![James Fitzjames](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/James_Fitzjames.jpg)
Franklin's lost expedition was a failed British voyage of
Arctic exploration
Arctic exploration is the physical exploration of the Arctic region of the Earth. It refers to the historical period during which mankind has explored the region north of the Arctic Circle. Historical records suggest that humankind have explored ...
led by
Captain Sir
John Franklin
Sir John Franklin (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. After serving in wars against Napoleonic France and the United States, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and through t ...
that departed England in 1845 aboard two ships, and , and was assigned to traverse the last unnavigated sections of the
Northwest Passage
The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The eastern route along the Arc ...
in the
Canadian Arctic and to record magnetic data to help determine whether a better understanding could aid navigation. The expedition met with disaster after both ships and their crews, a total of 129 officers and men, became icebound in
Victoria Strait
Victoria Strait is a strait in northern Canada that lies in Nunavut off the mainland in the Arctic Ocean. It is between Victoria Island (Canada), Victoria Island to the west and King William Island to the east. From the north, the strait links the ...
near
King William Island in what is today the Canadian territory of
Nunavut. After being icebound for more than a year ''Erebus'' and ''Terror'' were abandoned in April 1848, by which point Franklin and nearly two dozen others had died. The survivors, now led by Franklin's second-in-command,
Francis Crozier
Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier (17 October 1796 – disappeared 26 April 1848) was an Irish officer of the Royal Navy and polar explorer who participated in six expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic. In May 1845, he was second-in-comman ...
, and ''Erebus''s captain,
James Fitzjames, set out for the Canadian mainland and disappeared, presumably having perished.
Pressed by Franklin's wife,
Jane, and others, the
Admiralty
Admiralty most often refers to:
*Admiralty, Hong Kong
*Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964
*The rank of admiral
*Admiralty law
Admiralty can also refer to:
Buildings
* Admiralty, Traf ...
launched a search for the missing expedition in 1848. In the many subsequent searches in the decades afterwards, several artifacts from the expedition were discovered, including the remains of two men, which were returned to Britain. A series of scientific studies in modern times suggested that the men of the expedition did not all die quickly. Hypothermia, starvation,
lead poisoning or
zinc deficiency
Zinc deficiency is defined either as insufficient zinc to meet the needs of the body, or as a serum zinc level below the normal range. However, since a decrease in the serum concentration is only detectable after long-term or severe depletion, s ...
,
and diseases including
scurvy
Scurvy is a disease resulting from a lack of vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Early symptoms of deficiency include weakness, feeling tired and sore arms and legs. Without treatment, decreased red blood cells, gum disease, changes to hair, and bleeding ...
, along with general exposure to a hostile environment while lacking adequate clothing and nutrition, killed everyone on the expedition in the years after it was last sighted by Europeans in 1845. Cut marks on some of the bones recovered during these studies also supported allegations of
cannibalism reported by Franklin searcher
John Rae in 1854.
Despite the expedition's notorious failure, it did succeed in exploring the vicinity of what was one of the many Northwest Passages to eventually be discovered.
Robert McClure
Vice-Admiral Sir Robert John Le Mesurier McClure (28 January 1807 – 17 October 1873) was an Irish explorer of Scots descent who explored the Arctic. In 1854 he traversed the Northwest Passage by boat and sledge, and was the first to ci ...
led
one of the expeditions that investigated the fate of Franklin's expedition, a voyage which was also beset by great challenges and later controversies. McClure's expedition returned after finding an ice-bound route that connected the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.
The Northwest Passage was not navigated by boat until 1906, when
Roald Amundsen
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (, ; ; 16 July 1872 – ) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He was a key figure of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
Born in Borge, Østfold, Norway, Amundsen beg ...
traversed the passage on the ''
Gjøa
''Gjøa'' was the first vessel to transit the Northwest Passage. With a crew of six, Roald Amundsen traversed the passage in a three-year journey, finishing in 1906.
History
Construction
The square-sterned sloop of 47 net register tonna ...
''.
In 2014 a Canadian search team led by
Parks Canada located the wreck of ''Erebus'' in the eastern portion of
Queen Maud Gulf
Queen or QUEEN may refer to:
Monarchy
* Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom
** List of queens regnant
* Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king
* Queen dowager, the widow of a king
* Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mothe ...
. Two years later, the Arctic Research Foundation found the wreck of ''Terror'' south of King William Island, in the coincidentally named
Terror Bay
Terror Bay ( iu, ᐊᒥᑦᕈᖅ, ) is an Arctic waterway in the Kitikmeot Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is located in the south western side of King William Island. The entrance to the bay is marked by Fitzjames Island on the west and Irving Isla ...
.
Research and dive expeditions are an annual occurrence at the
wreck sites, now protected as a combined
National Historic Site.
Background
The search by Europeans for a western shortcut by sea from Europe to Asia began with the voyages of Portuguese and Spanish explorers such as
Bartolomeu Dias,
Vasco da Gama and even
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
* lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo
* es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón
* pt, Cristóvão Colombo
* ca, Cristòfor (or )
* la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
(a Genoese explorer at the service of the King of Spain) in the 15th century. By the mid-19th century numerous exploratory expeditions had been mounted, originating mainly from the
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England (, ) was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from 12 July 927, when it emerged from various History of Anglo-Saxon England, Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Kingdom of Scotland, ...
(a part of the
Kingdom of Great Britain
The Kingdom of Great Britain (officially Great Britain) was a Sovereign state, sovereign country in Western Europe from 1 May 1707 to the end of 31 December 1800. The state was created by the 1706 Treaty of Union and ratified by the Acts of ...
from 1707, a part of the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
from 1801). These voyages, when successful, added to the sum of European geographic knowledge about the
Western Hemisphere
The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the antimeridian. The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Politically, the te ...
, particularly North America. As that knowledge grew, exploration gradually shifted towards the
Arctic
The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...
.
Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century voyagers who made geographic discoveries about North America included
Martin Frobisher,
John Davis,
Henry Hudson
Henry Hudson ( 1565 – disappeared 23 June 1611) was an English sea explorer and navigator during the early 17th century, best known for his explorations of present-day Canada and parts of the northeastern United States.
In 1607 and 16 ...
and
William Baffin
William Baffin ( – 23 January 1622) was an English navigator, explorer and cartographer. He is primarily known for his attempt to find a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, during the course of which he was the first Euro ...
. In 1670 the incorporation of the
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business di ...
led to further exploration of the Canadian coastlines, interior and adjacent Arctic seas. In the 18th century explorers of this region included
James Knight,
Christopher Middleton,
Samuel Hearne
Samuel Hearne (February 1745 – November 1792) was an English explorer, fur-trader, author, and naturalist. He was the first European to make an overland excursion across northern Canada to the Arctic Ocean, actually Coronation Gulf, via the C ...
,
James Cook,
Alexander MacKenzie and
George Vancouver. By 1800 their discoveries had conclusively demonstrated that no
Northwest Passage
The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The eastern route along the Arc ...
between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans existed in the temperate latitudes.
In 1804 Sir
John Barrow became Second Secretary of the
Admiralty
Admiralty most often refers to:
*Admiralty, Hong Kong
*Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964
*The rank of admiral
*Admiralty law
Admiralty can also refer to:
Buildings
* Admiralty, Traf ...
, a post he held until 1845. Barrow began pushing for the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
to find a Northwest Passage over the top of Canada and to navigate toward the
North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...
, organizing a major series of expeditions. Over those four decades explorers including
John Ross,
David Buchan
David Buchan (1780 – after 8 December 1838) was a Scottish naval officer and Arctic explorer.
Family
In 1802 or 1803, he married Maria Adye. They had at least three children.
Exploration
In 1806, Buchan was appointed as a lieutenant in ...
,
William Edward Parry
Sir William Edward Parry (19 December 1790 – 8 July 1855) was an Royal Navy officer and explorer best known for his 1819–1820 expedition through the Parry Channel, probably the most successful in the long quest for the Northwest Pass ...
,
Frederick William Beechey
Frederick William Beechey (17 February 1796 – 29 November 1856) was an English naval officer, artist, explorer, hydrographer and writer.
Life and career
He was the son of two painters, Sir William Beechey, RA and his second wife, Anne ...
,
James Clark Ross
Sir James Clark Ross (15 April 1800 – 3 April 1862) was a British Royal Navy officer and polar explorer known for his explorations of the Arctic, participating in two expeditions led by his uncle John Ross, and four led by William Edwa ...
(nephew of John Ross),
George Back
Admiral Sir George Back (6 November 1796 – 23 June 1878) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer of the Canadian Arctic, naturalist and artist. He was born in Stockport.
Career
As a boy, he went to sea as a volunteer in the frigate ...
,
Peter Warren Dease
Peter Warren Dease (January 1, 1788 – January 17, 1863) was a Canadian fur trader and Arctic explorer.
Biography
Early life
Peter Warren Dease was born at Michilimackinac (now Mackinac Island) on January 1, 1788, the fourth son of Dr. J ...
and
Thomas Simpson
Thomas Simpson FRS (20 August 1710 – 14 May 1761) was a British mathematician and inventor known for the eponymous Simpson's rule to approximate definite integrals. The attribution, as often in mathematics, can be debated: this rule had been ...
led productive expeditions to the
Canadian Arctic. Among those explorers was
John Franklin
Sir John Franklin (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. After serving in wars against Napoleonic France and the United States, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and through t ...
, who first travelled to the region in 1818 as second-in-command of an expedition towards the North Pole in the ships ''Dorothea'' and ''Trent''. Franklin was subsequently leader of two overland expeditions to and along the Canadian Arctic coast, in 1819–22 and 1825–27.
By 1845 the combined discoveries of all these expeditions had reduced the unknown parts of the Canadian Arctic that might contain a Northwest Passage to a quadrilateral area of about . It was into this unexplored area that the next expedition was to sail, heading west through
Lancaster Sound
Lancaster Sound () is a body of water in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is located between Devon Island and Baffin Island, forming the eastern entrance to the Parry Channel and the Northwest Passage. East of the sound lies Baffin Bay ...
, then west and south – however ice, land and other obstacles might allow – with the goal of finding a Northwest Passage. The distance to be navigated was roughly .
Preparations
Command
Barrow was now 82 years old and nearing the end of his career. He felt that the expeditions were close to finding a Northwest Passage, perhaps through what Barrow believed to be an ice-free
Open Polar Sea
The Open Polar Sea was a hypothesized ice-free ocean surrounding the North Pole. This unproved and eventually-disproved theory was once so widely believed that many exploring expeditions used it as justification for attempts to reach the North P ...
around the North Pole. Barrow deliberated over who should command the next expedition. Parry, his first choice, was tired of the Arctic and politely declined. His second choice, James Clark Ross, also declined because he had promised his new wife that he had finished
polar exploration
Polar exploration is the process of exploration of the polar regions of Earth – the Arctic region and Antarctica – particularly with the goal of reaching the North Pole and South Pole, respectively. Historically, this was accompli ...
. Barrow's third choice,
James Fitzjames, was rejected by the Admiralty for his youth. Barrow considered Back but thought he was too argumentative.
Francis Crozier
Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier (17 October 1796 – disappeared 26 April 1848) was an Irish officer of the Royal Navy and polar explorer who participated in six expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic. In May 1845, he was second-in-comman ...
, another possibility, was of humble birth and
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
, which counted against him. Reluctantly, Barrow settled on the 59-year-old Franklin.
The expedition was to consist of two ships, and , both of which had been used for
James Clark Ross's expedition to the Antarctic in 1841–1844, during which Crozier had commanded ''Terror''. Franklin was given command of ''
Erebus
In Greek mythology, Erebus (; grc, Ἔρεβος, Érebos, "deep darkness, shadow".), or Erebos, is the personification of darkness and one of the primordial deities. Hesiod's ''Theogony'' identifies him as one of the first five beings in exis ...
