129-684: Franklin's lost expedition was a failed British voyage of Arctic exploration led by Captain Sir John Franklin that departed England in 1845 aboard two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror , and was assigned to traverse the last unnavigated sections of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic and to record magnetic data to help determine whether a better understanding could aid navigation. The expedition met with disaster after both ships and their crews,
258-664: A map of their journeys to that region, which were published by their descendants in 1558. The Northwest Passage connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans via the Arctic Ocean. Since the discovery of the American continent was the product of the search for a route to Asia, exploration around the northern edge of North America continued for the Northwest Passage. John Cabot 's initial failure in 1497 to find
387-666: A Northwest Passage across the Atlantic led the British to seek an alternative route to the east. Interest re-kindled in 1564 after Jacques Cartier 's discovery of the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River . Martin Frobisher had formed a resolution to undertake the challenge of forging a trade route from England westward to India. From 1576 to 1578, he took three trips to what is now the Canadian Arctic in order to find
516-438: A copy of The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith . Elsewhere, on the island's southern coast, McClintock's searchers found another skeleton. Still clothed, it was searched, and some papers were found, including a seaman's certificate for Chief Petty Officer Harry Peglar of Terror . Since the uniform was that of a ship's steward, it is more likely that the body was that of Thomas Armitage, gun-room steward on Terror and
645-453: A location Ross named Victory Point . The first message is written in the body of the form and dates from 28 May 1847. Party consisting of 2 officers and 6 men left the ships on Monday 24th May, 1847. (Signed) GM. GORE, Lieut. The second and final part is written largely on the margins of the form owing to a lack of remaining space on the document. It was presumably written on 25 April 1848. been built by Sir James Ross in 1831–4 miles to
774-708: A new discovery and naming it "Sir Thomas Smith's Island", though the first verifiable records of the discovery of the island had been made a year earlier, in 1614. In 1609, Hudson was chosen by merchants of the Dutch East India Company in the Netherlands to find an easterly passage to Asia. While awaiting orders and supplies in Amsterdam, he heard rumours of a northwest route to the Pacific through North America. Hudson had been told to sail through
903-489: A northern Urals Arctic homeland of the Indo-Aryan and Slavic people. Hindu nationalist Madhavrao Sadashivrao Golwalkar also supported and was inspired by Tilak's idea. In his famous 1939 publication We or Our Nationhood Defined , he stated that "Undoubtedly [...] we – Hindus – have been in undisputed and undisturbed possession of this land for over eight or even ten thousand years before
1032-485: A party of white men on the southern coast of King William Island near Washington Bay. In the 1990s, this testimony was extensively researched by David C. Woodman and was the basis of two books, Unravelling the Franklin Mystery (1992) and Strangers Among Us (1995), in which he reconstructs the final months of the expedition. Woodman's narrative challenged existing theories that the survivors all perished over
1161-515: A passage westward. Though he was unable to pass through the icy Arctic waters, he reported to his sponsors that the passage they sought is "a matter nothing doubtfull [ sic ]," and secured support for two additional expeditions, reaching as far as Hudson Bay . Though England's efforts were interrupted in 1587 because of the Anglo-Spanish War , Davis's favorable reports on the region and its people would inspire explorers in
1290-473: A pragmatic approach of traveling by land on foot and dog sled , and typically employed less than ten people in his exploration parties. The Northwest Passage was not completely conquered by sea until 1906, when the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen , who had sailed just in time to escape creditors seeking to stop the expedition, completed a three-year voyage in the converted 47-ton herring boat Gjøa . At
1419-584: A route above the Arctic Circle . In 1609, he landed in North America on behalf of the Dutch East India Company and explored the region around the modern New York metropolitan area . Looking for a Northwest Passage to Asia on his ship Halve Maen ("Half Moon"), he sailed up the Hudson River , which was later named after him, and thereby laid the foundation for Dutch colonization of
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#17327722318081548-470: A second document using the same Admiralty form containing an almost identical duplicate of the first message from 1847 in a cairn a few miles southwest at Gore Point. This document did not contain the second message. From the handwriting it is assumed that all messages were written by Fitzjames. As he did not take part in the landing party that deposited the notes originally in 1847, it is inferred that both documents were originally filled in by Fitzjames on board
1677-564: A second time on May 24, 1928. Nobile's second trip was in the airship Italia that ran into a storm on the return trip and crashed on the ice. Survivors were eventually recovered. Amundsen disappeared, with the crew of his sea plane, during the rescue operations. The first people to have without doubt walked on the North Pole were the Soviet party of 1948 under the command of Alexander Kuznetsov, who landed their aircraft nearby and walked to
1806-580: A shipmate of Peglar, whose papers he carried. McClintock himself took testimony from the Inuit about the expedition's disastrous end. Two expeditions between 1860 and 1869 by Charles Francis Hall , who lived among the Inuit near Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island and later at Repulse Bay on the Canadian mainland, found camps, graves and relics on the southern coast of King William Island, but he believed none of
1935-633: A similar voyage in reverse, starting in Kamchatka and going north to the passage that now bears his name (Bering Strait). It was Bering who gave their current names to Diomede Islands , discovered and first described by Dezhnev. It was not until in 1878 that Finnish-Swedish explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld made the first complete passage of the North East Passage from west to east, in the Vega expedition . The ship's captain on this expedition
2064-532: A three-pronged plan which in the spring of 1848 sent an overland rescue party , led by John Richardson and John Rae , down the Mackenzie River to the Canadian Arctic coast. Two expeditions by sea were also launched – one, led by James Clark Ross, entering the Canadian Arctic archipelago through Lancaster Sound and the other, commanded by Henry Kellett, entering from the Pacific. In addition,
