Franklin's Ghost

Arctic Books

2011-12-30T14:13:00.000-08:00

Christmas, in our household, is a time of family and giving... giving books, that is. Lots and lots of books.

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.

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.

Arctic Haul
Historical Atlas of the Arctic, Derek Hayes (2003)

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.

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.

Arctic Giants, Neil Christopher(2011)

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.

The Magnetc North: Notes from the Arctic Circle, Sara Wheeler (2011)

A Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 Title

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.

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.

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.

The Northwest Passage, Scott Chantler (2010, reissue)

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.

Other, non-Arctic-related books:

Canadian History

Nation Maker: Sir John A. MacDonald, His Life and Times, Richard Gwyn (2011)

Historical Atlas of Canada: Canada's History Illustrated with Original Maps, Derek Hayes (2006)

1867: How the Fathers Made a Deal, Christopher Moore (1998)

Elusive Destiny: The Political Vocation of John Napier Turner, Paul Litt (2011)

Other Map-related

From Then to Now: A Short History of the World, Christopher Moore (2011)

Maphead, Ken Jennings (2011)

BBC Article on Franklin Expedition

2011-09-09T06:53:00.000-07:00

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 here is the resulting article by Kate Dailey.

I'm pleased to see she interviewed my friends, and true experts on this, William Battersby and Russell Alan Potter, as well as Marc-Andre Bernier of Parks Canada and Ron Carlson.

Franklin expedition: Will we ever know what happened?

By Kate Dailey

BBC News Magazine

The Franklin expedition was last seen near Greenland in July 1845.

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?"

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.

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.

But the men vanished into the frozen Arctic, leaving a few clues but no explanation as to what went wrong.

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.

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.

"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."

Scattered remains

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.

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.

A year later, the crew returned to the cairn and updated the note. By that time, 15 sailors had died.

"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.

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.

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.

The boat, says Russell Potter, professor of English at Rhode Island College, was pointed towards where the abandoned ship once sat.

"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."

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."

A few fully-preserved corpses have been found in the snow as well. But the bodies of others, including Franklin, are missing.

"They simply disappeared. It's like Apollo 13 went around the moon and never came back again," says Battersby.

"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."

Desolate and desperate

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.

"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."

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.

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.

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.

For sailors on the Terror and Erebus, the barren landscape and dim prospects possibly only added to an increasing sense of foreboding.

"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.

"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."

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.

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.

"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.

Arctic airship deal signed

2011-09-06T07:38:00.000-07:00

Hmmmm.... Now where have we heard this idea before?

I certainly hope these well-intentioned folks have studied their history.

Arctic airship deal signed

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.

"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.

"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."

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.

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.

[More]

Artifacts recovered from HMS Investigator

2011-09-01T13:05:00.000-07:00

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.

Not a complete lost summer by any respects. Especially since some artifacts have been recovered from HMS Investigator, including a musket, some rigging, some sheathing, and the sole of a leather shoe.

Talk about being, um, frozen in time!!

Divers find Northwest Passage discovery artifacts

CBC News Posted: Sep 1, 2011 11:16 AM CT Last Updated: Sep 1, 2011 1:59 PM CT

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.

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.

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.

HMS Investigator, captained by Robert McClure, was sent in 1850 to search for Franklin's crew and their ships.

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.

In the end, McClure and HMS Investigator succeeded where Franklin failed — they are credited with finding the Northwest Passage.

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.

Archeologists photographed and mapped the ship using sonar and video to determine its state of preservation.

"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.

The ship continues to be damaged by ice, he said, but there was a lot of sediment within the interior of the ship.

“This is basically the best conditions to preserve artifacts,” he added.

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.

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.

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.

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.

They identified four new archeological sites, including a small aboriginal camp and rock cairn.

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.

Franklin search to continue: Kent
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.

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.

"Certainly, I can assure you that this will be an ongoing project," he said.

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.

Bernier said the area that needs to be searched is enormous, but that large swaths are ruled out each year.

"We are getting closer because we have covered more territory," he said.

HMS Erebus and HMS Terror are considered by Parks Canada to be National Historic Sites, Bernier added.

"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.

HMS Terror found

2011-07-15T10:56:00.001-07:00

New Franklin discovery! HMS Terror found!

Well, not the actual ship, of course.

A previously unknown painting of HMS Terror , 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.

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 Terror was sinking when it was beached in Ireland in 1837.

The painting had been in the Back family until its owner passed away and the estate discovered it.

Who knows. Maybe the original will have been found by the time it goes to auction.

Painting of lost Arctic vessel HMS Terror comes to light after 175 years
By Randy Boswell, Postmedia News July 14, 2011 1:55 PM

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.

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.

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.

By then, the very ship depicted in Back's long-lost painting may have been located lying on the Arctic seabed in western Nunavut.

Parks Canada announced earlier this month that it will undertake a new search in August to locate the lost ships of the Franklin Expedition â€” 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.

Nunavut defends rejecting Franklin search bid [Updated]

2011-07-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

The Nunavut Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth (CLEY) has come out to defend its decision to reject Ron Carlson's application for a permit search for Franklin sites from his airplane.

I remain quite unconvinced.

Doug Stenton, the department's heritage director, and the bureaucrat specifically highlighted in particular by Carlson on his blog because of the personal jail-time threats, 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. I can't think of any reason why a well-resourced, competent, professional team wouldn't get a permit."

Excuse me, but... baloney.

If that is the case then:

Why was the Procom expedition 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.

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.

Why was Carlson rejected after the Inuit community actually on King William Island had approved his plans?

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)?

[Update]As noted in the comments, David C. Woodman was also rejected by CLEY despite being one of the leading experts with more than adequate search history and credentials. Really makes you think something else is going on here.

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.

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.

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.

Nunavut defends rejecting Franklin search bid
CBC News Posted: Jul 13, 2011 3:50 PM CT Last Updated: Jul 13, 2011 3:50 PM CT

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.

Nunavut heritage director Doug Stenton says the territory is not overly trying to protect high-profile undiscovered archeological sites. CBC
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.

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.

The territory's Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth, which is responsible for issuing the permit, ruled that Carlson was not qualified.

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.

"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.

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.

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
"We take that responsibility very seriously, and we review and consider every application on its own merits," Stenton said.

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.

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.

Carlson said he feels the Nunavut government never seriously considered his application and is intentionally blocking private searchers from accessing Franklin sites.

But Stenton insisted that it's not a case of overly protecting high-profile undiscovered archeological sites.

"I can't think of any reason why a well-resourced, competent, professional team wouldn't get a permit," he said.

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.

"I am torn with regard to the story of Carlson," McGoogan said.

"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."

CBC reporting on bureaucratic interference with Carlson's expedition

2011-07-11T11:37:00.000-07:00

Ron Carlson's plans have been foiled by bureaucrats.

And now it is hitting the news.

If you have been following Ron Carlson's very interesting and different search for Franklin graves 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.

Carlson provides the gory details here (short version) and here (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) here.

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.

Perhaps that is why we haven't heard a single word from or about Bear Gryls "find" in the James Ross Strait area.

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.

Time, Canada, to negotiate the Northwest Passage

2011-07-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

On my list of summer must-reads is Who Owns the Arctic? Understanding Sovereignty Disputes in the North 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.

So when Michael Byers says something about the Arctic and about sovereignty, it is probably worth your while to pay attention.

And this 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.

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.

Michael Byers hopes so too. And he know of what he speaks.

And of what he writes.

Time, Canada, to negotiate the Northwest Passage

By Michael Byers
Special to CBC News
Posted: Jul 5, 2011 5:51 PM ET

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.

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.

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.
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.

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.

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.

Our current prime minister, however, seems to have missed that lesson in pragmatic diplomacy.

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.

"It is the Canadian people we get our mandate from," said Harper, "not the ambassador from the United States."

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.

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.

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.

Setting a precedent
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"The United States understand that," Roach said.

Thanking him for his candour, we left for our next meeting, with four diplomats at the Canadian Embassy.

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."

Open waters
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."

The message to the international community was clear: Canada wasn't interesting in compromising its go-it-alone position.

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.

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.

The prospect of increased shipping, of course, brings with it security and environmental risks like smuggling, terrorism and oil spills that often transcend boundaries.

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.

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.

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.

The time is ripe
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.

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.

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.'"

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.

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."

Parks Canada confirms 2-phased searches for summer 2010

2011-06-30T08:35:00.000-07:00

Parks 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.

The two phases will encompass a July re-visit to the site of the wreck of HMS Investigator, which was discovered last year, in Mercy Bay off Banks Island, and an August underwater search for HMS Erebus and HMS Terror 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.

The expedition will set sail on the Canadian Coast Guard vessel Sir Wilfrid Laurier as they did in 2008 and 2010. The HMS Investigator 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 Erebus and HMS Terror search is expected to launch on August 21.

New Technology to be Deployed in the Search for Franklin's Lost Vessels

Government of Canada continues Franklin search expedition in Canada's Arctic

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.

"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."

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Canadian Government to Announce Franklin Ships Search Plans

2011-06-30T07:26:00.000-07:00

Some new news nearly here, just before noon, on Parks Canada's northern summer search plans seeking the Franklin ships.

(Don't ask at all why I'm alliterative all day today. Could be connected to Canada Day coming.)

Government of Canada to Unveil Details on Archaeological Expeditions in Canada's Arc
Thursday, 30 June 2011

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.

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.

Questions can be asked by calling in via teleconference at 1-877-413-4814 (toll free)

Access code is 5125526

To participate, media personnel must call at 10:50.

Please note that this advisory is subject to change without notice.

