Baldwin: Hero or Villain?

Evelyn Briggs Baldwin is surely one of the least well-known of Polar explorers, and according to some historians, his obscurity is richly deserved. To them, he is a man whose poor judgment was pivotal in the failure of two major Polar expeditions: that of Walter Wellman's in 1898, as well as in the richly-supplied but poorly planned Baldwin-Ziegler expedition of 1901, which he commanded. And yet there is at least some evidence that this blame may be misplaced, and that Baldwin's seeming failures were, in fact, evidence of a wise and hard-earned sense of caution.

Baldwin got his start working as a meteorologist with Robert Peary in Greenland in 1893-4. He apparently caught the Arctic bug, and in 1896 published a weighty tome, The Search for the North Pole. Or, Life in the Great White World. On the title page of this book, which was sold by subscription, he listed himself as a "Member of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, Member of the National Geographic Society, Non-resident member of the Geographical Club of Philadelphia," and "formerly Assistant Observer, United States Weather Bureau." It was a slender portfolio, but his enthusiasm was enormous; the book opened with a ferocious defense of the value of Polar exploration, and continued through accounts of every explorer from the Vikings to Franklin to Peary. Some of the funds thus earned apparently helped him undertake a personal voyage to Spitzbergen in 1897, but his real test came when he was engaged by Walter Wellman as second-in-command of the magnate's first Polar attempt (and his only by land) in 1897. There, he led an advance party through truly horrific ice conditions in order to establish depots and a forward camp, while Wellman stayed back at the expedition's comfortable headquarters, known as "Harmsworth House." After enormous hardships, Baldwin succeeded in establishing the forward camp, and left two men there to await the arrival of the full expedition the following spring.

William Mills, in his reference work Exploring Polar Frontiers, blames Baldwin for leaving the men with inadequate supplies, and says that "Wellman himself was horrified" when they arrived to find one of the men dead and the survivor sleeping next to his corpse. Yet as my good friend P.J. Capelotti notes in his book By Airship to the North Pole, Wellman's orders to Baldwin were numerous, contradictory, and in some cases impossible; it was these orders, and not Baldwin's efforts to follow them, that were most to blame. Wellman ignored Baldwin's letters expressing concerns about supplies and conditions; he possessed an optimism as vast as his experience was limited, and complained that Baldwin was "too prone to look on the dark side of things." Neither man, in any case, knew that one of the two left in the camp, Bentzen -- a veteran of Nansen's voyage on the Fram -- had slipped into delirium not long into the winter, forcing the other man, Bjoervig, to care for him for eight weeks before the sufferer finally died. Capelotti has published Baldwin's detailed journal of this expedition, and it's hard to read more than a few pages of it without being overcome by a desire to go back in time and give Wellman a sound thrashing.

Mills seems to think that rumors surrounding the earlier incident would have followed Baldwin to his next expedition, and the only one he was to command. The Baldwin-Ziegler expedition of 1901 had the finest equipment money could buy, and supplies that were lavish when compared to those to which Peary or other polar veterans were accustomed. Not one but three ships were placed at its command, and its base station -- fixed up in the shadow of the Duke of Abruzzi's earlier camp -- boasted solid wood-frame buildings unparalleled since the days of Greely's Fort Conger. Here again, Baldwin had the task of establishing forward camps, and by all accounts did so capably. Mills harshly blames Baldwin's decision to avoid the added weight of tents and sleeping bags for the forward team, as several members suffered from frostbite -- but this was only after they had become lost and disoriented. When the heavily-laden resupply ship failed to reach the base camp, Baldwin did as he'd been told and released a series of message balloons, none of which was found until years later. Receiving no response, and concerned over the dwindling supplies of coal, Baldwin decided to retreat back to safety. His unexpected appearance in Tromsø without results infuriated Ziegler and cost him his command -- but it may well have saved the lives of many of his men.

