Sir Thomas Button Arctic Exploration Details

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: [unknown]

"The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson's Bay" came to Manitoba to trade ... and to explore, but it was the Welshman, Thomas Button, who started it all.”

A Button Symposium: Prologue^[1]

Button's uncle by marriage Sir Robert Mansel, treasurer of the navy, assisted Button’s promotions resulting in his 1612 appointment to command an expedition to determine “ye full and perfect discovery of the North-west Passage” and (possibly) to investigate the fate of Henry Hudson who had been cast adrift by mutineers^[2]. Button therefore led one of the first expeditions of discovery attempting to find a commercial sea passage north and west of North America into the Bering Strait and the Pacific. Many expeditions followed, many ending in disaster. The Northwest Passage was not completed by sea until 1906 with the voyage of Roald Amundsen in the Gjoa^[3].

Button commanded two navy ships, the Resolution and the Discovery under Captain Ingram^[4], sailing in April 1612 under very specific instructions drawn up by Edward Wright, mathematician and tutor to Prince Henry, eldest son of James I.

Button was directed to observe and record the compass elevation, declination, and variation during
“the beginning and ending of the Eclipse that will happen on the 20th of Maye next”.
He was not to waste time entering
“Bais, inlets or sands,”
but to observe the set of the tides,
“remembering that your end is West, we would have you stand over . . . in the latitude of some 58 degrees, where, riding at some headland, observe well the flood; if it come in SOUTH WEST, then you maie be sure the passage is that waie: yf from the north or NORTHWEST, your course must be to stand upp into it.”
By noting the strength of the tidal flow and variation he could deduce a likely direction of the fabled Northwest Passage. Finding this trade shortcut to the Pacific was a focus of English arctic exploration until the late 19th C., costing the lives of many, including Sir John Franklin and the crews of the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. If Button was directed to search for Henry Hudson, this task was not outlined in his official duties^[5].

Button’s journal has not survived, but fragments of it were published in Capt. Luke Fox’s North-west Fox in 1635, (based on accounts of Button’s companions, Abacuk Pricket and William Hawkeridge, and abstracts from Button’s journal by Sir Thomas Roe)^[6].

Button’s ships were often trapped in the thick ice of Hudson Strait, delaying their progress until they arrived at Digges Island. Here they rested for eight days, taking on fresh water and hunting caribou. Button engaged the men in assembling a pinnace which they had shipped from England in pieces. Leaving Digges Island, they sailed westward discovering the west coast of Southampton Island which Button named Cary's Swans' Nest. Sailing south-westward, they reached land at about latitude 60° 40' August 13th. One hundred days out from England the prospect of easy discovery of the passage dashed, and ships damaged from a severe storm, disillusionment overcame Captain Button; he named it Hopes Checked^[7].

In order to repair storm damage and losses, on 15 Aug 1612 Button sought refuge in the estuary of a large river which he named the Nelson River, and the local area Port Nelson after Robert Nelson, deceased master of the Resolution whom Button buried there. He named the wider region New Wales^[8][9].

They wintered at what is now known as Port Nelson. The river was full of stones and of varying treacherous depths, from seven fathoms to six feet. Small, stunted trees bordered both sides of the river, providing firewood. On the north side of the river, at the base of a clay cliff, was a natural camp site in a valley. First, the pinnace was run into the shelter of the creek, followed by the larger ship, then a baulk of wood and earth was constructed as a protection against winter storms of snow, rain, ice and floods. Button and the crew wintered in the ship and kept three fires going continuously. The harsh conditions caused many to fall ill, including Button, and several men died, though not from lack of food, as there were many ptarmigan, other fowl, bears, wolves and caribou. Although it was much colder than their homeland, the winter of 1612 was not severe and they encountered many warm days. Freeze-up was delayed until February 16, 1613 lasting until April 21st; during this period their nets under the ice produced many fish. Although they called them mackerel, the species was likely arctic char. In early summer they continued to 65° North in search of the Northwest Passage after losing the Resolution to sea ice at Port Nelson. Port Nelson, on the north shore of the peninsula and only twelve miles from York Factory, preceded York as an H.B.C. post in 1682-83. It is at the mouth of the Nelson River, discovered by Sir Thomas Button in 1612 and named after Button's sailing master, who died on the voyage^[10].