''; Crozier was appointed his
executive officer and was again made
commander of ''Terror''. Fitzjames was appointed second-in-command of ''Erebus''. Franklin received command of the expedition on 7 February 1845, and his official instructions on 5 May 1845.
Ships, provisions and personnel
![John Franklin expedition crew 1845](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/John_Franklin_expedition_crew_1845.jpg)
''Erebus'' (378 tons
bm) and ''Terror'' (331 tons bm) were sturdily built and well equipped, including several recent inventions.
Steam engines were fitted, driving a single
screw propeller
A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...
in each vessel; these engines were converted former
locomotives
A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, motor coach, railcar or power car; the ...
from the
London & Croydon Railway
The London and Croydon Railway (L&CR) was an early railway in England. It opened in 1839 and in February 1846 merged with other railways to form the London Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR).
Origins
The Croydon line and other railways
Th ...
. The ships could make on steam power, or travel under wind power to reach higher speeds and/or save fuel.
Other advanced technology in the ships included reinforced
bows constructed of heavy beams and iron plates, an internal steam heating system for the comfort of the crew in polar conditions, and a system of iron wells that allowed the screw propellers and iron rudders to be withdrawn into the hull to protect them from damage. The ships also carried libraries of more than 1,000 books and three years' supply of food, which included
tinned
Tinning is the process of thinly coating sheets of wrought iron or steel with tin, and the resulting product is known as tinplate. The term is also widely used for the different process of coating a metal with solder before soldering.
It is mos ...
soup and vegetables,
salt-cured meat,
pemmican
Pemmican (also pemican in older sources) is a mixture of tallow, dried meat, and sometimes dried berries. A calorie-rich food, it can be used as a key component in prepared meals or eaten raw. Historically, it was an important part of indigenou ...
and several live cattle. The tinned food was supplied from a provisioner, Stephen Goldner, who was awarded the contract on 1 April 1845, a mere seven weeks before Franklin set sail. Goldner worked frantically on the large order of 8,000 tins. The haste required affected
quality control of some of the tins, which were later found to have that was "thick and sloppily done, and dripped like melted candle wax down the inside surface".
Most of the crew were English, many from
Northern England
Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik, and the ...
, with smaller numbers of Irish, Welsh and Scottish members. Two of the sailors were not born in the British Isles: Charles Johnson was from
Halifax,
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Most of the population are native Eng ...
, Canada and Henry Lloyd was from
Kristiansand
Kristiansand is a seaside resort city and municipality in Agder county, Norway. The city is the fifth-largest and the municipality the sixth-largest in Norway, with a population of around 112,000 as of January 2020, following the incorporati ...
,
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...
. The only officers with prior experience of the Arctic were Franklin, Crozier, ''Erebus''
First Lieutenant
First lieutenant is a commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces; in some forces, it is an appointment.
The rank of lieutenant has different meanings in different military formations, but in most forces it is sub-divided into a ...
Graham Gore, ''Terror''
assistant surgeon
A surgeon's mate was a rank in the Royal Navy for a medically trained assistant to the ship's surgeon. The rank was renamed assistant surgeon in 1805, and was considered equivalent to the rank of master's mate/mate. In 1807, first-rate would ...
Alexander McDonald and the two
ice-masters, James Reid (''Erebus'') and Thomas Blanky (''Terror'').
Australian connections
Franklin had been
Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land
The governor of Tasmania is the representative in the Australian state of Tasmania of the Monarch of Australia, currently King Charles III. The incumbent governor is Barbara Baker, who was appointed in June 2021. The official residence of the ...
(now
Tasmania
)
, nickname =
, image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdi ...
, Australia) from 1837 to 1843. The crew included two members with close family connections to explorers of Australia who later died on expedition. Commander Henry Le Vesconte was the first cousin of
William John Wills
William John Wills (5 January 1834 – ) was a British surveyor who also trained as a surgeon. Wills achieved fame as the second-in-command of the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition, which was the first expedition to cross Australia from ...
, the co-leader of the 1861
Burke and Wills expedition
The Burke and Wills expedition was organised by the Royal Society of Victoria in Australia in 1860–61. It consisted of 19 men led by Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills, with the objective of crossing Australia from Melbourne in the ...
, the first European to cross the Australian mainland from south to north; both Burke and Wills perished on the return journey. William Gibson, a steward on ''Terror'', was the elder brother of
Alfred Gibson
Alfred Gibson (1874) was an Australian explorer who is believed to have died in an 1874 expedition organised by Ernest Giles, which sought to cross the deserts of Western Australia
Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state ...
, who disappeared on an 1874 expedition led by
Ernest Giles to cross the deserts of
Western Australia
Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
from east to west, and was honoured in the naming of the
Gibson Desert. Giles recorded the connection in his journal entry of 21 April 1873:
I remarked to Gibson as we rode along that this was the anniversary of Burke's and Wills's return to their depot at Coopers' Creek and then recited to him, as he did not appear to know anything whatever about it, the hardships they endured, their desperate struggles for existence and death there; and casually remarked that Mr Wills had a brother icwho also lost his life in the field of discovery, as he went out with Sir John Franklin in 1845. Gibson then remarked, "Oh, I had a brother who died with Franklin at the North Pole and my father had a great deal of trouble getting his pay from Government".
Outward journey and loss
![Franklin exp](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Franklin_exp.jpg)
The expedition set sail from
Greenhithe
Greenhithe is a village in the Borough of Dartford in Kent, England, and the civil parish of Swanscombe and Greenhithe. It is located east of Dartford and west of Gravesend.
Area
In the past, Greenhithe's waterfront on the estuary of the ri ...
,
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
, on the morning of 19 May 1845, with a crew of 24 officers and 110 men. The ships stopped briefly in
Stromness,
Orkney Islands, in northern
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
. From there they sailed to
Greenland
Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...
with and a transport ship, ''
Barretto Junior''; the passage to Greenland took 30 days.
At the Whalefish Islands in
Disko Bay, on the west coast of Greenland, 10 oxen carried on ''Barretto Junior'' were slaughtered for fresh meat which was transferred to ''Erebus'' and ''Terror''. Crew members then wrote their last letters home, which recorded that Franklin had banned swearing and drunkenness. Five men were discharged due to sickness and sent home on ''Rattler'' and ''Barretto Junior'', reducing the final crew to 129 men.
In late July 1845 the
whaler
A whaler or whaling ship is a specialized vessel, designed or adapted for whaling: the catching or processing of whales.
Terminology
The term ''whaler'' is mostly historic. A handful of nations continue with industrial whaling, and one, Japa ...
s ''Prince of Wales'' (Captain Dannett) and ''Enterprise'' (Captain Robert Martin) encountered ''Terror'' and ''Erebus'' in
Baffin Bay, where they were waiting for good conditions to cross to
Lancaster Sound
Lancaster Sound () is a body of water in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is located between Devon Island and Baffin Island, forming the eastern entrance to the Parry Channel and the Northwest Passage. East of the sound lies Baffin Bay ...
. The expedition was never heard of again by Europeans.
Only limited information is available for subsequent events, pieced together over the next 150 years by other expeditions, explorers, scientists and interviews with
Inuit
Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...
. The only first-hand information on expedition's progress is the two-part ''Victory Point Note'' found in the aftermath on King William Island. Franklin's men spent the winter of 1845–46 on
Beechey Island
Beechey Island ( iu, Iluvialuit, script=Latn) is an island located in the Arctic Archipelago of Nunavut, Canada, in Wellington Channel. It is separated from the southwest corner of Devon Island by Barrow Strait. Other features include Wellington C ...
, where three crew members died and were buried. After travelling down Peel Sound through the summer of 1846, ''Terror'' and ''Erebus'' became trapped in ice off
King William Island in September 1846 and are thought never to have sailed again. According to the second part of the Victory Point Note dated 25 April 1848 and signed by Fitzjames and Crozier the crew had wintered off King William Island in 1846–47 and 1847–48 and Franklin had died on 11 June 1847. The remaining crew had abandoned the ships and planned to walk over the island and across the sea ice towards the
Back River on the Canadian mainland, beginning on 26 April 1848. In addition to Franklin, eight further officers and 15 men had also died by this point. The Victory Point Note is the last known communication of the expedition.
From archeological finds it is believed that all of the remaining crew died on the subsequent 400 km long march
to Back River, most on the island. Thirty or 40 men reached the northern coast of the mainland before dying, still hundreds of miles from the nearest outpost of
Western civilization
Leonardo da Vinci's ''Vitruvian Man''. Based on the correlations of ideal Body proportions">human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''.
image:Plato Pio-Cle ...
.
The Victory Point note
![Franklinexpeditionnote](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Franklinexpeditionnote.jpg)
The Victory Point Note was found eleven years later in May 1859 by William Hobson (lieutenant on the
McClintock Arctic expedition)
placed in a cairn on the north-western coast of King William Island. It consists of two parts written on a pre-printed Admiralty form. The first part was written after the first overwintering in 1847 and the second part was added one year later. From the second part it can be inferred that the document was first deposited in a different cairn previously erected by James Clark Ross in 1830 during
John Ross's Second Arctic expedition – at a location Ross named ''Victory Point''.
The document is therefore referred to as ''Victory Point Note''.
The first message is written in the body of the form and dates from 28 May 1847.
The second and final part is written largely on the margins of the form owing to lack of remaining space on the document. It was presumably written on 25 April 1848.
![Graham Gore Franklin 1845](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Graham_Gore_Franklin_1845.jpg)
In 1859 Hobson found a second document using the same Admiralty form containing an almost identical duplicate of the first message from 1847 in a cairn a few miles southwest at Gore Point. This document did not contain the second message. From the handwriting it is assumed that all messages were written by Commander James Fitzjames. As he did not take part in the landing party that deposited the notes originally in 1847, it is inferred that both documents were originally filled in by Fitzjames on board the ships, with Lieutenant
Graham Gore and Mate
Charles Frederick Des Voeux adding their signatures as members of the landing party. This is further supported by the fact that both documents contain the same factual errors namely the wrong date of the wintering on Beechey Island. In 1848, after the abandonment of the ships and subsequent recovery of the document from the Victory Point cairn, Fitzjames added the second message signed by him and Crozier and deposited the note in the cairn found by Hobson eleven years later.
19th century expeditions
Early searches
After two years had passed with no word from Franklin public concern grew and
Jane, Lady Franklin, as well as members of
Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...
and British newspapers, urged the Admiralty to send a search party. Although the Admiralty said it did not feel any reason to be alarmed it responded by developing a three-pronged plan, which in the spring of 1848 sent an
overland rescue party, led by
John Richardson and
John Rae, down the
Mackenzie River to the Canadian Arctic coast.
Two expeditions by sea were also launched, one, led by James Clark Ross, entering the Canadian Arctic archipelago through Lancaster Sound and the other, commanded by Henry Kellett, entering from the Pacific. In addition the Admiralty offered a reward of £20,000 (£ as of ) "to any Party or Parties, of any country, who shall render assistance to the crews of the Discovery Ships under the command of Sir John Franklin". When the three-pronged effort failed British national concern and interest in the Arctic increased until "finding Franklin became nothing less than a crusade." Ballads such as "
Lady Franklin's Lament
"Lady Franklin's Lament" (also known as "Lord Franklin" and "The Sailor's Dream") is a traditional folk ballad indexed by George Malcolm Laws (Laws K09) and Steve Roud (Roud 487). The song recounts the story of a sailor who dreams about Lady Frank ...
", commemorating Lady Franklin's search for her lost husband, became popular.
Many joined the search. In 1850 11 British and
two American ships cruised the Canadian Arctic, including
''Breadalbane'' and her sister ship . Several converged off the east coast of Beechey Island, where the first relics of the expedition were found, including remnants of a winter camp from 1845 to 1846.
