Franklin Symposium at the Mystic Seaport Museum

Keynote speaker David C. Woodman

In what will be the most significant gathering in many years of those who have searched for, researched, and written about the Franklin mystery, Mystic Seaport Museum will be hosting a symposium on April 5th, 2019. The keynote speaker will be David C. Woodman, who is in many ways the man most responsible for gathering and analyzing the historical Inuit testimony that eventually led Parks Canada's underwater archaeology team to the wreck of HMS "Erebus" in 2014. Woodman's two books -- Unravelling the Franklin Mystery: Inuit Testimony, and Strangers Among Us, form the core of the modern understanding of this large and complex body of oral tradition; Woodman also followed up on his books by leading a number of expeditions on his own in the years before Parks became involved.

Joining him will be a number of other key figures in the modern history of the search for Franklin: from the Parks Canada team, Jonathan Moore will give us the latest on the dive team's work and plans; representing ground-based archaeology will be Doug Stenton, who has been a part of the most numerous and extensive excavations on King William Island since the search began. We'll also be joined by John Geiger, the CEO of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, whose 1988 book, Frozen in Time, described the exhumation and study by Dr. Owen Beattie of the three sailors buried at Beechey Island -- a groundbreaking book in every sense of the word. Others who have taken up this angle of research, including Peter Carney, who has extensively studied the ships' engines, heating apparatus, and water systems, and Keith Millar, a co-author on a number of key studies in recent years that have re-examined and built upon Dr. Beattie's work, will join the discussion.

Two other sessions will be no less vital -- I'll be on a panel alongside Leanne Shapton, whose feature article in the New York Times Magazine on the Franklin relics brought this fascinating history back before American eyes; we'll be looking at the broader history of Franklin in popular culture. Last but very far from least, esteemed historian and author Kenn Harper will host a session on the nature of Inuit oral tradition, as well as the role of individual Inuit in the Franklin search; he'll be joined by curator Fred Calabretta, along with veteran Arctic author Lawrence Millman. Millman, who is also a well-known mycologist, has promised to bring along some tripe de roche -- the lichen that Franklin and his men subsisted on in the last days of their first Arctic land expedition.  After the sessions, there will be a book-signing event with all the authors present, and rumor has it that sea-chanteys will be sung!

Tickets for the day's events are now available; for more information you can contact the Mystic Seaport Museum here.