So many of the crew were ill (possibly from scurvy and infectious diseases) they easily fit into the smaller Discovery and the 8 remaining healthy crew sailed in June. In spring they explored the bay, which he named Button Bay. This bay is located at 58°47′49.77″N 94°12′48.34″W across the Churchill River from Churchill, MB and near Fort Prince of Wales, a wooden fortress built by James Knight of the Hudson’s Bay Company that was later replaced by a stone star fortress, in use as a fur trade post from 1717 to 1782^[11].

At the end of July Button named the passage between Southampton Island and the mainland to the west Sir Thomas Roe’s Welcome. Mistakenly believing the blocking ice obscured the end of a bay, he left the passage, turning south^[12].

The first week of August brought a succession of flat calm, with fog so thick that Button could not see the distance of a pistol shot, then winds, gales and heavy seas. The violent storms demanded the utmost of Button and his crew’s knowledge of seamanship. He continued to follow his instructions from the Admiralty, making reckonings and observations whenever possible. He crept along the shoreline, at times edging into shallows of 7 fathoms. With stiff, contrary winds, dangerously rocky shorelines, treacherous shoals, reefs and nearness unknown islands forced the Discovery SSE where, in latitude 61 ° 38', the Button saw and named Mansel's Island the most easterly of three islands commanding the entrance to Hudson Bay^[13].

By August 12th, after a small gale, Button recorded a latitude of 62° 38'. The land was bare and rocky and the broken shore was difficult to sail. The morning of August 14th was calm but the men had been frightened by the aurora borealis whose rays ‘streamed across the sky like flames shooting from the mouth of a hot oven’. The brilliant active colours were interpreted by the superstitious seamen as a prelude to a magnetic storm. The next day the weather changed and another storm was upon them^[14].

By the end of August Button realized winter storms were coming. Exhausted by the severe weather and discouraged by his failure to find the Northwest Passage, with dwindling supplies, Button turned east for home. They encountered met little ice in Hudson's Strait and arrived in Chatham, England in September 1613^[15]

On the journey home Button collected his officer's journals, following Prince Henry's instructions to submit a complete journal from notes kept by officers and crew members:

“Let there be faithful and true registering every day of all the memorable happenings of the voyage and that by as many as shall be willing especially, by the most skilfull and discreet persons, whom we would have once every ten or twelve days to confer their notes for the better perfecting of a journal, which we expect at your return”.

However, Button was not able to submit his journal as the prince had died on November 5th, 1612, seven months after he had signed Button’s instructions. Button’s journals, proceedings and findings were never made available to his contemporaries, although Button willingly advised Foxe and James some years later, before their arctic voyages. This contributed to Button’s historical obscurity^[16].

The Northwest Company or the “Company of the Merchants Discoverers of the North-West Passage” was granted its charter on 26 July 1612, just three months after Button set sail for the arctic. The company included Button and officers who sailed with him, including Robert Bylot, for whom Bylot Island is named^[17]. It is a large island off the north coast of Baffin Island. Perhaps the suppression of the journals was done to benefit the principals of the Northwest Company, the same men who had sponsored Button^[18].

Button is credited with exploring and claiming the west coast of Hudson Bay for England, naming the area New Wales. When Captains Thomas James and Luke Foxe revisited Port Nelson in 1631 they found a cross erected by Button. Foxe went on to confirm the shore north of the Nelson River as New North Wales and all the shore to the south as New South Wales. Button and his crew were among the first recorded Europeans to explore part of what is now known as Manitoba^[19].

Return to the main page, click Sir Thomas Button: Thomas Button (abt.1565-1634).

