Cruise Of The Pandora

The author of the passage is Sir Allen Young and he is writing about his experiences on the 1876 British North-West Passage Expedition on the Pandora. This expedition was led by Young and it was his first attempt at crossing the North-West Passage. The goal of the expedition was to reach the magnetic pole, but due to heavy ice in the Franklin Strait, Young was not able to achieve this goal.

Sir Allen Young (1827-1915), merchant navy officer and experienced Polar explorer, took part in several expeditions before that of the Pandora. As navigator he had accompanied the McClintock expedition to discover the fate of Sir John Franklin, during which he explored several hundred miles of new coastline by sledge. He was also in command of the Fox on the 1860 North Atlantic telegraph expedition to assess the practicality of a cable route between Europe and America across the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland. In 1875, he led, and financed, the British North-West Passage Expedition on the Pandora, and this compelling account of his journey was first published in 1876. In it, he records his attempt to reach the magnetic pole via Baffin Bay and Lancaster Sound, and to navigate the North-West Passage in one season, though he failed in this attempt because of heavy ice in the Franklin Strait.