In the summer of 2014 a major search was mounted in the Canadian Arctic for H.M.S. Erebus and Terror, the ships of Sir John Franklin's expedition, the aim of which was to make a transit of the northwest passage. Beset in the ice to the northwest of King William Island in the summer of 1846, they were abandoned there by the 105 surviving members of their crews in the summer of 1848. The officers and men hoped to walk south to the mouth of the Back River, presumably to ascend that river in the hope of reaching the nearest Hudson's Bay Company's post at Fort Resolution on Great Slave Lake. None of them survived. The 2014 expedition, the Victoria Strait Expedition, mounted by a consortium which included Parks Canada, the Canadian Coast Guard, the Canadian Navy, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, the Arctic Research Foundation, and One Ocean Adventure, had four ships at its disposal including the Canadian Coast Guard's icebreaker Sir Wilfrid Laurier (Captain Bill Noon) and the Navy's HMCS Kingston.
The Victoria Strait Expedition encountered very heavy ice in its proposed search area to the northwest of King William Island and hence shifted its focus further south to the southeast corner of Queen Maud Gulf. On 1 September Scott Youngblood, a scientist with the Canadian Hydrographic Service took off by helicopter from the Sir Wilfrid Laurier and landed on a small island, identified as Hat Island, to the northwest of O’Reilly Island and south of the Royal Geographical Society Islands. His aim was to establish a beacon and to determine its position by GPS in order to tie-in sounding traverses. In addition to the search for the Franklin ships the expedition also aimed at improving the hydrographic charts of the area. Since there were vacant seats on the helicopter, Doug Stenton, Director of Nunavut Heritage and Culture and Richard Park, a professor of Archaeology at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, joined Youngblood on the flight. On the island they and the helicopter pilot discovered a fork-shaped metal object, about 43 cm long, identified as part of a ship's davit, and a wooden hawse plug, both items bearing the Royal Navy's broad arrow symbol.
In view of this find the diving boat Investigator was lowered from the icebreaker to search the waters off the island. Investigator started towing a side-scan sonar tow-fish on a grid pattern off the island and almost immediately it revealed a remarkable image of a large wooden ship, lying upright on the sea-bed in a depth of 11 m of water. The ship appeared to be largely intact although her masts were missing. Next an ROV (remotely operated underwater vehicle) was lowered and over a period of about 40 minutes sent back remarkably clear images of the ship, including deck planking and cannon. Since Erebus and Terror were almost identical, it is impossible to say at this point which of them it is. This discovery was the result of two fortunate coincidences: the ice conditions further north which forced the expedition to focus its attention further south; and the accident of the archaeologists finding the two artefacts on the island, which helped to narrow the underwater search.
The two artefacts found on the island were sent south to Ottawa and were displayed to media at an event at which Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the discovery of the ship on 9 September. On 11 September archaeologists Marc-André Bernier and Ryan Harris of Parks Canada's underwater archaeology team, flew back north with full gear, to dive on the wreck before freeze-up.
Accounts of Inuit encounters with this and other exploration vessels have survived in the Inuit oral tradition down to the present. The first such account was recorded by McClintock (Reference McClintock1859: 227); from Inuit near Cape Victoria, much farther north, he heard that one of Franklin's ships had been driven ashore by the ice in the marine area known as Ootgoolik, between Reilly Island and the Royal Geographical Society Islands. In the 1860's Charles Francis Hall heard from an Inuk whose name he rendered as Nuk-kee-che-uk, about a ship he had seen in the same area (Woodman Reference Woodman1991: 248–252). It was beset in first-year ice, and had four boats hanging in davits along its sides and one at the stern. A gangplank led from the deck down to the ice and the deck was housed over with canvas. The Inuit felt that a party of men had wintered on board the ship, and later tracks, undoubtedly not those of Inuit, were found on shore. Nuk-kee-che-uk and other Inuit went aboard, and made their way below. There they found the corpse of a large man, fully clothed, which smelled badly. They ransacked the ship for items they could use over a fairly lengthy period. Returning after some time, they found that the ship had sunk, although the masts still projected above the water. Subsequently large amounts of lumber and wreckage drifted ashore. Given the depth of water over the newly discovered wreck (11m) this would help confirm the accuracy of the Inuit account. Much the same story was recounted by Inuit to Lt. Frederick Schwatka during his expedition of 1878–1880 (Gilder Reference Gilder1881: 79; Klutschak Reference Klutschak and Barr1987: 131). The only possible explanation of one of Franklin's ships being in this location (since they were abandoned by both crews in the summer of 1848, is that some members had returned to the ships, and had managed to sail one of them south.
Information as to how this vessel may have reached its final position has emerged quite recently. At some time between 1994 and 2008, at a meeting in Cambridge Bay, Victoria Island, Dorothy Eber recorded an interview with an Inuit elder, Frank Analok (Eber Reference Eber2008: 85–86). He reported a story handed down over the decades, namely that a ship had wintered off the south coast of Imnguyaaluk, the most northerly large island of the Royal Geographical Society group. Some of her crew also appeared to have camped on shore. In the following summer the ship departed, and may possibly be the vessel that ended up off Hat Island.
