tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45438242721664459992024-02-07T20:33:56.318-05:00Franklin's GhostIn 1845, Sir John Franklin departed England on the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus in search of the fabled Northwest Passage. None of the 129 men were ever seen again. While relics, debris and bones have been found, and now even the ships themselves, the full story of the Franklin Expedition only seems to get more mysterious. This site is a catalog of readings, speculations, and links to Franklin related materials, as the mystery continues to capitivate many to this day. His ghost haunts us still.Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-80306998441759637412016-09-13T16:34:00.000-04:002016-09-13T16:34:20.294-04:00Russell Potter and John Geiger<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I had the great good luck and fortune to meet with <a href="http://www.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/" target="_blank">Professor Russell Potter</a>, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">author of several Franklin Expedition/Arctic books including <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Finding-Franklin-Untold-165-Year-Search/dp/0773547843" target="_blank">Finding Franklin: The Untold Story of a 165-Year Search</a> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">which he launches tomorrow in Toronto, and of course the writer behind the <a href="http://visionsnorth.blogspot.ca/" target="_blank">Visions of the North</a> blog, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Geiger" target="_blank">John Geiger</a>, co-author of </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Frozen-Time-Fate-Franklin-Expedition/dp/1771640790" target="_blank">Frozen In Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition</a></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> (the "gateway" book to the Franklin Expedition for so many of us) and CEO of the <a href="http://www.rcgs.org/" target="_blank">Royal Canadian Geographic Society</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Russell and John were asked to speak on Charles Adler's SiriusXM radio show and needed an old fashioned landline, which I was in the fortunate position to offer to them. </span><br />
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John Geiger and Dr. Russell Potter</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: small;">Dr. Russell Potter, some guy in a suit and </span></span><span style="background-color: white;">John Geiger</span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">Thanks for dropping by, gentlemen. And thanks for your decades of research, writing and contributions to the history of the Franklin Expedition.</span></span>Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-33035832792258932902016-09-13T09:59:00.001-04:002016-09-13T09:59:10.783-04:00Mysterious Inuit tale leads researchers to the 168-year-old wreck of the HMS TerrorFrom Jeva Lange at <a href="http://theweek.com/speedreads/648320/mysterious-inuit-tale-leads-researchers-168yearold-wreck-hms-terror" target="_blank">The Week</a>:<br />
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<b><i>Mysterious Inuit tale leads researchers to the 168-year-old wreck of the HMS Terror</i></b><br />
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<i>In 1848, the ill-fated and ominously-named HMS Terrorwas lost along with the HMS Erebus in the worst polar disaster to ever hit the British Royal Navy: all 129 men in Sir John Franklin's Northwest Passage expedition were killed. For 11 years after the doomed trip, search parties continued to look for the Franklin expedition to no avail; the Inuit people now say bad spirits wander the island near where the ship went under.</i></div>
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<i>But at long last, the arctic strait has given up its secrets, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/12/hms-terror-wreck-found-arctic-nearly-170-years-northwest-passage-attempt?CMP=twt_gu" style="color: #0b6ddc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Guardian reports</a>. The HMS Terror has been discovered practically perfectly intact near King William Island, although it was found much farther south than it was thought to have been abandoned. "This discovery changes history," Canadian philanthropist and Arctic Research Founder Jim Balsillie told The Guardian. "Given the location of the find [in Terror Bay] and the state of the wreck, it's almost certain that HMS Terror was operationally closed down by the remaining crew who then re-boarded HMS Erebus and sailed south where they met their ultimate tragic fate."</i></div>
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<i>The Terror almost wasn't discovered. An Inuk crewman on the team's research ship, Sammy Kogvik, 49, was talking with the Arctic Research Foundation's operations director, Adrian Schimnowski, when he recalled a hunting trip in Terror Bay, where he posed for a picture with a large piece of wood sticking out of the sea ice, which resembled a mast. When Kogvik got home and discovered his camera gone, he decided not to speak of the experience, believing the missing camera was an omen of the bad spirits that wander the island.</i></div>
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<i>But by following Kogvik's tip, the researchers focused on the north end of Victoria Strait, eventually making their fateful discovery.</i></div>
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<i>"This vessel looks like it was buttoned down tight for winter and it sank," said Schimnowski. "Everything was shut. Even the windows are still intact. If you could lift this boat out of the water, and pump the water out, it would probably float." Read more about the strange and incredible discovery of the HMS Terror <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/12/hms-terror-wreck-found-arctic-nearly-170-years-northwest-passage-attempt?CMP=twt_gu" style="color: #0b6ddc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">at The Guardian</a>. <a class="author" href="http://theweek.com/authors/jeva-lange" style="color: #666666; display: inline; font-family: minion-pro; text-decoration: none !important;">Jeva Lange</a></i></div>
Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-9743952675799047182016-09-12T17:28:00.004-04:002016-09-12T17:28:53.355-04:00My interview on News Talk 770 about the finding of HMS TerrorMy interview on Rob Breakenbridge's show on News Talk 770 can be found <a href="http://www.newstalk770.com/audio-on-demand-2/">here</a>.
Select the 2:00pm timeslot and then scroll forward to 34:00.
Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-40101646044916790112016-09-12T17:17:00.002-04:002016-09-12T17:17:23.361-04:00HMS Terror Found!And apparently it is in "pristine" condition, all hatches closed, even glass windows in place.<br />
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It's about 92 miles from where it was believed to be stuck in the ice. This may raise as many new questions as it does answers, as pointed out by <a href="http://visionsnorth.blogspot.ca/">Russell Potter at Visions of the North</a> and <a href="http://www.thefranklinsite.com/hms-terror-found/">William Battersby at The Franklin Site</a>.<br />
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One thing seems now clear: Both ships were not simply abandoned, followed by a long death march along the western coast of KWI, but they both seem to have been remanned. This was certainly what you would conclude from Inuit oral testimony as re-told by David Woodman.<br />
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Unbelievably, the ship was found very close to shore, in sight of land and, ironically, in Terror Bay.
According to a comment from <a href="http://visionsnorth.blogspot.ca/2016/09/hms-terror-found-at-last.html?showComment=1473705318267#c2484810915467950767">David Woodman</a>, the ship was found near a known large shore encampment. Again, something supported by Inuit testimony. As would be the fact that it is in pristine condition consistent with a quick sinking.<br />
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This story was broken by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/12/hms-terror-wreck-found-arctic-nearly-170-years-northwest-passage-attempt">The Guardian</a>:<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Ship found in Arctic 168 years after doomed Northwest Passage attempt</b> </span><br />
<b>Exclusive: Perfectly preserved HMS Terror vessel sank during disastrous expedition led by British explorer Sir John Franklin</b>
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The long-lost ship of British polar explorer Sir John Franklin, HMS Terror, has been found in pristine condition at the bottom of an <a class="u-underline" data-component="auto-linked-tag" data-link-name="auto-linked-tag" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/arctic" style="background: transparent; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220); color: #005689; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none !important; transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">Arctic</a> bay, researchers have said, in a discovery that challenges the accepted history behind one of polar exploration’s deepest mysteries.</div>
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HMS Terror and Franklin’s flagship, HMS Erebus, were abandoned in heavy sea ice far to the north of the eventual wreck site in 1848, during the <a class="u-underline" data-component="auto-linked-tag" data-link-name="auto-linked-tag" href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/royal-navy" style="background: transparent; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220); color: #005689; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none !important; transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">Royal Navy</a>explorer’s doomed attempt to complete the Northwest Passage.</div>
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All 129 men on the Franklin expedition died, in the worst disaster to hit Britain’s Royal Navy in its long history of polar exploration. Search parties continued to look for the ships for 11 years after they disappeared, but found no trace, and the fate of the missing men remained an enigma that tantalised generations of historians, archaeologists and adventurers.</div>
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Now that mystery seems to have been solved by a combination of intrepid exploration – and an improbable tip from an Inuk crewmember.</div>
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On Sunday, a team from the charitable Arctic Research Foundation manoeuvred a small, remotely operated vehicle through an open hatch and into the ship to capture stunning images that give insight into life aboard the vessel close to 170 years ago.</div>
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We found the food storage room with plates and one can on the shelves.</div>
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<footer style="margin-top: 0.0625rem;"><cite class="pullquote-cite" style="color: #767676; font-size: 1rem; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.5rem;">Adrian Schimnowski, Arctic Research Foundation</cite></footer></blockquote>
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“We have successfully entered the mess hall, worked our way into a few cabins and found the food storage room with plates and one can on the shelves,” Adrian Schimnowski, the foundation’s operations director, told the Guardian by email from the research vessel Martin Bergmann.</div>
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“We spotted two wine bottles, tables and empty shelving. Found a desk with open drawers with something in the back corner of the drawer.”</blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "guardian text egyptian web", georgia, serif;">The well-preserved wreck matches the Terror in several key aspects, but it lies 60 miles (96km) south of where experts have long believed the ship was crushed by ice, and the discovery may force historians to rewrite a chapter in the history of exploration.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "guardian text egyptian web" , "georgia" , serif;">The 10-member Bergmann crew found the massive shipwreck, with her three masts broken but still standing, almost all hatches closed and everything stowed, in the middle of King William Island’s uncharted Terror Bay on 3 September.</span><br />
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The bell of the HMS Terror. The bloody bell!</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "guardian text egyptian web" , "georgia" , serif;">After finding nothing in an early morning search, the research vessel was leaving the bay when a grainy digital silhouette emerged from the depths on the sounder display on the bridge of the Bergmann.</span><br />
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“Everyone was up in the wheelhouse by that point in awe, really,” said Daniel McIsaac, 23, who was at the helm when the research vessel steamed straight over the sunken wreck.</div>
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Since, then, the discovery team has spent more than a week quietly gathering images of the vessel and comparing them with the Terror’s 19th century builders’ plans, which match key elements of the sunken vessel.</div>
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At first, the Terror seemed to be listing at about 45 degrees to starboard on the seabed. But on the third dive with a remotely operated vehicle, “we noticed the wreck is sitting level on the sea bed floor not at a list - which means the boat sank gently to the bottom,” Schimnowski said Monday.</div>
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About 24 metres (80ft) down, the wreck is in perfect condition, with metal sheeting that reinforced the hull against sea ice clearly visible amid swaying kelp.</div>
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A long, heavy rope line running through a hole in the ship’s deck suggests an anchor line may have been deployed before the Terror went down.</div>
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If true, that sets up the tantalising possibility that British sailors re-manned the vessel after she was abandoned at the top of Victoria Strait in a desperate attempt to escape south.</div>
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One crucial detail in the identification of the ship is a wide exhaust pipe rising above the outer deck.</div>
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It is in the precise location where a smokestack rose from the locomotive engine which was installed in the Terror’s belly to power the ship’s propeller through closing sea ice, said Schimnowski in a phone interview.</div>
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The ship’s bell lies on its side on the deck, close to where the sailor on watch would have have swung the clapper to mark time.</div>
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And the majestic bowsprit, six metres (20ft) long, still points straight out from the bow as it did when the crew tried to navigate through treacherous ice that eventually trapped Erebus and Terror on 12 September 1846.</div>
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The wreck is in such good condition that glass panes are still in three of four tall windows in the stern cabin where the ship’s commander, Captain Francis Crozier, slept and worked, Schimnowski added.</div>
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“This vessel looks like it was buttoned down tight for winter and it sank,” he said. “Everything was shut. Even the windows are still intact. If you could lift this boat out of the water, and pump the water out, it would probably float.”</div>
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<aside class="element element-pullquote element--supporting" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: left; color: #333333; float: left; font-family: "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; margin-bottom: 0.375rem; margin-left: -16.25rem; padding: 0.1875rem 1.25rem 0px; width: 16.25rem;"><span class="inline-quote inline-icon inline-tone-fill" style="display: block; fill: rgb(0, 86, 137); height: 1.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.375rem; width: 2.125rem;"><svg class="inline-tone-fill__svg inline-quote__svg inline-icon__svg" height="10" viewbox="0 0 33 20" width="17"><path d="M9.002 20c3.85.068 6.932-3.104 7-6.994.068-3.892-3.15-6.937-7-7.006-2.016-.036-3.59.694-4.888 2.053-.07-.48-.122-1.04-.113-1.553C4.065 2.97 7.415.937 11.004 1l-1-1C3.98 0 .098 4.447.003 10.006c-.098 5.557 3.35 9.892 9 9.994zm17 0c3.85.068 6.932-3.104 7-6.994.068-3.892-3.15-6.937-7-7.006-2.016-.036-3.59.694-4.888 2.053-.07-.48-.122-1.04-.113-1.553.064-3.53 3.414-5.563 7.003-5.5l-1-1c-6.022 0-9.904 4.447-10 10.006-.097 5.557 3.35 9.892 9 9.994z"></path></svg></span><blockquote style="margin: 0px;">
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If you could lift this boat and pump the water out, it would probably float.</div>
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<footer style="margin-top: 0.0625rem;"><cite class="pullquote-cite" style="color: #767676; font-size: 1rem; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.5rem;">Adrian Schimnowski, Arctic Research Foundation</cite></footer></blockquote>
<span class="inline-quote inline-icon closing inline-tone-fill" style="display: block; fill: rgb(0, 86, 137); height: 1.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.375rem; margin-top: 0.375rem; transform: rotate(180deg); width: 2.125rem;"><svg class="closing__svg inline-tone-fill__svg inline-quote__svg inline-icon__svg" height="10" viewbox="0 0 33 20" width="17"><path d="M9.002 20c3.85.068 6.932-3.104 7-6.994.068-3.892-3.15-6.937-7-7.006-2.016-.036-3.59.694-4.888 2.053-.07-.48-.122-1.04-.113-1.553C4.065 2.97 7.415.937 11.004 1l-1-1C3.98 0 .098 4.447.003 10.006c-.098 5.557 3.35 9.892 9 9.994zm17 0c3.85.068 6.932-3.104 7-6.994.068-3.892-3.15-6.937-7-7.006-2.016-.036-3.59.694-4.888 2.053-.07-.48-.122-1.04-.113-1.553.064-3.53 3.414-5.563 7.003-5.5l-1-1c-6.022 0-9.904 4.447-10 10.006-.097 5.557 3.35 9.892 9 9.994z"></path></svg></span></aside><br />
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The Arctic Research Foundation was set up by Jim Balsillie, a Canadian tech tycoon and philanthropist, who co-founded Research in Motion, creator of the Blackberry.</div>
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Balsillie, who also played a key role in planning the expedition, proposed a theory to explain why it seems both Terror and Erebus sank far south of where they were first abandoned.</div>
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“This discovery changes history,” he told the Guardian. “Given the location of the find [in Terror Bay] and the state of the wreck, it’s almost certain that HMS Terror was operationally closed down by the remaining crew who then re-boarded HMS Erebus and sailed south where they met their ultimate tragic fate.”</div>
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The 21st-century search for Franklin’s expedition was launched by Canadian former prime minister Stephen Harper as part of a broader plan to assert Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic and promote development of its resources – including vast reserves of oil and natural gas, which will be easier to exploit as the Arctic warms and sea ice disappears.</div>
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Parks <a class="u-underline" data-component="auto-linked-tag" data-link-name="auto-linked-tag" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/canada" style="background: transparent; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220); color: #005689; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none !important; transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">Canada</a> underwater archeologists have led the mission since it began in 2008. Now they must confirm the wreck is Terror, either by examining the foundation’s images or visiting the site themselves. With the first winter snow already falling in the High Arctic, Terror Bay will soon be encased in thick sea ice.</div>
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The latest discovery was made two years and a day after <a class="u-underline" data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/09/british-ship-1845-franklin-expedition-found-canada" style="background: transparent; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220); color: #005689; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none !important; transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">Canadian marine archeologists found the wreck of Erebus</a> in the same area of eastern Queen Maud gulf where Inuit oral history had long said a large wooden ship sank.</div>
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The same stories described startled Inuit stumbling upon a large dead man in a dark room on the vessel, with a big smile. Experts have suggested that may have been a rictus smile, or evidence that the man had suffered from scurvy.</div>
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Parks Canada archeologists found Erebus standing in just 11 meters of ocean. Sea ice had taken a large bite out her stern, and more than a century of storm-driven waves had scattered a trove of artifacts around the site.</div>
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So far, archaeologists have brought up the bell from Franklin’s flagship, a cannon, ceramic plate and other objects.</div>
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Inuit knowledge was also central to finding the Terror Bay wreck, but in a more mysterious way. Crewman Sammy Kogvik, 49, of Gjoa Haven, had been on the Bergmann for only a day when, chatting with Schimnowski on the bridge, he told a bizarre story.</div>
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The double-wheel helm. The helm!</div>
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About six years ago, Kogvik said, he and a hunting buddy were headed on snowmobiles to fish in a lake when they spotted a large piece of wood, which looked like a mast, sticking out of the sea ice covering Terror Bay.</div>
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In a phone interview, Kogvik said he stopped that day to get a few snapshots of himself hugging the wooden object, only to discover when he got home that the camera had fallen out his pocket.</div>
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Kogvik resolved to keep the encounter secret, fearing the missing camera was an omen of bad spirits, which generations of Inuit have believed began to wander King William Island after Franklin and his men perished.</div>
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When Schimnowski heard Kogvik’s story, he didn’t dismiss it, as Inuit testimony has been so often during the long search for Franklin’s ships.</div>
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Instead, the Bergmann’s crew agreed to make a detour for Terror Bay on their way to join the main search group aboard the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the Royal Canadian Navy’s HMCS Shawinigan, at the north end of Victoria Strait.</div>
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That is where the only known record of the Franklin expedition provided coordinates for what experts now call the point of abandonment.</div>
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A scrawled note dated 25 April 1848, and concealed in a stone cairn at Victory Point on northern King William Island, said Erebus and Terror had been abandoned three days earlier, stuck in sea ice.</div>
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Crozier was in command of “the officers and crews, consisting of 105 souls”, because Franklin had died on 11 June 1847, the note continued, “and the total loss by deaths in the expedition has been to this date 9 officers and 15 men”.</div>
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Crozier and Captain James Fitzjames signed the note, which had what seemed a hurried postscript, scrawled upside down in the top right corner: “and start on to-morrow 26th for Back’s Fish River”.</div>
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Survivors apparently hoped to follow the river – now known as Back river – south to safety at a Hudson’s Bay Company fur trading outpost.</div>
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None made it, and for generations, the accepted historical narrative has described a brutal death march as the Royal Navy mariners tried to walk out of the Arctic, dying along the way.</div>
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Now Franklin experts will have to debate whether at least some of the dying sailors instead mustered incredible strength, fighting off hunger, disease and frostbite, in a desperate attempt to sail home.</div>
Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-35319435236363281692014-10-01T14:53:00.001-04:002014-10-01T14:53:19.786-04:00HMS Erebus!They have identified the found Franklin ship as <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/franklin-expedition-ship-found-in-arctic-id-d-as-hms-erebus-1.2784268">HMS Erebus</a>.
