KidzSearch Wiki

Franklin's lost expedition

(Redirected from Franklin Expedition)
A map showing where HMS Erebus and HMS Terror probably sailed during Franklin's lost expedition.
The Arctic Council planning a search for Sir John Franklin by Stephen Pearce, 1851. Left to right are: Sir George Back; Sir William Edward Parry; Edward Joseph Bird; Sir James Clark Ross; Sir Francis Beaufort (seated); Sir John Barrow, Jnr.; Sir Edward Sabine; William A. Baillie-Hamilton; Sir John Richardson; and Frederick William Beechey. The paintings above them (from left to right) are Sir John Franklin, James Fitzjames, and Sir John Barrow.[1]

Franklin's Lost Expedition was a trip to find the Northwest Passage, lead by Captain Sir John Franklin, that left England in 1845 on two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. They were looking for a way to get from Europe to Asia by going through the last part of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic that nobody had yet been able to travel through. They were also looking at scientific data about earth's magnetic field.[2] During the trip, the two ships were frozen in the Victoria Strait near King William Island, in what is now the Canadian territory of Nunavut. The ships were stuck in the ice for over a year before they were abandoned in April of 1848. By that time twenty four men, including Sir John Franklin, had died. After they abandoned the ships, the crew were lead by Francis Crozier (the captain of HMS Terror and Franklin's second-in-command), and James Fitzjames (the captain of Erebus). They set off to walk to the Canadian mainland, but everyone in the crew got lost or died.[3] [4] [5]

When the ships did not return to England, the Admiralty started looking for the missing expedition in 1848. In the decades afterwards, other searches found a lot of things left behind by the expedition, including the bodies of two of the men. The bodies were brought back to Britain. In the modern day, scientists think that the men did not all die quickly. Hypothermia, starving, lead poisoning[6] or zinc deficiency,[7] diseases like scurvy, and other things such as not having the right sorts of clothes for where they were, killed everyone on the expedition in the years after they left England. Some of the bones brought back to England had cut marks on them, which suggested that there was cannibalism after the men had left the ships.[8] Franklin searcher John Rae first said that this may have happened in 1845.[9]

Search and Discovery

Many people have tried to look for Franklin and what has happened to his crew, but they were not found until later on. Later on bodies of the three explores John Torrington, John Hartnell, and William Braine were discovered.[10]

HMS Erebus was found in 2014 South of King William Island in Canada in Queen Maud Gulf. Two years later, HMS Terror was found in Terror Bay.

Franklin's Lost Expedition Media

References

  1. ↑ "'The Arctic Council discussing the plan of search for Sir John Franklin' | Royal Museums Greenwich". www.rmg.co.uk. Retrieved 2025-06-13.
  2. ↑ "Franklin Expedition & The Terror: What Happened On The Ill-Fated Voyage? | HistoryExtra". www.historyextra.com. Retrieved 2025-06-13.
  3. ↑ Canada, Parks Canada Agency, Government of. "The Franklin Expedition". www.pc.gc.ca. Retrieved 2018-11-23.
  4. ↑ "Franklin Search | The Canadian Encyclopedia". www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. Retrieved 2018-11-23.
  5. ↑ "Canadian researcher pinpoints burial site of officer from Franklin Expedition - Surrey Now-Leader" (in en-US). Surrey Now-Leader. 2018-10-28. https://www.surreynowleader.com/news/canadian-researcher-pinpoints-burial-site-of-officer-from-franklin-expedition/. Retrieved 2018-11-24. [dead link]
  6. ↑ Battersby, William (September 2008). "Identification of the Probable Source of the Lead Poisoning Observed in Members of the Franklin Expedition" (PDF). Journal of the Hakluyt Society. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 May 2018. Retrieved 13 June 2025.
  7. ↑ Witze, Alexandra (2016-12-08). "Fingernail absolves lead poisoning in death of Arctic explorer". Nature. doi:10.1038/nature.2016.21128. ISSN 0028-0836.
  8. ↑ Beattie, Owen; Geiger, John (1988). Frozen in time: unlocking the secrets of the Franklin expedition (1st American ed.). New York: Dutton. pp. 58–62. ISBN 978-0-525-24685-5.
  9. ↑ Leslie, Frank (1855). Frank Leslie's New York Journal. New York: Frank Leslie. pp. 40–42.
  10. ↑ "FRANKLIN EXPEDITION MUMMIES". AwesomeStories.com. Retrieved 2019-06-10.
Retrieved from "https://wiki.kidzsearch.com/w/index.php?title=Franklin%27s_lost_expedition&oldid=5826280"