Francis Leopold McClintock

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Sir Francis McClintock 1856

Sir Francis McClintock

Francis Leopold McClintock^[1] or Francis Leopold M'Clintock^[2] (8 July 1819 – 17 November 1907) was an Irish explorer in the British Royal Navy who is known for his discoveries in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

In 1831, he became a member of the Royal Navy as a gentleman volunteer, and joined a series of searches for Sir John Franklin between 1848 and 1859. He mastered traveling by using human hauled sleds, which remained the status quo in Royal Navy Arctic and Antarctic overland travel until the death of Captain Robert Falcon Scott RN in his forlorn hope bid to reach the South Pole. In his first Arctic command in 1848, McClintock surveyed and mapped Melville Island and discovered Prince of Wales Island and Prince Patrick Island. As part of Capt. Henry Kellett's expedition 1852 to 1854, McClintock traveled 1,400 miles by sled and discovered 800 miles of previously unknown coastline.^[3]

In 1857, he was given command of the yacht Fox which was sponsored by public subscription via Lady Jane Franklin's search for her missing husband, and found the only official record of the 1845-48 Sir John Franklin Northwest Passage Expedition, in May 1859. This time, he did use dogs. This tale was published in The Voyage of the 'Fox' in the Arctic Seas: A Narrative of the Discovery of the Fate of Sir John Franklin and His Companions. London, 1859. McClintock left the Royal Navy in 1884 as a Rear Admiral.

[edit] See also

MacKlintok Island

[edit] References

^ Library and Archives Canada
^ Princeton University
^ Mowat, Farley (1973). Ordeal by ice; the search for the Northwest Passage (The Fate of Franklin), Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd, 288. OCLC 1391959.

Coleman, E. C. (2007). The Royal Navy and Polar exploration: from Franklin to Scott. Stroud: Tempus., ISBN 0752442074
Murphy, D. (2004). The Arctic Fox: Francis Leopold McClintock, discoverer of the fate of Franklin. Wilton, Cork: Collins Press., ISBN 1-55002-523-6