The Boat

It's probably the best-known symbol of the failure of the Franklin expedition -- the whaleboat, loaded with all manner of material that added to its weight, drawn upon an enormous sledge with iron runners -- which some party of survivors dragged to their doom. McClintock described this "melancholy relic" in great detail:

"A large boat, measuring 28 ft. in extreme length, 7ft. 3 in. in breadth, 2 ft. 4 in. in depth. The markings on her stem were —" XXI. W. Con. N61., Apr. 184." It appears that the fore part of the stem has been cut away, probably to reduce weight, and part of the letters and figures removed. An oak sledge under the boat, 23 ft. 4 in. long, and 2 ft. wide; 6 paddles, about 60 fathoms of deep-sea lead line, ammunition, 4 cakes of navy chocolate, shoemaker's box with implements complete, small quantities of tobacco, a small pair of very stout shooting boots, a pair of very heavy iron-shod knee boots, carpet boots, sea boots and shoes—in all seven or eight pairs; two rolls of sheet lead, elm tingles for repairing the boat, nails of various sizes for boat, and sledge irons, three small axes, a broken saw, leather cover of a sextant case, a chaincable punch, silk handkerchiefs (black, white, and coloured), towels, sponge, tooth-brush, hair comb, a macintosh, gun cover (marked in paint "A.12"), twine, files, knives; a small worsted-work slipper, lined with calfskin, bound with red riband; a great quantity of clothing, and a wolfskin robe; part of a boat's sail of No. 8 canvas, whale-line rope with yellow mark, and white line with red mark; 24 iron stanchions, 9 inches high, for supporting a weather cloth round the boat; a stanchion for supporting a ridge pole at a height of 3 ft. 9 inches above the gunwale."

But that was far from all. Most poignant, perhaps, were the books -- those chosen from the shipboard library as worthy of hauling onwards -- and the silver plate, originally that of the officers, which had apparently been distributed to the sailors:

Five or six small books were found, all of them scriptural or devotional works, except the Vicar of Wakefield. One little book, Christian Melodies, bore an inscription upon the title-page from the donor to G. G. (Graham Gore). A small Bible contained numerous marginal notes, and whole passages underlined. Besides these books, the covers of a New Testament and Prayer-book were also found.

And, scattered amidst the rest, a flood of miscellaneous items:

"Amongst an amazing quantity of clothing there were seven or eight pairs of boots of various kinds—cloth winter boots, sea boots, heavy ankle boots, and strong shoes. I noted that there were silk handkerchiefs—black, white, and figured—towels, soap, sponge, tooth-brush, and hair-combs; Mackintosh gun-cover, marked outside with paint A 12, and lined with black cloth. Besides these articles we found twine, nails, saws, files, bristles, waxends, sail-makers' palms, powder, bullets, shot, cartridges, wads, leather cartridge-case, knives—clasp and dinner ones, needle and thread cases, slowmatch, several bayonet scabbards, cut down into knife sheaths, two rolls of sheet-lead, and, in short, a quantity of articles of one description and another truly astonishing in variety, and such as, for the most part, modern sledge travellers in these regions would consider a mere accumulation of dead weight, of little use, and very likely to break down the strength of the sledge crews. The only provisions we could find were tea and chocolate; of the former very little remained, but there were nearly 40 lbs. of the latter. These articles alone could never support life in such a climate, and we found neither biscuit nor meat of any kind. A portion of tobacco, and an empty pemmican tin, capable of containing 22 lbs. weight, were discovered. The tin was marked with an E; it had probably belonged to the 'Erebus.'" (italics mine)

The sheer quantity of material spoke of men, who, in their last necessity, had been unwilling to part with personal items or material that would be of little practical use on land. And then, as McClintock wrote,

"All these were after observations; there was that in the boat which transfixed us with awe. It was portions of two human skeletons. One was that of a slight young person, the other of a large, strongly-made middle-aged man. The former was found in the bow of the boat, but in too much disturbed a state to allow Hobson (McClintok's lieutenant, who'd found the boat first) to judge whether the sufferer had died there; large and powerful animals, probably wolves, had destroyed much of the skeleton, which may have been that of an officer ... the other skeleton was in a somewhat more perfect state, and was enveloped with clothes and furs; it lay across the boat, under the after-thwart."