2193-557: A total of 129 officers and men, became icebound in Victoria Strait near King William Island in what is today the Canadian territory of Nunavut . After being icebound for more than a year, Erebus and Terror were abandoned in April 1848, by which point two dozen men, including Franklin, had died. The survivors, now led by Franklin's second-in-command, Francis Crozier , and Erebus ' s captain, James Fitzjames , set out for
2322-412: A young boy arrived in a small wooden boat. The Inuit had never seen a white person before, but they took them to an encampment and fed them. After the old man died, the Inuit tethered the boy to one of their houses so he would not run away. Despite the long time passed, the story might be given some credence after long-ignored Inuit testimonies proved reliable enough to lead to the discovery of the wrecks of
2451-654: Is 80° 49′ N) when really it trended to the east. Encountering ice packed along the north coast, they were forced to turn back south. Hudson wanted to make his return "by the north of Greenland to Davis his Streights ( Davis Strait ), and so for Kingdom of England", but ice conditions would have made this impossible. The expedition returned to Tilbury Hope on the River Thames on 15 September. Hudson reported large numbers of whales in Spitsbergen waters during this voyage. Many authors credit his reports as
2580-445: Is also no cartographical proof of this supposed discovery. Jonas Poole in 1611 and Robert Fotherby in 1615 both had possession of Hudson's journal while searching for his elusive Hold-with-Hope—which is now believed to have been on the east coast of Greenland—but neither had any knowledge of any discovery of Jan Mayen, an achievement which was only later attributed to Hudson. Fotherby eventually stumbled across Jan Mayen, thinking it
2709-476: Is approximately 600 kilometres (370 mi) south of James Bay, was found to have carving on it with Hudson's initials (H. H.), the year 1612, and the word "captive". While lettering on the stone was consistent with English maps of the 17th century, the Geological Survey of Canada was unable to determine when the carving was made. The bay visited by and named after Hudson is three times the size of
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#17327722318082838-520: Is the last known communication of the expedition. From archaeological finds it is believed that all of the remaining crew died on the subsequent 400 km (250 mi) long march to Back River, most on the island. Thirty or forty men reached the northern coast of the mainland before dying, still hundreds of miles from the nearest outpost of Western civilisation . The Victory Point note was found eleven years later in May 1859 by William Hobson (lieutenant on
2967-404: Is unknown. While Pricket's account is one of the few surviving records of the voyage, its reliability has been questioned by some historians. Pricket's journal and testimony have been severely criticized for bias, on two grounds. Firstly, prior to the mutiny the alleged leaders of the uprising, Greene and Juet, had been friends and loyal seamen of Hudson. Secondly, Greene and Juet did not survive
3096-646: The Admiralty , a post he held until 1845. Barrow began pushing for the Royal Navy to find a Northwest Passage over the top of Canada and to navigate toward the North Pole , organising a major series of expeditions. Over those four decades explorers including John Ross ; David Buchan ; William Edward Parry ; Frederick William Beechey ; James Clark Ross (nephew of John Ross); George Back ; Peter Warren Dease and Thomas Simpson led productive expeditions to
3225-629: The Arctic Ocean north of Russia, into the Pacific and so to the Far East . Hudson departed Amsterdam on 4 April, in command of the Dutch ship Halve Maen (English: Half Moon). He could not complete the specified (eastward) route because ice blocked the passage, as with all previous such voyages, and he turned the ship around in mid-May while somewhere east of Norway's North Cape . At that point, acting outside his instructions, Hudson pointed
3354-804: The Baltic Sea , and its many large estuaries afford access to otherwise landlocked parts of Western Canada and the Arctic . This allowed the Hudson's Bay Company to exploit a lucrative fur trade along its shores for more than two centuries, growing powerful enough to influence the history and present international boundaries of western North America. Along with Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait in Canada, many other topographical features and landmarks are named for Hudson. The Hudson River in New York and New Jersey
3483-626: The British Isles . From the local population, he heard news of the mysterious land of Thule , even farther to the north. After six days of sailing, he reached land at the edge of a frozen sea (described by him as " curdled "), and described what is believed to be the aurora and the midnight sun . Some historians claim that this new land of Thule was either the Norwegian coast or the Shetland Islands based on his descriptions and
3612-406: The Canadian Arctic . Among those explorers was John Franklin , who first travelled to the region in 1818 as second-in-command of an expedition towards the North Pole on the ships Dorothea and Trent . Franklin was subsequently leader of two overland expeditions to and along the Canadian Arctic coast, in 1819–1822 and 1825–1827. By 1845 the combined discoveries of all these expeditions had reduced
3741-530: The Cold War context. On April 19, 1968, Ralph Plaisted reached the North Pole via snowmobile , the first surface traveler known with certainty to have done so. His position was verified independently by a US Air Force meteorological overflight. In 1969 Wally Herbert , on foot and by dog sled, became the first man to reach the North Pole on muscle power alone, on the 60th anniversary of Robert Peary's famous but disputed expedition. The first persons to reach
3870-545: The McClintock Arctic expedition ) placed in a cairn on the north-western coast of King William Island. It consists of two parts written on a pre-printed Admiralty form. The first part was written after the first overwintering in 1847 and the second part was added one year later. From the second part it can be inferred that the document was first deposited in a different cairn previously erected by James Clark Ross in 1830 during John Ross's Second Arctic expedition – at
3999-473: The United States Army to organise an expedition to King William Island between 1878 and 1880. Travelling to Hudson Bay on the schooner Eothen , Schwatka, assembling a team that included Inuit who had assisted Hall, continued north by foot and dog sled , interviewing Inuit, visiting known or likely sites of Franklin expedition remains, and wintering on the island. Although Schwatka failed to find
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4128-641: The White House . In 1854, Rae, while surveying the Boothia Peninsula for the HBC, discovered further evidence of the expedition's fate. Rae met an Inuk near Pelly Bay (now Kugaaruk, Nunavut ) on 21 April 1854, who told him of a party of 35 to 40 white men who had died of starvation near the mouth of the Back River. Other Inuit confirmed this story, which included reports of cannibalism among
