This thread speaks about the stages of the disastrous arctic voyage, led by British captain, Sir John Franklin in 1845 and the rescue attemps and the search of this particular expedition. The purpose of this thread is to invite reflections, discussion, or the reader might just find this article interesting, or read it for fun...after all, this is a fun site, according to PDX.
What was the Franklin Expedition, why it was founded?
John Franklin himself had served in three expeditions in the Arctic, in the last one commanding two ships. Franklin was a Royal Navy officer and an experienced explorer. This new expedition, which departed England aboard two ships, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror under his command, would be the final for him at the age of 59. The objective of this expedition was to navigate through the Northwest Passage, still in unknown waters.
The search of a searoute shortcut from Europe to Asia was dated back to the time of Columbus, already at that time it was the question of the economy and the maximum profit. At the date of John Franklin, the search had continued almost 500 years without any proper results. In the early 1800s the Admirality of the Royal Navy began a push to complete the Nothwest Passage over Canada. Several expeditions were founded, but the search didn't produce a success and the shortcut remained as unknown. Among all other expeditions, in 1845 it was time for John Franklin and his expedition.
![NWProute[1].gif](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/322299/NWProute[1].gif "NWProute[1].gif")
![18482-004-244ADC5D[1].jpg](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/322300/18482-004-244ADC5D[1].jpg "18482-004-244ADC5D[1].jpg")
Sir John Franklin (1786-1847)
![4970073[1].jpg](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/322303/4970073[1].jpg "4970073[1].jpg")
HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, beating in the arctic waters during Franklin's Expedition
The expedition and the loss
The expedition set sail from Greenhithe, England on May 1845, it had crew of 24 officers and 110 of men. The expedition sailed first to Orkney Islands, where it made a short stop and from there with two other escort ships, the expedition continued to Greenland. In the west coast of Greenland, at Disco Bay, the expedition had it last supplies in proven. Also, the Disco Bay was the place, where the crew wrote the last letters to home. The last European sighting of the expedition was in July 1845 at Baffin Bay by whalers. By then, the Franklin Expedition was waiting for good weather conditions for crossing the Lancaster Sound.
From now on, the fate of the Franklin Expedition remained as a mystery and over the next 150 years other expeditions, search parties and scientist would solve piece by piece, what happened to the expedition.
The early searches
Concern about the fate of the expedition increased in England after two years without a single word from Franklin. The Admirality was pushed for rescue operations and under pressure first operations for the rescue were launched, one by land and two by the sea. The other sea search party followed the expected route of Franklin's Expedition and the other was sent from the Pacific side. But this three-pronged effort however failed and the concern was about to rise as a National one and soon it was nothing but a "finding Franklin" -crusade.
In the 1850s, over 5 years after the last sighting and the letters, many volunteered for this "search crusade". Tens of British and American ships sailed the Canadian Arctic with hopes for even a single sign or a mark of the Franklin Expedition. This time the search parties had a little of luck, first relics of the lost expedition was found from Beechey Island coast. The found relics were remnants of winter camp and three graves of the crew members. But no letters, or written word were found. Still, these relics was a proof, that the expedition had survived at least one winter in the arctic and the rest of the crew had carried on with the ships.
The assumed route of the expedition in the Arctic Canada. The early search parties relied on this.
The faith of rescuing the Franklin Expedition falters. A painting inspired by images.
The trail was now becoming cold again with no further sightings. It took 3 years before new evidence was found. In 1854 an overland search party led by John Rae met an Inuit near Kugaaruk and he told Rae a story of a group of 35-40 white men who had walked in the arctic wilderness in famine near the mouth of River Back. A fellow Inuit confirmed this story adding a conjucture of cannibalism among the dying sailors. More evidence was shown to Rae and his party in the form of many objects indentifed before belongings of Franklin and his crew. Rae reported of his findings back to the Admirality of Roal Navy and urged for sending new search parties to the River Back.
