James Knight

Geiger, John and Owen Beattie.

Dead Silence: The Greatest Mystery in Arctic Discovery. Toronto: Viking, 1993.

In 1719, James Knight, sometime overseas governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, the builder of Prince of Wales Fort at Churchill River, and an experienced ship master, sailed from London with the two ships Albany and Discovery. They were sent by the company to search the west coast of Hudson Bay north of 64 degrees N for a Northwest Passage. They were also to search for gold and copper rumoured to exist in that area. The ships disappeared into history, and for almost 50 years nothing was known of the explorers' fate. In 1769 a HBC ship captain found evidence of Knight's house and ships on Marble Island off the northwest coast of Hudson Bay. Samuel Hearne, in 1769, learned that the members of Knight's expedition had died of sickness and famine. The Inuit fed some of the remaining members of the party but in about 1722 the last of the exploring party perished. Archaeological investigations and superb photography, plus careful historical recreation of the episode and the search for Knight and his men make for an excellent, exciting book. Readers will appreciate the chronology included, which helps to explain the complicated details of the story. Written by the authors of Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition, this book is a fine recounting of an early chapter in northern Canadian history.

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