Sir John Franklin set out in 1845 in the hopes of
finding the Northwest Passage in order to have a faster trade route From Europe
to Asia. He set sail with a crew of 128 men and three year worth of provisions.
Franklin believed that they would be able to make it in one year, and so they
had their mail sent straight to the orient, so it would arrive at the same time
as them.
Franklin brought the finest crew and the newest
technologies with him. The ships’ bows were reinforced with iron planks to help
them break through the ice, and the cabins were even heated by hot water piped
through the floor. Despite this, the trip was still doomed and the last people
to see the expedition were two whaling ships, the “Prince of Whales” and the “Enterprise”
in Baffin Bay.
After three years, and no word from the expedition,
the Royal Navy launched a rescue party in search of the missing explorers. There
was even a £20,000 reward for their rescue. By 1850, the first trace of the
trip was found on Beechy Island in the Eastern Arctic: the remnants of a winter
camp, along with the graves of three sailors.
Lady Jane Franklin, Sir John’s wife, commissioned a second expedition that located handwritten messages left by the crew under a pile of rocks. The report was that the two ships, the Erebus and Terror has been locked in ice for over a year and a half and 24 men had died during that time, including Sir John Franklin. Because they were running out of provision, the crew decided to abandon ship and trek south. This message was found along with a couple skeletons of the sailors who had not made it.
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| A few skeletons of Franklin's doomed expedition are found on King William's Island in the 19th century. |
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