![John-Rae-e1402507939697[1].jpg](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/322342/John-Rae-e1402507939697[1].jpg "John-Rae-e1402507939697[1].jpg")
John Rae's search party was the first to encounter eyewitnesses of the Franklin Expedition
In 1855 James Anderson and James Stewart travelled north by a canoe the River Back. They also encountered Inuits, who told the same story like Rae had heard before. Later this two-man group found a piece of evidence, carved wood, with "Erebus" inscribed. This was on Montreal Island, where the River Back meets the sea. Despite of all these evidence, sightings, etc. the Admirality did not plan any further rescue missions of its own. On the contrary, the Franklin Expedition officially labelled deceased on service.
In 1859, now nearly 15 years after the Expedition set sail, sledge parties in the King William Island found the next relics. Lieutenant of the Royal Navy, William Hobson found a stone cairn with documents in. Documents contained messages from the Franklin's crew members and the first, dated 28th of May 1847 said, that Erebus and Terror had wintered in the ice on the coast of King William Island and had wintered earlier in the coast of Beechey Island. In the end it said, "Franklin commanding the expedition, all well". The second message was dated on 25th of April 1848 and was written in the margins of the last message. This note was much more ominous, it said that "Erebus and Terror has been trapped in the ice over a year and a half and the crew has abandoned the ships on 22nd of April. Twenty four of crew members and officers had died, including John Franklin". Just two weeks after the first message. Hobson found more, a lifeboat and skeletons in it. The lifeboat contained much of equipment of the crew members, they had pulled it while trying to survive in the inland and on ice.
Trapped by ice
![BHC1273[1].jpg](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/322362/BHC1273[1].jpg "BHC1273[1].jpg")
Image of exhausted, famished crew members of Franklin's Expedition
Charles Francis Hall launched one of the last of the contemporary searches for the Expedition between years 1860-1869. In his earlier travels Hall had lived among many natives, also with the Inuits and he belived, that there still was survivors of the Franklin Expedition, who lived among the Inuits. Hall founded remnants of many campsites and graves on the southern coast of King William Island, but survivors among the Inuits - none. Hall believed firmly, that the official records of the Franklin's Expedition were yet to be found under a stone cairn. For this search he gathered hundreds of pages of Inuit testimony and tradition, among these materials were the accounts of the Inuit visits on the Franklin's ships trapped by the ice.
![stone_cairn[1].jpg](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/322372/stone_cairn[1].jpg "stone_cairn[1].jpg")
A stone cairn stands over the open water of the Northwest Passage. Franklin never saw this view.
![Franklinexpeditionnote[1].jpg](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/322374/Franklinexpeditionnote[1].jpg "Franklinexpeditionnote[1].jpg")
This is a copy of the message found by Hobson inside a stone crain written by men of Franklin's Expedition
Charles Francis Hall couldn't join the search party for the official Expedition records. In the hope of finding these lost paper the U.S. Army organized an expedition between the years 1878-1880 and this expedition was founded because of the discoveries Hall made. First travelling to Hudson Bay a team including an Inuit, who had assisted Hall on earlier expeditions continued by foot and a dog sledge. The team interviewed native people and visited known, or likely camp sites of Franklin's Expedition remains and wintered in King William Island. Neither could this U.S. Army expedition find signs of the lost records, but it was the longest sledge voyage ever made both in regard to time and distance, 11months 4days and 4 360km.
![2-charles-francis-hall-granger[1].jpg](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/322385/2-charles-francis-hall-granger[1].jpg "2-charles-francis-hall-granger[1].jpg")
Charles Francis Hall among the native Inuits
![King_William_Island.svg[1].png](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/322388/King_William_Island.svg[1].png "King_William_Island.svg[1].png")
The location of King William Island(dark green)
The modern day expeditions and scientific methods
King William Island excavations in the known sites of the Franklin's Expedition took place in the early 1980s. In hopes to find artifacts and skeletal remains in order to use modern forensics to establish identities and causes of death among the crew, this anthropological expediton was organized.