Robert Goodsir, surgeon on the brig ''Lady Franklin,'' found the graves of
John Torrington,
John Hartnell, and
William Braine. No messages from the Franklin expedition were found at this site.
In the spring of 1851 passengers and crew aboard several ships observed a huge
iceberg off Newfoundland, which bore two vessels, one upright and one on its beam ends. The ships were not examined closely. It was suggested at the time that the ships could have been ''Erebus'' and ''Terror'' but it is now known that they were not; it is likely that they were abandoned whaling ships.
In 1852
Edward Belcher
Admiral Sir Edward Belcher (27 February 1799 – 18 March 1877) was a British naval officer, hydrographer, and explorer. Born in Nova Scotia, he was the great-grandson of Jonathan Belcher, who served as a colonial governor of Massachusett ...
was given command of the government Arctic expedition in search of Franklin. It was unsuccessful; Belcher's inability to render himself popular with his subordinates was peculiarly unfortunate in an Arctic voyage and he was not wholly suited to command vessels among ice. Four of the five ships (, ''Pioneer'', and ''Intrepid'') were abandoned in
pack ice
Drift ice, also called brash ice, is sea ice that is not attached to the shoreline or any other fixed object (shoals, grounded icebergs, etc.).Leppäranta, M. 2011. The Drift of Sea Ice. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Unlike fast ice, which is "fasten ...
, for which Belcher was
court-martialled but
acquitted
In common law jurisdictions, an acquittal certifies that the accused is free from the charge of an offense, as far as criminal law is concerned. The finality of an acquittal is dependent on the jurisdiction. In some countries, such as the ...
.
One of those ships, HMS ''Resolute'', was later recovered intact by an American whaler and returned to the United Kingdom. Timbers from the ship were later used to manufacture three desks, one of which, the
Resolute desk
The ''Resolute'' desk, also known as the Hayes desk, is a nineteenth-century partners desk used by several presidents of the United States in the White House as the Oval Office desk, including the five most recent presidents. The desk was a g ...
, was presented by
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...
to the US President,
Rutherford B. Hayes
Rutherford Birchard Hayes (; October 4, 1822 – January 17, 1893) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 19th president of the United States from 1877 to 1881, after serving in the U.S. House of Representatives and as governo ...
; it has often been chosen by presidents for use in the
Oval Office in the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
.
Overland searches
![Reward for finding Franklin Expedition](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Reward_for_finding_Franklin_Expedition.jpg)
In 1854, Rae, while surveying the
Boothia Peninsula
Boothia Peninsula (; formerly ''Boothia Felix'', Inuktitut ''Kingngailap Nunanga'') is a large peninsula in Nunavut's northern Canadian Arctic, south of Somerset Island. The northern part, Murchison Promontory, is the northernmost point of ...
for the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), discovered further evidence of the expedition's fate. Rae met an
Inuk
Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and ...
near
Pelly Bay
Pelly Bay is an Arctic waterway in Kitikmeot Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is located in the Gulf of Boothia. To the east, it is bounded by the Simpson Peninsula. Helen Island lies in the bay. Pelly Bay is named after Sir John Pelly, governor of th ...
(now Kugaaruk, Nunavut) on 21 April 1854, who told him of a party of 35 to 40 white men who had died of starvation near the mouth of the Back River. Other Inuit confirmed this story, which included reports of
cannibalism among the dying sailors. The
Inuit
Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...
showed Rae many objects that were identified as having belonged to Franklin and his men.
In particular, Rae brought from the Inuit several silver forks and spoons later identified as belonging to Franklin, Fitzjames, Crozier,
Fairholme and Robert Orme Sargent, a shipmate aboard ''Erebus''. Rae's report was sent to the Admiralty, which in October 1854 urged the HBC to send an expedition down the Back River to search for other signs of Franklin and his men.
Next were Chief Factor James Anderson and HBC employee James Stewart, who travelled north by canoe to the mouth of the Back River. In July 1855, a band of Inuit told them of a group of ''qallunaat'' (
Inuktitut for "whites", or "Europeans", perhaps best translated as "foreigners") who had starved to death along the coast. In August, Anderson and Stewart found a piece of wood inscribed with "Erebus" and another that said "Mr. Stanley" (surgeon aboard ''Erebus'') on
Montreal Island
The Island of Montreal (french: Île de Montréal) is a large island in southwestern Quebec, Canada, that is the site of a number of municipalities including most of the city of Montreal and is the most populous island in Canada. It is the main ...
in
Chantrey Inlet
Chantrey Inlet (''Tariunnuaq'') is a bay on the Arctic coast of Canada. It marks the southeast "corner" where the generally east–west coast turns sharply north. To the west is the Adelaide Peninsula and to the east is mainland. King William I ...
, where the Back River meets the sea.
Despite the findings of Rae and Anderson, the Admiralty did not plan another search of its own. Britain officially labelled the crew deceased in service on 31 March 1854. Lady Franklin, failing to convince the government to fund another search, personally commissioned
one more expedition under
Francis Leopold McClintock
Sir Francis Leopold McClintock (8 July 1819 – 17 November 1907) was an Irish explorer in the British Royal Navy, known for his discoveries in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. He confirmed explorer John Rae's controversial report gather ...
. The expedition ship, the steam
schooner ''
Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelve sp ...
'', bought via public subscription, sailed from
Aberdeen
Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...
on 2 July 1857.
In April 1859,
sled
A sled, skid, sledge, or sleigh is a land vehicle that slides across a surface, usually of ice or snow. It is built with either a smooth underside or a separate body supported by two or more smooth, relatively narrow, longitudinal runners ...
parties set out from ''Fox'' to search on King William Island. On 5 May, the party led by Lieutenant William Hobson found a document in a
cairn left by Crozier and Fitzjames. It contained two messages. The first, dated 28 May 1847, said that ''Erebus'' and ''Terror'' had wintered in the ice off the northwest coast of King William Island and had wintered earlier at Beechey Island after circumnavigating
Cornwallis Island. "Sir John Franklin commanding the Expedition. ''All well''," the message said. The second message, written in the margins of that same sheet of paper, was much more ominous. Dated 25 April 1848, it reported that ''Erebus'' and ''Terror'' had been trapped in the ice for a year and a half and that the crew had abandoned the ships on 22 April. Twenty-four officers and crew had died, including Franklin on 11 June 1847, just two weeks after the date of the first note. Crozier was commanding the expedition, and the 105 survivors planned to start out the next day, heading south towards the Back River. This note contains significant errors; most notably, the date of the expedition's winter camp at Beechey Island is incorrectly given as 1846–47 rather than 1845–46.
The McClintock expedition also found a human skeleton on the southern coast of King William Island. Still clothed, it was searched, and some papers were found, including a seaman's certificate for Chief Petty Officer
Harry Peglar, Captain of the Foretop, HMS ''Terror''. However, since the uniform was that of a ship's steward, it is more likely that the body was that of Thomas Armitage, gun-room steward on ''Terror'' and a shipmate of Peglar, whose papers he carried.
At another site on the western extreme of the island, Hobson discovered a
lifeboat
Lifeboat may refer to:
Rescue vessels
* Lifeboat (shipboard), a small craft aboard a ship to allow for emergency escape
* Lifeboat (rescue), a boat designed for sea rescues
* Airborne lifeboat, an air-dropped boat used to save downed airmen
...
containing two skeletons and relics from the Franklin expedition. In the boat was a large amount of abandoned equipment, including boots, silk handkerchiefs, scented soap, sponges, slippers, hair combs, and many books, among them a copy of ''
The Vicar of Wakefield
''The Vicar of Wakefield'', subtitled ''A Tale, Supposed to be written by Himself'', is a novel by Anglo-Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774). It was written from 1761 to 1762 and published in 1766. It was one of the most popular and wid ...
'' by
Oliver Goldsmith. McClintock also took testimony from the Inuit about the expedition's disastrous end.
Two expeditions between 1860 and 1869 by
Charles Francis Hall
Charles Francis Hall ( – November 8, 1871) was an American Arctic explorer, best known for his collection of Inuit testimony regarding the 1845 Franklin Expedition and the suspicious circumstances surrounding his death while leading th ...
, who lived among the Inuit near
Frobisher Bay
Frobisher Bay is an inlet of the Davis Strait in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada. It is located in the southeastern corner of Baffin Island. Its length is about and its width varies from about at its outlet into the Labrador Sea to ...
on Baffin Island and later at
Repulse Bay
Repulse Bay or Tsin Shui Wan is a bay in the southern part of Hong Kong Island, located in the Southern District, Hong Kong. It is one of the most expensive residential areas in the world.
Geography
Repulse Bay is located in the southern ...
on the Canadian mainland, found camps, graves, and relics on the southern coast of King William Island, but he believed none of the Franklin expedition survivors would be found among the Inuit. In 1869, local Inuit took Hall to a shallow grave on King William Island containing well-preserved skeletal remains and fragments of clothing. These remains were taken to England and interred beneath the Franklin Memorial at
Greenwich Old Royal Naval College, London.
The eminent
biologist
A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist specialising in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
The stori ...
examined the remains and it was concluded that they belonged to
HTD Le Vesconte, second lieutenant on ''Erebus''. An examination in 2009 suggested that these were actually the remains of
Harry Goodsir, assistant surgeon on ''Erebus''. Although Hall concluded that all of the Franklin crew were dead, he believed that the official expedition records would yet be found under a stone cairn. With the assistance of his guides
Ipirvik
Ipirvik ( iu, ᐃᐱᕐᕕᒃ, i=no, often transliterated as Ebierbing; –) was an Inuk guide and explorer who assisted several Arctic explorers, among them Charles Francis Hall and Frederick Schwatka. He and his wife Taqulittuq were the best-kno ...
and
Taqulittuq
Taqulittuq ( iu, ᑕᖁᓕᑦᑐᖅ, i=no, often transliterated as Tookoolito; – December 31, 1876) was an Inuk interpreter and guide. She and her husband Ipirvik (also known as Joe) worked alongside Arctic explorer Charles Francis Hall an ...
, Hall gathered hundreds of pages of Inuit testimony.
![Durand-brager-453](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Durand-brager-453.png)
Among these materials are accounts of visits to Franklin's ships, and an encounter with a party of white men on the southern coast of King William Island near Washington Bay. In the 1990s, this testimony was extensively researched by
David C. Woodman, and was the basis of two books, ''Unravelling the Franklin Mystery'' (1992) and ''Strangers Among Us'' (1995), in which he reconstructs the final months of the expedition. Woodman's narrative challenged existing theories that the expedition's survivors all perished over the remainder of 1848 as they marched south from Victory Point, arguing instead that Inuit accounts point strongly to most of the 105 survivors cited by Crozier in his final note actually surviving past 1848, re-manning at least one of the ships and managing to sail it down along the coast of King William Island before it sank, with some crew members surviving as late as 1851.
The hope of finding other additional expedition records led Lieutenant
Frederick Schwatka
Frederick Gustavus Schwatka (29 September 1849 – 2 November 1892) was a United States Army lieutenant with degrees in medicine and law, and was a noted explorer of northern Canada and Alaska.
Early life and career
Schwatka was born in Galena, ...
of the
U.S. Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...
to organise an expedition to the island between 1878 and 1880. Travelling to
Hudson Bay on the schooner ''Eothen'', Schwatka, assembling a team that included Inuit who had assisted Hall, continued north by foot and
dog sled, interviewing Inuit, visiting known or likely sites of Franklin expedition remains, and wintering on King William Island. Although Schwatka failed to find the hoped-for papers, in a speech at a dinner given in his honour by the
American Geographical Society
The American Geographical Society (AGS) is an organization of professional geographers, founded in 1851 in New York City. Most fellows of the society are Americans, but among them have always been a significant number of fellows from around the ...
in 1880, he said that his expedition had made "the longest sledge journey ever made both in regard to time and distance" of 11 months and four days and , that it was the first Arctic expedition on which the whites relied entirely on the same diet as the Inuit, and that it established the loss of the Franklin records "beyond all reasonable doubt". However, Schwatka was successful in locating the remains of one of Franklin's men, identified by personal effects as
John Irving
John Winslow Irving (born John Wallace Blunt Jr.; March 2, 1942) is an American-Canadian novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter.
Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of ''The World According to ...
, third lieutenant aboard ''Terror''. Schwatka had Irving's remains returned to Scotland, where they were buried with full honours at
Dean Cemetery in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...
on 7 January 1881.
The Schwatka expedition found no remnants of the Franklin expedition south of a place now known as Starvation Cove on the
Adelaide Peninsula
Adelaide Peninsula (''Iluilik''), ancestral home to the ''Illuilirmiut'' Inuit, is a large peninsula in Nunavut, Canada. It is located at south of King William Island. Its namesake is Queen Adelaide, consort of King William IV of the United Kingd ...
. This was about north of Crozier's stated goal, the Back River, and several hundred miles away from the nearest Western outpost, on the
Great Slave Lake
Great Slave Lake (french: Grand lac des Esclaves), known traditionally as Tıdeè in Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì (Dogrib), Tinde’e in Wıìlıìdeh Yatii / Tetsǫ́t’ıné Yatıé (Dogrib / Chipewyan), Tu Nedhé in Dëne Sųłıné Yatıé (Chi ...
. Woodman wrote of Inuit reports that between 1852 and 1858 Crozier and one other expedition member were seen in the
Baker Lake area, about to the south, where in 1948
Farley Mowat
Farley McGill Mowat, (May 12, 1921 – May 6, 2014) was a Canadian writer and environmentalist. His works were translated into 52 languages, and he sold more than 17 million books. He achieved fame with the publication of his books on the Can ...
found "a very ancient cairn, not of normal Eskimo construction" inside which were shreds of a hardwood box with
dovetail joints.
Contemporary search expeditions
1848
* East:
James Clark Ross
Sir James Clark Ross (15 April 1800 – 3 April 1862) was a British Royal Navy officer and polar explorer known for his explorations of the Arctic, participating in two expeditions led by his uncle John Ross, and four led by William Edwa ...
, (, ) only to Somerset Island because of ice.
* Centre:
Rae–Richardson Arctic expedition Mackenzie River and along the coast.
* West: HMS ''Plover'', HMS ''Herald'' to Bering Strait;
William Pullen
Vice-Admiral William John Samuel Pullen (4 December 1813 – 22 January 1887) was a Royal Navy officer who was the first European to sail along the north coast of Alaska from the Bering Strait to the Mackenzie River in Canada. His 1849 journ ...
reaches Mackenzie by whaleboat.
1850
* West:
Richard Collinson
Admiral Sir Richard Collinson (7 November 1811 – 13 September 1883) was an English naval officer and explorer of the Northwest Passage.
Early life
He was born in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England, then part of County Durham. He joined the R ...
(HMS ''Enterprise''),
Robert McClure
Vice-Admiral Sir Robert John Le Mesurier McClure (28 January 1807 – 17 October 1873) was an Irish explorer of Scots descent who explored the Arctic. In 1854 he traversed the Northwest Passage by boat and sledge, and was the first to ci ...
(HMS ''Investigator'') to Bering Strait. McClure frozen in at Banks Island and ''Investigator'' abandoned after two winters,
crew trek east to Belcher expedition ships, becoming first Europeans to cross the northwest passage. Collinson reaches Coronation Gulf, furthest east of any ship.
* East:
Horatio Austin
Sir Horatio Thomas Austin (10 March 1800 – 16 November 1865) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer.
Biography
Austin was born in England on 18 March 1800, the son of an official in the Chatham Dockyard. In 1828, was dispatche ...
(),
Erasmus Ommanney
Sir Erasmus Ommanney (22 May 1814 – 21 December 1904) was a Royal Navy officer and an Arctic explorer of the Victorian era.
Early life
He was born in London in 1814, the seventh son in a family of eight sons and three daughters of Sir F ...
(), plus 2 steam tenders, ''Pioneer'' and ''Intrepid'' (cpt John Bertie Cator 1850). Ommanney finds Franklin's Beechey Island camp. Austin's four and the below ships gather around Beechey Island, are frozen in and in spring send out sledge expeditions in all directions. They leave the Arctic before winter in 1851.
* East: Charles Forsyth (''Prince Albert'') financed by Lady Franklin; sledge on Somerset Island to Fury Beach.
* East:
William Penny
Captain William Penny (1809–1892) was a Scottish shipmaster, whaler and Arctic explorer. He undertook the first maritime search for the ships of Sir John Franklin. In 1840, Penny established the first whaling station in the Cumberland Sound a ...
(''Lady Franklin'' and ''Sophia'')
* East:
John Ross (schooner ''Felix'')
* East:
Edwin De Haven
Edwin Jesse DeHaven (May 7, 1816May 1, 1865) was a United States Navy officer and explorer of the first half of the 19th century who was best known for his command of the First Grinnell expedition in 1850, which was directed to ascertain what had ...
(, ) mounted the
First Grinnell expedition.
1851
*
William Kennedy (''Prince Albert'' again) finds
Bellot Strait
Bellot Strait is a strait in Nunavut that separates Somerset Island to its north from the Murchison Promontory of Boothia Peninsula to its south, which is the northernmost part of the mainland of the Americas. The and strait connects the G ...
proving that Somerset Island is an island.
1852
*
Edward Augustus Inglefield
Sir Edward Augustus Inglefield (27 March 1820 – 4 September 1894) was a Royal Navy officer who led one of the searches for the missing Arctic explorer John Franklin during the 1850s. In doing so, his expedition charted previously unexpl ...
in northern Baffin Bay.
*
Edward Belcher
Admiral Sir Edward Belcher (27 February 1799 – 18 March 1877) was a British naval officer, hydrographer, and explorer. Born in Nova Scotia, he was the great-grandson of Jonathan Belcher, who served as a colonial governor of Massachusett ...
in five ships: HMS ''Assistance'' (Belcher), HMS ''Resolute'' (
Henry Kellett
Vice Admiral Sir Henry Kellett, (2 November 1806 – 1 March 1875) was a British naval officer and explorer.
Career
Born at Clonacody in Tipperary County, Ireland, on 2 November 1806, Kellett joined the Royal Navy in 1822. He spent three yea ...
), ''Pioneer'' (
Sherard Osborn
Sherard Osborn (25 April 1822 – 6 May 1875) was a Royal Navy admiral and Arctic explorer.
Biography
Born in Madras, he was the son of an Indian army officer. Osborn entered the navy as a first-class volunteer in 1837, serving until 18 ...
), ''Intrepid'' (
Francis Leopold McClintock
Sir Francis Leopold McClintock (8 July 1819 – 17 November 1907) was an Irish explorer in the British Royal Navy, known for his discoveries in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. He confirmed explorer John Rae's controversial report gather ...
) and depot ship (William Pullen); much sledge exploration; rescues crew of HMS ''Investigator''; all frozen in and abandoned except for ''North Star''. Joined by supply ships ''
Breadalbane'', which would be crushed by ice, and , which with ''North Star'' took off crews of the other ships, including that of McClure's HMS ''Investigator'', in 1854.
*
Elisha Kane
Elisha Kent Kane (February 3, 1820 – February 16, 1857) was a United States Navy medical officer and Arctic explorer. He served as assistant surgeon during Caleb Cushing's journey to China to negotiate the Treaty of Wangxia and in the Af ...
led the
Second Grinnell expedition.
* Boat expedition up the Wellington Channel under the command of R. M'Cormick, R.N., in HMB ''Forlorn Hope.''
1854
*
John Rae learns where Franklin lost his ship.
1855
* Anderson and Stewart descend the
Back River and find relics in
Chantrey Inlet
Chantrey Inlet (''Tariunnuaq'') is a bay on the Arctic coast of Canada. It marks the southeast "corner" where the generally east–west coast turns sharply north. To the west is the Adelaide Peninsula and to the east is mainland. King William I ...
.
1857
* Francis McClintock
finds relics at King William Island, including the sole surviving written records of the Franklin expedition (the Victory Point and Gore Point records), and a ship's boat on runners containing two corpses.
1869
*
Charles Francis Hall
Charles Francis Hall ( – November 8, 1871) was an American Arctic explorer, best known for his collection of Inuit testimony regarding the 1845 Franklin Expedition and the suspicious circumstances surrounding his death while leading th ...
at King William Island
1875
*
Allen Young
Sir Allen William Young, (12 December 1827 – 20 November 1915) was an English master mariner and explorer, best remembered for his role in Arctic exploration including the search for Sir John Franklin.
Early life
Allen Young was born at Tw ...
blocked at Peel Sound
1878
*
Frederick Schwatka
Frederick Gustavus Schwatka (29 September 1849 – 2 November 1892) was a United States Army lieutenant with degrees in medicine and law, and was a noted explorer of northern Canada and Alaska.
Early life and career
Schwatka was born in Galena, ...
at King William Island
Modern expeditions
King William Island excavations (1981–1982)
In June 1981,
Owen Beattie, a professor of
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
at the
University of Alberta
The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a Public university, public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexande ...
, began the 1845–48 Franklin Expedition Forensic Anthropology Project (FEFAP) when he and his team of researchers and field assistants travelled from
Edmonton
Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...
to King William Island, traversing the island's western coast as Franklin's men did 132 years before. FEFAP hoped to find artefacts and skeletal remains in order to use modern
forensics to establish identities and causes of death among the lost 129.
Although the trek found archaeological artifacts related to 19th-century Europeans and undisturbed
disarticulated human remains, Beattie was disappointed that more remains were not found. Examining the bones of Franklin crewmen, he noted areas of pitting and scaling often found in cases of
Vitamin C
Vitamin C (also known as ascorbic acid and ascorbate) is a water-soluble vitamin found in citrus and other fruits and vegetables, also sold as a dietary supplement and as a topical 'serum' ingredient to treat melasma (dark pigment spots) ...
deficiency, the cause of
scurvy
Scurvy is a disease resulting from a lack of vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Early symptoms of deficiency include weakness, feeling tired and sore arms and legs. Without treatment, decreased red blood cells, gum disease, changes to hair, and bleeding ...
. After returning to Edmonton, he compared notes from the survey with James Savelle, an Arctic archaeologist, and noticed skeletal patterns suggesting cannibalism. Seeking information about the Franklin crew's health and diet, he sent bone samples to the Alberta Soil and Feed Testing Laboratory for
trace element
__NOTOC__
A trace element, also called minor element, is a chemical element whose concentration (or other measure of amount) is very low (a "trace amount"). They are classified into two groups: essential and non-essential. Essential trace elements ...
analysis and assembled another team to visit King William Island. The analysis would find an unexpected level of 226
parts per million
In science and engineering, the parts-per notation is a set of pseudo-units to describe small values of miscellaneous dimensionless quantities, e.g. mole fraction or mass fraction. Since these fractions are quantity-per-quantity measures, th ...
(ppm) of lead in the crewman's bones, which was 10 times higher than the
control
Control may refer to:
Basic meanings Economics and business
* Control (management), an element of management
* Control, an element of management accounting
* Comptroller (or controller), a senior financial officer in an organization
* Controllin ...
samples, taken from Inuit skeletons from the same geographic area, of 26–36 ppm.
In June 1982, a team made up of Beattie and three students (Walt Kowall, a graduate student in anthropology at the University of Alberta; Arne Carlson, an
archaeology
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsca ...
and
geography
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, an ...
student from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia; and Arsien Tungilik, an Inuk student and field assistant) was flown to the west coast of King William Island where they retraced some of the steps of McClintock in 1859 and Schwatka in 1878–79. Discoveries during this expedition included the remains of between six and fourteen men in the vicinity of McClintock's "boat place" and artifacts including a complete boot sole fitted with makeshift cleats for better traction.
