William Kennedy

William Kennedy, son of Alexander Kennedy, was born in 1814 and went to school in Orkney, probably St Margarets Hope from 1825 to 1833. He returned to Canada and worked for the Hudson Bay Company for a few years in Ungava and Labrador but, himself a teetotaller, he left over the company policy of selling alcohol to the Indians. He started a fishery at the mouth of the Saugeen river, making him one of the founders of Southampton, Canada West and, from 1848 to 1850, he captained a boat on Lake Huron.

He invented an Eskimo alphabet and wrote a small volume, published by his nephew, Alexander Kennedy Isbister.

He was then recommended to lead the second expedition Lady Franklin was funding to search for her husband. He made a favourable impression on many people on his way to Britain. Sir Edward Belcher, widely regarded as one of the worst Arctic explorers, for leaving four ships in the Arctic, described him as "better then any of your Backs or Raes".

His second-in-command on the expedition, Joseph Rene Bellot, died on another expedition when only twenty-seven and his diary of the Kennedy expedition was published posthumously and makes very engaging reading. He said of his leader, "I wish it to be understood that to Captain Kennedy alone belong the praises due to the boldness and intelligence of the measures taken for the accomplishment of our mission; and that to his incredible activity and the constant care he took to secure the health and welfare of us all, we are indebted for having been able, under the protection of Providence, to do much in a little time, and to return everyone of us to the bosom of our friends, without having to regret those frightful mutilations, those losses of limbs which are often the result of cruises in the icy seas. Garments of skin, and moccasins or sealskin boots, formed our accoutrements, pemmican our only food, sledge with or without dogs our means of transport for our provisions and our slender baggage and a hut constructed of snow our shelter for the night."

Bellot had another reason for enjoying his conversations with Kennedy. "Mr Kennedy speaks Canadian French - French of more than a century ago. It is like plunging into Topffers dictionary to listen. He considers this privilege a defect and begs me to correct it. What a misfortune. God forbid I should think of spoiling him for myself. I am too selfish to deprive myself of this enjoyment and divest his language of its charming originality."

Kennedy had insisted on having Bellot as his second-in-command, despite admiralty opposition. Bellot, born on 18 March 1826 in Rochefort, had attended the Ecole Navale at Brest from the age of 15 to 17 and had been awarded the Legion d’Honneur after the Anglo-French expedition to Madagascar.

It is evident from Bellot’s diaries that he and William Kennedy were very different characters but they formed a strong bond. Early in the voyage Bellot writes, ""When we received your letter," said Mr Kennedy, "I thought of these vessels which do their best to destroy each other and which at the end of the fight send out boats to pick up the wounded of the vanquished. I rejoice at the idea of having for a shipmate a master after my own heart." Excellent Kennedy. He left his business in Canada to come voluntarily without pay to command this expedition, in spite of the objections of a family which did not understand his disinterested zeal."

His expedition, with a seventeen-man crew of Shetlanders and Hudson Bay men, was the best prepared to date. His small ship, the shallow-draughted 89 ton "The Prince Albert", was well-suited to manoeuvring among the ice. The sailing-master was called Leask, described as an old Greenland whaler, and other names mentioned are the boatswain R Grate (Groat?), Andrew Irvine, Linklater, Webb, W Miller, W Adamson, Magnus McCurus and brothers Gideon Smith and John Smith, the latter described as the expert on building snow-houses.

They moored in Stromness Roads on 25 May 1851 and visited Lady Franklin, who had come to Stromness to see them off. Bellot took a gig to "the Stennies, on the borders of a superb lake", and went to Kirkwall, where he was dismayed at the state of the cathedral. "The Cathedral of St Magnus is falling to ruin; it would really be a pity if the Government did not think of preserving such a relic of the past."

The character of Pierre Bellot that emerges from his diary is a very engaging one; interested in his surroundings, exhilarated to be on such an adventure and able to laugh at himself. On a trip to the Ring of Brodgar he has problems with his mount; "My Shetland pony leaves me in the lurch and I pursue him; in vain I call to him and beseech him; he shows me his teeth, but with a jeering air, and but for the help of some shepherds I should be still there. As soon as he saw himself on the point of being caught, he chose to make a virtue of necessity and came back with the most natural air imaginable." He said of the Stone of Odin, "The hole in the stone is said to have had the virtue of giving a husband or a wife. I should have liked to handle it, but that was impossible. The stone has disappeared, worn out perhaps with use."

Bellot was surprised and favourably impressed by the Orcadians. "..indeed, nothing is more erroneous than the idea we conceive of these islands. If any ill-bred person had yawned, or opened his mouth a little too wide, when I arrived, perhaps I should have run away, thinking I had to do with cannibals. Decidedly these people are civilised, highly civilised."