The amount of the found artifacts was disappointing, but the findings in skeletal remains proved more succesful. This anthropoligical team found signs and marks of Vitamin C deficiency, more familiar, scurvy. Also, the skeletal patterns suggested cannibalism, like the Inuits had told to the earlier search parties in 1840s and in 1850s.
Beechey Island excavations took place in 1984-1986. It was organized for further studying the causes of death and particularly because the findings in King William Island also suggested for very high lead levels in crewmen's bones. The scientific team visited a place about 1km north from the graves of Beechey Islands to examine hundreds of tin can fragments discarded by Franklin's men. The team noted, that the seams were poorly soldered with lead which was likely to come direct contact with the food. Also the locomotive engines fitted in the ships required one tonne of fresh water per hour when steaming. Later, the same water ran through the water distillation system, which given the materials in use at the time, would have produced water with a very high lead content. This is one very sad fact, the team found. The water the crew used and the food they ate, it was killing them from the very beginning of the voyage.
![expired-foods-2[1].jpg](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/322398/expired-foods-2[1].jpg "expired-foods-2[1].jpg")
Poorly canned food caused death among the sailors
![0006[1].jpg](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/322399/0006[1].jpg "0006[1].jpg")
One of the many graves on Beechey Island
The finding of the wrecks
After the miscellaneous wreck searches of the 1990s and early 2000s Victoria Strait Expedition was founded. It was launched on 1st of September in 2014. It was performerd in larger scale and better organized compared to the earlier wreck searches. This expedition found two items on Hat Island in the Queen Maud Gulf near 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 a part of boat-launching davit bearing the stamps of two Royal Navy broad arrows.
On 9th of September the expedition announced, that with sonar side-scan it had located one of the Franklin's two ships. On October it was confirmed, that the wreck is HMS Erebus.
In short words, the Arctic Research Foundation Expedition has confirmed in 2016, that it has located the wreck of HMS Terror. According this expedition, the wreck lies south of King William Island, in Terror Bay and the wreck is in pristine condition.
The wreck of HMS Erebus in image of side-scan sonar
![expedition-EN_870[1].jpg](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/322408/expedition-EN_870[1].jpg "expedition-EN_870[1].jpg")
This map gives an overview of the later stages of Franklin Expedition, shows the area where the ships were deserted and the locations of the ship wreck sites
A short final sealing
The fate of the Franklin's Expedition was cruel and sorrowful. The expedition was wasted and sacrificed
in the search of National pride and glory. This was not the only expedition sharing the same fate in the brink of modern era, but this Franklin's voyage is widely studied and researched. The crew and the officers only partly knew the risks involving this kind of voyages. The Arctic, north from Canada was unknown and the crew probably couldn't even imagine the weather conditions in land or at the sea in this area. At least they could not even think, that the canned food, which was supposed to keep them alive in the Arctic, was actually causing slow, indisious death among them all. Over 50 years after Franklin, Norwegian Roald Amundsen led the first expedition to succesfully traverse the Northwest Passage in the voyage of 1903-1906. He had a crew only of 6 men and a small fishing vessel.
What was the Franklin Expedition, why it was founded?
John Franklin himself had served in three expeditions in the Arctic, in the last one commanding two ships. Franklin was a Royal Navy officer and an experienced explorer. This new expedition, which departed England aboard two ships, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror under his command, would be the final for him at the age of 59. The objective of this expedition was to navigate through the Northwest Passage, still in unknown waters.
The search of a searoute shortcut from Europe to Asia was dated back to the time of Columbus, already at that time it was the question of the economy and the maximum profit. At the date of John Franklin, the search had continued almost 500 years without any proper results. In the early 1800s the Admirality of the Royal Navy began a push to complete the Nothwest Passage over Canada. Several expeditions were founded, but the search didn't produce a success and the shortcut remained as unknown. Among all other expeditions, in 1845 it was time for John Franklin and his expedition.
