"Terror" in the ice: the main secrets of the lost expedition of Franklin. Mystery of the Lost Expedition
In May 1845, Sir John Franklin went in search of the Northwest sea route, which, as has long been assumed, connects the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean s north of Canada. After almost a century and a half, scientists discovered the bodies of three members of this expedition. In August 1984, scientists, after four days breaking through a layer of gravel and permafrost, almost one and a half meters, opened the first of three graves left on Beachy Island at the entrance to Wellington Sound in the far north of Canada after an Arctic expedition undertaken in the middle of the last century. What they saw amazed them: in the ice-bound ground, which did not thaw even under the summer sun, lay a perfectly preserved body young man who died 138 years ago. He and two of his comrades, buried nearby, were crew members of the ships Erebus and Terror, which came to the Arctic under the command of Sir John Franklin. In the spring of 1845, two of Franklin's ships loaded with everything necessary, whose departure was accompanied by great noise, left England. Franklin's goal was to find the legendary Northwest Passage sea route from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean between the Arctic islands of Canada and pass through it. The trip ended sadly, on Beachy Island, the remains of only three of the sailors were found and identified. The Franklin expedition, funded and equipped by the British Admiralty, was supposed to answer the question that had occupied the British for 350 years: is it possible to pass through open water north of American continent and find a new one trade route from east to west? Panama Canal will be built only a few decades later, and the only sea route from Atlantic Ocean in the Quiet ran around South America, past the dangerous, storm-threatening Cape Horn. Wouldn't it be more profitable in terms of time and distance to bypass Canada and Alaska from the north, in order to then get into the Pacific Ocean through the Bering Strait? This attractive idea has excited the British since the end of the 15th century. John Cabot (in fact, this contemporary of Columbus was an Italian named Giovanni Caboto), who was in the service of the English king Henry VII, in 1497 crossed North Atlantic; his discovery of the island of Newfoundland allowed England to lay claim to North America. Later, others, including the Portuguese, French and Dutch, tried to find north way to the Pacific Ocean. The names of Henry Hudson (Hudson), William Baffin and others remained on geographical maps, but none of them managed to swim to west coast America. In the first of three campaigns made in 1819-1825, William Edward Parry came close to victory, just short of the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska. Finally, in 1844, another attempt was made to open Northwest Way. But who will lead the next year's expedition, which should also explore the unknown regions of northern Canada and put them on the map? When Sir John Franklin offered his services, the Lords of the Admiralty hesitated. They did not doubt his abilities and perseverance, as well as his knowledge of the northern polar regions. But they were embarrassed by the age of the award-winning naval officer: 59 years old. “No, no, gentlemen. You're wrong, Franklin calmly corrected them. I'm only 58." He was entrusted with the command of the expedition. Born on April 16, 1786, Franklin dreamed of the sea from childhood. At the age of 14, he enlisted in the Navy, and at 19 he fought in the Battle of Trafalgar. He first saw the ice of the Arctic while participating in a voyage to Svalbard, and this trip largely determined his life. From that time on, he was obsessed with the idea of going to the Arctic regions of Canada. On the instructions of the Admiralty in 1819, Franklin began to explore the land along north coast North America east of the Coppermine River. After three and a half years of incredible hardships, he returned to his homeland, but already in 1825 he again went to the country eternal ice. This time he went down the Mackenzie River to the Beaufort Sea to explore western part northern coast of the continent. When he mapped hundreds of kilometers of the Arctic coast and published notes on the life of the Indians and Eskimos, he, one might say, became a national hero and in 1829 received a noble title for services to his homeland. Later he was appointed governor of a penal colony on the Australian island of Tasmania, and he had to perform completely different duties. Call of the Arctic
Even at the advanced age of 60, Franklin's passion for the traveler-explorer did not fade at all. When in 1844 he had the opportunity to go to the Arctic, he immediately jumped at it. He was determined to once again challenge the far north, fight the Arctic ice, cold and storms in order to achieve the goal that his country had set for him: the opening of a sea route linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In England everyone was convinced of the success of this undertaking, which had been preceded by very careful preparations. The sailboats "Erebus" and "Terror" were converted into steamships with propellers. Such ships were sent to the Arctic for the first time. Food supplies for three years were loaded on board. The crews of a total of 129 people were recruited based on the results of special tests. To the enthusiastic cries of the Londoners on May 19, 1845, the ships went down the Thames and went out to the open sea; Franklin's expedition began. The report that came soon was in tune with general euphoria. “We are confident of success,” said Sir John. Next stop in Hong Kong in China.” The whaler then met the Erebus and the Terror, on a westerly course, in the Baffin Sea between Greenland and Canada. But after the ships entered the Lancaster Strait, their traces were lost. A year passed, then another, and there was no news from the expedition. But at a time when the possibilities of communication were limited, this silence was not perceived as something extraordinary. After the third winter, by the spring of 1848, everyone in England with new force began to worry about the question: “Where is Sir John Franklin?”