4257-664: The 1996 position of the magnetic north pole ( 78°35.7′N 104°11.9′W / 78.5950°N 104.1983°W / 78.5950; -104.1983 ( Magnetic North Pole 1996 ) ) in a modified Toyota Hilux . On 2 August 2007, during Arktika 2007 Russian crewed submersibles were the first to descend to the seabed below the pole. On April 26, 2009, Vassily Elagin , Afanassi Makovnev, Vladimir Obikhod, Sergey Larin, Alexey Ushakov, Alexey Shkrabkin and Nikolay Nikulshin after 38 days and over 2,000 km (1,200 mi) (starting from Sredniy Island , Severnaya Zemlya ) drove two Russian built cars "Yemelya-1" and "Yemelya-2" to
4386-521: The 59-year-old Franklin. The expedition was to consist of two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror , both of which had been used for James Clark Ross' expedition to the Antarctic in 1839–1843, during which Crozier had commanded Terror . Franklin was given command of Erebus , with Fitzjames as the vessel's second-in-command; Crozier was appointed his executive officer and was again made commander of Terror . Franklin received command of
4515-783: The 860's. In the 10th century, Gunnbjörn Ulfsson got lost in a storm and ended up within sight of the Greenland coast. His report spurred Erik the Red , an outlawed chieftain, to establish a settlement there in 985. While they flourished initially, these settlements eventually petered out until about 1450. Initially this abandonment of the colony was credited to the Little Ice Age but that has been disputed by recent studies which suggest there were more complex factors at play. Greenland's early settlers sailed westward, in search of better pasturage and hunting grounds. Modern scholars debate
4644-696: The Admiralty offered a reward of £20,000 (equivalent to £2,500,000 in 2023) "to any Party or Parties, of any country, who shall render assistance to the crews of the Discovery Ships under the command of Sir John Franklin". When the three-pronged effort failed, British national concern and interest in the Arctic increased until "finding Franklin became nothing less than a crusade." Ballads such as " Lady Franklin's Lament ", commemorating Lady Franklin's search for her lost husband, became popular. Many joined
4773-744: The Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. The Northwest Passage was not navigated by boat until 1906, when Roald Amundsen traversed the passage on the Gjøa . In 2014, a search team led by Parks Canada located the wreck of Erebus in the eastern portion of Queen Maud Gulf . Two years later, the Arctic Research Foundation found the wreck of Terror south of King William Island, in the body of water named Terror Bay . Research and dive expeditions are an annual occurrence at
4902-446: The Canadian coastlines, interior and adjacent Arctic seas. In the 18th century explorers of this region included James Knight , Christopher Middleton , Samuel Hearne , James Cook , Alexander MacKenzie and George Vancouver . By 1800 their discoveries had conclusively demonstrated that no Northwest Passage between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans existed in the temperate latitudes. In 1804 Sir John Barrow became Second Secretary of
5031-428: The Canadian mainland and disappeared, presumably having perished. Pressed by Franklin's wife, Jane , and others, the Admiralty launched a search for the missing expedition in 1848. In the many subsequent searches in the decades afterwards, several artefacts from the expedition were discovered, including the remains of two men, which were returned to Britain. A series of scientific studies in modern times suggested that
5160-406: The Dutch for control of northwest routes. It was thought that, because the sun shone for three months in the northern latitudes in the summer, the ice would melt, and a ship could make it across the "top of the world". On 1 May 1607, Hudson sailed with a crew of ten men and a boy on the 80-ton Hopewell . They reached the east coast of Greenland on 13 May, coasting northward until 22 May. Here
5289-800: The Eurasian continent and stretching between the waters north of the Norwegian Sea to the Bering Strait. The "Northern Sea Route" is defined as a specific portion of such routes. The Northern Sea Route (capitalized) as currently officially defined by Russian Federation law includes shipping lanes falling within Russia's EEZ and extending from the Kara Sea to the Bering Strait along the Russian northern coast. The idea to explore this region
Franklin's lost expedition - Misplaced Pages Continue
5418-694: The Franklin expedition south of a place now known as Starvation Cove on the Adelaide Peninsula . This was about 64 km (40 mi) north of Crozier's stated goal, the Back River, and several hundred miles away from the nearest Western outpost, on the Great Slave Lake . Woodman wrote of Inuit reports that between 1852 and 1858 Crozier and one other expedition member were seen in the Baker Lake area, about 400 km (250 mi) to
5547-458: The Franklin expedition were found at this site. In the spring of 1851, passengers and crew aboard several ships observed a huge iceberg off Newfoundland , which bore two vessels, one upright and one on its beam ends. The ships were not examined closely. It was suggested at the time that the ships could have been Erebus and Terror but it is now known that they were not; it is likely that they were abandoned whaling ships. In 1852 Edward Belcher
5676-614: The Franklin survivors would be found among the Inuit. In 1869, local Inuit took Hall to a shallow grave on the island containing well-preserved skeletal remains and fragments of clothing. These remains were taken to England and interred beneath the Franklin Memorial at Greenwich Old Royal Naval College , London . The eminent biologist Thomas Henry Huxley examined the remains and concluded that they belonged to Henry Thomas Dundas Le Vesconte , second lieutenant on Erebus . An examination in 2009 suggested that these were actually
5805-705: The Kola Peninsula, where they eventually died of scurvy . Chancellor and his crew made it to the mouth of the Dvina River and the town of Arkhangelsk, where they were met by a delegation from the Tsar , Ivan the Terrible . Brought back to Moscow , he launched the Muscovy Company , promoting trade between England and Russia. This diplomatic course allowed British Ambassadors such as Sir Francis Cherry
5934-520: The Netherlands, Denmark and Norway, looking for an alternative seaway to China and India. Most notable is the 1596 expedition led by Dutch navigator Willem Barentsz who discovered Spitsbergen and Bear Island . Fearing English and Dutch penetration into Siberia, Russia closed the Mangazeya seaway in 1619. Pomor activity in Northern Asia declined and the bulk of exploration in the 17th century
6063-584: The North Pole in a Fokker F.VIIa/3m Tri-motor monoplane. However, their claim to have reached the Pole is disputed. The crew of the airship Norge (including Roald Amundsen and the American sponsor Lincoln Ellsworth ) flew over the Pole on May 12, 1926. This is the first undisputed sighting of the Pole. Norge was designed and piloted by the Italian Umberto Nobile , who overflew the Pole
