Lost and Found: The Beechey Island Anvil Block

Courtesy Glenbow Museum

Just in the wake of this year's round of dives by Parks Canada's underwater archaeologists, here's a powerful reminder that, sometimes, the most significant finds can be made right at home. Over the years, relics of the Franklin expedition -- the vast majority of which are in storage at various museums -- have sometimes gone missing -- not stolen, only misplaced, or perhaps imperfectly catalogued when paper records have given way to digital ones. One of the most intriguing of these items has long been the "anvil block" recovered from Beechey Island in 1850; although it was depicted in the newspapers and exhibited alongside other Franklin materials, it hasn't been seen in public since the Royal Naval Exhibition of 1891, and efforts to trace it at the National Maritime Museum had -- up until quite recently -- led to a dead end.

But now -- mirabile dictu! -- it has been found in the collection of the Glenbow Museum. The story of its loss and discovery now forms a fresh chapter of the renewed interest in the Franklin story. Back in the early 1960's the Royal United Services Institute -- which had charge of the majority of the Franklin relics -- was understaffed and underfunded, and a decision was made to refocus its mission, with the closure of the museum one of the consequences. The vast majority of its collections of Naval interest were transferred to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, but -- for reasons that are still unknown -- some of the items were made available to other institutions.

From Smucker (1857)

Some forward-looking curator at the Glenbow must have realized the significance of the return of such an object to the nation in which it was first found, and thus the anvil block -- which, in the interim of time, had become festooned with various metal items also found at Beechey -- was duly shipped to Calgary. It's a fascinating artifact -- not only because of its association with the discovery of Franklin's winter quarters at Beechey Island in 1850, but because of the still-unfolding mystery of the "metals" it wears. Early depictions of the anvil block -- such as the one at right from Samuel Smucker's 1857 compilation of Arctic narratives -- show it was unadorned when first retrieved. And yet, by some point in the late 1870's, someone -- presumably at the RUSI Museum -- had decided to fasten all manner of metal items to it, including a large eyebolt. The new photographs taken by the Glenbow show these items to be still very firmly in place, though some seem to have shifted a bit, and one (the horizontal metal strip shaped like a crenelated wall) has gone missing.

As depicted in 1878

The collections at the Glenbow are renowned for their depth as well as breadth -- but of course this has meant, in practice, that the proportion of materials is storage is high compared to the space for their display. Happily, the occasion of the rediscovery and conservation of the anvil block is also that of the opening of a new exhibition, curated in part by Travis Lutley, The Arctic: Real and Imagined Views from the Nineteenth Century.  The images and artifacts displayed are meant to show the  "contrast the cultural and technological differences between Arctic inhabitants and Arctic visitors." In this remarkable array of materials, the anvil block will be joined by Inuit tools and decorative items, a miniature Bible book-dummy carved from the wood of HMS "Terror," colored plates from the expedition narratives of Parry, Franklin, Back, and McClintock, and even an original tin of the notorious "Ox Cheek Soup." Among the highlights of the two-dimensional materials are some pencil sketches and watercolors made by Elisha Kent Kane, chromolithographs of Samuel Gurney Creswell's Arctic scenes, and William Bradford's striking "The English Arctic Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin." It's a dazzling array of visual and cultural materials, and one which brings back into the light many scenes and objects that have lingered too long in storage. With the "Death in the Ice" exhibit closing and heading to Mystic Seaport, it also offers Canadians as well as visitors from abroad a fresh opportunity to see significant materials relating to the Franklin expedition -- materials that happily are part of a permanent collection.

THE ENGLISH ARCTIC EXPEDITION IN SEARCH OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN (Courtesy Glenbow Museum)

The finding and identification of the anvil block is a story all its own. Starting with a copy of an engraving posted to the Remembering the Franklin Expedition Facebook page (the same one from which the detail above was taken) by Kristina Gehrmann in 2015, it led to a lively discussion involving William Battersby, Kat Stoetzel Andrés Paredes, and Randall Osczevski, but it was Regina Koellner who finally made the connection to a captioned illustration indicating that the mystery object was the anvil block. I then wrote to Claire Warrior at the National Maritime Museum, and she checked the records of the original transfer of items from the RUSI Museum to the NMM; the anvil block was not among them. It was a nearly two years later when I heard from Travis Lutley at the Glenbow; seeking to confirm the identity an object in their collections, he'd consulted Garth Walpole's book (which reproduces the illustrations above) and gotten in touch with Claire Warrior to confirm -- and the anvil block was found!

2018 Discoveries from HMS Erebus

Images © Parks Canada

It had the makings of an ideal search season: the RV David Thompson was renovated and raring to go; the dedicated barge Qiniqtiryuaq (the "Big Searcher") was at the ready, and all the varied legal and cultural issues affecting the recovered items had been resolved after years of patient negotiation. But of course, there remains that most implacable opposing force, an essential part of the Arctic from Franklin's day to our own: the ice.

The ice significantly delayed the voyage of the David Thompson to the wreck site, and posed a challenge to getting the Parks Canada team safely in and out; in the end, there were scarcely two days available for diving on the Erebus, and none for the Terror. And yet the modest group of items recovered is only the more remarkable for that: they range from the generic and common, such as a belaying pin or a nail, to the specific and personal: a stoneware pitcher and part of an artificial horizon recovered from one of the officers' cabins (no word yet on whose). There are also two metal blocks, part of the mechanism for managing the rigging, and a piece of "fearnought," a sort of tarred felt that was wedged between the planking of the upper deck to make it waterproof.

