![]() The wreckage was first discovered in 2014 by Parks Canada in collaboration with Inuit communities. ![]() Among these treasures is a journal that may offer clues as to the crews’ fate. Now, marine archaeologists have found a trove of fascinating artefacts in the wreckage of the HMS Erebus in Wilmot and Crampton Bay, an Arctic waterway in Nunavut, Canada. ![]() The HMS Erebusįor years, the exact fate of the ships’ crews remained a mystery. In 1845, two ships left England on a voyage of Arctic exploration: the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror. Sources: Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, Minutes, November 1992 June 2018.A new discovery has been made in the wreckage of HMS Erebus, which may offer new insights as to the fate of the ship's crew No additional written documentation from the expedition has, to date, been found that adds appreciably to this cairn note. The survivors had deserted the ships and were making for the Great Fish River (now the Back River), to the southeast. A later message, penned in April 1848, stated that the ships had now been stuck in the ice for a year-and-a-half, and that Franklin and some crew members had perished. It gave the locations of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror lodged in pack ice off the northwest flank of the island. In 1859, a message initially dated May 1847 was found during a search expedition led by Captain McClintock, in a cairn on King William Island. There were many subsequent unsuccessful search and rescue operations however, no news of the crews was discovered until almost 20 years later when explorer John Rae learned from Inuit that the expedition had ended in the loss of the ships and their crews. Other than a chance encounter with a whaling vessel in 1845, Franklin, his crew and his vessels were never seen again by Europeans. For Franklin’s 1845 expedition each vessel was fitted with iron bow sheathing and equipped with a steam engine and a single screw propeller, capable of moving the ships at 4 knots. Originally designed as sail-powered naval mortar bomb vessels, these wooden ships were of strong construction. He and his men travelled aboard the 370-ton HMS Erebus and the 340-ton HMS Terror, each of which had been refitted and strengthened for polar service and contained equipment to conduct zoological, botanical, magnetic and geologic surveys. In 1845, Captain Sir John Franklin sailed from the United Kingdom in search of a Northwest Passage through what is now the Canadian Arctic. The eventual discoveries of the two shipwrecks, in 20, are a testament to the accuracy of Inuit oral tradition and knowledge. This information helped define the modern search areas. Since the mid-19th century, Inuit have shared their knowledge with those who came to the Arctic to search for the missing expedition. ![]() The disappearance of the ships became one of history’s greatest mysteries, capturing the attention of Canadians and other people around the world for over a century and a half, and Inuit knew about the Franklin expedition and encountered its crew in the King William Island region. Both wrecks are intact and their historical treasures of shipboard articles have the potential to shed new light on the events of the expedition although no survivors from the two ships were ever found, the more than 32 search, supply or relief expeditions launched between 18 resulted in the mapping of large tracts of what is now the Canadian Arctic. It is recognized because: these wrecks are associated with Sir John Franklin’s 1845 expedition in search of a Northwest Passage, which historical and archaeological evidence suggests was almost certainly successful the wrecks of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror are rare surviving examples of state-of-the-art, mid-19th century Arctic discovery ships. The Wrecks of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1992. ![]()
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