6192-442: The North Pole on foot (or skis) and return with no outside help, no dogs, airplanes, or re-supplies were Richard Weber (Canada) and Misha Malakhov (Russia) in 1995. No one has completed this journey since. U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher and Lieutenant William Pershing Benedict landed a plane at the Pole on May 3, 1952, accompanied by the scientist Albert P. Crary . On 2 May 2007, BBC's Top Gear reached
6321-489: The North Pole. Henry Hudson Henry Hudson ( c. 1565 – disappeared 23 June 1611) was an English sea explorer and navigator during the early 17th century, best known for his explorations of present-day Canada and parts of the Northeastern United States. In 1607 and 1608, Hudson made two attempts on behalf of English merchants to find a rumoured Northeast Passage to Cathay via
6450-657: The Northward ;– where it had been deposited by the late Commander Gore in May June 1847. Sir James Ross' pillar has not been found and the paper has been transferred to this position which is that in which Sir J. Ross' pillar was erected – Sir John Franklin died on the 11th June, 1847; and the total loss by deaths in the expedition has been to this date 9 officers and 15 men. (Signed) JAMES FITZJAMES, Captain H.M.S. Erebus. (Signed) F.R.M. CROZIER, Captain & Senior Offr. In 1859 Hobson found
6579-487: The Pole is disputed). He traveled with the aid of dogsleds and three separate support crews who turned back at successive intervals before reaching the Pole. Many modern explorers, including Olympic skiers using modern equipment, contend that Peary could not have reached the pole on foot in the time he claimed. A number of previous expeditions set out with the intention of reaching the North Pole but did not succeed; that of British naval officer William Edward Parry in 1827,
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#17327722318086708-557: The Vedas (1903), which was dedicated to philologist and indologist Max Müller , with whom Tilak had shared ideas before the book was completed. Austro-Hungarian ethnologist Karl Penka also discussed the same idea in his Origins of the Aryans (1883). Tilak's theory was popularized by Russian nationalists, due to the work of Soviet historian and ethnographer Natalya Romanovna Guseva and Soviet ethnographer S.V Zharnikova, who argued for
6837-467: The abandonment of Erebus and Terror , death of Franklin and other crew members, and the decision by the survivors to march south to the mainland. On the western extreme of King William Island, Hobson also discovered a lifeboat containing two human skeletons and relics from the Franklin expedition. In the boat was a large amount of abandoned equipment, including boots, silk handkerchiefs, scented soap, sponges, slippers, hair combs and many books, among them
6966-471: The area about ten days, the crew replacing a broken mast and fishing for food. On the 25 July, a dozen men from the Halve Maen , using muskets and small cannon, went ashore and assaulted the village near their anchorage. They drove the people from the settlement and took their boat and other property—probably pelts and trade goods. On 4 August, the ship was at Cape Cod , from which Hudson sailed south to
7095-409: The catalyst for several nations sending whaling expeditions to the islands. This claim is contentious; others have pointed to strong evidence that it was Jonas Poole 's reports in 1610, that led to the establishment of English whaling, and voyages of Nicholas Woodcock and Willem Cornelisz van Muyden in 1612, which led to the establishment of Dutch, French and Spanish whaling. The whaling industry
7224-506: The coast. In August, Anderson and Stewart found a piece of wood inscribed with "Erebus" and another that said "Mr. Stanley" (surgeon aboard Erebus ) on Montreal Island in Chantrey Inlet , where the Back River meets the sea. Despite the findings of Rae and Anderson, the Admiralty did not plan another search of its own. The Royal Navy officially labelled the crew deceased in service on 31 March 1854. Lady Franklin, failing to convince
7353-516: The coming century. In 1609, while in the service of the Dutch East India Company , the English explorer Henry Hudson sailed up what is now called the Hudson River in search of the Passage; he reached present-day Albany, New York , before giving up. He later explored further north into the Arctic and Hudson Bay for the Passage. The Northeast Passage is a broad term for any route lying above
7482-514: The controlling story of the expedition's disastrous end. Only eight of the thirteen mutinous crewmen survived the return voyage to Europe. They were arrested in England, and some were put on trial, but no punishment was imposed for the mutiny. One theory holds that the survivors were considered too valuable as sources of information to execute, as they had travelled to the New World and could describe sailing routes and conditions. In 1612, Nicolas de Vignau claimed he saw wreckage of an English ship on
7611-448: The crew were English, many from Northern England , with smaller numbers of Irish, Welsh and Scottish members. Two of the sailors were not born in the British Isles: Charles Johnson was from Halifax , Nova Scotia , Canada, and Henry Lloyd was from Kristiansand , Norway. The only officers with experience of the Arctic were Franklin, Crozier, Erebus First Lieutenant Graham Gore , Terror assistant surgeon Alexander McDonald , and
7740-401: The dying sailors. The Inuit showed Rae many objects that were identified as having belonged to members of the Franklin expedition. In particular, Rae bought from the Inuit several silver forks and spoons later identified as belonging to Franklin, Fitzjames, James Walter Fairholme , and Robert Orme Sargent of the Erebus , and Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier , captain of the Terror . Rae's report
7869-474: The early 16th century. In 1648 the Cossack Semyon Dezhnyov opened the now famous Bering Strait between America and Asia. Russian settlers and traders on the coasts of the White Sea, the Pomors, had been exploring parts of the northeast passage as early as the 11th century. By the 17th century they established a continuous sea route from Arkhangelsk as far east as the mouth of Yenisey . This route, known as Mangazeya seaway , after its eastern terminus,
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#17327722318087998-409: The end of this trip, he walked into the city of Eagle, Alaska , and sent a telegram announcing his success. His route was not commercially practical; in addition to the time taken, some of the waterways were extremely shallow. Knud Rasmussen (1879–1933) led several Arctic expeditions. He grew up in Greenland speaking Greenlandic and Danish , and has been called the "father of Eskimology " and
8127-488: The entrance of the Chesapeake Bay . Rather than entering the Chesapeake he explored the coast to the north, finding Delaware Bay but continuing on north. On 3 September, he reached the estuary of the river that initially was called the "North River" or "Mauritius" and now carries his name. He was not the first European to discover the estuary, though, as it had been known since the voyage of Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524. On 6 September 1609, John Colman of his crew
