Martin Frobisher (ca.

1540-1594)
Author(s): L. H. Neatby
Source: Arctic, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Dec., 1983), pp. 374-375
Published by: Arctic Institute of North America
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40509601
Accessed: 04-03-2020 16:34 UTC

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 374 ARCTIC PROFILES

Martin Fr

The The fleet meantime had suffered much discomfort

Portuguese navand
the first danger,to sail
bewildered in "such a fog and hideous upmist" and "so
Hudson troubled and tossed about in the ice that
Strait in it would make the
the
strongest heart to relent."
competitors to The convoy wassuch kept together by
behind a the veil
continual sounding of drums of sec
and trumpets. When the bark
Dionyse foundered, the rest
consequence, manfully took to their
the En boats and
credited rescued
pioneer her entire crew before the vessel sank. They of saved
known to other ships
the by cutting up theirworld cables and hanging out the
the forbidding
fragments to deaden the impact of the ice. terr Eventually they
habitants,struggled pastand Queen Elizabeth's Foreland the and anchored in e
tuguese, Frobisher
he Bay withdimmed
snow a foot deep on their decks.
with While the crews were busy in gathering by
precision, and loading ore, d
his own Frobisher and his officers made excursions inland-
choice in search of
fr
by failing
fresh deposits. They tofailed to establishemph
friendly relations with
the local Eskimos.
Although his succe
Baffin - The plan of leaving a party to winter
have takenin "Meta Incognita"
neglected, Frobisher's courage and enterprise are in- was abandoned, but a house built of stone and lime was set up
disputable; his original achievements were all in Canadian on Kodlunarn Island to test the durability of those materials in
waters; and he may justly be recognized as the first Anglo- an arctic climate. On the way home the fleet was scattered by
Canadian. an "outrageous tempest", but all reached port safely. Con-
Frobisher was born in about 1540 in Yorkshire, England,sidering
of that the voyage had been undertaken in the irresponsi-
Welsh descent. As far as the record discloses, he was engaged
ble hurry and enthusiasm of a gold rush, this fortunate deliver-
in the African trade in defiance of a theoretical Portuguese
ance may be credited to the Elizabethan seamen, and not least
monopoly. The Privy Council of Queen Elizabeth once called to the "General" who commanded them.
him to question over an alleged act of piracy, but such charges
In consequence of the quickly proved worthlessness of the
were not always pressed unless the victim was a fellow- ore, Frobisher fell into disfavour with the government and the
countryman. He never became a skilled navigator, but wasfinanciers
an - unjustly, for the gold-hunt appears not to have
experienced practical officer - masterful, resolute, and bold.
originated with him. He reappeared as senior officer in the war
At that time, Spain and Portugal laid claim to all the against Spain, went on a marauding expedition under Drake to
Americas and barred foreigners from the lucrative Spice the West Indies, and held a command in the fight against the
Islands trade by prohibitions, which, though not always en-Spanish Armada. He won his knighthood in this operation -
forceable, added to the risks of the traffic. In 1576 Frobisher
and, characteristically, quarrelled with and vehemently abused
sailed with three ships, backed by London merchants to find ansuperior, Vice-Admiral Drake. He remained in the naval
his
unpoliced route to the East - the Northwest Passage. service and was mortally wounded in a petty operation against
Off Greenland they encountered storm and ice. One ship the Spaniards on the French coast.
foundered with all hands; another stole away home. Frobisher
Frobisher seems to have been a gentleman by birth, but was
held right on, assuring his frightened crew that "the sea must
poorly
needs at last have an ending." Approaching Baffin Island, he educated, rough in manner, often violent, and an indif-
ferent
passed to the north of Queen Elizabeth's Foreland and sailed navigator. He did not "fix" his discoveries. For a long
time
more than a hundred miles up Frobisher Bay, which he took to it was supposed that Frobisher Bay was on the east shore
of
be a strait with America on the left and Asia on the right. He Greenland. John Davis visited the bay without recognizing
its
returned to England with samples of ore that were supposed to identity. The sailor-historian, Luke Foxe, credits Davis,
contain gold. He made another voyage in 1577 and returned not Frobisher, with "lighting Hudson into his Strait." The
identity
with a quantity of ore on which analysts gave a noncommittal of Frobisher Bay was only fully confirmed three hun-
but optimistic report. dred years later, when the American C.F. Hall found the ruins
of Frobisher's house on Kodlunarn Island, and found that the
The precious metals found by the Spanish in Mexico and
Peru encouraged the hope that such deposits could be foundEskimos
in had preserved an accurate oral record of the voyages
the far North. In 1578 Frobisher was sent out with an armada made by Frobisher centuries before.
of 15 sail, not for exploration but for a gold-hunt. The fleet Though not a scientific geographer, Frobisher was the
pioneer of the Canadian Arctic. His ignorance permitted him
was detained off the Baffin Island shore for two weeks by ice
to defy dangers from which better-informed ship masters
and fog, and Frobisher himself sailed many miles up the north
shore of Hudson Strait; he afterwards claimed that he could might have shrunk. Others followed where he had blazed the
have won through to the Pacific, had he not been detained by
trail. He pierced the barrier of the realms of frost and opened a
his responsibility as captain of the fleet. breach for more skilled navigators to exploit.

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 ARCTIC PROFILES 375

Photo courtesy of Na

FURTHER READINGS
Frobisher. From the Original 1578 Text by George Best. Together with
COLLINSON, RICHARD, (ed.). n.d. The Three Voyages of Numerous
MartinOther Versions, Additions, Etc. London: Argonaut Press.
Fro-
bisher in Search of a Passage to Cathaia and India by the North- West, L.H. Neatby
A.D. 1576-8. Reprinted New York: Burt Franklin. (Originally pub.
1610 - 1223 Temperance Street
1867).
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
STEFANSSON, VILHJALMUR. (ed.). 1938. The Three Voyages of Martin S7N 0P2

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