The details are as follows:

Date: June 30

Time: 11 a.m.

Location: Parks Canada
Ontario Service Centre
1800 Walkley Road
Ottawa, Ontario

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.

A Kindle for Sir John Franklin

2011-06-27T08:21:00.000-07:00

This has only the thinnest thread of a tie-in with Franklin, but it's so neat that I couldn't resist.

Perhaps if Franklin had had a Kindle of this sort, the Erebus wouldn't have weighed down so heavily and been able to free itself from the ice.

h/t Nathalie Foy.

Summer of Franklin, Take 2?

2011-06-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

Two bits of search-for-Franklin news.

First, there is the intrepid and independent journey by Ron Carlson 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 Carlson's blog 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 context.

Second, Parks Canada is quietly preparing for another search expedition this summer. After the numberous Franklin-related stories and discoveries from last summer, 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 the discovery of a possible Franklin site find.)

Search for ill-fated, historic Franklin expedition could continue this summer

By Randy Boswell, Postmedia News
June 19, 2011

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.

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.”

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Both the shoreline area and the bay where the Investigator went down are today part of Aulavik National Park.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

Canadian Bookshelf - Canadian Books on Franklin

2011-06-10T07:22:00.000-07:00

[I was recently honoured to be asked to submit a list of Canadian books on Franklin to the Canadian Bookshelf, a great new blog and website and must read for any Canadian bibliophile, for their launch on June 7, 2011. The following is the list I submitted, which can be found here. Unfortunately, the site does not support hyperlinks, so for now you, the readers of Franklin's Ghost, get the to enjoy the exclusive privilege of reading the post here with the re-inserted hyperlinks. My original post was also edited a little bit with the introduction and conclusion merged to work with their "list" formatting.

Unfortunately, they excluded Frozen in Time by Owen Beattie and John Geiger from the posting as the book is out of print (a travesty in its own right) and they aren't set up for out of print books. Something about the way the information loads up directly from their publishers. It will be added eventually once they figure a workaround.

Obviously, the list is necessarily very limited by being restricted to Canadian books, as any more complete list of Franklin books would show. But there are two interesting observations I would make about the list.

First, the early writing that renewed and reinvigoured interest in the Franklin expedition and inspired later generations of writers were Canadians. Most notably, Owen Beatie and John Geiger's Frozen Time and Pierre Berton's Arctic Grail. Many fine non-Canadian writers have written about Franklin, of course, both before and after the mid-1980s, but those two (especially Beattie/Geiger) opened up new channels of study and interest. And the late 1980s and early 1990s witnessed a relative flurry of Franklin-related writing insprired by those early writers. From Margaret Atwood and Mordecai Richler in fiction and cultural studies to Woodman in Inuit and historical studies.

Second, while Ken McGoogan has persisted in carrying the flag in the North, most recent writing on the Franklin expedition has been by , to a greater extent, British, and, to a lesser extent, Americans. Just like with the original searches, I guess. And this research has been deep and getting deeper. Somewhat to do no doubt with the volume of papers and artifacts actually in the UK, most especially the Scott Polar Research Institute, with books of Crozer by Smith and Fitzjames by Battersby, but also a number of British historians unsatisfied with the overall modern perception of Sir John Franklin, his expedition and all of the British Navy's explorations of the north (and elsewhere). Books like Beardsley, Cookman, Lambert, for example.

Opportunities abound for some enterprising Canadian writer.]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sir John Franklin set out from Greenhithe, England, on the morning of May 19, 1845to discover the Northwest Passage. He and his 129 member crew were never seen again. While bones and artifacts, and even graves, have been found, their ships have never been found and the mystery of their disappearance has endured for 150 years. With the discovery of the sunken HMS Investigator and the unexpected possible finding of the last resting place of the Franklin crew last year, and multiple new expeditions in search of answers every year, the Franklin story not only refuses to fade away, but grows yearly.

The resurgent interest in the mysteries of the Franklin expedition in the last 25 years was initiated by, and continues to be spurred on by, Canadian writers. Here's a few of them.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Arctic Grail: The Quest for the Northwest Passage and the North Pole, 1818-1909 by Pierre Berton (1988)

If you were to pick one book to start with, it really has to be The Arctic Grail, the classic book by the iconic Canadian writer and historian Pierre Berton. Following shortly on the heals of Owen Beattie’s foresic discoveries (see below), and no doubt inspired by them, it is an excellent survey of arctic exploration and the central role the Franklin Expedition and, more importantly, the decades plus search for Franklin had in mapping and exploring the Arctic.

Frozen in Time: Unlocking the Secrets of the Franklin Expedition by Owen Beattie and John Geiger (1987 with a good updated edition in 2004)

The groundbreaking archeological work of Owen Beattie almost single-handedly re-opened research and interest into the Franklin expedition. Beattie's first expedition explored King William Island, where nearly 150 years earlier Franklin's men abandoned their ships and supposedly started their long "death march" along the western coast. Strewn along the coast were the bones of dozens of European men from the mid-nineteenth century. Using modern day forensic analysis on the bones back at the University of Alberta, Beattie made two startling discoveries. The first confirmed what was already generally known: that the expedition survivors had indeed "been driven to the last dread alternative", cannibalism. But it was the second discovery that surprised: bone samples revealed extremely high and dangerous levels of lead. Frozen In Time then documents two subsequent trips to Beechey Island in which the bodies of the 3 found sailors were exhumed. The cadavers, frozen in the permafrost for a century and a half, confirmed the earlier results: the Franklin sailors were suffering from lead poisoning to such a degree that it was a contributing factor to their demise. The 2004 paperback edition updates their research to subsequent theories.

Unravelling the Franklin Mystery: Inuit Testimony by David C. Woodman (1992)

Historian David C. Woodman is one of the first modern writers to recognise the profound importance, accuracy and reliability of Inuit oral history and to analyse it in depth. He concludes from his investigations, among other startling discoveries, that the Inuit probably did visit Franklin's ships while the crew was still on board, that there were some Inuit who actually saw the sinking of one of the ships and that the crew, or at least some of them, may have lived for years longer than supposed. This is a book for the real Franklinophile. Consider also Woodman's harder-to-find follow-up Strangers Among Us (1995).

Fatal Passage: The True Story of John Rae, the Arctic Hero Time Forgot by Ken McGoogan (2002)

No reading list of Franklin history or of northern Canadian exploration would be complete without at least a few books from historian Ken McGoogan. Two of McGoogan’s “Fatal Passage Quartet” related directly to the lost Franklin expedition. Hudson Bay Company chief explorer John Rae charted more of Canada’s northern coastline on foot than possibly any other. It was Rae who not only uncovered the true story of Franklin – the location of the disaster and cannibalism (the telling of which doomed his career and reputation) – but also, according to the author was the true discoverer of the Northwest Passage and received £10,000 for it. In Fatal Passage, McGoogan tries to re-cast Rae into his rightful place in history.

Lady Franklin's Revenge: A True Story of Ambition, Obsession and the Remaking of Arctic History by Ken McGoogan (2005)

The story about Sir John Franklin cannot be fully understood without knowing about his ambitious, determined, obstinate and opinionated wife, Lady Jane Franklin. But for her efforts to mount and continue the search for her husband, there would have been no search for Franklin and no mapping of millions of square kilometers in the north. More than that, in Lady Franklin's Revenge, McGoogan brings to vivid life Lady Franklin and her husband Sir John, and the events that led to his command of the fateful expedition.

De Bon Usage des Etoiles [On The Proper Use of Stars] by Dominique Fortier (2008; translated to English in 2010)

The lost Franklin expedition has inspired not only serious research and study by non-fiction writers, but a library of fiction as well. The science and history inspired a significant portion of Mordecai Richler’s Solomon Gursky Was Here (1990), Margaret Atwood’s short story “The Age of Lead” (1989) from Wilderness Tips (as indicated by the title, directly from Beattie, in fact) and more recently the Helen Humphreys short story “Franklin’s Library” (2005) and the mystery/detective novel by the late, prize winning Canadian author Dennis Richard Murphy in Darkness at the Stroke of Noon (2008). Most recently, Dominque Fortier’s captivating and elegant historical fiction, On The Proper Use of Stars, which won the Governor General’s Medal in 2008 and was beautifully translated in 2010 (by Sheila Fischman) shows us the magneticism of this slowly unraveling mystery.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In a way, the historical and scientific writing, and the modern fiction it has inspired, is only catching up to generations of writing on Franklin by artists and folklorists and dramatists and poets. As Margaret Atwood noted in her 1995 book, Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature, though, the Franklin mystery has been told and re-told so many times that it has created a fundamental Canadian myth.

Ted Betts is a Canadian lawyer and historian who occasionally writes at the Franklin's Ghost blog. If this short list has in any way piqued your interest, he has compiled an essentials reading list on Franklin history.

Originally posted at Canadian Bookshelf.

Owen Beattie in the news

2011-06-08T06:27:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder what University of Alberta forensic scientist and author of the ground-breaking Franklin book Frozen in Time, Professor Owen Beattie, has been up to since he retired?

The retired professor's skills and experience remain of great value, though not just for our little Franklin world. He was called to testify as an expert witness in the bizarre first-degree murder trial of Mark Twitchell in Edmonton:

An anthropologist says it's impossible to tell what killed a young man from his charred bones found in the bush near Draper Road. Owen Beattie testified Tuesday in the first-degree murder trial of 33-year-old Dax Mack. Mack is accused of killing his roommate, 25-year-old Robert LeVoir. Beattie says he and his team spent days uncovering 4,539 cremated pieces of bone, including 87 tooth fragments, from the site in April 2004. He says the remains were from a man aged 20 to 30, but he couldn't determine how the man died. Crown prosecutor Steven Koval told an Edmonton jury earlier this week he intends to prove Mack shot LeVoir five times, then burned his body over three days.

