Marine archeologist shares awe, images of life aboard HMS Terror

It remains, despite nearly two centuries beneath the Arctic seas, amazingly shipshape.

First pictures from inside the HMS Terror, part of the doomed Franklin Expedition, show tidy rows of crockery, neatly stowed storage lockers — even a propeller sitting solidly in place as if ready for a head of steam.

“Overturned armchairs, thermometers on the wall, stacked plates, chamber pots, wash basins — often in their correct position,” said Ryan Harris, one of a team of Parks Canada underwater archeologists probing the secrets of the British warship lost around 1848 while searching for the Northwest Passage.

“We were able to see an incredible array of artifacts.”

The Terror and the Erebus, now lying in shallower water just to the south of its sister ship’s watery berth off Nunavut’s King William Island, set out from England in 1845. Commander Sir John Franklin and his 129 men never returned.

More than 30 expeditions tried to find them. A few artifacts, graves and horrible tales of cannibalism is all they uncovered.

But with a blend of Inuit oral history and systematic, high-tech surveys, the Erebus was found in 2014 and the Terror two years later. Since then, Parks Canada has been working to understand what is down there .

After numerous dives scouting the exterior, Harris piloted a remote camera through an open hatch and into the ship. It was, he said, awe-inspiring.

Some skylights even retain their glass. The only door they found closed was, tantalizingly, the one opening on the cabin of captain Francis Crozier.

Even more tantalizing are all those cabinets and drawers, probably full of journals and maps, Harris said. Those papers, preserved by cold water and a protective layer of sediment, are likely to be legible.

“Each drawer potentially has materials that could shed light on the fate of the expedition,” he said.