This afternoon I received one of those calls. This was from a representative of Heritage Canada in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She had a client who had 'confided to her', that he knew the whereabouts of the long-lost ships, from Franklin's ill-fated Arctic exploration of 1845. Yep... this lad's grandmother had let him in on the family secret of where they lay in the frigid Arctic waters.
I found myself humming the melody of Stan Rogers' Northwest Passage, which sounds kind of contradictory, as the song is in fact sung a capella. Nonetheless, for as much as I am pretty familiar with the saga, I decided to do a little reading up (Hurray for Wikipedia...) and share some of the info I uncovered.
You can read more on Sir John Franklin at the following URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Franklin
Quote - Franklin's lost Expedition.
Exploration of the Arctic coastal mainland after Franklin's second Arctic expedition had left less than 500 kilometres (311 mi) of unexplored Arctic coastline. The British decided to send a well-equipped Arctic expedition to complete the charting of the Northwest Passage. After Sir James Ross declined an offer to command the expedition, an invitation was extended to Franklin, who accepted despite his age, 59. A younger man, Captain James Fitzjames, was given command of HMS Erebus and Franklin was named the expedition commander. Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier, who had commanded HMS Terror during the Ross 1841–44 Antarctic expedition, was appointed executive officer and commander of HMS Terror. Franklin was given command on 7 February 1845, and received official instructions on 5 May 1845.
HMS Erebus at 370 long tons (380 t) and HMS Terror at 340 long tons (350 t) were sturdily built and were outfitted with recent inventions. These included steam engines from the London and Greenwich Railway that enabled the ships to make 4 knots (7.4 km/h) on their own power, a unique combined steam-based heating and distillation system for the comfort of the crew and to provide large quantities of fresh water for the engine's boilers, a mechanism that enabled the iron rudder and propeller to be drawn into iron wells to protect them from damage, ships' libraries of more than 1,000 books, and three years' worth of conventionally preserved or tinned preserved food supplies.
Unfortunately, the latter was supplied from a cut-rate provisioner who was awarded the contract only a few months before the ships were to sail. Though his "patent process" was sound, the haste with which he had prepared thousands of cans of food led to sloppily-applied beads of solder on the cans' interior edges and allowed lead to leach into the food. Chosen by the Admiralty, most of the crew were Englishmen, many from the North of England with a small number of Irishmen and Scotsmen.
The Franklin Expedition set sail from Greenhithe, England, on the morning of 19 May 1845, with a crew of 24 officers and 110 men. The ships traveled north to Aberdeen for supplies. From Scotland, the ships sailed to Greenland with HMS Rattler and a transport ship, Barretto Junior. After misjudging the location of Whitefish Bay, Disko Island, Greenland, the expedition backtracked and finally harboured in that far north outpost to prepare for the rest of their voyage. Five crew members were discharged and sent home on the Rattler and Barretto Junior, reducing the ships' final crew size to 129. The expedition was last seen by Europeans on 26 July 1845, when Captain Dannett of the whaler Prince of Wales encountered Terror and Erebus moored to an iceberg in Lancaster Sound.
After two years and no word from the expedition, Franklin's wife urged the Admiralty to send a search party. Because the crew carried supplies for three years, the Admiralty waited another year before launching a search and offering a £20,000 reward for finding the expedition. The money and Franklin's fame led to many searches. At one point, ten British and two American ships, USS Advance and USS Rescue, headed for the Arctic. Eventually, more ships and men were lost looking for Franklin than in the expedition itself.
Ballads such as "Lady Franklin's Lament", commemorating Lady Franklin's search for her lost husband, became popular. In the summer of 1850, expeditions including three from England as well as one from the United States joined in the search. They converged off the east coast of Beechey Island, where the first relics of the Franklin expedition were found, including the gravesites of three Franklin Expedition crewmen.
