Corpses and belongings spread across the Arctic
Franklin and his 129 men all died in search of the Northwest Passage, leaving much gloomy evidence.
Later, the natives had come across about 30 dead sailors, who were frozen stiff in tents and under a dinghy they had turned upside down in a desperate effort to keep out the cold. Rae bought several objects from the Inuit, such as astronomical instruments and one of Franklin’s medals. John Rae’s horrific discoveries made Franklin’s wife sponsor yet another search for her husband. When the search expedition reached King William Island in 1859, they found the bones of crew members from the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus. The most spectacular was the discovery of a document signed by Francis Crozier, the captain of the HMS Erebus. The document was dated 25 April 1848 and described how both ships had been abandoned after being stuck in the ice since September 1846, and that the 105 survivors planned to go south. A note in the margin of the document was particularly interesting. It said: “Franklin died on 11 June 1847.”
INUK TIPS OFF SCIENTISTS
The discovery of the HMS Erebus in 2014 made Parks Canada intensify the search for the HMS Terror, and two years later, on 3 September 2016, it was found. Off King William Island in Northern Canada, the Martin Bergmann research vessel’s sidescan sonar suddenly captured something. Adrian Schimnowski, who headed the expedition, did not believe his own eyes, as the ship’s underwater cameras revealed what the icy water was hiding. Right beneath Schimnowski and his crew, the wreck of the HMS Terror was lying in all its fabled glory. 170 years of search had come to a successful end. In spite of all the research vessel’s modern technology, it was something as low-tech as a reliable tip-off from an Inuk that led the scientists to Franklin’s ship. Six years earlier, in 2010, a local hunter, Sammy Kogvik, had “seen something odd protrude from the ice” on his way back to his home in Gjoa Haven. When Martin Bermann came
by Gjoa Haven in 2016, Kogvik told the crew about his discovery. The Canadian scientists decided to alter their route to check out the information, and consequently, one of the major marine mysteries ever was unravelled. But it was by no means the first time that the natives of the Arctic shed new light on Sir John Franklin’s disastrous fate.
OF COURSE CANNIBALISM
Franklin’s body has never been found, and so it is still unknown what killed him, but there is no doubt that the captain and his crew suffered terrible deaths.
Studies of the skeletons from King William Island show that the crew died of lead poisoning, scurvy, and simple starvation. Rumours that the shipwrecked had been forced to become cannibals to survive have circulated since John Rae interviewed the Inuit of Pelly Bay more than 160 years ago. Back then, the natives said that they had come across heaps of human bones that had been broken in two.
During the 1980s and 1990s, different archaeologists excavated the remains of the corpses from the ice of King William Island. The bones had clear knife marks, confirming the Inuit reports. And in 2015, anthropologists Simon Mays and Owen Beattie published a sensational report which proved that Franklin and his men had sunk their teeth into their dead friends. The analyses showed that the bones had been broken in several places and subjected to a lot of heat. Beattie and Mays consequently concluded that the crew members boiled the bones of dead sailors to extract nutritious bone marrow.
TERROR STUDIES COULD TAKE YEARS
Whether Franklin and his crew became cannibals is not confirmed by the discovery of the HMS Terror. On the other hand, the wreck provides a unique impression of life aboard the fabled ship. When the HMS Terror was discovered on 3 September 2016, exactly 170 years after getting stuck in the ice, at a depth of 24 m near King William Island, the wooden ship was surprisingly well-preserved.
For several weeks, an underwater robot equipped with HD cameras studied everything from the messroom to individual cabins, including the captain’s aft cabin, in which three of four tall windows remained completely intact. In the storeroom, there were still plates on the shelves, and the ancient wreck also included two bottles of wine, tables with open drawers, and shelves. The deck still included the ship's bell, and by the bow, the ship’s 6-m-long wooden bowsprit pointed ahead.
With the discovery of the HMS Terror, you may think that the last chapter has been written about Franklin’s fatal polar expedition, which has fascinated many archaeologists, historians, and adventurers for 170 years. But Adrian Schimnowski is not so sure:
“The story has just begun. There is so much that remains to be examined in and around the shipwreck. It might take several years before we can conclude what exactly happened to Franklin and his crew.”