More here.

It's a truly grisly tale. Twitchell is accused of killing Johnny Altinger on Oct. 10, 2008, cutting up his body, burning the parts and dumping his remains down a manhole. The Crown alleges the crime followed one of Twitchell's movie scripts in which a man is lured over the Internet and attacked. Altinger was lured to Twitchell's house over the internet and was either attacked, according to the Crown, or accidentally killed, according to Twitchell, before being dismembered and stuffed in a duffel bag.

Essential Franklin Reading

2011-06-02T23:11:00.000-07:00

My very first post here at Franklin's Ghost was a listing of what I considered to be some essential reading on the lost Franklin polar expedition and its participants. I promised then to eventually post a comprehensive bibliography of Arctic and Franklin related readings. I still plan (hope!?) to do that.

For now though, with so many new titles in the last 3 years and since I've read so many more on the list that I had not yet read back then, I'm going to simply update my essential reading list. The list is also now a little more comprehensive and a start on that bibliography. I've also reorganized the list a bit into different sections which are hopefully a bit more reader-friendly.

Consider the list your basic first course in Franklin related literature.

Feel free to suggest others or argue against any of them in the comments. The big gap in the list is Inuit accounts

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

General Surveys on Arctic Exploration and the Search for the Northwest Passage

Berton, Pierre (1988) The Arctic Grail: The Quest for the Northwest Passage and the North Pole, 1818-1909 -- If you were to pick one book to start with, I strongly recommend The Arctic Grail, the classic book by the iconic Canadian writer historian Pierre Berton. It is an excellent survey of arctic exploration and the central role the Franklin Expedition and, more importantly, the search for Franklin had in mapping and exploring the Arctic.

Fleming, Fergus (1998) Barrow's Boys -- Sir John Barrow, the Second Lieutenant of the Navy and the author of the Navy report that documented the story of the mutiny on HMS Bounty, was the driving force behind the many British expeditions of discovery in the North but also throughout the world. This is tale of his "boys" who sailed the world, and chief among them Sir John Franklin.

Sandler, Martin W. (2006) Resolute: The Epic Search for the Northwest Passage and John Franklin, and the Discovery of the Queen's Ghost Ship -- Despite the title, this is a good updated general survey of the search for the Northwest Passage, including a re-telling of the Franklin expedition and the searches for him, but one framed in the retelling of the fascinating tale of the ship Resolute which was abandoned after being beset deep in the northern Canadian archipelego in the ice while searching for Franklin but miraculously freed itself and was discovered in the Atlantic by whalers. The ship was returned by the US government to England and, years later when decommissioned, was used to make the famous Oval Office desk used by US Presidents since Kennedy.

General Franklin History

Beattie, Owen, and Geiger, John (first published: 1987, updated paper back edition: 2004) Frozen in Time: Unlocking the Secrets of the Franklin Expedition -- Groundbreaking archeological work that re-opened research and interest into the lost Franklin expedition. The 2004 paperback edition updates their research to subsequent theories.

Cookman, Scott (2000) Iceblink: The Tragic Fate of Sir John Franklin's Lost Polar Expedition -- While subsequent research has shown that it is highly unlikely that tinned food and food poisoning played any significant role in dooming the expedition, the rich and descriptive detail of Cookman's narrative style of writing and research almost puts you right into the hull of the Terror and Erebus.

Woodman, David C. (1992) Unravelling the Franklin Mystery: Inuit Testimony -- Woodman is one of the first to recognise the profound importance of the Inuit testimony and to analyse it in depth (John Rae or Charles Francis Hall should probably be recognized as the first, but Woodman is one of the first contemporary researchers). He concludes from his investigations, among other startling discoveries, that the Inuit probably did visit Franklin's ships while the crew was still on board, that there were some Inuit who actually saw the sinking of at least one of the ships, that the crew survived far longer than believed and actually split into two groups. Consider also Woodman's harder to find follow-up Strangers Among Us (1995) in which Woodman re-examines the Inuit accounts taken by Charles Francis Hall in the light of modern scholarship and re-evaluates the importance of Inuit oral traditions in his search to reconstruct the events surrounding Franklin's expedition.

Biographies

Cyriax, Richard J. (1939) Sir John Franklin's Last Arctic Expedition -- There has been an abundance of good biographies in recent hears, but anyone truly serious about learning about Sir John Franklin will need to eventually read Cyriax's 1939 biography. I still think the definitive biography of Sir John has yet to be written, but this remains, in many respects, still the most comprehensive and a good starting point.

Lambert, Andrew (2009) Franklin: Tragic Hero of Polar Navigation -- The first comprehensive biography of Franklin really since Cyriax's Sir John Franklin's Last Expedition in 1939. Lambert sets about re-casting Franklin's image of a bumbling sailor to a seasoned explorer and scientist. The latter especially is a too neglected part of Franklin's life. I reviewed this book here.

McGoogan, Ken (2002) Fatal Passage: The True Story of John Rae, the Arctic Hero Time Forgot -- Rae uncovered the true story of Franklin and his career and reputation was doomed for being honest about it. McGoogan tries to re-place Rae into his rightful place in history. I reviewed this book here.

McGoogan, Ken (2005) Lady Franklin's Revenge: A True Story of Ambition, Obsession and the Remaking of Arctic History -- The story about Sir John Franklin cannot be fully understood without knowing about his ambitious and opinionated wife, Lady Jane Franklin, and her efforts to mount and continue the search for her husband. More than that, McGoogan brings her and Sir John, and the events that led to his command of the fateful expedition, to life.

Smith, Michael (2006) Captain Francis Crozier - Last Man Standing? -- The first (and only) comprehensive biography of Captain Crozier, captain of the Terror and, after the death of Franklin, commander of the expedition.

Battersby, William (2010) James Fitzjames: The Mystery Man of the Franklin Polar Expedition -- The first (and only) comprehensive biography of Captain James Fitzjames, Commander of the Erebus and third in command overall. I reviewed this book here.

Affect on Art & Culture

Atwood, Margaret (1995) Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature -- A survey of the writing and literature about Franklin and how it has created a fundamental Canadian myth.

Potter, Russel (2007) Arctic Spectacles: The Frozen North in Visual Culture -- Potter illuminates the nineteenth-century fascination with visual representations of the Arctic and brings us closer to understanding why the Arctic has held such magnetic appeal through history.

Moss, Sarah (2006) The Frozen Ship: The Histories and Tales of Polar Exploration -- A truly sweeping survey of art, culture, polar exploration and the human imagination from Medieval Norse sagas to Winnie the Pooh and children's polar fiction. Sometimes reads like her doctoral thesis upon which it is based, but I'm quite sure she's missed very little.

Fiction

Franklin is not reserved only for the serious research and study of non-fiction writers. Someday I'll write up my own "essential" Franklin fiction reading list. The criteria for what is a "must read" is entirely different. For now, I'll leave you with a link to Professor Russell Potter's quite comprehensive list of Franklin-related fiction.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For anyone already emersed in Arctic and Franklin writing, this list is obviously hardly the start of it. But they are a good start. Feel free to let me know your favourite, or to provide your own review or suggestions for further reading, in the comments or by email. You may also want to browse this quite comprehensive list of Franklin links and this comprehensive regularly updated bibliography of Franklin fiction and poetry, thanks for both to Professor Potter.

Scanning this list you might notice something quite remarkable: just how much of the literature covering this nearly 200 year old event is so very recent. With new discoveries and expeditions every summer, comprehensive government-funded searches for the ships, ever more on the way. To say nothing about the plethora of fascinating blogs dedicated to all things Franklin.

We are truly in the midst of a genuine renaissance of writing on the lost Franklin Expedition. I hope to help foster that interest with this website. And you have just become a part of it by visiting.

Canada’s northernmost atmospheric lab defunded

2011-02-23T10:04:00.000-08:00

What do you do when you don't like the results of science? When the science conflicts with your perceived view of the world? What do you do when you own a world class, furthest north, leading Arctic environmental research laboratory that is producing real data used throughout the world that conflicts with what you want to believe?

Well, in Canada, the answer is easy: get rid of the science.

This will be a real loss to a whole host of scientific fields that transcend the Arctic: environmental, atmospheric, climatology, etc.

A few million dollars effectively spent loses out to hundreds of millions of dollars of pure porkbarrel politics, to say nothing of hundreds of millions spent on government self-promotion and the billions squandered on fake lakes and G20 primping.

What I'm referring to is PEARL, a CANDAC facility for atmospheric research in Eureka, Ellesmere Island, a continuously operating research-level station with a large complement of instrumentation for measuring atmospheric properties from the ground to around 100km. The geographical location is: 80°N, 86°25'W, the most northerly atmospheric station of its kind.

From today's Toronto Globe and Mail, the following editorial:

Saving Canada’s Arctic atmospheric lab

On Sunday, for the first time in four months, the sun rose over Eureka on Ellesmere Island, 10 degrees from the North Pole. The sun's return brings rays that break up ozone, and the Arctic climate and atmosphere are changing every year.

But we are about to lose our main source of knowledge about these intricate, and life-altering, processes, because our northernmost environmental research laboratory, known as PEARL, is in jeopardy. If Canada is serious about scientific discovery, and its status as an Arctic nation, the lab must be saved.

