As early as the 16th century England had pondered over the question of the Northwest or Northeast Passage. In May 1553 Sir Hugh Willoughby set out to find a Northeast Passage. Unfortunately, for him, his three ships were blown off course. One of them, commanded by Sir Richard Chancellor managed to make it to port, but Willoughby and his other ship were forced to winter on a stretch of frozen land on the Kola Peninsular in northern Russia. He, along with the rest of his crew either starved to death or died of the elements. His journal was later found and it was revealed that before Willoughby had been blown off course his ships had entered the northern waters and he spotted a previously unknown landmass which was later called Willoughby's land. Mariners searched for Willoughby's land for many years after the alleged discovery, and it was even marked on contemporary maps, but to this day no trace of it has ever been found. What he saw, and where he saw it remains a tantalizing mystery to this day. In 1576, Martin Frobisher set sail with three small vessels and reached what is now Baffin Island north of the 60th parallel. Frobisher encountered hostile natives and some of his men on an exploratory party were killed. A generation after Frobisher, Henry Hudson, who was working for the Dutch East India Company set sail on the same mission. On his second voyage, he managed to navigate his way into what is now Hudson Bay, mapping a large chunk of the coastline before part of his crew mutinied. Along with his son and several loyal members of his crew he was set adrift in an open boat. He was never heard from again. To this day, one can speculate on Hudson's fate, but it is likely that he and his loyal men became victims of the harsh winter elements. During the next two centuries after Henry Hudson's tragic expedition, English explorers attempted to break through the ice packs and islands in the region north of Hudson Bay. All attempts to find a passage came to nought.
It was in April of 1818 that John Franklin got his first taste of Arctic exploration. Two ships were to head into the frozen northern sea. He was to command the Trent while his commander David Buchan commanded the Dorothea. They were to attempt to reach the North Pole. Of course, this was an absurd undertaking. In the early 19th century it was believed that the Pole was located in an open sea, not locked in by hundreds of miles of ice. Buchan and Franklin were to take two ships and attempt to locate this sea, which if found, might ultimately lead them to the Pacific. By June both ships became ice-locked in the Greenland sea. It was only after some heroic engineering work that the two vessels were able to free themselves and find their way back to the open sea. Franklin returned for two more voyages into the arctic region during the 1820s. On one of these adventures he charted hundreds of miles of the Arctic coastline, but nearly froze to death in the process. At one point, he and the men of his party had run out of food and were forced by necessity to boil and eat the leather portion of their boots. By the time that Franklin was in his late thirties he had become one of the most experienced Arctic explorers in the world. However, it would be nearly two decades before he would set foot in the region again.
John Franklin was born in Lincolnshire County, England in 1786. He entered the Royal Navy at the age of 14 and never looked back. He was a veteran of the battle of Copenhagen in which Lord Nelson and his fleet destroyed a combined Danish and Norwegian fleet which lay at anchor off Copenhagen. After his Arctic exploration in the 1820s, Franklin spent a number of years acting as the governor of the British colony of Tasmania in the South Pacific.
In 1845 Sir John Barrow who was the Second Secretary of the Admiralty was searching for a capable officer to lead another voyage into the Arctic to search for the Northwest Passage. However, his first choice was not John Franklin. Franklin was now 59 years old, out of shape and had not been to the Arctic in nearly two decades. He was, however, a very capable navigator and one of the most experienced senior officers in the Royal Navy. After his first few choices of men to lead the expedition came to nothing, Barrow gave the job to Franklin. He was given two ships, the Terror, and the Erebus. These were two of the sturdiest ships in the Royal Navy. They were built with solid oak and specially equipped with thick iron plates to prevent the wood from being breached by the ice. Captain Francis Crozier, an experienced officer would command the Terror, while Franklin would be assisted aboard the Erebus by Captain James Fitzjames.
On May 19, 1845 the two ships set sail from England with much fanfare. The spectators watching the two ships from the docks could hardly realize that they would never see them again. They simply vanished from the face of the Earth. After three years when no word had been heard from Franklin it became obvious that something had gone amiss. In 1848, Barrow held a meeting with some of the great names of Arctic exploration in order to determine an action plan which would launch a rescue effort. Over the next decade several attempts were made to find Franklin and his ships. Clues were found, and evidence which when added up told a disturbing tale. In 1850 three graves were found on Beechey Island. These were the graves of John Torrington, and two other shipmates who had died of sickness early on in the expedition. A few years later the English explorer John Rae returned from the Arctic with some devastating news. He had spoken with some native Inuits who told him of a group of white people that had been seen pulling sledges. These men had told the Inuit that their ships had become ice- locked, and that they were attempting to head south for the Canadian settlements. Also, Rae reported that the men had traded with the Inuit, and he was shown some of the items which the whites had traded for seal meat. These included a plate from the mess of John Franklin, and one of Captain Crozier's spoons. Rae bought these items back from the natives and brought them back to England with him. However, there was more disturbing news to report. The Inuits also reported as having come across an encampment later on in the season where they had found dozens of bodies. Some of the bodies had been mutilated in a way that showed signs that they had possibly been cannibalized. This was a shocking development, and a lot of people, including Franklin's widow, Lady Jane Franklin refused to believe it. In 1859, a sledging party led by a Royal Navy Lieutenant, William Hobson found a crucial piece of evidence, and proof of Sir John Franklin's death. His party stumbled across a cairn made of stones. Inside the cairn was a tin that contained two notes left by Captain's Crozier, and Fitzjames. It was from 11 years earlier. The notes revealed that the Erebus and Terror had become ice-locked, and the party of men were setting out for the Back's Fish River where they hoped to find succor. The notes also told of Franklin's death on June 11, 1847. This news, although not conclusive as to what happened to the rest of Franklin's men at least shed some light on the mystery.
In the years following the discovery of Franklin's demise other evidence has surfaced which has answered many questions surrounding the expeditions fate. It was known that tin cans were used to store perishables for the expedition. The contract for provisioning the ship fell to a man named Stephen Goldner. In a rush to fulfill the terms of the contact the tin cans had been sealed by lead which had dripped into the food contaminating it. The bodies discovered on Beechey Island were found to have high levels of led in them. this suggests that a large number of Franklin's crew probably succumbed to lead poisoning. It probably contributed to John Torrington's death. He was a young man, aged 20 who set off on an adventure seeking something that he never would have found had he remained in England. He had set foot where very few people ever had. It was a one stop journey that inevitably cost the young man his life, along with every one of his shipmates. There is a mystique that surrounds the Franklin expedition even today. What it is is hard to say. Perhaps it was one of the last journey's into the terrestrial unknown, or maybe it is the image we get of mankind attempting to battle the non-discriminating element of nature. For in the end, nature finds a way to prevail.
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