecosystems will also need a new focus for our survival here. An Arctic Bowhead Whale born today will, in 200 years, be observing us to see what we have done. Will we have just continued along without learning or given up? Or, can we demonstrate the tenacity and determination to “turn again”?
Notes:
(1) https://destinationdeline.com/deline-northwest-territories-canada/
(2) TVO Interview, Michael Palin: Tracking the HMS Erebus, 26 October 2018.
Thanks to Stefan Fortuin, Liz Pill and Carin Wilson.