<blockquote><b>Franklin expedition ship found in Arctic ID'd as HMS Erebus</b>
By Evan Solomon, CBC News
Posted: Oct 01, 2014 2:09 PM ET| Last Updated: Oct 01, 2014 2:30 PM ET
The wrecked Franklin expedition ship found last month in the Arctic has been identified as HMS Erebus, CBC News has learned.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected to announce the news today in the House of Commons.
Two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, were part of Sir John Franklin's doomed expedition in 1845 to find the Northwest Passage.
The ships disappeared after they became locked in ice in 1846 and were missing for more than a century and a half until last month's discovery by a group of public-private searchers led by Parks Canada. It was not known until now which of the two ships had been found.
The Erebus is believed to be the ship that Sir John Franklin was on when he died. The wreck of the Terror has not yet been found.
</blockquote>Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-11196160987308123912014-09-11T14:35:00.002-04:002014-09-11T15:02:48.050-04:00My Interview on NewsTalk770I was interviewed about the Franklin Expedition and the ship finding today on the Roger and Rob Show on NewsTalk770 out of Calgary today.<br />
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Here's the <a href="http://www.newstalk770.com/audio-on-demand-2/">audio</a>. Choose September 11 at 11:00am. I'm on right after the news. <br />
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Didn't think my voice sounded so nasally. Guess I'll stick with my day job.Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-26118683993345820922014-09-10T23:18:00.001-04:002014-09-10T23:18:20.920-04:00Blog Round Up: What Franklinophiles are writing about the findingAs the world starts to pay attention to our little big passion, I thought it worthwhile highlighting the commentary of the passionate few who have been following this story for years before it became an international story.<br />
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What Franklinophiles are writing about the finding of the Franklin Expedition ship in the Arctic:<br />
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The prolific Ken McGoogan, author of several books and articles on Arctic exploration (including the must-read seminal research quadrilogy of <i style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">Fatal Passage</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"> (on </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rae_(explorer)" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; text-decoration: none;" title="John Rae (explorer)">John Rae</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">), </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">Ancient Mariner</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"> (on </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Hearne" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; text-decoration: none;" title="Samuel Hearne">Samuel Hearne</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">), </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">Lady Franklin's Revenge</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"> (on </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Franklin" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; text-decoration: none;" title="Jane Franklin">Jane Franklin</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">), and </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">Race to the Polar Sea</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"> (on </span><a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_Kent_Kane" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; text-decoration: none;" title="Elisha Kent Kane">Elisha Kent Kane</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">)):</span><br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">A good though short think piece that cuts through some of the fanfare to <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-franklin-discoverys-not-about-what-but-where/article20500164/" target="_blank">what's important about the finding and what it means</a></span></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif;">And his own <a href="http://kenmcgoogan.blogspot.ca/2014/09/the-franklin-discovery-is-not-about.html" target="_blank">personal blogpost</a> on the finding</span></li>
</ul>
Russell Potter, of course, editor of the <a href="http://arcticbookreview.blogspot.ca/" target="_blank">Arctic Book Review</a> and author of <i><a href="http://www.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/book/Home.html" target="_blank">Arctic Spectacles: The Frozen North in Visual Culture, 1818-1885</a></i>, has already written many posts on the finding from several different angles:<br />
<ul>
<li>H<a href="http://visionsnorth.blogspot.ca/2014/09/the-inuit-knew-it.html" target="_blank">ow the Inuit have been telling us what we just found out</a>... for years</li>
<li>And <a href="http://visionsnorth.blogspot.ca/2014/09/inuit-testimony-and-franklin-ship.html" target="_blank">some additional Inuit background history</a> about Inuit testimony and the Franklin ships</li>
<li><a href="http://visionsnorth.blogspot.ca/2014/09/recovering-papers-from-franklin-wreck.html" target="_blank">What we might find inside the ship</a></li>
<li>Some f<a href="http://visionsnorth.blogspot.ca/2014/09/found-vessel-1-of-franklins-two-ships.html" target="_blank">irst analysis</a> (with lots of comments to read too)</li>
</ul>
Then there are the <a href="http://franklinexpedition.blogspot.ca/2014/09/franklin-ship-found.html" target="_blank">excited observations</a> William Battersby, author of <i><a href="http://www.dundurn.com/books/james_fitzjames" target="_blank">James Fitzjames: Mystery Man of the Franklin Expedition</a></i>.<br />
<br />
Over at the <a href="http://kabloonas.blogspot.ca/" target="_blank">Kabloonas</a> blog, Andres can barely contain himself over the news.<br />
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Of course, there really is no few things to read these days about the <a href="https://www.google.ca/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=franklin+expedition&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&gfe_rd=cr&ei=xxMRVLWRKefL8gftzIGIBw#q=franklin+expedition&rls=en&tbm=nws" target="_blank">historic finding</a> of one of the lost Franklin Expedition ships.<br />
<br />Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-21979175691326490092014-09-10T22:48:00.000-04:002014-09-10T22:48:02.235-04:00The ShipI really can't find the words.<br />
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I just can't stop looking at it.<br />
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I just can't help but get lost in it.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7_0tu1R3olDbX1YyjjhDRYBmDbbSLCeMRtSGvDp8hBRxpMOW9k-b33yXFljO5YhvkQ4GaLGwCfp9rLzuvPTkONA8pM6VKKpitWaJ0bzNGE09oho_DL_xxsfh4zj7zwoL_gWtMLnUpzS4A/s1600/1410301496776.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7_0tu1R3olDbX1YyjjhDRYBmDbbSLCeMRtSGvDp8hBRxpMOW9k-b33yXFljO5YhvkQ4GaLGwCfp9rLzuvPTkONA8pM6VKKpitWaJ0bzNGE09oho_DL_xxsfh4zj7zwoL_gWtMLnUpzS4A/s640/1410301496776.jpg" /></a></div>
The detail. How well preserved it appears to be. The possibilities of what may be hidden inside.
Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-52144307954315622782014-09-10T22:28:00.001-04:002014-09-10T22:28:28.257-04:00How the Franklin wreck was finally foundThe <i>Toronto Star</i> accompanied the <i>Laurier</i> in its historic search expedition for the <i>Erebus</i> and the <i>Terror</i>. The filed this <a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/09/09/the_star_with_the_franklin_search_how_the_franklin_wreck_was_finally_found.html" target="_blank">amazingly interesting report</a>.<br />
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The Star with the Franklin search: How the Franklin wreck was finally found</h1>
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The Star was on board the Sir Wilfrid Laurier when the wreck of one of the Franklin Expedition ships was finally found.</h2>
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ABOARD CCGS SIR WILFRID LAURIER—Like all great discoveries, they found the Franklin Expedition shipwreck by accident, after years of gruelling, monotonous work.</div>
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For 166 years, people have wondered where the Royal Navy’s HMS Erebus and HMS Terror went after they sailed into the Northwest Passage in search of the western exit, only to disappear, losing all 129 men aboard.</div>
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<div class="image-container" data-image-captions="[Toronto Star reporter Paul Watson aboard the the Canadian icebreaker CCGS Sir Wildrid Laurier.][][Underwater archeology technician Joe Boucher, left, and senior underwater archeologist Ryan Harris test the inertial navigation system of Parks Canada's robotic autonomous underwater vehicle, which helped in the High Arctic search for the Franklin Expedition shipwrecks.][A view of the wreck from the Franklin expedition as seen in a sonar image.]" data-image-credits="[COURTESY: Marc-Andre Ber / Toronto Star][ / ][PAUL WATSON / Toronto Star][ / Parks Canada Photo]" data-image-ids="[paul_watson][nafranklinwatson09][franklin_expedition_search][over_starboard_view_parks_canada_2014]" data-image-uris="[http://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/canada/2014/09/09/the_star_with_the_franklin_search_how_the_franklin_wreck_was_finally_found/paul_watson.jpg.size.xxxlarge.letterbox.jpg][http://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/canada/2014/09/09/the_star_with_the_franklin_search_how_the_franklin_wreck_was_finally_found/nafranklinwatson09.jpg.size.xxxlarge.letterbox.jpg][http://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/canada/2014/09/09/the_star_with_the_franklin_search_how_the_franklin_wreck_was_finally_found/franklin_expedition_search_1.jpg.size.xxxlarge.letterbox.jpg][http://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/canada/2014/09/09/the_star_with_the_franklin_search_how_the_franklin_wreck_was_finally_found/over_starboard_view_parks_canada_2014.jpg.size.xxxlarge.letterbox.jpg]" data-sidebar="http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/09/09/the_star_with_the_franklin_search_how_the_franklin_wreck_was_finally_found.lightbox-photos.html" data-title="The Star with the Franklin search: How the Franklin wreck was finally found" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">
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Toronto Star reporter Paul Watson aboard the the Canadian icebreaker CCGS Sir Wildrid Laurier.</div>
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Witness accounts from Inuit who spoke to early searchers in the 19th century offered tantalizing clues of at least one ghost ship, with a big, dead white man aboard, drifting south on the ice.</div>
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They claimed it was far from the point where an 1847 ink note, concealed in a tin can, reported the ships had been abandoned, imprisoned in heavy ice. Many so-called experts thought it was hogwash. The Inuit had to be telling tall tales.</div>
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Turns out the Inuit were right all along.</div>
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But it took more than a century of searching, and a serendipitous series of events over the past several weeks, to prove it.</div>
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First, the heaviest Arctic sea ice in years had to block a flotilla of seven vessels, including smaller survey boats that carry high-tech submersibles — the largest mission ever assembled to search for Erebus and Terror.</div>
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Unable to group together in what looked like the more promising northern search zone in Erebus Bay, government and privately funded vessels had to spend more time south of Victoria Strait.</div>
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They kept cursing the ice.</div>
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Then a federal hydrographer charting the seabed had to offer helicopter seats to two archeologists working for the Nunavut government.</div>
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That way fate, and a Transport Canada pilot assigned to the Coast Guard, could deliver them to one barren Arctic island out of thousands.</div>
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And then that pilot, who took an interest in old things as he watched archeologists pick up artifacts over the years, had to do as they’d taught him.</div>
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While walking the perimeter in a neon orange dry suit and red tasselled toque, he kept his eyes to the grassless ground.</div>
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That’s why chopper pilot Andrew Stirling found the one critical clue that had eluded generations of searchers, and finally pointed archeologists to the sunken wreck from Sir John Franklin’s doomed expedition.</div>
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“You almost think this ship wanted us to find it,” said Marc-Andre Bernier, chief of the underwater archeology team at Parks Canada, the lead federal agency in the Franklin hunt.</div>
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When Ryan Harris, a senior underwater archeologist, brought back the first sonar images of the wreck to show Bernier for official confirmation, “I cried,” he said. “We all did.</div>
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“You really have to have trust in yourself and in your colleagues,” added Bernier, who is into his 25th year on Parks Canada’s underwater archeology team.</div>
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“There’s constant pressure and scrutiny because we’re government. And it’s this quest: some people love it, some people think we shouldn’t be doing this. There are also people saying, ‘You’re not looking in the right place.’</div>
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“And the more you look, and the more you don’t find, the more criticism you can have.”</div>
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But the searchers stuck to a plan, which depended on what some might consider a crap shoot: several federal agencies working together, sharing information, compromising, and leaving egos ashore.</div>
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So they all share in the breakthrough, which happened quietly, far from any limelight, last week.</div>
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“This is truly a historic moment for Canada,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement Tuesday. “Franklin’s ships are an important part of Canadian history given that his expeditions, which took place nearly 200 years ago, laid the foundations of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty.”</div>
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The federal and Nunavut experts who made the discoveries won’t say precisely when, or where, the discovery was made, because they want to keep what is now one of the hottest sites in marine archeology safe from looters.</div>
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It started out as Scott Youngblut’s mission.</div>
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Youngblut, 37, of Burlington, is hydrographer-in-charge with the Canadian Hydrographic Service, the federal agency that surveys the seabed of Canada’s waterways with 3D sonar to create navigation charts.</div>
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Less than 10 per cent of the Canadian Arctic has been charted to modern standards. So the area where the Franklin wreck was discovered wasn’t remotely safe for ships until hydrographers surveyed it in 2008, the first year of the current effort.</div>
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Youngblut needed to set up a GPS unit on land to improve the accuracy of the undersea surveys.</div>
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He wasn’t choosey about where, and two seats were open at the back of the Laurier’s Messerschmitt 105 chopper, so Youngblut invited terrestrial archeologists Douglas Stenton, 61, of Chatham, and Robert Park, 57, to come along.</div>
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<img alt="An over starboard view from the Franklin Expedition, in this photo provided by Parks Canada." src="http://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/uploads/2014/9/9/1410301496776.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; display: block; margin: 0px auto; max-height: none !important; max-width: 542px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /><div class="caption" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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PARKS CANADA PHOTO</div>
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An over starboard view from the Franklin Expedition, in this photo provided by Parks Canada.</div>
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Stenton is Nunavut’s director of heritage, and Park is an archeology professor at the University of Waterloo.</div>
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They catalogue sites across the High Arctic, often using laser equipment to map the locations of relics they find, so experts know what needs to be studied more carefully, and to be protected from tourists, climate change and other threats.</div>
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Stenton had a spot in mind that he wanted to visit. But it was only when Youngblut asked in mid-air that they agreed a small, flat island would be a good place to land.</div>
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Stenton went straight to work examining a tent ring, a tight circle of rocks where Inuit would have built a shelter, likely with seal skins. Stirling was walking the shore.</div>
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“In a short time, I’ve learned to look at the land in a whole new light,” the chopper pilot said. “So I was just walking, and out of the corner of my eye, something looked out of place from the rocks and tundra.”</div>
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He waved to Park to come over. Stenton followed. Stirling showed them the piece of iron which, as taught, he hadn’t touched.</div>
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“As soon as I saw it, I knew it was different than anything we’d ever seen before in terms of its size and its very clear shape,” Stenton said.</div>
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Holding it in his left hand, Stenton said it was a shame there weren’t any broad arrows on the iron, the Royal Navy’s mark on its property.</div>
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“The heel of my hand was covering it,” Stenton said. “I opened my hand and there was not one broad arrow, but two broad arrows on it, stamped into the iron. And the number 12.</div>
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“So that was very exciting. We knew then that this was a Royal Navy fitting. We just went, ‘Wow. Fantastic.’”</div>
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Farther along the beach, Stirling found half-moon-shaped pieces of wood, about 30 centimetres in diameter. One was weathered grey, lying amid some rocks. Another piece, the same shape and size, was nearby. Large iron nails, forged by hand, were sticking out.</div>
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Again, he called the archeologists over.</div>
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At first, Stenton thought it might be from a cask. After talking to the marine experts, the land archeologists believe it’s more likely that the wooden pieces, which fit together, form a hawse plug.</div>