Beechey Island excavations and exhumations (1984–1986)
After returning to Edmonton in 1982 and learning of the lead level findings from the 1981 expedition, Beattie struggled to find a cause. Possibilities included the lead solder used to seal the expedition's food tins, other food containers lined with lead foil,
food colouring
Food coloring, or color additive, is any dye, pigment, or substance that imparts color when it is added to food or drink. They come in many forms consisting of liquids, powders, gels, and pastes. Food coloring is used in both commercial food ...
,
tobacco products
Tobacco is the agricultural product of the leaves of plants in the genus ''Nicotiana'', commonly termed ''tobacco plants''. All species of ''Nicotiana'' contain the addictive drug nicotine—a psychostimulant alkaloid found in all parts of the ...
,
pewter
Pewter () is a malleable metal alloy consisting of tin (85–99%), antimony (approximately 5–10%), copper (2%), bismuth, and sometimes silver. Copper and antimony (and in antiquity lead) act as hardeners, but lead may be used in lower grades ...
tableware, and lead-
wicked
Wicked may refer to:
Books
* Wicked, a minor character in the ''X-Men'' universe
* '' Wicked'', a 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire that inspired the musical of the same name
* ''Wicked'', the fifth novel in Sara Shepard's ''Pretty Little Liars'' s ...
candles. He came to suspect that the problems of lead poisoning compounded by the effects of scurvy could have been lethal for the Franklin crew. However, because skeletal lead might reflect lifetime exposure rather than exposure limited to the voyage, Beattie's theory could be tested only by forensic examination of preserved soft tissue as opposed to bone. Beattie decided to examine the graves of the buried crewmen on Beechey Island.
After obtaining legal permission, Beattie's team visited
Beechey Island
Beechey Island ( iu, Iluvialuit, script=Latn) is an island located in the Arctic Archipelago of Nunavut, Canada, in Wellington Channel. It is separated from the southwest corner of Devon Island by Barrow Strait. Other features include Wellington C ...
in August 1984 to perform
autopsies
An autopsy (post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death or to evaluate any d ...
on the three crewmen buried there. They started with the first crew member to die, Leading Stoker John Torrington. After completing Torrington's autopsy and exhuming and briefly examining the body of John Hartnell, the team, pressed for time and threatened by the weather, returned to Edmonton with tissue and bone samples. Trace element analysis of Torrington's bones and hair indicated that the crewman "would have suffered severe mental and physical problems caused by lead poisoning". Although the autopsy indicated that pneumonia had been the ultimate cause of the crewman's death, lead poisoning was cited as a contributing factor.
During the expedition, the team visited a place about north of the grave site to examine fragments of hundreds of food tins discarded by Franklin's men. Beattie noted that the seams were poorly soldered with lead, which had likely come in direct contact with the food.
The release of findings from the 1984 expedition and the photo of Torrington, a 138-year-old corpse well preserved by permafrost in the
tundra
In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless mou ...
, led to wide media coverage and renewed interest in the Franklin expedition.
Subsequent research has suggested that another potential source for the lead may have been the ships'
distilled water
Distilled water is water that has been boiled into vapor and condensed back into liquid in a separate container. Impurities in the original water that do not boil below or near the boiling point of water remain in the original container. Thus, di ...
systems rather than the tinned food. K. T. H. Farrer argued that "it is impossible to see how one could ingest from the canned food the amount of lead, 3.3 mg per day over eight months, required to raise the PbB to the level 80 μg/dL at which symptoms of lead poisoning begin to appear in adults and the suggestion that bone lead in adults could be 'swamped' by lead ingested from food over a period of a few months, or even three years, seems scarcely tenable." In addition, tinned food was in widespread use within the Royal Navy at that time and its use did not lead to any significant increase in lead poisoning elsewhere.
However, and uniquely for this expedition only, the ships were fitted with converted railway locomotive engines for auxiliary propulsion which required an estimated one tonne of fresh water per hour when steaming. It is highly probable that it was for this reason that the ships were fitted with a unique
desalination system which, given the materials in use at the time, would have produced large quantities of water with a very high lead content. William Battersby has argued that this is a much more likely source for the high levels of lead observed in the remains of expedition members than the tinned food.
A further survey of the graves was undertaken in 1986. A camera crew filmed the procedure, shown in ''
Novas television documentary "Buried in Ice" in 1988. Under difficult field conditions, Derek Notman, a
radiologist
Radiology ( ) is the medical discipline that uses medical imaging to diagnose diseases and guide their treatment, within the bodies of humans and other animals. It began with radiography (which is why its name has a root referring to radiat ...
and medical doctor from the
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...
, and radiology technician Larry Anderson took many
X-ray
An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...
s of the crewmen prior to autopsy. Barbara Schweger, an
Arctic clothing
Extreme cold weather clothing refers to clothing for arctic or mountainous areas. Its primary function is to trap air as an insulator to prevent heat loss from the wearer's body. Secondary and necessary is to conduct water vapor away from the body ...
specialist, and Roger Amy, a
pathologist
Pathology is the study of the causes and effects of disease or injury. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in t ...
, assisted in the investigation.
Beattie and his team had noticed that someone else had attempted to exhume Hartnell. In the effort, a pickaxe had damaged the wooden lid of his coffin, and the coffin plaque was missing. Research in Edmonton later showed that Sir Edward Belcher, commander of one of the Franklin rescue expeditions, had ordered the exhumation of Hartnell in October 1852, but was thwarted by the permafrost. A month later,
Edward A. Inglefield, commander of another rescue expedition, succeeded with the exhumation and removed the coffin's plaque.
Unlike Hartnell's grave, the grave of Private William Braine was largely intact. When he was exhumed, the survey team saw signs that his burial had been hasty. His arms, body, and head had not been positioned carefully in the coffin, and one of his undershirts had been put on backwards. The coffin seemed too small for him; its lid had pressed down on his nose. A large copper plaque with his name and other personal data punched into it adorned his coffin lid.
File: 2018-09-30 01 Franklin Camp grave images, Nunavut Canada 2015-09-11.jpg, The four graves at Franklin Camp near the harbour on Beechey Island
Beechey Island ( iu, Iluvialuit, script=Latn) is an island located in the Arctic Archipelago of Nunavut, Canada, in Wellington Channel. It is separated from the southwest corner of Devon Island by Barrow Strait. Other features include Wellington C ...
, Nunavut, Canada.
File:2018-09-30 02 Franklin Camp grave images, Nunavut Canada 2015-09-11.jpg, (L–R) Three grave stones commemorate John Torrington, William Braine and John Hartnell of the Franklin Expedition. A fourth headstone marks the grave of a sailor named Thomas Morgan who came later in a Franklin search expedition and died at the camp.
NgLj-2 excavations (1992)
In 1992, Franklin scholar Barry Ranford and his colleague, Mike Yarascavitch, discovered human skeletal remains and artefacts of what they suspected to be some of the lost crewmen of the expedition. The site matches the physical description of McClintock's "boat place". In 1993, a team of archaeologists and
forensic anthropologist
Forensic anthropology is the application of the anatomical science of anthropology and its various subfields, including forensic archaeology and forensic taphonomy, in a legal setting. A forensic anthropologist can assist in the identification o ...
s returned to the site, which they referenced as "NgLj-2", on the western shores of King William Island in Erebus Bay, to excavate these remains. These excavations uncovered nearly 400 bones and bone fragments, and physical artefacts ranging from pieces of clay pipes to buttons and brass fittings. Examination of these bones by Anne Keenleyside, the expedition's forensic scientist, showed elevated levels of lead and many cut-marks "consistent with de-fleshing". On the basis of this expedition, it has become generally accepted that at least some groups of Franklin's men resorted to cannibalism in their final distress.
A study published in the ''International Journal of Osteoarchaeology'' in 2015 concluded that in addition to the de-fleshing of bones, thirty-five "bones had signs of breakage and 'pot polishing,' which occurs when the ends of bones heated in boiling water rub against the cooking pot they are placed in," which "typically occurs in the end stage of cannibalism, when starving people extract the
marrow to eke out the last bit of calories and nutrition they can."
Wreck searches (1992–1993)
In 1992, Franklin author David C. Woodman, with the help of
magnetometer expert Brad Nelson, organised "Project Ootjoolik" to search for the wreck reported by Inuit testimony to lie off the waters of Adelaide Peninsula. Enlisting both a
National Research Council National Research Council may refer to:
* National Research Council (Canada), sponsoring research and development
* National Research Council (Italy), scientific and technological research, Rome
* National Research Council (United States), part of ...
and a
Canadian Forces
}
The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF; french: Forces armées canadiennes, ''FAC'') are the unified military forces of Canada, including sea, land, and air elements referred to as the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army, and Royal Canadian Air Forc ...
patrol aircraft, each fitted with a sensitive magnetometer, a large search area to the west of Grant Point was surveyed from an elevation of . Over sixty strong magnetic targets were identified, of which five were deemed to have characteristics most congruent to those expected from Franklin's ships.
In 1993, Joe McInnis and Woodman organised an attempt to identify the priority targets from the year before. A chartered aircraft landed on the ice at three of the locations, a hole was drilled through the ice, and a small sector-scan
sonar
Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect objects on o ...
was used to image the sea bottom. However, due to ice conditions and uncertain navigation, it was not possible to exactly confirm the locations of the holes, and nothing was found although hitherto-unknown depths were found at the locations that were consistent with Inuit testimony of the wreck.
King William Island (1994–1995)
In 1994, Woodman organised and led a land search of the area from Collinson Inlet to (modern) Victory Point in search of the buried "vaults" spoken of in the testimony of the contemporary Inuit hunter Supunger. A ten person team spent ten days in the search, sponsored by the
Royal Canadian Geographical Society
The Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS; French: ''Société géographique royale du Canada'') is a Canadian nonprofit educational organization dedicated to imparting a broader knowledge and deeper appreciation of Canada—its people a ...
, and filmed by the
CBC ''Focus North''. No trace of the vaults was found.
In 1995, an expedition was jointly organised by Woodman, George Hobson, and American adventurer Steven Trafton – with each party planning a separate search. Trafton's group travelled to the
Clarence Islands
The Clarence Islands are a Canadian Arctic island group in the Nunavut Territory. The islands lie in the James Ross Strait, east of Cape Felix, off the northeast coast of King William Island. They are about west of Kent Bay on the Boothia Pe ...
to investigate Inuit stories of a "white man's cairn" there but found nothing. Hobson's party, accompanied by archaeologist Margaret Bertulli, investigated the "summer camp" found a few miles to the south of Cape Felix, where some minor Franklin relics were found. Woodman, with two companions, travelled south from Wall Bay to Victory Point and investigated all likely campsites along this coast, finding only some rusted cans at a previously unknown campsite near Cape Maria Louisa.
Wreck searches (1997–2013)
In 1997, a "Franklin 150" expedition was mounted by the Canadian film company Eco-Nova to use sonar to investigate more of the priority magnetic targets found in 1992. The senior archaeologist was Robert Grenier, assisted by Margaret Bertulli, and Woodman again acted as expedition historian and search coordinator. Operations were conducted from the
Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker ''Laurier''. Approximately were surveyed, without result, near Kirkwall Island. When detached parties found Franklin relics – primarily copper sheeting and small items – on the beaches of islets to the north of O'Reilly Island the search was diverted to that area, but poor weather prevented significant survey work before the expedition ended. A documentary, ''Oceans of Mystery: Search for the Lost Fleet'', was produced by Eco-Nova about this expedition.