In 1854, explorer Dr. John Rae, while surveying the Boothia Peninsula for the Hudson's Bay Company, discovered the true fate of Franklin party from talking to Inuit hunters. He was told both ships had become icebound, the men had tried to reach safety on foot but had succumbed to cold and some had resorted to cannibalism. Rae's report to the Admiralty was leaked to the press, which led to widespread revulsion in Victorian society, enraged Franklin's widow and condemned Rae to ignominy. Lady Franklin's efforts to eulogise her husband, with support from the British Establishment, led to a further 25 searches over the next four decades, none of which would add any further information of note.
In the mid-1980's, Owen Beattie, a University of Alberta professor of anthropology, began a 10-year series of scientific studies known as the "1845–48 Franklin Expedition Forensic Anthropology Project", showing that the Beechey Island crew had most likely died of pneumonia and perhaps tuberculosis.Toxicological reports indicated that lead poisining was also a possible factor. In 1997, more than 140 years after Dr. Rae's report, his account was finally vindicated; blade cut marks on the bones of some of the crew found on King William's Island strongly suggested that conditions had become so dire that some crew members resorted to cannibalism. It appeared from these studies that a combination of bad weather, years locked in ice, disease including scurvy, poisoned food, botulism and starvation had killed everyone in the Franklin party.
Historical legacy.
For years after the loss of the Franklin party, the Victorian era media portrayed Franklin as a hero who led his men in the quest for the Northwest Passage. A statue of Franklin in his home town bears the somewhat false inscription stating "Sir John Franklin — Discoverer of the North West Passage". Statues of Franklin outside the Athenaeum in London and in Tasmania bear similar inscriptions. Although the expedition's fate, including the possibility of cannibalism, was widely reported and debated, Franklin's standing with the public was not diminished.
The mystery surrounding Franklin's last expedition was the subject of a 2006 episode of the Nova television series Arctic Passage and a 2007 documentary on Discovery HD Theatre. The expedition has inspired many artistic works including a famous ballad, Lady Franklin's Lament, a verse play by Canadian poet Gwendolyn MacEwen, a children's book, a short story and essays by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, and several novels, and is referenced in Canadian musician Stan Rogers' ballad Northwest Passage. (When sung properly, it can raise the hair on my arms... - Crypt.). There is also a direct reference to John Franklin's ill-fated expedition in the Irish-American group Nightnoise's album Something of Time, specifically in a track titled: "The Erebus and the Terror". Additionally in 2007, a fictional account of the expedition was authored by Dan Simmons titled The Terror, ISBN 978-0-316-01744-2.
The explorer was also remembered when one of Canada's Northwest Territories subdivisions was named the Distrisct of Franklin. Including the high Arctic islands, this jurisdiction was abolished when the Territories were divided in 1999. - End quote.
The Northwest Passage (Stan Rogers)
Copyright Fogarty's Cove Music, Inc.
Ah for just one time
I would take the Northwest Passage,
To find the hand of Franklin
Reaching for the Beaufort Sea.
Tracing one warm line
Through a land so wild and savage,
And make a Northwest Passage
To the sea.
Westward from the Davis Strait
'tis there 'twas said to lie,
The sea route to the Orient
For which so many died.
Seeking gold and glory
Leaving weathered, broken bones,
And a long-forgotten
Lonely cairn of stones...
Ah for just one time
I would take the Northwest Passage,
To find the hand of Franklin
Reaching for the Beaufort Sea.
Tracing one warm line
Through a land so wild and savage,
And make a Northwest Passage
To the sea.
Three centuries thereafter
I take passage over land,
In the footsteps of brave Kelso
Where his sea of flowers began.
Watching cities rise before me
Then behind me sink again,
This tardiest explorer
Driving hard across the plain...
Ah for just one time
I would take the Northwest Passage,
To find the hand of Franklin
Reaching for the Beaufort Sea.
Tracing one warm line
Through a land so wild and savage,
And make a Northwest Passage
To the sea.
And through the night , behind the wheel
The mileage clicking West,
I think upon Mackenzie,
David Thompson and the rest.