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<img alt="Crew members on the Coast Guard icebreaker CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier brought out Parks Canada's remotely operated vehicle Sunday as underwater archeologists prepared for the first detailed look at the newly discovered Franklin Expedition shipwreck." src="http://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/uploads/2014/9/9/1410301991014.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; display: block; margin: 0px auto; max-height: none !important; max-width: 542px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /><div class="caption" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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Crew members on the Coast Guard icebreaker CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier brought out Parks Canada's remotely operated vehicle Sunday as underwater archeologists prepared for the first detailed look at the newly discovered Franklin Expedition shipwreck.</div>
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It would have closed the hole in the deck where the anchor chain ran through into a lower locker to keep the sea out.</div>
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They brought the objects back to the Laurier’s archeology lab, where Ryan Harris, 42, and Jonathan Moore, 45, both senior underwater archeologists at Parks Canada in Ottawa, examined the objects that night.</div>
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The metal object, likely part of a davit used to lower one of several boats that Erebus and Terror carried, was a rusted piece of iron about 43 centimetres long, shaped like a large tuning fork with rounded tips.</div>
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It weighs about 4.5 kilograms, which makes it “the sort of artifact that wouldn’t be carried far, given its heft,” Harris said. “So it was a pretty good indication that we were in the right neighbourhood.”</div>
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Harris calls it “probably the most important, land-base archeology find in modern times” that’s conclusively linked to the lost Franklin Expedition.</div>
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It’s also something that Inuit hunters who criss-cross the Arctic, and carried away Franklin artifacts from other sites, didn’t find useful, Moore added.</div>
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They may also have stored it there, resting against the round rock on the opposite side to the sea, so it was easier to find, Park suggested.</div>
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If Inuit did see the heavy metal, and left it where Stirling found it, that choice helped prove accounts that a lot of experts were convinced Inuit were making up.</div>
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“It validates, in many ways, their testimony which, in some quarters, had been disputed,” Harris said. “And it also lends more weight to the more nuanced aspects of their testimony.”</div>
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The underwater archeologists soon put their survey and diving boat, Investigator, in the water to look for a wreck near the island, using a side-scan sonar towfish pulled on an armoured cable.</div>
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Before long, a telltale hit a few centimetres long appeared on the laptop computer screen as live images of the ice-scarred seabed scrolled by.</div>
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Technologist Chriss Ludin, 61, of Ottawa, had just handed the helm over to technician Joe Boucher, 33, also of Ottawa.</div>
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Harris and Moore, who normally work parallel searches on separate boats, were watching the same sonar feed this time.</div>
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“That’s it,” Harris said as the elusive shipwreck appeared. Like a winning sprinter, he raised two open hands.</div>
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“It wasn’t quite a primal scream,” Moore said, “but it was close.” There were high tens all around.</div>
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Once Bernier had confirmed the find, the next step was to get a remotely operated vehicle with high-resolution cameras down for a good look at the shipwreck.</div>
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As the archeology team and Laurier crew members raced to move out the sonar equipment and install the ROV control module in Investigator, icy winds blew in from the north, cutting across the icebreaker’s bow at 16 knots, gusting to 20.</div>
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When the Laurier’s crane lowered Investigator into the sea around 4:30 p.m. Sunday, the sun momentarily broke through the clouds.</div>
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They quickly closed again, turning the sky a wintry grey, as one-metre swells, topped by 30-centimetre wind waves, rocked the Parks Canada boat.</div>
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In rough seas, with night closing in, the archeologists were only able to view the wreck with their ROVs for about 40 minutes.</div>
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“We deployed the ROV to capture images, and to confirm that it was either Erebus or Terror,” Bernier added. “We’re not concerned which one it is at this point.”</div>
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The sunken ship is standing upright on the seabed, mainly intact except for her three, tall masts, which were likely sliced off by ice floes, the archeologist said.</div>
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“There are some deck planks missing and you can actually see openings on the deck and the hatchways,” Bernier said. “And there’s a lot of debris around, ‘dead-eyes,’ which are the circular items that support the masts.</div>
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“And two bronze cannons. So then we had more proof that it’s not an ordinary ship. The dimensions are confirmed. Everything is confirmed.”</div>
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The Laurier is now anchored off the Nunavut hamlet of Gjoa Haven, on the southeast corner of King William Island, far from the Franklin wreck site.</div>
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The icebreaker’s role as the main vessel in the Victoria Strait Expedition was due to end Sept. 12. But that was before the federal and Nunavut experts on board made history.</div>
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The archeologists are eager to return to the wreck and study it for as long as they can, before the fall gale season hits.</div>
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The decision about retasking the Laurier, or delaying more work on the wreck site for another year, is way above their pay scale. So they have to wait, and hope, which they are used to.</div>
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Capt. Bill Noon, the tall, even-tempered Coast Guard officer who commands the Laurier, knows how fickle Arctic seas are, how they can be calm and welcoming one minute, only to rise up and sucker punch like a big, soaking fist.</div>
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He’s watched a lot of plans come and go like the tides, knowing the Arctic will always have the last word. Talking about all the random things that had to go right for searchers to find the Franklin wreck brings a broad, boyish smile to the cautious seaman’s face.</div>
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“If it wasn’t for the ice, we never would have come down this way,” Noon said, in a rare moment of relaxation on the icebreaker’s bridge. “Nature decided for us, fortunately.”</div>
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Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-35259041114421519352014-09-10T22:25:00.002-04:002014-09-10T22:25:47.572-04:00Lost Franklin expedition ship found It's Christmas in Franklin Land.<br />
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<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/lost-franklin-expedition-ship-found-in-the-arctic-1.2760311?cmp=rss" target="_blank">One of them has been found!</a><br />
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Lost Franklin expedition ship found in the Arctic</h1>
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Queen sends congratulations on image believed to be HMS Erebus or HMS Terror</h3>
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper says one of Canada's greatest mysteries now has been solved, with the discovery of one of the lost ships from Sir John Franklin's doomed Arctic expedition.</div>
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"This is a great historic event," Harper said.</div>
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"For more than a century this has been a great Canadian story.… It's been the subject of scientists and historians and writers and singers. And so I think we have a really important day in mapping together the history of our country," the prime minister said.</div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.35em;">At this point, the searchers aren't sure if they've found HMS Erebus or HMS Terror. But sonar images from the waters of Victoria Strait, just off King William Island, clearly show wreckage of a ship on the ocean floor.</span></div>
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<img alt="Franklin Ship found" src="http://i.cbc.ca/1.2760641.1410279197!/cpImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_300/franklin-ship-found.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: block; height: auto;" width="100%" /><br />
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A sea floor scan reveals one of the missing ships from the Franklin Expedition in an image released in Ottawa on Tuesday. (Parks Canada/Canadian Press)</div>
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The wreckage was found on Sept. 7 using a remotely operated underwater vehicle recently acquired by Parks Canada. When Harper revealed the team's success at Parks Canada's laboratories in Ottawa Tuesday, the room burst into applause and hollering. </div>
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"This is a day of some very good news," Harper told the assembled group of researchers, some of whom had flown all night to be in Ottawa for the announcement. </div>
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"It appears to be perfectly preserved," Harper said of the ship, adding that it has "a little bit of damage."</div>
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Deck appears intact</h2>
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Harper said the "latest, cutting-edge technology" Parks Canada used was integral to finding the ship under layers of growth on the ocean floor. "With older technology, you could have come very close to this and not seen it at all."</div>
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Ryan Harris, an underwater archeologist who was Parks Canada's project lead for this year's search, said the wreck was "indisputably" one of Franklin's two ships.</div>
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"It's a very substantial wreck," Harris said, putting to rest earlier fears that Franklin's ships may not be found intact after so many years.</div>
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<li style="list-style: none outside none; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: -1em; padding-left: 0.75em; position: relative;"><strong><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Politics/ID/2512857076/" style="color: #115278; text-decoration: none;">WATCH: Raw video gives first glimpse of Franklin ship</a></strong></li>
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The sonar image shows some of the deck structures survived, Harris explained, pointing out the stubs of the masts which were apparently sheared away by the ice when it sank. Because the deck is relatively intact, the contents of the ship "should be very, very well-preserved."</div>
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The next step for the search team will be to take a look at what's inside.</div>
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Discovery 6 years in making</h2>
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In a statement, the prime minister said Franklin's expedition laid the foundations of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty. He called the lost ships Canada's "only undiscovered national historical site."</div>
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<li style="list-style: none outside none; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: -1em; padding-left: 0.75em; position: relative;"><strong><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/franklin-expedition-ship-pieces-believed-discovered-in-arctic-1.2759925" style="color: #115278; text-decoration: none;">Franklin artifacts found on island in Queen Maud Gulf</a></strong></li>
<li style="list-style: none outside none; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: -1em; padding-left: 0.75em; position: relative;"><strong><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/stephen-harper-and-the-obsession-with-franklin-1.2754180" style="color: #115278; text-decoration: none;">Stephen Harper and the obsession with Franklin</a></strong></li>
<li style="list-style: none outside none; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: -1em; padding-left: 0.75em; position: relative;"><strong><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/franklin-expedition-more-doubts-raised-that-lead-poisoned-the-crew-1.2490875" style="color: #115278; text-decoration: none;">Franklin: More doubts raised that lead poisoned the crew</a></strong></li>
<li style="list-style: none outside none; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: -1em; padding-left: 0.75em; position: relative;"><strong><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Special+Coverage/Franklin/ID/2271948205/" style="color: #115278; text-decoration: none;">Death in the Arctic: Watch CBC News' 2007 documentary</a></strong></li>
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The prime minister paid tribute to the search teams — a partnership between Parks Canada, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, the Arctic Research Foundation, the Canadian Coast Guard, the Royal Canadian Navy and the government of Nunavut — whose work since 2008 has paid off.</div>
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“This discovery would not have been possible without their tireless efforts over the years, as well as their commitment, dedication and the perseverance of the many partners and explorers involved," Harper said.</div>
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Queen Elizabeth sent a message for Canadians to the Governor General on Tuesday following the discovery.</div>
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"I was greatly interested to learn of the discovery of one of the long-lost ships of Captain Sir John Franklin. Prince Philip joins me in sending congratulations and good wishes to all those who played a part in this historic achievement," she said in a statement.</div>
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Franklin's crew became locked in the ice during a doomed search for the Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean in 1845. All 128 crew members eventually died, though there's evidence to suggest some may have survived for several years.</div>
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Many searches throughout the 19th century attempted to find the lost ships, but the mystery of what happened to John Franklin and his men has never been solved.</div>
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Search parties later recorded Inuit testimony in the late 1840s that claimed one ship sank in deep water west of King William Island, and one ship went perhaps as far south as Queen Maud Gulf or into Wilmot and Crampton Bay. The location of this wreck backs up that testimony. </div>
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Artifacts found first</h2>
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On Monday, the government of Nunavut announced that two artifacts from the Franklin expedition were found on an island in Nunavut. </div>
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A team of archeologists had found an iron fitting from a Royal Navy ship, "identified as part of a boat-launching davit, and bearing two broad arrows," on an island in the southern search area, the territory's government said.</div>
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An iron fitting from a Royal Navy ship, identified as part of a boat-launching davit and bearing two broad arrows, was found on an island in the southern search area. (Douglas Stenton, Government of Nunavut)</div>
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A wooden object, "possibly a plug for a deck hawse, the iron pipe through which the ship’s chain cable would descend into the chain locker below," was also found.</div>
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"The iron fitting was lying on the shore, adjacent to a rock, a large rock, and the wooden artifact was a bit farther away, a bit farther from the shoreline," archeologist Doug Stenton told CBC News.</div>
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Stenton headed a three-member Nunavut team that found the objects on an island in the Queen Maud Gulf near Nunavut's King William Island on Sept. 1.</div>
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The searchers said these were the first artifacts found in modern times. Now they've pointed the way to the bigger find.</div>
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Inuit history accurate</h2>
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"The beauty of where they found it is it's proof positive of Inuit oral history," CBC chief correspondent Peter Mansbridge, who has covered the Franklin search for many years, said Tuesday.</div>
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"The Inuit have said for generations that one of their hunters saw a ship in that part of the passage, abandoned and ended up wrecking…. It's exactly where this guy said it was."</div>
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The question now is whether these discoveries bring the project closer to finding more evidence of what happened to the Franklin expedition.</div>
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“Finding the first vessel will no doubt provide the momentum — or wind in our sails — necessary to locate its sister ship and find out even more about what happened to the Franklin expedition’s crew,” Harper said in his statement.</div>
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Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-20502863746804387582014-09-10T22:23:00.000-04:002014-09-10T22:50:28.012-04:00BBC: Franklin expedition: Will we ever know what happened?I am quoted in <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-14847091" target="_blank">this article</a>.<br />
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<span class="date" style="color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px;">8 September 2011</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> </span><span class="time-text" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Last updated at </span><span class="time" style="color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">19:44 ET</span><br />
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Franklin expedition: Will we ever know what happened?</h1>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px;">Canadian explorers have drawn a blank in the latest hunt for the remains of Captain Sir John Franklin's fatal expedition, 160 years after he took 129 men deep into the Arctic. But will the mystery of the doomed crew ever be unravelled?</span></div>
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In 1845, Capt Franklin, an officer in the British Royal Navy, took two ships and 129 men towards the Northwest Territories in an attempt to map the Northwest Passage, a route that would allow sailors to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the icy Arctic circle.</div>
