Artifacts Recovered from Historic Ships Erebus and Terror

This is technically not a story about a book but one about the subject of dozens, perhaps hundreds of books and articles. It was the cause of more searches and expeditions from the era of voyages and discovery than any other. Every search mission, and there were at least 26, maybe as many as 40 or more, brought more books to a waiting and anxious public. All failed in their primary aim, though they finally brought an answer to an elusive mystery.

In 1845, Captain Sir John Franklin and two ships under his command set out on an expedition to find a waterway believed to exist, but no one had been able to locate. This was a search for the Northwest Passage, a sea route from the Atlantic to the Pacific that would enable ships from Europe to reach Asia in a fraction of the time then possible. To go from England to China in 1845, one had to sail all the way around the southern tip of South America to reach the Pacific. A Northwest Passage, an open sea route north of continental Canada, would save an enormous amount of time and money.

Finding such a route was an arduous task. It's cold up there, bitingly, extremely, deathly cold. Many had perished in searching but no one has succeeded in finding it when Franklin set sail in 1845. His mission included two ships, the Erebus and Terror, loaded with supplies to last a couple of years. The ships even had a heating system. They were prepared to spend a couple of winters in the extreme cold.

Franklin had headed two previous expeditions to the Arctic and he too had failed. This time, he hoped, would be different. He was better prepared. Franklin and his crew were last spotted by a whaler in Baffin Bay as they headed in the direction of the passage. They were never seen nor heard from again.

It took two years before the admiralty back in England began to get concerned. Once the men traveled beyond the path of whalers or others who might be traversing the seas, there was no way to communicate with those back home, but after two years, they expected some kind of message to reach them. That led to the first of what would turn out to be dozens of search missions. Meanwhile, things were going very bad for the men. They were trapped in sea ice. This was not unexpected for winter, but when the ice did not melt enough to free them during the summer, and then another, they realized their situation had become dire. A note discovered later revealed that Franklin died on June 11, 1847. Deposited on April 25, 1848, it also revealed that the then surviving men, now under Capt. Crozier, had abandoned the ships and were trying to make it back to civilization by land. They did not succeed. They all died of hunger, illness, or the cold.

Meanwhile, the search parties headed to the Canadian Arctic. One after another, and when the Admiralty finally gave up, Lady Franklin paid for a few more with her own funds. In 1850, some relics of the expedition were found along with the graves of three men. Still, nothing was known about the rest of the crew. The realization finally began to set in as a result of John Rae's overland expedition. They spoke to a native Inuit man who told them a party of 35-40 white men had starved to death near the mouth of the Back (Great Fish) River. They were unable to help as they barely had enough food for themselves. Finally, in 1859, Lieut. William Hobson's search party discovered the note telling of Franklin's death and that the men were heading south overland. They also found abandoned supplies and other relics along with a lifeboat containing two human skeletons. The truth was now confirmed.

That left one mystery remaining. What happened to the Erebus and Terror? They were presumed to have sunk, but where? For years, attempts were made to locate them. Finally, in 2008, a more ambitious search was announced by Parks Canada. In 2010, the Investigator, a ship sent out in 1853 to find Franklin that itself became ice-bound, was found. Then, in 2014, the Erebus was found at the bottom of the sea. Finally, in 2016, the Terror was located. The search, going on nearly two centuries, at last was over.

Parks Canada recently released a report on what they found on an underwater mission to inspect the ships. Most of the effort was devoted to the Erebus. They conducted 68 dives over a 12-day period. In an officer's cabin they found “an intact thermometer, a leather book cover, and a fishing rod with a brass reel. Other items such as a leather shoe or boot bottom, storage jars, and a sealed pharmaceutical bottle,” were collected. Further searches found a collection of fossils, and “numerous artifacts including pistols, military items, footwear, medicinal bottles, and coins.”

At the conclusion of the mission to the Erebus, divers briefly visited the Terror. They surveyed and photographed the second ship but did not recover any artifacts.

The ships were given to Canada by the United Kingdom in 2018. They wouldn't have been seaworthy anyway. After further study, the artifacts will be housed at the Nattilik Heritage Centre in Gjoa Haven, Nunavut. They should be available to see in 2025. If you would like to go, I recommend summer, when its just cold, not deathly so.