Reward
The Admiralty announced a reward of 20,000 pounds to anyone who finds the missing expedition and saves people. Lady Franklin added £3,000 to this sum from her own funds. Thus began one of the largest rescue operations in history: four million dollars were spent on 40 search parties over 10 years. Several ships headed for the Baffin Sea, where last time saw the Erebus and the Terror, and on down the route that Franklin might have taken. Other vessels searched from the west, entering through the Bering Strait into the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska, where the expedition was to appear, moving towards the Pacific Ocean. Each search party left along the way food supplies and notes under conspicuous signs made of stones. In addition, appeals to the Franklin expedition were written on collars that were put on polar foxes, they were specially caught and then released. In a harsh, inhospitable land, search parties plowed land and sea, surpassing the greatest feats accomplished by that time in the course of Arctic exploration. New islands were discovered, coastlines mapped, straits explored. A lot of white spots disappeared on the map. They did not find only traces of the Franklin expedition, neither ships, nor people, nor at least their remains. The first trace was already in 1851. The crew members of a ship anchored off Beachy Island landed ashore and found Franklin's well-equipped warehouse! This was the first track. Apparently, here Sir John and his men spent the winter of 1845/46, their first winter quarters after sailing from England. Nearby, the graves of three members of the expedition were found. One tombstone bore the name of John Torrington, a non-commissioned officer of the Terror, and two other graves were of sailor John Hartnell and Marine William Brain, both of the Erebus. (These three graves were rediscovered and opened up in 1984.) But nothing could be found to indicate where Franklin went next. In January 1854, the members of the missing expedition under the command of Sir John Franklin were officially declared dead. There was no hope that any more traces would be found, and even more so that someone survived. But nine months later John Ray, a Hudson's Bay physician, returned to England, and it turned out that he could shed New World to tragedy.
Terrible testimonies
Ray brought clock parts, compasses, silver spoons and forks, and a small plate engraved with "Sir John Franklin." He bought all these things from the Eskimos about 500 kilometers south of Beachy Island. The Eskimos told him that in the spring of 1850, on King William Island, they met white people with a boat and a sleigh that were heading towards the mainland. Not knowing the Eskimo language, they explained by signs that their ships were crushed by ice and that they were looking for some food. The Eskimos sold them a small seal. In the summer of that year, Ray learned, other Eskimos found several graves and more than 30 corpses on the mainland and five more on offshore island. In Ray's official report to the Admiralty, gloomy facts were cited: "... judging by the mutilated appearance of some corpses and the contents of the bowlers, it is obvious that our compatriots were driven to the extreme and, trying to prolong their existence, reached cannibalism." It looks like a story from a horror book. But did Franklin participate in this final act of the tragedy? This question, like many others, remained unanswered. Nevertheless, the case was closed for the Admiralty, all searches ceased, and Dr. Ray was paid 10,000 pounds as a reward. Recent Searches
Although it was clear that all the members of the Franklin expedition were dead, Lady Franklin decided to undertake one last search to find "each of them, the remains of the dead, their diaries, notes, the last words they wrote." With what was left of her fortune, she bought a boat fitted with a propeller and sails. steam yacht"Fox" and entrusted the command of the search party to Captain Francis Leopold Mac Clintock, who went looking for Sir John with the first detachment in 1848. On July 1, 1857, nine years after the first rescue operation began, McClintock set off for the new dangerous journey. Could a tiny boat with a crew of 25 perform a task that much larger and much better equipped ships could not? McClintock's all-volunteer squad, half of whom had already sailed in the Arctic, was determined to win. Their unshakable confidence in their success helped them not only win the battle against the mighty ice element, but also infiltrate the long-remaining unsolved mystery disappearance of the Franklin expedition. The search for McClintock's detachment was to be concentrated in the area south of the Bellot Strait, which separates the Boothia Peninsula and Somerset Island. According to Ray, they should have looked there or on nearby King William Island. However, as soon as it reached the Baffin Sea, the Fox found itself shackled by pack ice. In eight months, the yacht was blown to the south by about 1,600 kilometers. When the ship was finally freed from the ice captivity, McClintock headed for Beachy Island to install a commemorative plaque in the place where the warehouse and graves of the Franklin expedition members had previously been discovered. Then, rounding Somerset Island, he entered Peel Strait. But this path proved to be impassable. Then McClintock tried to reach his goal from the east. By the beginning of the second winter of navigation, he approached the Bellot Strait, but could not enter it. Unable to wait for spring, Mac Clintock ordered a search using dog sled so he and his men examined most the Boothia peninsula and circled around King William. On April 20, 1859, they met the Eskimos, who had things from the Erebus and the Terror and who could finally tell the fate of Franklin's ships. One of them was crushed by ice off the northwestern coast of King William Island; the second, which received serious damage, was pulled ashore by the expedition members, but then abandoned. Another McClintock search party, led by Lieutenant W. R. Hobson, made an important find at Victory Point, on northwest coast King William. Beneath the stone sign, they found a note signed by Lieutenant Graham Gore and dated May 28, 1847. It said that by the end of the second winter all was going well and that Franklin was still leading the expedition. But a year later, Captains Fitzjames and Crozier attributed a sad postscript: “The ships Terror and Erebus were abandoned by crews on April 22, since they were icebound since September 12, 1846 ... Sir John Franklin died on June 11, 1847, and total number Today, nine officers and 15 sailors have died on the expedition ... Tomorrow, on the 26th, we set off for the Great Fish River. Soon Hobson found a small boat mounted on a sled, and in it were two skeletons. Scattered nearby were watches, books, toiletries, and what McClintock called "many items of one sort or another, of astonishing variety, and of the kind that might be considered dead weight, but still good for something, and very likely capable of breaking the strength of those who pulled the sled. From here, apparently, Franklin's 105 surviving companions set off on their way south. towards death.
