Maritime Historical Studies Centre, University of Hull

Maritime Historical Studies Centre, University of Hull

Northwest Foxe or Foxe from the North-west Passage

FAR HORIZONS – to the ends of the Earth | Robb Robinson

Northwest Foxe or Foxe from the North-west Passage

Captain Luke Fox or Foxe was born in Hull in 1586 and christened in St Mary’s
Lowgate. He was the son of Richard Fox, an Assistant at Hull Trinity House and
Luke later became one of the Younger Brethren of the same body. Although he
probably had a relatively limited formal education he became adept at navigation –
claiming to have acquired ability in the use of globes and other ‘mathematicke
instruments’ - and certainly developed a passion for arctic history. Luke’s early
sailing career encompassed the British coastal trade and he voyaged in European
and Mediterranean waters. By all accounts he was a highly regarded and skilful
seaman. He was almost certainly at one time involved in the alum trade on the
Yorkshire coast and married a Whitby woman, Ann Barnett, in 1613.

Foxe was fascinated by the idea of finding a new route to the spice riches of the
Orient by way of a North-west passage and had made an unsuccessful attempt to
join an arctic voyage to the region whilst young. He certainly had a good knowledge
of earlier voyages of British exploration in the region and remained determined to
lead an expedition in their wake and well beyond. He gained the valuable support of
Henry Brigges, the prominent Oxford mathematician, and of Sir John Brook and in
the closing months of 1629 petitioned King Charles I for backing for a voyage. He
proved successful and, with Royal Patronage and the backing of prominent
merchants and institutions, set sail from Deptford, London on HMS Charles, an 80
ton pinnace, on the 28th April 1631. HMS Charles carried stores and provisions for
an eighteen month voyage, taking strong beer, admirable sac and aqua vitae as well

FAR HORIZONS – to the ends of the Earth Page 2

Northwest Foxe or Foxe from the North-west Passage

as pease, oat and wheatmeal, sugar, rice and ‘excellent fat beef’. To maintain the
crew’s health they took balsams, plaster and purging pills as well as a ‘churygion’
(surgeon) to attend to cases of illness. Foxe also carried a letter from King Charles I
addressed to the Emperor of Japan. Twenty men and two boys signed on as crew
and as the ship departed on this voyage to the unknown, Foxe ordered the pinnace’s
guns to be fired in salute as they it slipped down the River Thames.

The expedition sailed up the North Sea and called in at the Orkney Islands before
the long crossing of the Atlantic. The little ship entered Hudson’s Strait on the 22nd
June after an eight week voyage and picked its way through the ice along the
northern shore. Fox reached the remote Salisbury’s Island, at the western end of the
Hudson’s Strait on the 10th of July where he became ‘immured in the ice’ but broke
through after a couple of days struggle. However the route north westwards from the
end of the Strait was blocked by ice and following his previously agreed instructions,
he approached what we now call Hudson’s Bay, passing Mansell’s Island five days
later. From here Fox set a course across the Hudson’s Bay entrance and sailed
along the south western coast of Southampton Island. Then he voyaged southwards,
following the coast and looking for the elusive westwards passage.

A page from his book, North-west Fox. London, 1635
(Source: http://ve.tpl.toronto.on.ca/frozen_ocean/intro_nw_fox.htm)

FAR HORIZONS – to the ends of the Earth Page 3

Northwest Foxe or Foxe from the North-west Passage

Although he soon concluded that his expedition was ‘out of the road for finding a
passage’, he continued to search diligently. After voyaging further south he rounded
Cape Churchill and reached Port Nelson where an earlier expedition had
overwintered some twenty years before. Here he found remains of the expedition
including an inscribed cross. Foxe later described many of the places he visited and
the things he saw, including the remains of native dead. The ground being hard, the
corpses were often wrapped in animal skins and covered in stones. At some of the
places they landed they were able to replenish their food supplies through hunting
and gathering, in some places, blackberries, strawberries and other plants. Foxe
took his ship along the totally unexplored southern shore of the Bay and met an
expedition under the command of James of Bristol at the end of August. Then,
voyaging northwards, Fox was the first person to sail beyond what is now known as
the Foxe Channel and into the Foxe Basin. The pinnace then followed the coast of
what is now known as the Foxe Peninsula taking soundings and recording tidal
observations along the way. By now weather conditions were worsening and the
crew’s health was causing problems. After reaching his farthest westwards, a place
he named Port Dorchester, on the 22nd September, he turned for home. He arrived
back on the English Channel on the 31st October after a voyage of nearly six months,
and had an audience with the King to recount his experiences.

Although Luke Foxe did not discover the North West Passage his achievements are,
nevertheless, impressive. His expedition was the first to circumnavigate Hudson’s
Bay; he proved that this stretch of water did not offer a way through to the Pacific.
Foxe had voyaged to many previously unexplored places and returned home without
losing a man. He also produced one of the earliest books on Polar exploration – and
perhaps the first book published by someone from Hull. Entitled ‘North-west Foxe’.
This publication, which includes accounts of other people’s voyages and a review of
Arctic exploration, has been described as one of the most interesting and important
documents in its field, reflecting the diversity of his interests ice, tides, weather
conditions, flora and fauna etc. The book was probably published in early 1635 by
command of the King but Foxe, who by then in poor health and poverty stricken, died
in Whitby a few months later.

Robb Robinson, February 2009

FAR HORIZONS – to the ends of the Earth Page 4

Northwest Foxe or Foxe from the North-west Passage

Select Bibliography
Amir R. Alexander, Geometrical Landscapes: The Voyages of Discovery and the
Transformation of Mathematical Practice (USA: Stamford University Press, 2002)
Miller Christy (ed.). The Voyages of Captain Luke Fox of Hull, and Captain Thomas
James of Bristol, In Search of a Northwest Passage, in 1631-32. 1st series. Vols. 88,
89. (UK: Hakluyt Society, 1894).
Nellis Maynard Crouse, The Search for the Northwest Passage (USA: Columbia
University Press,1934)
Luke Fox, North-west Fox or Fox from the North-west Passage (1635 republished
Canada 1965)
John Richardson, The Polar Regions (UK: A & C Black 1861)
J.J. Sheahan, The History of Hull (UK: John Green, 1865)

On-line References
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-FoxL.html
Luke Fox. The Columbia Encyclopaedia, Sixth Edition
http://www.win.tue.nl/~engels/discovery/foxejames.html
Discoverer’s Web. Luke Foxe & Thomas James

Bibliography
On-line resources
http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=34349

FAR HORIZONS – to the ends of the Earth Page 5