Unfortunately, they anchored the ships for the winter, shortly after those men died, in pretty much the worst place possible, on the western side of King William's Island.[1]

This is a spot where all the pack ice from the north west flows to, forming a huge towering jumble of ice. They fully expected their ships to be iced in for the winter, this was normal.

They expected to get underway again once the ice cleared in the spring.

But the winter was exceptionally harsh and the ice so thick that they remained trapped for much longer than they expected.

[1] Known as King Williams Land in those days, the remaining portion of the northwest passage, ironically, was just to the south of where the doomed ships were iced in. It would be John Rae (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rae_(explorer) ) who would truly discover the final link.