The last trip of the Franklin expedition
At last it became possible to ascertain what had happened to Sir John Franklin's expedition. In July 1845, two months after leaving England, the Erebus and the Terror, reported by the whaler who had last seen them, entered Lancaster Sound. Barrow Strait was still ice-bound, and Franklin looked for an easy passage north and found it in Wellington Strait. But he veered too far north when he should have been heading west, so he returned to wait out the winter of 1845/46 on Beechey Island. Swimming continued in the spring. Since Barrow Strait was not completely clear of ice, Franklin decided to go south along the western coast of Somerset Island and the Boothia Peninsula to King William Island. But where to sail now, further south or west? On the map of the expedition, King William was marked not as an island, but as part of the Boothia Peninsula, so Franklin must have thought that he had no choice but to move west. This mistake on the map was the beginning of the disaster. Both ships went west, to the region of multi-year ice, which by September 12, 1846, fettered the ships and did not release them anymore. On May 28, 1847, Lieutenant Gore, who was exploring the area on a sleigh, left a note that everything was in order with the expedition. Franklin died two weeks later. During the second winter of ice captivity north of King William, several people died from tainted food. On April 22, 1848, according to a postscript to Gore's note, the 105 survivors abandoned ships in a desperate and unsuccessful attempt to reach continental Canada. They decided to move to the Great Fish River, from where they could go to one of the trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company. For another ten years, persistent rumors circulated that some of Franklin's people still did not die and, having lost hope of salvation and returning to their homeland, remained to live among friendly natives. Gradually they adopted the way of life of the inhabitants of the North, and only sad Blue eyes betrayed them as foreigners. But it was not possible to find these "white natives". It seems that all the members of the Franklin expedition died, unable to withstand the harsh conditions of the cold North.
What has been achieved? The Franklin tragedy rekindled the interest of navigators and explorers in the Arctic, and unprecedented searches made it possible to draw up maps endless expanses Canadian north. One of the first detachments, led by Captain Robert McClure, managed to find the way through the northern seas, for the discovery of which Franklin gave his life. But the victory turned out to be illusory, and the sacrifices were in vain. It turned out that it was impossible to use the North-Western Sea Route as a commercial route, because it was ice-bound for most of the year. Norwegian Roald Amundsen managed to become the first who sailed from one ocean to another, although this journey took almost three years. But, according to Amundsen, his route was so tortuous and narrow that few people could use it, except perhaps fur traders and missionaries. However, even later, the Arctic called for adventurers. They were mostly fearless heroes who, often alone, overcame severe hardships: hunger, melancholy, frostbite and gangrene in the name of achieving an unattainable goal. Sir John Franklin's name is today immortalized in the name of the entire area of the Northwest Territories of Canada through which he passed, as well as in the names of the lake, bay and strait. And the name of Lady Franklin, his faithful wife, is a cape on Victoria Island, which is located in the middle of the Northwest Sea Route, which her husband so bravely sought.
The film adaptation of Dan Simmons' bestselling book The Terror, dedicated to the missing expedition of British navigator Sir John Franklin, is finally on the air. It's time to figure out the details of how creepy, just as fascinating history ships "Erebus" and "Terror", which disappeared in the Arctic ice in the middle of the century before last.