In later years, Baldwin never tired of telling his accounts; as Capelotti notes, he was a meticulous record-keeper, and his papers are a goldmine of information. Late in life, he set about petitioning the U.S. government for some recognition and financial support in return for his service, but never received either; at the age of 71 in 1933, he was struck and killed by a passing motorist in Washington, DC. A copy of his book -- long ago de-accessioned by a local library, and missing its spine and back cover -- was given to me by a student, and I had to confess that, when I first browsed through it, I had no idea who Baldwin was.

Lords Franklin

Over the (now) more than hundred and sixty years since his disappearance, the fame of Sir John Franklin shows little sign of diminishing; in just the past year we've had a new biography, as well as yet another novel (by my count, the seventeenth) based on his life. And setting written texts aside, one of the most enduring sources of interest in Franklin's fate surely derives from the ballad known as "Lord Franklin" or "Lady Franklin's Lament." It was hearing the late Michael O Domhnaill's version of this song some twenty years ago that began my own Franklin fascination, and as time has passed I have accumulated other recordings of this plaintive ballad, a habit accelerated by the digital age. At last count I have more than forty different versions in my music library, and I'm certain that my collection is very far from complete.

The history of the ballad itself and its variants would make a long story, but suffice it to say that about 90% of the versions I know are based on Martin Carthy's 1966 version, released on his Second Album LP. Carthy shortened the lyrics to five well-rounded stanzas, and his slight variation of the source melody (an Irish air known as "The Croppy Boy" or Cailín Óg a Stór) has been universally carried forward. What follows is my own personal account of what I think are the best (and worst) versions, with a few comments on the more notable variations -- I hope that, should this ballad be one of your favorites, I might help you find further versions to enjoy, and avoid the (relatively few) awful ones.

As I say, Michael O Domhnaill's version, with his reedy yet potent voice, was the first I heard, and it remains my personal favorite. The well-known version by Pentagle is also a classic, and John Renbourn's guitar work on the tune is second to none. Another outstanding traditional version is John Walsh's from his album Aon Dó Trí (that's one two three in Irish); another by Take Two (the moniker of two Shropshire lads name of Dave Rolfe and Kevin Arnold) is also memorable. Special mention for over-use of echo should go to Sinéad O Connor's otherwise lovely recording, although rumor has it that an echo-free version is floating around the ether somewhere.

Rockier, or poppier versions also abound; that by the Glasgow-based Pearlfishers is the prize among these, though capable covers by the Tramps, Carmina, or Connie Dover are also appealing. For those who, at the other end of the spectrum, feel that anything more than a raspy a capella is too fancy, the Revels' version on their Homeward Bound CD is to my mind the best of the foke'sull school. I would warn, though, against the traditional version offered by "The Seamen's Institute" -- the tuneless warble of the unnamed singer on their version sounds rather like Sterling Holloway (the voice of Disney's Winnie the Pooh) after a night of excessive mead-guzzling.

One might well ask why a ballad which -- at least in part, and in some versions entirely -- is sung from Lady Franklin's point of view, why there have not been more versions by women. The gender imbalance has been greatly rectified in the digital age, with at least ten new recordings in the past decade. I'm personally fond of Jo Freya's version, with its pennywhistle and concertina accompaniment; Louise Killen's version, from her "Stars in the Morning" album, is also quite enchanting. The vocal treatment by the "Roots Quartet," alas, is far less felicitous; not only is the melody transposed into a modal version, but it's festooned with tinny harmonies that are reminiscent of a Roches outtake.

Lastly, there are a few instrumental-only versions, of which that recorded by Giuseppe Leopizzi and Roselina Guzzo is particularly rich and resonant. The melody has also been appropriated for other songs, among them Bob Dylan's "Bob Dylan's Dream" and David Wilcox's haunting "Jamie's Secret," which transposes the tale of Franklin's loss to the loss of a friend in the North Cascades of Washington State.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone who feels a favorite version has been slighted, or who disagrees with any of my calls!