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Stocked with provisions that could last for seven years, and outfitted with the latest technology and experienced men, the two ships - HMS Erebus and HMS Terror - were some of the biggest, strongest, vessels ever to make the journey.</div>
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But the men vanished into the frozen Arctic, leaving a few clues but no explanation as to what went wrong.</div>
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The first search party set off in 1848 and searches involving teams from Canada, the UK, and the US have continued ever since. Last week, representatives from Parks Canada announced the results from their search this summer, which proved unsuccessful.</div>
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<img alt="Engraving of Sir John Franklin" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55251000/jpg/_55251075_5e943f09-4ab9-4261-a079-bf4979a34f92.jpg" height="171" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; position: relative;" width="304" /><span style="display: block; width: 304px;">Captain Sir John Franklin had sailed the Arctic three times prior to his fateful trip</span></div>
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"What people have been looking for has changed. We've given up looking for survivors, we've given up looking for bodies. Now we're just looking for any answers," says William Battersby, who wrote the biography of James Fitzjames, the captain of the Erebus.</div>
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"The extraordinary thing is that despite all this effort, after 160 years and by thousands of people, we still don't know where the ships are, and what happened on the expedition, or what happened to most of the men."</div>
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Explorers have found rock cairns with messages from sailors who abandoned ship. They've taken oral history from Inuit people whose ancestors saw the ships get stuck in giant ice floes. In several cases, they've dug up the bones and preserved bodies of the ship's crew. But they've found no ships, no logs, and no sign of Franklin himself.</div>
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<img alt="Northwest Passage map" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/48430000/jpg/_48430589_northwest_passage_304.jpg" height="213" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; position: relative;" width="304" /></div>
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In subsequent years, a rough sketch of the troubles emerged. During the first winter, the crew disembarked, travelled south to hunt. Franklin left a reassuring message in a rock cairn, signed "All well". A month later, he was dead.</div>
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A year later, the crew returned to the cairn and updated the note. By that time, 15 sailors had died.</div>
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"If it had just been that, it would have been one of the biggest disasters of Arctic exploration," says Ted Betts, a Toronto lawyer and author of the blog Franklin's Ghost. But it wasn't just that.</div>
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From that time on, things only got worse. The men, sickened from scurvy, tuberculosis and lead poisoning, got weaker and weaker. They reportedly abandoned ship in 1848, only to meet a cold death elsewhere.</div>
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In 1859, an explorer sent by Franklin's wife travelled to the spot where the ships had been abandoned. He didn't find the Terror or the Erebus. Instead, he found a small whaleboat, full of books, chocolates, and the skeletons of two sailors.</div>
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The boat, says Russell Potter, professor of English at Rhode Island College, was pointed towards where the abandoned ship once sat.</div>
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“<span style="display: block; margin: 0px 0px 5px; text-indent: -5000px;">Start Quote</span></h2>
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They're immortals who are trapped between life and death”</div>
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<span class="quote-credit" style="clear: both; display: block; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">William Battersby</span><span class="quote-credit-title" style="clear: both; display: block; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">Researcher and author</span></div>
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"Maybe they weren't trying to get away, but to get back to their ship and die in comfort," he says. "It's a very poignant arrangement."</div>
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Two other locations offered a concentrated amount of remains, says Battersby. "They do seem to be associated with men who just abandoned ship, gave up hope of ever being rescued, and sadly, gradually, cannibalised the bodies of their comrades."</div>
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A few fully-preserved corpses have been found in the snow as well. But the bodies of others, including Franklin, are missing.</div>
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"They simply disappeared. It's like Apollo 13 went around the moon and never came back again," says Battersby.</div>
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"They never had a date of death, a place of death. They're immortals who are trapped between life and death. Are they ghosts? How long did the last one live? We just don't know."</div>
<span class="cross-head" style="background-color: white; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.231em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Desolate and desperate</span><br />
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For Ron Carlson, a Chicago architect and licensed bush pilot, it's easy for him to understand why, after all these years, the ships are still missing - and how desolate the last days must have been for men on that doomed ship.</div>
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"It's vast. When I flew, I could look out over Victoria Strait and see 50 miles of ice pack in all directions," he says. "It's like the surface of the moon, but without any marks."</div>
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The broad and punishing size of the search area dwarfs the high-tech equipment and meticulous research used by the Parks Canada team, and the other explorers before them.</div>
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<img alt="A painting of the HMS Terror" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55250000/jpg/_55250767_terror_painting.jpg" height="171" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; position: relative;" width="304" /><span style="display: block; width: 304px;">The fate of the ships inspired artwork, music and literature, including this sketch by Owen Stanley</span></div>
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"Both of the ships were caught in the ice for two years but slowly drifting south in a very large body of water," says Marc-Andre Bernier, chief of underwater archaeology services at Parks Canada.</div>
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That could mean that the ships are hundreds of miles apart. "For us, it's just as important to know where they're not," he says, so that future searches can start fresh.</div>
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For sailors on the Terror and Erebus, the barren landscape and dim prospects possibly only added to an increasing sense of foreboding.</div>
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"It seems very clear from several sources that the men on these ships suffered from terrible lead poisoning, which leads to depression," says Battersby, who read the records from an earlier trip by the Terror to the Arctic.</div>
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"The account of the Terror's voyage of that year says how bad the atmosphere was, how demoralised people were and how depressed they all were."</div>
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Battersby believes that the ships themselves, which had an internal pipe system to melt ice and provide fresh water, was the source of the poison.</div>
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Finding the ships could prove this theory. It would also bring to a close a search first launched in the time of Queen Victoria. But it wouldn't end the mystery.</div>
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"It's really just the beginning," says Betts. The papers, artifacts, and infrastructure will provide a whole new raft of information and leads - and more fodder for followers of the Franklin expedition's sad fate.</div>
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Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-85203742470136873852014-09-10T22:21:00.003-04:002014-09-10T22:21:39.856-04:00BBC: Franklin expedition: Will we ever know what happened?I am quoted in this article.<br />
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<span class="date" style="color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px;">8 September 2011</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> </span><span class="time-text" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Last updated at </span><span class="time" style="color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">19:44 ET</span><br />
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<h1 class="story-header" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 2.461em; letter-spacing: -1px; line-height: 34px; margin: 3px -160px 13px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; width: 623px;">
Franklin expedition: Will we ever know what happened?</h1>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">BBC News Magazine</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px;">Canadian explorers have drawn a blank in the latest hunt for the remains of Captain Sir John Franklin's fatal expedition, 160 years after he took 129 men deep into the Arctic. But will the mystery of the doomed crew ever be unravelled?</span></div>
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In 1845, Capt Franklin, an officer in the British Royal Navy, took two ships and 129 men towards the Northwest Territories in an attempt to map the Northwest Passage, a route that would allow sailors to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the icy Arctic circle.</div>
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Stocked with provisions that could last for seven years, and outfitted with the latest technology and experienced men, the two ships - HMS Erebus and HMS Terror - were some of the biggest, strongest, vessels ever to make the journey.</div>
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But the men vanished into the frozen Arctic, leaving a few clues but no explanation as to what went wrong.</div>
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The first search party set off in 1848 and searches involving teams from Canada, the UK, and the US have continued ever since. Last week, representatives from Parks Canada announced the results from their search this summer, which proved unsuccessful.</div>
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<img alt="Engraving of Sir John Franklin" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55251000/jpg/_55251075_5e943f09-4ab9-4261-a079-bf4979a34f92.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; position: relative;" width="304" /><span style="display: block; width: 304px;">Captain Sir John Franklin had sailed the Arctic three times prior to his fateful trip</span></div>
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"What people have been looking for has changed. We've given up looking for survivors, we've given up looking for bodies. Now we're just looking for any answers," says William Battersby, who wrote the biography of James Fitzjames, the captain of the Erebus.</div>
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"The extraordinary thing is that despite all this effort, after 160 years and by thousands of people, we still don't know where the ships are, and what happened on the expedition, or what happened to most of the men."</div>
<span class="cross-head" style="background-color: white; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.231em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Scattered remains</span><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">
Explorers have found rock cairns with messages from sailors who abandoned ship. They've taken oral history from Inuit people whose ancestors saw the ships get stuck in giant ice floes. In several cases, they've dug up the bones and preserved bodies of the ship's crew. But they've found no ships, no logs, and no sign of Franklin himself.</div>
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<img alt="Northwest Passage map" height="213" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/48430000/jpg/_48430589_northwest_passage_304.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; position: relative;" width="304" /></div>
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In subsequent years, a rough sketch of the troubles emerged. During the first winter, the crew disembarked, travelled south to hunt. Franklin left a reassuring message in a rock cairn, signed "All well". A month later, he was dead.</div>
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A year later, the crew returned to the cairn and updated the note. By that time, 15 sailors had died.</div>
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"If it had just been that, it would have been one of the biggest disasters of Arctic exploration," says Ted Betts, a Toronto lawyer and author of the blog Franklin's Ghost. But it wasn't just that.</div>
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From that time on, things only got worse. The men, sickened from scurvy, tuberculosis and lead poisoning, got weaker and weaker. They reportedly abandoned ship in 1848, only to meet a cold death elsewhere.</div>
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In 1859, an explorer sent by Franklin's wife travelled to the spot where the ships had been abandoned. He didn't find the Terror or the Erebus. Instead, he found a small whaleboat, full of books, chocolates, and the skeletons of two sailors.</div>
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The boat, says Russell Potter, professor of English at Rhode Island College, was pointed towards where the abandoned ship once sat.</div>
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<a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-14847091#story_continues_2" style="color: #4a7194; font-weight: bold; left: -5000px; position: absolute; text-decoration: none; top: -5000px;">Continue reading the main story</a><h2 class="quote" style="background-image: url(http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/view/3_0_21/cream/hi/shared/img/story_sprite.png); background-position: 0px -188px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-color: rgb(216, 216, 216); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(216, 216, 216); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; clear: both; font-size: 1.231em; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 6px 0px 5px; position: relative; text-indent: -500px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">
“<span style="display: block; margin: 0px 0px 5px; text-indent: -5000px;">Start Quote</span></h2>
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They're immortals who are trapped between life and death”</div>
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<span class="quote-credit" style="clear: both; display: block; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">William Battersby</span><span class="quote-credit-title" style="clear: both; display: block; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">Researcher and author</span></div>
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"Maybe they weren't trying to get away, but to get back to their ship and die in comfort," he says. "It's a very poignant arrangement."</div>
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Two other locations offered a concentrated amount of remains, says Battersby. "They do seem to be associated with men who just abandoned ship, gave up hope of ever being rescued, and sadly, gradually, cannibalised the bodies of their comrades."</div>
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A few fully-preserved corpses have been found in the snow as well. But the bodies of others, including Franklin, are missing.</div>
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"They simply disappeared. It's like Apollo 13 went around the moon and never came back again," says Battersby.</div>
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"They never had a date of death, a place of death. They're immortals who are trapped between life and death. Are they ghosts? How long did the last one live? We just don't know."</div>
<span class="cross-head" style="background-color: white; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.231em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Desolate and desperate</span><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">
For Ron Carlson, a Chicago architect and licensed bush pilot, it's easy for him to understand why, after all these years, the ships are still missing - and how desolate the last days must have been for men on that doomed ship.</div>
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"It's vast. When I flew, I could look out over Victoria Strait and see 50 miles of ice pack in all directions," he says. "It's like the surface of the moon, but without any marks."</div>
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The broad and punishing size of the search area dwarfs the high-tech equipment and meticulous research used by the Parks Canada team, and the other explorers before them.</div>
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<img alt="A painting of the HMS Terror" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55250000/jpg/_55250767_terror_painting.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; position: relative;" width="304" /><span style="display: block; width: 304px;">The fate of the ships inspired artwork, music and literature, including this sketch by Owen Stanley</span></div>
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"Both of the ships were caught in the ice for two years but slowly drifting south in a very large body of water," says Marc-Andre Bernier, chief of underwater archaeology services at Parks Canada.</div>
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That could mean that the ships are hundreds of miles apart. "For us, it's just as important to know where they're not," he says, so that future searches can start fresh.</div>
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For sailors on the Terror and Erebus, the barren landscape and dim prospects possibly only added to an increasing sense of foreboding.</div>
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"It seems very clear from several sources that the men on these ships suffered from terrible lead poisoning, which leads to depression," says Battersby, who read the records from an earlier trip by the Terror to the Arctic.</div>
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"The account of the Terror's voyage of that year says how bad the atmosphere was, how demoralised people were and how depressed they all were."</div>
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Battersby believes that the ships themselves, which had an internal pipe system to melt ice and provide fresh water, was the source of the poison.</div>
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Finding the ships could prove this theory. It would also bring to a close a search first launched in the time of Queen Victoria. But it wouldn't end the mystery.</div>
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"It's really just the beginning," says Betts. The papers, artifacts, and infrastructure will provide a whole new raft of information and leads - and more fodder for followers of the Franklin expedition's sad fate.</div>
