TO THE POLAR SEA.


SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.




INTRODUCTION.

In days of hurried action I have been astonished at the depth of interest
which a re-perusal of this wonderful old narrative has held for me.
Wonderful it is in its simplicity and its revelation of the simplicity of
character and faith of the man who wrote it. It is old only by
comparison--scarcely ninety years have elapsed since the adventures it
described were enacted--yet such a period has never held a fuller measure
of change or more speedily passed current events into the limbo of the
past.

Nothing could more vividly impress this change than the narrative itself.
We are told that Mr. Beck missed his ship at Yarmouth but succeeded in
rejoining her at Stromness, having travelled "nine successive days almost
without rest." What a vision of post-chaises, sweating horses and heavy
roads is suggested! And if the contrast with present-day conditions in
our own Islands is great, how much greater is it in that vast Dominion
through which Franklin directed his pioneer footsteps. As he followed the
lonely trails to Fort Cumberland, or sailed along the solitary shores of
Lake Winnipeg, how little could he guess that in less than a century a
hundred thousand inhabitants would dwell by the shore of the great lake,
or that its primeval regions would one day provide largely the bread of