No one questions the lab's merit. Its instruments have collected Arctic surface and atmospheric data used by the world's major research organizations, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the World Meteorological Office. The lab houses Canada's northernmost high-speed Internet connection, allowing for rapid dissemination of results. Research done at the lab has already found, for instance, that water evaporation in the Arctic is far more complicated than had been thought. The lab is the only one of its kind in the high Arctic, and has produced 37 refereed publications and trained over 50 young scientists in 10 years.

PEARL is in trouble because one of its main sources of funding, the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, has lost federal support and is slated to wind down this year. A few of its instruments could, in theory, be moved, but our scientific heritage would be lost. As with the demise of the long-form census, data will no longer be comparable over long time-periods, making the data already collected less valuable.

Atmospheric research is important for all of Canada, but northerners are particularly vulnerable. “It's in the Canadian High Arctic where the global warming process is proceeding most rapidly,” says Richard Peltier, professor of physics at the University of Toronto. In addition, pollution from the south (and from the North itself, as it industrializes) leads to ozone loss and threatens the North's more fragile ecosystems and populations.

“How else would we expect to learn about the Arctic, if we don't do it ourselves?” asks James Drummond, professor of physics at Dalhousie University and principal investigator at PEARL. It's a challenge that puts the question of Canadian sovereignty in high relief, and deserves a response from our elected officials.

Review of Arctic Books Read in 2010

2011-02-15T18:19:00.000-08:00

A little bit late for an annual review of the Arctic books I read in 2011, but better late than never.

This is obviously not a summary of books published in 2010 or of all of my reading last year, but only those Arctic-related and Franklin-related books that I read this past year, together with my feeble attempt at a short review for your entertainment.

1. Farley Mowat, The Snow Walker (1975)

I had not read this book and only dimly recollected its existence as I pulled it off the shelf at our family cottage in Nova Scotia. I was looking for something to read from the "old books" shelf, being quite unattracted to the many titles we had carted halfway across the country from Toronto. It had been over a decade since I had last read any Mowat and I'm glad I picked up this one. The historian in you will gag at his "never letting facts get in the way of the truth" approach to writing/reporting, but he does melt the snowdrift away from the exposed rock of the real story. And Mowat can tell a good story. A thoroughly enjoyable read. What better to read in mid-summer's heat? (You could also choose watch the movie that is based upon one of the stories in the book.)

2. Ken McGoogan, Fatal Passage: The Story of John Rae, The Arctic Hero Time Forgot (2003)

McGoogan's Lady Franklin's Revenge was not the first Franklin book I read but it was the northern lights of my early polar reading and lit up my interest in the story of the lost Franklin Expedition. Somewhat ironic to read this one first and then his earlier John Rae biography (the first book in McGoogan’s “Fatal Passage Quartet”) There is something to be learned about the author in doing so for I think it is readily apparent how much of Lady Franklin's story and life and personality he learned, and dislike he had to set aside. And dislike is perhaps a mild phrase for the impression he leaves of her in Fatal Passage for what she did to Rae. But the book is about Rae, who truly was a great, heroic explorer that time forgot. McGoogan chronicles the vast amount of territory that Rae charted - no one had charted nearly as much territory and no non-Inuit had travelled as much by foot - including as McGoogan puts it, the final link in the fabled (if somewhat fictional) “North West Passage”.

McGoogan writes history, particularly historical biography, in the way I like to read it: a strong and clear narrative voice and point of view, but chock full of primary sources that anchor it, giving it weight, making it convincing. Fatal Passage is not nearly as polished as Lady Franklin's Revenge, nor does it dig or divulge as much directly from Rae's own writing as with his later biography and much of McGoogan's personal opinion seems to come out a bit too much, but it is a compelling read, great storytelling and even a good bit of suspense and drama to keep you engaged. For the Arctic and the Franklin enthusiast, this is definitely on the must read list.

3. Martin Beardsley, Deadly Winter: The Life of Sir John Franklin (2002)

This is not a book about "the life" of Sir John Franklin despite the title. This is a few hundred pages of a respondent's factum and statement of defence in some perceived case of Historical Impression vs Sir John Franklin. There are worthwhile segments in the book, but far too many cringeworthy positions in trying to set the Franklin record straight, the way Beardsley thinks it should be written, including very poorly argued and weakly supported claim, among other less kind descriptions I could make (more on this below).

Too many times in the book, it feels a lot like being in a room where someone is in a tense, impatient, at times heated argument with someone on the telephone, occasionally looking over at you and dismissively rolling his eyes. You are only getting one side of the argument here and Beardsley is so trivializing of opposing views that it is hard to even figure out what the other argument may be unless you are well versed in Franklin historiography. For example, despite accepted history supported by an abundance, even overwhelming, evidence from science and Inuit witness testimony, Beardsley confidently asserts that the English would never have "been driven to the last dread alternative", as Rae put it, but that it is more likely that they were attacked by Inuit (as the knife cuts in the bone reported by Beattie were more likely knife wounds from Inuit slaughter!) and that stories of cannibalism are more likely stories of cannibalism by Inuit - the “eaters of raw flesh”. I don't have a problem with authors challenging "accepted" history. In fact, that is what keeps the past vital and alive. Just look at Woodman's work with Inuit testimony. But if the weight of authority is against you, it is incumbent on you to thoroughly examine the details of the challenged argument and to present a comprehensive defense of your own.

Beardsley's argument is wanting, essentially offering up the old circular reasoning that sailors in the British Navy could never have eaten each other because... they were sailors in the British Navy. Well doesn't that just settle it all then! Compare again to Woodman who challenges pretty much the entire timeline and much of the inherited history by exploring in quite minute detail accepted wisdom with an exhaustive chronicling of native testimony, but also the history of the history, what was repeated and what was original. Agree with his conclusions or not, that is how you research and write history.

I think a Franklin scholar probably ought to read this book, but that is the best I can say about it.

4. Andrew Lambert, The Gates of Hell: Sir John Franklin's Tragic Quest for the North West Passage (2009)

Much of what Deadly Winter isn't, Gates of Hell is. Lambert also sets out to re-cast the story and history of Sir John Franklin, but as a story about a scientist who happens to explore the world. More than that, Franklin's geographical explorations were the extension, not of a nationalistic fervour to discover the Northwest Passage, but to advance science and magnetic science in particular. Lambert is more interested in articulating that view than countering accepted views and so he fills in an important gap in our understanding of Sir John Franklin, namely what motivated him personally. Lambert offers ample supporting evidence to rightfully balance out a listing in the ship of history so we can see its full hull.

Lambert's text suffers from two smaller historiographical dilemmas. First, with the modern image of Franklin as a failed explorer, even a buffoon, pursuing an irrational national dream that suffered from a ridiculous sense of imperial bigotry, Lambert had quite the large sea to cross to convince us differently. This he accomplishes. At least for me with overwhelming and deep and convincing research on Franklin and magnetism. But he quite unsurprisingly is too often forced to defend this new impression of Franklin too strongly and to dismiss or ignore other aspects of the existing Franklin lore that might still be true. Just because, for example, science and magnetism played a much more significant role than historians normally credit, does not mean that nationalism and imperial bigotry did not play as or more significant a role. As with space exploration, science drove the detailed planning and objectives, but there would have been no human in space if not for national ambition and fervour and international politics.

Second, without some fairly deep background knowledge of Franklin and his many expeditions, it would be somewhat difficult to follow the depths of Lambert's arguments. He assumes a lot of the reader. That can be fine - nothing wrong with targeting a more learned reader - but in assuming so much, while trying to convince us much of the inherited view is wrong, it is sometimes hard to sail along with him and his arguments. Plus it leaves the sense that he has hastened over facts that are clash too much with his thesis. The endless detail of the scientific community and personalities, and how important science was to them is for me endlessly fascinating. If I had more knowledge of the history of the science, I'd be better able to weigh Lambert's views; but as it is, I know too much that doesn't seem to fit. Which is really unfortunate because I thoroughly enjoyed this book and think it is a critical addition that fills a very significant hole in the historical literature, in regards to both the re-casting of Franklin and the importance of scientific discovery at least on a par with geographical discovery.

With these two Franklin biographies now written, and Franklin's image now less superficial and caricature, there is a real opportunity for some historian to write a complete history of the man, free from the confines of having to attack an existing image or defend a contrary view. The historiography is ready for it. Something along the lines of what McGoogan has done with Rae and Lady Franklin, filling in the huge gaps in their backstory, before the events with which we are all familiar, and bringing them back to us in three dimensions. The history for its own sake, freed from the chains of prior interpretation and personal agenda. Something along the lines of what William Battersby does in James Fitzjames: The Mystery Man of the Franklin Polar Expedition .

5. William Battersby, James Fitzjames: The Mystery Man of the Franklin Polar Expedition (2010)

James Fitzjames is a mystery despite inherited assumptions about him. And the tale of third in command on the Franklin expedition by William Battersby explores that mystery with exquisite detail and research. This is a remarkable book, especially for a first time book writer. It is again the kind of history I like to read: steeped in detail and direct quoting from primary sources, but never to the extent of weakening the narrative, the storytelling that drives non-academic scholarship. The sense of the love and passion for careful, comprehensive historical research emanates from every chapter. You can just imagine the number of dead ends Battersby traveled and ghosts chased before uncovering this untold and surprising tale. While the sense from Beardsley and Lambert is of writers wanting to "fix" a history they considered flawed, Battersby comes across more as an explorer, out to find out what he can about this intriguing figure and being driven on by each new revelation. Fitzjames is remade, the image of a well-to-do privileged and favoured son of the navy inappropriately added to the expedition in a leading role, convincingly re-cast as a bastard child with talents, a hard ride up the ranks and who held many secrets in his closet, of his own as well as, quite importantly, those belonging to important others.