NW Passage at Museum of Ontario Archaeology

The many readers of this blog whose interest in Sir John Franklin's last expedition began with, or was stirred by, the work of David C. Woodman, will want to mark April 10th on their calendars. That's the day that the Museum of Ontario Archaeology is hosting the latest event in its Underwater Heritage Program, at which Dave will be the featured speaker.  The day is also packed with talks by other notable figures, among them the archaeologist John McDonald and Commander John Crever CFN (ret.), both of whom will speak to the conditions faced by Franklin on his final voyage.  The highlight, though, will certainly be Dave's evening presentation, "In Search of Terror: Shipwreck Hunting in the Arctic," at which he'll share some of his remarkable experiences from his many Franklin searches, illustrated by seldom-seen photos from his personal collection.

You can get a downloadable flyer with all the details in .pdf format; the Museum advises that the number of tickets is limited, and reservations recommended; they can be reached at (519) 473-1360 or via e-mail at museum.of.archaeology@uwo.ca.  I'd urge anyone in the area to attend this event; the museum is in London, Ontario, about a four-hour drive from my old hometown of Cleveland, and only 2 hours from Detroit, Toronto, Buffalo, and other major cities.  I'm certain it will be the Franklin event of the year.

Update on ProCom's Northern Search

Many thanks to Michael Wing for sending along an update on ProCom Marine's application for a survey to test their remote sensing equipment. Readers of this blog will recall that such testing was given as reason for their presence in Larsen Sound off the northwest coast of King William Island last summer, at a time when there were intimations that an unauthorized search for Franklin's ships might have been contemplated.

As CBC news notes, "ProCom's latest proposal does not mention Franklin's ships, but the company ran into trouble with the Nunavut government when it tried to look for the lost ships last fall without the necessary permits." Personally, I do wish that they had been simple and direct, if indeed a search for these ships was contemplated, as the apparent response from the Nunavut Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth -- asking them to relocate such tests elsewhere -- would negate their value in terms of the Franklin search. Such searches risk becoming a sort of local political football (or should I say, hockey puck) if they cannot state their real reason for being. While I have the very highest degree of respect for the Inuit of this region, having met and spent some time among them, I can't see how throwing hurdle after hurdle in the way of searchers benefits anyone. Some sort of partnership and cooperation between the communities in Taloyoak and Gjoa Haven and ProCom or other searchers seems very much to the mutual advantage of both, and I very earnestly hope that this will prove to be the ultimate solution.

The Voyage of the Karluk

Every so often, I have the good fortune to stumble along an online article or reference that really takes advantage of the Internet as a medium. This was exactly the case with the new Wikipedia entry on the Voyage of the Karluk. A few months ago, I noticed that there was an "at work" tag on the article, and that some energetic person known to me only as Brianboulton (I assume that this is his real name, but it hardly matters) was doing the heavy lifting of taking a lowly "stub" article through to "Feature Article," Wikipedia's highest rating. The author clearly knew a thing or two about the sea and ships, and took advantage of the fact that many of the sources made available via Google Books, such as Bob Bartlett's own account of the Karluk, were out of copyright. More impressively, he was able to get illustrations as well as footnotes from this same source, while at the same time dextrously citing more recent books, and carefully footnoting along the way. It's the kind of burst of energy that refreshes one's faith in the largely anonymous, "crowdsourcing" model of such reference works.

As someone who has contributed to Wikipedia and other online reference projects (such as Citizendium), I crossed my fingers that this entry would pass through, and survive, the Scylla of copyright nigglers and the Charybdis of endless editorial tweaking -- and lo! -- it did. So, while the actual HMCS "Karluk" went down to an icy grave, the article sails boldly through its subject, providing a balanced and informative reference entry where before there was only a dark corner with a few half-hearted scraps mingling with rumors and undocumented sources. It's now a feature article, and may someday soon be right there on the Mainpage! Check it out, and if you have a mind, it's not hard to find am unoccupied corner of that vastest and most perilous region of all -- free online reference works -- where you can ply your pen.