In a footnote, McClintock notes that -- contrary to period engravings such as the one above -- "No part of the skull of either skeleton was found, with the exception of the lower jaw of each."

Today, the enigma of this boat -- why it was pointed back toward the ships and not to the Fish River, why it was so overloaded with useless materials, and who its last defenders had been -- is one of the most fascinating puzzles of the larger Franklin mystery. One can, though, thanks to the National Maritime Museum, search one's self and find nearly all of the relics described above.

Franklin Cards

I've written before about the marvelous creations of graphic artist Ron Toelke -- his miniature can of Goldner's Ox-Cheek soup, and the portrait series "Sorrower on the Sea of Doubt," based on Richard Beard's haunting portraits made on the eve of Sir John Franklin's departure for the Arctic in May of 1845. Toelke has a gift for combining graphical elements taken from period books and newspapers with shapes and forms that give these images a figurative -- and sometimes literal -- third dimension of sorts. They are as delightful to the hand as they are to the eye, and this has never been more so than with his latest undertaking, the "Playing Cards of Conjecture and Speculation" featuring texts and images from Franklin's expedition.

The cards come in a box, as shown above, which includes a small side-compartment featuring Arrowsmith's charts of the area of the central Arctic into which Franklin was sailing; Franklin's directions from the Lords of the Admiralty are also included on a folded paper. The cards themselves are  drawn from several sources; the court cards depict Franklin and his men, based on Beard's Daguerreotypes; the number cards contain excerpts from an 1852 book entitled "Sir John Franklin and the Arctic Regions: With Detailed Notices of the Expeditions in Search of the Missing Vessels Under Sir John Franklin, by P.L. Simmonds, Many Years' Editor of the Colonial Magazine, etc. etc. To Which is Added and account of the American Expedition Under the Patronage of Henry Grinnell, Esq." This volume, the work of one Peter Lund Simmonds, a prolific author whose works included

The Curiosities of Food, Hops, their Cultivation and Use, and Waste Products and Undeveloped Substances, was an ambitious digest of the Franklin search to date, published to coincide with the news brought back by the first Grinnell expedition. The section of the book from which Mr. Toelke took his texts is aptly entitled "Opinions and Suggestions." Speculation about Franklin's fate was rampant then -- and indeed, it is rampant still; the title of this set evokes the card game known as "Speculation," which was popular in Jane Austen's day. One could, if one chose, aptly play that game with these cards, with the added feature that every card discloses another detail or conjecture about the disposition of Franklin's men.

N.B. Although Simmond's 1852 book doesn't appear to be available online, a revised and updated version, published to coincide with the British Arctic expedition of George Strong Nares, is available at archive.org.

Itqilit

There's been plenty of speculation -- and disagreement -- over the possible role of internecine conflict among Inuit bands in the fate of the Franklin expedition. There certainly does seem to be evidence that, by the early 1860's if not somewhat earlier, a particular band of Netsilingmiut were acting aggressively toward neighboring bands, scaring away many members of (for instance) the Utjulingmiut, and raising such fear that Hall's guide Ebierbing at first refused to conduct him further into the more westerly areas. This hostility may well have originated, I suspect, with the conflict over the enormous wealth that even a single Franklin vessel would have represented to the Inuit, in terms of metal, wood, and other useful items.

But there is another possibility: conflict between Inuit and the more southerly sub-Arctic tribes that they called the "Itqilit" (a word Hall mis-transcribed many ways, most often as "Et-ker-lin"). The animosity between Inuit and their southerly sub-Arctic neighbors was of great age and well-known -- Hearne witnessed an example of it firsthand at the Bloody Falls -- and pervasive. It's also possible the these sub-Arctic tribes had conflicts with some of Franklin's men who wandered into their hunting areas; indeed, there are a several stories in Nourse's edition of Hall's second expedition narrative in which Inuit described an attack on Franklin's men by "Et-ker-lin." In one story, "Aglooka" is said to have gotten a cut on his face during such an attack. These stories are somewhat vague, and are tied up with the problematic second-hand evidence offered via "the cousin" (Too-shoo-art-thariu) so I'm not sure how much faith can be put in them -- but still, they are suggestive. There's even an account, written by Hall at the end of his second expedition, which suggests that he believed that the last two survivors -- "Aglooka" and one other man -- may have been murdered while trekking down the western shores of Hudson's bay by Et-ker-lin. Could Franklin survivors have been mistaken for Inuit by hostile neighbors? David Woodman has shown that it's quite possible that small  groups of Franklin's men were mistaken for Itqilit by Inuit; certainly the reverse is possible.