Frame from the TV series "Terror", 2018
Dan Simmons
American writer of science fiction, horror and cryptohistory. Before focusing entirely on writing, Simmons taught English literature at school for almost twenty years, and his love for the subject is evident in all of his stories. The main work of the science fiction writer is considered to be four novels from the "Songs of Hyperion" cycle - space operas about the cyber world of the future. His latest novels are a fantasy about the adventures of Charles Dickens in underground London (“Drood”) and a climbing horror about the Nazi secrets of conquering Everest (“Abomination”). The Terror, Simmons' twenty-sixth book, was immediately enthusiastically received by readers, critics and masters of the genre, including Stephen King. The television adaptation of The Terror will be a kind of gift for the 70th anniversary of the writer, who was born on April 4, 1948.
In 2007, Dan Simmons released his best on this moment novel - "Terror". The book captivates even those who cannot stand any kind of fantasy: psychedelic horror against the backdrop of a detailed reconstruction of everything that was known at that time about John Franklin's missing expedition in the Arctic.
Today, March 26, the AMC channel begins showing the film adaptation of The Terror. The casting immediately attracts: the main roles are played by Kieran Hinds (John Franklin) and Jared Harris (Captain Crozier). Hinds is remembered by many as Julius Caesar in "Rome" and Mance the Raider in "Game of Thrones," and versatile artist Harris seems just right for the role. Directed by Tim Milants, Edward Berger, Sergio Mimica-Gezzan. Audiences at the Berlin Film Festival have already seen the first two episodes, and the reviews so far have been positive. In any case, this is one of the most anticipated premieres of 2018. Let's get ready for it.
Kieran Hines as Admiral Franklin. "Terror", 2018
1. Franklin's last case
"Terror" is the case when knowledge real history will not be a spoiler, but only enhance the impression - the intrigue of the Simmons plot begins where the historical information ends. So, on May 19, 1845, Her Majesty's ships Terror and Erebus departed from the berths of Greenhite in Kent and headed towards the Canadian Arctic. There were 134 people on board, but five were expelled almost immediately for misconduct or unfitness. They turned out to be the luckiest - like passengers who missed a crashed plane. As a result, 129 officers and sailors remained, led by Sir John Franklin, an experienced navigator and polar explorer who was ending his career.
The purpose of the expedition was to explore the Northwest Passage - a sea route along the northern coast of Canada from the Atlantic Ocean to Bering Strait. It was assumed that it could be reached through the open Polar Sea, and a small area remained unexplored, where Franklin's ships headed.
"Sir John Franklin's ships Erebus and Terror on the River Thames in London"
The flagship "Erebus" was commanded by the 59-year-old head of the expedition himself, "Terror" - by 49-year-old captain Francis Crozier, who will become the main character in Simmons. The ships were specially prepared for the Arctic voyage: they were armored, equipped with steam installations for heating and a water distillation system, and supplied with a supply of various provisions for three years. At the same time, only four out of 129 sailors had polar experience - Franklin, Crozier and a couple of ice pilots. The campaign was supposed to be Franklin's triumph - he really left the admiral's name for centuries, but, alas, for completely different reasons.
The last time "Terror" and "Erebus" was seen in August of the same 1845 - English whalers met them, waiting for the weather to improve, in the Baffin Sea. Wintering in the ice was planned, the expedition was calculated for more than one year. Judging by a note found almost ten years later, the first wintering passed peacefully off Beachy Island. Two years later, the sailors left the ships, firmly worn out multi-year ice to set up camp on King William Island - and disappeared.
Four dozen search expeditions have searched for traces of Franklin for a century and a half. 166 years after the disappearance, both ships were found, but there is still no convincing answer to the question of what happened. The finds only add to the mysteries.
Admiral George Back. HMS Terror at anchor near an iceberg in the waters of Baffin Island
2. Darkness and horror
The name "Terror" is very fitting for Simmons' version - Franklin's people are indeed being terrorized. But even without that, the names of the ships are amazing. Is it reasonable to go on a long polar voyage on the ships Gloom and Horror? The ancient custom of giving frightening names to warships confirmed the wisdom of Captain Vrungel.
The British Admiralty announced a solid reward to whoever finds traces of Franklin, and the expedition was actively searched for. The search began in May 1848, three years after the loss of communication. Judging by a note on the official letterhead of the Admiralty, which was not discovered until ten years later, at that moment some of Franklin's people were most likely alive.
The note itself is an amazing document. It is, so to speak, two-part: the first optimistic message was left at the end of May 1847, the second was written right in the margins of the first a year later, and it crosses out all optimism. According to the first dispatch, the expedition has wintered safely, Sir John Franklin is still in charge of his men, and, on the whole, "everything is in order." According to the second, two weeks after the first report, Sir John died, and Captain Crozier took command. The following year, a total of 24 members of the expedition already died, the ships were tightly covered with ice, and the survivors left them. The coordinates of the place where they camped are given, and their intention "tomorrow" to march towards the Baka River on the northwestern coast of Canada. What caused Franklin's death and where his grave is is not said, but there are almost meaningless details of the bookmark of the message.
