Henry Hudson - 1607 and 1608 Voyages

1607 and 1608 Voyages

In 1607, the Muscovy Company of the Kingdom of England hired Hudson to find a northerly route to the Pacific coast of Asia. The English were battling the Dutch for northwest routes. It was thought at the time that, because the sun shone for three months in the northern latitudes in the summer, the ice would melt and a ship could make it across the top of the world.

Hudson sailed on May 1st with a crew of ten men and a boy on the 80-ton Hopewell. They reached the east coast of Greenland on June 14, coasting it northward until the 22nd. Here they named a headland "Young's Cape", a "very high mount, like a round castle" near it "Mount of God's Mercy" and land at 73° N "Hold-with-Hope". After turning east, they sighted "Newland" (i.e Spitsbergen) on the 27th, near the mouth of the great bay Hudson later simply named the "Great Indraught" (Isfjorden). On July 13 Hudson and his crew thought they had sailed as far north as 80° 23' N, but more likely only reached 79° 23' N. The following day they entered what Hudson later in the voyage named "Whales Bay" (Krossfjorden and Kongsfjorden), naming its northwestern point "Collins Cape" (Kapp Mitra) after his boatswain, William Collins. They sailed north the following two days. On the 16th they reached as far north as Hakluyt's Headland (which Thomas Edge claims Hudson named on this voyage) at 79° 49' N, thinking they saw the land continue to 82° N (Svalbard's northernmost point is 80° 49' N) when really it trended to the east. Encountering ice packed along the north coast, they were forced to turn back south. Hudson wanted to make his return "by the north of Greenland to Davis his Streights (Davis Strait), and so for Kingdom of England," but ice conditions would have made this impossible. The expedition returned to Tilbury Hope on the Thames on September 15.

Many authors have wrongly stated that it was the discovery of large numbers of whales in Spitsbergen waters by Hudson during this voyage that led to several nations sending whaling expeditions to the islands. While he did indeed report seeing many whales, it was not his reports that led to the trade, but that by Jonas Poole in 1610 which led to the establishment of English whaling and the voyages of Nicholas Woodcock and Willem Cornelisz. van Muyden in 1612 that led to the establishment of Dutch, French and Spanish whaling.

In 1608, merchants of the Muscovy Company again sent Hudson in the Hopewell on another attempt at a passage to the Indies, this time to the east around northern Russia. Leaving London in April, the ship traveled almost 2,500 miles, making it to Novaya Zemlya well above the Arctic Circle in July, but even in the summer the ice was impenetrable and they turned back, returning to England in late August.