William Baffin and Robert Bylot's Expeditions

William Baffin and Robert Bylot were English explorers who set out in the early seventeenth century to discover the Northwest Passage. The Northwest Passage was a hoped-for sea route extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean by cutting through the Arctic Ocean. Exploration of the region, in order to find a favorable trade route, began in the late fifteenth century, notably by the explorer John Cabot, and continued through the twentieth century. Baffin and Bylot tried to find the Northwest Passage in 1615 but were soon turned back by frozen waters. Their most notable—and last expedition together—occurred in 1616. With Bylot as captain and Baffin as pilot aboard the ship Discovery, they successfully circumnavigated an area now known as Baffin Bay and travelled three hundred miles farther than any previous expedition. The map of this successful expedition was never published, however, and for many years Baffin and Bylot’s groundbreaking expeditions were forgotten.

Brief History

Robert Bylot was an experienced explorer who had sailed aboard the Discovery with Henry Hudson during the famed 1610 to 1611 expedition during which the ship’s crew mutinied. During this failed trip to find the Northwest Passage, Henry Hudson was tied up, placed in a dinghy, and set afloat, never to be heard from again. The ship’s crew returned to England with Bylot as the ship’s pilot. Upon return, Bylot convinced his funders that they had been close to the Northwest Passage and should return to complete their voyage. This also saved Bylot and his crewmates from execution for their mutiny against Hudson.

For the next expedition to find the Northwest Passage, Bylot was named captain and William Baffin was named pilot of the Discovery. They set sail from London on March 16, 1615. But Baffin and Bylot’s first expedition together was not to be successful. By July, they had reached the end of the Hudson Strait. They continued until they reached the Frozen Strait, which was completely frozen and, thus, impassable. They set anchor and observed the tides, which showed that the origin of the tides was the Atlantic and not Pacific Ocean. This proved to them that there would be no passage to the Pacific Ocean from their current location and they turned back. The Discovery reached Plymouth by September 8, 1615.

Baffin was an excellent navigator and it was his ability to chart the tides that allowed him to argue, once home in England, that the Hudson Strait would not lead to the Northwest Passage. Rather, he believed he would need to follow the Davis Strait to the north in order to cross into the Pacific. They convinced their financial backers, once again, to finance another expedition. Together, Bylot and Baffin assembled a crew of fourteen and sailed from Gravesend, England, on March 26, 1616 aboard the Discovery. As captain, Robert Bylot’s instructions were to head through the Davis Strait and continue west until he reached Japan. While Bylot and his crew never reached Japan, this 1616 expedition would eventually be considered a success because of their passage over previously uncharted waters.

Overview

By June 1, the Discovery sailed west along Greenland’s coast, passing Cape Sanderson. Cape Sanderson was the farthest point north reached by John Davis, an explorer who had previously attempted to find the Northwest Passage and after whom Davis Strait is named. From this point, the Discovery continued farther north to areas no European had seen since the Viking explorations in the fourteenth century. Following Bylot and Baffin’s exploration of the area, it would remain unexplored for another 157 years.

As the Discovery sailed onward, its crew explored the many islands that dotted the region. They named their geographical findings after their patrons. When they could no longer proceed farther north, they turned west and continued to an area they named Jones Sound. There was no outlet to the Atlantic from Jones Sound, but they reached another area that they called Lancaster Sound, which would prove to provide passage northwest. However, for some reason, Bylot and Baffin chose not to take this route, not understanding that it was the Northwest Passage they desperately sought.

Soon, the Discovery reached what is now known as Baffin Island but the crew was soon forced east due to encroaching ice. Members of the crew began to show signs of scurvy, a potentially dangerous vitamin deficiency. They returned to the shore of Greenland, where they picked scurvy grass—grasses with a high vitamin C count used to fight against scurvy—and received salmon from the Inuits living there. They turned back for England on August 6 and dropped anchor in Dover three weeks later.

Baffin and Bylot’s 1616 expedition proved important for several reasons. They traveled farther north than any previous explorer in the region, a record that would not be broken again for over one hundred and fifty years. They also discovered Baffin Strait, which would become as important a geographical finding as Hudson Bay. In addition, Baffin and Bylot had discovered the main entrance to the Northwest Passage, which they named Lancaster Sound. However, they didn’t realize this at the time and turned back. Lancaster Sound was only proved to provide passage northwest in 1819 by Edward Parry.

Initially, Baffin and Bylot’s final expedition was viewed as a failure and led to the collapse of the North West Company that had funded them. Baffin’s well-drawn and accurate maps were never published, although a partial account of their voyages appeared with the publisher’s explanation that printing the maps and tide tables would be too expensive. Because of this, Baffin and Bylot’s expeditions were largely forgotten for many years. Baffin’s talents as a navigator were only rediscovered two hundred years later, when subsequent expeditions to find the Northwest Passage proved that Baffin and Bylot had, indeed, discovered its main entrance at Lancaster Sound. Baffin’s posterity has outlasted Bylot’s, despite the fact that Bylot was the captain of the Discovery during these expeditions. While William Baffin died during a fight against Persian forces in the Persian Gulf in 1622, Robert Bylot disappeared from history after returning from the expedition of 1616.

Bibliography

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