Admiral George Back. HMS Terror in the Arctic
In a number of oddities, the absence of Franklin's grave stands out. In all the years that have passed, nothing has been found that resembles the burial of the expedition leader, who died when everything was still “in order”. Or was it not? But disorder would also be worthy of mention. It is unlikely that they decided to bury Sir John in the frozen sea. Three ordinary members of the expedition, who died of illness before him, were buried properly on Beachy Island, and eternal ice has kept them incorruptible to this day. If desired, you can see creepy photos of bodies.
It should be noted that nature was clearly against the polar explorers. Just these years in the oral history of the Inuit Eskimos are considered the most difficult: there was actually no summer, the ice did not open, the natives left their old places. The British did not at all seek either contact with the "savages" or the use of their methods of survival. This is also why the Inuit legends about Franklin's expedition were not taken seriously for a long time - due attention was paid to them only in our days.
3. Cannibals in the ice
The note on the letterhead of the Admiralty was found in 1859, and the first information about people was received four years earlier from the Inuit on the northwest coast of Canada. According to them, fifty white people died of starvation there, reaching the extreme of cannibalism. It was difficult for the Victorian public to accept stories of cannibalism - after all, one gentleman cannot eat another. But the words were confirmed by the identified things from the Erebus, which were transmitted by the Eskimos. As if to counterbalance this, Wilkie Collins even wrote a romantic play, The Frozen Abyss, about the expedition: no cannibals, only heroism, love and northern lights. One of the characters was played by Charles Dickens himself, and Queen Victoria came to the premiere.
But the most famous work of art on this subject was the painting by Edwin Landseer "Man proposes, but God disposes" - a truly nightmarish canvas. In fact, Landseer was a peaceful animal painter and did not depart from his favorite topic in the Arctic story. He depicted two vicious polar bears in the ice, one of which gnaws at a human skeleton, and the other tears the British flag. The huge canvas scared people to fainting, but it continues to hang in the hall of King's College London University.
Edwin Henry Landseer. Man proposes, but God disposes. 1864
4. Dead Man's Notebook
According to various Inuit stories, they met the surviving members of the expedition even ten years after it disappeared. The fate of the Franklin expedition has since become firmly rooted in Eskimo history. Even today, Inuit historian Louis Kamukak says that his grandfather used a chisel made from Franklin's table knife, and school lessons on the expedition were supplemented by legends familiar from childhood. Now Kamukak is confident that he can find the admiral's grave.
The things of the Franklin expedition are amazing in themselves - polar explorers, like hobbits, took with them to the Arctic not only a huge library, but all the usual utensils up to monogrammed silver forks. The strangest arsenal was found on the coast of King William Island in a large boat with two skeletons, hoisted onto a huge heavy sled: silk scarves, scented soap, sponges, shoes, books, tea and 18 kg of chocolate.
Elsewhere on the island, a skeleton in the shape of a steward has been discovered, which will play a role in Simmons' plot. He had a sailor's passport in the name of Henry Peglar - not a steward, but a foreman of the upper team, as well as a comb and a notebook. (You can view this and other finds related to the Franklin expedition on the website of the Royal Museums Greenwich.)
Entries from this notebook are pulling on the eyeballs of horror. They are made by two different people, often in mirror type: the words are written backwards. On one page, the entries form a regular circle, and inside it are several incoherent, also mirror phrases, including the following: “Terror camp clear” - “The Terror camp is empty.” On the reverse side are the words of the funeral prayer.
And the Terror camp, whatever that meant, was indeed empty. In addition to these three skeletons, during the entire search, the first three dead men of 1846, when the expedition had not yet disappeared, scattered remains and burials were found and identified - a total of no more than three dozen people. Where another hundred disappeared, there is no answer. None of the versions - hypothermia, hunger, scurvy, lead poisoning from poorly sealed canned food or from a desalination system - does not explain the mass and rapid death and disappearance of traces. The most logical assumption is that Franklin's people suffered from some unforeseen emergency.
5. Return
Eight years after the release of Simmons' novel, Franklin's ships were suddenly found. It was "suddenly" - they literally stumbled upon them. First, the flooded Erebus was discovered. In September 2016, hydrographers and archaeologists who were mapping unexplored area Queen Maud Bay, landed a helicopter on a convenient, unremarkable island.
Already on the ground, during a walk along the shore, the trained eye of a polar explorer noticed an unusual object - a metal fragment of the correct shape. It bore marks from the British Royal Navy, and further along the shore, more wrecks were found, identified as parts of a davit. As a result, the sonar sent to the bottom transmitted an image of a large sunken ship to the surface. On the ship's bell the name was clearly read: "Erebus". Without exaggeration - a find of the century.