Sir John Franklin (1786-1847)
HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, beating in the arctic waters during Franklin's Expedition
The expedition and the loss
The expedition set sail from Greenhithe, England on May 1845, it had crew of 24 officers and 110 of men. The expedition sailed first to Orkney Islands, where it made a short stop and from there with two other escort ships, the expedition continued to Greenland. In the west coast of Greenland, at Disco Bay, the expedition had it last supplies in proven. Also, the Disco Bay was the place, where the crew wrote the last letters to home. The last European sighting of the expedition was in July 1845 at Baffin Bay by whalers. By then, the Franklin Expedition was waiting for good weather conditions for crossing the Lancaster Sound.
From now on, the fate of the Franklin Expedition remained as a mystery and over the next 150 years other expeditions, search parties and scientist would solve piece by piece, what happened to the expedition.
The early searches
Concern about the fate of the expedition increased in England after two years without a single word from Franklin. The Admirality was pushed for rescue operations and under pressure first operations for the rescue were launched, one by land and two by the sea. The other sea search party followed the expected route of Franklin's Expedition and the other was sent from the Pacific side. But this three-pronged effort however failed and the concern was about to rise as a National one and soon it was nothing but a "finding Franklin" -crusade.
In the 1850s, over 5 years after the last sighting and the letters, many volunteered for this "search crusade". Tens of British and American ships sailed the Canadian Arctic with hopes for even a single sign or a mark of the Franklin Expedition. This time the search parties had a little of luck, first relics of the lost expedition was found from Beechey Island coast. The found relics were remnants of winter camp and three graves of the crew members. But no letters, or written word were found. Still, these relics was a proof, that the expedition had survived at least one winter in the arctic and the rest of the crew had carried on with the ships.
The assumed route of the expedition in the Arctic Canada. The early search parties relied on this.
The faith of rescuing the Franklin Expedition falters. A painting inspired by images.
The trail was now becoming cold again with no further sightings. It took 3 years before new evidence was found. In 1854 an overland search party led by John Rae met an Inuit near Kugaaruk and he told Rae a story of a group of 35-40 white men who had walked in the arctic wilderness in famine near the mouth of River Back. A fellow Inuit confirmed this story adding a conjucture of cannibalism among the dying sailors. More evidence was shown to Rae and his party in the form of many objects indentifed before belongings of Franklin and his crew. Rae reported of his findings back to the Admirality of Roal Navy and urged for sending new search parties to the River Back.
John Rae's search party was the first to encounter eyewitnesses of the Franklin Expedition
In 1855 James Anderson and James Stewart travelled north by a canoe the River Back. They also encountered Inuits, who told the same story like Rae had heard before. Later this two-man group found a piece of evidence, carved wood, with "Erebus" inscribed. This was on Montreal Island, where the River Back meets the sea. Despite of all these evidence, sightings, etc. the Admirality did not plan any further rescue missions of its own. On the contrary, the Franklin Expedition officially labelled deceased on service.
In 1859, now nearly 15 years after the Expedition set sail, sledge parties in the King William Island found the next relics. Lieutenant of the Royal Navy, William Hobson found a stone cairn with documents in. Documents contained messages from the Franklin's crew members and the first, dated 28th of May 1847 said, that Erebus and Terror had wintered in the ice on the coast of King William Island and had wintered earlier in the coast of Beechey Island. In the end it said, "Franklin commanding the expedition, all well". The second message was dated on 25th of April 1848 and was written in the margins of the last message. This note was much more ominous, it said that "Erebus and Terror has been trapped in the ice over a year and a half and the crew has abandoned the ships on 22nd of April. Twenty four of crew members and officers had died, including John Franklin". Just two weeks after the first message. Hobson found more, a lifeboat and skeletons in it. The lifeboat contained much of equipment of the crew members, they had pulled it while trying to survive in the inland and on ice.
Trapped by ice
Image of exhausted, famished crew members of Franklin's Expedition
Charles Francis Hall launched one of the last of the contemporary searches for the Expedition between years 1860-1869. In his earlier travels Hall had lived among many natives, also with the Inuits and he belived, that there still was survivors of the Franklin Expedition, who lived among the Inuits. Hall founded remnants of many campsites and graves on the southern coast of King William Island, but survivors among the Inuits - none. Hall believed firmly, that the official records of the Franklin's Expedition were yet to be found under a stone cairn. For this search he gathered hundreds of pages of Inuit testimony and tradition, among these materials were the accounts of the Inuit visits on the Franklin's ships trapped by the ice.
