![]() Franklin, in 1845, was working under far more constraints.įranklin, a British Royal Navy officer, left England in 1845 in search of a passage through the Arctic icepack. Harris and his team had the advantage of support from Canada's Department of National Defense, the Royal Canadian Navy and even the New York Air National Guard to move equipment up to an ice encampment at Queen Maud Gulf. "It takes a lot of effort to get all your personnel and equipment to the remote site location." "It's an extremely remote location," underwater archaeologist Ryan Harris of Parks Canada, the chief archaeologist on the dive, told Live Science. In April, underwater archaeologists had to bore through 6.5 feet (2 meters) of sea ice to dive to the Erebus remains. The Erebus' sister ship, the HMS Terror, remains missing.įifteen artifacts have now been pulled from the wreck site, located in Queen Maud Gulf between Victoria Island and mainland Canada. Until the rediscovery of the HMS Erebus in 2014, no one knew where that ship had come to rest. They were brought to the surface during an April dive to the wreck site of the HMS Erebus, one of two ships that carried Sir John Franklin and his men to the Arctic in search of a Northwest Passage. These artifacts saw new light last month in a flash exhibition at the Canadian Museum of History. These are among the last remnants of the doomed Franklin expedition, an 1845 journey to the Arctic that ended with two ships sunk and 129 lives lost. A medicine bottle filled with viscous goo. “Each drawer and other enclosed space will be a treasure trove of unprecedented information on the fate of the Franklin Expedition.Buttons. “Not only are the furniture and cabinets in place, drawers are closed and many are buried in silt, encapsulating objects and documents in the best possible conditions for their survival,” said Marc-André Bernier, the head of Parks Canada’s underwater archaeology department, in a statement. Most exciting for the researchers is the prospect that thick sediment, low in oxygen, has preserved documentation within the ship, including logbooks and maps. The water temperature, and lack of natural light, has prevented the degradation many of the items, including crockery and and navigation too. The location itself, beneath the frigid Arctic waters, has been critical to preserving much of the ship. Only his sleeping quarters, which are behind a shut door, are inaccessible. Since the monumental discovery, Parks Canada has set about studying both ships in detail, with the aim of better understanding the lives of those aboard – and the final months of the voyage.įrom within the wreck, Capt Francis Crozier’s cabin remains the most intact. Plates and other artifacts sit on shelves next to a mess table where lower-ranking crew members would have taken their meals on HMS Terror, in Terror Bay, off King William Island, Nunavut. “The impression we witnessed when exploring the HMS Terror is of a ship only recently deserted by its crew, seemingly forgotten by the passage of time,” said Ryan Harris, a senior archeologist for Parks Canada, in a statement. In total, the expedition was able to study 20 separate rooms. Nearly 90% of the ship’s lower deck – including the areas where the crew ate and slept – were accessible to the vehicle. Over several weeks in early August, the researchers launched 3D-mapping technology to survey the wreck site off the the coast of King William Island in Nunavut.įor the first time ever, the team was also able to make seven trips inside the ship by piloting a remotely operated vehicle through the ship. Parks Canada and Inuit researchers announced on Wednesday the results of a study of the HMS Terror – including “groundbreaking” new images from within the incredibly well-preserved ship – and raised the possibility that logs and maps have remained intact and legible after nearly 170 years underwater. ![]()
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