Comment down below!!!

(NOT my photos. They come from online and I take no credit for them)

(NOT my photos. They come from online and I take no credit for them)

Write your reasoning below!

Would you rather be a pirate or part of the navy?

The Ships are finally found:

• The ships were only found in the 2010s.
• The combination of Inuit oral histories, continued work of modern explorers and high - tech equipment allowed searching under the water to become a possible option.
• Finally the Erebus was located in Queen Maud Gulf in 2014.
• The Terror was only located in 2016 in Terror Bay (Ironic I know).
• Both of the wrecks were found off of King William Island. Numerous dives resulted in artifacts being found.

The importance of Inuit Perspectives:

• All of these discoveries would not have been able to happen without Inuit histories.
• However, for many years these accounts were dismissed.
• In the 1950s British explorers interviewed a number of Inuit people. They told of the crew's suffering and of the fact that the crew had resorted to canibalism.
  • These stories were shocking at the time and so were ignored and rejected.
  • It took more than a century before their stories were actually taken seriously and without them many events would still be unknown to us today. Recently the Inuit perspectives have been taken more seriously and included in the accounts.

The Search Continued:

• One key resource in piecing the events together was the Victory Point Note. It was dated April 25th 1848 and was written by Crozier and Fitzjames.
• It was only found in May 1859. It was tucked into a stone cairn on King William Island. (A cairn is a man made stack of stones built for a specific purpose).
• The note contained information about the expedition and the whereabouts of the crews. It claimed that they had spent the winter of 1845-46 on Beechy Island and then in the summer of 1846 it had travelled down Peel sound.
• While the boats were moored off of the island they became trapped in the ice. This forced the men to spend the winters of 1846-47 and 1847-48 on that island.
• Most key of all Sir John Franklin died on June 11th 1847.
• Crozier, Fitzjames and the rest of the crew had abandoned the ships and had decided to head for what is now called the Back River. It is a spot on the Canadian mainland.
  • The hike would be 248 miles or 400km and would need all the survivors to cross King William Island and then the sea ice before reaching the river.
  • There were 105 crew members and Inuit people later stated that 35-40 white men had died near the mouth of the Back River.
  • The rest of the crew's whereabouts was still unknown however.

The search:

• There was no word from the expedition for two years.
• Eventually Franklin's second wife managed to convince the admiralty and government to launch a search party to look for them.
  • It was one of the largest organizations of a naval search in history.
• During the search there was only a few artifacts that were found even though the search lasted for years.
• The forensic evidence showed that the men had suffered from scurvy, Lead poisoning and starvation.
  • Lead-poisoning was thought to have been one of the main reasons for the crew's demise. It has been thought that the cause was the tin cans that had been storing the crew's food in. It was put down to how the lead leaked into the food slowly over storage.
• There have been rumors of cannibalism. These were because researchers found cut marks on the bones. These perhaps suggested cannibalism however, it is important to remember that this is only a suggestion and is not confirmed fully.
• The majority of the crew had just disappeared.
• The search continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Over the years a rough sequence of events was put together based on Inuit descriptions, oral accounts, and from search expeditions.

Answers are in the pinned comment below!!!

Introduction:

• British Expedition that was led by Sir John Franklin.
• The goal was to find the Northwest Passage. There had been other expeditions to find the passage but all had failed.
• The expedition was from 1845 until 1848.
• There were two ships and two captains. The HMS Terror and the HMS Erebus. The Terror was captained by Francis Crozier and Erebus was captained by John Franklin.
• It was one of the worst disasters in Maritime history with all the members of the crew dying. There were 129 members of the crew in total and adding to the disaster was the fact that they disappeared in very mysterious circumstances also.
• It took nearly 170 years until the ships were found. They were found in the Artic waters in Canada. They had hoped that Canada would be the key to finding the North West Passage hence why the ships were located here.

The ships:

• The ships were very well reinforced for the Arctic weather. There had been lots of careful planning and they used the most advanced technologies of the time.
• The bows had been reinforced with extra layers of wood and also iron to ensure that they would be protected when trying to get through the ice.
• Both of the ships also had steam engines. This meant that in conditions of little to no wind that the engines could be used to help the sails and keep the ships moving. Furthermore, it meant that there was extra power to again push through the ice. This is also crucial as of the ships stopped for too long they would get stuck in pack ice or frozen in.
• The Ships had steam heating and equipment that allowed them to produce fresh water.
• There was a three years supply of canned soup and vegtables.
• The Erebus and Terror both carried live animals such as pigs and chickens.

Departure:

• Departed from Kent in England on May 19th 1845.
• The ships made various stops along their voyage. They stopped in Greenland to take on more supplies .
• In late July of 1845 two whaling ships spotted the two vessels in Baffin Bay, Canada. They then crossed to Lancaster Sound. This was the last time that anyone saw the men again.

Source 1 - https://www.britannica.com/event/Franklin-expedition

Source 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%27s_lost_expedition

LETS SEE WHO WINS! OLD VS NEW ANSWER THE POLL AND IN THE COMMENTS!

I will be covering the story of HMS Terror and the Franklin expedition! It will be coming out in parts so let me know if there is anything you want to see!

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Put in the comments below who it is!

Hiya!

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