Monk's Harbour
There also died Francis Nelson , sailing master of the Resolution, and Button gave his name to the strange river coming down out of the unknown land. With him died also many of his shipmates presumably from scurvy , and in the spring of 1612 Button sailed with the survivors of the Discovery, leaving the Resolution to perish by the Nelson. The region of his discovery and costly wintering he called New Wales in honour of his homeland. After exploring the coast northward from Hope Checkt to “Ne Ultra” in sixty-five degrees north, he sailed home to England.
Button made his way back in the most confident hope and hopes, based on observation of the tides , that a passage to the west might yet be found . In 1614, 1615 and the year of 1616 his successors Gibbons, Bylot and Baffin , probed yet deeper into the ice-encumbered waters of both Hudson and Baffin Bays until at length the painstaking Baffin concluded that that there was no passage either way or either means. Others believed however tthat to the north or south of Buttons New Wales a passage might yet be found.
In this belief , Jens Munk, a Danish navigator, sailed into the bay in 1619, and thus followed Button’s course westward. Turning southwest with one ship while the other turned northwards , he discovered and on September 7 , entered the rock bound mouth of a most large river fifty nine degrees , long to be known as “Munk’s Harbour ” and today as “Port Churchill”.