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Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-49997173999672238592011-12-30T17:13:00.000-05:002011-12-31T19:24:29.861-05:00Arctic BooksChristmas, in our household, is a time of family and giving... giving books, that is. Lots and lots of books. <br /><br />Here's my haul, with a delicious mound of Arctic-related books to add to my ever expanding library, as well as a bunch of map and Canadian history books. <br /><br />I have a lot of reading ahead of me in 2012. I'll have my own reviews of these as I go through them so come back for my thoughts over the course of the new year. For now, I'll leave you with the publisher's summary.<br /><br /><strong><u>Arctic Haul</u></strong><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8EKY7Ww_CrnNlH7eS8sOrY3iMRp8lOthus4su0P-tEKSC2sBn8ShBmIsrA_Nk9lEe7XbSjgL9_iQGpXowysOJEzrafOvo0RTjxOfuwMqViEFgMCLj_9Jsx8kkyXzXt2rhFyn-9bFGpN3t/s1600/Historical+Atlas+of+the+Arctic.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 210px; height: 165px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8EKY7Ww_CrnNlH7eS8sOrY3iMRp8lOthus4su0P-tEKSC2sBn8ShBmIsrA_Nk9lEe7XbSjgL9_iQGpXowysOJEzrafOvo0RTjxOfuwMqViEFgMCLj_9Jsx8kkyXzXt2rhFyn-9bFGpN3t/s320/Historical+Atlas+of+the+Arctic.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5692054874655699090" /></a><i><a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Historical-Atlas-of-the-Arctic-Derek-Hayes/9781553650041-item.html?ikwid=historical+atlas+of+the+arctic&ikwsec=Books">Historical Atlas of the Arctic</a></i>, Derek Hayes (2003)<br /><blockquote>The vast empty spaces of the Poles were the last frontier to be assailed by explorers intent on achieving a geographical goal. But long before the North Pole was finally attained, men sailed the seas searching for an easier and shorter path to the riches of the Orient. The mapmakers of the day translated sparse information into often fanciful, sometimes stunningly artistic maps.<br /><br />Author Derek Hayes documents the international race for the Pole involving expeditions on foot, by hot air balloon and by airplane. Along with the detailed historical maps, Hayes provides insightful commentary, and describes the aspirations and motivations of explorers and the harsh realities they faced. Hayes also presents a number of revealing and often beautiful scientific maps produced at a time when the military and those in search of oil probed the ocean and the ice of the arctic frontier.</blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Arctic-Giants-Neil-Christopher-Eva-Widermann/9781926569093-item.html"><em>Arctic Giants</em></a>, Neil Christopher(2011)<br /><blockquote>This book is the only full-length volume on the giants of the North. It is based on Inuit oral tradition and has been extensively and meticulously research. These authentic myths will take you back to a dangerous time of epic battles, shape-shifting animals and dark magic. For hundreds of years these Inuit legends have been carried down from generation to generation, whispered quietly in the night. Unsparingly told in the vein of the Brothers Grimm, this powerful cultural legacy is bound to become part of Canada''s fairy tale canon. This rich and dramatic Arctic folklore with its spectacular illustrations will cast a spell on children and adults alike.</blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Magnetic-North-Notes-Arctic-Circle/dp/0374200130"><em>The Magnetc North: Notes from the Arctic Circle</em></a>, Sara Wheeler (2011)<br /><blockquote>A Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 Title<br /><br />More than a decade ago, Sara Wheeler traveled to Antarctica to understand a continent nearly lost to myth and lore. In the widely acclaimed, bestselling Terra Incognita, she chronicled her quest to find a hidden history buried in Antarctica’s extreme surroundings. Now, Wheeler journeys to the opposite pole to create a definitive picture of life on the fringes. In The Magnetic North, she takes full measure of the Arctic: at once the most pristine place on earth and the locus of global warming.<br /><br />Inspired by the spiraling shape of a reindeer-horn bangle, she travels counterclockwise around the North Pole through the territories belonging to Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway, and Finland, marking the transformations of what once seemed an unchangeable landscape. As she witnesses the mounting pollution concentrated at the pole, Wheeler reckons with the illness of the whole organism of the earth.<br /><br />Smashing through the Arctic Ocean with the crew of a Russian icebreaker, shadowing the endless Trans-Alaska Pipeline with a tough Idaho-born outdoorswoman, herding reindeer with the Lapps, and visiting the haunting, deceptively peaceful lands of the Gulag, Wheeler brings the Arctic’s many contradictions to life. The Magnetic North is an urgent, beautiful book, rich in dramatic description and vivid reporting. It is a singular, deeply personal portrait of a region growing daily in global importance.</blockquote><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjooNn9VFG_6nTCMbyXTA8BWhh-aoKjThrqwGcfMFR6Lo2PCJPXUMb6CzfoR4Nx4HzXyfFew7eSUs-NQU1ibdA290kxVOnc_VjxKO6NV47PECNpXGNDUqJPuuIgEv2ZMYITBDKVMCVh4x97/s1600/Northwest+Passage+%2528Book+Cover%2529.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 210px; height: 315px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjooNn9VFG_6nTCMbyXTA8BWhh-aoKjThrqwGcfMFR6Lo2PCJPXUMb6CzfoR4Nx4HzXyfFew7eSUs-NQU1ibdA290kxVOnc_VjxKO6NV47PECNpXGNDUqJPuuIgEv2ZMYITBDKVMCVh4x97/s320/Northwest+Passage+%2528Book+Cover%2529.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5692055096275171474" /></a><a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Northwest-Passage-Annotated-Softcover-Edition-Scott-Chantler/9781934964354-item.html?ikwid=the+northwest+passage+chantler&ikwsec=Books"><em>The Northwest Passage</em></a>, Scott Chantler (2010, reissue)<br /><blockquote>After Fort Newcastle is brutally captured by invading French mercenaries, Charles Lord and a band of his surviving soldiers, trackers, and explorers embark on one last, great adventure to unite the people of Rupert's Land to reclaim their home. This rollicking historical adventure fights its way on land and sea, all in search of and control of the mythic Northwest Passage.</blockquote><br />Other, non-Arctic-related books:<br /><br /><strong><u>Canadian History</u></strong><br /><br /><li><a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Nation-Maker-Sir-John-Macdonald-Richard-J-Gwyn/9780307356444-item.html?ikwid=nation+maker%3a+sir+john+a.+macdonald&ikwsec=Home"><em>Nation Maker: Sir John A. MacDonald, His Life and Times</em></a>, Richard Gwyn (2011)</li><br /><li><a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Historical-Atlas-Canada-Canadas-History-Derek-Hayes/9781553650775-item.html?ikwid=historical+atlas+of+canada%3a+canada%27s+history+illustrated+with+original+maps&ikwsec=Books"><em>Historical Atlas of Canada: Canada's History Illustrated with Original Maps</em></a>, Derek Hayes (2006)</li><br /><li><a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/1867-How-Fathers-Made-Deal-Christopher-Moore/9780771060960-item.html?ikwid=1867%3a+how+the+fathers+made+a+deal&ikwsec=Books"><em>1867: How the Fathers Made a Deal</em></a>, Christopher Moore (1998)</li><br /><li><a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Elusive-Destiny-Political-Vocation-John-Paul-Litt/9780774822640-item.html?ikwid=elusive+destiny%3a+the+political+vocation+of+john+napier&ikwsec=Books"><em>Elusive Destiny: The Political Vocation of John Napier Turner</em></a>, Paul Litt (2011)</li><br /><br /><strong><u>Other Map-related</u></strong><br /><br /><li><a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Then-Now-Short-History-World-Christopher-Moore-Andrej-Krystoforski/9780887765407-item.html?ikwid=from+then+to+now%3a+a+short+history+of+the+world&ikwsec=Books"><em>From Then to Now: A Short History of the World</em></a>, Christopher Moore (2011)</li><br /><li><a href="Maphead"><em>Maphead</em></a>, Ken Jennings (2011)</li>Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-47129987155001353592011-09-09T09:53:00.000-04:002011-09-09T11:09:10.642-04:00BBC Article on Franklin Expedition<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHbJS7QQ1BW-UjjmB2ajzW_j4Fq8nmpTzXN7Wc5dazRT2sS6IXLPMnzCgAf45qIjwwuJpcKzdBVRj8OLp3Vu0SPAzuojizEkzvBlpp-x07of9MEB20xMC3e78VmRF-ienOQv-mwV6g45xR/s1600/Bones+on+KWI.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHbJS7QQ1BW-UjjmB2ajzW_j4Fq8nmpTzXN7Wc5dazRT2sS6IXLPMnzCgAf45qIjwwuJpcKzdBVRj8OLp3Vu0SPAzuojizEkzvBlpp-x07of9MEB20xMC3e78VmRF-ienOQv-mwV6g45xR/s400/Bones+on+KWI.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650376163904756738" /></a><br />I was interviewed last week by the BBC on the Franklin Expedition - does that put me in the exulted stratosphere of now being considered an "expert"? Whooot! - and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14847091">here</a> is the resulting article by Kate Dailey.<br /><br />I'm pleased to see she interviewed my friends, and true experts on this, <a href="http://franklinexpedition.blogspot.com/">William Battersby</a> and <a href="http://visionsnorth.blogspot.com/">Russell Alan Potter</a>, as well as Marc-Andre Bernier of Parks Canada and <a href="http://visionsnorth.blogspot.com/">Ron Carlson</a>.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT6LEtb969m9Q8v1NjbAX0LGv5Ns8dPt8X_Zd_pVAfpZapRaaf6ZyABTC2MIpiWPcueV8cbUMcNihGmH4sx9I_-LBIzSh83Kxb934l-KK2_lPE0KFvS498rpytRfy_IJ0FI71jKAsmLJXD/s1600/Expedition+Route+Map.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 304px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT6LEtb969m9Q8v1NjbAX0LGv5Ns8dPt8X_Zd_pVAfpZapRaaf6ZyABTC2MIpiWPcueV8cbUMcNihGmH4sx9I_-LBIzSh83Kxb934l-KK2_lPE0KFvS498rpytRfy_IJ0FI71jKAsmLJXD/s400/Expedition+Route+Map.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650376305771346370" /></a><br /><br /><blockquote><strong>Franklin expedition: Will we ever know what happened?</strong><br /><br />By Kate Dailey<br /> <br />BBC News Magazine<br /> <br />The Franklin expedition was last seen near Greenland in July 1845.<br /><br />Canadian explorers have drawn a blank in the latest hunt for the remains of Captain Sir John Franklin's fatal expedition, 160 years after he took 129 men deep into the Arctic. But will the mystery of the doomed crew ever be unravelled?"<br /><br />In 1845, Capt Franklin, an officer in the British Royal Navy, took two ships and 129 men towards the Northwest Territories in an attempt to map the Northwest Passage, a route that would allow sailors to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the icy Arctic circle. <br /><br />Stocked with provisions that could last for seven years, and outfitted with the latest technology and experienced men, the two ships - HMS Erebus and HMS Terror - were some of the biggest, strongest, vessels ever to make the journey. <br /><br />But the men vanished into the frozen Arctic, leaving a few clues but no explanation as to what went wrong. <br /><br />The first search party set off in 1848 and searches involving teams from Canada, the UK, and the US have continued ever since. Last week, representatives from Parks Canada announced the results from their search this summer, which proved unsuccessful. <br /><br />Captain Sir John Franklin had sailed the Arctic three times prior to his fateful trip "What people have been looking for has changed. We've given up looking for survivors, we've given up looking for bodies. Now we're just looking for any answers," says William Battersby, who wrote the biography of James Fitzjames, the captain of the Erebus.<br /><br />"The extraordinary thing is that despite all this effort, after 160 years and by thousands of people, we still don't know where the ships are, and what happened on the expedition, or what happened to most of the men."<br /><br />Scattered remains<br /> <br />Explorers have found rock cairns with messages from sailors who abandoned ship. They've taken oral history from Inuit people whose ancestors saw the ships get stuck in giant ice floes. In several cases, they've dug up the bones and preserved bodies of the ship's crew. But they've found no ships, no logs, and no sign of Franklin himself. <br /><br />In subsequent years, a rough sketch of the troubles emerged. During the first winter, the crew disembarked, travelled south to hunt. Franklin left a reassuring message in a rock cairn, signed "All well". A month later, he was dead. <br /><br />A year later, the crew returned to the cairn and updated the note. By that time, 15 sailors had died. <br /><br />"If it had just been that, it would have been one of the biggest disasters of Arctic exploration," says Ted Betts, a Toronto lawyer and author of the blog Franklin's Ghost. But it wasn't just that. <br /><br />From that time on, things only got worse. The men, sickened from scurvy, tuberculosis and lead poisoning, got weaker and weaker. They reportedly abandoned ship in 1848, only to meet a cold death elsewhere.<br /><br />In 1859, an explorer sent by Franklin's wife travelled to the spot where the ships had been abandoned. He didn't find the Terror or the Erebus. Instead, he found a small whaleboat, full of books, chocolates, and the skeletons of two sailors. <br /><br />The boat, says Russell Potter, professor of English at Rhode Island College, was pointed towards where the abandoned ship once sat. <br /><br />"Maybe they weren't trying to get away, but to get back to their ship and die in comfort," he says. "It's a very poignant arrangement." <br /><br />Two other locations offered a concentrated amount of remains, says Battersby. "They do seem to be associated with men who just abandoned ship, gave up hope of ever being rescued, and sadly, gradually, cannibalised the bodies of their comrades."<br /><br />A few fully-preserved corpses have been found in the snow as well. But the bodies of others, including Franklin, are missing. <br /><br />"They simply disappeared. It's like Apollo 13 went around the moon and never came back again," says Battersby. <br /><br />"They never had a date of death, a place of death. They're immortals who are trapped between life and death. Are they ghosts? How long did the last one live? We just don't know."<br /><br />Desolate and desperate<br /> <br />For Ron Carlson, a Chicago architect and licensed bush pilot, it's easy for him to understand why, after all these years, the ships are still missing - and how desolate the last days must have been for men on that doomed ship. <br /><br />"It's vast. When I flew, I could look out over Victoria Strait and see 50 miles of ice pack in all directions," he says. "It's like the surface of the moon, but without any marks."<br /><br />The broad and punishing size of the search area dwarfs the high-tech equipment and meticulous research used by the Parks Canada team, and the other explorers before them. <br /><br /> The fate of the ships inspired artwork, music and literature, including this sketch by Owen Stanley "Both of the ships were caught in the ice for two years but slowly drifting south in a very large body of water," says Marc-Andre Bernier, chief of underwater archaeology services at Parks Canada. <br /><br />That could mean that the ships are hundreds of miles apart. "For us, it's just as important to know where they're not," he says, so that future searches can start fresh.<br /><br />For sailors on the Terror and Erebus, the barren landscape and dim prospects possibly only added to an increasing sense of foreboding. <br /><br />"It seems very clear from several sources that the men on these ships suffered from terrible lead poisoning, which leads to depression," says Battersby, who read the records from an earlier trip by the Terror to the Arctic. <br /><br />"The account of the Terror's voyage of that year says how bad the atmosphere was, how demoralised people were and how depressed they all were." <br /><br />Battersby believes that the ships themselves, which had an internal pipe system to melt ice and provide fresh water, was the source of the poison. <br /><br />Finding the ships could prove this theory. It would also bring to a close a search first launched in the time of Queen Victoria. But it wouldn't end the mystery.<br /><br />"It's really just the beginning," says Betts. The papers, artifacts, and infrastructure will provide a whole new raft of information and leads - and more fodder for followers of the Franklin expedition's sad fate. </blockquote>Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-56372715496439846462011-09-06T10:38:00.000-04:002011-09-06T10:45:49.209-04:00Arctic airship deal signedHmmmm.... Now where have we heard this idea before?<br /><br />I certainly hope these well-intentioned folks have <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._A._Andr%C3%A9e's_Arctic_Balloon_Expedition_of_1897">studied their history</a>.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTlnZmq-HK91HQTORPVISqRIpo1D2tuPcQhx6H8PTyTdkT7OHJ3iUa4mYwIrL9cOSDCKYW2A_S0GZczslvdclswXXBLD8n_Goyz-OUuUCRs0duo0IIUdTJaOhI_i49Xw71ZzS17BVEKXDB/s1600/Arctic+Airship.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 263px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTlnZmq-HK91HQTORPVISqRIpo1D2tuPcQhx6H8PTyTdkT7OHJ3iUa4mYwIrL9cOSDCKYW2A_S0GZczslvdclswXXBLD8n_Goyz-OUuUCRs0duo0IIUdTJaOhI_i49Xw71ZzS17BVEKXDB/s400/Arctic+Airship.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649257520742504370" /></a><br /><br /><blockquote><a rhef="http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1261786.html"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;">Arctic airship deal signed</span></strong></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br />The idea has been floating around for years, but a deal between a northern aviator and a British manufacturer could finally see giant airships sailing through Arctic skies within three years.<br /><br />"It’s been the next big thing for a long time," said Rolf Dawson of Yellowknife-based Discovery Air, which recently signed an agreement in principle with the United Kingdom’s Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) to develop and bring in the first specially adapted airships to the land of bush planes and ice roads.<br /><br />"We’re working toward a commercial agreement which will stipulate how many aircraft we’re going to commit to buying, what the timing of the delivery and what the payment terms are going to be."<br /><br />Airship boosters have long suggested that using lighter-than-air craft to haul equipment and supplies could change the economics of development in remote areas.<br /><br />Airships require neither ice roads nor runways. Both are expensive to build and increasingly tough to maintain in the warming northern climate. Airships use far less fuel than planes and have massive lift capacity. The HAV design can haul 50 tonnes — about twice the payload of a Hercules airplane.<br /><br /></span>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._A._Andr%C3%A9e's_Arctic_Balloon_Expedition_of_1897">More</a>]</blockquote>Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-10026636670856324722011-09-01T16:05:00.000-04:002011-09-01T16:30:01.799-04:00Artifacts recovered from HMS Investigator<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizBHfdnUmIfdW-KnoJ3s9yJPKy1X__xHDTkkeijhElh-7BlaWZASTqAwk3DKHwrIBX6F3Ycf2Th4Po0LWpiMWV1lKWC9HFwYvxdvzuNEBPhUU_l-4ZWrEsugU00ZUyyo4VRTZod5sKzeQc/s1600/Investigator.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizBHfdnUmIfdW-KnoJ3s9yJPKy1X__xHDTkkeijhElh-7BlaWZASTqAwk3DKHwrIBX6F3Ycf2Th4Po0LWpiMWV1lKWC9HFwYvxdvzuNEBPhUU_l-4ZWrEsugU00ZUyyo4VRTZod5sKzeQc/s400/Investigator.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647487192686523330" /></a>
<br />Well, looks like another season passes and nothing further on the Erebus and Terror front, but perhaps we are getting closer and closer as each acre is painstakingly ruled out year after year.
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<br />Not a complete lost summer by any respects. Especially since <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/story/2011/09/01/science-hms-investigator-artefacts.html">some artifacts have been recovered from HMS Investigator</a>, including a musket, some rigging, some sheathing, and the sole of a leather shoe.