As a first book, it is naturally not without its flaws, but the number of "new finds" from Battersby is really quite remarkable. At times, it is almost like a detective novel, uncovering hidden mystery after hidden mystery - his parentage, his “sister” and “brother”, the Euphrates expedition, the Chinese wars, the mysteriously and frequently occurring “X” in his journals... I'll leave the "reveal" to my reader's own readings, but it is enough to make my recommendation of this text strong, if being the only biography of Fitzjames wasn't enough to put this book on your reading list.

6. Dan Simmons, The Terror (2007)

I also read two Franklin related novels in 2010:The Terror by Dan Simmons and the English translation of the Governor General's Award winning On The Proper Use of Stars by Dominique Fortier.

I actually enjoyed, really enjoyed, the Simmons book. Until about two thirds of the way through, when it suddenly transitions from a vividly descriptive historical fiction to a supernatural horror novel. In a way I was relieved: throughout I kept thinking that Simmons was writing the Franklin novel that in my crazy dreaming I think I would want to write, a detailed historical fiction that brings the history alive. That he does very well, but then the story goes sideways and I understood why so many Franklin scholars disparage it. Ah well.

6. Dominique Fortier, On The Proper Use of Stars (2008; translated 2010)

Fortier on the other hand does not just offer up some fictionalized recounting of the Franklin expedition, but elevates the history higher. On The Proper Use of Stars is very well researched, but Fortier keeps history tightly reigned in to serve its literary ambitions. This is more literary history than historical fiction. And the prose and story so graceful and absorbing that it was rare that I could ever be fussed or picky about the few historical anomalies (I don’t even want to call them errors and risk diminishing the novel; besides, only someone immersed in Franklin lore would notice). Fortier won the Governor General's Medal for French Literature in 2008 and was elegantly translated into English by Sheila Fischman.

****************

I don't read Arctic or Franklin history exclusively at all, but that was what absorbed me in 2010.

Next, I'll post my reading ambitions for 2011. Feel free to make recommendations.

“The Polar Imperative” Shortlisted for Gelber Prize

2011-01-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

“The Polar Imperative: A History of Arctic Sovereignty in North America by by historian Shelagh Grant, on the race to claim sovereignty in the Arctic, has been shortlisted as a potential contender for the Lionel Gelber Prize. According to the website, the prize is award to the English-language book that “seeks to deepen public debate on significant global issues”. We'll find out who won on March 1.

Grant is adjunct professor of history at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, and was recently interviewed in Maclean's Magazine entitled "Do we really own the Arctic? Why we can’t protect our far North". She talks about the effect of climate change now and in the past on the Arctic and its people, Chinese northern ambitions and Canadian sovereignty claims. Though far too brief as such things are, it is worth the read.

It is interesting in the way a knowledgeable informed understanding of sovereignty and the North blows away the silly invented sovereignty threats for partisan gain that politicians, like the current Canadian government, do to drum up patriotic fervour to increase electoral chances rather than increasing standards of living or scientific knowledge or action.

Grant's book explores the early settlements of the Arctic by indigenous peoples to the most recent efforts of several circumpolar nations – and ultimately, the victory of the Canadians – in exercising sovereignty in the Arctic.

In a review, Doug Saunders summarizes Grant's analysis of the Canadian government's efforts and endeavours in the North:

The obverse side of this strategy has been Ottawa's repeated, century-long habit of announcing investments in the Arctic that never materialize. In this, Canada is in notable contrast to Denmark, which has spent large sums developing and supporting Greenland (which became an independent state last year) and its mainly Inuit people, even though it is even further from Copenhagen than Canada's Arctic possession is from Ottawa.

Grant lists Ottawa's recent history of empty flourishes: “plans for a nuclear-powered icebreaker were dropped; plans for a fleet of nuclear submarines were shelved; orders for search and rescue helicopters were cancelled.” The list of Arctic initiatives announced by Harper in 2008, including a deep-sea port and a fleet of icebreakers, proved to amount to almost nothing: Much was old spending, or promises without commitments, or cheaper projects in the Subarctic that did nothing for the far north.

It is only the Inuit themselves who have been able to establish a real Canadian presence in the North. The creation of the territory of Nunavut in 1999 has turned Iqaluit into a real centre (albeit one just below the Arctic Circle); the independence of Greenland last year shows that Inuit are far more willing than Europeans or their descendents were to exploit the Arctic's resources and turn their region into an economic hub.

In her conclusion, Grant lists the dozen “visionaries who were responsible for changing the map of the Arctic,” from Erik the Red and Martin Frobisher through Roald Amundsen and Vitus Bering; significantly, there is not a single Canadian among them. It may be on our maps and in our anthem, but the Arctic remains an utterly alien place to Canadians.

All the more so now, sadly, where the false concerns over "Arctic sovereignty" and the melding of sovereignty with legal issues over international vs national waterways are played up for giant political photo ops at the expense (literally) of real development desperately needed.

I have not yet read Grant's book but it is timely and I will. All of the best to her with the Gelber Prize nomination.

New Canadian History Search Site

2011-01-17T06:53:00.000-08:00

This I like a lot.

The Canadiana Discovery Portal is a new google-like search site of Canadian history which brings over 60 million pages of photos, maps, articles, newspapers, letters online in an easily searcheable database.

The Canadiana Discovery Portal is a project of Canadiana.org. The Portal is currently in beta phase but it is now freely accessible to the public.

A quick search of "John Franklin" reveals hundreds of documents, including photos, maps as well as texts. I did not know that Stephen Leacock had written a book entitled Adventurers of the far North: a chronicle of the frozen seas. Well, he did and on page 6 he refers to Franklin and includes Stephen Pearce's famous The Arctic Council planning a search for Sir John Franklin. That took about 2 seconds to find and review. (A full online version of the book can be found here.)

This is good news for Canadian historians. I think it is great news for those non-academics among us who are passionate about Canadian history, but don't dedicate our lives or careers to its study. Digitization democratizes information and, ideally, leads to broader knowledge among greater numbers. I've learned nearly as much about the Franklin Expedition, for example, from online sources - scattered here and there as they are - as from texts. (As an aside, as I've mentioned to some friends, I think there is a gaping hole to be filled online in Arctic/Franklin history. If anyone wants help working on an aggregator site or some such thing, let me know...)

The website portal bills itself as "your best single source for Canadian documentary heritage. It is a free service that enables users to search across the valuable and diverse digital collections of Canada’s libraries, museums and archives."

The number of online collections is growing. So check back often!

Canadiana.org is also the home of the "Early Canadiana Online" which claims to be "the first large-scale online collection of early Canadian print heritage". It currently offers twelve online collections totalling over three million pages of digitized content and is continually expanding. Talk about kid in a candy-store.

Arctic readers will especially appreciate and get a smile out of the Globe and Mail article (copied below) and one of the examples of search "finds" the reporter notes from his research: "On hockey, there are photographs of Lester B. Pearson on the ice in Switzerland, as well as an 1856 account of Captain F.W. Beechey's travels through the Northwest Passage and his observation of First Nations playing a game that looked like hockey."

Hockey, history, Lester Pearson and Arctic exploration! Hold my Brain; be still my beating Heart.

I suspect my productivity at work may suffer a bit this winter.

This is going to be fun!

Google-like search site connects 60 million pages of Canadian history

Stephanie Levitz
Ottawa— The Canadian Press
Published Monday, Jan. 17, 2011 12:33AM EST

Call it the Google of Canadian history.

An ambitious new search engine has been launched by an alliance of digital heritage advocates designed to allow one-stop searching for centuries of Canadian history.

The Canadiana Discovery Portal combs through more than 60 million pages of information from 30 different library, museum and archive collections across the country.

From old Saskatchewan postcards to sheet music, the search engine brings together access to 14 different institutional collections from coast to coast and in both French and English.

Unlike traditional academic search engines, this one has been designed for ease.

“It's more Google-like,” said Ron Walker, executive director of Canadiana.org, an organization that facilitates digital initiatives and is spearheading the portal initiative.

“Here's everything that exists, type in a name and see what comes up.”

The collections are varied. Quick searches on perennial topics in Canadian conversations yield a surprising diversity of results.

On hockey, there are photographs of Lester B. Pearson on the ice in Switzerland, as well as an 1856 account of Captain F.W. Beechey's travels through the Northwest Passage and his observation of First Nations playing a game that looked like hockey.

The Canadiana.org portal isn't meant just for academics.

Genealogists can peek in and see where their family names may pop up in local newspapers. Artists can seek inspiration from old images or sound, whether they live in Montreal or Morocco.

“The biggest point is really access for Canadians and those who want to learn about it Canada,” said Brent Roe, the executive director of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries.

Linking the online collections together is a costly endeavour.

In June 2009, Canadiana.org received almost $200,000 from the federal government just to develop software to help institutions connect parts of their collections.

But that doesn't cover the cost of transferring physical collections online.

Mr. Walker estimates that to digitize all of Canada's heritage materials created before the 1990s — when content start to be created in a digital format — could cost as much as $1 billion.

Back in 2005, Library and Archives Canada officials started a national discussion on a digital information strategy for the country. But after issuing their final report, they closed the books on a national approach.

Individual organizations are creating digital content on their own.

For example, by the end of this year, Library and Archives expects to double the volume of their online content, including giving access to digitized images of original census documents from 1861 and 1871.

In Quebec, approximately 10 million objects dating back to the 17th century have now been digitized by the provincial archives. In Vancouver, the local public library has put 25,000 pictures of B.C. and the Yukon online.