Raising the Erebus bell, 2016
Archaeologists said that the ship itself seemed to want to be found. It seems to confirm the most spectacular story of the Eskimos, which for a hundred years was not taken seriously: they saw huge ship with a smiling dead man on board, drifting across the ice to the south.
Two years later, and also by chance, "Terror" was found. Surprisingly, he lies at the bottom in the Gulf of Terror, named at the beginning of the 20th century in his honor. The place was identified thanks to a selfie by one of the crew members of the Martin Bergmann research ship. Seven years ago, he captured himself against the backdrop of some kind of mast sticking out of the ice of the bay, and told the expedition leader about this when the Bergmann was nearby. They immediately moved in that direction, and near the southwestern part of King William Island, an echo sounder found a ship at the bottom. Unlike the badly damaged Erebus, the Terror turned out to be practically intact. It is carefully battened down for the winter and, as scientists suggest, could swim if it were freed from the ice. The main thing is that both ships were found very far from the place indicated in Captain Crozier's note, and from each other.
2018 should be a turning point for this story: a large-scale archaeological expedition begins, which will explore the ships. Until now, one of the main concerns of archaeologists has been the protection of finds from attempts by curious and enthusiastic people. With the release of the film adaptation, their number will clearly increase. In addition, before our eyes, another plot of the traditional horror may be born: no one can predict what secrets of "Horror" and "Gloom" will rise to the surface from under the age-old ice.
Nina Volkova
Illustrations
AMC, Rauner Library, Thierry Boyer/Parks Canada
The other day, it turns out that the British ship "Terror", which disappeared more than 150 years ago, was discovered. last years gained wide popularity thanks to the brilliant novel by Dan Simmons dedicated to the tragedy of "Terror" and "Erebus". About the novel itself here, and below about the discovery of "Terror".
Ship "Terror" discovered
The news is certainly not cosmic, but since this story has always intrigued me, I cannot pass by. A Canadian expedition has found the Terror, the same ship from John Franklin's famous missing expedition. If anyone does not know about this epic - in principle, on Wikipedia, in principle, it is written in sufficient detail. Well, maybe someone read the novel "Terror" by Dan Simmons, based on which AMC will soon release a series. So, in 1845, the ships of the Royal Navy "Erebus" and "Terror" set off to conquer the Northwest Passage and disappeared. For many years the fate of the expedition remained unknown. Only in 1859 was a note found, from which it followed that on September 12, 1846 (that is, exactly 170 years ago), the ships were iced up near Beachy Island. By the spring of 1848, out of 129 members of the expedition, 104 remained alive. From the note it followed that the officers and crew decided to leave the ships and go south to the Baka River. What happened next is still a matter of controversy. It is only known for certain that none of the sailors ever made it home.
Numerous rescue expeditions, trying to unravel the mystery of the Franklin expedition, found the remains of some of the crew members, the boat, their belongings, and also collected a large collection of Inuit stories, from which a general idea of \u200b\u200bthe last days expedition, which can be described as: people dying of hunger, cold and disease + cannibalism,. Also, there is a legend that the Inuit boarded big ship, inside which they found a smiling dead man. Many doubted the veracity of such stories, but in 2014, researchers actually found "Erebus" exactly where the Inuit legends said about it - and much more south of the district his supposed last stop.
Finding the "Terror" helped ... selfie. One of local residents, told the head of the expedition the story of how six years ago, during a trip on a snowmobile, he saw a piece of wood sticking out of the ice of one of the bays, similar to a mast. He took a selfie with him, but when he returned home, he found that the camera was gone. He attributed everything to evil spirits, according to local legends, inhabiting these places and ruining Franklin's expedition. There are spirits evil spirits or they are not - science does not know about this, but the "Terror" really ended up in the place of the failed selfie.
The ship lies at a depth of 24 meters, and unlike the heavily damaged remains of the Erebus, is in excellent condition. Researchers say that the hatches of the ship are closed, the gear is complete, the metal sheathing survived, traces of the fact that the anchor was lowered are visible. In the captain's cabin, glass was preserved in three of the four windows; in the dining room, two bottles of wine, tables and empty racks were photographed.
At this link, a video filmed by an underwater robot.
The Terror rests 30 miles north of the Erebus. Given the condition and position of the vessel, the generally accepted version of the death of the expedition may have to be revised. If we exclude the option that the abandoned ships were carried by ice to the south, where they later sank, we can assume the following. Realizing that none of them would reach the Baka River alive, the surviving members of the expedition (at least some of them) returned to the Terror and Erebus and made a desperate attempt to escape from the ice captivity. After some time, for some reason, they "Terror" and moved to the "Erebus", having managed to overcome some more distance. If this were the plot of a Hollywood movie, they would probably break out of the ice, after which they would be honored as heroes. But alas, not everything in life ends with a happy ending. Perhaps further study of the "Terror" will put an end to one of the most famous disappearances in history.