A stone cairn stands over the open water of the Northwest Passage. Franklin never saw this view.
This is a copy of the message found by Hobson inside a stone crain written by men of Franklin's Expedition
Charles Francis Hall couldn't join the search party for the official Expedition records. In the hope of finding these lost paper the U.S. Army organized an expedition between the years 1878-1880 and this expedition was founded because of the discoveries Hall made. First travelling to Hudson Bay a team including an Inuit, who had assisted Hall on earlier expeditions continued by foot and a dog sledge. The team interviewed native people and visited known, or likely camp sites of Franklin's Expedition remains and wintered in King William Island. Neither could this U.S. Army expedition find signs of the lost records, but it was the longest sledge voyage ever made both in regard to time and distance, 11months 4days and 4 360km.
Charles Francis Hall among the native Inuits
The modern day expeditions and scientific methods
King William Island excavations in the known sites of the Franklin's Expedition took place in the early 1980s. In hopes to find artifacts and skeletal remains in order to use modern forensics to establish identities and causes of death among the crew, this anthropological expediton was organized.
The amount of the found artifacts was disappointing, but the findings in skeletal remains proved more succesful. This anthropoligical team found signs and marks of Vitamin C deficiency, more familiar, scurvy. Also, the skeletal patterns suggested cannibalism, like the Inuits had told to the earlier search parties in 1840s and in 1850s.
Beechey Island excavations took place in 1984-1986. It was organized for further studying the causes of death and particularly because the findings in King William Island also suggested for very high lead levels in crewmen's bones. The scientific team visited a place about 1km north from the graves of Beechey Islands to examine hundreds of tin can fragments discarded by Franklin's men. The team noted, that the seams were poorly soldered with lead which was likely to come direct contact with the food. Also the locomotive engines fitted in the ships required one tonne of fresh water per hour when steaming. Later, the same water ran through the water distillation system, which given the materials in use at the time, would have produced water with a very high lead content. This is one very sad fact, the team found. The water the crew used and the food they ate, it was killing them from the very beginning of the voyage.
Poorly canned food caused death among the sailors
One of the many graves on Beechey Island
The finding of the wrecks
After the miscellaneous wreck searches of the 1990s and early 2000s Victoria Strait Expedition was founded. It was launched on 1st of September in 2014. It was performerd in larger scale and better organized compared to the earlier wreck searches. This expedition found two items on Hat Island in the Queen Maud Gulf near 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 a part of boat-launching davit bearing the stamps of two Royal Navy broad arrows.
On 9th of September the expedition announced, that with sonar side-scan it had located one of the Franklin's two ships. On October it was confirmed, that the wreck is HMS Erebus.
In short words, the Arctic Research Foundation Expedition has confirmed in 2016, that it has located the wreck of HMS Terror. According this expedition, the wreck lies south of King William Island, in Terror Bay and the wreck is in pristine condition.
The wreck of HMS Erebus in image of side-scan sonar
This map gives an overview of the later stages of Franklin Expedition, shows the area where the ships were deserted and the locations of the ship wreck sites
A short final sealing
The fate of the Franklin's Expedition was cruel and sorrowful. The expedition was wasted and sacrificed
in the search of National pride and glory. This was not the only expedition sharing the same fate in the brink of modern era, but this Franklin's voyage is widely studied and researched. The crew and the officers only partly knew the risks involving this kind of voyages. The Arctic, north from Canada was unknown and the crew probably couldn't even imagine the weather conditions in land or at the sea in this area. At least they could not even think, that the canned food, which was supposed to keep them alive in the Arctic, was actually causing slow, indisious death among them all. Over 50 years after Franklin, Norwegian Roald Amundsen led the first expedition to succesfully traverse the Northwest Passage in the voyage of 1903-1906. He had a crew only of 6 men and a small fishing vessel.
