Franklin’s Lost Expedition (1845–1848)

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 Christopher Columbus in the 15th century. By the mid-19th century numerous exploratory expeditions had been mounted. These voyages, when successful, added to the sum of European geographic knowledge about the Western Hemisphere, particularly North America. As that knowledge grew, exploration gradually shifted towards the Arctic.

Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century voyagers who made geographic discoveries about North America included Martin Frobisher, John Davis, Henry Hudson and William Baffin. In 1670 the incorporation of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) 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, James Cook, Alexander MacKenzie and George Vancouver. By 1800 their discoveries had conclusively demonstrated that no Northwest Passage between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans existed in the temperate latitudes.

In 1804 Sir John Barrow became Second Secretary of the Admiralty, a post he held until 1845.

Preparations

In 1845, leading Admiralty figure Sir John Barrow was 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 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. His third choice, James Fitzjames, was rejected by the Admiralty for his youth.

Erebus (378 tons bm) and Terror (331 tons bm) were sturdily built and well equipped, including with several recent inventions. Steam engines were fitted, driving a single screw propeller in each vessel; these engines were converted former locomotives from the London & Croydon Railway. The ships could make 7.4 km/h (4.0 kn) on steam power, or travel under wind power to reach higher speeds and/or save fuel.

Outward journey and loss

The expedition set sail from Greenhithe, Kent, on the morning of 19 May 1845, with a crew of 24 officers and 110 men. The ships stopped briefly to take aboard fresh water in Stromness, Orkney Islands, in northern Scotland. From there they sailed to Greenland with HMS Rattler 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, ten 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 whalers 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. The expedition was never seen 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.

19th century expeditions

After two years had passed with no word from Franklin, public concern grew and Jane, Lady Franklin, as well as members of Parliament 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.

In 1854, Rae, while surveying the Boothia Peninsula for the Hudson Bay Company, discovered further evidence of the expedition's fate. Rae met an Inuk near Pelly Bay (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 showed Rae many objects that were identified as having belonged to members of the Franklin expedition.

Modern expeditions

After returning to Edmonton in 1982 and learning of the lead level findings from the 1981 expedition, Beattie struggled to find a cause.

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.

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 Inuk hunter Sŭ-pung-er.

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.

On 12 September 2016, it was announced that the Arctic Research Foundation expedition had found the wreck of HMS Terror to the south of King William Island in Terror Bay, at 68°54′13″N 98°56′18″W at a depth of 24 m (79 ft), and in "pristine" condition.

Scientific conclusions

The FEFAP field surveys, excavations and exhumations spanned more than ten years. The results of this study showed that the Beechey Island crew had most probably died of pneumonia and perhaps tuberculosis, which was suggested by the evidence of Pott disease 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.

In 2017, Douglas Stenton, an adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of Waterloo and former director of Nunavut's Department of Heritage and Culture, suggested that four sets of 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.

Legacy

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 [geographical] knowledge than its successful return would have done". At the same time, it largely quelled the Admiralty's appetite for Arctic exploration.

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 set out on the little-known McClure Arctic expedition on HMS Investigator 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, which was far to the north of Franklin's ships.

October 31st, the Captain returned at 8.30. A.M., and at 11.30.

Cultural depictions

For years after the loss of the Franklin expedition, the Victorian media portrayed Franklin as a hero who led his men in the quest for the Northwest Passage.

From the 1850s through to the present day, Franklin's lost expedition has inspired numerous literary works. Among the first was a play, The Frozen Deep, written by Wilkie Collins with assistance and production by Charles Dickens.

In the visual arts, the loss of Franklin's expedition inspired a number of paintings in both the United States and Britain.

Franklin's last expedition has also inspired a great deal of music, beginning with the ballad "Lady Franklin's Lament" (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.

In 2018, AMC released the first season of the TV drama The Terror, with executive producer David Kajganich and producers including Soo Hugh and Ridley Scott.

The influence of the Franklin expedition on Canadian literature and culture has been especially significant. Stan Rogers' song "Northwest Passage" has been referred to as the unofficial Canadian national anthem.