BY
HEATHER PRINGLEUNCOVERING
AN ARCTIC
MYSTERY
H.M.S. Terror, one of two ships
from the doomed Franklin expedi-
tion, was discovered in 2016 off
King William Island in the Canadian
Arctic. The small expedition boat
seen here sank along with the Terror
and rests on the seafloor a short
distance from the ship.
THIERRY BOYER, PARKS CANADA
IN 1845
SIR JOHN FRANKLIN
AND CREW SET
OUT TO CHART THE
NORTHWEST
PAS SAGE.
THEN THEY
VANISHED.
FOR CENTURIES the Northwest Passage seemed
little more than a mirage. John Cabot urged his
ships into the unknown in 1497 and 1498 to find
it, but failed. Martin Frobisher, Henry Hudson,
and James Cook searched icy northern waters
for it, in vain. In May 1845 a celebrated British
explorer and naval officer, Sir John Franklin,
took up the quest to find a route between the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through Arctic
waters. With orders from the British Admiralty,
Franklin and a crew of 133 sailed out from the
Thames in two massive naval vessels, H.M.S.
Erebus and H.M.S. Terror, each specially
equipped for polar service. It was the beginning
of the grimmest disaster in Arctic exploration.
On paper, the expedition seemed to lack for100