ARCTIC ARCHIPELAGO - The Searchers For Franklin: Elisha Kent Kane

ARCTIC ARCHIPELAGO - The Searchers For Franklin
Elisha Kent Kane (1820-1857)

Kane was a medical officer in the United States Navy. He was part of two Arctic expeditions to see what became of Franklin. It was during the first of these two Arctic expedition, 1850–1851, the place of Franklin's first winter camp was discovered. During the second, Kane, sailing from New York in the spring of 1853, kept his searches up through to 1855; and, during which he charted the narrowing gap between northwest Greenland and Ellesmere Island, including Smith Sound, Kane Basin and Kennedy Channel leading in to the polar sea atop of Greenland and Ellesmere Island, where there exists nothing but an ice sheet all the way to the north-pole; Kane had thus penetrated, in this area, farther north than any other explorer had done up to that time.
"Kane finally abandoned the icebound brig Advance on May 20, 1855 and made an 83-day march of indomitable courage to Upernavik [west coast of Greenland]. The party, carrying the invalids, lost only one man. Kane and his men were saved by a sailing ship. Kane returned to New York on October 11, 1855 and the following year published his two-volume Arctic Explorations."1

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NOTES
¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_Kane -- There are a numbers of editions of Kane's book: Arctic Explorations: In Search of Sir John Franklin. A wonderful book to read, as Kane could write well. The book is full of descriptions of the manner and culture of these wonderful people of the high north: the Esquimaux or Inuit.

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Peter Landry
2015