Lot Essay
Wintering at Floeberg beach in 1875 Nares reported on their base 'almost destitute of game. The report on the number of animals killed and seen in the neighbourhood of the most northern winter quarters in which man has ever been known to reside, is to the following effect: 'On our first arrival a few ducks were seen and five shot, and during the winter and spring three hares were shot in the neighbourhood of the ship...'
'At the end of July [1876], Nares, with only nine entirely scurvy-free men on the Alert out of fifty-three, decided to terminate the expedition [for which see note to the following lot] and sail for home, thus narrowly averting a repetition of the Franklin disaster. Although the North Pole had eluded them, Nares' sledging parties had explored about 480k (300miles) of the coastlines of northern Ellesmere Island and northern Greenland, hitherto unexplored by white men, and, instead of discovering an open Polar Sea they had found a frozen Arctic Ocean...' (R. Vaughan, The Arctic, A History, London 1994, p.167.)
'At the end of July [1876], Nares, with only nine entirely scurvy-free men on the Alert out of fifty-three, decided to terminate the expedition [for which see note to the following lot] and sail for home, thus narrowly averting a repetition of the Franklin disaster. Although the North Pole had eluded them, Nares' sledging parties had explored about 480k (300miles) of the coastlines of northern Ellesmere Island and northern Greenland, hitherto unexplored by white men, and, instead of discovering an open Polar Sea they had found a frozen Arctic Ocean...' (R. Vaughan, The Arctic, A History, London 1994, p.167.)