8256-546: The expedition on 7 February 1845, and his official instructions on 5 May 1845. Erebus (378 tons bm ) and Terror (331 tons bm) were sturdily built and well equipped, including several recent inventions. Steam engines were fitted, driving a single screw propeller in each vessel; these engines were converted former locomotives from the London & Croydon Railway . The ships could make 7.4 km/h (4.0 kn ) on steam power, or travel under wind power to reach higher speeds and/or save fuel. Other advanced technology in
8385-403: The expedition's notorious failure, it did succeed in exploring the vicinity of one of the many Northwest Passages that would eventually be discovered. Robert McClure led one of the expeditions that investigated the fate of Franklin's expedition, a voyage which was also beset by great challenges and later controversies. McClure's expedition returned after finding an ice-bound route that connected
8514-443: The expedition's progress is the two-part Victory Point Note ( see below ) found in the aftermath on King William Island. Franklin's men spent the winter of 1845–46 on Beechey Island , where three crew members died and were buried. After travelling down Peel Sound through the summer of 1846, Terror and Erebus became trapped in ice off King William Island in September 1846 and are thought never to have sailed again. According to
8643-527: The final crew to 129 men. In late July 1845 the whalers Prince of Wales (Captain Dannett) and Enterprise (Captain Robert Martin) encountered Terror and Erebus in Baffin Bay , where they were waiting for good conditions to cross to Lancaster Sound . The expedition was never seen again by Europeans. Only limited information is available for subsequent events, pieced together over the next 150 years by other expeditions, explorers, scientists and interviews with Inuit . The only first-hand information on
8772-439: The first attempts to penetrate the Arctic Circle can be traced to ancient Greece and the sailor Pytheas , a contemporary of Aristotle and Alexander the Great , who, in 325 BC, attempted to find the source of the tin that would sporadically reach the Greek colony of Massilia (now Marseille ) on the Mediterranean coast. Sailing past the Pillars of Hercules , he reached Brittany and then Cornwall , eventually circumnavigating
8901-432: The government to fund another search, personally commissioned one more expedition under Francis Leopold McClintock . The expedition ship, the steam schooner Fox , bought via public subscription, sailed from Aberdeen on 2 July 1857. In April 1859, sled parties set out from Fox to search on King William Island. On 5 May, the party led by Lieutenant William Hobson discovered the Victory Point Note , which detailed
9030-401: The helm of his new ship, the Discovery , he stayed to the north (some claim he had deliberately stayed too far south on his Dutch-funded voyage), reached Iceland on 11 May, the south of Greenland on 4 June, and rounded the southern tip of Greenland. On 25 June, the explorers reached what is now the Hudson Strait at the northern tip of Labrador . Following the southern coast of
9159-498: The home of the mythical people Hyperboreans in the Arctic. The scientist and author John G. Bennett talked about it in his research paper "The Hyperborean Origin of the Indo-European Culture" (1963). The theory was originally put forth by William F. Warren , the first President of Boston University , in his Paradise Found or the Cradle of the Human Race at the North Pole . Later, Indian independence activist Bal Gangadhar Tilak resurrected Warren's theory in his The Arctic Home in
9288-505: The hoped-for papers, in a speech at a dinner given in his honour by the American Geographical Society in 1880, he said that his expedition had made "the longest sledge journey ever made both in regard to time and distance" of eleven months and four days and 4,360 km (2,710 mi), that it was the first Arctic expedition on which the whites relied entirely on the same diet as the Inuit, and that it established
9417-632: The land was invaded by any foreign race." Ancient Greek historian and geographer Herodotus said that the Hyperboreans lived beyond the Massagetae and Issedones . Since these are both Central Asian peoples, one could speculate that his Hyperboreans lived in Siberia . In his twelve labours , Heracles sought the golden-antlered hind of Artemis in Hyperborea. Since the reindeer is
9546-469: The loss of the Franklin records "beyond all reasonable doubt". Schwatka was successful in locating the remains of one of Franklin's men, identified by personal effects as John Irving , third lieutenant aboard Terror . Schwatka had Irving's remains returned to Scotland, where they were buried with full honours at Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh on 7 January 1881. The Schwatka expedition found no remnants of
9675-572: The men of the expedition did not all die quickly. Hypothermia , starvation , lead poisoning or zinc deficiency and diseases including scurvy , along with general exposure to a hostile environment while lacking adequate clothing and nutrition, killed everyone on the expedition in the years after it was last sighted by a whaling ship in July 1845. Cut marks on some of the bones recovered during these studies also supported allegations of cannibalism reported by Franklin searcher John Rae in 1854. Despite
9804-437: The mutineers and those who went along with the mutiny. In the latter class was ship's navigator, Abacuk Pricket , a survivor who kept a journal that was to become one of the sources for the narrative of the mutiny. According to Pricket, the leaders of the mutiny were Henry Greene and Robert Juet. The latter, a navigator, had accompanied Hudson on the 1609 expedition, and his account is said to be "the best contemporary record of
9933-625: The mutiny, Hudson's shallop broke out oars and tried to keep pace with the Discovery for some time. Pricket recalled that the mutineers finally tired of the David–Goliath pursuit and unfurled additional sails aboard the Discovery , enabling the larger vessel to leave the tiny open boat behind. Hudson and the other seven aboard the shallop were never seen by Europeans again. Despite subsequent searches, including those conducted by Thomas Button in 1612 and by Zachariah Gillam in 1668–1670, their fate
10062-673: The only deer species of which females bear antlers, this would suggest an arctic or subarctic region. Scholar James D. P. Bolton instead located the Issedones people on the south-western slopes of the Altay mountains , which led his colleague Carl P. Ruck to place Hyperborea beyond the Dzungarian Gate into the northern part of the Xinjiang region, adding that the Hyperboreans were probably Chinese. Some scholars believe that
10191-462: The opportunity to consolidate geographic information developed by Russian merchants into maps for British exploration of the region. Some years later, Steven Borough , the master of Chancellor's ship, made it as far as the Kara Sea , when he was forced to turn back because of icy conditions. Western parts of the passage were simultaneously being explored by Northern European countries like England,
10320-544: The party named a headland "Young's Cape", a "very high mount, like a round castle" near it "Mount of God's Mercy" and land at 73° north latitude " Hold with Hope ". After turning east, they sighted "Newland" ( Spitsbergen ) on 27 May near the mouth of the great bay Hudson later simply named the "Great Indraught" ( Isfjorden ). On 13 July, Hudson and his crew estimated that they had sailed as far north as 80° 23′ N, but had more likely only reached 79° 23′ N. The following day they entered what Hudson later in