Who cracked the mountain ramparts
And did show a path for me,
To race the roaring Fraser
To the sea…
Ah for just one time
I would take the Northwest Passage,
To find the hand of Franklin
Reaching for the Beaufort Sea.
Tracing one warm line
Through a land so wild and savage,
And make a Northwest Passage
To the sea.
How then am I so different from
The first men through this way?
Like them I left a settled life
I threw it all away.
To seek a Northwest Passage
At the call of many men,
To find there but the road
Back home again…
Ah for just one time
I would take the Northwest Passage,
To find the hand of Franklin
Reaching for the Beaufort Sea.
Tracing one warm line
Through a land so wild and savage,
And make a Northwest Passage
To the sea.
Unpublished additional verse:
And if should be I come again
To loved ones left at home,
Put the journals on the mantle
Shake the frost out of my bones.
Making memories of the passage
Only memories after all,
And hardships there
The hardest to recall...
**************************
Post scriptum:
I found myself humming the melody of Stan Rogers' Northwest Passage, which sounds kind of contradictory, as the song is in fact sung a capella. Nonetheless, for as much as I am pretty familiar with the saga, I decided to do a little reading up (Hurray for Wikipedia...) and share some of the info I uncovered.
You can read more on Sir John Franklin at the following URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Franklin
Quote - Franklin's lost Expedition.
Exploration of the Arctic coastal mainland after Franklin's second Arctic expedition had left less than 500 kilometres (311 mi) of unexplored Arctic coastline. The British decided to send a well-equipped Arctic expedition to complete the charting of the Northwest Passage. After Sir James Ross declined an offer to command the expedition, an invitation was extended to Franklin, who accepted despite his age, 59. A younger man, Captain James Fitzjames, was given command of HMS Erebus and Franklin was named the expedition commander. Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier, who had commanded HMS Terror during the Ross 1841–44 Antarctic expedition, was appointed executive officer and commander of HMS Terror. Franklin was given command on 7 February 1845, and received official instructions on 5 May 1845.
HMS Erebus at 370 long tons (380 t) and HMS Terror at 340 long tons (350 t) were sturdily built and were outfitted with recent inventions. These included steam engines from the London and Greenwich Railway that enabled the ships to make 4 knots (7.4 km/h) on their own power, a unique combined steam-based heating and distillation system for the comfort of the crew and to provide large quantities of fresh water for the engine's boilers, a mechanism that enabled the iron rudder and propeller to be drawn into iron wells to protect them from damage, ships' libraries of more than 1,000 books, and three years' worth of conventionally preserved or tinned preserved food supplies.
Unfortunately, the latter was supplied from a cut-rate provisioner who was awarded the contract only a few months before the ships were to sail. Though his "patent process" was sound, the haste with which he had prepared thousands of cans of food led to sloppily-applied beads of solder on the cans' interior edges and allowed lead to leach into the food. Chosen by the Admiralty, most of the crew were Englishmen, many from the North of England with a small number of Irishmen and Scotsmen.
The Franklin Expedition set sail from Greenhithe, England, on the morning of 19 May 1845, with a crew of 24 officers and 110 men. The ships traveled north to Aberdeen for supplies. From Scotland, the ships sailed to Greenland with HMS Rattler and a transport ship, Barretto Junior. After misjudging the location of Whitefish Bay, Disko Island, Greenland, the expedition backtracked and finally harboured in that far north outpost to prepare for the rest of their voyage. Five crew members were discharged and sent home on the Rattler and Barretto Junior, reducing the ships' final crew size to 129. The expedition was last seen by Europeans on 26 July 1845, when Captain Dannett of the whaler Prince of Wales encountered Terror and Erebus moored to an iceberg in Lancaster Sound.
After two years and no word from the expedition, Franklin's wife urged the Admiralty to send a search party. Because the crew carried supplies for three years, the Admiralty waited another year before launching a search and offering a £20,000 reward for finding the expedition. The money and Franklin's fame led to many searches. At one point, ten British and two American ships, USS Advance and USS Rescue, headed for the Arctic. Eventually, more ships and men were lost looking for Franklin than in the expedition itself.
