By 1850, there was still no confirmed news of Sir John Franklin’s missing 1845 expedition. American merchant Henry Grinnell offered two reinforced ships for a U.S.-crewed rescue effort, and Congress authorized the government to accept the offer. This set the stage for a series of American-led scientific and search expeditions into the High Arctic.
The First Grinnell Expedition sailed from New York with the brigs Advance and Rescue under Lt. Edwin J. De Haven. Its mission was to help locate Franklin by pushing into the Canadian Arctic as far as ice and weather allowed. The voyage also began a U.S. pattern of combining rescue goals with mapping and observation.
In September 1850, Advance and Rescue were trapped by ice at the entrance to Wellington Channel and drifted through the winter. The crews faced scurvy risk and severe cold while maintaining the ships and caching emergency supplies. This wintering experience shaped later planning for the more ambitious Second Grinnell Expedition.
After the ice broke up in June 1851, the ships attempted to renew the search but found conditions too dangerous for a second winter. Advance returned to New York on September 30, 1851, and Rescue followed in early October. The limited results and hard lessons helped justify a better-funded follow-up effort.
Financed largely by Henry Grinnell, a second U.S. expedition sailed to resume the Franklin search, with U.S. Navy surgeon Elisha Kent Kane in command aboard the Advance. The plan relied heavily on sledging, careful depots (supply caches), and extensive scientific measurements. It marked a shift toward deeper penetration north of Baffin Bay and a stronger scientific program alongside the rescue goal.
In Greenland, the expedition took on key local knowledge and skills for travel on sea ice and land. Kane hired the Inuk hunter and dog handler Hans Hendrik and obtained additional supplies and dogs, strengthening the party’s ability to move by sled. This reliance on Indigenous Arctic expertise became essential to the expedition’s survival and travel range.
By early August 1853, Advance reached the Smith Sound region, the gateway between Greenland and Ellesmere Island. Kane chose to push farther north and winter near the Greenland coast, where the ship became frozen in by September. The decision increased the scientific and geographic reach of the expedition, but also raised the risk of running out of provisions.
During the first winter, Kane’s party carried out dog-sledge trips to build depots and to survey nearby coasts and islands. These journeys extended U.S. geographic knowledge in the Smith Sound area and supported meteorological and other observations from a shore base. The work also showed how winter travel could substitute for ship movement when the sea was locked by ice.
In May 1854, expedition members, including Isaac Israel Hayes, explored areas on and near Ellesmere Island that were then referred to as “Grinnell Land.” These trips contributed to the growing map of the High Arctic and fed continuing debates about routes toward the North Pole. The results mattered even without finding Franklin, because they built a base of U.S. geographic knowledge for later explorers.
By mid-1854, Advance remained icebound and the crew faced worsening scurvy, a disease caused by lack of vitamin C that can be fatal. Kane weighed whether to risk abandoning the ship or attempting difficult travel south to reach help and supplies. The crisis turned the expedition from exploration into a survival problem, while still trying to preserve its scientific records.
After two winters trapped in the ice, Kane and his crew concluded they could not remain a third winter and left the Advance behind. They started a long retreat using boats and sledges, carrying weakened men and vital papers. The decision prioritized survival and the preservation of observations over the ship itself.
After an 83-day journey, the surviving members of the expedition reached Upernavik on Greenland’s west coast. Their arrival ended the immediate survival crisis and allowed them to return to the United States with their records and maps. Although they found no decisive new evidence about Franklin, the retreat became a major episode in U.S. Arctic exploration history.
Kane reached New York in October 1855 and was widely celebrated, even though the expedition had not located Franklin. Public attention helped frame Arctic exploration as a national scientific and geographic project, not only a rescue mission. The return also positioned Kane and his colleagues to publish their findings and influence future expeditions.
In 1856, Kane published Arctic Explorations, a detailed account of the Second Grinnell Expedition with maps, illustrations, and scientific observations. The book spread the expedition’s geographic knowledge and helped popularize the idea of an “open polar sea,” even as later explorers debated it. This publication became a key bridge from 1850s rescue efforts to later, more explicitly North Pole–focused American expeditions.
Building on Kane’s experience and claims about northern waters, Isaac Israel Hayes returned to the Smith Sound region in 1860 commanding the schooner United States. He wintered in the Arctic and sledged north in spring 1861, later arguing he had seen an “open polar sea,” though historians note the view was likely of a channel rather than an ice-free ocean. The voyage shows how the Second Grinnell Expedition directly shaped follow-on U.S. Arctic planning and goals in the 1860s.
Second Grinnell and Related American Arctic Expeditions (1850–1860s)