Three expeditions were mounted by Woodman to continue the magnetometer mapping of the proposed wreck sites: a privately sponsored expedition in 2001, and the Irish-Canadian Franklin Search Expeditions of 2002 and 2004. These made use of sled-drawn magnetometers working on the sea ice and completed the unfinished survey of the northern (Kirkwall Island) search area in 2001, and the entire southern O'Reilly Island area in 2002 and 2004. All of the high-priority magnetic targets were identified by sonar through the ice as geological in origin. In 2002 and 2004, small Franklin artefacts and characteristic explorer tent sites were found on a small islet northeast of O'Reilly Island during shore searches.
In August 2008, a new search was announced, to be led by Robert Grenier, a senior archaeologist with
Parks Canada. This search hoped to take advantage of the improved ice conditions, using
side-scan sonar
Side-scan sonar (also sometimes called side scan sonar, sidescan sonar, side imaging sonar, side-imaging sonar and bottom classification sonar) is a category of sonar system that is used to efficiently create an image of large areas of the sea ...
from a boat in open water. Grenier also hoped to draw from newly published Inuit testimony collected by oral historian
Dorothy Harley Eber. Some of Eber's informants have placed the location of one of Franklin's ships in the vicinity of the
Royal Geographical Society Island, an area not searched by previous expeditions. The search was to also include local Inuit historian Louie Kamookak, who has found other significant remains of the expedition and would represent the indigenous culture.
became icebound in 1853 while searching for Franklin's expedition and was subsequently abandoned. It was found in shallow water in
Mercy Bay
Mercy Bay is a Canadian Arctic waterway in the Northwest Territories. It is a southern arm of M'Clure Strait on northeast Banks Island. The mouth of Castel Bay is less than to the west. These bays are a part of Aulavik National Park.
HMS '' ...
on 25 July 2010, along the northern coast of
Banks Island
Banks Island is one of the larger members of the Arctic Archipelago. Situated in the Inuvik Region, and part of the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, of the Northwest Territories, it is separated from Victoria Island to its east by the Prince of Wa ...
in Canada's western Arctic. The Parks Canada team reported that it was in good shape, upright in about of water.
A new search was announced by Parks Canada in August 2013.
Victoria Strait Expedition: wreck of ''Erebus'' (2014)
On 1 September 2014, a larger search by a Canadian team under the banner of the "Victoria Strait Expedition" found two items on
Hat Island in the Queen Maud Gulf near Nunavut's King William Island: a wooden object, possibly a plug for a deck
hawse, the iron pipe through which the ship's chain cable would descend into the chain locker below; and part of a boat-launching
davit bearing the stamps of two Royal Navy broad arrows.
On 9 September 2014, the expedition announced that on 7 September it had located one of Franklin's two ships.
The ship is preserved in good condition, with side-scan sonar picking up even the deck planking. The wreck lies in about of water at the bottom of
Wilmot and Crampton Bay in the eastern portion of Queen Maud Gulf, west of O'Reilly Island. On 1 October at the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
, Prime Minister
Stephen Harper confirmed that the wreck is indeed
HMS ''Erebus''.
A documentary, ''Hunt for the Arctic Ghost Ship'', was produced by Lion Television for Channel 4's ''
Secret History'' series in 2015.
In September 2018,
Parks Canada announced that the ''Erebus'' has deteriorated significantly. "An upwards buoyant force acting on the decking combined with storm swell in relatively shallow water caused the displacement," according to a spokesperson. The underwater exploration in 2018 totalled only a day and a half due to weather and ice conditions and was to continue in 2019. Also in September 2018, a report provided specifics as to ownership of the ships and contents: the UK will own the first 65 artifacts brought up from HMS ''Erebus'', while the wreck of both ships and other artifacts will be owned by Canada and the
Inuit
Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...
.
Arctic Research Foundation Expedition: wreck of ''Terror'' (2016)
On 12 September 2016, it was announced that the
Arctic Research Foundation expedition had found the wreck of south of
King William Island in Terror Bay, at at a depth of , and in "pristine" condition.
In 2018, a team examined the wreck of HMS ''Terror'' using a
remotely operated underwater vehicle
A remotely operated underwater vehicle (technically ROUV or just ROV) is a tethered underwater mobile device, commonly called ''underwater robot''.
Definition
This meaning is different from remote control vehicles operating on land or in the a ...
(ROV) that collected photos and video clips of the ship and a number of artefacts. The group concluded that the ''Terror'' had not been left at anchor, since the anchor cables were seen to be secured along the bulwarks.
Scientific conclusions
Reasons for failure
The FEFAP field surveys, excavations and exhumations spanned more than 10 years. The results of this study from King William Island and Beechey Island artefacts and human remains showed that the Beechey Island crew had most probably died of
pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...
and perhaps
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...
, which was suggested by the evidence of
Pott disease
Pott disease is tuberculosis of the spine, usually due to haematogenous spread from other sites, often the lungs. The lower thoracic and upper lumbar vertebrae areas of the spine are most often affected.
It causes a kind of tuberculous arthriti ...
discovered in Braine. Toxicological reports pointed to
lead poisoning as a likely contributing factor. Blade cut marks found on bones from some of the crew were seen as signs of cannibalism.
Evidence suggested that a combination of cold, starvation and disease including scurvy, pneumonia and tuberculosis, all made worse by lead poisoning, killed everyone in the Franklin party.
More recent chemical re-examination of bone and nail samples taken from Hartnell and other crew members has cast doubt on the role of lead poisoning.
A 2013 study determined that the levels of lead present in the crew members' bones had been consistent during their lives, and that there was no
isotopic difference between lead concentrated within older and younger bone materials.
Had the crew been poisoned by lead from the solder used to seal the canned food or from the ships' water supplies, both the concentration of lead and its isotopic composition would have been expected to have "spiked" during their last few months.
This interpretation was supported by a 2016 study that suggested the crew's ill health may in fact have been due to malnutrition, and specifically
zinc deficiency
Zinc deficiency is defined either as insufficient zinc to meet the needs of the body, or as a serum zinc level below the normal range. However, since a decrease in the serum concentration is only detectable after long-term or severe depletion, s ...
, probably due to a lack of meat in their diet.
This study used
micro-X-ray fluorescence to map the levels of lead, copper and zinc in Hartnell's thumbnail over the final months of his life, and found that apart from during his last few weeks lead concentrations within Hartnell's body were within healthy limits.
In contrast, levels of zinc were far lower than normal and indicated that Hartnell would have been suffering from chronic zinc deficiency, sufficient to have severely suppressed his immune system and left him highly vulnerable to a worsening of the tuberculosis with which he was already infected.
In the last few weeks of his life, his illness would have caused his body to start breaking down bone, fat and muscle tissues, releasing lead previously stored there into his bloodstream and giving rise to the high lead levels noted in previous analysis of soft tissues and hair.
Franklin's chosen passage down the west side of King William Island took ''Erebus'' and ''Terror'' into "a ploughing train of ice ...
hat
A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
does not always clear during the short summers", whereas the route along the island's east coast regularly clears in summer and was later used by
Roald Amundsen
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (, ; ; 16 July 1872 – ) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He was a key figure of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
Born in Borge, Østfold, Norway, Amundsen beg ...
in his successful navigation of the Northwest Passage. The Franklin expedition, locked in ice for two winters in
Victoria Strait
Victoria Strait is a strait in northern Canada that lies in Nunavut off the mainland in the Arctic Ocean. It is between Victoria Island (Canada), Victoria Island to the west and King William Island to the east. From the north, the strait links the ...
, was naval in nature and therefore not well equipped or trained for land travel. Some of the crew members heading south from ''Erebus'' and ''Terror'' hauled many items not needed for Arctic survival. McClintock noted a large quantity of heavy goods in the lifeboat at the "boat place" and thought them "a mere accumulation of dead weight, of little use, and very likely to break down the strength of the sledge-crews".
Other findings
In 2017,
Douglas Stenton, an adjunct professor of anthropology at the
University of Waterloo
The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a public research university with a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to "Uptown" Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also operates ...
and former director of Nunavut's Department of Heritage and Culture, suggested that four sets of European human remains found on King William Island could possibly be women. He initially suspected that
DNA testing would not offer up anything more, but to his surprise they registered that there was no
'Y' chromosomal element to the DNA. Stenton acknowledged that women were known to have served in the Royal Navy in the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries, but he also pointed out that it could be that the DNA had simply degraded as further tests proved ambiguous and he concluded the initial findings were "almost certainly incorrect".
In 1993, three bodies were found at site NgLj-3 near Erebus Bay. The remains had originally been found by McClintock's expedition in 1859, and were rediscovered and buried by Schwatka two decades later. In 2013, a team led by Stenton had the remains exhumed for DNA testing and
forensic facial reconstruction
Forensic facial reconstruction (or forensic facial approximation) is the process of recreating the face of an individual (whose identity is often not known) from their skeletal remains through an amalgamation of artistry, anthropology, osteol ...
. The team's report, published in ''Polar Journal'' in 2015, indicated that the reconstructions of the two intact skulls from the remains resembled Lieutenant Gore and Ice-Master Reid of the ''Erebus''; however, it was determined the remains could not have belonged to Gore, as the Victory Point note stated that Gore had died before the abandonment of the ships in April 1848.
In May 2021, one of the bodies was positively identified as that of Warrant Officer
John Gregory, ''Erebus'' engineer. A genealogy team tracked down Gregory's great-great-great-grandson, Jonathan Gregory, residing in
Port Elizabeth,
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
, and confirmed the familial match through DNA testing.
Timeline
* 1845, 19 May: Franklin expedition sails from England
* 1845, July: Expedition docks in
Greenland
Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...
, sends home five men and a batch of letters
* 1845, 28 July: Last sighting of expedition by Europeans (a whaling ship in
Baffin Bay)
* 1845–46: Expedition winters on
Beechey Island
Beechey Island ( iu, Iluvialuit, script=Latn) is an island located in the Arctic Archipelago of Nunavut, Canada, in Wellington Channel. It is separated from the southwest corner of Devon Island by Barrow Strait. Other features include Wellington C ...
. Three crewmen die of
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...
and are buried.
* 1846: and leave Beechey Island and sail down
Peel Sound
Peel Sound is an Arctic waterway in the Qikiqtaaluk, Nunavut, Canada. It separates Somerset Island on the east from Prince of Wales Island on the west. To the north it opens onto Parry Channel while its southern end merges with Franklin Strai ...
towards
King William Island
* 1846, 12 September: Ships trapped in the ice off King William Island
* 1846–47: Expedition winters on King William Island
* 1847, 28 May: Sledge party led by Lt. Graham Gore and Mate Charles Des Voeux leaves identical notes at Victory Point and Gore Point, both concluding "All well"
* 1847, 11 June: Franklin dies
* 1847–48: Expedition again winters off King William Island, after the ice fails to thaw in 1847
* 1848, 22 April: ''Erebus'' and ''Terror'' abandoned after one year and seven months trapped in the ice
* 1848, 25 April: Date of second note, saying 24 men have died and the survivors plan to start marching south on 26 April to the
Back River
* 1850 (?): Inuit board an abandoned ship, which is icebound off King William Island
* 1850 (?): Inuit see 40 men walking south on King William Island
* 1851 (?): Inuit hunters see four men still trying to head south, last verified sighting of survivors (as reported to
Charles Hall)
* 1852–58 (?): Inuit may have seen Francis Crozier and one other survivor (presumably assistant surgeon
Alexander McDonald) much further south in the Baker Lake area
* 1854: John Rae interviews local Inuit, who give him items from the expedition and tell him the men starved to death, after resorting to cannibalism
* 1859: McClintock finds the abandoned boat and the messages on an admiralty form in a
cairn on King William Island
* 1860–69: Hall leads two expeditions in search of Franklin records; in 1869, finds remains tentatively identified as Lieutenant
HTD Le Vesconte, HMS ''Erebus''; remains returned to England
* 1878–80:
Frederick Schwatka
Frederick Gustavus Schwatka (29 September 1849 – 2 November 1892) was a United States Army lieutenant with degrees in medicine and law, and was a noted explorer of northern Canada and Alaska.