How to search for Franklin

In the wake of the disappointing results of this year's Park's Canada search for traces of Sir John Franklin's lost Arctic expedition, it seems timely to reflect on how this effort has been directed over the past several years, whether it's worth continuing, and how it might be done better. None of this is meant to reflect badly on Parks Canada, whose team, led on Ryan Harris, did exemplary work scanning the sea-bed and covered a larger area than in any previous year. The land search, alas, co-ordinated by Doug Stenton and the Nunavut government, was far less effectual; this time, we didn't even find a toothbrush, only a couple of scraps of cloth and an Inuit cache of metal pieces; instead of searching significant, known sites that haven't been examined before, they looked again at Erebus Bay, probably the most combed-over area on King William Island.

Some have argued that all this searching is just a colossal waste of public funds, a search for quite possibly long-destroyed shipwrecks that takes resources away from where the Inuit and other people in Canada's north most need them -- for housing, healthcare, drug treatment, education, and other areas. Others have argued that, though worthwhile, the search would be far better conducted by private parties rather than by the government. The internal kickbacks between Parks Canada and the CBC certainly didn't help matters.

So I thought I'd outline a few ways that next year's search -- if there is one -- could be made more likely to succeed, performed at a lower cost, and take fewer resources from either Federal Canadian agencies or the budget of the Government of Nunavut.

1) The search for the ships, if continued, can and should be conducted by private parties working in co-ordination with Parks Canada. There have been a number of outfits who have proposed their own side-scan sonar searches in the past, many of whom have had their permits denied. The search for the ships is a matter of covering a larger area; more scans mean more area covered and more chances of success. It would not be difficult to co-ordinate searches, and having just one additional private support vessel, and boats to tow the sonar, would immediately double the area that could be covered in a season.

2) The land search should be concentrated on yet-unsearched areas known to contain human and other remains. The graves near the Todd Islets have been known about for decades, and Gjoa Haven resident Louie Kamookak has taken numerous parties to see them. They are likely the remains of the very last survivors of one party of Franklin's men, and may contain other kinds of artifacts  that would give us clues as to the expedition's final fate. This is a land site easily suppoted by skidoo or ATV from Gjoa Haven, and one very likely to produce valuable finds.

3) Satellite telemetry should be explored as an avenue for narrowing the search area. There are satellites today which can map underwater features, and with ice in retreat, even a high-resolution visual spectrum scan could reveal valuable clues. The cost of obtaining this data would be far less that simply methodically tracking back-and-forth over the whole search area; it could identify potential targets or help eliminate some area.

4) Involve not just archaeologists, not just government staff, but other experts on Franklin's expedition in the search. Dave Woodman should be invited to participate, and there should be Inuit elders and historians from the area as well. I can't think of a better outcome than that of a significant find being made by a team that included Inuit and qallunaat searchers.

5) Instead of spending vast sums of government money, use the limited resources available to speed up and assist with the permitting process. Right now, Doug Stenton routinely turns down requests for private searches based solely on their lack of having accredited archaeological staff on the team; why not instead help arrange for such archaeologists to join the team? Offer ground support and other services through local Inuit hamlets? Welcome rather than reject private searchers? All could be required to report any findings and secure significant discoveries for a government team to examine further.

I don't know if any of these suggestions will be pursued -- experience suggests that they won't -- but if they aren't, the search for Franklin's fate is in all probability going to take longer. And if it stretches on for too many more years, the public support and interest are almost sure to wane.

Wax Figure of Dr. Kane

Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, the intrepid American Arctic explorer, enjoyed tremendous fame in his day; he was celebrated in moving panoramas, depicted in medallions, and his accounts of his expeditions were runaway best-sellers. This wax relief is one of the more unusual -- and seldom-seen -- portraits of Dr. Kane; preserved in the archives of the United States Naval Academy, it resembles and may have been based on the popular CDV image by Matthew Brady (although if so, it's reversed). It's possible that it was made for use in a medallion or plaque (it's just 8 3/4 by 6 3/4 inches in size).