Wamsley Lecture on Isaac Hayes at the Explorer's Club

I feel certain that readers of this blog will be interested to learn that my good friend Doug Wamsley will be lecturing on the Arctic explorer Isaac Israel Hayes at the New York Explorer's Club this February 22nd. Hayes was for many years a neglected figure, despite the fact that his career -- which stretched from the Second Grinnell Expedition under Dr. Elisha Kent Kane through to the pictorial Arctic voyages of the American Painter William Bradford in the 1870's -- was one of the most remarkable of his era. Now, thanks to Doug, that neglect is no more: his book Polar Hayes: the Life and Contributions of Dr. Isaac Israel Hayes (American Philosophical Society Press) gives a comprehensive look at Hayes's career, including his notable service in charge of the largest field hospital of the Civil War, which treated many of the injured from the Battle of Gettysburg.

Wamsley's talk will bring into vivid focus the life of a remarkable but often forgotten explorer, writer, politician and humanitarian who epitomized the rugged and restless spirit of adventure and individualism of nineteenth-century America. Tickets to this extraordinary event are $20 ($5 for students), and reservations are highly recommended; call 212-628-8383, Fax 212-628-4449, or email reservations@explorers.org.

Irving's grave found -- by Woodman!

Readers of this blog will be delighted, I am sure, to learn that I've just received a long and very informative letter from Dave Woodman, who has been following our discussion with some interest.  Included with his letter is a photograph, shown at left, of a stone construction he found on King William Island which he is fairly confident is the same as the grave described by Schwatka, Klutshak, and Gilder.  I very much agree -- and having not seen the photo before, am delighted to find that, as I had thought, a grave of such substance would still be visible today (easy for me to say, of course, as I did not have to slog over the frozen northwest coast of King William Island to find it!).  Woodman identified this structure during "Project Supunger," his 1994 effort to locate the "vault" described by Supunger -- there being two separate accounts by him, one of which seems to describe an adjacent burial which Hall, as well as his translator Tookoolito, believed might contain buried records.  This vault was not found, but as the photo shows, the structure he discovered near the crews' landing place corresponds remarkably well.  Woodman's own key to this photo is as follows:

Comparison of Irving’s grave drawing (Klutschak) with grave found near Crozier’s Landing by “Project Supunger” 1994 (Woodman). A & B – Head and “pillow” stones, C – Side stone with tapering end pointing towards head, D – Large “foot” covering stone still in place

Woodman agrees that a grave of these dimensions could never have been constructed by exhausted men.  In his scenario, though, the 1848 abandonment is far briefer, and the return to the ships far sooner:

You mention that you doubt that a grave of  “such size and form would have been well beyond the powers of any group of stragglers returning to the ships.” Actually the fact that Irving was buried here is one of the main pillars of my contention that a return to the ships did occur in 1848 (otherwise they wouldn’t have been manned in Erebus Bay in 1849 when the Inuit met them), but my assessment is that 105 men didn’t get very far and were back in the ships within a month after finding that they managed only 3 miles a day or so. This is a far different scenario than that the weakened survivors were from the southern “death camps” (which in my scheme are two years in the future). Most of the 105 would have walked both ways (only 1 grave in Seal Bay, then 2 in “Two grave bay” that are probably from this first march) and there would have been plenty of manpower available to build the grave that we found.

This certainly addresses this question.  Woodman's key deductive points, if readers will excuse a Sherlockian rehearsal, are these:

• The Inuit were never near Victory Point, or Crozier's landing point a couple of miles to the south, until long after all the men had perished.  The Inuit themselves stated that they learned of this site from the Kabloonas; this could not have been sooner than 1859.  The evidence for this is that there was such a large amount of material still present when the first Inuit, such as Supunger and his uncle, arrived -- and that seems very strong evidence indeed.
• The Inuit describe witnessing the sinking of one of Franklin's vessels.  Since the Inuit had not been aware of the site of the original abandonment, this must have occurred a considerable distance further south along the coast, and later.
• The Inuit describe the one ship which did not sink as having been manned and piloted, and this is very likely the same ship that was later found anchored somewhere along the far northwest coast of the Adelaide Peninsula (O'Reilly Island, Kirkwall Island etc.).  In order for this to have occurred, there must have been a return to the ships when there were still enough healthy men to pilot it.
• For all the same reasons, the Bayne account, because it includes Inuit witnesses, can't have taken place near Victory Point or Crozier's Landing.