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<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijKNW_dVAK-bGXci0Upus7EfuqBQtkbwEkivfshhHAZorPNtuWIu-TuW8unzf8xvVjfuT5JlNUY8nFWMMwqvuim533s4m0m32_lxba7KzriYpujYuyWGR7d-sBO8fRjSA66geaIJS9FgvO/s1600/1046_15746_web_8column.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijKNW_dVAK-bGXci0Upus7EfuqBQtkbwEkivfshhHAZorPNtuWIu-TuW8unzf8xvVjfuT5JlNUY8nFWMMwqvuim533s4m0m32_lxba7KzriYpujYuyWGR7d-sBO8fRjSA66geaIJS9FgvO/s400/1046_15746_web_8column.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647488808457092242" /></a>
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<br />Talk about being, um, <i>frozen in time</i>!!
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<br /><em><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong>Divers find Northwest Passage discovery artifacts</strong>
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<br />CBC News Posted: Sep 1, 2011 11:16 AM CT Last Updated: Sep 1, 2011 1:59 PM CT
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<br />A musket and other artifacts from HMS Investigator, the ship abandoned in the Canadian Arctic in 1854 during the hunt for Sir John Franklin’s lost expedition, have been recovered by divers. The ship is credited with discovering the Northwest Passage.
<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdPjFQ4uPdNd55BxwpIHPwrlewZ-Xql5oq6Vfa3FVGEh30i4yieLSEt3dNzB2ugDX-2zIJ8wQuS8zR6-Pt329hyphenhyphenqS9JB_l3Et4UWVHqDtMclq9zhKi6n1M1eijeCGOExOTBHGm3ChpXN6d/s1600/1046_15749_web_8column.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 122px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdPjFQ4uPdNd55BxwpIHPwrlewZ-Xql5oq6Vfa3FVGEh30i4yieLSEt3dNzB2ugDX-2zIJ8wQuS8zR6-Pt329hyphenhyphenqS9JB_l3Et4UWVHqDtMclq9zhKi6n1M1eijeCGOExOTBHGm3ChpXN6d/s320/1046_15749_web_8column.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647487648025875858" /></a>
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<br />Shoes, a musket, a copper sheet, and parts of the ship’s rigging were among the items brought up over nine days this July from the wreck discovered last summer in Mercy Bay, off Banks Island in the Northwest Territories. Divers were lucky enough to find the usually ice-covered bay largely open water during the expedition.
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<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTB2nSgEHtDNwpXoDEWEnGbgtmFhs68Ho7DFjB-rYp3DJaaRUQZ54DkIJE_bUvdhy8HITONbF7t2Mdy5USRdaqtRq5jIjZ9lZ1QIZKg95bWjlQxbmY9hRaujkKgeTYnQvzawpQ9CF7iiFz/s1600/1046_15747_web_8column.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTB2nSgEHtDNwpXoDEWEnGbgtmFhs68Ho7DFjB-rYp3DJaaRUQZ54DkIJE_bUvdhy8HITONbF7t2Mdy5USRdaqtRq5jIjZ9lZ1QIZKg95bWjlQxbmY9hRaujkKgeTYnQvzawpQ9CF7iiFz/s320/1046_15747_web_8column.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647488472600598274" /></a>
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<br />John Franklin's party disappeared while searching for the Northwest Passage in 1848 following their captain's death partway through the expedition. Their ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, haven't been found, despite numerous searches.
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<br />HMS Investigator, captained by Robert McClure, was sent in 1850 to search for Franklin's crew and their ships.
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<br />After more than two years trapped in the ice at Mercy Bay, crew members were rescued by a Royal Navy sledge team, who took them to another ship.
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<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXMCJ_DKncFezPg7SEjpEP-m1WO8Rr6YlvuxSalhlN9MA_q_o7pAuVTYeIUxIJFBTM1rnIkZcEGqcJFiVw0Ue5Iv_KySRpXg3PDUXQfzVmks6ea9NtJe8yvhxj2fJSCQGmhZN4q8swfQ8V/s1600/1046_15748_web_8column.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXMCJ_DKncFezPg7SEjpEP-m1WO8Rr6YlvuxSalhlN9MA_q_o7pAuVTYeIUxIJFBTM1rnIkZcEGqcJFiVw0Ue5Iv_KySRpXg3PDUXQfzVmks6ea9NtJe8yvhxj2fJSCQGmhZN4q8swfQ8V/s320/1046_15748_web_8column.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647487987910551970" /></a>
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<br />In the end, McClure and HMS Investigator succeeded where Franklin failed — they are credited with finding the Northwest Passage.
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<br />Marc-André Bernier, the Parks Canada scientist who led the expedition, said that “to dive on that shipwreck that is literally frozen in time... with artifacts on the deck” was the highlight of his career of more than 20 years.
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<br />Archeologists photographed and mapped the ship using sonar and video to determine its state of preservation.
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<br />"Although the hull is basically survived up to the main deck, the main deck is a litter of timbers,” Bernier said at a news conference.
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<br />The ship continues to be damaged by ice, he said, but there was a lot of sediment within the interior of the ship.
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<br />“This is basically the best conditions to preserve artifacts,” he added.
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<br />The buried artifacts were left untouched, but about 16 lying outside and on the deck were recovered because they were exposed, and researchers feared they could become damaged before an expedition could return to the site.
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<br />Bernier said the most exciting was the copper sheeting, which protected the ship's hull from marine organisms. That's because the copper can be chemically tested and compared to copper found at other sites to figure out whether those pieces originally came from HMS Investigator, or compared to the copper on other ships.
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<br />He added that some of the items, such as the shoes, are of interest because they appear to include waterproofing or other modifications for use in the Arctic.
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<br />The collected artifacts included copper sheathing that protected the hull of the ship - considered by archeologists to be the most important find. Chris Rands/CBCResearchers also conducted land surveys as part of the expedition, collecting an inscribed wooden barrel top, an arrow and a tin can near a cache linked to Robert McClure, the captain of HMS Investigator.
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<br />They identified four new archeological sites, including a small aboriginal camp and rock cairn.
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<br />At one point, the researchers responded to a search and rescue call that brought them near a previously known archeological site believed to have been used as an observatory by Franklin's crew between 1846 to 1848. There, they checked up on the site and collected artifacts that included bottle glass, copper nails, twine or rope, tent canvas, and pieces of tobacco smoking pipes.
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<br />Franklin search to continue: Kent
<br />However, as previously announced, they did not manage to locate HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, Franklin's long-lost ships, in the third year of a three-year hunt for them.
<br />
<br />Environment Minister Peter Kent gave his assurances that government-funded expeditions will continue to visit the Arctic each summer to continue the search and map the Arctic waters that are becoming increasingly ice-free and navigable.
<br />
<br />"Certainly, I can assure you that this will be an ongoing project," he said.
<br />
<br />Kent noted that while HMS Investigator was trapped in a bay, where it stayed put, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror may have drifted very long distances to two very different sites, based on Inuit oral history indicating their locations.
<br />
<br />Bernier said the area that needs to be searched is enormous, but that large swaths are ruled out each year.
<br />
<br />"We are getting closer because we have covered more territory," he said.
<br />
<br />HMS Erebus and HMS Terror are considered by Parks Canada to be National Historic Sites, Bernier added.
<br />
<br />"They are the only National Historic Sites for which we don’t know the location," he said, adding that the department has the mandate and the responsibility to find them.</span></blockquote></em>
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<br />Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-114177338365433952011-07-15T13:56:00.001-04:002011-07-15T13:56:44.694-04:00HMS Terror found<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij2Gz11hed0K7lOWlH0GfZilFJQ-T6yFxTTqpYL0Pb1NYYecDphFS3Z9ypArBqQ40nSeV_7yfmt2etVwFHk2rp1vn9HC-Nf-n80Z1Fw76lEAgdmyYxJ3araGmLsn6BG2DK5GB1H6bVRaUH/s1600/Back%2527s+HMS+Terror.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 258px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij2Gz11hed0K7lOWlH0GfZilFJQ-T6yFxTTqpYL0Pb1NYYecDphFS3Z9ypArBqQ40nSeV_7yfmt2etVwFHk2rp1vn9HC-Nf-n80Z1Fw76lEAgdmyYxJ3araGmLsn6BG2DK5GB1H6bVRaUH/s400/Back%2527s+HMS+Terror.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5629285235231882146" /></a><br /><br />New Franklin discovery! HMS <em>Terror </em>found!<br /><br />Well, not the <i>actual</i> ship, of course.<br /><br />A previously unknown painting of HMS <em>Terror </em>, by non other than Royal Navy artist-turned-admiral Sir George Back, has been discovered and is to be auctioned off in September. They are expecting the painting to fetch $25,000.<br /><br />It's a beautiful and dramatic watercolour as you can see above. Back painted it (or, more likely, sketched it before painting it later back in England) during his trouble-plagued voyage to Hudson Bay in 1836. That expedition was to cross the Melville Peninsula overland and explore the opposite shore. After being beset and nearly crushed against rock cliff outcrops and colliding with icebergs on the voyage home, HMS <em>Terror</em> was sinking when it was beached in Ireland in 1837. <br /><br />The painting had been in the Back family until its owner passed away and the estate discovered it.<br /><br />Who knows. Maybe the original will have been found by the time it goes to auction.<br /><br /><blockquote><strong>Painting of lost Arctic vessel HMS Terror comes to light after 175 years</strong><br />By Randy Boswell, Postmedia News July 14, 2011 1:55 PM<br /><br />A dramatic and previously unknown watercolour scene of Canada painted during the golden age of Arctic exploration by that era's most legendary artist has come to light in Britain after 175 years.<br /><br />The image of an enormous iceberg towering above the famous Arctic expedition ship HMS Terror and one of its rowboats was painted by Royal Navy artist-turned-admiral George Back, who captained the vessel during a trouble-plagued voyage to Hudson Bay in 1836.<br /><br />The painting, which has emerged from the obscurity of a Back family collection to be auctioned in London by Bonhams, is expected to fetch up to $25,000 at a maritime art sale in September.<br /><br />By then, the very ship depicted in Back's long-lost painting may have been located lying on the Arctic seabed in western Nunavut.<br /><br />Parks Canada announced earlier this month that it will undertake a new search in August to locate the lost ships of the Franklin Expedition — the Terror and its sister vessel HMS Erebus, which were sunk by pack ice during a disastrous voyage led in the 1840s by Back's friend and mentor, Sir John Franklin.</blockquote>Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-86541952826833076162011-07-14T10:24:00.000-04:002011-07-14T12:16:04.293-04:00Nunavut defends rejecting Franklin search bid [Updated]<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ9FGOIgFtmTQ7PJzzNqFs4rpkvFEPFgMK8KXct6fb5LxHYT5yj0-Nm4C0P1iW9IIc5l_qrPDtdAIwxpUnBPq7pP_gsS2s5FC31KBWRp5gnKLZ3ElJJ7atger8ykXghBBF4gkWvc0Wo4wG/s1600/doug-stenton.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 113px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ9FGOIgFtmTQ7PJzzNqFs4rpkvFEPFgMK8KXct6fb5LxHYT5yj0-Nm4C0P1iW9IIc5l_qrPDtdAIwxpUnBPq7pP_gsS2s5FC31KBWRp5gnKLZ3ElJJ7atger8ykXghBBF4gkWvc0Wo4wG/s200/doug-stenton.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5629229485865988898" /></a><br />The Nunavut Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth (CLEY) has come out to <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/story/2011/07/13/franklin-carlson-nunavut-reax.html">defend its decision to reject Ron Carlson's application for a permit</a> search for Franklin sites from his airplane.<br /><br />I remain quite unconvinced.<br /><br />Doug Stenton, the department's heritage director, and the bureaucrat <a href="http://bushpilotdhc.blogspot.com/2011/07/received-personal-threats-from-head-of.html">specifically highlighted in particular by Carlson on his blog because of the personal jail-time threats</a>, is quoted as saying: "We feel for that reason that it's very important that these sites are investigated by individuals who have the proper experience, the proper qualifications, training. <strong>I can't think of any reason why a well-resourced, competent, professional team wouldn't get a permit</strong>." <br /><br />Excuse me, but... baloney.<br /><br />If that is the case then:<br /><li>Why was the <a href="http://franklinsghost.blogspot.com/2009/07/procom-diving-companys-finding-franklin.html">Procom expedition</a> not approved two years ago? They had more than adequate resources, experience and professional qualifications and training. They are one of the leading underwater search experts.</li><br /><li>Why was Carlson only rejected once he got there? They had nearly a year to determine whether he had the qualifications or not. Carlson was well qualified for what he was planning to do. In both cases, well-resourced, competent and professional teams were trying to advance knowledge at their own expense, for the benefit of all, agreed to provide Nunavut/Canada with all of their research and to keep it from the public so it was not misused. Each had long pedigrees of showing respect for archeological sites.</li><br /><li>Why was Carlson rejected after the Inuit community actually on King William Island had approved his plans?</li><br /><li>Once Carlson's permit was rejected, why threaten him with jail time for merely flying over King William Island, something CLEY had permitted him to do a few seasons ago and something they only have questionable authority to do (for just a fly-over and photography)?</li><br /><li>[Update]As noted in the comments, David C. Woodman was also rejected by CLEY despite being one of the leading experts with <a href="http://www.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/woodman/mainpage.html">more than adequate search history and credentials</a>. Really makes you think something else is going on here.</li><br /><br />I am somewhat grateful for CLEY coming forward instead of hiding behind a great wall of bureaucracy. And I completely understand and share the concerns they have about tourists and greedy excavators.<br /><br />But why pretend to offer permits if they are not going to be issued? They should at least clarify what the criteria are because, even according to their own criteria as stated, it seems they are rejecting fully competent expeditions.<br /><br />I completely agree with McGoogan on this. There ought to be some way to find a compromise. Most of the great advances in Franklin research has come from private enthusiasts like Robert Rondeau and Ron Carlson. Their spark and curiosity has not only resulted in most of the "finds" but also in the sense of importance of this archeology and the need to protect it, not to mention the expeditions now being conducted by Parks Canada itself.<br /><br /><blockquote><strong><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/story/2011/07/13/franklin-carlson-nunavut-reax.html">Nunavut defends rejecting Franklin search bid</a></strong><br /><tiny>CBC News Posted: Jul 13, 2011 3:50 PM CT Last Updated: Jul 13, 2011 3:50 PM CT</tiny><br /><br />Nunavut government officials are defending their decision not to give a Chicago man an archeological permit to search for Sir John Franklin's grave in the Arctic.<br /><br />Nunavut heritage director Doug Stenton says the territory is not overly trying to protect high-profile undiscovered archeological sites. CBC <br />Ron Carlson, a Chicago-based architect, pilot and Franklin history buff, had wanted to fly over King William Island with his DeHavilland Beaver aircraft and use thermal imaging equipment to look for the British explorer's grave.<br /><br />But Carlson told CBC News this week that his application for a territorial archeological permit was rejected just as he had arrived in Nunavut late last month.<br /><br />The territory's Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth, which is responsible for issuing the permit, ruled that Carlson was not qualified.<br /><br />Doug Stenton, the department's heritage director, said many people want their name associated with Franklin, whose doomed 1845 voyage and disappearance in the Northwest Passage has fascinated historians for almost 170 years.<br /><br />"We feel for that reason that it's very important that these sites are investigated by individuals who have the proper experience, the proper qualifications, training," Stenton told CBC News on Tuesday.<br /><br />Nunavut is home to about 12,000 known archeological sites, and Stenton said his department needs to ensure the people who study those sites have the expertise and tools required to do the job.<br /><br />Skulls of members of the Franklin expedition were discovered by William Skinner and Paddy Gibson in 1945 at King William Island in Nunavut. National Archives of Canada/Canadian Press <br />"We take that responsibility very seriously, and we review and consider every application on its own merits," Stenton said.<br /><br />Carlson is not the only potential Franklin searcher to have been denied a territorial permit. In 2009, Stenton's department rejected a private group's application to locate Franklin's lost ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror.<br /><br />Nunavut has supported the Canadian government's expeditions to locate Franklin's ships. Archeologists with Parks Canada are set to search in an area west of King William Island next month.<br /><br />Carlson said he feels the Nunavut government never seriously considered his application and is intentionally blocking private searchers from accessing Franklin sites.<br /><br />But Stenton insisted that it's not a case of overly protecting high-profile undiscovered archeological sites.<br /><br />"I can't think of any reason why a well-resourced, competent, professional team wouldn't get a permit," he said.<br /><br />Author and historian Ken McGoogan, who has written four books on Arctic exploration, said he does not think there was any conspiracy on the Nunavut government's part to keep Franklin searchers out.<br /><br />"I am torn with regard to the story of Carlson," McGoogan said.<br /><br />"Obviously, the government has a major role to play in making sure the sights are undisturbed. But he was only going to be flying over, so I think a compromise could have been worked out."</blockquote>Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-42013807753009156622011-07-11T14:37:00.000-04:002011-07-11T15:03:01.608-04:00CBC reporting on bureaucratic interference with Carlson's expeditionRon Carlson's plans have been foiled by bureaucrats.<br /><br />And now it is hitting the <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/story/2011/07/11/franklin-grave-search-carlson.html">news</a>.<br /><br />If you have been following Ron Carlson's very interesting and different <a href="http://bushpilotdhc.blogspot.com/">search for Franklin graves</a> using fly-over thermal photography closely on his blog (as we have), then you will already know the almost Kafka-esque permitting mountain he attempted, and failed, to climb.<br /><br />Carlson provides the gory details <a href="http://bushpilotdhc.blogspot.com/2011/07/good-news-and-bad-news.html">here</a> (short version) and <a href="http://bushpilotdhc.blogspot.com/2011/07/received-personal-threats-from-head-of.html">here</a> (long version). Carlson remembers that he is not the only one to receive this kind of treatment from the Nunavut Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth (CLEY) <a href="http://bushpilotdhc.blogspot.com/2011/07/rings-bell.html">here</a>.<br /><br />Carlson wonders if CLEY and Parks Canada are jealously protecting Franklin relics and possible Franklin finds (most especially the lost ships themselves) for themselves. And even if they are, in fact, going so far as to collect possible search expedition sites and technologies from the elaborate and detailed applications for permits they have no intention of providing.<br /><br />Perhaps that is why we haven't heard a single word from or about <a href="http://franklinsghost.blogspot.com/2010/11/summer-of-franklin.html">Bear Gryls "find"</a> in the James Ross Strait area.<br /><br />Maybe with this kind of publicity, we will get some reaction from the bureaucrats at CLEY. Even if they don't explain themselves, and why criminal charges and threats of jail time were necessary for such innocuous activity, they could at least lay out some clearer criteria for when they may actually issue a permit.Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-60027584265757451572011-07-05T21:04:00.000-04:002011-07-05T21:20:03.974-04:00Time, Canada, to negotiate the Northwest Passage<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgShK5UzVADZzPyALN6EImWWbzx9zLT9HuvxftwGwYvYQqRWWn-mkh6LKCUf9B-IZPyeVB81DtcYH3m4NkPfNr2uhksb8ClT-k6Y-JHkq0ImDsmPYYSQhREJa_ez0MJejuTm3ka029EGmPc/s1600/li-arctic-sub-rtr2kkip.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgShK5UzVADZzPyALN6EImWWbzx9zLT9HuvxftwGwYvYQqRWWn-mkh6LKCUf9B-IZPyeVB81DtcYH3m4NkPfNr2uhksb8ClT-k6Y-JHkq0ImDsmPYYSQhREJa_ez0MJejuTm3ka029EGmPc/s400/li-arctic-sub-rtr2kkip.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626042268450962402" /></a><br />On my list of summer must-reads is <em>Who Owns the Arctic? Understanding Sovereignty Disputes in the North</em> by Michael Byers. Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at UBC and is a project leader with ArcticNet, a federally-funded consortium of scientists from 30 Canadian universities and eight federal departments. <br /><br />So when Michael Byers says something about the Arctic and about sovereignty, it is probably worth your while to pay attention.<br /><br />And <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/07/05/f-vp-byers-northwest-passage.html">this</a> is a worthwhile read from him, not just for Franklin-o-philes and those passionate about the Northwest Passage, not just for those who accept the reality of a quickly melting Arctic, but for anyone in government who might have a chance to catch the ear of our Prime Minister.<br /><br />My hope is that all of Prime Minister Harper's bungling and sabre rattling and falsehood on the "threats" to our "sovereignty" in the Arctic was just electioneering in an ever-threatened minority government situation. And that now, with the stability he sold us on, he will start leading and doing the right things that actually protect and benefit the Arctic and his country.<br /><br />Michael Byers hopes so too. And he know of what he speaks.<br /><br />And of what he writes.<br /><br /><blockquote><strong><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/07/05/f-vp-byers-northwest-passage.html<br />">Time, Canada, to negotiate the Northwest Passage</a></strong><br /><br />By Michael Byers<br />Special to CBC News <br />Posted: Jul 5, 2011 5:51 PM ET <br /><br />With Arctic sea ice melting, at up to three times faster than scientists were predicting, the international battle over the polar region and the Northwest Passage, in particular, is also heating up. This week Moscow sent a nuclear-powered icebreaker to explore the extent of its northern continental shelf while Canada announced that this summer's annual military exercise in the Arctic will be the largest in recent history.<br /><br />UBC's Michael Byers, the author of Who Owns the Arctic? Understanding Sovereignty Disputes in the North, says it is time for the federal government to start formally negotiating the rules around the Northwest Passage with the international community, the Americans especially.<br /><br /> <br />Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia. He is a project leader with ArcticNet, a federally-funded consortium of scientists from 30 Canadian universities and eight federal departments and is the author of Who Owns the Arctic? Understanding Sovereignty Disputes in the North.<br />It's never been easy for Canada to talk about the Northwest Passage with the U.S. The passage was the holy grail for explorers from Cabot to Hudson and Franklin, whose discoveries helped define our northern nation.<br /><br />The Northwest Passage also constitutes Canada's most significant long-standing dispute with the U.S. It's a source of both pride and anxiety in our close but asymmetrical relationship.<br /><br />Still, we've managed to talk before. In 1988, Brian Mulroney resolved the sovereignty challenge posed by U.S. Coast Guard icebreakers. In return for Ronald Reagan agreeing that such ships would request permission from Canada, Mulroney promised that permission would be routinely granted.<br /><br />Our current prime minister, however, seems to have missed that lesson in pragmatic diplomacy.<br /><br />In fact, during his very first press conference as prime minister back in January 2006, Stephen Harper took aim at then U.S. ambassador David Wilkins for having simply reiterated Washington's longstanding position — that the Northwest Passage is an international strait open to foreign shipping.<br /><br />"It is the Canadian people we get our mandate from," said Harper, "not the ambassador from the United States."<br /><br />It was a potentially damaging rebuke, for just a few months earlier, Paul Cellucci, Wilkins's predecessor, had revealed that he had asked the U.S. State Department to re-examine Washington's position.<br /><br />Cellucci's concern was that terrorists might take advantage of ice-free conditions to enter North America or transport weapons of mass destruction via its largely unguarded northern coast.<br /><br />Cellucci went so far as to suggest publicly that Canada's position — that the Northwest Passage constitutes "internal waters" where foreign vessels are subject to the full force of Canadian law — might now work for the U.S.<br /><br />Setting a precedent<br />From where I sat, as the holder of a Canada Research Chair in international law at UBC, it looked as if the prime minister had just blown off an invitation to negotiate. My University of Montreal colleague Suzanne Lalonde and I decided to investigate.<br /><br />Prime Minister Stephen Harper talks with Chief of Defence Staff Walt Natynczyk while standing on an iceberg near Resolute, Nunavut, in August 2010. It was the Harper's fourth trip to the Far North in as many years. (Chris Wattie/Reuters) In Washington, we met with J. Ashley Roach, the straight-shooting diplomat then charged with U.S. policy on the law of the sea.<br /><br />We knew that Washington's position was based on a concern that any concession on the Northwest Passage might create a precedent for other waterways, such as the Strait of Hormuz where oil tankers steam out of the Persian Gulf and freedom of navigation is contested by Iran.<br /><br />Couldn't you sidestep the notion of setting an international precedent, we suggested, by accepting that the Northwest Passage is unique? We pointed to the passage's considerable length, the frequent presence of sea ice, and the consequent near-absence of shipping — indeed, only 69 full voyages had taken place since 1906.<br /><br />Roach's reply was that the Pentagon was especially concerned about setting a precedent, which we took to mean that the State Department might have a less rigid view.<br /><br />We pointed out that maintaining access to the Northwest Passage should not be a concern, since Canada would never deny entry to a close ally.<br /><br />"The United States understand that," Roach said.<br /><br />Thanking him for his candour, we left for our next meeting, with four diplomats at the Canadian Embassy.<br /><br />After we'd sketched the outlines of our discussion with Roach, they looked at each other with visible regret. "I'm glad you went to the State Department," the most senior of them said. "We're not allowed to talk about the Northwest Passage with the United States."<br /><br />Open waters<br />Five months later, in July 2007, Harper bluntly stated that "Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our sovereignty in the Arctic. Either we use it or we lose it."<br /><br />The message to the international community was clear: Canada wasn't interesting in compromising its go-it-alone position.<br /><br />But the scale of the challenges we face in the North changed dramatically in September 2007 when there was a massive retreat of Arctic sea ice and, for the first time, the entire Northwest Passage was open to shipping.<br /><br />It now appears possible that the thick, hard multi-year ice that poses the greatest risk to ships will disappear forever within five to 10 years. The Northwest Passage will then resemble the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where ice-strengthened vessels and icebreaker-escorted convoys can operate safely throughout the year.<br /><br />The prospect of increased shipping, of course, brings with it security and environmental risks like smuggling, terrorism and oil spills that often transcend boundaries.<br /><br />And the fact is that neither Canada nor the U.S. with its long Alaskan coastline is able to address these challenges adequately on its own.<br /><br />Perhaps with this in mind, the U.S. has now embarked on an unprecedented amount of Arctic co-operation. The State Department recently led the negotiation of an Arctic-wide search-and-rescue treaty designed to coordinate multinational responses to shipping and aviation disasters.<br /><br />The U.S. Air Force has partnered with Russia in testing a joint response to any hijacking of a civilian aircraft in international airspace. The U.S. Coast Guard has, for four summers now, sent an icebreaker to the Beaufort Sea to map the ocean floor in tandem with a Canadian vessel.<br /><br />The time is ripe<br />Washington is also working within the Arctic Council and International Maritime Organization to develop co-operative mechanisms for oil spill clean-ups and fisheries management, as well as on safety standards for polar shipping.<br /><br />At the same time, the U.S. appears to understand that Harper's Arctic rhetoric has always been aimed at Canada's electorate and not necessarily its international partners.<br /><br />As a U.S. diplomat explained in a cable released by WikiLeaks: "The persistent high public profile which this government has accorded 'Northern Issues' and the Arctic is … unprecedented and reflects the PM's views that 'the North has never been more important to our country' — although one could perhaps paraphrase to state 'the North has never been more important to our Party.'"<br /><br />Perhaps now, with a majority government and a bit of partisan breathing room, the prime minister can finally pursue the opening created by Cellucci six years ago.<br /><br />It's time to negotiate the Northwest Passage dispute; to talk about the commitments — on access, policing and search-and-rescue — that the U.S. might wish from Canada, in return for recognizing our claim to this passage as "internal waters." </blockquote>Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-29956161514542514852011-07-01T10:24:00.001-04:002011-07-01T18:37:46.147-04:00More details on 2011 searches<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpRiE53lSHGT52JQrjBPQipbth4c6EoG48Q5V0nWAgExcRbzZKJTfRkg-L4F2Ee8zLjx48RwYBAXWwBWXnlZMavfH51_BrbZ6lM1UyBlytPC6joFJrxRlD0DLopPeXbXemQfGyMcdZpLVa/s1600/HMS+Terror+and+HMS+Erebus+beset.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 206px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpRiE53lSHGT52JQrjBPQipbth4c6EoG48Q5V0nWAgExcRbzZKJTfRkg-L4F2Ee8zLjx48RwYBAXWwBWXnlZMavfH51_BrbZ6lM1UyBlytPC6joFJrxRlD0DLopPeXbXemQfGyMcdZpLVa/s320/HMS+Terror+and+HMS+Erebus+beset.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5624394505850110450" /></a><br />Some of the details of the planned Parks Canada searches for HMS <i>Erebus</i> and HMS <i>Terror</i> are being reported on. (<a href="http://franklinsghost.blogspot.com/2011/06/parks-canada-confirms-2-phased-searches.html">Prior related post.</a>)<br /><br />The two-phased search - phase 1 in July going back to the HMS <i>Investigator</i> wreck and phase 2 in August searching for HMS <i>Erebus</i> and HMS <i>Terror</i> - appears to be three phases, or at least the second phase for the search for HMS <i>Erebus</i> and HMS <i>Terror</i> will be done in two parts: one part searching off the west coast of King William Island in the vicinity of where the ships were abandoned and one part searching in the Queen Maud Gulf region where Inuit testimony collected by Charles Francis Hall indicates one of the ships may have been wrecked. According to the <a href="http://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/cp-nr/release_e.asp?bgid=1497&andor1=bg">Parks Canada backgrounder</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>The 2011 search for the Franklin vessels will shift northward from the O’Reilly Island area to Victoria Strait where the second vessel is thought to have foundered. This new area is a priority for CHS and CCG in their mandate to promote the safety of shipping though the principal navigation corridors of the Canadian Arctic and Parks Canada will take advantage of this opportunity to embark on the search for the second vessel. </blockquote><br /><br />So that is good. More of the historical information does lead one to the Queen Maud Gulf region as the last resting place of at least one of the ships.<br /><br />Interestingly, according to <a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1017555--hunt-resumes-for-wreckage-of-franklin-expedition">this report</a>, "the search area has been whittled down from notes and messages that were written by crew members before their deaths, by oral histories passed down through generations of Inuit, and by other means of archeological sleuthing. [...] “We do have clues,” said lead investigator Marc-Andre Bernier. “We know where the ships were abandoned." "<br /><br />Which, of course, is quite interesting because this is not actually altogether crystal clear according to David Woodman's investigations of Inuit oral testimony given to Charles Francis Hall and others. We may know where the ships were originally abandoned, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest the ships, or at least one of them, were re-manned and sailed again, likely to the Queen Maud Gulf region and perhaps even near O'Reilley Island. Which Parks Canada will fortunately be searching.<br /><br />On the search technology front, we now know that Parks Canada will deploy an unmanned underwater vehicle, courtesy of the University of Victoria, with frigid water search capabilities which will cover some 100-square-kilometres with surface searches covering another 200-square-kilometres. The underwater vehicle can run for 16 hours a day before needing to have its battery recharged, apparently. According to the <a href="http://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/cp-nr/release_e.asp?bgid=1497&andor1=bg">Parks Canada backgrounder</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>In addition to technologies already deployed which included side-scan sonar and multi-beam bathymetry, the Parks Canada-led search for the Franklin vessels will enlist a sophisticated autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) supplied by the University of Victoria. The AUV uses a newly developed, high-resolution side-scan sonar and swath bathymetry sensor package which could allow the study of a larger area than that covered in the two previous years combined.