While in Orkney, they heard word of John Rae. "I am sorry to hear that the indefatigable Dr Rae is again en route and that we may very possibly find him at Port Leopold. If he does all our work, what can we do?" Although Bellot does not mention ever meeting John Rae on their expedition, he went to visit Mrs Rae, "the traveller’s mother, who charges me with her affectionate remembrances for her son."

They left Stromness with, "instructions given to Mr Kennedy by the ladies; they are mingled with prayers. I think I can guess their design: they are aware that it was the only way of making the reading of the document attractive to him." The size and shallow draught of their ship made it an uncomfortable trip, even for these seasoned sailors. Not long after they left Stromness, Bellot wrote, "I am seasick. O Shame, o despair. I look round furtively to see who are witnesses of my dishonour: happily I only have accomplices. Messrs Leask and Hepburn who alone are spared by this fatal disease are not on deck.[The ship would have sailed through Hoy Sound, which must have been rougher than in the views in the Orkney Window.

When travelling inland they made snow-houses though it took Bellot some time to master the technique. "I have not yet learned how to handle the snow-knife and all I can do at present is to cover myself in snow."

They did not succeed in obtaining native clothing for the men, but Kennedy gave Bellot a deerskin coat and sealskin pantaloons, which he found very comfortable.

They met two American vessels and in his journal one of the officers, Robert Randolph Carter wrote "We find the officers very nice people." Carter was a religious man and found a like soul in Captain Kennedy: on 27 July he attended Divine Service on The Prince Albert, at which “Mr Kennedy officiated and pleased me much."

William Kennedy was deeply devout and led daily religious services. Bellot did not share his devotion, but when he was accidently left in charge of the ship for some days when a shift in the ice separated a small group of men, including the captain, from the ship, he continued the practice and maintained the same moral tone. "Several of the men at times let slip an oath but I had only to pronounce the name of Captain Kennedy to recall them to their duty." As Leslie H Neatby, in his Book "Search for Franklin", says, “Few things are quainter or more praiseworthy than the spectacle of a young French Catholic, not too precise, as he confesses, in the observances of his own creed, thus exerting himself to keep alive the zeal of Scottish calvanists."

When the ship got stuck in the ice, they used dogsleds to travel 1265 miles in 95 days. Before they set out, Bellot wrote in his diary, "We shall have made a journey of 1400 miles in the space of four months. We shall take good care to conceal this from the men, for fear of alarming them; for never was such a journey undertaken at this season of the year. I delight to find in Mr Kennedy that nobleness of nature I so love and revere and that ardent enthusiasm which alone can overcome difficulties."

During their dog-sled expedition, Kennedy and Bellot discovered a strait between Somerset Island and the Boothia peninsula, thus establishing the northernmost point of the American mainland. Kennedy modestly named it after his second-in-command, Bellot Strait.

Other explorers clearly admired William Kennedy: the Belcher squadron named Cape Kennedy. However, it seems particularly fitting that Leopold McClintock should have named the place, described as the safest anchorage in the Arctic, Port Kennedy and that it should be on the Bellot Strait.

A Short Narrative of the Second Voyage of The Prince Albert in Search of Sir John Franklin by William Kennedy was published in 1855. One of the illustrations shows the construction of a snow house.

Kennedy was unsuccessful in his attempt to lead another expedition. He got a contract for transporting mail and pioneered a route from Red River to Eastern Canada, cutting his way through the forest.

He married Eleanor Eliza Cripps, a relative of Lady Franklin, on 29 November 1859 and they had a son and daughter. Although invalided in later life by arthritis, he was an important and respected member of the community in Red River. In the late 1870s he was made a magistrate of Manitoba, in recognition of his services in helping to bring about the expansion of Canada.

When Bellot died only one year after his expedition with Kennedy, a public fund raised £2000, £500 of which was spent on a granite obelisk, which was erected on the Thames Embankment, outside Greenwich Hospital. Napoleon III granted a pension to his family. Bellot Street in London SE10 and a crater on the moon are named after him.

When Kennedy died in 1890, he was not given such immediate posthumous recognition but twenty years later the Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton unveiling a memorial brass plaque on the wall of the St Andrews Church. Five hundred people attended the dedication ceremony and a newspaper account said that white and red man sat down together to pay homage to Captain William Kennedy.

Dr Edward Shaw, President of the Manitoba Historical Society, felt Kennedy deserved greater recognition and in 1968 he bought the Kennedy home and created the Red River Museum. This is now the government-owned Kennedy House in the River Road Heritage Parkway in St Andrews, Manitoba.