Northern and North American Voyages
(Henry Hudson)
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In 1607 Hudson set out from England in a ship called the Hopewell with his young son, John, and a crew of 10 men. He sailed northeast along the coast of Greenland and reached Spitsbergen. These islands lie about 1,100 kilometres from the North Pole, and no explorer had sailed so far north before. Huge ice floes forced Hudson to return to England. He told of seeing many whales in the northern waters, and his report was responsible for English and Dutch whaling near Spitsbergen. In 1608, Hudson again tried to find a northern route, but ice again blocked the Hopewell.
A year later, the Muscovy Company again sent Hudson to seek a Northeast Passage, this time between Svalbard and the islands of Novaya Zemlya, which lie to the east of the Barents Sea. Finding his way again blocked by ice fields, he returned to England.
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Replica of the Half Moon
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In 1609, the Dutch East India Company hired Hudson to lead an expedition. The company gave him a ship, the Half Moon, and a crew of about 20 assorted men as well as his son. Hudson again headed northeast, but his crew became unruly because of the cold weather. Hudson changed the ship's course for North America, crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and sailed down the east coast.
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The Half Moon reached close to North Carolina , before entering Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay.Hudson then came across what later came to be known as the Hudson River. After having sailed up as far as where later Albany was to be and seeing that the river was a river and not the desired passage to the Indies, Hudson gave up, completely disappointed. He did not even bother to sail to back Amsterdam, but went for England, which he reached in November. There another captain took over to bring the ship back to Amsterdam as Hudson was arrested for sailing in Dutch service. The Half Moon perished later in the Indian Ocean on a trip to the East Indies via the traditional route around the Cape.A replica was built in Holland in 1909 but was destroyed by fire in 1934. Another was built in Albany, in 1989.
The Jan Mayen island first discovered and named Hudson's Touches
A party of merchants from England formed a company that provided Hudson with a vessel known as the Discovery , in 1610. He sailed across the Atlantic and reached a body of rough water, later named Hudson Strait, that directed him into Hudson Bay. Hudson thought he had at last come to the Pacific Ocean, and he sailed south into what is now James Bay. But he failed to find an outlet at the south end of this bay. The crew were forced to spend the winter there due to the ice, and they all experienced miserable suffering from cold, hunger, and disease.
In 1611 Hudson planned to search for an outlet from James Bay but a part of the crew mutinied and forced Hudson , along with his son and seven loyal crew members to leave on a small boat.They were never seen again.
Biography................Henry Hudson
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