Last July, a Parks Canada expedition discovered the wreck of HMS Investigator, a ship which sank in 1853 after becoming trapped in the ice while searching for Sir John Franklin’s lost expedition in the Canadian Arctic.  Exploration of the wreck has yielded what has been referred to as a “treasure trove” of historical artifacts in the in the silt below the deck of the shipwreck.  Parks Canada is continuing the search for Franklin’s lost ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. 

19th-century shipwreck artifact treasure trove

The July expedition to the vessel’s resting place in Mercy Bay, a frigid patch of water off the shore of Banks Island in the Northwest Territories, saw divers collect a handful of evocative relics — including a sailor’s shoe and a largely intact rifle — that lay “in plain sight” and were at risk of disappearing in the seabed sludge.

But their key finding was confirming the likelihood that “thousands” of other objects — scientific specimens, crewmen’s personal belongings, architectural fixtures, a stash of vintage booze in the ship’s “spirits room” — have remained entombed and protected in the Royal Navy vessel since it became trapped in ice, was abandoned and then sank during a failed search for the lost Franklin Expedition in the early 1850s.

Parks Canada will be using icebreakers to continue the search for Franklin’s lost ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. 

Canada unveils plan to find Franklin Expedition ships

Canada hopes to finally solve one of the Arctic’s greatest mysteries this summer: finding the remains of two ships lost in the doomed 1845 Franklin Expedition to find the fabled Northwest Passage.

A mix of hi-tech equipment and native Inuit knowledge will be used by archeologists trying to locate the British ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, Environment Minister Peter Kent said on Thursday.

Investigators also plan to further explore the wreckage discovered last summer of HMS Investigator, which was abandoned in 1854 while on its own mission to determine what became of Sir John Franklin and his crew.

Franklin’s effort to find a sea route from the Atlantic to the Pacific through Canada’s Arctic Archipelago was “tragic adventure” that still fascinates the world, said Kent.

“This is the year I hope we will solve one of the great mysteries in the history of Arctic exploration,” he told reporters in Ottawa. “Certainly the expedition is big part of our history.”

Thanks to Irwin Bryan for passing one of the articles along.