10449-570: The passage to Greenland took 30 days. At the Whalefish Islands in Disko Bay , on the west coast of Greenland, ten oxen carried on Barretto Junior were slaughtered for fresh meat which was transferred to Erebus and Terror . Crew members then wrote their last letters home, which recorded that Franklin had banned swearing and drunkenness. Five men were discharged due to sickness and sent home on Rattler and Barretto Junior , reducing
10578-461: The passage. Frobisher Bay is named after him. In July 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert , who had written a treatise on the discovery of the passage and was a backer of Frobisher's, claimed the territory of Newfoundland for the English crown. In 1585, under the employ of Elizabeth I , the English explorer John Davis entered Cumberland Sound , Baffin Island . Davis rounded Greenland before dividing his four ships into separate expeditions to search for
10707-456: The pole. On August 3, 1958, the American submarine USS Nautilus (SSN-571) reached the North Pole without surfacing. It then proceeded to travel under the entire Polar ice cap . On March 17, 1959, the USS ; Skate (SSN-578) surfaced on the North Pole and dispersed the ashes of explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins . These journeys were part of military explorations stimulated by
10836-660: The precise location of the new lands of Vinland , Markland , and Helluland that they discovered. The Scandinavian peoples also pushed farther north into their own peninsula by land and by sea. As early as 880, the Viking Ohthere of Hålogaland rounded the Scandinavian Peninsula and sailed to the Kola Peninsula and the White Sea . The Pechenga Monastery on the north of Kola Peninsula
10965-496: The region . His contributions to the exploration of the New World were significant and lasting. His voyages helped to establish European contact with the native peoples of North America and contributed to the development of trade and commerce. On his final expedition, while still searching for the Northwest Passage, Hudson became the first European to see Hudson Strait and the immense Hudson Bay . In 1611, after wintering on
11094-507: The region north of the Arctic Circle . Historical records suggest that humankind have explored the northern extremes since 325 BC, when the ancient Greek sailor Pytheas reached a frozen sea while attempting to find a source of the metal tin. Dangerous oceans and poor weather conditions often fetter explorers attempting to reach polar regions , and journeying through these perils by sight, boat, and foot has proven difficult. A controversial hypothesis, often regarded as pseudohistory , sets
11223-476: The remainder of 1848 as they marched south from Victory Point, arguing instead that Inuit accounts point strongly to most of the 105 survivors cited by Crozier in his final note actually surviving past 1848, re-manning at least one of the ships and managing to sail it down along the coast of King William Island before it sank, with some crew members surviving as late as 1851. The hope of finding other additional expedition records led Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka of
11352-421: The remains of Harry Goodsir , assistant surgeon on Erebus . Although Hall concluded that all of the Franklin crew were dead, he believed that the official expedition records would yet be found under a stone cairn. With the assistance of his guides Ipirvik and Taqulittuq , Hall gathered hundreds of pages of Inuit testimony. Among these materials were accounts of visits to Franklin's ships, and an encounter with
11481-540: The return voyage to England (Juet, who had been the navigator on the return journey, died of starvation a few days before the company reached Ireland ). Pricket knew he and the other survivors of the mutiny would be tried in England for piracy , and it would have been in his interest, and the interest of the other survivors, to put together a narrative that would place the blame for the mutiny upon men who were no longer alive to defend themselves. The Pricket narrative became
11610-532: The search. In 1850, eleven British and two American ships cruised the Canadian Arctic, including the Breadalbane and her sister ship HMS Phoenix . Several converged off the east coast of Beechey Island, where the first relics of the expedition were found, including remnants of a winter camp from 1845 to 1846. Robert Goodsir , surgeon on the brig Lady Franklin , found the graves of John Torrington , John Hartnell and William Braine . No messages from
11739-418: The second message signed by him and Crozier and deposited the note in the cairn found by Hobson eleven years later. After two years had passed with no word from Franklin, public concern grew and Jane, Lady Franklin , as well as members of Parliament and British newspapers, urged the Admiralty to send a search party. Although the Admiralty said it did not feel any reason to be alarmed, it responded by developing
11868-625: The second part of the Victory Point Note dated 25 April 1848 and signed by Fitzjames and Crozier, the crew had wintered off King William Island in 1846–47 and 1847–48 and Franklin had died on 11 June 1847. The remaining crew had abandoned the ships and planned to walk over the island and across the sea ice towards the Back River on the Canadian mainland, beginning on 26 April 1848. In addition to Franklin, eight further officers and 15 men had also died by this point. The Victory Point Note
11997-572: The ship west and decided to try to seek a westerly passage through North America. They reached the Grand Banks of Newfoundland on 2 July, and in mid-July made landfall near the LaHave area of Nova Scotia . Here they encountered Indigenous people who were accustomed to trading with the French; they were willing to trade beaver pelts , but apparently no trades occurred. The ship stayed in
12126-484: The ship's boat with five crew members ventured to the vicinity of present-day Albany . On 23 September, Hudson decided to return to Europe. He put in at Dartmouth , England on 7 November, and was detained by authorities who wanted access to his log. He managed to pass the log to the Dutch ambassador to England, who sent it, along with his report, to Amsterdam. While exploring the river, Hudson had traded with several native groups, mainly obtaining furs. His voyage
12255-517: The ships included reinforced bows constructed of heavy beams and iron plates, an internal steam heating system for the comfort of the crew in polar conditions, and a system of iron wells that allowed the screw propellers and iron rudders to be withdrawn into the hull to protect them from damage. The ships also carried libraries of more than 1,000 books and three years' supply of food, which included tinned soup and vegetables, salt-cured meat , pemmican , and several live cattle. The tinned food
