Doomed Franklin expedition
The Canadian vessel, the Martin Bergmann, found the Terror in the aptly named Terror Bay, off King William Island. The ship, a British Naval vessel that served in the War of 1812, was found 10 days ago; an examination of copies of the ship’s blueprints confirmed it is the Terror.
“Terror was found on Sept 3,” Adrian Schimnowski, the expedition leader, told media. “It is a perfect time capsule.”
Sir John Franklin and 128 officers and crew left England in 1845 to find what was dubbed the Northwest Passage, a quick route from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.
Except for a brief sighting by a whaler, once leaving England both ships, the flagship HMS Erebus, found two years ago, and the Terror, and all hands, were never seen by Europeans again.
Since the disappearance the ships and information as to the fate of the crew have been highly sought and many expeditions were launched to solve the mystery. The Terror was found 31 miles from where the Erebus was found in 2014.
It is believed that after the Erebus and Terror became stuck in ice, crew members who survived the voyaging part of the journey died over time; though it is unknown by what year all were dead, Inuit legend tells of white men starving in the area in the year 1850.
HMS Terror stuck in ice
Artifacts, a note and graves have been discovered by various expeditions over time. An examination of bodies found in graves on Beechey island showed those men died from either starvation, hypothermia, lead poisoning and diseases such as scurvy and tuberculosis, or from a combination of two or more. Tests of bones found on King William Island found cut marks suggesting cannibalism.
An Inuk and Canadian Ranger onboard the Bergmann, Sammy Kogvik, provided the information that lead to the discovery. He recalled seeing a mast sticking out of the ice in the area while on a hunting trip 7 years ago.
Terror Bay, named after the ship, is further from the Erebus than it was believed the Terror would have been, but the Bergmann changed course to see if the mast Kogvik saw was from the Terror and were ecstatic to find that it was.
The Northwest Passage was not navigated through until 1906 and even then it took three years to complete the journey and much of the waterways were too shallow for commercial ships to negotiate. Only in recent years, since climate change has broken apart ice and increased the depth of waterways, have commercial ships used the passage to transport goods.
The Canadian government sponsored the Bergmann’s search for the missing ships, along with The Arctic Foundation, and did so in part to further establish Canada’s sovereignty in the area.
