Next40. Great Britain. Admiralty.
Additional PapersRrelative to the Arctic Expedition under the orders of Captain Austin and Mr. William Penny. London: Printed by George Edward Eyre and William Spottiswoode, 1852.
“Parry Rock” on Winter Harbor, showing the inscription made during Parry’s first voyage of 1819-20, from Great Britain. Admiralty, Additional Papers relative to the Arctic Expedition, 1852.
One of the truly epic sledge journeys of the Austin expedition was that of Lt. Francis McClintock, who with six men pulled a 1230 pound sledge all the way from Griffiths Island to Melville Island and back. They left April 15, 1851 and returned on July 4, having travelled 760 miles in those 80 days.
On the way back, McClintock investigated Winter Harbor, where Parry was frozen in on his first voyage, and he located what is now called “Parry Rock,” a van-sized chunk of sandstone near the entrance to the harbor, on which Alexander Fisher had carved an inscription in 1820. McClintock and his men were the first to see this inscription since it had been engraved thirty-one years earlier. They also found a bottle under a cairn, in which was a paper, written by Parry, claiming the land for George the Third.
The illustration is in another volume of the Arctic Blue Books (see item 39), along with McClintock’s complete narrative of his memorable sledge expedition. 