12384-479: The ships, with Lieutenant Graham Gore and Mate Charles Frederick Des Voeux adding their signatures as members of the landing party. This is further supported by the fact that both documents contain the same factual errors – namely the wrong date of the wintering on Beechey Island. In 1848, after the abandonment of the ships and subsequent recovery of the document from the Victory Point cairn, Fitzjames added
12513-531: The shore of James Bay , Hudson wanted to press on to the west, but most of his crew mutinied. The mutineers cast Hudson, his son, and six others adrift; what then happened to the Hudsons and their companions is unknown. Virtually nothing of Hudson's early life is known for certain. His year of birth is variously estimated between 1560 and 1570. He may have been born in London and it is possible that his father
12642-400: The shores of James Bay , located on the southern end of Hudson Bay—while this was discounted at the time by Samuel de Champlain , historians believe it may have credence. British-born Canadian author Dorothy Harley Eber (1925–2022) collected Inuit testimonies that she thought made reference to Hudson and his son after the mutiny. According to these, an old man with a long white beard and
12771-453: The south, where in 1948 Farley Mowat found "a very ancient cairn, not of normal Eskimo construction" inside which were shreds of a hardwood box with dovetail joints . 1848 1850 1851 1852 1854 1855 Arctic exploration Arctic exploration is the physical exploration of the Arctic region of the Earth . It refers to the historical period during which mankind has explored
12900-464: The strait on 2 August, the ship entered Hudson Bay . Excitement was very high due to the expectation that the ship had finally found the Northwest Passage through the continent. Hudson spent the following months mapping and exploring its eastern shores, but he and his crew did not find a passage to Asia. In November, the ship became trapped in the ice in James Bay , and the crew moved ashore for
13029-514: The sum of European geographic knowledge about the Western Hemisphere , particularly North America. As that knowledge grew, exploration gradually shifted towards the Arctic . Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century voyagers who made geographic discoveries about North America included Martin Frobisher , John Davis , Henry Hudson and William Baffin . In 1670 the incorporation of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) led to further exploration of
13158-512: The summer they found the ice impenetrable and turned back, arriving at Gravesend on 26 August. According to Thomas Edge , "William [ sic ] Hudson" in 1608 discovered an island he named "Hudson's Tutches" (Touches) at 71° N, the latitude of Jan Mayen . However, records of Hudson's voyages suggest that he could only have come across Jan Mayen in 1607 by making an illogical detour, and historians have pointed out that Hudson himself made no mention of it in his journal. There
13287-729: The trade depot of Mangazeya, was an early precursor to the Northern Sea Route. Exploration to the north of the Arctic Circle in the Renaissance was both driven by the rediscovery of the Classics and the national quests for commercial expansion, and hampered by limits in maritime technology , lack of stable food supplies, and insufficient insulation for the crew against extreme cold. A seminal event in Arctic exploration occurred in 1409, when Ptolemy 's Geographia
13416-463: The trade routes of early British sailors. While no one knows exactly how far Pytheas sailed, he may have crossed the Arctic Circle. Nevertheless, his tales were regarded as fantasy by later Greek and Roman authorities, such as the geographer Strabo . Naddodd is said to have encountered Iceland when he lost his route due to harsh conditions when sailing from Norway to the Faroe Islands in
13545-529: The tragic American Polaris expedition under Charles Francis Hall in 1871, the ill-fated Jeannette Expedition commanded by US Navy Lieutenant Commander George W. De Long in 1879, and the Norwegian Fram expedition of Fridtjof Nansen in 1895. American Frederick Cook claimed to have reached the North Pole in 1908, but this has not been widely accepted. On May 9, 1926, Americans Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett claimed to have flown over
13674-480: The two ice-masters , James Reid ( Erebus ) and Thomas Blanky ( Terror ). The expedition set sail from Greenhithe , Kent , on the morning of 19 May 1845, with a crew of 24 officers and 110 men. The ships stopped briefly to take aboard fresh water in Stromness , Orkney Islands , in northern Scotland. From there they sailed to Greenland with HMS Rattler and a transport ship, Barretto Junior ;
13803-494: The two ships in Franklin's lost expedition , HMS Erebus and HMS Terror , in the 2010s. Charles Francis Hall , who searched for Franklin in the mid-19th century, also collected Inuit stories that he interpreted as references to the even earlier expedition of Martin Frobisher , who explored the area and mined fool's gold in 1578. In the late 1950s, a 150-pound (68 kg) stone near Deep River, Ontario , which
13932-412: The unknown parts of the Canadian Arctic that might contain a Northwest Passage to a quadrilateral area of about 181,300 km (70,000 sq mi). It was in this unexplored area that the next expedition was to sail, heading west through Lancaster Sound , then west and south – however ice, land and other obstacles might allow – with the goal of finding a Northwest Passage. The distance to be navigated
14061-428: The voyage named "Whales Bay" ( Krossfjorden and Kongsfjorden ), naming its northwestern point "Collins Cape" (Kapp Mitra) after his boatswain , William Collins. They sailed north the following two days. On 16 July, they reached as far north as Hakluyt's Headland (which Thomas Edge says Hudson named on this voyage) at 79° 49′ N, thinking they saw the land continue to 82° N ( Svalbard 's northernmost point
14190-508: The voyage". Pricket's narrative tells how the mutineers set Hudson, his teenage son John, and seven crewmen—men who were either sick and infirm or loyal to Hudson—adrift from the Discovery in a small shallop , an open boat, effectively marooning them in Hudson Bay. The Pricket journal reports that the mutineers provided the castaways with clothing, powder and shot, some pikes, an iron pot, some food, and other miscellaneous items. After
14319-477: The winter. When the ice cleared in the spring of 1611, Hudson planned to use his Discovery to further explore Hudson Bay with the continuing goal of discovering the Passage; however, most of the members of his crew ardently desired to return home. Matters came to a head and much of the crew mutinied in June. Descriptions of the successful mutiny are one-sided, because the only survivors who could tell their story were
14448-536: The wreck sites, now protected as a combined National Historic Site called the Wrecks of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror National Historic Site . The search by Europeans for a western shortcut by sea from Europe to Asia began with the voyages of Portuguese and Spanish explorers such as Bartolomeu Dias , Vasco da Gama and Christopher Columbus in the 15th century. By the mid-19th century numerous exploratory expeditions had been mounted. These voyages, when successful, added to