On his death in 1857 in Havana, Cuba -- where he had gone in a futile attempt to recover his health -- his remains were returned by steam-ship, and his  funeral train journey was the longest in American history to date (exceeded only by Lincoln's in 1865). His body was returned to Philadelphia and given an elaborate processional funeral, and he was laid to rest in the family fault at Laurel Hill Cemetery.

Erebus Bay Sites

With the news that this year's Parks Canada archaeological work will include both water and land searches, and that the land search will be concentrated around Erebus Bay, I thought I'd share this page from the 1995 report on NgLj-2, the site from which numerous skeletal remains and hundreds of physical artifacts were removed for study. Personally, I feel this area is already fairly-well scoured; last year's highlight -- a toothbrush -- may have shed some light on 19th-century dental hygiene, but not much on the fate of Franklin's men. A far more promising site would be the Todd Islets, where we know that the very last members of one group of Franklin survivors stopped and went no further/

Still, I understand the logistics of such a search -- having the support of research vessels and so forth in accessing remote sites is certainly important! -- so I have a few suggestions.  First off, how about NgLj-3? Two skulls, a knee-brace, and a human femur visible on the surface indicate graves which, as the report notes, may well be of Franklin's men.  The skulls were missing much of their facial portions, so positive identification of them as Caucasoid wasn't possible -- but today, using other techniques it may be possible to say more. That these bodies were at least given something of a burial suggests that they may have died before the final extremities, and the graves may contain other useful materials laid to rest with the men.

NgLj-4 might also be worth a look -- two pieces of copper found there are promising indicators of the presence of men, and perhaps ships, nearby.

I wish the Parks Canada archaeologists all the best -- we all hope they will find things of significance! --  and the land, like the water, may yet have some secrets to disclose.

Repost: The Engines of "Erebus" and Terror"

As is well-known, HMSS "Erebus" and "Terror" were both outfitted with ex-railway engines connected to screw propellors. And yet behind that general fact lies a host of detail, including slight variations between the two engines which would, without doubt, enable any searchers to distinguish the wreck of one ship from the other.

With deepest thanks to the fruits of a long-ago correspondence with British railway expert Michael R. Bailey, I thought I'd set out the basic facts, should anyone -- Parks Canada or others -- actually have the chance to recover either engine. As it happens, both were of the "Planet" type originally developed by Robert Stephenson & Co. As Michael describes it, "HMS 'Terror' had a four-coupled (0-4-0) version (strictly a 'Samson' type) built by Robert Stephenson & Co., which was used on the London & Birmingham Railway as a contractor's engine from about 1835 until sold to the Royal Navy in 1845." HMS "Erebus," on the other hand, was fitted with a 2-2-0 "Planet" (see illustration above), but not one built by Stephenson; it was rather a copy produced by the firm of Marshalls of Wednesbury for the London & Greenwich Railway in 1836. Both engines had seen about a decade of service, and were in a sense being "retired" in order to reduce older rolling stock. While they were of closely similar types, the array of the axles, as well as (Michael's note) "the variation in the height of the axleboxes" would enable them to be readily distinguished.

But what sort of shape would these engines be in after more than 160 years? Michael, whose experience is founded upon his work with "Operation Iron Horse," which involved recovering engines from an 1857 shipwreck off the coast of the Hebrides, is confident:

"The components on the 'Terror' and 'Erebus' should all be in good condition in the absence of oxygen. Wrought iron lasts well, unlike steel. The non-ferrous components should be largely unaffected. Their timber outer frames were clad on both sides by wrought iron plates. The plates should still be ok, but the timber may have gone. The condition of the ships' and locomotives will, of course, be quite dependent upon the prevailing sea conditions...... You will know well I'm sure, that iron-work etc. attracts marine life which attaches itself and builds up over the years and can distort the appearance. The main difficulty with the 'Iron Horse' expedition has been that all components have been 'buried' in a large lump of concretion (concreted crustations) and would be quite un-recognisable toa sonar scanner. The divers have had to chip away the concretion with pick to release each component, which is why it has all taken so long. However, it is likely that the crustations have been present because Scotland is on t he receiving end of the 'Gulf-stream' and is thus 'warm-water', and hence very different from King William Island."

