21.—The History of the North Water

Abstract

In 1616 William Baffin, coasting up the icebound west coast of Greenland, reported: ‘The first of July we were come into an open sea, in the latitude of 75 degrees 40 minutes, which a new revived our hope of a passage…’ (Purchas 1625). From this point, at an unspecified longitude in the north part of Melville Bay, he cruised for 12 days in open water, up the Greenland coast to 77°30'N and down the west side of Baffin Bay to Bylot Island, seeing and naming on the way Smith, Jones, and Lancaster sounds. From Bylot Island south he found ‘a ledge of ice between the shoare and us’ as he continued past Pond Inlet and down the coast of Baffin Island. This is the first mention in written records, and the first known navigation, of an area that became well known two centuries later as the ‘North Water’.