At Dave's invitation, I'm making his entire letter to me available here, which goes into much greater detail about his argument.  While I don't necessarily agree with every part of it, there's no arguing with the bulleted points.  If we suppose that the officers of the Expedition were not insane, their brains not addled by lead, it's entirely sensible to suppose that they would quickly realize the futility of having all the men travel over land to safety.  A return to the ships, or at least a return by some to a "sick camp" near Crozier's landing point, where fresh supplies could be obtained from the ships, makes sense.  Then, if we imagine that the ice freed them in the summer of 1848 (or 49), it makes sense that they would be re-manned, as they were the best hope of escape.  We can then suppose that they were trapped again, and one of the vessels crushed, off either Erebus Bay or Terror Bay, or both -- the graves there suggest a probable repeat of the sick camp / graves made ashore scenario.  Finally, the remaining ship is once more piloted, probably by a "skeleton" crew of a few hardy sailors, and makes it into Queen Maud Gulf, but no further; a small group apparently left this ship but did not make it out.

Meanwhile, those still at the last 'sick camp' on King William Island sent out one last group of men on foot in search of help, and this is the party the Inuit met met at Washington Bay, and which is responsible for the bodies, with only a prefunctory or no burial, scattered along the southern coast of KWI, ending at the Todd Islets.

My thanks to Dave for sharing his thoughts on this -- and I look forward to comments from everyone else!

Sketch of the life of John Irving

In researching for this blog the manner in which the bones believed to be Irving's were returned, I was delighted to find that the little memoir of his life, published in Edinburgh after his funeral, had been scanned and made available here by Harvard University Libraries. While there is no portrait -- I am unsure as to whether Irving was ever photographed -- there is a frontispiece featuring a lovely reproduction of Irving's maths medal. It's been cleaned up, and the engraved name is quite clear -- certainly, given its size and significance, it's not unreasonable to assume that it was laid within the tomb as a memorial. If you click on the image above, you can see it in much better detail.

I would encourage everyone unfamiliar with this delightful little book to take advantage of the online version. It gives a good many of Irving's letters home in full, and reproduces a sketch he made of the "Erebus" and "Terror" at their final port of call in Greenland. The final letter, enclosed with this sketch, concludes with this poignant reflection:

We are going to have a school for the men, and our Captain reads prayers in Sundays. We are exempt from many of the temptations of the world, and I hope we shall have grace to find that it has been good for us to have been separated from the world, and that God has been with us in all our wanderings. May we submit ourselves to His pleasure in all things.

Irving's Grave, Part III

Let's recalibrate our discussion here, and assume for the moment that it was John Irving in that grave. If so, I would say it's most likely that he died not long after being mentioned in the Victory Point Record -- the evidence for this being simply that a tomb of such size and form would have been well beyond the powers of any group of stragglers returning to the ships. Some have hypothesized that he either led a return party to this ships (Greely), or else that he deliberately remained behind with the sick, and perished among them (Markham). But no matter whose remains were in this grave, there is still one witness from whom we yet have to hear: William H. Gilder, Schwatka's second-in-command. Gilder's account was also published, and is readily available via Project Gutenberg; here are the relevant passages.

