The Franklin Expedition (1845)

Departure

In May 1845 HMS Erebus and HMS Terror sailed from England under Sir John Franklin, who had led two earlier Arctic expeditions. The goal was the last unmapped stretch of the Northwest Passage, the sea route across northern Canada between the Atlantic and the Pacific. The Royal Navy gave him its best kit: heating systems, large stores of preserved food, and supplies for about three years.

Counts of the crew differ slightly. The commonly cited figure is 129 officers and men. One reference work gives 128. In late July 1845 a whaler saw both ships in Baffin Bay, waiting for the ice to clear. That was the last time anyone outside the expedition saw them.

The ice, and one note

The ships wintered at Beechey Island in 1845 and 1846. Three men died there and were buried on the island. In September 1846 the ice closed around both ships off King William Island, and they never moved again.

The only written record from the expedition itself turned up in 1859, in a stone cairn at Victory Point: one sheet of paper carrying two messages. The first, dated May 1847, says all is well. The second was added in April 1848 and signed by Captains Crozier and Fitzjames. It says Franklin died on 11 June 1847, that nine officers and 15 men were dead, and that the 105 survivors had abandoned the ships and were heading for the Back River. Nobody wrote a third message that anyone has found.

The walk

Searchers later found human remains, graves and abandoned gear along King William Island, including a ship's boat mounted on a heavy sledge. In 1854 the explorer John Rae bought relics from Inuit and reported their accounts of starving white men, including accounts of cannibalism. Lady Franklin was furious. Charles Dickens wrote a two-part article arguing that British naval officers would never do such a thing and blaming the Inuit instead. Rae defended his informants.

Later evidence has favored Rae. Bones from the island carry cut marks consistent with the removal of flesh. In 2024 researchers identified the jawbone of Captain James Fitzjames by DNA, and it also bears cut marks consistent with cannibalism. That is a finding about one man and a few sites. It is not a full account of what happened to the other 128.

What killed them

The candidates are the ordinary Arctic killers: cold, starvation, scurvy and disease. In the 1980s, tests on three crewmen buried at Beechey Island found high lead levels, and suspicion fell on lead solder in the tinned food. A 2016 analysis of a single crewman's fingernail pointed to zinc deficiency instead. Neither explanation is settled, and both could be true.

The ships

Inuit testimony kept pointing at the same stretch of sea. A Parks Canada-led search found Erebus in September 2014 in Queen Maud Gulf, south of King William Island, in the region an Inuk named Inukpujijuq had described to the American explorer Charles Francis Hall in the 1860s. The Arctic Research Foundation found Terror in September 2016 in Terror Bay, in unusually good condition. Surveys of both wrecks continue.

For the forensic side, the Beechey Island exhumations and the lead tests are covered in Frozen in Time affiliate link by Owen Beattie and John Geiger. Prefer a library copy? Try Open Library.

What we know

• Erebus and Terror left England in May 1845 with about 129 men.
• A whaler saw both ships in Baffin Bay in late July 1845.
• Three men died and were buried on Beechey Island in the first winter.
• The ships were trapped in ice off King William Island from September 1846. Franklin died on 11 June 1847.
• By April 1848 the ships were abandoned, 24 men were dead and 105 were alive.
• None of the 129 survived.
• Erebus was found in 2014 and Terror in 2016.

What we don’t know

• The cause of death for most of the crew, or the order in which they died.
• Whether lead, zinc deficiency, scurvy, cold or something else did the most damage.
• How far most of the survivors got, and where many of them lie.
• What the ships' own logs say. None of the ships' journals or logbooks have been published as of the sources below.