Franklin's lost expedition

Error creating thumbnail:

A map showing where HMS Erebus and HMS Terror probably sailed during Franklin's lost expedition.

File:The Arctic Council planning a search for Sir John Franklin by Stephen Pearce.jpg

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, Jr.; 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.

Franklin's lost expedition was a trip to find the Northwest Passage that was by Captain Sir John Franklin and 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, but nobody had yet been able to travel through it. They were also looking at scientific data about the Earth's magnetic field. 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. Both ships were stuck in the ice for over a year before they were abandoned in April 1848. By then, 24 men, including Franklin, had died. After they abandoned the ships, the crew were led by Francis Crozier (the captain of HMS Terror and Franklin's second-in-command), and James Fitzjames (the captain of HMS Erebus). They set off to walk to the Canadian mainland, but everyone in the crew got lost or died.

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 many things left behind by the expedition, including the bodies of two of the men. The bodies were brought back to Britain. Today, scientists think that the men did not all die quickly.

Hypothermia, starving, lead poisoning or zinc deficiency, 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 had 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. The Franklin searcher John Rae first said that may have happened in 1845.

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. Then bodies of the three of the explorers (John Torrington, John Hartnell, and William Braine) were discovered.

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

• 

  Sir John Franklin was Barrow's reluctant choice to lead the expedition.

• FrancisCrozier.jpg

  Captain Francis Crozier, executive officer for the expedition, commanded HMS Terror.

• James Fitzjames.jpg

  Commander James Fitzjames commanded the expedition's flagship, HMS Erebus.

• Franklin Expedition 1845 - HMS Terror - Erebus.jpg

  Engraving of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror departing for the Arctic in 1845

• Franklin exp.jpg

  Relics of the Franklin expedition found in 1857 by McClintock

• Model of the HMS Erebus (1826) trapped in the ice, Nattilik Heritage Centre, Gjoa Haven, September 2019.jpg

  Model of Erebus trapped in the ice, Nattilik Heritage Centre, Gjoa Haven, Nunavut