There is also the work of private companies like Google to digitize books.

The challenge with all digital efforts is keeping up with the pace.

In addition to the reams of new documents being created, each day copyright expires on historical documents, making them freely available to be digitized and published.

“One of the issues is to preserve it and the other is to make it accessible,” said Mr. Walker.

“We think by making interesting content accessible it will generate more interest from the public.”

The Summer of Franklin?

2010-11-30T19:46:00.000-08:00

Not quite - still no Erebus, still no Terror and still no new documents - but what a summer it was for Franklin-ophiles.

The discovery of HMS Investigator, as well documented by Professor Potter.

The publication of the first biography of James Fitzjames by William Battersby, which often reads like a great detective novel it has so many revelations about the man and his history. It is available here in Canada - go buy and enjoy it - and we will have the pleasure and the privilege of a visit by William next week for the official Canadian launch.

Though ultimately unsuccessful, Parks Canada did follow through with a search for the two ships.

The opening of a cairn alleged to hold Franklin documents, but didn't, and was supposed to have held Amundson documents, but didn't. Ken McGoogan's detective work solved the puzzle for us.

Then there was the very interesting and curious northwest passage of Bear Grylls and the discovery of a possible last resting place of a number of survivors (see photos below).

I'm sure there is more. Please add in the comments.

What was interesting to observe was the growing interest in, and generally raised level of knowledge of, the Franklin Expedition in Canada as well as England. People without any knowledge of who Captain McClure was or what he was doing up in Mercy Bay were quite rivetted by the find. The archeological finds on land were equally important.

But the one that has me the most on tenterhooks is the Grylls find. Grylls travelled the northwest passage via Rae Strait on a Shockwave Zodiac Hurricane Mach11 is the RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) with four outboard motors in 13 days! The entire expedition is described on its own website with amazing photos photos. I knew nothing about this trip until William Battersby blogged about it. Now this week, CNN even had a news broadcast on the expedition.

Where it gets interesting to followers of Franklin started with a somewhat oblique description of a landing a tiny island

This photo appears to be from the island they discovered:

From the CNN clip, this photo appears to also be from the island they discovered:

8th Annual Underwater Heritage Program - “Sir John Franklin - Quest for the Northwest Passage”

2010-03-16T14:04:00.000-07:00

I just registered for the 8th Annual Underwater Heritage Program (with the obligatory Facebook Event page) which this year is entitled “Sir John Franklin - Quest for the Northwest Passage” and will feature David Charles Woodman as key note presenter on Saturday, April 10, 2010 in London, Ontario.

Woodman is the groundbreaking author of Unravelling the Franklin Mystery: Inuit Testimony in 1991 and Strangers Among Us in 1995 in which he revisits the Inuit accounts of the Franklin expedition as recorded in the journals and papers of the Charles Francis Hall and re-examines the Inuit accounts in the light of modern scholarship and re-evaluates the importance of Inuit oral traditions in his search to reconstruct the events surrounding Franklin's expedition.

Woodman appears to have two separate talks - “Franklin and The Inuit Worldview” and “How To Become An Arctic Explorer by Accident” - before his key note presentation, image show & discussion, “In Search of Terror – Shipwreck Hunting
In the Arctic” later in the evening which is certain to be the highlight of the day for me.

With the ProCom search and the Parks Canada search so much in the news this past year, it is quite topical, and sure to be a very fascinating day.

As the event hosted by the Underwater Heritage Program, much of the day will cover underwater archeology more broadly, but in addition to Woodman's, there are are several other presentations/talks concerning the Franklin expedition: Miggs Morris, Author & Former Arctic Resident will speak on “Arctic Challenges Franklin Faced”;
Commander John Creber (Retired) Canadian Forces Navy on “Royal Navy During The Franklin Era”; and archaeologist John MacDonald will tell us “Why Franklin Failed”!

I'll be sure to take notes and provide a summary here upon my return.

Thanks to Russell for alerting me to the event, which he suggests will be certainly "be the Franklin event of the year". And almost right in my own backyard.

Lady Franklin's Lament

2009-08-17T09:38:00.000-07:00

The Franklin expedition and tragedy inspired a great deal of artistic work. There were songs and poems and paintings and skuptural creations, mostly but not exclusively from English artists, that attempted to honour, understand, grieve, lament, mythologize or explain the great tragedy and the mystery that surrounds it.

One of the most enduring was the touching ballad "Lady Franklin's Lament" (which is also known as "Lord Franklin"). It is a traditional folk ballad that commemorates the expedition (allegedly) written by Jane, Lady Franklin herself in or around 1855, at a time when Lady Jane still (publicly) maintained that the expedition was still missing and not lost.

From the University of Glasgow Special Collections [Mu23-y.1 page 48]

I recently stumbled upon a recording of the song by Sinead O'Connor, one of the singers and singing voices that I adore the most. She delivers a soft and truly beautiful rendition this very touching ballad and, in this youtube video of the song, also explains the powerful emotions evoked by the song. O'Connor tells us how, to truly sing this song, "you have to become the song, and become the ghost, if you like" and that strong emotions of a song only come out when you "inhabit a song or let it inhabit you". In singing the last line for the first time, she apparently burst into tears as she connected with the feelings of Lady Franklin.

Which is one reason why the song reveals an important part of the Franklin expedition story. I do think that with all of the recognition and focus Lady Franklin's ambition, strong-will, independence, status-seeking, influence peddling and "petticoat" governing has received - the strong woman behind the weak man, writing or re-writing some of Sir John's letters and reports (especially when Lieutenant Governor of Van Dieman's Land), showing more ambition and drive for his career than he seems to have - very little attention has been paid to what I think was her very genuine love, affection and deep compassion for her husband. It is something I am personally exploring in her letters but I've only really just started in on this. However, it does seem to me that her real love for her husband drove her to push for positions, expeditions, searches and memorials for Sir John as much as, if not more than, raw ambition and status-seeking.

That comes out very distinctly in "Lady Franklin's Lament" and all the more powerfully with O'Connor's recording of it.

And that is the power of art. Especially looking back as historians, it is art and culture that captures the human experience far more powerfully than raw data points and lists of facts. Art does not merely "bring the story to life" like a re-enactment or dramatization, but it strikes a very real, human and emotional connection to the events, the time and the people caught up in those events. That connection can lead to understanding that simple study and knowledge of facts cannot accomplish.

This particular art, this song, like all good and great art also transcends the particular circumstances in which it was written. It speaks to timeless longing, searching, love and loss. It speaks to the searching for human connection. According to Wikipedia, the song has been recorded by numerous artists, including Martin Carthy, John Renbourn, Pentangle, Pearlfishers, Connie Dover as well as the Duncan McFarlane Band, where the chorus of the Northwest Passage is added to the end. The version by Micheál Ó'Domhnaill and Kevin Burke is very well known in Ireland and appears on the album "Promenade." It can be heard on youtube. The melody was also used for Bob Dylan's song "Bob Dylan's Dream", as well as David Wilcox's "Jamie's Secret". The 1981 song, "Northwest Passage" by Stan Rogers (who also wrote "Barrett's Privateers" among many other great maritimer folk songs) also recalls Franklin's expedition. The first verse is also used in "I'm Already There" by Fairport Convention. O'Connor herself, in the youtube video above, notes that she had never heard of the song before it was introduced to her just before she sang it.

I recently came across another fairly recent recording of "Lady Franklin's Lament" by Sejd who uploaded his recording on youtube with a very engaging slide show of images of the Arctic, Franklin and his expedition. While the singing, in my humble view, is less emotionally evocative, the juxtaposition of the Arctic and Franklin images serves much of the same purpose: it forces you to pause for a moment, listen and watch and even think about what it must have been like.

Of course, as I noted above, there was much more written or sung or painted or skulpted than just this one song. And that artistic creation has itself spawned a growing library of commentary. Margaret Atwood wrote about the Franklin mythologizing in Canadian culture in "Concerning Franklin and his Gallant Crew", the first chapter of her book of lectures-cum-essays Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature. In 2006, Sarah Moss turned her Ph.D. dissertation into The Frozen Ship: The Histories and Tales of Polar Exploration in which, among other tales of the North and South Pole, she examines the mostly English uses and abuses and manufacturing of the Franklin story and why. In other areas as well, Professor Russell Potter has explored the visual representations of the north, including Franklin, in his 2007 Arctic Spectacles: The Frozen North in Visual Culture, 1815-1885 (many of the images in the Sejd slide show appear in his book; on Potter's website Visions of the North, you can also read his insightful and informative analysis of the Landseer's "Man Proposes God Disposes" depiction of the fate of Franklin's expedition and what would have meant to Victorians at the time).

There is much more to do in this regard. It seems to me the field, particularly from a Canadian perspective and perspectives of Canada, is just opening up as our broader public attention turns to the poles and the environment.

So, while the search for the answer to the mysteries of the fate of the Franklin expedition continues with new search expeditions, forensic analysis, archival research, relic analysis, etc continues and expands, the search for the meaning of the Franklin expedition and its impact on history continues and expands as well. Understanding the art and culture of the time adds greatly to the richness of our understanding of the expedition and the human experience.

More media coverage of Rondeau's expedition

2009-07-15T05:29:00.000-07:00

Rob Rondeau and the ProCom Diving Company's expedition this summer is suddenly getting a lot of attention. When expeditions like this get covered in Canada's so-called "national newspaper", the Globe and Mail, you know you are starting to hit the mainstream consciousness.