So far, the engines have eluded all attempts at finding them. David Woodman spent a great deal of time and energy hauling a magnetometer over the seasonal ice in areas where Inuit testimony indicated one of the ships had been anchored, in hopes that either engine would produce a notable magnetic "signature" -- but all of the the targets he identified turned out to be large rocks and other natural phenomena. I don't know whether Parks Canada has or will employ similar techniques this season, but I do hope that, if they do find something, they're able to call upon the expertise of someone like Michael Bailey.

NB: Since this post, more detailed and accurate information has been developed by Peter Carney, and is given in some detail at the Building Terror blog.

Comfort Cove

The writer of the so-called "Peglar Papers" -- a cache of personal documents and letters found with the remains of one of the ships' stewards -- spoke of "the grave at Comfort Cove" (well, actually, as he preferred to write backwards, he spoke of "eht evarg ta Trofmoc Evoc"). A person of great importance was buried there, possibly Franklin or Crozier or one of the other officers. The name was borrowed, with what seems to us some irony, from the "Comfort Cove"on Ascension Island, which featured a graveyard adjacent to an isolated quarantine camp -- a site since re-dubbed more accurately as "Comfortless Cove." You can see images of it online, and they suggest not so much a place of refuge as one of (final) rest.

But where could this place be? No maps survive among the scraps of paper remaining to us, so it's impossible to know what names Franklin's men assigned to various land or water features. Still, if Franklin himself was buried there, then it must have been established by 11 June 1847. It must have been close enough to the ships that several parties -- those who were to dig the grave, and those who were to preside at and attend the funeral ceremony -- could reach the site. With "Erebus" and "Terror" still some distance NW of King William, this suggests a site nearer to Cape Felix than to Victory Point. I've been discussing this puzzle with Glenn M. Stein and others, and it seems to me one of those things that might best be solved by more heads than two. So let's have at it -- you can get a variety of free maps and satellite images from GeoGratis or (better yet) zoom in on Rupert Thomas Gould's invaluable Franklin search map of KWI from 1927; you can also look at the maps and reports prepared by David C. Woodman on his many search expeditions. What says the wisdom of the crowds?

Weird and Tragic Grave

As some have pointed out, there is of course one other unquestionably authentic photograph of Charles Francis Hall -- the one taken at his exhumation by my late friend Chauncey Loomis. I suppose it's possible that the information in this image could be used to help sort out the photos -- but in any case, what's striking here is how much less well-preserved Hall's body appears to be than those of John Torrington and his companions -- why? A map of the average annual precipitation in Greenland offers one hint: "Thank God Harbor" turns out to be one of the driest places in Greenland. What I think we see with Hall's body here is that it was essentially mummified -- the water in the coffin is what was left over from hot water used to thaw the ice. In all probability, this and the colder temperatures mean that Hall's remains were better preserved than those of Torrington -- if you look at Torrington's autopsy report, you'll see that although he looked lively on the outside, most of his internal tissues had more or less dissolved due to cell autolysis.

But this remains a haunting image, and one not available outside of a first edition of Loomis's book (and then only in black-and-white). If you look closely, you can see that something of his beard remains. It's also surprising that he was buried in an American flag -- this would definitely not be the right naval or military protocol, but then again "Captain" Hall and his crew were none of them members of any organized navy.

The other question that invariably comes up with Hall's grave is whether he was poisoned, and by whom. I believe that a very strong circumstantial case exists that he was deliberately poisoned with large doses of arsenic, probably by the ship's surgeon Dr. Emil Bessels. Loomis removed tissue samples from Hall's body, and they tested positive for arsenic, but Chauncey was always reluctant to state the case too strongly. Bessels, one of the more notorious scoundrels in the annals of Arctic exploration, had many bad qualities even if one presumes him innocent of murder -- among other things, he seems to have stolen the ships' log and Hall's own diary; neither were accounted for at the time of the inquest into the death of Hall, and yet some small sections of them were published, in German, after Bessels's return to Germany (he was evicted from his office at the Smithsonian to make way for a toilet -- a definite improvement!). Perhaps someday these documents will re-surface, and we'll know more; until then, Loomis's Weird and Tragic Shores remains the best account we have, and one of the finest books ever written about Arctic exploration. 

