What Franklinophiles are writing about the finding of the Franklin Expedition ship in the Arctic:
The prolific Ken McGoogan, author of several books and articles on Arctic exploration (including the must-read seminal research quadrilogy of Fatal Passage (on John Rae), Ancient Mariner (on Samuel Hearne), Lady Franklin's Revenge (on Jane Franklin), and Race to the Polar Sea (on Elisha Kent Kane)):
- A good though short think piece that cuts through some of the fanfare to what's important about the finding and what it means
- And his own personal blogpost on the finding
- How the Inuit have been telling us what we just found out... for years
- And some additional Inuit background history about Inuit testimony and the Franklin ships
- What we might find inside the ship
- Some first analysis (with lots of comments to read too)
Over at the Kabloonas blog, Andres can barely contain himself over the news.
Of course, there really is no few things to read these days about the historic finding of one of the lost Franklin Expedition ships.
3 comments:
I found your page by googling from the British Library's posting on their Arctic exhibit "Lines in the Ice". This is a great resource, thanks for that! I spent summer 1986 in the High Arctic on a Polar Continental Shelf Project geological mapping of Devon Island and Boothia Peninsula. But that summer, right before traces of artifacts @ graves were found, we were asked ot report anything that might look like it belonged to Franklin expedition. You see the GSC's Calgary office was across the street from the Arctic Institute of North America in the Earth Science bdg. of the University of Calgary, my alma mater (B.Sc. 80) together with Queen's (M.Sc. 82)... like you I see!
I disagree that the locations of the wrecks prove that they were re-manned at some point. It is entirely possible, maybe even likely, that the two ships drifted south in Victory Strait and made it through Alexandra Strait on their own.
By chance, winds and tidal currents took Terror east to Terror Bay, as though she were looking for her crew. By the time she got there, the men had long since abandoned the Terror Bay camp, leaving their dead behind. On NASA images, I have seen ice floes from Alexandra Strait make the same left turn and pile up against the coast and islands of eastern Terror Bay.
Currents and wind seem to have carried Erebus south into Wilmot and Crampton Bay, where she passively followed the slow currents around and between the islands. Eventually, she sank after being visited by Inuit, according to the oral traditions recorded by explorers in the late 19th century. No one seems to have seen Terror after she was deserted on the 22nd of April, 1848.
Appreciate you blogging thhis
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