The End of an Era

It's a day that everyone who has excitedly followed the dives made by Parks Canada's Underwater Archaeology Team knew might come, but hoped would not -- when governmental support would wind down. In one sense, we -- and the rich history that Erebus and Terror contained -- were fortunate; the initial funding for the dives was only for a few years, but in the end it was renewed multiple times under multiple governments, both Conservative and Liberal. The fruits of the Parks team's work have been of enormous value, and have already reshaped our understanding of what life on board the ships was like for Franklin and his men. It's also important to note that, with hundreds of artifacts already recovered, and some still at the conservation stage, there remains a great deal more work to do, and that work will surely bring revelations.

The news came buried in the ninth paragraph of an (otherwise welcome) update on the 2024 dive season, which included fantastic new photographs, including one of the ex-railway engine in the hold of HMS Erebus, a sight which so many of us had sought for so long. We can now imagine Franklin's men donning their leather raincoats, sleeping in their numbered hammocks, and pouring milk out of their blue 'Tam-o-Shanter' pitcher, with artifacts suddenly brought to the surface and the light of day. The Fraser Patent Stove, which brought warm air to sundry parts of the ship, is now revealed, as is one of the coal bunkers. And, while it's true that there will, for now, be no new dives, there is (I'm sure) much more imagery to come; from what I can see, many of the shipboard images appear to be stills from videos, whose other footage may not yet have been completely analyzed; the same may be true of other things we've only glimpsed so far.

And there's other good news to set against our disappointment: the Nattilik Heritage Centre has now opened a long-anticipated new wing, one designed for the safe storage and display of actual artifacts from the ships, there in Gjoa Haven where many of the descendants of Inuit whose eyewitness accounts led to the finding of Erebus live. And, back in Portsmouth, there's confirmation that the relics from the earliest dive seasons, including the ship's bell of Erebus, have safely arrived (and will hopefully at some point be on permanent display) at the National Museum of the Royal Navy.

Back when HMS Terror was found in 2016, I was asked by the anchor of the CTV evening news how I felt now that the mystery had been "solved." Of course, I had to point out that it wasn't solved at all -- using the metaphor of an onion, each of the layers of which must be peeled back patiently, I replied that what we had, now, was simply a much larger onion. I suspect that that, between the materials already brought up by the UAT, and the continuing work of archaeologists on land, we've still got a good deal more peeling to do.