Ships of the missing Franklin expedition to explore the northwest passage from Europe to Asia.
Bombardier ships with a reinforced hull that must withstand a mortar hit. The dimensions are approximately 35m by 7m, but the displacement is about 350 tons. They were re-equipped for travel in ice - the hull was reinforced with sheets of metal, special shutters were made for propellers, and steam boilers for locomotive engines and heating. They could reach speeds of up to 7.4 km / h only on engines. Also on the ships there was a library - more than 1000 books. The stock of provisions was prepared at the rate of 3 years.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Franklineexpeditionnote.jpg
The note is written on one of the printed forms, which are specially designed to leave information about the vessel in case of any problems. The form was written in several languages asking to send this note to the British Admiralty, indicating the time and place where it was found. The text on the note was apparently written by Lieutenant Gore. It was indicated that the ships were frozen into the ice at the coordinates 70 ° 5 "N and 98 ° 23" W. etc., Ser Franklin is leading the expedition and all is well.
So, if we restore the chronology:
It was wintering on about. Beachy in 1845-1846(for some reason, the date in the note is incorrect), then the ships turned south ...
May 24, 1847 2 officers and 6 sailors left the ship (Party consisting of 2 officers and 6 men left the ships on Monday).
May 28, 1847 For half a year, ships have been stationed north of King William Island (3) - 70 ° 5 "N and 98 ° 23" W. e. Then, judging by the note, Franklin was still alive, and everything was fine.(Sir John Franklin commanding the expedition. All well.) The note is signed by Lieutenant Gore.
Margin entry dated April 25, 1848- the ships have been in the ice for a year and a half, and the crew left the ships April 22, 1848. The officers and crews, consisting of 105 souls, under the command of Captain F. R. M. Crozier, landed here in lat. 69° 37" 42" N., long 98° 41" W. Sir John Franklin is dead, total at this point in the loss of the expedition - 9 officers and 15 sailors.
Crozier led the expedition. They were supposed to move out the next day April 26, 1848 south to the Buck River (300 km to it in a straight line !!! the supply of provisions by this time should have come to an end)
The coordinates of the Crozier camp are most likely incorrect, because, if we assume that it is true that they went 5 leagues to SSE from the ships, we get to the very northern cape O. King William - Cape Felix, and the indicated coordinates are the strait.
The note also contains information regarding moving it to its current position from the previous storage location (4 miles north near Point Victory), where it was previously located. former Commander Gore in June 1847 in the pillar (pillar) of Ser James Ross, folded in 1831.
CARDS:
They tried to find ships for 170 years. Several search expeditions were carried out ... Erebus was found north of O'Riley Island (south of King William Island) only in 2014. And Terror - in 2016, a little south of King William Island near Terror Bay. When examining King William Island, there were bones and remains of the expedition's property were found along the western coast of the island - in the direction of the movement of the remnants of the Erebus and Terror crews. They almost reached their goal - the Buck River. They reached Montreal Island near the mouth of the "Fish River" ...
That local archaeologists discovered the remains of a ship that sank more than 160 years ago from the missing, or, as it is also called, “damned”, Franklin expedition to explore the Arctic. Experts were unable to determine exactly which of the ships - "Erebus" or "Terror" - belongs to the found skeleton and wreckage, but the find itself has already been called "a truly historic moment for Canada."
The wreckage was discovered on September 7 with the help of a remotely controlled deep-sea robot, now the artifacts are being studied at the Ottawa laboratory. Behind future fate Findings are watched by historians all over the world: why a half-rotted tree and kilograms of rivets so excite the minds of scientists - below.
When John Franklin's expedition, which started in 1845, was lost in the ice, only one official search for it cost $ 4 million at the exchange rate of that time and lasted six years. The importance of the expedition could not be overestimated: Franklin was looking for a new short cut to the Pacific Ocean, which for centuries was called Northwest Passage, through which one could trade with Japan and China.
European sailors went to North America for a long time: among the brave daredevils were Martin Frobisher, who reached Baffin Island and discovered the Wrong Strait, and Henry Hudson, who found the bay, which later became the same name, and Baffin himself, after whom the above-mentioned lands and the sea are named today .
John Franklin, who will be discussed, was the ninth son of a shopkeeper. At the age of 14, he went to the Navy, at 19 he went on his first trip to the coast of Australia, becoming an officer and later - the commander of the polar ship "Trent", on which he once tried to find the Northern Sea Route.