Ballads such as "Lady Franklin's Lament", commemorating Lady Franklin's search for her lost husband, became popular. In the summer of 1850, expeditions including three from England as well as one from the United States joined in the search. They converged off the east coast of Beechey Island, where the first relics of the Franklin expedition were found, including the gravesites of three Franklin Expedition crewmen.
In 1854, explorer Dr. John Rae, while surveying the Boothia Peninsula for the Hudson's Bay Company, discovered the true fate of Franklin party from talking to Inuit hunters. He was told both ships had become icebound, the men had tried to reach safety on foot but had succumbed to cold and some had resorted to cannibalism. Rae's report to the Admiralty was leaked to the press, which led to widespread revulsion in Victorian society, enraged Franklin's widow and condemned Rae to ignominy. Lady Franklin's efforts to eulogise her husband, with support from the British Establishment, led to a further 25 searches over the next four decades, none of which would add any further information of note.
In the mid-1980's, Owen Beattie, a University of Alberta professor of anthropology, began a 10-year series of scientific studies known as the "1845–48 Franklin Expedition Forensic Anthropology Project", showing that the Beechey Island crew had most likely died of pneumonia and perhaps tuberculosis.Toxicological reports indicated that lead poisining was also a possible factor. In 1997, more than 140 years after Dr. Rae's report, his account was finally vindicated; blade cut marks on the bones of some of the crew found on King William's Island strongly suggested that conditions had become so dire that some crew members resorted to cannibalism. It appeared from these studies that a combination of bad weather, years locked in ice, disease including scurvy, poisoned food, botulism and starvation had killed everyone in the Franklin party.
Historical legacy.
For years after the loss of the Franklin party, the Victorian era media portrayed Franklin as a hero who led his men in the quest for the Northwest Passage. A statue of Franklin in his home town bears the somewhat false inscription stating "Sir John Franklin — Discoverer of the North West Passage". Statues of Franklin outside the Athenaeum in London and in Tasmania bear similar inscriptions. Although the expedition's fate, including the possibility of cannibalism, was widely reported and debated, Franklin's standing with the public was not diminished.
The mystery surrounding Franklin's last expedition was the subject of a 2006 episode of the Nova television series Arctic Passage and a 2007 documentary on Discovery HD Theatre. The expedition has inspired many artistic works including a famous ballad, Lady Franklin's Lament, a verse play by Canadian poet Gwendolyn MacEwen, a children's book, a short story and essays by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, and several novels, and is referenced in Canadian musician Stan Rogers' ballad Northwest Passage. (When sung properly, it can raise the hair on my arms... - Crypt.). There is also a direct reference to John Franklin's ill-fated expedition in the Irish-American group Nightnoise's album Something of Time, specifically in a track titled: "The Erebus and the Terror". Additionally in 2007, a fictional account of the expedition was authored by Dan Simmons titled The Terror, ISBN 978-0-316-01744-2.
The explorer was also remembered when one of Canada's Northwest Territories subdivisions was named the Distrisct of Franklin. Including the high Arctic islands, this jurisdiction was abolished when the Territories were divided in 1999. - End quote.
The Northwest Passage (Stan Rogers)
Copyright Fogarty's Cove Music, Inc.
Ah for just one time
I would take the Northwest Passage,
To find the hand of Franklin
Reaching for the Beaufort Sea.
Tracing one warm line
Through a land so wild and savage,
And make a Northwest Passage
To the sea.
Westward from the Davis Strait
'tis there 'twas said to lie,
The sea route to the Orient
For which so many died.
Seeking gold and glory
Leaving weathered, broken bones,
And a long-forgotten
Lonely cairn of stones...
Ah for just one time
I would take the Northwest Passage,
To find the hand of Franklin
Reaching for the Beaufort Sea.
