Franklin's lost expedition facts for kids

Map of the probable routes taken by HMS Erebus and HMS Terror during Franklin's lost expedition. Disko Bay is about 3,200 kilometres (2,000 mi) from the mouth of the Mackenzie River.

Franklin's lost expedition was a failed British voyage of Arctic exploration led by Captain Sir John Franklin that departed England in 1845 aboard two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, and was assigned to traverse the last unnavigated sections of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic and to record magnetic data to help determine whether a better understanding could aid navigation. The expedition met with disaster after both ships and their crews, a total of 129 officers and men, became icebound in Victoria Strait near King William Island in what is today the Canadian territory of Nunavut. After being icebound for more than a year Erebus and Terror were abandoned in April 1848, by which point Franklin and nearly two dozen others had died. The survivors, now led by Franklin's second-in-command, Francis Crozier, and Erebus's captain, James Fitzjames, set out for the Canadian mainland and disappeared, presumably having perished.

Sir John Franklin

Portrait of Jane Griffin (later Lady Franklin), 24, in 1815. She married John Franklin in 1828, a year before he was knighted.

Pressed by Franklin's wife, Jane, and others, the Admiralty launched a search for the missing expedition in 1848. In the many subsequent searches in the decades afterwards, several artifacts from the expedition were discovered, including the remains of two men, which were returned to Britain. A series of scientific studies in modern times suggested that the men of the expedition did not all die quickly. Hypothermia, starvation, lead poisoning or zinc deficiency, and diseases including scurvy, along with general exposure to a hostile environment while lacking adequate clothing and nutrition, killed everyone on the expedition in the years after it was last sighted by Europeans in 1845.

Despite the expedition's notorious failure, it did succeed in exploring the vicinity of what was one of the many Northwest Passages to eventually be discovered. Robert McClure led one of the expeditions that investigated the fate of Franklin's expedition, a voyage which was also beset by great challenges and later controversies. McClure's expedition returned after finding an ice-bound route that connected the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. The Northwest Passage was not navigated by boat until 1906, when Roald Amundsen traversed the passage on the Gjøa.

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

In 2014 a Canadian search team led by Parks Canada located the wreck of Erebus in the eastern portion of Queen Maud Gulf. Two years later, the Arctic Research Foundation found the wreck of Terror south of King William Island, in the body of water named Terror Bay. Research and dive expeditions are an annual occurrence at the wreck sites, now protected as a combined National Historic Site.

Ships, provisions and personnel

Erebus officers:Top row left to right:Lt. Edward Couch (mate); James Walter Fairholme; Charles Hamilton Osmer (Purser); Charles Frederick Des Voeux [2nd Mate]. 2nd row from top Left to right: Francis Crozier (HMS Terror); Sir John Franklin; James FitzJames. 3rd row from top left to right: Graham Gore (Commander); Stephen Samuel Stanley (Surgeon); 2nd Lt. Henry Thomas Dundas Le Vesconte. Bottom row left to right: Robert Orme Sergeant [1st mate]; James Reid [MAster]; Harry Duncan Goodsir (Assistant Surgeon); Henry Foster Collins (2nd Master), sketches from daguerreotypes by Richard Beard – The Illustrated London News (1845)

The expedition was to consist of two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, both of which had been used for James Clark Ross's expedition to the Antarctic in 1841–1844, during which Crozier had commanded Terror. Franklin was given command of Erebus; Crozier was appointed his executive officer and was again made commander of Terror. Fitzjames was appointed second-in-command of Erebus. Franklin received command of the expedition on 7 February 1845, and his official instructions on 5 May 1845.

Erebus (378 tons bm) and Terror (331 tons bm) were sturdily built and well equipped, including several recent inventions. Steam engines were fitted, driving a single screw propeller in each vessel; these engines were converted former locomotives from the London & Croydon Railway. The ships could make 7.4 km/h (4 kn) on steam power, or travel under wind power to reach higher speeds and/or save fuel.

Other advanced technology in the ships included reinforced bows constructed of heavy beams and iron plates, an internal steam heating system for the comfort of the crew in polar conditions, and a system of iron wells that allowed the screw propellers and iron rudders to be withdrawn into the hull to protect them from damage. The ships also carried libraries of more than 1,000 books and three years' supply of food, which included tinned soup and vegetables, salt-cured meat, pemmican and several live cattle. The tinned food was supplied from a provisioner, Stephen Goldner, who was awarded the contract on 1 April 1845, a mere seven weeks before Franklin set sail. Goldner worked frantically on the large order of 8,000 tins. The haste required affected quality control of some of the tins, which were later found to have lead soldering that was "thick and sloppily done, and dripped like melted candle wax down the inside surface".

Most of the crew were English, many from Northern England, with smaller numbers of Irish, Welsh and Scottish members.

Outward journey and loss

Relics of the Franklin expedition found in 1857 by McClintock

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

The expedition set sail from Greenhithe, Kent, on the morning of 19 May 1845, with a crew of 24 officers and 110 men. The ships stopped briefly in Stromness, Orkney Islands, in northern Scotland. From there they sailed to Greenland with HMS Rattler and a transport ship, Barretto Junior; the passage to Greenland took 30 days.

At the Whalefish Islands in Disko Bay, on the west coast of Greenland, 10 oxen carried on Barretto Junior were slaughtered for fresh meat which was transferred to Erebus and Terror. Crew members then wrote their last letters home. Five men were discharged due to sickness and sent home on Rattler and Barretto Junior, reducing the final crew to 129 men. In late July 1845 the whalers Prince of Wales (Captain Dannett) and Enterprise (Captain Robert Martin) encountered Terror and Erebus in Baffin Bay, where they were waiting for good conditions to cross to Lancaster Sound. The expedition was never heard of again by Europeans.

