Inuit helped find ships

If the discovery of the wreckage of Sir John Franklin’s two ships underscores anything, it’s the value of indigenous knowledge. Last weekend, HMS Terror was found at the bottom of an Arctic Ocean bay. Almost two years ago to the day, a search vessel discovered the location of Franklin’s flagship, HMS Erebus.

In both cases, the discoveries were aided by Inuit knowledge. HMS Terror’s discovery resulted from a tip from an Inuit crew member. Sammy Kogvik said he and a friend had found a wooden object that looked like a mast sticking out of the ice on Terror Bay. He took a photo of it, but when his camera got lost, he took it as an omen of bad spirits. He pledged to keep the location a secret.

But when he told his story to one of his expedition colleagues, it was taken seriously, and the crew made the decision to search the area Kogvik described.

The ship is in pristine condition and its discovery challenges our history books on polar exploration.

In 2014, when HMS Erebus was found, Inuit oral history guided explorers to its location. The Inuit for years had suggested one of their hunters saw the ship in that part of the passage, abandoned.

The two ships disappeared in 1845 as the Franklin expedition attempted to search for the Northwest Passage. All 129 men on the two ships died.

The discoveries are important. For example, the fact that this area in the Arctic is now an integral part of Canada’s history could affect the ability for a company to open a drilling platform there. One of the private partners in the search for Erebus was Shell Canada, which suggested it was a natural fit for partnering on the project given its strong presence in the North. Ironically, the discoveries might limit the company’s ability to extract oil.

Those decisions remain up for debate. For now, Canada should be proud of the role it played in this important discovery, but more to the point, as author David Woodman points out: “It took 200 years for our technology to get good enough to tell us that Inuit were telling us the truth.”