He begins by recalling the events of the 27th:

The next day we stayed at Cape Jane Franklin to make a preliminary search of the vicinity. Lieutenant Schwatka and I went up Collinson Inlet, but saw no traces of white men. Henry and Frank, who had been sent up the coast, were more fortunate. About a mile and a half above camp they came upon the camp made by Captain Crozier, with his entire command from the two ships, after abandoning the vessels. There were several cooking stoves, with their accompanying copper kettles, besides clothing, blankets, canvas, iron and brass implements, and an open grave, wherein was found a quantity of blue cloth, part of which seemed to have been a heavy overcoat, and a part probably wrapped around the body. There was also a large quantity of canvas in and around the grave, with coarse stitching through it and the cloth, as though the body had been incased as if for burial at sea. Several gilt buttons were found among the rotting cloth and mould in the bottom of the grave, and a lens, apparently the object-glass of a marine telescope. Upon one of the stones at the foot of the grave Henry found a medal, which was thickly covered with grime, and was so much the color of the clay stone on which it rested as to nearly escape detection. It proved to be a silver medal, two and a half inches in diameter, with a bass-relief portrait of George IV.

So far, so good -- his account corroborates those of Schwatka and Klutschak. But then Gilder adds a detail unique to his account; apparently, some time after the visit by Supunger and his uncle, another Inuk and his son had visited the site:

An old Netchillik, named Ockarnawole, stated that five years ago he and his son, who was also present in the igloo, made an excursion along the north-western coast of King William Land. Between Victory Point and Cape Felix they found some things in a small cask near the salt water. In a monument that he did not take down, he found between the stones five jack-knives and a pair of scissors, also a small flat piece of tin, now lost; saw no graves at this place, but found what, from his description of the way the handle was put on, was either an adze or a pickaxe. A little north of this place found a tent place and three tin cups. About Victory Point found a grave, with a skeleton, clothes, and a jack-knife with one blade broken. Saw no books. In a little bay on the north side of Collinson Inlet saw a quantity of clothes. There was plenty of snow on the ground at the time they were there. Viewing this statement in the light of our subsequent search upon this ground, I am inclined to believe that the grave they found was not at Victory Point, but was Irving's grave, about three miles below there. We saw no evidence of any grave at Victory Point, though we made a particularly extended search around that entire section of the country. The little bay spoken of is also probably the little bay where Lieutenant Irving's grave was discovered. There is a little bay on the north side of Collinson Inlet, but Lieutenant Schwatka and I visited it several times without finding any traces of clothing or any other evidences of white men having been there; and from what we saw at other places it seems almost impossible that there could have been much there as late as five years ago without some indications remaining. The vicinity of places where boats had been destroyed, or camps where clothing was found, were invariably indicated by pieces of cloth among the rocks, at greater or less intervals, for a long distance--sometimes as far as one or two miles on either side, and it would be almost impossible to escape seeing the principal point when led to it by such gradually cumulative evidence.

Here is much interesting new detail: the grave thought to be Irving's was visited a second time. Ockarnawole did not take down the "monument" -- but this appears to be another cairn, perhaps that in which Schwatka found Hobson's note copying out the Victory Point record. He did, however, visit a grave -- correctly surmised by Gilder to be Irving's -- and picked up a jack-knife, quite possibly the same old rusty "clasp knife" found and discarded by Supunger. Most significantly, Gilder places the grave more precisely -- "three miles below Victory Point" at a "little bay." Consulting a modern map (see above), this would seem to place it squarely in the midst of Cape Jane Franklin, which is exactly where Gould puts it (those consulting his map should note that Gould calls the entire inlet "Back Bay," whereas the modern map places the name on the coast and names the inlet "Cllinson Inlet").

Whoever was buried in it, then, I think we can say several things about this grave three miles south of Victory Point:

1) It is adjacent to an expedition camp, which apparently was occupied by some portion of the crew of the "Terror," as well as a considerable amount of material abandoned soon after the crews left the ships. The sledge-harnesses present pose a question -- were they left behind early on, or are they a sign that a group from that ship did in fact return to the vicinity at some later point?