Early life and career
Schwatka was born in Galena, ...
leads expedition in search of Franklin records; finds remains identified as Lieutenant John Irving, HMS ''Terror''; remains returned to Scotland
* 1981–82:
Owen Beattie leads forensic teams retracing steps taken by McClintock and Schwatka expeditions
* 1984–86: Beechey Island graves opened by Beattie's team, bodies examined
* 2009: Remains found by Hall in 1869 reexamined, casting doubt on the Le Vesconte identification; a more likely candidate is assistant surgeon
Harry Goodsir, HMS ''Erebus''
* 2014: Wreck of ''Erebus'' found in
Wilmot and Crampton Bay
* 2016: Wreck of ''Terror'' found in
Terror Bay
Terror Bay ( iu, ᐊᒥᑦᕈᖅ, ) is an Arctic waterway in the Kitikmeot Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is located in the south western side of King William Island. The entrance to the bay is marked by Fitzjames Island on the west and Irving Isla ...
* 2020: Archaeological efforts paused due to
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
* 2021: Remains found by McClintock in 1859 identified as engineer
John Gregory, HMS ''Erebus''
* 2022: Research at wreck sites resumed in May, after two years of delays due to the pandemic.
Legacy
Historical
The most meaningful outcome of the Franklin expedition was the mapping of several thousand miles of hitherto unsurveyed coastline by expeditions searching for Franklin's lost ships and crew. As Richard Cyriax noted, "the loss of the expedition probably added much more
eographicalknowledge than its successful return would have done". At the same time, it largely quelled the Admiralty's appetite for Arctic exploration. There was a gap of many years before the
Nares expedition and Sir
George Nares
Vice-Admiral Sir George Strong Nares (24 April 1831 – 15 January 1915) was a Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. He commanded the ''Challenger'' Expedition, and the British Arctic Expedition. He was highly thought of as a leader an ...
' declaration there was "no thoroughfare" to the North Pole; his words marked the end of the Royal Navy's historical involvement in Arctic exploration, the end of an era in which such exploits were widely seen by the British public as worthy expenditures of human effort and monetary resources. Given how difficult and risky it was for professional explorers to cross the Northwest Passage, it would be impossible for the average merchant ships of the day to use this route for trade.
As a writer for ''
The Athenaeum'' put it, "We think that we can fairly make out the account between the cost and results of these Arctic Expeditions, and ask whether it is worth while to risk so much for that which is so difficult of attainment, and when attained, is so worthless." The navigation of the Northwest Passage in 1903–05 by
Roald Amundsen
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (, ; ; 16 July 1872 – ) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He was a key figure of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
Born in Borge, Østfold, Norway, Amundsen beg ...
with the ''
Gjøa
''Gjøa'' was the first vessel to transit the Northwest Passage. With a crew of six, Roald Amundsen traversed the passage in a three-year journey, finishing in 1906.
History
Construction
The square-sterned sloop of 47 net register tonna ...
'' expedition ended the centuries-long quest for the route.
The Northwest Passage discovered
Franklin’s expedition explored the vicinity of what was ultimately one of many Northwest Passages to be discovered. While the more famous search expeditions were underway in 1850,
Robert McClure
Vice-Admiral Sir Robert John Le Mesurier McClure (28 January 1807 – 17 October 1873) was an Irish explorer of Scots descent who explored the Arctic. In 1854 he traversed the Northwest Passage by boat and sledge, and was the first to ci ...
set out on the little-known
McClure Arctic expedition
The McClure Arctic expedition of 1850, among numerous British search efforts to determine the fate of the Franklin's lost expedition, is distinguished as the voyage during which the Irish explorer Robert McClure became the first person to confirm ...
on to also investigate the fate of Franklin’s voyage. While he did not find much evidence of Franklin’s fate, he did finally ascertain an ice-bound route that connected the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. This was the
Prince of Wales Strait
The Prince of Wales Strait is a strait in the Northwest Territories of Canada separating Banks Island to the northwest from Victoria Island to the southeast. It extends from Viscount Melville Sound in the northeast to Amundsen Gulf in the south ...
, which was far to the north of Franklin’s ships.
[
On 21 October 1850, the following entry was recorded in ’s log:
]
"October 31st, the Captain returned at 8.30. A.M., and at 11.30. A.M., the remainder of the parting, having, upon the 26th instant, ascertained that the waters we are now in communicate with those of Barrow Strait, the north-eastern limit being in latitude 73°31′, N. longitude 114°39′, W. thus establishing the existence of a NORTH-WEST PASSAGE between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans."[
]
McClure was knighted for his discovery. While the McClure expedition obviously fared much better than Franklin's voyage, it was similarly beset by immense challenges (including the loss of the ''Investigator'' and four winters on the ice) and a number of controversies, including allegations of selfishness and poor planning on McClure’s part. His decision to place numerous message cairns along his route ultimately saved his expedition, who were ultimately found and rescued by the crew of .[
In 1855, a British parliamentary committee concluded that Robert McClure "deserved to be rewarded as the discoverer of a Northwest Passage". Today, the question of "who discovered the Northwest Passage?" is a subject of controversy, as all the different Passages have varying degrees of navigability. Although he did confirm the first geographical Northwest Passage that is navigable by ship under ideal conditions, McClure is rarely credited in modern times due to his troubled expedition, his poor personal reputation, the fact that his expedition was after Franklin’s (who has a claim to be the first discoverer, see below), and the fact that he never traversed the strait that he found, instead choosing to portage over ]Banks Island
Banks Island is one of the larger members of the Arctic Archipelago. Situated in the Inuvik Region, and part of the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, of the Northwest Territories, it is separated from Victoria Island to its east by the Prince of Wa ...
.
Simpson Strait
Members of the Franklin expedition crossed the southern shore of King William Island and made it onto the Canadian mainland; this is evident by the fact that human remains from the expedition have been found inland on the Adelaide Peninsula
Adelaide Peninsula (''Iluilik''), ancestral home to the ''Illuilirmiut'' Inuit, is a large peninsula in Nunavut, Canada. It is located at south of King William Island. Its namesake is Queen Adelaide, consort of King William IV of the United Kingd ...
. This may have involved walking across the Simpson Strait
The Simpson Strait () is a natural, shallow waterway separating King William Island to the north from Adelaide Peninsula on Nunavut's mainland to the south. The strait, an arm of the Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shall ...
which is now known as a way through from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It is possible that the Franklin expedition did discover that this is a Passage. As none of the members of the party made it out alive, it is not known whether any member of the party had realized this. George Back
Admiral Sir George Back (6 November 1796 – 23 June 1878) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer of the Canadian Arctic, naturalist and artist. He was born in Stockport.
Career
As a boy, he went to sea as a volunteer in the frigate ...
had discovered the strait in 1834 but did not realize it was a Northwest Passage. In any case, by 1854, it was widely believed that the remnants of the party had crossed the strait, and Lady Franklin was informed of such on 12 January by the Admiralty.
Franklin’s claim to having discovered the Passage is strengthened by Charles Richard Weld
Charles Richard Weld (1813–1869) was an English writer, known as a historian of the Royal Society.
Life
Born at Windsor, Berkshire, Windsor in August 1813, he was the son of Isaac Weld (d. 1824) of Dublin, by his second marriage of 1812, to Luc ...
’s assertion that Franklin had long suspected that the Simpson Strait did connect the two oceans.
In 1860, Francis McClintock
Sir Francis Leopold McClintock (8 July 1819 – 17 November 1907) was an Irish explorer in the British Royal Navy, known for his discoveries in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. He confirmed explorer John Rae's controversial report gather ...
ascertained that the Simpson Strait was indeed a Northwest Passage. Following this discovery, to honour John Franklin’s legacy, the Royal Geographical Society declared that his lost expedition was the first expedition to discover the Passage. Lady Franklin was given a medal in his name.
The Northwest Passage would not be fully navigated by boat until 1906, when Roald Amundsen
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (, ; ; 16 July 1872 – ) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He was a key figure of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
Born in Borge, Østfold, Norway, Amundsen beg ...
famously traversed the passage on the ''Gjøa
''Gjøa'' was the first vessel to transit the Northwest Passage. With a crew of six, Roald Amundsen traversed the passage in a three-year journey, finishing in 1906.
History
Construction
The square-sterned sloop of 47 net register tonna ...
'', via the Simpson Strait.
Cultural depictions
Commemoration
For years after the loss of the Franklin Party, the Victorian media portrayed Franklin as a hero who led his men in the quest for the Northwest Passage. A statue of Franklin in his home town bears the inscription "Sir John Franklin – Discoverer of the North West Passage", and statues of Franklin outside the Athenaeum
Athenaeum may refer to:
Books and periodicals
* ''Athenaeum'' (German magazine), a journal of German Romanticism, established 1798
* ''Athenaeum'' (British magazine), a weekly London literary magazine 1828–1921
* ''The Athenaeum'' (Acadia U ...
in London and in Tasmania
)
, nickname =
, image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdi ...
bear similar inscriptions. Although the expedition's fate, including the possibility of cannibalism, was widely reported and debated, Franklin's standing with the Victorian public was undiminished. The expedition has been the subject of numerous works of non-fiction.
The mystery surrounding Franklin's last expedition was the subject of a 2006 episode of the NOVA television series '' Arctic Passage''; a 2007 television documentary, "Franklin's Lost Expedition", on ''Discovery HD Theatre''; as well as a 2008 Canadian documentary, ''Passage
Passage, The Passage or Le Passage may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Films
* ''Passage'' (2008 film), a documentary about Arctic explorers
* ''Passage'' (2009 film), a short movie about three sisters
* ''The Passage'' (1979 film), starring ...
''. In an episode of the 2009 ITV1 travel documentary series '' Billy Connolly: Journey to the Edge of the World'', presenter Connolly and his crew visited Beechey Island, filmed the gravesite, and gave details of the Franklin expedition. NOVA revisited Franklin's expedition in the 2015 documentary ''Arctic Ghost Ship'', which covered the Victoria Strait Expedition and its use of Inuit testimony as well as the latest technology to successfully locate the Erebus.
In memory of the lost expedition, one of Canada's Northwest Territories subdivisions was known as the District of Franklin. Including the high Arctic islands; this jurisdiction was abolished when the area was set off into the newly created Nunavut Territory on 1 April 1999.
On 29 October 2009, a special service of thanksgiving was held in the chapel at the Old Royal Naval College
The Old Royal Naval College is the architectural centrepiece of Maritime Greenwich, a World Heritage Site in Greenwich, London, described by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) as being of "outstanding ...
in Greenwich, to accompany the rededication of the national monument to Franklin there. The service also included the solemn re-interment of the only remains from the ''Erebus'' to be repatriated to England, entombed within the monument in 1873 (previously thought to be Second Lieutenant Henry Le Vesconte, but may actually have been Harry Goodsir, the assistant surgeon).[Mays, S., et al., New light on the personal identification of a skeleton of a member of Sir John Franklin’s last
expedition to the Arctic, 1845, Journal of Archaeological Science (2011), ] The following day, a group of polar authors went to London's Kensal Green Cemetery
Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in the Kensal Green area of Queens Park in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. Inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, it was founded by the barrister George Frederick ...
to pay their respects to the Arctic explorers buried there.
Many other veterans of the searches for Franklin are buried there too, including Admiral Sir Horatio Thomas Austin, Admiral Sir George Back, Admiral Sir Edward Augustus Inglefield, Admiral Bedford Pim
Bedford Clapperton Trevelyan Pim (12 June 1826 – 30 September 1886) was a Royal Navy officer, Arctic explorer, barrister, and author. He was the first man who travelled from a ship on the eastern side of the Northwest Passage to one on t ...