One of the more intriguing items is the "roof" for an "artificial horizon." which would have consisted of a pan of liquid mercury. By means of this device, a mariner could obtain an elevation on a celestial object even if the horizon were obscured by fog or blocked by looming icebergs; its principle is known as a "double altitude." It would probably have been employed by one of the lieutenants aboard the Erebus, and evokes -- as did navigational tools found by earlier searchers -- a sense of the limits of science. Here were these men, equipped with every technological apparatus to steer themselves safely through the unknown -- and yet none of them were able to find their way safely home.

The pitcher is another poignant item; it's said to be of English brown salt glaze, and have been found in an officer's cabin. It's rather plain -- comparable examples of such jugs often feature decorative motifs -- and must have been employed in some humble use, such as with a washbasin. It was found near a stack of plates, which were not -- alas -- retrieved, as these might well have shed some light on the proximate pitcher. Doubtless many photographs were made, even in such limited circumstances, but these have yet to be shared. At last year's press conference, Parks's divers spoke of the ornamental woodwork on the drawers built in to the base of the officers' bunks; it would be lovely to see images of these! This year's search has been, in other respects, one of the more fully shared, with nearly-live photos and information along the way; it's to be hoped that a new set of photographs will soon be forthcoming.

2018 was a difficult ice year all 'round -- none of the expedition cruise vessels that had planned to navigate the Northwest Passage made it through -- we will just have to hope that the next season will be more favorable.

This year's Franklin search underway

Image courtesy Parks Canada

It's already been a remarkable year on land, what with two search expeditions -- that of Adventure Science, and Tom Gross and Russ Taichman's Bayne/Coleman expedition each having made extensive surveys of both old and new sites and land features. Both of them have done yeoman service, co-ordinating and connecting GPS-tagged features and identifying sites for further investigation. Each group had a Class I permit, which allows image-making, mapping, and tagging but no digging; next year, it's hoped, a return with a Class II permit may yet yield great things. Sites near "Two Grave Bay" up at the northern end of King William Island, as well as near the cairn on the southern coast erected by Charles Francis Hall, both show promise.

And, though the season is soon closing for work on land, it's just that time of year when the underwater archaologists from Parks Canada are doing new dives, in water that -- both literally and legally -- is much clearer than last year's. The final agreement between the UK government and Canada has been signed, making it clear that the British government waives any further claim to the ships and their contents, while at the same time, joint administration over the recovered relics with Inuit organizations -- the Franklin Advisory Group, the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, and the Inuit Heritage Trust -- is now firmly in place.

Justin Sigluk Milton

For HMS Erebus, planned work includes stabilizing the hull so that artifacts can be retrieved by divers, as well as additional work using ROV's; for HMS Terror, additional photography and mapping, and perhaps also a proper look inside with a ROV. Parks has been sharing many images of the preparation for the search, such as the one above showing the barge Qiniqtiryuaq about to cast off from the Sir Wilfred Laurier. "Qiniqtiryuaq," which means "the big searcher," was named after a contest was held last year, with the winning suggestion made by Justin Sigluk Milton of Pond Inlet. The Qiniqtiryuaq carries several containers which serve as mobile labs and storage for the Parks archaeologists, and makes it possible to stabilize and properly prepare any artifacts that may be brought up from the ships.

We've yet to see any new imagery from Franklin's ships, but the new generation of ROV's being used is said to have the capability to stream live video! -- a prospect which, understandably, makes any true "Franklinite" tremble with anticipation. I'll do my best here on my blog to give updates and offer some initial interpretation of any imagery we do see! -- nothing now, it seems, would be too much to hope for.

A rough year for ice ...

Ice in Resolute Bay

2018 will go down as a rough year for ice in the eastern Canadian Arcric, particularly along the classic route of the Northwest Passage that so many who sign up for adventure cruises seek most keenly. It's been both an obstacle -- forcing the re-routing of numerous ships -- and an active threat; in the worst instance crushing and sinking a yacht (the French-flagged "Anahita") near Fort Ross on the eastern end of the Bellot Strait. And, as in previous years, a very large and heavy plug of it has rendered the area around the Victoria Strait impassable by nearly any vessel short of a heavy icebreaker, cutting off the legendary "last link" and preventing completion of any planned transits of the Passage. Indirectly, by forcing the re-routing of larger vessels such as One Ocean's Akademik Ioffe, the ice also may have played a role in her running aground on what was apparently an uncharted shoal or submerged rock.

Canadian Ice Service chart for 27 August 2018

Is it an unusually bad year? Or were the past few seasons unusually favorable? It's hard to say with absolute certainly, even though the Canadian Ice Service regularly provides a chart showing where the concentrations of ice are higher or lower than historical conditions. Their estimate requires 30 years of data to make, and thus doesn't stretch back very far, as comparable data is unavailable much further back than that. Still, the most recent chart offers some insight into the overall trend; just as it was last summer, this year's ice concentration in the eastern Arctic was higher than the historical norms, while in the western Arctic it was significantly lower. The areas of higher concentration were also problematic; at Resolute, ice in the bay prevented the zodiac landings needed for passenger/staff turnover aboard larger vessels; in the Bellot Strait, even ships with an icebreaker escort ended up turning around; in the Victoria Strait, neither the hoped-for pilgrimage to Victory Point nor a visit to Gjoa Haven seemed likely for any vessels entering from the east -- the ice was simply too dense.

Some who misunderstand the way ice forms and melts, or don't realize how complex a system it forms with land, winds, waves, and currents, may scoff at warnings about climate change and a warming Arctic -- not realizing that, even as warming puts more thermodynamic eneregy into the north, such energy can readily propel ice -- by speeding the calving of bergs off glaciers, increasing winds and currents, and pushing ice more densely together -- making conditions worse rather than better.