Sources

1. ↑ Manitoba Pageant, Spring 1970, Volume 15, Number 3 http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/pageant/15/buttonsymposium.shtml Accessed September 29 2022
2. ↑ DCB http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/button_thomas_1E.html
3. ↑ Mills, William James (2003). Exploring Polar Frontiers: A Historical Encyclopedia. Vol. 1, A–L. ABC-CLIO. p. 13. ISBN 978-1-57607-422-0
4. ↑ A Condensation, Not Ripe For His Sickle, The Attempt of Captain Thomas Button to Discover the Northwest Passage - A.D. 1612-1613, by Blanche Parker, Manitoba Pageant, Spring 1970, Volume 15, Number 3 http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/pageant/15/notripeforsickle.shtml Accessed 29 Sept 2022
5. ↑ DCB http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/button_thomas_1E.html
6. ↑ Christy, M. (2016). The Voyages of Captain Luke Foxe of Hull, and Captain Thomas James of Bristol, in Search of a North-West Passage, in 1631–32: With Narratives of the earlier North-West Voyages of Frobisher, Davis, Weymouth, Hall, Knight, Hudson, Button, Gibbons, Bylot, Baffin, Hawkridge, and others. (1st ed.). Hakluyt Society. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315551555
7. ↑ A Condensation, Not Ripe For His Sickle, The Attempt of Captain Thomas Button to Discover the Northwest Passage - A.D. 1612-1613, by Blanche Parker, Manitoba Pageant, Spring 1970, Volume 15, Number 3 http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/pageant/15/notripeforsickle.shtml Accessed 29 Sept 2022
8. ↑ Thrush, Andrew (2004), "Button, Sir Thomas (c.1575–1634)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, retrieved 17 December 2016
9. ↑ John Macoun; George Monro Grant; Alexander Begg; John Campbell McLagan (1882). Manitoba and the great Northwest: the field for investment; the home of the emigrant, being a full and complete history of the country. World Publishing Company. pp. 595–687.
10. ↑ Robert Hood, C. Stuart Houston (1994). To the Arctic by Canoe, 1819-1821: The Journal and Paintings of Robert Hood, Midshipman with Franklin. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-7735-1222-1. Retrieved 28 September 2008
11. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Wales_Fort accessed Sept 28, 2022
12. ↑ Robert Hood, C. Stuart Houston (1994). To the Arctic by Canoe, 1819-1821: The Journal and Paintings of Robert Hood, Midshipman with Franklin. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-7735-1222-1. Retrieved 28 September 2008
13. ↑ Robert Hood, C. Stuart Houston (1994). To the Arctic by Canoe, 1819-1821: The Journal and Paintings of Robert Hood, Midshipman with Franklin. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-7735-1222-1. Retrieved 28 September 2008
14. ↑ A Condensation, Not Ripe For His Sickle, The Attempt of Captain Thomas Button to Discover the Northwest Passage - A.D. 1612-1613, by Blanche Parker, Manitoba Pageant, Spring 1970, Volume 15, Number 3 http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/pageant/15/notripeforsickle.shtml Accessed 29 Sept 2022
15. ↑ Thrush, Andrew (2004), "Button, Sir Thomas (c.1575–1634)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, retrieved 17 December 2016
16. ↑ A Condensation, Not Ripe For His Sickle, The Attempt of Captain Thomas Button to Discover the Northwest Passage - A.D. 1612-1613, by Blanche Parker, Manitoba Pageant, Spring 1970, Volume 15, Number 3 http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/pageant/15/notripeforsickle.shtml Accessed 29 Sept 2022
17. ↑ DCB http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/button_thomas_1E.html
18. ↑ A Condensation, Not Ripe For His Sickle, The Attempt of Captain Thomas Button to Discover the Northwest Passage - A.D. 1612-1613, by Blanche Parker, Manitoba Pageant, Spring 1970, Volume 15, Number 3 http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/pageant/15/notripeforsickle.shtml Accessed 29 Sept 2022
19. ↑ DCB http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/button_thomas_1E.html