Later, through his efforts, the coast of North America appeared on the world map between 109 ° 25 ′ and 148 ° 52′ west longitude - a place previously unknown. In 1828, King George IV knighted the polar explorer. After spending a long time in the service of the Admiralty, by 1844 Franklin received an order to develop the land Far North. For navigation, the Erebus and Terror were chosen - the proven ships of the traveler James Ross with steam engines, residential heating systems, propeller and rudder protection, with a library of two thousand volumes on board. Something like the expeditionary Titanic.
In total, 134 people participated in the expedition, of which 24 had officer ranks. Franklin himself was on the Erebus, while the Terror was driven by Francis Crozier. On the morning of May 19, the expedition began its voyage. On July 26, 1845, the Erebus and the Terror were sighted by the whaler Prince of Wales in Melville Harbor off the coast of Greenland. This was the last time a European saw Captain Franklin's ships. The message about the meeting reached the Admiralty only on October 29, and the silence of the sailors did not bother anyone - the Erebus team was supposed to get in touch no earlier than 1846.
In 1847, when not a single piece of news came from the expedition, James Ross spoke about the search for sailors, suggesting that the sailors were running out of food supplies (later it turned out that out of each batch of 2640 ten-pound cans of canned food from the Stephen Goldner factory, which were taken on board the vessels, more than two thousand were overdue).
Local hunters found the camp of unknown wanderers,
near it - 35 gnawed dead.
For six months, the Admiralty decided to start searching for the missing crew. In 1848, a reward of 20,000 pounds was awarded for saving the expedition. In May of the same year, James Ross himself went out in search of Franklin on the ships Investigator and Enterprise.
By 1850, the ships North Star, Resolute, Assistance, Intrepid, Pioneer, Lady Franklin and Sofia were participating in the search. Together, the sailors stumbled upon the first traces of the missing sailors: objects from the Erebus and Terror and three graves of Franklin's associates - John Torrington, John Hartnell and William Brain. The search intensified: the area of the Chukchi Sea was plowed by the Plover and Herald ships, which reached Wrangel Island, but did not find traces of the lost captain.
The routes of the ships crossed a year later: ships looking for Captain Franklin accidentally found the Northwest Passage, but no trace of the sailors was found. The expeditions of Edward Belcher, Henry Collet and McClure proved powerless in this. On October 26, 1852, John Franklin was promoted to rear admiral - at the ceremony it was suspected that the award was presented not in absentia, but posthumously.
No reliable news came from the North about the expedition: publications like The New York Herald and The Dollar Monthly Magazine printed fabulous stories from the Eskimos who allegedly saw ships frozen in the ice, but their reliability was negligible: for the six months that the news went to Great Britain , she was overgrown with fantastic details that turned out to be lies. The first more or less authentic information about the state of the Franklin expedition came from the land traveler-surgeon John Re, who studied the inhabitants of the Canadian North and the Eskimos: in 1854, Re, while exploring the Butia Peninsula, talked to the Eskimos, who said that four years ago they had seen about 40 Europeans heading south. Local hunters found a camp of unknown wanderers, near it - 35 gnawed dead.
In the autumn of the same year, Re reported to the Admiralty about his findings, bringing with him the personal belongings of the crew found, the authenticity of which no one doubted. During his speech to the admirals, John Re stated that human remains were found in the bowlers he found, but no one, including the wife of the captain Jane Franklin and family friend, writer Charles Dickens, did not want to believe these words.
On March 31, 1854, the Admiralty stopped searching for the crew, and the names of the sailors were struck off the fleet lists. Despite the cessation of official rescue efforts, individuals like John Anderson and Alexander Stewart hoped to find the living captain of the Erebus. One of the main finds of that time was made by Lieutenant Hobson from the Fox yacht, who discovered a stone pyramid in the area of Cape Victoria with a note signed by Captain Crozier.
The only reliable document of that time stated that the Erebus and Terror were frozen into ice as early as September 12, 1846. Captain Franklin died on June 11, 1847, and Crozier took command of the ships. The third winter in the ice cost the lives of 24 sailors. When food ran out, the surviving part of the team moved south.
Summarizing the previous stories of the Eskimos with the contents of the note, Hobson came to the conclusion that the crew of the team died of starvation and scurvy in the Great Fish River area. This was the 38th expedition in a row, which made it possible to discover the first reliable traces of Captain Franklin, who was missing. Almost all of them became a continuation of the search for the Northwest Passage.
Until yesterday, however, the most important artifacts were never found; and if there is no need to build illusions about the discovery of Franklin's skeleton, then the hope of finding new explanatory notes or a logbook after the rise of the ship is now warming in the hearts of those who are not indifferent to the sea like never before.