</blockquote> <br /><br />So that is also good. The technology, the search area and building on three years of Parks Canada expedition research (as well as the research of many other explorers) will provide the greatest opportunity yet to find the wrecks of the missing ships or their last resting places. <br /><br />And perhaps find another piece of this 160 year old Arctic puzzle. <br /><br />Updates on the 2011 Parks Canada Arctic search expeditions will presumably be posted to or linked to from <a href="http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/culture/expeditions2011/index.aspx">this Parks Canada site</a>.<br /><br />The Parks Canada press release yesterday is <a href="http://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/cp-nr/release_e.asp?id=1721&andor1=nr">here</a>, with one of the backgrounders <a href="http://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/cp-nr/release_e.asp?bgid=1497&andor1=bg">here</a>. Some more media coverage <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/story/2011/06/30/northwest-passage-expedition.html">here</a> and <a href="http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/phase+search+Franklin+expedition+lost+ships+announced/5031491/story.html">here</a>, though there is not much more information in those news reports.<br /><br />More details as I come across it.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZCfPeRzlz2kVv7jbTSVAfxylskktfdqNALT5n_OR4lX0Mw0snUKYvahCSbCdKHufSrl8Clfv80Yf0JZ4hM7OW1XQEoZgNO8UxOaMWVse6T-worEaBjsMGG2LvLU7DFh44zTdBNYkM5aNg/s1600/HMS+Investigator.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 252px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZCfPeRzlz2kVv7jbTSVAfxylskktfdqNALT5n_OR4lX0Mw0snUKYvahCSbCdKHufSrl8Clfv80Yf0JZ4hM7OW1XQEoZgNO8UxOaMWVse6T-worEaBjsMGG2LvLU7DFh44zTdBNYkM5aNg/s320/HMS+Investigator.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5624394626982954722" /></a><br />HMS <em>Investigator</em>, discovered last year by Parks Canada after 3 minutes of searching in Mercy Bay, Banks Island.Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-60632393807304179432011-06-30T11:35:00.000-04:002011-06-30T11:52:16.007-04:00Parks Canada confirms 2-phased searches for summer 2010Parks Canada has finally confirmed that there will be a search expedition this summer, two in fact, as well as some of the details of the search.<br /><br />The two phases will encompass a July re-visit to the site of the wreck of HMS <i>Investigator</i>, which was discovered last year, in Mercy Bay off Banks Island, and an August underwater search for HMS <i>Erebus</i> and HMS <i>Terror</i> in the region west of King William Island in Nunavut. No greater detail of the search area has been provided yet for the Franklin ships phase. Whether "west of King William Island" means just west or west and south is not clear which is unfortunate as the areas south and west, particularly the Queen Maud Gulf area and O'Reilley Islands area, appear most promising from the historical data. <br /><br />The expedition will set sail on the Canadian Coast Guard vessel <em>Sir Wilfrid Laurier </em>as they did in 2008 and 2010. The HMS <i>Investigator</i> expedition will take place from July 10 to 25 and will deploy various underwater cameras. They'll also investigate McClure's cache and related terrestrial sites, including the rare, ancient Paleoeskimo site. The HMS <i>Erebus</i> and HMS <i>Terror</i> search is expected to launch on August 21.<br /><br /><blockquote><strong><a href="http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/new-technology-to-be-deployed-in-the-search-for-franklins-lost-vessels-1533582.htm<br />">New Technology to be Deployed in the Search for Franklin's Lost Vessels</a></strong><br /><br /><strong>Government of Canada continues Franklin search expedition in Canada's Arctic</strong><br /><br />OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - June 30, 2011) - The Honourable Peter Kent, Minister of the Environment and Minister responsible for Parks Canada, today announced that Parks Canada will be working with other Canadian researchers to deploy highly sophisticated underwater technology in the continuing search for polar explorer Sir John Franklin's lost ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. This summer's two-phased Arctic expedition will focus on further uncovering the story of the 19th century pursuit to find the Northwest Passage and will also include underwater exploration of the HMS Investigator shipwreck located last summer off Banks Island, as well as archaeological studies of related land sites.<br /><br />"The Government of Canada is proud to be working with a nationwide team of existing and new Canadian researchers in this search for two of the world's most elusive shipwrecks", said Minister Kent. "Our collective efforts will significantly enhance this year's search capacity through the use of new technology."<br /><br />The search for Sir John Franklin's lost ships under the direction of Parks Canada will enlist a sophisticated autonomous underwater vehicle to expand the search area, supplied by University of Victoria's Ocean Technology Laboratory.<br /><br />Beginning about August 21, depending upon local weather conditions, Parks Canada and the associated organizations will continue the search for Franklin's lost vessels in the region west of King William Island in Nunavut. The expedition is a collaborative effort among Parks Canada, University of Victoria Ocean Technology Laboratory, Government of Nunavut and Canadian Ice Service. As in 2008 and 2010, Parks Canada archaeologists will be operating from the Canadian Coast Guard vessel Sir Wilfrid Laurier alongside hydrographers with the Canadian Hydrographic Service. <br /><br />"The challenging search for a Northwest Passage has captured the public imagination for more than 400 years. As an integral part of our Canadian history and development as a nation, the Government of Canada is pleased to spearhead these important archaeological expeditions in Canada's Arctic," concluded Minister Kent. <br /><br />HMS Erebus and HMS Terror were lost during Sir John Franklin's ill-fated 1845 expedition to chart Canada's Northwest Passage and the vessels have been sought for more than 160 years, creating great anticipation for their possible discovery.<br /><br />From about July 10 to 25, Parks Canada archaeologists will further study the HMS Investigator wreck from a camp in Aulavik National Park, Northwest Territories near the western end of the Northwest Passage. The camp is near the location where Captain McClure and his ship HMS Investigator were trapped in the ice of Mercy Bay while searching for the lost Franklin voyage. <br /><br />While HMS Investigator was discovered last summer, underwater archaeologists plan to dive the wreck for the first time this summer using a variety of underwater cameras, with the purpose of bringing back new information and unique underwater images. Archaeologists will also investigate McClure's cache and related terrestrial sites, including a rare, ancient Paleoeskimo site. <br /><br />For additional information on the two-phased Arctic expedition and the 2011 itineraries, please see the accompanying backgrounders at www.parkscanada.gc.ca under Media Room. As well, please visit the special feature on the Arctic expeditions at www.parkscanada.gc.ca for regular updates over the summer.</blockquote>Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-77936805879374812512011-06-30T10:26:00.000-04:002011-06-30T10:33:59.790-04:00Canadian Government to Announce Franklin Ships Search PlansSome new news nearly here, just before noon, on Parks Canada's northern summer search plans seeking the Franklin ships. <br /><br />(Don't ask at all why I'm alliterative all day today. Could be connected to Canada Day coming.)<br /><br /><blockquote><a href="http://www.melodika.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=181229&Itemid=55"><strong>Government of Canada to Unveil Details on Archaeological Expeditions in Canada's Arc </strong> <br />Thursday, 30 June 2011 <br /><br />The Honourable Peter Kent, Minister of the Environment and Minister responsible for Parks Canada, will unveil plans for the summer 2011 archaeological expeditions in Canada's Arctic.<br /><br />Minister Kent will announce new details regarding the search for lost vessels of the Franklin Expedition, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, and information on the archaeological surveys of HMS Investigator and related land sites.<br /><br />Questions can be asked by calling in via teleconference at 1-877-413-4814 (toll free)<br /><br />Access code is 5125526<br /><br />To participate, media personnel must call at 10:50.<br /><br />Please note that this advisory is subject to change without notice.<br /><br />The details are as follows: <br /><br />Date: June 30 <br /> <br />Time: 11 a.m. <br /> <br />Location: Parks Canada <br /> Ontario Service Centre <br /> 1800 Walkley Road <br /> Ottawa, Ontario</a></blockquote><br />That would be in half an hour so I'm going to try to call in and will update if there is anything of substance.<br /><p>Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-88031458151151805992011-06-27T11:21:00.000-04:002011-06-27T11:28:44.779-04:00A Kindle for Sir John FranklinThis has only the thinnest thread of a tie-in with Franklin, but it's so neat that I couldn't resist.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXnNNd5rZ47ab9BV5G6cKIECU2acJcYqgXtS_4V9q5jfODB-6_KyzhP7h_kYrG68wfcskO9vQP5w7dXE3yKWvUU3hZ4OJ7pHPsrsMAvw4NyjCQssviAkiY_erwbqJPGGq7WJJ07TQSQ5Zs/s1600/Pre-technology+Kindle.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5622920798374320274" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXnNNd5rZ47ab9BV5G6cKIECU2acJcYqgXtS_4V9q5jfODB-6_KyzhP7h_kYrG68wfcskO9vQP5w7dXE3yKWvUU3hZ4OJ7pHPsrsMAvw4NyjCQssviAkiY_erwbqJPGGq7WJJ07TQSQ5Zs/s320/Pre-technology+Kindle.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Perhaps if Franklin had had a Kindle of this sort, the <i>Erebus</i> wouldn't have weighed down so heavily and been able to free itself from the ice.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">h/t </span><a href="http://nathaliefoy.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/a-kindle-for-charles/"><span style="font-size:78%;">Nathalie Foy</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">. </span>Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4543824272166445999.post-78152088581881928272011-06-19T12:03:00.000-04:002011-06-20T10:27:59.057-04:00Summer of Franklin, Take 2?Two bits of search-for-Franklin news.<br /><br />First, there is the intrepid and independent journey by <a href="http://bushpilotdhc.blogspot.com/">Ron Carlson</a> in his DeHavilland Beaver. Carlson is flying solo over the route travelled by the survivors with unique thermal photography equipment that he hopes will suggest where bodies from the expedition may have been buried, perhaps even Sir John Franklin's. Check <a href="http://bushpilotdhc.blogspot.com/">Carlson's blog</a> for background, updates and photos of his journey, including a discovery of a lost Hudson Bay Company outpost and an abandoned church with stainglass donated by Lady Franklin. Russell Potter puts this search in some <a href="http://visionsnorth.blogspot.com/2011/06/ron-carlsons-franklin-search.html">context</a>.<br /><br />Second, <a href="http://www.canada.com/technology/Search+fated+historic+Franklin+expedition+could+continue+this+summer/4970054/story.html">Parks Canada is quietly preparing for another search expedition this summer</a>. After the numberous Franklin-related stories and discoveries from <a href="http://franklinsghost.blogspot.com/2010/11/summer-of-franklin.html">last summer</a>, most especially the discovery of HMS Investigator, can we expect even more this summer? (Still waiting for any details from the very interesting and curious northwest passage of Bear Grylls and <a href="http://hidden-tracks-book.blogspot.com/2010/09/early-news-of-exciting-possible-new.html">the discovery of a possible Franklin site find</a>.)<br /><br /><blockquote><strong><a href="http://www.canada.com/technology/Search+fated+historic+Franklin+expedition+could+continue+this+summer/4970054/story.html">Search for ill-fated, historic Franklin expedition could continue this summer<br /></a></strong><br /><br />By Randy Boswell, Postmedia News<br />June 19, 2011 <br /><br />Parks Canada is quietly organizing a third season of searching this summer for the lost ships of Sir John Franklin — the 19th-century British explorer whose ill-fated expedition to the Canadian Arctic in the 1840s ended with the sinking of the ice-trapped HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, as well as the deaths of Franklin and all 128 men under his command.<br /><br /><br />While a Parks Canada spokeswoman told Postmedia News that plans are “fluid” and that the agency isn’t yet ready to disclose details of the proposed mission, she said officials are working with several partners in the federal and Nunavut governments “towards obtaining various authorizations and securing the necessary logistical support to be able to have the most productive search possible.”<br /><br /><br />Two previous searches in 2008 and 2010 were successful “in charting a navigation corridor to an area where we believe, through historic research, there is a high probability of finding the lost ships,” Parks Canada’s Natalie Fay told Postmedia News. “The area of surveying was approximately 150 square kilometres.”<br /><br /><br />The disappearance of the Franklin vessels, a profoundly traumatic moment for Victorian-era Britain and its Canadian colonies, prompted a series of Royal Navy rescue attempts that failed to find the ships but mapped much of the Arctic archipelago, ultimately securing sovereignty over the vast region for the future Canada.<br /><br /><br />The final resting place of the Franklin wrecks, which are believed to lie somewhere in the ice-choked waters off Nunavut’s King William Island, has eluded recent generations of searchers determined to locate one of the great global prizes of underwater archeology.<br /><br /><br />The Canadian government announced in 2008 that it was launching an unprecedented, three-season hunt for the sunken ships, so central to the story of Canada that they’ve already been declared national historic sites despite their unknown location.<br /><br /><br />Extensive sweeps of the Arctic sea floor were conducted in the 2008 and 2010 searches by Parks Canada and its partner agencies, including the Government of Nunavut, the Canadian Hydrographic Service and the Canadian Coast Guard.<br /><br /><br />A planned search in 2009 was called off when the Coast Guard icebreaker required by archeologists for sea floor surveys was unavailable because of other commitments related to Canada’s increased strategic interest in its Arctic frontier.<br /><br /><br />But federal archeologists said the resumed search for the Franklin ships in 2010 ruled out another large swath of seabed near King William Island and significantly narrowed the target zone for the 2011 expedition, which would begin in August if Parks Canada’s plans come together as expected.<br /><br /><br />Last year’s landmark discovery of the most famous of the Franklin rescue ships — HMS Investigator, which was abandoned in the Western Arctic pack ice in 1853 — has buoyed hopes for an even greater find this summer.<br /><br /><br />The Investigator — which had became hopelessly frozen in at Mercy Bay, just off Banks Island in today’s Northwest Territories — was finally pinpointed on the ocean floor last year by a Parks Canada team that won international acclaim for solving the long-standing mystery of that ship’s whereabouts.<br /><br /><br />The Investigator’s commander, Capt. Robert McClure, had led his crew off the ice-locked ship onto Banks Island, where they deposited a cache of supplies that has also been excavated by archeologists.<br /><br /><br />Both the shoreline area and the bay where the Investigator went down are today part of Aulavik National Park.<br /><br /><br />McClure and his men, facing sickness and starvation, eventually trekked across the sea ice to Melville Island and were rescued, at last, by another British ship.<br /><br /><br />But their combined travels by ship and foot marked a banner achievement in global exploration that Franklin and his doomed men had helped make possible — the traversing of the final link in the Northwest Passage, the polar sea route sought for centuries by European adventurers.<br /><br /><br />“With the arguable exception of the vessels from the Franklin expedition, the Investigator is the most significant shipwreck in the Canadian Arctic,” Jim Prentice, the former minister for Parks Canada, said after the July 25 discovery last year.<br /><br /><br />Though the Franklin ships vanished more than 160 years ago, the expedition’s many enduring mysteries have continued to attract attention from archeologists, wreck hunters, historians, songwriters and authors of popular books.<br /><br /><br />Earlier this year, a team of British scientists announced that they had re-identified one of only two sets of human remains from the Franklin Expedition returned to Britain for burial.<br /><br />For more than 140 years, a sailor’s remains found on King William Island in 1869 — then transported to a memorial chamber in Britain — had been identified as those of Lt. Henry Le Vesconte, one of Franklin’s perished officers.<br /><br /><br />But the first modern scientific study of the entombed bones and teeth determined that the skeleton probably belonged to another of Franklin’s officers: expedition naturalist and assistant surgeon Harry Goodsir.<br /><br /><br />The study also shed fresh light on the theory that a disastrous illness, perhaps scurvy or tuberculosis, had caused or contributed to the demise of Franklin and his men.<br /><br /><br />“No evidence of these diseases was found on the bones, and DNA tests proved negative for tuberculosis,” English Heritage, a British government advisory agency, stated in its summary of the new scientific findings.<br /><br /><br />Another prominent theory about the tragedy — that lead poisoning from tinned food or the ships’ water supplies had sickened the sailors during their Canadian voyage — is still being tested using the bones.<br /><br />© Copyright (c) Postmedia News</blockquote>Ted Bettshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06223729391428982448noreply@blogger.com0