14577-593: Was court-martialled but acquitted . One of these ships, HMS Resolute , was eventually recovered intact by an American whaler and returned to the United Kingdom. Timbers from the ship were later used to manufacture three desks, one of which, the Resolute desk , was presented by Queen Victoria to US President Rutherford B. Hayes ; it has often been chosen by presidents for use in the Oval Office in
14706-478: Was Lieutenant Louis Palander of the Swedish Royal Navy. In the first half of the 19th century, parts of the Northwest Passage were explored separately by a number of different expeditions, including those by John Ross , William Edward Parry , James Clark Ross ; and overland expeditions led by John Franklin , George Back , Peter Warren Dease , Thomas Simpson , and John Rae . Sir Robert McClure
14835-447: Was an alderman of that city. When Hudson first entered the historical record in 1607, he was already an experienced mariner with sufficient credentials to be commissioned the leader of an expedition charged with a search for a trade route across the North Pole . In 1607, the Muscovy Company of England hired Hudson to find a northerly route to the Pacific coast of Asia. At the time, the English were engaged in an economic battle with
14964-597: Was built by neither Hudson nor Poole—both were dead by 1612. In 1608, English merchants of the East India and Muscovy Companies again sent Hudson in the Hopewell to attempt to locate a passage to the Indies, this time to the east around northern Russia. Leaving London on 22 April, the ship travelled almost 2,500 mi (4,000 km), making it to Novaya Zemlya well above the Arctic Circle in July, but even in
15093-555: Was carried out by Siberian Cossacks, sailing from one river mouth to another in their Arctic-worthy kochs . In 1648 the most famous of these expeditions, led by Fedot Alekseev and Semyon Dezhnev , sailed east from the mouth of Kolyma to the Pacific and doubled the Chukchi Peninsula , thus proving that there was no land connection between Asia and North America. Eighty years after Dezhnev, in 1728, another Russian explorer, Danish-born Vitus Bering on Sviatoy Gavriil made
15222-408: Was credited with the discovery of the Northwest Passage by sea in 1851 when he looked across M'Clure Strait from Banks Island and viewed Melville Island . However, the strait was blocked by young ice at this point in the season, and not navigable to ships. The only usable route, linking the entrances of Lancaster Sound and Dolphin and Union Strait was first used by John Rae in 1851. Rae used
15351-668: Was founded by Russian monks in 1533; from their base at Kola , the Pomors explored the Barents Region , Spitsbergen , and Novaya Zemlya – all of which are in the Arctic Circle. They also explored north by boat, discovering the Northern Sea Route , as well as penetrating to the trans- Ural areas of northern Siberia . Pomors founded the settlement of Mangazeya east of the Yamal Peninsula in
15480-411: Was given command of the government Arctic expedition in search of Franklin. It was unsuccessful; Belcher's inability to render himself popular with his subordinates was peculiarly unfortunate on an Arctic voyage and he was not wholly suited to commanding vessels among ice. Four of the five ships ( HMS Resolute , Pioneer , Assistance and Intrepid ) were abandoned in pack ice , for which Belcher
15609-404: Was initially economic, and was first put forward by Russian diplomat Dmitry Gerasimov in 1525. The entire route laid in Arctic waters and parts and was usually covered in ice, making it a very perilous journey. In the mid-16th century, John Cabot's son Sebastian helped organize just such an expedition, led by Sir Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancellor . Willoughby's crew was shipwrecked off
15738-614: Was killed by natives with an arrow to his neck. Hudson sailed into the Upper New York Bay on 11 September, and the following day encountered a group of 28 Lenape canoes , buying oysters and beans from the Native Americans, and then began a journey up what is now known as the Hudson River. Over the next ten days his ship ascended the river, reaching a point near Stuyvesant Landing (Old Kinderhook), and
15867-404: Was roughly 1,670 km (1,040 mi). In 1845, leading Admiralty figure Sir John Barrow was 82 years old and nearing the end of his career. He felt that the expeditions were close to finding a Northwest Passage, perhaps through what Barrow believed to be an ice-free Open Polar Sea around the North Pole. Barrow deliberated over who should command the next expedition. Parry, his first choice,
15996-523: Was sent to the Admiralty, which in October 1854 urged the HBC to send an expedition down the Back River to search for other signs of Franklin and his men. Next were Chief Factor James Anderson and HBC employee James Stewart, who travelled north by canoe to the mouth of the Back River. In July 1855, a band of Inuit told them of a group of qallunaat ( Inuktitut for "whites" or "Europeans", perhaps best translated as "foreigners") who had starved to death along
16125-422: Was supplied from a provisioner, Stephen Goldner, who was awarded the contract on 1 April 1845, a mere seven weeks before Franklin set sail. Goldner worked frantically on the large order of 8,000 tins. The haste required affected quality control of some of the tins, which were later found to have lead soldering that was "thick and sloppily done, and dripped like melted candle wax down the inside surface". Most of
16254-424: Was the first Greenlander of Inuit and European descent to cross the Northwest Passage via dog sled . Rasmussen and his friend Peter Freuchen participated in seven Thule Expeditions , named after ultima Thule , and wrote numerous books on their Arctic experiences. On April 6, 1909, Robert Peary claimed to be the first person in recorded history to reach the North Pole (although whether he actually reached
16383-418: Was tired of the Arctic and politely declined. His second choice, James Clark Ross, also declined because he had promised his new wife that he had finished polar exploration . His third choice, James Fitzjames , was rejected by the Admiralty for his youth. Barrow also considered Back but thought he was too argumentative. Francis Crozier , another candidate, declined out of modesty. Reluctantly, Barrow settled on
16512-464: Was translated into Latin , thereby introducing the concepts of latitude and longitude into Western Europe . As a result navigators were better able to chart their positions. The Inventio Fortunata , a lost book , describes in a summary written by Jacobus Cnoyen but only found in a letter from Gerardus Mercator , voyages as far as the North Pole. One widely disputed claim is that two brothers from Venice , Niccolo and Antonio Zeno , allegedly made
16641-554: Was used to establish Dutch claims to the region and to the fur trade that prospered there when a trading post was established at Albany in 1614. New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island became the capital of New Netherland in 1625. In 1610, Hudson obtained backing for another voyage, this time under the English flag. The funding came from the Virginia Company and the British East India Company . At
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