Purpose of the Exploration
In 1881, Greely and his men, including David Brainard, set off from St. John’s, Newfoundland, aboard the ship Proteus. Greely’s mission was to record the water, collect scientific specimens, and set a record for the closest approach to the North Pole. Greely and his men anticipated to stay in the Arctic for several years, relying on the return of their supply ships in 1882 and 1883. The Proteus reached Ellesmere Island at the entrance to the bay on August 11 and departed on August 26th – it would be three and a half years before anyone saw Greely or. his accompanying 24 men again.
On May 12, 1882, Brainard, Lt. James Lockwood, and an inuit dog sled driver Frederick Christiansen broke the previously held record for closest approach to the north Pole, reaching a spot approximately 400 nautical miles from the pole.
The summer of 1881 had been unusually warm, making the ice thin when Greely and his men were dropped off. This gave the members of the expedition a false sense of ease. As per the plan, the resupply ship was to go as far north as possible before dropping off the supplies on the east coast of Ellesmere Island. If no ship arrived by the early summer of 1883, Greely’s orders were to withdraw his men from the camp and journey down the coast in their small boats, picking up supply caches on the way (presumably to be dropped by the resupply ships). The expedition would then meet with the crew of the resupply ship at the entrance of Smith Sound.
When the Neptune, the first resupply ship, attempted to deliver supplies to Greely’s expedition in July of 1882, the ice was far thicker than the summer before, blocking the Neptune’s progress. The crew would be forced to leave their supplies at Cape Sabine, over one hundred miles south of Greely’s location. For an unknown reason, Captain William Beebe of the Neptune only decided to leave a small amount of rations and a boat at Cape Sabine, departing with the majority of the supplies still onboard.
The Proteus attempted to reach Greely in June of 1883, failing again, caught and crushed by ice. The Proteus sank, leaving Lt. Ernest Garlington and his crew survived in small boats until they were rescued by the USS Yantic, a repurposed United States Navy vessel accompannying the Proteus until it had to steer wide to avoid the ice.
Greely and his men were forced to make the decision – travel south in hopes of finding supplies at Camp Sabine, or remain stationary at Fort Conger and hunt for food. They chose to go South, and set out down the coast carrying 40 days' worth of rations and their data records within their small boats. The crew would eventually reach Cape Sabine, but to their dismay they would only find the limited amount supplies left there by the Neptune a year prior.
Brainard’s Camp Clay diary picks up with daily accounts of the men’s experience at Camp Sabine on the Ellesmere Island coast, where they lived as castaways, rationing what little supplies remained and surviving subzero Arctic temperatures.
Works Cited
Clark, Geoffrey E. Arctic Ambitions the Photographs of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition of 1881–1884 George W. Rice Photographer, University of New Hampshire, United States -- New Hampshire, 2011. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/arctic-ambitions-photographs-lady-franklin-bay/docview/884099094/se-2.