2) It was visited twice by Inuit at some point long after there were living survivors -- first by Supunger and his uncle in the 1860's, who got most of the good stuff (wooden oars, and the wooden pole fastened into the ground), and who opened up the tomb in search of plunder. Secondly, much later, in the early 1870's, by Ockarnawole and his son, who cleaned up some additional material, missing some things due to snow cover.

3) The person buried in the grave was very likely an officer; a great deal of effort would have been required to construct it. He was buried in a dress uniform, and sewn inside canvas as if for burial at sea. Irving's maths medal was -- apparently with purpose -- left there, but was missed by the Inuit. The medal had been there for a long time, as it had left a mark on the rock where it had lain.

So what can we make of this evidence? Does it suggest a return to the vicinity of the ships? If this group was able to reach one of the ships, and resupply, could its members have been well enough to undertake the making of this substantial tomb? Or does the evidence point to an earlier memorial, around the time of abandonment? I'd note also that Schwatka and his men found a similar, though much less ambitiously-scaled burial, a few miles further south, the skull in which was also identified as that of a "white man." Schwatka did not, for whatever reason, bring those bones back with him, and no other human remains beyond that point received anything resembling this kind of formal, labor-intensive burial.

Irving's Grave, Part II

The descriptions of the site and nature of the grave supposed by Schwatka to be that of Lieutenant John Irving, and the stone vault found by the Inuk hunter Hall called "Supunger" show some remarkable similarities. Both were located near the site of a collapsed tent; near both were found a number of portable stoves and other equipment; in both graves parts of the skeleton were scattered about, and the skull was not at the "head" of the tomb. Yet is has generally been assumed that Supunger's find -- often described as a "vault" -- was an excavation below ground level, whereas Irving's was above ground. The difficulty of digging to any depth in the unyielding frozen scree of King William Island, however, suggests an above-ground construction. What, then, of the large flat stones so vividly described by Supunger?

They are there -- in the form of a sketch (shown above) as well as a description by Heinrich Klutshak, who worked as the surveyor/artist on Schwatka's expedition. His sketch, much more so than the relatively primitive one in Schwatka's account, shows these very slabs, and this is corroborated by his description:

"On the 27th, Franz Melms and I were walking along the coast toward Victory Point, where Sir James Ross had erected a stone cairn. Near the waterline Melms found a strip of canvas (such as is used for hauling a sledge) with the marking T.II. While he was making a more through inspection of the area, I spotted a cairn and near it a human skull. It was a grave made of flat slabs of sandstone, like a grave-vault built above ground. It had once been covered but had obviously been subjected to a search. The skull (indisputably that of a white man) lay outside, with other human bones. Inside the grave a luxuriant growth of moss was flourishing on some remnants of blue cloth which, judging by the buttons and the fine texture, had once belonged to an English officer's uniform. A silk handkerchief in a remarkably good state of preservation lay at the head end, and above it on a rock a silver medal measuring 2 1/2 - 2 3/4 inches in diameter lay exposed. The fact that this medal had escaped the eyes of the Inuit I can only ascribe to the fact that it had either been hidden by snow, or that the natives' loot was already quite considerable."

"Flat slabs" -- "like a grave-vault built above ground" -- "it had once been covered" -- all these correspond perfectly with Supunger's description. His conjecture about the reason the medal was missed is also remarkably acute; when asked by Hall why Supunger had not taken more of the stoves or kettles (Oot-koo-seeks) near the site, the reply was that "he & uncle had as much of other things as they could carry & these Oot-koo- seeks were very heavy."

The precise location of this grave is perhaps the final question. Unfortunately, Klutschak does not give a precise spot, though clearly it was near the water-line not far south of Victory Point. Supunger placed his finds "by the coast above Back's Bay, not far from Victory Point," which is entirely consistent. Gould's map shows it at the far western tip of Cape Jane Franklin, just north of Back's Bay and south of Victory Point; Barr's note in his edition of Klutshak's narrative places it "two miles north of Cape Jane Franklin."