On the trail of the Arctic's most enduring mystery

An Alberta archeologist feels certain he can locate the lost ships of the Franklin expedition

Katherine O'Neill

EDMONTON — From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Last updated on Wednesday, Jul. 15, 2009 05:08AM EDT

A marine archeologist from landlocked Alberta has set his sights on finding two of the world's most coveted shipwrecks: the long-lost Royal Navy vessels from the doomed 19th-century Franklin expedition.

Rob Rondeau and his small team plan to travel to the central Arctic archipelago later this summer to launch a privately funded underwater search.

The race to find the fabled shipwrecks has been continuing for more than 160 years, but Mr. Rondeau is confident his group's research and use of state-of-the-art sonar will solve the vexing mystery.

Parks Canada was supposed to dispatch its own marine archeologists to the Arctic later this summer as part of a high-profile, three-year search for the ships that began last year. It scrubbed this year's effort because no government vessel was available.

While most modern-day Franklin hunters, including Parks Canada, have focused their attention on areas southwest of King William Island, Mr. Rondeau is confident the shipwrecks are in fact located north of the island, in the waters of Larsen Sound.

The missing ships, HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, were part of an 1845 British expedition led by Sir John Franklin to map the Arctic and locate the fabled Northwest Passage to Asia.

The vessels and their crews never returned, and since the late 1840s, dozens of search efforts, both public and private, have been mounted to answer one of the Arctic's greatest riddles. Graves of some of the crew and wreckage from the expedition are all that have been recovered.

The search for the Franklin expedition over the decades has become a lifelong obsession for many people around the world, but Mr. Rondeau, who is head of Alberta-based ProCom Diving Services, said he picked the project primarily to test newly developed sonar equipment in the Arctic.

A sidebar to the story highlighted some of the attempts to find Franklin or any relics. It notes that on Canada's Centenial in 1967, Canadian soldiers took part in "Project Franklin" to mark the occasion in which they conducted air, land and sea searches. I did not know about that historical Canadian government involvment in the search efforts. They seem to have gone a fair bit further then than the current government is prepared to do now, when searchers can't even get a ship.

The reference to the Canadian Centennial does serve as an occasion for me to raise a topic I expect to come back to many times as this website progresses. Franklin set sail in 1845. The ~~bicentennial~~ 170th anniversary of that date is coming up in a few years and some of the events that could be planned, like a new book or an expedition retracing his steps or a re-enactment of the departure, would take a lot of time and planning.

So not only is it my hope to collect here all information about any planned events, I hope to be involved and would like to know of any events or plans so that I may participate and help somehow. It is still a bit premature, here in 2009, but feel free to send me an email or a comment if you become aware of any Franklin ~~Bicentennial~~ 170th anniversary plans.

ProCom Diving Company's "Finding Franklin: 2009 Expedition"

2009-07-11T11:18:00.000-07:00

The Parks Canada expedition in search of Franklin's ships may be off, but privately-funded ProCom Diving Company's "Finding Franklin: 2009 Expedition" is still going ahead this summer.

The expedition will will depart from Resolute and travel south to around Larsen Sound - following the same route used by Franklin, and be led by Robert Rondeau, chief marine archeologist and President of ProCom. They will conduct a non-intrusive remote sensing survey underwater using side scan sonar aboard the Arctic research vessel, the Aurora Magnetica.

From the ProCom Diving website, their description of the Finding Franklin Expedition is set out below. There is even a Facebook Group set up for the expedition, so you can keep up-to-date on the status of the expedition and any discoveries.

The search for the Northwest Passage was one of the last frontiers of exploration in the Victorian Age. In 1845 the British Admiralty organized one more attempt to find it. Two ships, Erebus and Terror, under the command of Sir John Franklin would undertake an expedition. Their mission, to find a route through the Canadian Arctic linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Two months after leaving England both ships were seen entering Lancaster Sound at the northern end of Baffin Island. That was the last time any European ever saw them.

In 1859, the members of a search expedition, organized and paid for by Sir John’s widow, found what remains the best source of evidence as to the fate of the Franklin Expedition. On the northwest coast of King William Island they discovered a cairn made of stones. Inside was an empty food tin containing a note. It had been written by the captain of the Erebus, Capt. James Fitzjames, and his second-in-command, Lt. Graham Gore.

The note confirmed the physical evidence found by the search party: That in late April, 1848, the crew had abandoned their two ships and had headed south across King William Island on foot.

The “Victory Point Letter,” written on April 25th, 1848, by Captain Fitzjames accurately states the location of the cairn. It also lists the last known position of both ships - which had been abandoned three days before. Both the Erebus and Terror, the letter stated, were five leagues, approximately 28 kms, northwest of the cairn.

Finding what remains of the Erebus and Terror would be one of the greatest marine archaeological finds of all time - rivaling the discovery of Titanic or Bismark.

The 2009 Expedition

A team of archaeologists and documentary film makers will attempt to find evidence of both shipwrecks. They will conduct a non-intrusive remote sensing survey underwater using side scan sonar aboard the Arctic research vessel, the Aurora Magnetica. It is a prototype of a new generation of small research ship purpose-designed for the exploration of the Arctic’s remotest regions. At 61 feet long, it’s much smaller than conventional ice-strength vessels. And, with a draft of less than 5 feet, it has the ability to manoeuvre in shallow water - unlike bigger vessels.

The expedition will depart from Resolute and travel south - following the same route used by Franklin.

For more information about the expedition please contact the expedition’s leader, Rob Rondeau.

rob@procomdiving.com
tel. (403) 575-5671 The Aurora Magnetica, a new generation of ice-strength research vessel.

UPDATE: Russell Potter in the comments provided this link to a map segment that he uploaded showing Larsen Sound, which I reproduce here:

Franklin Expedition search called off

2009-07-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

This report is rather unfortunate: the Canadian government has called off a planned expedition to search for the two Franklin ships, HMS Terror and HMS Erebus. It seems more bad luck in terms of coordination with Arctic plans for suitable ships from the Canadian Forces or the Coast Guard, rather than budgetary cut-backs.

I remember quite a bit of excitement last year when the Canadian government announced a $75,000 contribution to the Parks Canada expedition headed up by Robert Grenier, a senior underwater archeologist.

The expedition last summer resulted in some artifacts, most notably some sheets of iron that Mr. Grenier identified as coming from different Franklin expedition ships. You can see Peter Mansbridge interview Mr. Grenier here.

Franklin Expedition search called off

A government-sponsored search for Sir John Franklin's missing ships in the High Arctic has been scrubbed this summer, but private entrepreneurs hope to score an archeological coup by conducting their own search in late August.

Ottawa announced last August it was mounting an effort to find Franklin's two ships, the Erebus and Terror, which went missing more than 160 years ago.

Some graves of the crew members have been discovered over the years and relics have been uncovered.

But the search for the missing ships has become a potential prize — made even bigger when then Federal Environment Minister John Baird announced Ottawa was backing a search and that experts would be relying on Inuit knowledge to aid the search.

On Thursday, Parks Canada's senior marine archeologist, Ryan Harris, confirmed the official search for the Franklin ships has been called off for this summer.

Harris said Parks Canada had asked the navy for ship time but therewon't be a Canadian Forces ship in the vicinity and the search team was unable to get time aboard one of the Canadian Coast Guard's icebreakers.

"Unfortunately this particular season, Coast Guard had other scientific programs that they had to prioritize. But we intend to continue with the survey next year. The Coast Guard remains a very important partner for us in this three-year project."

Gjoa Haven historian Louis Kamookak, who is part of Parks Canada's Franklin team, says it was a three-year project and is disappointed that it is on hold this year.

"Briefly I talked with the guy from Parks [Canada] and what I'm hearing is that this summer the icebreaker has some other commitments."

Nine years ago, Kamookak approached the crew of the the RCMP ship St. Roch II. He invited the skipper, RCMP Sgt. Ken Burton, to see some remains from the Franklin Expedition on the shores of one of the Todd Islands.

Locating ships would be big news
Unlike other remains found over the years, the Todd Islands graves were located quite far south from where Franklin's two ships were believed to have been stuck in the ice.

Other sites showed signs of cannibalism, and that the 128 members of Franklin's crew died of disease and lead poisoning soon after they abandoned their ships.

The Inuit say they have known about this site since the 19th century, but Kamookak thinks others could well find Franklin's ships first.

For example, Rob Rondeau, a marine archeologist with Alberta-based ProCom Diving Services, has teamed up with a British archeologist to conduct their own search for Erebus and Terror in late August.

"We're quite confident based on the research that we've done that we have a pretty good idea of where the remains of the two ships are," said Rondeau. "We'll actually be using some state-of-the-art sonar equipment."

Rondeau said Britain remains fascinated with the Franklin story and locating the ships would be big news in the United Kingdom and in Nunavut.

The Muster

2009-06-23T14:06:00.000-07:00

Fourteen of the officers of HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, print from Richard Beard's famous daguerreotypes. A great discussion of the daguerreotypes can be read here and here.

