page_title: HMS Alert (1856)
section_title: Arctic exploration (1874–1876)
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Alert (1856) / History / Arctic exploration (1874–1876)
caption_attribution_description: HMS Alert (1856) pushed aground by ice, Radmore Harbour, 1875-1876
context_page_description: HMS Alert was a 17-gun wooden screw sloop of the Cruizer class of the Royal Navy, launched in 1856 and broken up in 1894. She was the eleventh ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name, and was noted for her Arctic exploration work; in 1876 she reached a record latitude of 82° North. Alert briefly served with the US Navy, and ended her career with the Canadian Marine Service as a lighthouse tender and buoy ship.
context_section_description: In 1874, Alert was taken in hand for conversion to the role of Arctic exploration. Her single-expansion engine was replaced with an R & W Hawthorn compound-expansion engine, it was re-boilered to 60 pounds per square inch (410 kPa), her armament was reduced to four guns and her hull was strengthened with felt-covered iron. Above the waterline it was sheathed with teak, and below it, Canadian elm and pitch-pine. The modifications caused her displacement to increase to 1,240 tons.
  The British Arctic Expedition was commanded by Captain George Strong Nares, and comprised Alert (Captain Nares) and Discovery (Captain Henry Frederick Stephenson). The expedition aimed to reach the North Pole via Smith Sound, the sea passage between Greenland and Canada's northernmost island, Ellesmere Island. Contemporary geographers proposed that there could be an Open Polar Sea, and that if the thick layer of ice surrounding it were overcome, access to the North Pole by sea might be possible. Ever since Edward Augustus Inglefield had penetrated Smith Sound in 1852, it had been a likely route to the North.
  Despite finding heavier-than-expected ice, the expedition pressed on. Leaving Discovery to winter at Lady Franklin Bay, Alert pressed on a further 50 nautical miles (93 km; 58 mi) through the Robeson Channel, establishing her winter quarters at Floeberg Beach. Spring 1876 saw considerable activity by sledge, charting the coasts of Ellesmere Island and Greenland, but scurvy had begun to take hold, with Alert suffering the greatest burden. On 3 April the second-in-command of Alert, Albert Hastings Markham, took a party north to attempt the Pole. By 11 May, having made slow progress, they reached their greatest latitude at 83° 20' 26"N. Suffering from snow blindness, scurvy and exhaustion, they turned back.
  The expedition was rewarded on its return; Nares was knighted, Markham was promoted to captain. The geography of northern Canada and Greenland is dotted with the names of those connected with the expedition: Nares Strait, Nares Lake, Markham Ice Shelf, Ayles Ice Shelf, and Mount Ayles. The northernmost permanently inhabited place on earth, the settlement of Alert at the northern point of Ellesmere Island, was named for the ship.
caption: HMS Alert pushed aground by ice, Radmore Harbour, 1875–1876 (Illustrated London News, 1876)
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