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Franklin's fate: discoveries and prospects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2017

N. James
N. James*
Affiliation:
Division of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3ER, UK (Email: nj218@cam.ac.uk)
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Extract

2014, at last, revealed the wreck of HMS Erebus off Canada's Arctic mainland. Two years later, her companion, HMS Terror, was found 40 miles away, off King William Island. The government was already confident enough about their whereabouts in 1992 to declare the entire area a National Historic Site and, among other responses to the retreating ice and increasing shipping, Parks Canada began searching for the wrecks in 2008. Previous investigators had concentrated on tracing and recording the crews: among others, Owen Beattie in the 1980s (Notman et al. 1987), F.L. McClintock in 1857–1859, and four naval expeditions before that. HMS Investigator was lost in the 1853 search, and her wreck discovered off Banks Island in 2011. Ranging very widely, all of the investigators, and many others, were trying to find out what befell Sir John Franklin's attempt to complete the Northwest Passage between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific in 1845–1848. Erebus and Terror were his ships.

Type
Debate
Information
Antiquity , Volume 91 , Issue 360 , December 2017 , pp. 1647 - 1651
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2017 

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References

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