HMS Erebus:

Officers

Sir John Franklin, Captain, Commanding the Expedition
James Fitzjames, Commander
Graham Gore, Lieutenant
H.T.D. Le Vesconte, Lieutenant
James Walter Fairholme, Lieutenant
Robert Orme Sergeant, Mate
Charles Frederick Des Voeux, Mate
Edward Couch, Mate
Henry Foster Collins, Second Master
James Reid, Ice Master
Stephen Samuel Stanley, Surgeon
Harry D.S. Goodsir, Assistant Surgeon
Charles Hamilton Osmer, Purser

Warrant Officers

John Gregory, Engineer
Thomas Terry, Boatswain
John Weekes, Carpenter

Petty Officers

John Murray, Sailmaker, age 43
William Smith, Blacksmith, age 28
Thomas Burt, Armorer, age 22
James W. Brown, Caulker, age 28
Francis Dunn, Caulker's Mate, age 25
Thomas Watson, Carpenter's Mate, age 40
Samuel Brown, Boatswain's Mate, age 27
Richard Wall, Ship's Cook, age 45
James Rigden, Captain's Coxwain, age 32
William Bell, Quartermaster, age 36
Daniel Arthur, Quartermaster, age 35
John Downing, Quartermaster
Robert Sinclair, Captain of the Foretop, age 25
John Sullivan, Captain of the Maintop, age 28
Phillip Reddington, Captain of the Forecastle, age 28
Joseph Andrews, Captain of the Hold, age 35
Edmund Hoar, Captain's Steward, age 23
John Bridgens, Subordinate Officers' Steward, age 26
Richard Aylmore, Gunroom Steward, age 24
William Fowler, Purser's Steward, age 26
John Cowie, Stoker
Thomas Plater, Stoker

Able Seamen

George Thompson, age 27
John Hartnell, age 25
John Stickland, age 24
Thomas Hartnell, age 23
William Orren, age 34
William Closson, age 25
Charles Coombs, age 28
John Morfin, age 25
Charles Best, age 23
Thomas McConvey, age 24
Henry Lloyd, age 26
Thomas Work, age 41
Robert Ferrier, age 29
Josephus Geater, age 32
Thomas Tadman, age 28
Abraham Seeley, age 34
Francis Pocock, age 24
Robert Johns, age 24
William Mark, age 24

Royal Marines

David Bryant, Sergeant, age 31
Alexander Pearson, Corporal, age 30
Robert Hopcraft, Private, age 38
William Pilkington, Private, age 28
William Braine, Private, age 31
Joseph Healey, Private, age 29
William Reed, Private, age 28

Boys

George Chambers, age 18
David Young, age 18

HMS Terror:

Officers

Francis Rawden Moira Crozier, Captain
Edward Little, Lieutenant
George Henry Hodgson, Lieutenant
John Irving, Lieutenant
Frederick John Hornby, Mate
Robert Thomas, Mate
Giles Alexander McBean, Second Master
Thomas Blanky, Ice Master
John Smart Peddie, Surgeon
Alexander McDonald, Assistant Surgeon
E.J. Helpman, Clerk in Charge

Warrant Officers

James Thompson, Engineer
John Lane, Boatswain
Thomas Honey, Carpenter

Petty Officers

Thomas Johnson, Boatswain's Mate, age 28
Alexander Wilson, Carpenter's Mate, age 27
Reuben Male, Captain of the Forecastle, age 27
David McDonald, Quartermaster, age 45
John Kenley, Quartermaster
William Rhodes, Quartermaster, age 31
Thomas Darlington, Caulker, age 29
Samuel Honey, Blacksmith, age 22
John Torrington, Leading Stoker, age 19
John Diggle, Cook, age 36
John Wilson, Captain's Coxwain, age 33
Thomas R. Farr, Captain of the Maintop, age 32
Harry Peglar, Captain of the Foretop, age 37
William Goddard, Captain of the Hold, age 39
Cornelius Hickey, Caulker's Mate, age 24
Thomas Jopson, Captain's Steward, age 27
Thomas Armitage , Gun-room Steward, age 40
William Gibson, Subordinate Officers' Steward, age 22
Edward Genge, Subordinate Officers' Steward, age 21
Luke Smith, Stoker, age 27
William Johnson, Stoker, age 45

Able Seamen

George J. Cann, age 23
William Strong, age 22
David Sims, age 24
John Bailey, age 21
William Jerry, age 29
Henry Sait, age 23
Alexander Berry, age 32
John Handford, age 28
John Bates, age 24
Samuel Crispe, age 24
Charles Johnson, age 28
William Shanks, age 29
David Leys, age 37
William Sinclair, age 30
Goerge Kinnaird, age 23
Edwin Lawrence, age 30
Magnus Manson, age 28
James Walker, age 29
William Wentzall, age 33

Royal Marines

Solomon Tozer, Sergeant, age 34
William Hedges, Corporal, age 30
William Heather, Private, age 37
Henry Wilkes, Private, age 28
John Hammond, Private, age 32
James Daly, Private, age 30

Boys

Robert Golding, age 19
Thomas Evans, age 18

[Source]

Essential Franklin Reading

2009-06-23T07:40:00.001-07:00

I will eventually post a comprehensive bibliography of Arctic and Franklin related readings, but for now, I set out below the books I've found so far that I consider essential Franklin texts. Consider it your basic first course in Franklin related literature.

Atwood, Margaret (1995) Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature -- A survey of the writing and literature about Franklin and how it has created a fundamental Canadian myth.

Battersby, William, "Identification of the Probable Source of the Lead Poisoning Observed in Members of the Franklin Expedition", Journal of the Hakluyt Society (September 2008) -- On the cutting edge of theorizing about what doomed the expedition from the outset and builds on the groundbreaking work by Beattie.

Beattie, Owen, and Geiger, John (first published: 1989, updated paper back edition: 2004) Frozen in Time: Unlocking the Secrets of the Franklin Expedition -- Groundbreaking archeological work that re-opened research into the Franklin expedition. The 2004 paperback edition updates their research to subsequent theories.

Cookman, Scott (2000) Iceblink: The Tragic Fate of Sir John Franklin's Lost Polar Expedition -- While there is much debate about what role tinned food and food poisoning played in dooming the expedition, the rich and descriptive detail of Cookman's writing and research almost puts you right into the hull of the Terror and Erebus.

Lambert, Andrew (2009) Franklin: Tragic Hero of Polar Navigation -- The first comprehensive biography of Franklin really since Cyriax's Sir John Franklin's Last Expedition in 1939. I have yet to read this book, but based on Russell Potter's review, rest assured this one is on my list of must reads.

M'Clintock, Francis I. (1860) The Voyage of the Fox in the Arctic Seas: A Narrative of the Discovery of the Fate of Sir John Franklin and His Companions -- This is the original story of the commander of the expedition that finally solved the mystery of what happened and where. And began the mystery of why and how.

Potter, Russel (2007) Arctic Spectacles: The Frozen North in Visual Culture -- Confession: I just got this book for Father's Day after quite some time of heavy hints and look forward to reading it. Potter illuminates the nineteenth-century fascination with visual representations of the Arctic and brings us closer to understanding why the Arctic has held such magnetic appeal through history.

Sandler, Martin (2006) Resolute: The Epic Search for the Northwest Passage and John Franklin, and the Discovery of the Queen's Ghost Ship -- Another onfession: this one is on my to do list.

Smith, Michael (2006) Captain Francis Crozier - Last Man Standing? -- The first comprehensive biography of Captain Crozier, captain of the Terror and, after the death of Franklin, commanded of the expedition. I am excited about the upcoming book by William Battersby who, it seems, will do for Captain James Fitzjames what Smith does for Crozier.

Woodman, David C. (1992) Unravelling the Franklin Mystery: Inuit Testimony -- Woodman is one of the first to recognise the profound importance of the Inuit testimony and to analyse it in depth (John Rae or Charles Francis Hall should probably be recognized as the first, but Woodman is one of the first contemporary researchers). He concludes from his investigations, among other startling discoveries, that the Inuit probably did visit Franklin's ships while the crew was still on board and that there were some Inuit who actually saw the sinking of one of the ships. Consider also Woodman's Strangers Among Us (1995) in which Woodman re-examines the Inuit accounts taken by Charles Francis Hall in the light of modern scholarship and re-evaluates the importance of Inuit oral traditions in his search to reconstruct the events surrounding Franklin's expedition.

For anyone already emersed in Arctic and Franklin writing, this list is obviously hardly the start of it. I have not even made my way through all of these yet. But they are a good start. Feel free to let me know your favourite, or to provide your own review or suggestions for further reading, in the comments or by email. You may also want to browse this quite comprehensive list of Franklin links and this comprehensive regularly updated bibliography of Franklin fiction and poetry, thanks for both to Professor Potter.

Scanning this list you might notice something quite remarkable: just how much of the literature covering this nearly 200 year old event is so very recent. With even more on the way.

We are truly in the midst of a genuine renaissance of writing on the lost Franklin Expedition. I hope to help foster that interest with this website. And you have just become a part of it by visiting.

Franklin's Ghost

Arctic Books

BBC Article on Franklin Expedition

Arctic airship deal signed

Artifacts recovered from HMS Investigator

HMS Terror found

Nunavut defends rejecting Franklin search bid [Updated]

CBC reporting on bureaucratic interference with Carlson's expedition

Time, Canada, to negotiate the Northwest Passage

More details on 2011 searches

Parks Canada confirms 2-phased searches for summer 2010

Canadian Government to Announce Franklin Ships Search Plans

A Kindle for Sir John Franklin

Summer of Franklin, Take 2?

Canadian Bookshelf - Canadian Books on Franklin

Owen Beattie in the news

Essential Franklin Reading

Canada’s northernmost atmospheric lab defunded

Review of Arctic Books Read in 2010

“The Polar Imperative” Shortlisted for Gelber Prize

New Canadian History Search Site

The Summer of Franklin?

8th Annual Underwater Heritage Program - “Sir John Franklin - Quest for the Northwest Passage”

Lady Franklin's Lament

More media coverage of Rondeau's expedition

ProCom Diving Company's "Finding Franklin: 2009 Expedition"

Franklin Expedition search called off

The Muster

Essential Franklin Reading