Croker's Consolation

John Ross's chart of the Croker Mountains

Just two hundred years ago today, on August 31st 1818, John Ross -- in command of the Isabella and Alexander -- sailed deep into Lancaster Sound, searching -- as his sailing orders commanded -- for a possible inlet into the fabled Northwest Passage. Ross, aboard Isabella, described what he saw -- or thought he saw -- thus:

"At half past two, (when I went off deck to dinner), there were some hopes of its clearing, and I left orders to be called on the appearance of land or ice a-head. At three, the officer of the watch, who was relieved to his dinner by Mr. Lewis, reported, on his coming into the cabin, that there was some appearance of its clearing at the bottom of the bay; I immediately, therefore, went on deck, and soon after it completely cleared for about ten minutes, and I distinctly saw the land, round the bottom of the bay, forming a connected chain of mountains with those which extended along the north and south sides. "

John Wilson Croker

These seeming-mountains were vivid enough that Ross both mapped and sketched them, even adding small details, such as naming a small bay at the southwestern edge after Sir John Barrow, though the honor of the principal name was reserved for the First Secretary of the Admiralty, John Wilson Croker. Curiously, William Edward Parry, aboard the Alexander, could see nothing of such mountains, and was completely taken aback when his commander ordered a retreat to the eastward. Though he didn't publicly contradict Ross, Parry communicated his doubts to the Admiralty, and, now placed in command of his own two ships Hecla and Griper, returned in 1819 and promptly sailed through the illusory peaks, eventually reaching Winter Harbor on Melville Island -- the furthest west any British vessel had ever sailed through the north (and in fact, further than any vessel coming from the east would ever manage priot to Amundsen's victorious transit in 1903-06).  Maps were quickly revised, and Croker -- who must have been disappointed at the loss of so impressive a range of snowy peaks -- was left with the consolation of a bay, named after him by Parry, on the southern coast of Devon Island.

Cruising the face of the Croker Glacier

But what a consolation it is! The Croker Glacier, which feeds the bay with its blue-green silted meltwater, has a face more than two miles wide, and is up to three thousand feet deep at its thickest, near where it branches out from the massive Devon Ice Cap, itself nearly 6,000 square miles in extent. Earlier this month, I was fortunate enough to have a first-hand look at the glacier's face, along with passengers and fellow staff from One Ocean Expeditions. We spent nearly three hours going back and forth along the entire length of the face aboard our zodiacs, and later that day, celebrated the experience with a shipboard barbecue on the stern deck of our ship, the Akademik Ioffe. I thought then -- and think now -- that the sight would have been a magnificent consolation to Croker; had he only seen it in person, his mountains would never have been missed.

[With thanks to Jeff W. Higdon for pointing out the anniversary of the date!]