sending out passengers on a forty-minute Zodiac ride each way. Swan said the thought of putting Zodiacs into the water when the winds were blowing at more than 25 knots. We would not be visiting the Erebus site after all. But, with the swell reaching 1.5 metres, the wind gusting to gale force (upwards of fifty knots), and the Endeavour needing to navigate a narrow channel (0.3 to 0.6 nautical miles) to reach the site, the undertaking was clearly in jeopardy.Īt the evening briefing, Bernier and Adventure Canada’s expedition leader, Matthew J. He had been planning to lead a visit to the site of the Erebus, where some of us would go snorkelling. When Bernier finished presenting, he hurried up onto the bridge to confer. The storm raged unabated into late afternoon. The Endeavour is no multi-storey cruise ship, but it is still more than four times as long as HMS Erebus (137 metres to 32) and more than twice as wide (21 metres to 9). As our ship, the Ocean Endeavour, heaved and rolled, some of us shuddered to think about facing such conditions in a small wooden ship.Īnd we found ourselves doing a quick calculation. While Bernier showed slides about the Parks Canada search, we sailed into a blizzard. “If sedimented, the remains could be very well preserved.” He cited the example of a wreck from 1770, HMS Swift, which researchers located in Patagonia: “They found a complete skeleton in uniform.” Most likely bones, skeletons.” Bernier reminded his listeners that Inuit testimony speaks of at least one body on what would appear to be the Erebus, and he added that he had seen flesh on bones before. Speaking generally about the two Franklin ships, he flatly declared: “I expect to find human remains. Under Sir John Franklin, the expedition was expected to locate and to travel through the long-sought Northwest Passage across the top of North America and to emerge into the Pacific Ocean trailing clouds of glory.īack in 2017, while sailing in the Northwest Passage as a resource historian with Adventure Canada, I caught a presentation by Bernier.
This year marks the 175th anniversary of the departure from England in May 1845 of the vessels HMS Erebus and HMS Terror.įormer warships newly fitted out with heating systems, reinforced hulls, and steam engines for use when the winds failed, the vessels sailed from Greenhithe (thirty-five kilometres south of London) with enough food to last three years. Almost certainly, they will reveal answers to the greatest mystery of Arctic exploration: What happened to that expedition? Judging from past experience, only when they have delivered this cache to their colleagues will they give themselves over to the extraordinary rush of having entered history.Īlmost certainly, the canisters will contain written records from the 1845 Franklin expedition, whose leadership Crozier inherited. Working carefully in freezing-cold water roughly twenty-three metres below the surface, these underwater archaeologists will search drawers and shelves, systematically gathering artifacts until - eureka! - they come upon an array of rusty metal cylinders or canisters.Ĭontrolling their excitement, they will place these items in a specially designed lifting bag and bring them topside. One summer day in the not-too-distant future, off King William Island in the High Arctic, scuba divers from Parks Canada will swim into the cabin on HMS Terror that Captain Francis Crozier once occupied. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Caird Collection BHC3325 Canada's History Youth Committee Members.The John Bragg Award for Atlantic Canada.Historical Thinking Community of Practice.
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