Tracing one warm line
Through a land so wild and savage,
And make a Northwest Passage
To the sea.
Three centuries thereafter
I take passage over land,
In the footsteps of brave Kelso
Where his sea of flowers began.
Watching cities rise before me
Then behind me sink again,
This tardiest explorer
Driving hard across the plain...
Ah for just one time
I would take the Northwest Passage,
To find the hand of Franklin
Reaching for the Beaufort Sea.
Tracing one warm line
Through a land so wild and savage,
And make a Northwest Passage
To the sea.
And through the night , behind the wheel
The mileage clicking West,
I think upon Mackenzie,
David Thompson and the rest.
Who cracked the mountain ramparts
And did show a path for me,
To race the roaring Fraser
To the sea…
Ah for just one time
I would take the Northwest Passage,
To find the hand of Franklin
Reaching for the Beaufort Sea.
Tracing one warm line
Through a land so wild and savage,
And make a Northwest Passage
To the sea.
How then am I so different from
The first men through this way?
Like them I left a settled life
I threw it all away.
To seek a Northwest Passage
At the call of many men,
To find there but the road
Back home again…
Ah for just one time
I would take the Northwest Passage,
To find the hand of Franklin
Reaching for the Beaufort Sea.
Tracing one warm line
Through a land so wild and savage,
And make a Northwest Passage
To the sea.
Unpublished additional verse:
And if should be I come again
To loved ones left at home,
Put the journals on the mantle
Shake the frost out of my bones.
Making memories of the passage
Only memories after all,
And hardships there
The hardest to recall...
**************************
Post scriptum:
The Canadian Heritage representative? I recommended she send her client to her regional Transport Canada - Receivers of Wreck office in Edmonton, AB.
The Receivers of Wreck program assumes the role of custodian of wreck in the absence of owners in order to protect their rights through the following activities:- attempting to find wreck owners over a one-year period- providing information related to owners' and salvors' rights and obligations- disposing of wreck when owners cannot be found.
So what's a wreck, right?
A wreck is a ship, a boat, an aircraft or part of a ship, boat or aircraft that floats, sinks or lands ashore and includes cargo or the personal belongings of the crew or those of shipwrecked persons.
A receiver of wreck is an officer of Transport Canada appointed by the governor-in-council to act as custodian of wreck in the absence of their owner.
In the salvage context, a salvor is a person or an organization that saves a ship, its equipment or cargo from loss or damage at sea. Salvors may include the following:
- businesses
- owners of wreck and their representatives
- municipal, provincial, territorial and federal agencies.
So now you know... if you find a boat floating somewhere on the water, or beached on a shoreline, it ain't a simple case of "finders...keepers". Actually, if you ever find a boat floating in the water with nobody onboard, the very first thing you'd want to do if you had even half a brain, would be to contact the local authorities. If the occupants are not in the boat, they could be in the drink...
If it's been sitting on a trailer, out back of someone's farm for the last couple of years or some other similar situation, that's another matter.
In that case you go talk to your local law enforcement agency and ask them the steps you'll have to take to make that boat rightfully yours.
2 comments:
An informative post -- but you should acknowledge that the main part of the text is not just drawn from the Wikipedia, but is in fact a literal quote from it. This needs to be attributed and licensed in accordance with CC-by-SA, Wikipedia's license.
And a footnote about the "Receivers of the Wreck" -- the British government made a special arrangement with the Canadian government last summer, in anticipation of Robert Grenier of Parks Canada and his search. The British essentially agreed to abandon their rights in any wreck, so that the Canadian government could explore, and potentially salvage parts of, the ships.
But this last step would require a special permit from the Government of Nunavut, where the ships are (probably) located, which can be a lengthy and difficult process to obtain.
Every year I hear from someone who knows where the ships are, but won't tell for some reason or another. It's an easy claim to make, but so far none has been shown to hold water -- or ice!
I thank Mr.Potter for his insights. It's always heartening to know that the world of exploration of this our 'inner space', is not yet something relegated to the past.
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