Parks Canada streams first lengthy video of Franklin wreck
Archeologists diving in sub-zero waters to discover more about mysterious ship
It was shadowed and covered in kelp, but divers shone some light on the wreck of the Franklin Expedition’s HMS Erebus Thursday during a live tour from under the Arctic sea.
In a video streamed live from the Queen Maud Gulf off Nunavut to a stark white wall at the Royal Ontario Museum, underwater archeologist Ryan Harris moved from stern to bow, stopping at a handful of different points along the wreck to share clues from the long-sunk vessel.
Parks Canada hosted the event at the ROM Thursday, screening the video for a crowd that included Treasury Board President Tony Clement, Colin Carrie, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of the environment, and a Grade 7 class, who had the chance to pose questions to diver Marc-Andre Bernier.
Breathing through an “umbilical cord” — a hose controlled by Leading Seaman Caleb Hooper, a fleet diver with the Royal Canadian Navy, so the long blue tube didn’t hit and damage the wreck site — Harris took long, slow breaths as he gave a lesson in the anatomy of a shipwreck.
He started by inspecting two brass six pounder cannons, one of the first features the team saw with a remotely operated vehicle when they began inspecting the site with an “underwater robot” after the 19th-century wreck was discovered late last summer. Moving forward, he travelled to the upper deck to look through an existing window into what was once the vessel’s war room, where senior officers took their meals, and then on to the ship’s main mast, once the largest of three on board before it was cut short after sinking.
Bernier said the team has been exploring the wreck for the past two days. Under two feet of ice, they’re searching for clues in minus 1C water.
Their other priority remains find- ing Erebus’ companion, Terror, he said. There are no explosive discoveries to report as of yet, Bernier said, but they’ve already found new elements, such as iron on the outside of the ship’s hull, meant to strengthen the vessel. Clement said today’s Parks Canada researchers — who spent years looking for Erebus and Terror, and included six major expeditions since 2008 — show courage and endurance are not limited to the explorers of the distant past.