Second photo of Charles Francis Hall?

Among his other peculiar qualities, the Arctic explorer Charles Francis Hall has always been "monophotographic"-- that is, a man of whom only one photograph exists. This photograph was the basis for all the engraved portraits of Hall in the books and newspapers of the day, one of which is reproduced as the right-hand image above. But who is the man in the image on the left? The resemblance is striking, although his eyes seem to protrude a bit more, his beard is a tad shorter, and his nose somewhat more elongated. Still the resemblance is close enough that the Library of Congress has suggested that the Daguerreotype of which this photo is a crop may possibly be Charles Francis Hall.

If it is Hall, then perhaps there's some dimension of his life we know little about -- as the man in the Dag is wearing quite a theatrical costume, prompting the archival description "Unidentified man, three-quarter length portrait, three-quarters to the right, seated, with arm over back of chair, hand to cheek, with full beard, wearing jacket with elaborate trimming." Perhaps he joined in some amateur theatricals while in New York lobbying for backing for his expeditions? Or might this be from back in Cincinnati? The Daguerreotypes process had long faded from popularity by the 1860's when Hall rose to fame; it would be unusual to see it used for a formal portrait at or after that time. The image is attributed to Matthew Brady, but by the time of Hall's emergence on the national stage, Brady had switched to using Ambrotypes, as with this one of Dr. Elisha Kent Kane. More research is clearly required before we can say for sure, but I'm a bit doubtful.

The "Other" Franklin Record

The original Franklin record left near "Victory Point" on King William Island in 1848 is quite well-known, and has been discussed at length here and elsewhere. Far less common is any mention at all of the other official Admiralty form, very similar in every respect (save the fateful addendum in the margins) to its brother. Both records were filled out by James Fitzjames aboard HMS Erebus, and both repeated the same mistakes (the longitude given for Beechey Island is too far to the east by several miles, and the year of the ships' wintering there is misstated as 1846-47 rather than 1845-46). The other record was recovered at what became known as "Gore Point," the tip of the peninsula that forms the western side of Collinson Inlet. The location is consistent with the idea of Gore and Des Voeux having commanded a party sent out to survey the western coast of King William Island, with the presumed goal of reaching Simpson's cairn on the shores of Washington Bay; such a party would have skirted the coast, taking advantage of the still land-fast new ice for smooth travel. On the Gore Point record, the only significant difference is that the phrase "All Well" was not underlined.

So, at first glance, this second record adds little to our understanding. And yet, having been deposited just 8 miles -- possibly one day's march -- south of the VP record, it strongly suggests that Gore had been instructed to leave a record frequently, perhaps daily, on his southward trek. One might reasonably expect, then, several other such records were left along the coast, and might yet be recovered. The most important of these, of course, would have been at Simpson's cairn, but since by the time McClintock reached it, it had been opened, this record will probably never be recovered (the attractive part of it, from the Inuit point of view, would have been the metal cylinder, which could be re-purposed for all manner of useful things). But would certainly be worth looking for the others -- a surviving record would be far more significant than, say, a toothbrush.

It is tantalizing to think of Gore's possible achievement of the long-sought dream of linking the eastern and western surveys of the Northwest Passage -- it seems hard to imagine he would have missed his goal. We know that he returned alive to the ships, as his promotion to Commander must surely have taken place on the death of Franklin, at which time Fitzjames would have been acting Captain of the Erebus, and Gore presumably promoted to acting Commander. The idea that he would have been promoted for finding Simpson's cairn, however, has less to recommend it; such field promotions were exceedingly rare in the Navy outside of battle situations.  And, alas, since Firzjames refers to him in the VP record as the "late" Commander Gore, he must have died at some point between his return to the ships and the depositing of the 1848 record.

So was a Passage then undiscovered? Not necessarily, since as they passed along their weary and ultimately fatal retreat, Franklin's men encountered the Inuit at Washington Bay, and the presence of human remains further along the southward-tending and southern coast indicates that they must all have reached and passed the location of Simpson's cairn. In so doing, they indeed 'forged the last link with their lives.'

[With thanks to Garth Walpole for tracking down Cyriax's article on the KWI records]