Only limited information is available for subsequent events, pieced together over the next 150 years by other expeditions, explorers, scientists and interviews with Inuit. The only first-hand information on expedition's progress is the two-part Victory Point Note found in the aftermath on King William Island. Franklin's men spent the winter of 1845–46 on Beechey Island, where three crew members died and were buried. After travelling down Peel Sound through the summer of 1846, Terror and Erebus became trapped in ice off King William Island in September 1846 and are thought never to have sailed again. According to the second part of the Victory Point Note dated 25 April 1848 and signed by Fitzjames and Crozier, the crew had wintered off King William Island in 1846–47 and 1847–48 and Franklin had died on 11 June 1847. The remaining crew had abandoned the ships and planned to walk over the island and across the sea ice towards the Back River on the Canadian mainland, beginning on 26 April 1848. In addition to Franklin, eight further officers and 15 men had also died by this point. The Victory Point Note is the last known communication of the expedition.

From archeological finds it is believed that all of the remaining crew died on the subsequent 400 km long march to Back River, most on the island. Thirty or 40 men reached the northern coast of the mainland before dying, still hundreds of miles from the nearest outpost of Western civilization.

Legacy

Historical

The most meaningful outcome of the Franklin expedition was the mapping of several thousand miles of hitherto unsurveyed coastline by expeditions searching for Franklin's lost ships and crew. As Richard Cyriax noted, "the loss of the expedition probably added much more [geographical] knowledge than its successful return would have done".

The Northwest Passage discovered

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 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.

Franklin’s expedition explored the vicinity of what was ultimately one of many Northwest Passages to be discovered. While the more famous search expeditions were underway in 1850, Robert McClure set out on the little-known McClure Arctic expedition on HMS Investigator to also investigate the fate of Franklin’s voyage. While he did not find much evidence of Franklin’s fate, he did finally ascertain an ice-bound route that connected the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. This was the Prince of Wales Strait, which was far to the north of Franklin’s ships.

McClure was knighted for his discovery. In 1855, a British parliamentary committee concluded that Robert McClure "deserved to be rewarded as the discoverer of a Northwest Passage". Today, the question of "who discovered the Northwest Passage?" is a subject of controversy, as all the different Passages have varying degrees of navigability.

Simpson Strait

Members of the Franklin expedition crossed the southern shore of King William Island and made it onto the Canadian mainland; this is evident by the fact that human remains from the expedition have been found inland on the Adelaide Peninsula. This may have involved walking across the Simpson Strait which is now known as a way through from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It is possible that the Franklin expedition did discover that this is a Passage. As none of the members of the party made it out alive, it is not known whether any member of the party had realized this. George Back had discovered the strait in 1834 but did not realize it was a Northwest Passage. In any case, by 1854, it was widely believed that the remnants of the party had crossed the strait, and Lady Franklin was informed of such on 12 January by the Admiralty.

The Northwest Passage would not be fully navigated by boat until 1906, when Roald Amundsen famously traversed the passage on the Gjøa, via the Simpson Strait.

Significance in Canada

The influence of the Franklin expedition on Canadian literature and culture has been especially significant. Among the best-known modern Franklin ballads is "Northwest Passage" by the late Ontario folksinger Stan Rogers (1981), which has been referred to as the unofficial Canadian national anthem. The distinguished Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood has also spoken of Franklin's expedition as a sort of national myth of Canada, remarking that "In every culture many stories are told, (but) only some are told and retold, and these stories bear examining ... in Canadian literature, one such story is the Franklin expedition." Notable treatments by Canadian poets include a verse play for radio, Terror and Erebus which was commissioned from Gwendolyn MacEwen, broadcast by CBC Radio (10 January 1965) and subsequently published in her collection Afterworlds (1987); and David Solway's verse cycle, Franklin's Passage (2003). The events have also featured prominently in Canadian novels, including Mordecai Richler's Solomon Gursky Was Here (1989) and Dominique Fortier's 2008 French language novel, Du bon usage des étoiles, which creatively considers the Franklin expedition from a variety of perspectives and genres and was both shortlisted and a finalist for several literary awards in Canada (2009 Governor General's Awards). Sheila Fischman's translation of Fortier's novel, On the Proper Use of Stars, was shortlisted for the 2010 Governor General's Awards for French to English Translation. Irish-Canadian writer Ed O'Loughlin's novel Minds of Winter was shortlisted for the 2017 Giller Prize.

Timeline

Images for kids

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

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

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  The "Victory Point" note

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  Lieutenant Graham Gore, who alongside Charles Frederick Des Voeux signed and deposited the Victory Point Note in May 1847.

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  Searches in 1850–1851

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  Poster offering a reward for help in finding the expedition

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  William Hobson and his men finding the cairn with the "Victory Point" note, Back Bay, King William Island, May 1859

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  Side-scan sonar images of the first ship found from the Franklin Expedition, HMS Erebus

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  Statue of John Franklin in his home town of Spilsby, Lincolnshire, England.

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  Statue of Francis Crozier in his home town of Banbridge, County Down.

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  Illustration by Édouard Riou for the title page of Jules Verne's Voyages et aventures du capitaine Hatteras (Journeys and Adventures of Captain Hatteras)

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  Man Proposes, God Disposes by Edwin Landseer, 1864

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  The four graves at Franklin Camp near the harbour on Beechey Island, Nunavut, Canada.

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  (L–R) Three grave stones commemorate John Torrington, William Braine and John Hartnell of the Franklin Expedition. A fourth headstone marks the grave of a sailor named Thomas Morgan who came later in a Franklin search expedition and died at the camp.

See also

In Spanish: Expedición perdida de Franklin para niños