, and Admiral Sir John Ross. Franklin's wife Jane Griffin
Jane, Lady Franklin (née Griffin; 4 December 1791 – 18 July 1875) was the second wife of the English explorer Sir John Franklin. During her husband's period as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land, she became known for her philanthropic ...
, Lady Franklin, is also interred at Kensal Green in the vault, and commemorated on a marble cross dedicated to her niece Sophia Cracroft.
Literary works
From the 1850s through to the present day, Franklin's last expedition inspired numerous literary works. Among the first was a play, ''The Frozen Deep
''The Frozen Deep'' is an 1856 play, originally staged as an amateur theatrical, written by Wilkie Collins under the substantial guidance of Charles Dickens. Dickens's hand was so prominent—beside acting in the play for several performances, ...
'', written by Wilkie Collins
William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist and playwright known especially for '' The Woman in White'' (1859), a mystery novel and early "sensation novel", and for '' The Moonstone'' (1868), which has b ...
with assistance and production by Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
. The play was performed for private audiences at Tavistock House early in 1857, as well as at the Royal Gallery of Illustration (including a command performance for Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...
), and for the public at the Manchester Trade Union Hall. News of Franklin's death in 1859 inspired elegies, including one by Algernon Charles Swinburne.
Fictional treatments of the final Franklin expedition begin with Jules Verne's '' Journeys and Adventures of Captain Hatteras'', (1866), in which the novel's hero seeks to retrace Franklin's footsteps and discovers that the North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...
is dominated by an enormous volcano. Verne also remembers the efforts of Jane Franklin to discover the fate of her husband in his novel ''Mistress Branican
''Mistress Branican'' (french: Mistress Branican) is an 1891 adventure novel written by Jules Verne. It is based on Colonel Peter Egerton-Warburton's and Ernest Giles' accounts of their journeys across the deserts of Western Australia, and was al ...
'' (1891) which stages a similar plot but situated in Oceania and Australia instead of the North Pole. Mark Twain briefly satirized the fate of the expedition and its subsequent searches in the beginning of the story "Some Learned Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls" (1875). The German novelist Sten Nadolny's '' The Discovery of Slowness'' (1983; English translation 1987) takes on the entirety of Franklin's life, touching only briefly on his last expedition.
Other recent novelistic treatments of Franklin include William T. Vollmann's ''The Rifles
The Rifles is an infantry regiment of the British Army. Formed in 2007, it consists of four Regular battalions and three Reserve battalions, plus a number of companies in other Army Reserve battalions. Each battalion of The Rifles was formerl ...
'' (1994), John Wilson's ''North With Franklin: The Journals of James Fitzjames'' (1999); and Dan Simmons
Dan Simmons (born April 4, 1948) is an American science fiction and horror writer. He is the author of the Hyperion Cantos and the Ilium/Olympos cycles, among other works which span the science fiction, horror, and fantasy genres, sometimes wi ...
's ''The Terror
The Reign of Terror (french: link=no, la Terreur) was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervour, ...
'' (2007), which was developed as a 2018 AMC
AMC may refer to:
Film and television
* AMC Theatres, an American movie theater chain
* AMC Networks, an American entertainment company
** AMC (TV channel)
** AMC+, streaming service
** AMC Networks International, an entertainment company
*** ...
television series also called ''The Terror''. The expedition has also been the subject of a horror role-playing game supplement for '' Call of Cthulhu'', ''The Walker in the Wastes''. Most recently, Clive Cussler
Clive Eric Cussler (July 15, 1931 – February 24, 2020) was an American adventure novelist and underwater explorer. His thriller novels, many featuring the character Dirk Pitt, have reached ''The New York Times'' fiction best-seller list m ...
's 2008 novel '''' incorporates the ordeal of the Franklin expedition as a central element in the story, and Richard Flanagan's '' Wanting'' (2009) deals with Franklin's deeds in both Tasmania and the Arctic. On 12 January 2012, BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
broadcast ''Erebus'', a radio play based on the Franklin expedition by British poet Jo Shapcott
Jo Shapcott FRSL (born 24 March 1953, London) is an English poet, editor and lecturer who has won the National Poetry Competition, the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the Costa Book of the Year Award, a Forward Poetry Prize and the Cholmondeley Awa ...
. Kassandra Alvarado's 2013 novel ''The White Passage'' presents a vaguely science-fiction take on an alternative history of the lost expedition.
Michael Palin
Sir Michael Edward Palin (; born 5 May 1943) is an English actor, comedian, writer, television presenter, and public speaker. He was a member of the Monty Python comedy group. Since 1980, he has made a number of travel documentaries.
Palin w ...
's 2018 book, ''Erebus, The Story of a Ship'', was described by ''The Guardian'' newspaper as 'lively and diligent.' He also produced a one man show based on his book.
A children's novel, ''Chasing Ghosts – An Arctic Adventure'' by Nicola Pierce
Nicola Pierce is an Irish writer and ghost writer.
Life
Born in Tallaght, Dublin, Nicola Pierce has worked and lived in Drogheda since 2011. Pierce attended the Presentation Schools in Terenure and got an Arts Modular degree from Universi ...
featuring the expedition was published in 2020.
In 2017, ''The Breathing Hole'', a play written by Colleen Murphy, premiered at the Stratford Festival, directed by Reneltta Arluk. In this play, the fates of the crew of ''Erebus'' and ''Terror'' are featured within the context of an epic saga spanning five-hundred years. Commissioned to mark Canada's 150th Anniversary and met with critical acclaim, the work involved artists from both Nunavut and the rest of Canada, including collaborations with Qaggiavuut Nunavut Performing Arts. In 2020, the play was published in a dual-language edition in English and in Nattilingmiut syllabics—the Inuktitut dialect from where the story takes place in the Western Arctic.
Artistic works
In the visual arts, the loss of Franklin's expedition inspired a number of paintings in both the United States and Britain. In 1861, Frederic Edwin Church unveiled his great canvas '' The Icebergs''; later that year, prior to taking it to England for exhibition, he added an image of a broken ship's mast in silent tribute to Franklin. In 1864, Sir Edwin Landseer
Sir Edwin Henry Landseer (7 March 1802 – 1 October 1873) was an English painter and sculptor, well known for his paintings of animals – particularly horses, dogs, and stags. However, his best-known works are the lion sculptures at the bas ...
's '' Man Proposes, God Disposes'' caused a stir at the annual Royal Academy exhibition; its depiction of two polar bears, one chewing on a tattered ship's ensign, the other gnawing on a human ribcage, was seen at the time as in poor taste, but has remained one of the most powerful imaginings of the expedition's final fate. The expedition also inspired numerous popular engravings and illustrations, along with many panoramas, dioramas, and magic lantern
The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name , is an early type of image projector that used pictures—paintings, prints, or photographs—on transparent plates (usually made of glass), one or more lenses, and a light source. Because a si ...
shows.
Musical works
Franklin's last expedition also inspired a great deal of music, beginning with the ballad "Lady Franklin's Lament
"Lady Franklin's Lament" (also known as "Lord Franklin" and "The Sailor's Dream") is a traditional folk ballad indexed by George Malcolm Laws (Laws K09) and Steve Roud (Roud 487). The song recounts the story of a sailor who dreams about Lady Frank ...
" (also known as "Lord Franklin"), which originated in the 1850s and has been recorded by dozens of artists, among them Martin Carthy, Pentangle, Sinéad O'Connor, and The Pearlfishers. The Scottish pirate metal band Alestorm's song "Magnetic North" is dedicated to the expedition. Other Franklin-inspired songs include Fairport Convention's "I'm Already There", James Taylor
James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A six-time Grammy Award winner, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, havi ...
's "Frozen Man" (based on Beattie's photographs of John Torrington) and Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band formed in Leyton, East London, in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. While fluid in the early years of the band, the lineup for most of the band's history has consisted of Harri ...
's "Stranger In A Strange Land
''Stranger in a Strange Land'' is a 1961 science fiction novel by American author Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by ...
". The ballad "Northwest Passage" by Stan Rogers also mentions Franklin.
Significance in Canada
The influence of the Franklin expedition on Canadian literature
Canadian literature is the literature of a multicultural country, written in languages including Canadian English, Canadian French, Indigenous languages, and many others such as Canadian Gaelic. Influences on Canadian writers are broad both g ...
and culture has been especially significant. Among the best-known modern Franklin ballads is "Northwest Passage
The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The eastern route along the Arc ...
" by the late Ontario folksinger Stan Rogers (1981), which has been referred to as the unofficial Canadian national anthem. The distinguished Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood has also spoken of Franklin's expedition as a sort of national myth of Canada, remarking that "In every culture many stories are told, (but) only some are told and retold, and these stories bear examining ... in Canadian literature, one such story is the Franklin expedition." Notable treatments by Canadian poets include a verse play for radio, ''Terror and Erebus'' which was commissioned from , broadcast by CBC Radio
CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...
(10 January 1965) and subsequently published in her collection ''Afterworlds'' (1987); and David Solway's verse cycle, ''Franklin's Passage'' (2003). The events have also featured prominently in Canadian novels, including Mordecai Richler
Mordecai Richler (January 27, 1931 – July 3, 2001) was a Canadian writer. His best known works are '' The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz'' (1959) and '' Barney's Version'' (1997). His 1970 novel '' St. Urbain's Horseman'' and 1989 novel ...
's ''Solomon Gursky Was Here
''Solomon Gursky Was Here'' is a novel by Canadians, Canadian author Mordecai Richler first published by Viking Canada in 1989 in literature, 1989.
Summary
The novel tells of several generations of the fictional Gursky family, who are connected t ...
'' (1989) and Dominique Fortier's 2008 French language novel, ''Du bon usage des étoiles'', which creatively considers the Franklin expedition from a variety of perspectives and genres and was both shortlisted and a finalist for several literary awards in Canada ( 2009 Governor General's Awards). Sheila Fischman
Sheila Leah Fischman (born 1 December 1937) is a Canadian translator who specializes in the translation of works of contemporary Quebec literature from French to English.
Born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, she was brought up in Ontario. She hold ...
's translation of Fortier's novel, ''On the Proper Use of Stars'', was shortlisted for the 2010 Governor General's Awards
The shortlisted nominees for the 2010 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit were announced on October 13, and winning titles were announced on November 16.Ed O'Loughlin
Ed O'Loughlin is an Irish-Canadian author and journalist. His first novel, ''Not Untrue and Not Unkind'', dealt with foreign journalists reporting on African conflicts. It was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2009 and shortlisted for the ...
's novel ''Minds of Winter'' was shortlisted for the 2017 Giller Prize
The Giller Prize (sponsored as the Scotiabank Giller Prize), is a literary award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English (including translation) the previous year, after an annual juried competitio ...
.
See also
* List of people who disappeared mysteriously at sea
Throughout history, people have mysteriously disappeared at sea, many on voyages aboard floating vessels or traveling via aircraft. The following is a list of known individuals who have mysteriously vanished in open waters, and whose whereabouts r ...
Notes
The date given in the message is wrong, as Franklin wintered one year earlier at Beechey Island.
References
Works cited
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External links
"Franklin's Last Voyage"
at ''CanadianMysteries.ca''
Video
of Parks Canada dive on the wreck of HMS Terror
*
*
{{Good article
1840s missing person cases
1845 in Canada
1845 in the British Empire
19th century in the Arctic
Arctic expeditions
Expeditions from the United Kingdom
Exploration of the Arctic
Formerly missing people
Geography of Canada
History of Nunavut
History of the Northwest Territories
Incidents of cannibalism
Lead poisoning incidents
Maritime history of Canada
Mass disappearances
Missing person cases in Canada
American Geographical Society