Expédition sur les traces de Bedford Pim : 1853 – 2026

1853 – 2026

In the Footsteps of William Edward Parry, Leopold McClintock, and Bedford Pim

Expedition from Dealy Island to Mercy Bay

Wind, ice, time.

In the spring of 2026, a ski expedition will retrace the routes followed by William Edward Parry, Leopold McClintock, Bedford Pim, and many others of the Victorian era, linking Dealy Island to Mercy Bay across more than 500 km of Arctic terrain.

Between memory and the landscape, this traverse aims to revisit the sites of a historic rescue and to confront 19th-century accounts with present-day reality.

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1845. The First Disappearance
The great British expedition led by Sir John Franklin pushes deep into the Arctic. Three years later, no news has returned. The crews of the Erebus and the Terror, 129 men in total, have vanished without a trace.
A vast search effort, the largest of the century, is set in motion, driven in part by another ambition: to finally uncover the Northwest Passage. Two islands emerge as strategic footholds, Beechey in the east, Dealy in the west.
Dozens of ships trace the coastlines, sound the channels of the Canadian High Arctic, and winter in the ice. Yet they too must face the forces of the North: shifting pack ice, crushing isolation, and the long polar night.

1853. The March to Mercy Bay
One of these ships, HMS Investigator, which entered from the west in 1850 under the command of Robert McClure, has not been heard from for three years. Concern deepens. Relief expeditions are organized.
On March 10, 1853, Bedford Pim, lieutenant aboard HMS Resolute, wintering at Dealy Island, leaves the ship and sets out westward. With a small party, he hauls his sledge across the sea ice, determined to find the missing crew of the Investigator.
He follows the stark shores of Melville Island, retracing the route taken by Edward Parry in 1819. He passes through Winter Harbour, camps near Parry Rock, then continues toward Cape Dundas. From there, he presses southward across the ice, advancing toward Banks Island.

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April 6, 1853. The Rescue

On a storm-lashed morning, Lieutenant Pim appears at Mercy Bay. Before him, HMS Investigator lies trapped in the ice. Her commander, Robert McClure, has just buried his first man.

What follows becomes one of the most remarkable rescues in Arctic history: thanks to relief arriving from the east, the entire surviving crew is ultimately brought home¹.

¹ Discover the full story in For Glory, Not Gold by Hubert Sagnières (Flammarion, 2025).

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Since 1853, no one has completed this route in its entirety by ski and sledge.

March–June 2026.

This spring, Mike Beedell, Bertrand Delapierre, and Hubert Sagnières retrace the route of Bedford Pim: 500 km on skis, hauling their sledges in full autonomy, from Dealy Island to Mercy Bay.

173 years later, what remains of the wintering sites, cairns, shelters, depots, and the places visited and described by William Edward Parry, Leopold McClintock, Robert McClure, Henry Kellett, and Pim?

Equipped with original 19th-century maps, sketches, and journals, the expedition will travel across these sites, some of which have rarely been visited since.

The ultimate objective: to reach the site of HMS Investigator, now resting about ten meters beneath the waters of Mercy Bay, where Bedford Pim found her trapped in the ice, with a crew to be rescued.

To observe, to understand, and to share.

A few days before departure, the team is officially presented with Explorers Club Flag No. 12 in New York, continuing the tradition of this storied institution.

This flag has accompanied several expeditions since its first use during the Crane Pacific Expedition in 1928.

It will join our 2026 traverse, marking its very first presence in the Arctic, as a powerful symbol and a direct link to nearly a century of exploration history.
Dealy Island marks the team’s entry into the field.

It is here that the expedition truly begins, in a place deeply shaped by history. The island served as a wintering base for HMS Resolute, under the command of Captain Henry Kellett, during the search for the men of the Franklin expedition, who had disappeared eight years earlier while attempting to navigate the Northwest Passage.

On site, Hubert, Bertrand, and Mike will see Kellett’s House, built as a refuge in case any of Franklin’s survivors reached the island. Now reconstructed, this wooden shelter once held enough provisions to sustain 66 men for several months.

Starting here is no coincidence. Dealy Island stands as one of those anchor points in Arctic history, from which numerous sledging expeditions set out in search of lost crews and in the hope of uncovering the mystery of the Northwest Passage.
A discreet yet meaningful landmark, Parry Rock, designated a National Historic Site in 1930, marks a passage in the footsteps of early British exploration in the Arctic archipelago.

This sandstone block, several meters long, rises slightly above the shoreline, about 16 meters above sea level.

It was here that William Edward Parry and his men wintered in 1819–1820 with HMS Hecla and HMS Griper. Before their departure, the names of the ships and their captains were carved into the stone, a trace still visible today. The site was revisited several times throughout the 19th century, notably during the searches related to the Franklin expedition.

In 1909, Captain Joseph-Elzéar Bernier installed a plaque asserting Canadian sovereignty over the Arctic archipelago (see photo).

Long before these visits, these lands formed part of a broader space traveled by the Inuit, through seasonal movements shaped by Arctic conditions.
At the western tip of Melville Island, Cape Dundas reaches out toward an open and often hostile horizon.

This cape marks a boundary, a tipping point between known lands and more uncertain spaces. Conditions here are exposed, the wind constant, and progress depends closely on the state of the ice.

It is a demanding passage, where every decision matters and where the landscape sets the pace.
The crossing of McClure Strait is one of the key moments of the expedition.

This stretch of sea, located between Banks Island and Melville Island, is historically known for its difficult ice conditions, which long prevented full navigation. It was in this region that Robert McClure and the crew of HMS Investigator became trapped in the ice in the early 1850s, during the search for the Franklin expedition.

Even today, the passage requires adapting to prevailing conditions and proceeding with caution.
The endpoint of the traverse, Mercy Bay is a place deeply marked by history.

It was here that HMS Investigator, under the command of Robert McClure, remained trapped in the ice for several winters. When Bedford Pim reached the site in 1853, he found a weakened but still surviving crew, marking one of the most significant rescues in Arctic history.

For the team, reaching Mercy Bay means completing the journey by arriving at this place steeped in memory, where endurance, isolation, and hope converge.