The other features of the spot are also, perhaps, worth noting. Supunger and his uncle found a large wooden pole in the ground just beside this vault or grave. It had been chewed off a few feet above ground by a polar bear, but as wood was so enormously valuable they took a great deal of time and effort to dig it out of its foundation. Supunger described it in great detail:

"The part in the ground was square. Next to the ground was a big ball & above this to within a foot or so of the top the stick was round. The top part was about 3 or 4 inches square. No part of it was painted - all natural wood color."

To many who have read this account, it sounds as though it must have been a flag-pole, perhaps crafted on board ship by one of the expedition's carpenters. And whose grave would be most likely to have a flag-pole erected beside it?

The Grave of Lieutenant Irving?

Without a doubt, one of the most poignant discoveries of the American Franklin Searching Expedition led by Frederick Schwatka was that of the grave of Lieutenant John Irving. Unlike other burials made farther down the coast of King William Island, Irving's grave had been constructed with considerable care and labor, with a ring of stones which, at one point, may have been covered over to make a complete sepulcher of stone. The remains were identified on account of a medallion, awarded to Irving for his achievement in maths, which was found lying nearby. Schwatka, moved by this memorial, did something only done once before -- he decided to collect the remains and send them back to England for burial. This was in fact done, and apparently the identification of the body was fully accepted; the remains were buried at Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh, in an elaborate ceremony presided over by Irving's brother, who by then had risen to the rank of Major General.

And yet supposing this was this Irving's skeleton, one wonders: how could this be his grave? Its site, quite close to that of Ross's cairn at Victory Point, poses a difficult puzzle; since Irving is mentioned in the Victory Point note as having found Ross's cairn, we can safely presume he was fit enough to be sent on such a mission. And yet here, a stone's throw distant, lies his grave? Did Irving meet with some sudden end, so soon after the Victory Point record that the main body of the expedition had not yet moved on? It's often surmised that Irving must have for some reason been sent back later to the ships, and that this explains the gap in time. Yet a grave such as his, with its heavy stones, would almost certainly have been beyond the means of a small party of men some time after the abandonment to construct; with scurvy and exhaustion rampant, the graves the later survivors managed -- when they managed them at all -- consisted of laying out the body and covering it with a few shovels of gravel. The men who built this monument must have been fit, and the time ample, for such a substantial undertaking.

And even then, the scale of the burial seems significant. Irving, as an officer, would certainly have received a formal burial of some kind, but the heavy construction of this tomb suggests that the body was that of a very senior commander. Elsewhere in this blog, I've passed along the "Supunger" tale, in which an Inuk hunter, quite near Victory Point, discovered a stone tomb, partially filled with water. The tomb was covered with heavy slabs of stone, but Supunger and his uncle managed -- with considerable effort -- to pry one off. Inside they found part of a skeleton, along with a few rusted relics, among them a clasp knife. Other parts of the body were strewn outside, and by this, along with claw-marks at the grave's edge, Supunger deduced that a polar bear must have broken into the grave. Might not this same grave, its roof removed and its edges eroded by a decade of frost, ice, and water, be the same one later found by Schwatka and assumed to be Iriving's?

The identification by the medallion is certainly a weak one. In the case of Le Vesconte, an examination of the skull showed a tooth with a gold plug that evidently corresponded with dental work that officer was known to have had. There's no indication that Irving's bones received any such examination; they were simply delivered to his family. And indeed the math medal, according to the accounts of Schwatka and his men, was lying on the edge of the grave. It might have been left there by anyone; indeed, if we assume that this is the grave of a more senior officer, it might have been left there by Irving as a tribute to a dead friend.

I'm providing links to the complete texts of the Supunger story, as well as to that of Schwatka -- perhaps a fresh look at the evidence is in order. Many who have read Supunger's tale have come to believe that the grave could only have been that of Sir John Franklin himself -- if indeed this tomb was the same as that found by Schwatka, it could well be that Franklin's bones have, in fact, already been returned to Britain -- but simply buried in the wrong grave!