Franklin Expedition, Arctic Circle

Grab a coffee because it's story time.

At the height of British exploration, few tales are as gripping as that of the doomed Franklin Expedition. It's one of those Arctic stories that had everything going for it: bold ambition, a tragic twist, and a mystery that stayed frozen in time for over a century. 

But before I get into the heart of the story, I want to wind things back a bit to set the scene for the two ships that were at the centre of this fateful voyage.

Let's begin with the ships and build up to the expedition. When I look into their history, I can't help but think of HMS Terror and HMS Erebus as brothers in arms. Terror was built in 1813 as a bomb vessel with an unusually long hull designed to withstand explosions. It entered service as a warship, taking part in sea battles during the early 1800s. After its naval career, it was converted into an exploration ship, setting out on its first Arctic journey in 1836, only to be heavily damaged by ice in the aptly named Frozen Strait.

That same year, its younger brother Erebus emerged from the dockyards, ready to sail. Three years later, both ships ventured south to Antarctica on several expeditions between 1839 and 1843, circumnavigating the continent and helping to map it. As brothers often do when they sometimes get into scrapes, these two were no different. In one incident, they nearly destroyed each other when an iceberg appeared out of nowhere, and neither could turn quickly enough to avoid collision. Crashing together violently, their rigging became entangled, and their masts snapped. A chaotic tug-of-war followed until one finally broke free of the other.

Upon returning to Great Britain, both ships were refitted with steam engines, propellers, and iron-reinforced hulls. They became state-of-the-art vessels—powerful, luxurious, fitted with heating systems, and stocked with enough food to last three years.

Now ready for their next great voyage, the ships came under the command of seasoned polar explorer Sir John Franklin, who was tasked with charting the last unnavigated sections of the Northwest Passage.

In May 1845, they set sail from Greenhithe, Kent, along the River Thames, heading off into the unknown with 129 men on board, including Franklin himself. The route took them around the southern tip of Greenland, up Baffin Bay, and through Lancaster Sound (north of Baffin and Bylot Islands), then south through Peel Sound (between Prince of Wales and Somerset Islands), where they became icebound near King William Island in September 1846.

What happened from there remains a mystery. The last time the crew was sighted was July 1845. The expedition vanished without a trace. When no news was forthcoming after two years of silence, it was time to send out the search parties. At least 39 were dispatched over different timeframes, each without success. The last correspondence was dated April 1848, when the ships' captains, with the remaining crew, abandoned the ship. Franklin himself died the previous year. The survivors, about 105, attempted to trek south on foot, but none made it. The ships, meanwhile, were lost to the Arctic sea.

Over time, scattered clues emerged: Inuit testimonies, skeletal remains, haunting messages carved into tin cans, and notes scrawled in the margins of logs. It painted a grim picture. The crew tried to survive for over a year and a half in extreme conditions. Imagine total darkness for months on end, scurvy, starvation, and lead poisoning from badly sealed food tins.

Fast forward to 2014, when Parks Canada, in partnership with the Inuit communities, finally discovered the wreck of HMS Erebus in the Queen Maud Gulf. Two years later, HMS Terror was found astonishingly well-preserved in Terror Bay, thanks largely to an Inuk hunter who recalled seeing a mast jutting out of the ice several years earlier. These discoveries were monumental as they partially solved a 19th-century maritime mystery nearly 170 years later. More than 300 artefacts have since been recovered, helping piece together the last days of these men.

The Franklin Expedition is a tale of incredible courage, human determination and the bold pursuit of ambition, even in the face of nature's challenges. It is also one of rediscovery, where the past slowly thawed its secrets out of the ice.