Science matters
The Northwest Passage – discovery, controversy and environmental issues Richard Harwood delves deep into the Arctic Ocean and explores some maritime mysteries
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The discovery came with information from an Inuit ranger and completes an intriguing and staggering story of exploration, hardship, controversy and scientific endeavour stretching over almost 200 years. It follows on from the similar discovery two years earlier (September 2014), by a heavily-funded Parks Canada underwater archaeology search project, of HMS Terror’s sister ship HMS Erebus (Franklin’s flagship). Details of the search and images from the wreck can be found at the Parks Canada website: www.pc.gc.ca/ eng/culture/franklin/index.aspx HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, together with a total of 129 men, disappeared in the late 1840s while under the command of Sir John Franklin. The Franklin Expedition set sail
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HMS Terror, a long-lost ship that vanished while searching for the Northwest Passage and thus sparked one of the world’s great maritime mysteries, has been found almost 170 years later. The Arctic Research Foundation announced in September 2016 that the vessel, the second ship in the British explorer Sir John Franklin’s ill-fated polar expedition, had been found on the sea bed off King William Island in the Canadian Arctic. The foundation spokesman Adrian Schimnowski has commented on the amazing state of preservation of the vessel: “If you could lift this boat out of the water and pump the water out, it would probably float”, he said, noting that the ship was found lying in almost pristine condition in about 80 feet of water, with most windowpanes still intact.
| 2017
