lost & found

An 1845 illustration from the Illustrated London News of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror

Franklin's Lost Expedition: ". . .Originally built as “bomb vessels” that could absorb the recoil from mortar firing, their stout, wide shape made them good candidates for trafficking in ice, and they had been further modified—with triple-thick sailing canvas, double-thick decks, double-planked hulls, and oak beams fore and aft below—for polar conditions. For Franklin's trip, each had been fitted with a 20-hp steam engine and propeller, to help navigate ice in difficult wind and windless conditions—an innovation for an Arctic vessel.

In early July, in Disko Bay on the west coast of Greenland, the ships took on their last supplies from a transport ship, giving them three years' worth of provisions. Richard Cyriax, historian of the Franklin expedition, has extensively detailed the specifics of these; in his estimate, each ship carried roughly 30 tons of flour, eight tons of beef (in eight-lb. sections), 2500 gallons of concentrated soup, two tons of chocolate, two tons of lemon juice, and more than a ton of tobacco, among many other stores. With the supply ship, some letters were sent home, as well as five men deemed “unfit.” Two English whalers, the Enterprise and Prince of Wales, encountered the expedition on July 28th in Baffin Bay near Lancaster Sound: all was well. From there, the two ships and their crews (a total of 129 men) disappeared from sight.

Anxiety replaced anticipation after the winter of 1846-1847 passed without word from or about the expedition. Urged on by Franklin's indefatigable wife, Lady Jane Franklin, the Admiralty ultimately instigated a three-pronged search effort: by land, down the Mackenzie or Coppermine River to the coast; from the Pacific, via Bering Strait; and from the east, through Lancaster Sound. Lady Franklin also used her personal resources to fund additional efforts, and she persuaded the United States to enter the hunt as well. In all, from 1848 to 1859, thirty-two search expeditions sought the fate of the Franklin expedition. What was found?

Found is a relative term here, for all of the evidence was (and remains) circumstantial. What is known is that Franklin commanded the best-equipped British Navy expedition ever sent into the Arctic, and its disappearance occasioned “a series of relief and search expeditions, both public and private, English and American, which has no parallel in maritime annals, and which, while prosecuting the main object of the voyages, turned the map of the Arctic regions north of America from a blank void into a grim but distinct representation of islands, straits, and seas.”

recovered medicine chest

newspaper report for found artifacts

“The Lost Arctic Voyagers.”
Dr. Rae may be considered to have established, by the mute but solemn testimony of the relics he has brought home, that Sir John Franklin and his party are no more. But, there is one passage in his melancholy report, some examination into the probabilities and improbabilities of which, we hope will tend to the consolation of those who take the nearest and dearest interest in the fate of that unfortunate expedition, by leading to the conclusion that there is no reason whatever to believe, that any of its members prolonged their existence by the dreadful expedient of eating the bodies of their dead companions. [Charles Dickens, Household Words, no. 245, 2 December 1854]