FRANKLIN EXPEDITION FATIGUE? NOT IN CANADA — OR ANYWHERE ELSE
No signs that public's fascination with archeological finds has diminished
The following is written in response to the feature “Ontario has a long, fascinating history of shipwrecks. But it is rarely recognized” in the Sept. 26 Observer:
Even the most extraordinary archeological discoveries of the past can become clichés after a while. When Thor Heyerdahl launched the “Kon-Tiki” expedition in 1947, he probably had little idea that a cocktail would carry its name forward. And Steve Martin's King Tut dance in 1979 may have been the high-water mark of antiquarian inanity.
But these achievements can afford to take a little ribbing. Familiar as they were, King Tut and his treasures broke attendance records in 2019 when they were exhibited in Paris; more than 1.4 million tickets were sold. The 1912 sinking of RMS Titanic was hardly new news, yet James Cameron's fictional 1997 Titanic had a box office of more than $2 billion. (True, none of that vast wealth reached Robert Ballard, who'd discovered the wreck — but without his discovery, the film would never have come into existence.)
It's one of the ironies of archeology that such sudden stars are the main draw for a field that, above all, requires extraordinary patience and care. For every wondrous tomb of Tut, there've been 100 slow, careful, multi-year digs and excavations, and it's these that have, in the grander scheme of things, taught us more about the past.
Sometimes, as with Sir John Franklin's lost Arctic expedition of 1845, sudden discoveries must be followed by patient care. Those who break their way into the undiscovered past have an obligation to take time to understand and record what they have found.
And the public, excited as they were at the first discovery, understand, by and large, the task at hand. Which is why I profoundly disagree with Tom Spears's article; I see no signs that the public in Canada, or around the world, now has “a hard time working up enthusiasm” for further work on Franklin's ships Erebus and Terror.
Far from it. Following the discovery of the ships, the travelling Franklin exhibit “Death in the
Ice” saw enthusiastic crowds in London, Ottawa, Mystic, Conn. and Anchorage. The AMC series The Terror — which blended a faithful reconstruction of the expedition with elements of horror — was critically acclaimed and has gained a cult following. A Facebook group of which I'm a member, “Remembering the Franklin Expedition,” has shot up from a few hundred members to
more than 2,500.
Spears's article points to a press event, speaking of it as if it were a humdrum affair. But while it may have been a too-much “managed” event, it was one of great significance to many around the world. Most notably, the discovery of the two ships is an important story to many Inuit, among them my friend Pam Gross, the mayor of Cambridge Bay, who was one of the “some people” present; Pam's father, Tom Gross, a man who has spent a lifetime searching for Franklin's grave, might also differ with Spears's contention that no “mystery” remains about the expedition. I suspect that many of the hundreds of people I've personally met and guided to the Franklin graves on Beechey Island might also take issue with this claim.
I don't mean to suggest that there's no room for disagreement. The portion of the budget for archeological work generally that goes to Parks Canada's work on the Franklin wrecks shouldn't be free from scrutiny. But we should bear in mind that those stories, those histories that most fire the imagination are the ones upon which our human endeavour to understand the past most strongly depends.
There's plenty of good work to be done, and neither the fur trade in Arctic Canada nor the many shipwrecks lying at the bottom of the Great Lakes need be neglected. There is time to do the great ongoing work of understanding the past. The fascination surrounding Franklin's expedition is a spur to such work, and is richly deserving of the investment that has been made in it by the people of Canada.